A Pandemic Highlights Importance of Strong Online Presence for E-Retailers and Brick-And-Mortar Brands: David Hemmat of Resolve Digital on How to Protect Your Business Using Ecommerce

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times? 

David Hemmat: We are luckily doing well! My wife and I are actually enjoying working from home with our pets. We recently transitioned Resolve Digital to be a remote-first company, so it’s been a good firsthand experience on how to properly set up and run a company remotely.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Resolve Digital. 

David Hemmat: I’ve been a Ruby developer for quite a while, and I’ve been lucky to make some great connections in the global Ruby community over the years. In 2014, I founded a Blue Coding company, which connects great software developers with North American companies. Resolve Digital became a Blue Coding client for several years, and eventually, when its founders were ready to move onto their next adventure, I had the opportunity to acquire Resolve. Since then, I’ve been glad to continue its legacy of providing value to our clients via excellent branding, user experience, and eCommerce site development.

How does Resolve Digital innovate? 

David Hemmat: We are a remote-first company, and believe that great talent can be found all over the world. Our top priority is providing the maximum value possible to our clients and helping them optimize their business, and we do whatever it takes to achieve this. We feel the best way to help our clients realize their goals — whether increasing conversions, improving brand and user experience, reducing shopping cart drop-off, or more — is by immersing ourselves in their business. To that end, we take a deep dive into each of our clients’ business logic to understand what makes them tick so that we can give them the best insights tailored to their needs.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

David Hemmat: Before the pandemic, we were partly on-site and partly remote. The lockdowns around the world have obliged us to move fully remote, and it’s turned out to be a great change for us. By becoming remote-first, we open ourselves up to finding the best people to join our team, wherever in the world they may be. 

Of course, some of our clients have been severely impacted by the pandemic and ensuing lockdown measures. Using our eCommerce expertise, we have helped our clients pivot and minimize the impact on their business in various ways, including improving their sites, investing in innovative solutions to boost their brand visibility, and developing seamless user experiences. In this way, we’ve made sure our clients can weather the storm and come out of this stronger than before. Our blog outlines some of the innovative tactics we’ve used to help our clients strengthen their business during the pandemic.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

David Hemmat: We have had some bumps in the road as we’ve adjusted and helped our clients adjust to this “new normal,” but everything has worked out well. Our main lessons learned are that, as mentioned above, the best team members to join your company may not be located in the same city or even country as you, so being remote-first can be a huge benefit in finding the right people for your team. Additionally, we’ve learned that a good eCommerce site is not a luxury but rather a necessity for businesses to weather an event like this. We will be keeping this in mind going forward to serve our clients better.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety? How do you project yourself and Resolve Digital in the future?

David Hemmat: I deal with stress by spending time with my wife and our cats and dog (who have been very happy to have us both home during the pandemic!). I also like to take hikes in the mountains near where I live and love to decompress on the weekend by taking my motorcycle out for a ride with friends. 

We make sure that everyone at Resolve Digital knows how to keep a healthy work-life balance, as well, and provide resources to manage stress and anxiety to anyone who needs them.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

David Hemmat: Some may look at Resolve Digital as just a custom development company, but we consider ourselves a solutions company. There are plenty of eCommerce and custom dev companies out there that will simply build you what you ask for without asking any questions. Unfortunately, this often results in tens of thousands of dollars wasted on useless software that doesn’t actually solve the problem you set out to solve. 

This is what sets us apart — our first step in any engagement is to dive deep into our clients’ business and get a full understanding of what makes them tick from the inside out. From there, we can make sure the work we are doing together is going to help achieve their goals.

Your final thoughts?

David Hemmat: Despite being a difficult situation, the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have helped us improve our services to our clients, and we have also heard from many of our clients that the solutions Resolve Digital has provided them in this time has helped protect their business from the worst of the pandemic’s effects. We are humbled and grateful to be able to have had such a positive impact on our clients in this difficult time.

Your website?

https://resolve.digital/