A Bit of Good News: Our 2020 So Far

We’re taking a moment to reflect on the challenges ahead and celebrate some work with our partners amidst a tough year

2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year. We’re fortunate to have been a remote-friendly team prior to COVID outbreaks, so adapting to fully remote life was less painful than it might have otherwise been, but many people and businesses have been affected in profound ways that are still playing out. George Floyd’s death and the resulting conversations have sparked much discussion within our team about how we can act to be a better, more equitable business. In all, it’s been a humbling experience that has left us returning to what we’re grateful for.

A hallmark of what makes HFC unique is a culture of facing difficult problems with positivity and perseverance, and there’s never been a time those qualities have been needed more in our day-to-day. Though our team, clients, and communities have been impacted in many different ways, we’ve kept on doing what we’re best at — working together, being there for each other, and making software we can be proud of.

So, acknowledging the difficulties of the moment, here are some bright spots that have given our team some joy or inspiration.

📚Bookshop has become a lifeline for indie bookstores during COVID-19

Bookshop received early positive press from Forbes, Wired, and many other outlets who have covered its campaign to build a bigger share of the eCommerce pie for indie bookstores, but it’s become something bigger in the wake of the pandemic.

We helped build Bookshop from the ground up to allow book lovers to choose from millions of books to buy from home while supporting their local indie bookshops. What distinguishes Bookshop is a revenue split that shares profits with local bookstores as well as affiliates. Local bookshops can set up their own storefronts on Bookshop and earn 30% from each sale without having to manage physical inventory or fill orders.

Bookshop had modest goals set for sales early on, but when quarantine orders and social distancing caused indie bookstores to close their doors, many turned to Bookshop as a lifeline for selling books online, causing traffic and sales to rise faster than expected. Bookshop has scaled to over 2M monthly visitors, with the site helping generate nearly $5M for indie bookstores already so far. It’s rare that a project has a great mission, team, and timing all in one.

Read the case study on HFC.com
Read more about building Bookshop
Listen to Bookshop’s CEO Andy Hunter on the Rework Podcast

💪 We launched new apps for working out at home on your Samsung TV

In what has become a mainstay at HFC — creating experiences around fitness; or, more generally, OTT apps — we recently partnered with Samsung on the expansion of their Health platform to their Smart TV OS, Tizen. Working in tandem with Samsung’s team as well as fitness partners, we designed and launched new apps that run on Samsung TVs and log workout activity to Samsung Health.

Each brand has its own unique content, goals, and style, so the results are unique to each. We’ve really enjoyed working with Samsung as well as Barre3, Echelon, and obé on this launch, and are excited for the future of the platform and the possibilities for great interactive workouts. For those of us still unable to go to the gym due to COVID-19, it’s great to have more high-quality options for working out at home on a big screen.

📝 Catapult Expanded its Online Writing Program to Include Zoom Support

We launched Catapult’s Online Writing Program nearly four years ago. It started with a modest few classes but it has grown to offer a few hundred sessions per year. When businesses began to shut down in NYC due to COVID, Catapult moved its in-person classes online. Demand for classes swelled.

We had an existing live video chat solution using Tokbox, but found that users were experiencing connectivity issues in the early months of sheltering in place, leading us to seek out alternatives. We were able to quickly pilot Zoom, which, interestingly, was the least expensive integration and best-performing option in our testing.

🚀 Other Launches & Wins

• After a big code modernization project with Restoration Hardware, our work on the updated mobile experience using ReactJS went live this past spring, helping to improve performance and lay the groundwork for future modernization efforts. The rollout proved to have massively improved mobile conversions.


• We helped launch the updated Bodewell skincare brand this past spring, leading the technology build on Shopify. Bodewell offers subscription skincare treatment for eczema sufferers and features a skincare quiz and high-quality products. It’s always exciting to help launch a new brand.


• Our co-founder & CEO Ben Schippers and CTO Jon Evans recently took part in the TechCrunch event TC EarlyStage. Sadly, they weren’t able to attend in person this year due to COVID, but the virtual event was a fun look at choosing the right stack for early startups. (There’s a write-up here as part of Extra Crunch — paywalled)


• Longtime client Architectural Designs has had an amazing year. After our annual in-person summit last year, we worked with them on a new content and marketing strategy that has been hugely successful, with record-setting months becoming a routine in 2020. In Q1, AD saw huge gains in revenue and conversion rate year over year, along with a 15% gain of average transaction.


• We helped plan and design a digital hub for nonprofit NCSY, to bring their in-person after-school programming online.

Looking ahead

We’re happy to have had a productive first half to this year despite COVID, and are cautiously optimistic about the future. We’re taking some time to work on ourselves a bit, to find new and better ways of working together, and think about how to be better members of our community. We have some in-house ideas in the works that we’ll be rolling out in the coming months, as well as some exciting launches in the pipeline.

Stay tuned, and…