“It’s only work if you’d rather be doing something else.”

Just Add Content is a business website platform for businesses. The website builder gets businesses online with a fully functional, mobile friendly, HTML5 website in 60 seconds. All plans include website design, hosting, maintenance, and security.

Just Add Content also features website integrations with hundreds of business apps to automate administrative tasks and streamline business workflows. For example, a website form submission could automatically create an invoice, add a contact to your CRM and mailing list, schedule an appointment, create a new project in your project management software, send a text message summary, and more.

BusinessInterviews.com: Can you elaborate on how you’re leading the business automation movement by providing the most affordable website integration platform around?

Gabriel: I’ll illustrate with an example. Imagine a consultant who keeps up with the times and maintains high margins by leveraging technology. She uses FreshBooks for invoicing, Basecamp for project management, Google Calendar for scheduling, Highrise as a CRM, MailChimp for email marketing, etc. She feels on the cutting edge, but something still isn’t right. She feels overwhelmed because she still has to manage all of these apps and enter the same customer data repeatedly.

The solution is to automate the processes. When a customer submits a work/quote request through the form on her website, the following should happen automatically using the information provided:

• A draft invoice or estimate is created in her invoicing or billing app

• The contact is added to her CRM for follow-up

• An intake appointment is scheduled in her calendar

• The client is added to her email newsletter

• A new project or to-do item is added to her project management application

Hundreds of different apps could be used to create her perfect workflow. Imagine what this would do for her business?

This kind of automation typically requires custom development, which is prohibitively expensive to build and even more expensive to maintain. But on our Platform plan we offer customers unlimited integrations with hundreds of apps for a fixed monthly fee of $99/mo. We hate the idea of nickel and diming customers, so we stick with an all-inclusive flat monthly fee. This gives businesses more freedom to experiment, switch apps, and test until they find the perfect combination of apps for their business. We also offer free consultation and app recommendations based on our experiences with past businesses.

We help everyone from plumbers automating the administrative side of their business to large marketing firms making it easy for non-technical staff to submit requests to engineers.

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some of the biggest mistakes you see businesses make when it comes to building their website?

Gabriel: The biggest mistake we see is businesses paying too much for their website and giving up flexibility. Often businesses underestimate how quickly technology changes. They’ll pay $5,000-$50,000 for a website and think they won’t have to touch it for the next 5+ years. In a couple years their website will look outdated or lack new functionality they need, but they can’t afford to redo it. It’s even worse if they don’t have the flexibility to make their own website changes. You shouldn’t have to call someone every time you want to update your staff pages, add pictures, update contact information, etc.

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some lessons that you learned as a Captain in the Marine Corps that you’ve been able to apply to running your own business?

Gabriel: On my first deployment I was a newly promoted Marine First Lieutenant and I was trained as an Aviation Supply Officer. An opportunity arose to deploy as a Combat Advisor and Logistics Officer for 12 months with a 13-man team that’d be living with, training, and fighting with the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) of the Iraqi Army, so I jumped at the opportunity. I was 23, why not?

During that year we spent much of our time on the road and we relocated our headquarters multiple times. Each time we relocated we had to find a place to live, secure it, move our assets, and find ways

to source external support (fuel, food, water, ordinance, etc.) every time. We weren’t in a Marine area of operation (AO) so this meant working with the other services, the Iraqi Army, and the locals to get the support we needed.

As the team’s Logistics Officer, most of these requirements were my responsibility, though I wasn’t specifically trained for it. This is part of the Marine Corps’ “bloom where you’re planted” mindset where you’re expected to figure things out. It’s challenging at times, but it forces you to grow. I dove in and, though I had a lot to learn, I thrived and learned quickly. I loved it and it was invigorating. I learned the meaning of resourcefulness by pulling things out of thin air and making things happen. I gained a lot of confidence during that deployment and felt like I could do anything. It was a long year, we had a few close calls and hit a few IEDs, but we had an awesome team and everyone made it back alive.

I parlayed those lessons into building Just Add Content. I had degrees in Psychology and Finance, how would I build a software company? I taught myself everything I needed as I needed it including programming, copywriting, design, and marketing. I’ve loved the challenge and every step of the journey. Which brings me to the next lesson…Building a business is a grind, building anything worthwhile is. The Marine Corps also taught me how to be miserable, as Steven Pressfield noted in The War of Art. We call it “embracing the suck,” you learn to love it. When starting a business you’re working crazy hours for what amounts to significantly less than minimum wage while pouring your heart into your new venture. When people ask why you do it, it’s hard to answer, but you can’t think of a reason not to do it because there’s passion in what you do. It’s really only work if you’d rather be doing something else. I don’t know if I’d be where I am today if I wasn’t a Marine first. I went to Officer Candidate School (OCS) at 20, before I could even drink. It was a trail by fire and I learned a lot of lessons the hard way, but it lit a fire in me that will never die.

BusinessInterviews.com: What are some trends that you’re excited about or think that our readers should be paying attention to?

Gabriel: As more businesses turn to software-as-a-service (SaaS) to increase productivity and lower the cost of doing business, we’ll see more businesses looking for ways to better manage their SaaS applications. We briefly talked about this in the business automation section above, but there are major specialization opportunities for consultants and other B2B organizations focused on efficiency and optimization. If you’re intimately familiar with an industry you can productize your services in the form of recommendation and training packages segmented by company size. Something like this may not replace your main offering, but it can certainly augment it.

BusinessInterviews.com: What advice would you pass onto a small business that’s contemplating becoming optimized for mobile?

Gabriel: 9 times out of 10 I recommend that businesses get a responsive website because it just makes sense. It’s a bit more expensive up front, but it’s where the web is going, you don’t need an app (in most cases), and there’s only one code base to maintain. Additionally, I’d recommend moving to an open source CMS like WordPress for extensibility. It’s much cheaper to maintain and you’re a lot more flexible since you’re not locked into any proprietary software and can work with virtually any agency or team.

BusinessInterviews.com: Can you share your plans to go a step further in the next version of your platform to turn the website into a business management tool and what that means for the direction of the Just Add Content?

Gabriel: I have to be a bit tight-lipped on this one, but we have some major deals in the works that will change the website game and focus on helping businesses. We’re also adding new integration partners all the time. Keep an eye on this space.