Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Jenkins.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Wodobo started a little over 10 years ago as a side business running live classes that walked small business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketing professionals through designing, building and launching of a professional website. This class was 4 Saturdays in a row. By the 4th class, they’d have a website ready to launch. I’d always loved teaching people anything I learned and this was a great outlet for it.
While I loved the teaching aspect but it was hard to scale. I was working full time at Infusionsoft (now Keap) as a designer focused on UX, marketing, and brand design.
In June of 2016, I found out the hard way that I wasn’t cut out for the intricate workings and wiles of office politics and became a casualty of war. This was a blow for my confidence, but it afforded be an opportunity to consider my future differently than I’d previously imagined it.
After talking to my wife, she said that she knew I’d always wanted to run my own business, and that this was my chance to try it out. I called some trusted friends who’d been there before asking what I needed before jumping in. After realizing I lacked all of the things that I was told I needed, I realized that it was going to have to be a leap of faith and something I could fully commit to and proverbially “burn the boats”.
So I dove in. It was a slow start, but one job turned into another…and then 2…and then 3. I was blessed to be able to operate soley on referrals and word of mouth. Wodobo had gone from teaching live classes to providing business owners with my services as a web designer.
We’re super excited because in July of this year (2026), we’re hitting our official 10 year anniversary of having our doors open!
Over the 10 years I’ve had to learn a lot and have had to continuously adapt and learn in order to keep growing and improving. There have been some really rough times and some really great times, and we’re currently really excited about our current trajectory. We’ve operated as a pretty small studio for many years with some amazing people, and we’re getting ready to grow our team even more to support a new program we’re pushing to help restaurants.
With the appearance of AI and AI tools on the scene, we’ve been able to optimize and refine our processes balancing traditional necessary design principles and strategy with the efficiency that can come from new tools. This allows us to stay on top of trends and keep serving our customers.
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Misc. Details.
Our first office was on state street in Orem Utah. We’ve moved a few times including an office in Pleasant Grove, Another in Orem, but finally we landed in Provo, utah and we love it!
Biggest challenges have been learning how to balance the challenges of staying trained and up to date on tools and technology while also mastering our craft and balancing that with family life and social life.
In addition to a lot of help and support from great employees, friends, and family, I’ve also found a lot of support through local business networking groups including ConnectShare.com, BNI, and we even spearheaded a WooCommerce meetup for a while and I also got to co-create and co-operate another small business group that had about 30 members that met monthly to connect, support, and help each other out.
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I’ve always loved entrepreneurship. When I was 6-7 years old, I remember going door to door, with my friend Brandt, selling paper boats that he folded. That love of seeking opportunity, problem solving, and work has stayed with me. Since then I’ve had a lot of fun projects and still love doing side adventures to see what is possible, but I’ve absolutely loved my journey with Wodobo and I’m still as committed or even more so now than I was when it started. We have a vision for the future and we’re excited to keep pushing!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think I should start off by saying that I am generally an optimist. You have to be as a business owner. If you run into a problem, you can’t think, “This might be the problem that finally breaks me”. Instead, you have to have an almost automatic thought of, “How do we solve this?” or “What’s the best way to get what we need with these new challenges and landscape?”.
But even with that optimism and entrepreneurial spirit, there have definitely been a lot of hard times that had the potential to challenge my resolve. I’ve often told people that to run a business you have to have a healthy but balanced amount of delusion to be able to keep putting wind in your sail when things don’t go as planned so you can keep pushing. But the cool thing is, and I think this is a principle that’s true in other aspects of our lives, when you push through the hard times and get to the other side…the payoff is awesome and definitely worth the sacrifice and work even if it’s a little different than you’d planned.
My parents sent me to Star Valley, Wyoming during the summers in High School to teach me how to work. Apparently I was needing some life lessons. But I learned to love hard work and found that when faced with impossible situations, that you can almost always find a way to make it work. I’ve tried to carry that into my business.
I think the biggest struggles, that are often harder to talk about, is the loneliness that you can experience when you become too isolated in the process of building the business. This is why it’s been important for me to try to reach out and connect with the amazing people around me and to connect with purposes and causes and organizations that we believe are making the world a better place.
Analogy:
I was asked earlier on in my business what I thought the difference was between my corporate job up in the Silicon Slopes area vs running a business.
I said this…or something close…
The corporate job is kind of like riding as a passenger on a commercial air liner. The ride is moderately comfy, you get free food, they might even have in flight entertainment. But you don’t get to choose the schedule, and you don’t have visibility about the dangers and storms you’ll face. You might feel some turbulence, but ultimately, it’s a limited, but comfortable ride.
On the other hand, running a business is more like flying/piloting a small two seater plane. You feel all the bumps and ups and downs, but you can see the storms and avoid them or find out how to better fly through them. You also get to choose where to fly, when to fly, and how to fly. It’s not for everyone, but it’s something that’s given me the freedom and purpose I crave. And what’s even cooler is that I’ve been able to be there to see my clients growing and succeeding as well as they chart the course for their business.
