Every month, we feature a member of our team here at Main Street ROI. This month, we’re featuring our Web Developer, Kirsten Hopstaken.
How did you get into technology?
I have always had my strengths in math, physics and chemistry and started my education in the medical field. First for clinical laboratory and later I moved on to medical imaging and radiation therapy. Then, I started working in a radiology department, where I was responsible for the quality assurance and quality control of equipment as well as working on the CT scanner. After 7 years of working, we moved from the Netherlands (we are Dutch family) to France and 3 years later we moved on to America, where I started my new career. I decided to do something else with my technical knowledge and interests, and I started building websites. Soon l discovered that I preferred playing around with the design and coding than writing content. So I began helping other people with their website projects as a freelance web designer, while studying to become a certified web developer and learning other web development skills along the way.
What do you like most about working with small business clients?
Small businesses very often don’t have their online presence well-developed yet, so there is a lot we can improve for them. I believe it is very important to have a good, modern online presence in order to make small businesses successful.
Main Street ROI offers the whole package for those clients and we can help them all the way. Together we work on optimizing their websites, developing content, blog posts and social media and I love to hear success stories of clients that have seen a tremendous growth after working with Main Street ROI.
What do you like most about working at Main Street ROI?
With Main Street ROI, I handle a great variety of tasks for our clients and the company itself. From making website edits, posting blogs, optimize website speed to coding landing pages and setting up business profiles to name a few. I enjoy working on all kinds of website platforms and with all kinds of programs — and I learn everyday, which is great. As a web developer there is no end to learning. Technologies are changing constantly.
I am also married and a mother of three kids, so I feel very lucky to have found a job that is flexible and gives me freedom to work when and where I want. But most of all, I love working with the team we have. Everybody is very motivated and involved to get the best out of ourselves and with the best interest for the clients. We have daily meetings to discuss projects, a whole system for task planning and communication and we also work on team building with monthly company meetings with happy hours and quarterly team outings.
What do you like to do outside of the office?
Besides being a computer addict, I love to be outside in nature, going camping with my family, hiking with my dogs, and biking.
Below, I’ve included a photo of myself with two of my kids on one bike — which is a typical Dutch habit, that we’ve brought to America.
We also enjoy traveling and have visited countries like Vietnam, Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala to name a few. Last summer we went to the Netherlands to visit our extended family and continued our trip with a few days in Paris and to the French Alps, where we lived 8 years ago.
My other favorite activities are watching movies, playing board games and playing the piano.
And every so often, the kids are excited to have a babysitter while daddy and mommy go out for a date night.
What marketing trend are you most excited about for small businesses (and why)?
The rise of mobile has been game changing for all businesses and it will continue to be in the upcoming years. I am curious how the development of mobile apps will play a role for smaller businesses. Mobile apps can provide a great way to connect with customers using push notifications. It appears that many customers are much more willing to read push notifications than emails, for example. Also mobile apps offer a great user experience all from within the app and they are perfect for building loyal customer relations. So I believe this could be the next big technology application for small businesses in the coming years.
