One of our veteran Architects, Ian Patrick Hines has been working with NationBuilder for a number of years. A former staff member of the company, he is a consummate pro and has deep experience with organizations of all sizes. I recently had a nice chat with Ian, learning more about his life as a freelancer and unwavering love for the Baltimore Orioles. Check it out:
What made you want to jump into freelance work full-time?
When I was growing up, my father always told me to “learn a little bit about a lot of things.” Maybe because of that, I’ve never been great at doing a single job full time. I love to be involved in all aspects of a project — business development, strategy, communications, design, development, etc. — and as a one-man business, I get to work on all of those things (often all in one day).
In the nearly one year that I’ve been freelancing, I’ve worked with more than forty different clients on all sorts of projects, and each was unique. No two days are the same, and I’m constantly facing new and interesting challenges. I love that.
Why NationBuilder?
For me, focusing my freelance business on NationBuilder was a no brainer. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool NationBuilder enthusiast. I really believe that it’s a transformative product and platform with no equal, and I love the challenge of applying it to different client projects.
But, of course, part of my decision was also practical. In the year prior to becoming a full-time NationBuilder Architect, I worked internally on the company’s Organizing and Tech teams — writing documentation, testing and documenting bugs, and tackling complex customer support questions. Because of that deep product experience, I have a unique background and perspective on NationBuilder that I wouldn’t be able to offer clients on another platform.
What is your favorite part of the design process?
Far and away, my favorite part of the process is crafting a full-blown theme that matches my client’s unique style and needs. For every client project I take on, I make a personal commitment to designing a whole theme — with support for all of NationBuilder’s 25+ page types and features — regardless of what pages they expect to use on the eventual site.
Why? Because they got sold on NationBuilder first. That’s why they hired me. And when they finish working with me, they ought to have a beautiful, reliable, and fully functional NationBuilder theme. I take a lot of pride in that part of my work, and knowing that my clients’ themes will “just work” for them is really satisfying.
How has your business evolved over time?
When I first got started, I was mostly doing Expert work and editing NationBuilder’s public themes (i.e., the Aware theme) for clients. But around February of this year I started getting more and more into Architect work, and I’ve really enjoyed it.
In the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to work on transitioning a few larger organizations to NationBuilder. With those clients, the web design portion has been pretty consistent with prior projects, but due to the size of their nations (one had more than 400 Control Panel users) they’ve required a lot of product training.
If I’ve learned anything about NationBuilder Expert & Architect work over the past year of freelancing, it’s been that they’re at their best when wedded together. Being a product expert is valuable, but without the ability to customize themes you’re rather limited in what you can do for clients. Similarly, even a great web designer will find themselves limited as an Architect without a deep understanding of the product. But marry those things? That’s a game changer.
What is the most surprising thing about you?
Despite my reputation as an avid Baltimore Orioles fan, I didn’t actually become a baseball fan until I was in college. As a kid, I thought it was a stupid, boring sport. It was a dark time for me; I don’t like to talk about it.
