I was a Four Kitchens client. Now I’m a Web Chef.

In 2015, I was working for a cybersecurity company that was rebranding and desperately needed a new website. The existing site, built on an outdated CMS, presented a multitude of problems for publishers and developers. We began evaluating CMS options in the marketplace and determined that Drupal was right for us due to its reliability, security, scalability, and thriving developer community.

The project scope was large, and there was a lot of ambiguity surrounding it. We were changing our name from Websense to Forcepoint and the new website was our coming-out party. We quickly realized that we didn’t have the people or skills to pull off such an ambitious endeavor, but we knew what CMS we were going to use. Great! We chose a CMS. What now?

If you can’t take the heat, call Four Kitchens

I can’t tell you how we found Four Kitchens, because I wasn’t privy to vendor evaluations, but I’m so glad we did. I do know we researched the company by reviewing their work, checking references, and speaking to their clients prior to entering the partnership. I didn’t know it at the time, but bringing Four Kitchens on board would ultimately shape the course of the company’s digital successes and my career. More on that later.

Can you smell what the Web Chefs are cooking?

It was clear from the beginning that these folks are experts and love what they do. We started the discovery and definition phase, where the 4K team really dug into our business needs and existing infrastructure. They conducted a content inventory through a “keep/kill/modify” exercise and fleshed out additional technical and design requirements.

The build team was engaged and proactive about creating thoughtful solutions to complex problems. Prior to working with this group of developers, I had worked with people who often confused the words “Sure, we can do anything” with the words “No, it can’t be done.”

We successfully launched forcepoint.com in January 2016 against a virtual countdown timer running on the homepage of websense.com. A few days later, we all gathered together in Austin, TX, for a night of bowling, karaoke, and libations, where I met some of the Web Chefs in person for the first time.

Mmm, that was good. Can I have more?

After a successful launch, we wanted more. The site was better than ever, but there was a high demand to modernize our marketing strategies. We continued our relationship with the Four Kitchens support team that still works with Forcepoint to this day.

I personally don’t think the word “support” accurately depicts the team’s abilities and what they do for clients. They’re much more than support; they’re part of your team and they can build anything. Over the years, they worked tirelessly to deploy enhanced functionality and features that helped us execute modern marketing initiatives and stay competitive. We also rebranded the site twice in a two-year period. 

Kudos to the Web Chefs in support for delivering quality output under extremely tight deadlines and high demands. I tip the brim of my bowler hat to you folks.

I worked with the support team on a daily basis for more than four years. I learned more about Drupal, agile development, planning, and project management then I could’ve imagined. I formed genuine relationships with everyone. I liked them and they liked me.

Check, please!

While working with Four Kitchens, and the small but mighty web team at Forcepoint, I worked on some of the most challenging projects of my professional career. But, as you may have guessed, all things come to an end and I left Forcepoint. 

I accepted a new position with a new company. It was a great opportunity, but it wasn’t the right move for me. I wasn’t happy with my choice because I didn’t have dedicated developers on staff and there was little to no budget to bring 4K on board. I missed working with the Web Chefs.

As luck would have it, a Technical Project Manager position became available at Four Kitchens and I jumped on it.

Back for seconds

So, here I am, a Web Chef at Four Kitchens, and it’s better than I imagined. Transitioning from the perspective of a former client to a Four Kitchens employee, I see why we are successful. We’re a distributed workforce of talented and passionate developers, designers, and strategists with a desire to make a difference.

The culture here is amazing–our mission and values aren’t just lip service. We truly rally around our core values and believe that we are all part of something special.

We are humbly confident in our abilities. We listen before we speak, and if we don’t have the answers we’ll find them.

We build genuine relationships with our clients, partners, and team members by being candid, considerate, and trustworthy.

We make it happen by taking initiative, setting goals, and owning our outcomes.

We take a “yes, and…” approach by assuming positive intent and building off people’s ideas.

We strive to always improve by embracing change, celebrating success, and learning from failure.

We give back by volunteering our time and expertise to teach what we know.

We have more than a decade of experience designing the web. We’ve worked on some of the world’s largest websites, presented at conferences all over the world, and contributed more than 20,000 hours to open-source projects. Our clients are part of the family, and we want to grow, learn, and collaborate with you.

At Four Kitchens, we build BIG websites. We can help you with content management, site support, user experience and engagement, technical implementation, search engine optimization, analytics, and more.

If you’re looking for more, look no further. Four Kitchens is the perfect partner. Give us a call today at 1-833-WEBCHEF (1-833-932-2433) or tell us about your project on our Contact Us page.