Lead with confidence

Technical project management and development support for designers, developers, and project leads.

Complement your expertise

The complexity of modern web projects is relentless. Keeping up on the best practices and innovation across design, development, data architecture, infrastructure, devops, performance, seo, accessibility, and more is beyond a full time job.

You need to deliver on your company goals and avoid the impossible task of getting up to speed on every technical sub-discipline within your greater project. That's where I fit in.

With over 15 years of experience building custom websites and managing a remote team along with a background in design, economics, and education, I can provide you and your project peace of mind, quick answers, targeted training, and access to trustworthy, industry professionals when you need more specialized knowledge.

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Ben Parizek

I'm the product designer behind the Sprout Plugins, trainer at Straight Up Craft, and I share what I've learned managing a remote web business and writing code via my newsletter: Craft The Planet.

On working together

We're a small shop with a large network. Below are a handful of areas where we can bring a lot to the table.

Content Modeling and Data Architecture

Your company manages complex data that needs to be accessible on the web and easy to integrate into other business applications. We have experience designing information architecture for complex, multi-regional websites in industries such as architecture, conferences, finance, travel, hospitality, and higher education.

Technical Project Management

You're managing a large project and want to have someone to give you insight into your options, watch your back, and support you through key decisions. We've helped team leads plan budgets, hire specialists, prepare for the unknown, and get up to speed on the underlying technologies when managing complex web projects.

Custom Development & API Integrations

Your website is an entry point for your business workflows. Our Sprout Plugins have grown out of real-world projects where websites required integrations with business and marketing workflows around lead generation, email marketing, SEO strategy, and custom reporting.

Training Designers & Developers

You and your team want to level-up your workflow, or prepare for a large project. We've trained individuals and teams on git, composer, devops workflows, content modeling, component-based architectures, Twig templating, Craft CMS best practices, performance optimization, SEO strategy, and more.

Migration Planning & Support

You've got a complex, one-off project that you want to do right. We have years of experience supporting teams during website migrations that have business-critical data including multi-lingual, e-commerce, and member-based sites with years of historic assets, transactions, and messy, legacy data.

Performance Audits and Optimization

You know your website can be better. Our website audits look closely at usability, code, data architecture, page speed, team workflows, and technical SEO. We'll identify priorities, hand you a plan, and provide the requisite training and support to make it happen.

Products & Services

A great joy in our work is in identifying patterns and building tools and platforms to embrace and improve on them again and again.

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Sprout Plugins

Craft CMS Plugins

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Straight Up Craft

Craft CMS Training

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Craft The Planet

Craft CMS Newsletter

A word from the field

The following testimonials are from a handful of clients we've had the pleasure to work with over the years.

Luke Runnells, Sales & Marketing Associate

Forbes Industries

I was very apprehensive about moving our company's website to a new platform and getting all of the data migrated over correctly. Barrel Strength Design made the process as quick and painless as possible and laid my fears to rest, even though our data needed a lot of customization and massaging to get everything into place and functioning properly. Ben was very professional and positive through the whole process and made sure that we hit our deadline. I would definitely use Barrel Strength again for any web project and will recommend them to friends and colleagues. Thanks, Barrel Strength!

Greg Delorey, VP Internet Solutions

Matson & Isom Technology Consulting

Through a series of trainings with Ben, our team was able to understand the complete development cycle within Craft CMS utilizing a best-practice approach to setup, configuration, and development. Ben made training fun, informative and personal – his guidance has allowed us to feel more comfortable building complex, intricate websites using all of the built-in tools of Craft CMS paired with functional plug-ins. We definitely recommend team coaching through Ben and Barrel Strength Design!

Alex Demir, Lead Tech Engineer

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, CO

We really loved Ben’s approach. He’s a great teacher and mentor. His open minded approach let us relax and have a constructive dialogue about building a cms and strategy for our publishing business.

John Manning - Development Lead

Wray Ward

Our team was impressed by the level of experience that Ben and Larry brought to the table. They’re true professionals who care about their work and who want their training customers to benefit as much as possible.

Matthew Smith - Lead Developer

U.S. Army Band

Thanks, especially for the last session - the page-builder stuff made me feel like you gave us the recipe to Craft’s secret sauce.