Build
Website design and development
Websites are the core of what we do. We design and build them on any platform, from a fast marketing site to a full custom build, and WordPress is our specialty.
Creative agency, Evanston, Illinois
One senior team for your technology and your marketing.
We design everything your customers see online, build the software and AI behind it, and run the marketing that brings them in. A smaller business gets the CTO and CMO it hasn't hired yet, and a larger one gets the senior team its own people can lean on.
What we do
Six disciplines, planned as one
Most businesses buy these from different people and spend years making them fit. When one agency does all six, your site, your software and your marketing are designed for each other from the first day.
Build
Digital experiences
Real-time 3D, custom shaders and interaction, running in the browser. You're looking at the sample. It suits a launch, a product or a brand that has to stand apart in its market.
Build
Custom software
We build software from the ground up: web apps, customer portals, CRMs, internal tools, mobile apps and whatever else your business needs to run on. It's shaped around how you work, and we run the infrastructure under it.
Automate
AI automation and integration
We start with how the work gets done today, then build the tooling that takes over large parts of it. AI goes in only where it saves time or money and the quality holds. Then we look at what the same tooling can add to what your customers get.
Grow
Search: SEO, AEO and GEO
Your customers now look for you in three places, so we run all of search as one program. SEO is ranking in Google. AEO, answer engine optimization, is being the direct answer in Google's AI Overviews and voice results. GEO, generative engine optimization, is being named and described correctly when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity who to hire. The same site, content and reputation feed all three.
Grow
Results-driven marketing and advertising
We run your marketing and advertising on every channel your business needs: Facebook and Instagram first, then Google Search and Performance Max, YouTube, ChatGPT ads, press releases, and email and text. We handle the strategy, the creative, the campaigns, the landing pages, the lead generation and the tracking that shows what worked, and we judge all of it on what a lead or a sale costs you, so your budget moves toward whatever brings in paying customers.
We do all of e-commerce too, along with integrations, migrations and multilingual sites. If your business needs something that isn't listed here, ask.
The site you’re reading is our own work, from the 3D and motion to the words and the code under them.
How we work
We run it for you, or work alongside your team
Some businesses have nobody in-house who owns the website, the systems or the marketing. Others have a marketing manager or IT staff who need more senior hands for a launch, a build or a campaign. We work either way, and we decide with you what we take on and what stays with your people.
Run it for you
For owners without in-house people. We act as the CTO and CMO you haven't hired. We decide with you what gets built and how it's marketed, then we build it, run it and show you what each piece brings in.
Work alongside your team
For companies with a marketing manager or IT staff. Your people stay in charge of their work, and we add the senior capacity they're short of, from a 3D launch site or a custom build to an AI project or a search program. Everything we make stays with your team.
Fractional CTO and CMO
If you want one senior person accountable for your technology and your marketing without a full-time hire, we hold that role part time. We set the plan with you, manage the vendors and the spend, and bring you the next move. It runs as a monthly retainer with a three-month minimum, then month to month.
How we come in
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01 How we come in
We learn the business.
We sit with you and the people doing the work, and we go through everything it runs on, from the website to the spreadsheet nobody else understands.
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02 How we come in
We decide what comes first.
You get a written plan, ordered by what will move the business most, and it names what to leave alone.
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03 How we come in
We build it in that order,
and you start using each piece as it's finished.
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04 How we come in
We stay.
We keep the site, the software, the automation and the marketing running, we measure what each one does for the business, and we bring you the next move.
What we can take on
- Technology decisions, and the vendors and accounts that come with them
- Everything your customers see online
- The software, AI and infrastructure your staff depend on
- The search, marketing and advertising that bring customers in, and the measurement that shows what worked
What automation looks like in a normal business
Take an ordinary service company. Quotes go out from a spreadsheet two days after the site visit, job notes get typed twice, and invoices wait for someone to have a free afternoon. We build tooling that reads the notes your crew already types, drafts the quote and the invoice, and puts both in front of your office manager to approve, so the paperwork goes out the same day.
You are the office managerExample, not a client
Crew's notes
Water heater leaking at the base. Replace it, haul the old one away. Customer is home after 3 pm.
Drafted for you
- Quote: replace water heater
- Quote: haul away old unit
- Invoice: ready when the job closes
Paperwork out in2 days
Today this takes two days.
Assumed for the example: the crew already types notes on a phone, quotes come from a fixed price list, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.
The same tooling can then do something for your customers, like showing them where their job stands.
Your staff get their afternoons back, and your customers stop calling to ask.
We've run companies too
The people behind this agency have started and run companies of their own, in software, manufacturing and consumer products, so we weigh every decision the way an owner does.
Led by an engineer who knows how to sell
Ivaylo Guenkov, Owner-CEO, Chicagoland Coders
Ivaylo Guenkov trained as a mechanical engineer and has built and sold brands of his own. He has led marketing and special development projects for dozens of brands, from Fortune 100 companies to small niche businesses, and managed campaigns large and small on every channel. As Owner-CEO of Chicagoland Coders he runs the technology and the marketing together, from strategy and design to development, infrastructure and AI, so the person who plans your work answers for its results. He teaches you and your team the methods behind the work, so you keep control of it.
- Led the design, build and SEO of Ferrari North America’s dealership websites across the US
- Marketing and development projects for Fortune 100 brands and small niche businesses
- Campaigns large and small, run on every channel
Selected work
What we built, and what it had to do
Earlier work
01 / 06Website, integration
Perdido Key Chamber of Commerce
A hub for the whole community, with Chambermaster fully integrated, a portal where members manage their own listings and events, and hundreds of local businesses searchable by category.
02 / 06Community platform, e-commerce
Neon Dystopia
A cyberpunk publisher and social network in one, with profiles, forums, private messages, searchable databases of books and films, and a Printful store that turns an image into merchandise.
03 / 06Website
Tsukasa of Tokyo
A restaurant site with motion-reactive slideshows and parallax scrolling, and a large menu that unfolds from big buttons so it’s easy to use on a phone.
Also built
Website, media
Christian Worship Center
E-commerce, mobile app
Wonderland Gardens
E-commerce, mobile app
Eye Meets Color
What would
you build with a
senior team behind you?
Talk to us about anything, at any size: a new site, a ground-up software build, a campaign, a process that eats your week, or the whole business. Tell us where things stand and we'll tell you what we'd do first, even if the honest answer is a $40-a-month app.