So no…not a smooth road, but that’s what makes it fun and more rewarding when things work the way you want.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Wodobo?
1. Please tell us more about your business or organization
Wodobo is a web design and strategy studio that is passionate about finding effective, scalable, and long term online solutions for businesses. At Wodobo, we know that a website needs to effectively tell a company’s story and communicate the true value of its services and brand. Our work is rooted in designing and creating websites that drive credibility and trust from the first interaction and helping businesses tell their story in the be, not just visual impact on launch day.
We often use the phrase “Do it right the first time” because we have seen too many businesses struggle with the long term consequences of websites that were not intentionally built with the right tools, platform, and structure. Many of those sites were created by well intentioned providers, but without a full understanding of how limiting and fragile a website can become when long term growth and sustainability are not considered. Our goal is to help businesses avoid that cycle by building websites that simply do what they are supposed to do clearly, reliably, and sustainably.
In addition to website design, Wodobo also provides brand and logo design, along with content and SEO focused services that help businesses more effectively tell their story in ways both customers and search engines care about.
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2. What do you do and what do you specialize in
We specialize in designing tailored websites that are built around the audience experience and aligned with real business goals. Every website we create is designed to build clarity, confidence, and trust so visitors feel comfortable and motivated to buy, connect, follow, and engage.
A core part of our work includes our own twist to content strategy and SEO, which we call RealSEO. Rather than focusing on shortcuts or technical tricks, RealSEO helps businesses communicate their value clearly and consistently so their websites perform well for real people and continue to grow over time in search. We also provide hosting and ongoing support, allowing us to act as a long term partner and wingman for our clients’ businesses online, not just a one time vendor.
All of our work is designed with long term growth in mind, ensuring each website is flexible, scalable, and able to support a business as it expands.
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3. What sets you apart from others
What sets Wodobo apart is our strategy first approach, long term mindset, and the relationships we build with our clients. We focus heavily on understanding the real problems our clients are trying to solve and ensuring the websites we design truly support their goals both now and in the future.
We are a small, skilled team that builds on time tested tools, platforms, and systems. This allows us to create websites that are stable, scalable, and dependable rather than fragile or trend driven. While we stay current with technology and regularly refine our approach, we are careful to evolve without abandoning the solid foundation that allows our clients’ websites to continue working reliably over time.
We are teachers at heart, and a core part of our work is empowering clients with full control and autonomy over their solutions. Clients fully own their websites, understand how they work, and are never locked into unnecessary dependence. We support our clients for as long as they need us, while also helping train internal teams so businesses can confidently manage, evolve, and grow their websites on their own.
Because the internet is fragile by nature, we place a strong emphasis on sustainable and scalable elements. There are often many ways to achieve an outcome, but our focus is not just on getting there. We care deeply about how the outcome is achieved, choosing tools and approaches that feel easier to manage, continue working long term, and reduce complexity rather than adding to it.
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4. What are you most proud of brand wise
Brand wise, we are most proud of the trust our clients place in us and the confidence they gain through the process. We have loved being able to work with small local businesses, established national brands, national hotel chains, and even nationally acclaimed design firms and development agencies.
That range reflects our commitment to thoughtful execution, reliable systems, and building solutions that clients can depend on long after launch.
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5. What you want readers to know about your brand
In a world full of marketing where the loudest voice often wins, it is easy for businesses to be led down expensive and sometimes destructive paths. We believe it is important to have people on your team who prioritize clarity, sustainability, and long term thinking over hype.
Wodobo’s approach is the result of years of experience with trial and error. We have learned what works, what does not, and how to build systems that scale alongside our clients’ businesses. We’ve found all the needles in all the haystacks, and now we can use that to build more sustainable systems.
We approach web design as a long term investment, not a quick launch. Our websites are designed to reinforce trust in a brand, support real growth, and continue delivering value well beyond day one.
At the end of the day, our philosophy is simple. Do it right, the first time.
What are your plans for the future?
Our plans for the future are to continue working for our clients and gaining new ones. We’re in it for the long haul, so we’re not going anywhere.
As for what’s new, we’re currently rolling out a new program dedicated to restaurant owners. We’ve decided that it’s important to us to help provide a solution that genuinely helps them own their online presence and to ensure that it’s giving them the exposure they deserve.
Generally speaking, we’re fans of the book by Bo Burlingham called, “Small Giants”. It seems like most businesses are spun up long enough to show value and promise only to be sold.
We’re more inline with the princples of Small Giants. We want to create a legacy.
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We’ve just finished hiring some new team members and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to grow even more in the near future as we roll out the restaurant program and our RealSEO program to compliment our existing services.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wodobo.com/
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/wodobo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wodobo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wodobo
- Twitter: https://x.com/wodobo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@wodobo
- Other: https://pressable.com/case-studies/wodobo/
