It’s hard to believe that Sumy Designs has been in business now for 11 years! Last year to celebrate our tenth anniversary we redesigned our site and created a brand new video. We still really love our site and video, so no update to this year other than regular blog posts and tweaks.
I thought it might be fun if I did a little time warp today. If you’ve read my bio, you’ll know that I made my first website in 1995, teaching myself HTML by looking at the source code on other websites. After graduating, I went on to my first teaching job as a computer technology teacher for grades 6-8. I did this from 1998-2003 where I also sponsored a number of clubs and activities, including the computer club. See below the official computer club photo of 1998. (I’m the short one one on the left. Yes, many of these 12-14 year olds were taller than me. I can’t help that.)
I feel totally fine about posting this photo of students since every single one of these kids is grown and many are even now married with kids and I’m not really old enough for this but there we are. I loved teaching. I loved being in the classroom, working with kids, and getting to be a nerd with computers. It was great. But I loved my own kid more, so I quit teaching when he was born. My daughter followed 22 months later. And just one year after that, we gave birth to Sumy Designs.
My sister, Susan, and I combined our skills to create our very own business. At the time, we didn’t have a lot of clients (okay, we had two) and we didn’t make much money (because I keep thorough books, I can tell you my first official paycheck was $160.) But we didn’t let a little thing like no clients or no money stop us from creating our business. If you asked 2006 me where I thought we’d be eleven years later, I would never have imagined it would be here. We’ve surpassed my wildest fantasies and I love my job!
A look back…
What I really wanted to do was show you our very first Sumy Designs website. Behold the beauty of 2006.
A few of our first client sites:
The back story about how we came to be started with just one site. The girl who cut my hair wanted a website for her salon. I made it for her. Here it is in all it’s 2006 glory. (Why yes, that font is Papyrus.)
After this site went live, one of her clients who had a local boutique saw it, and asked us to make her a website for her boutique. Unfortunately I can’t find much more than the splash page, but trust me when I say it was just as beautiful as this.
It does bring me joy to see how far we’ve come in eleven years, both in our skills an business savvy. I can’t wait to see what the next 11 years brings for us.
Amy Masson
Amy is the co-owner, developer, and website strategist for Sumy Designs. She's been making websites with WordPress since 2006 and is passionate about making sure websites are as functional as they are beautiful.