Mike Caston grew up in Pismo Beach, Calif., a sleepy ocean-side town on California’s central coast. It’s also where he and partner Erik Dungan founded their company, a Web design and hosting firm named BIG Folio.
The town is pretty but after 30 years, the two were ready for a change.
“Although it may sound crazy, living on the coast of California grew a bit boring,” said Caston in an e-mail to The Bulletin. Some of the BIG Folio team members visited Bend a few times “and found it an attractive place to live, relax and raise our children.”
In July 2006, the partners moved the company, setting up shop in downtown Bend. Their office, formerly the home of the Shelley Hall Gallery, is Spartan, with blank white walls and hardwood floors.
Web design, though, is the company’s strong suit, not decoration. From their office, Caston and Dungan lead their five-employee team, creating custom Web sites for wedding photographers and providing them with the tools to manage their own content.
Using the computer programming language Flash, the firm’s Web site designs convert still photographs into moving, multimedia expositions that celebrate a photographer’s work. Think slide shows with music and artful transitions rather than static Web pages.
Besides slide shows, Big Folio offers 20 Web site templates from which photographers can choose. The templates can be altered by customers, enabling them to change colors, text and backgrounds.
The attraction of the custom-built templates is that photographers can make changes themselves, said Caston, and don’t need to wait for someone to do it.
The same goes with uploading photos. Photographers can do it on their own and at any time, Caston said.
The company also provides online storage, e-mail accounts and support for blogs as part of its hosting plans.
Caston said the company was formed in 2004 after a wedding photographer, a friend of Caston and Dungan’s, remarked about wanting better tools for displaying his work and attracting new customers.
Q: What is the market you’re after?
A: BIG Folio’s main market is currently professional and amateur wedding photographers. This has not come about intentionally. We plan a bigger push toward all types of photographers — sports, commercial, fashion — in 2008.
Q: What distinguishes you from other Web design firms?
A: One of the main reasons for BIG Folio’s success is because the business model is focused on providing great customer service. The goal is to make customers feel as though they are BIG Folio’s only client and they accomplish this by offering customers multiple avenues for help and communication. Customers can contact BIG Folio’s staff in whichever way is most convenient for them, either via e-mail, iChat Instant Messenger or through their help line. E-mails are typically answered within 30 minutes and custom requests are normally finished within 48 hours of the initial submittal.
Q: Who or what is your competition?
A: Our competition is any other Web designer out there, whether it be a full scale design/marketing firm or Johnny Student who is learning (the computer programming language) Flash at their local community college.
Q: Do you plan to add employees anytime soon?
A: Yes, we are currently looking to hire two people.
