We are again happy to share with you one of our monthly interviews with design and web professionals, the goal is to provide some educational and informative insight into how people work, what inspires them and how they got where they are. This month we have The Squad.

What is your company called and what do you do?
We are The Squad. We are a creative media design and development company that frequently works in the entertainment and music space. We are the creators of Glue – a simple mobile & web content publishing system, and Merchsquad – a simple solution to ecommerce and order fulfillment.

What was the “big bang” that lead you to start your company?
Squad was born out of common interest and goals. Jordan and I both very much liked what we did and liked it even more that we could make money at it. Over time (years) of doing client work, we found consistency in our clients content publishing needs. We decided to build a system that provided a set of basic content publishing tools to allow us the freedom and flexibility to adapt them how we want for each project. This system eventually grew into what is now known as Glue.

What makes your product or service stand out in the crowd?
Glue is a simple content publishing system. It’s so simple, you can use it from any device, and publish to any website. This gives Glue users the most freedom to do what they want with their content. Included with each Glue account is a set of publishing feeds. These feeds allow our users to simultaneously post their content onto any site in which their feed is loaded. An example of this would be publishing a blog entry to your own site, myspace, friendster, and RSS. We’ve really focused our efforts on the ease of use and simplification of process to allow user the quickest route to publishing on a variety of websites simultaneously.

What did you do before this came along?
Before we created Glue, our work for our clients was limited to what we could build custom or adapt to with their time / budget. Not much has changed in that regard, other than we no longer have to build a custom CMS for each client project. Sure, every job is different and sometimes requires custom apps, but with Glue available we can offer our clients standard content publishing freedom and integrate it in our sites with ease.

What was the single biggest hurtle to getting your company launched?
With any startup the answer has to be resources. There are many, many hurdles. But without the proper resources not a whole lot is possible. It’s been a challenge for us since day 1 to find the resources for Glue, but we’ve made it a priority and not let it slip. This has kept us in the game even in hard times and we’ve pulled through. In addition to having resources available you also have to know your limits. What can you throw out and what will get you to launch? It’s pretty easy to keep building & building & building and never hit a release because you are still building. Set your limits, make a release, then make improvements.

What has been the best method or tactic for advertising your company?
We’ve had the most success with viral marketing. People use Glue and talk about it in blogs, reviews, articles, etc. and new users find us. Some new users have seen Glue feeds on websites they frequent and signed up with us after discovering how Glue was used when they saw it while browsing. We have also found that listening to our users, gathering their feedback, interacting and communicating with them has really helped us identify with the needs and requests that are the most important. We make changes to our product based on user feedback (we really do!) and the users love us for it. We think that goes a long way.

What’s your prediction for the “future of the web”, what’s the next big thing?
Web 3.0? Haha. Ok, well the next big thing is Glue! Duh.

What are the long-term effects of all the “social networking” products going to be?
Eventually, there will be so many sites, with so many profiles, logins, messages, contacts, etc etc it will force the issue of standardization and consolidation. Users will find a few sites and build trust & loyalty with them and stay there. It will become harder to pull users away from what they are used to. Content will be more mashed up than it already is. Widespread syndication and mashing up of user generated content. Apps will run wild. As we’re starting to see from Open Social, this is going to be huge moving forward.

What advice can you give for new entrepreneurs who are gearing up to produce their big idea?
Research – Do your homework on your idea. Make sure you know your direction, place, and who else you could be up against. And most of all, what sets you apart.

Plan – Know what you need to get there. Understand what you require to reach your goals and make adjustments if necessary.

Act – Make progress. Short wins are still wins. Stay focused and act on your instincts.

What should they watch out for?
Over-complicating things, feature creep, trying to please everyone at once. Stick to the focus of the product and listen to the users, if they want something bad enough you will know about it soon enough.

What should they embrace?
We embrace agile development processes, iteration & user feedback. I think others should too when possible.

What is your favorite book?
MacBook.. and Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut

What is your favorite movie?
Glue Team favorites are: Akira, The Host, The Wilco Documentary “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”, Pi

Who is your favorite musical artist (or What musical artist are you listening to the most right now?)
NIN, The Whore Moans, The Major Cities, Battles, Spoon and Blonde Redhead

The Squad is a creative media design and development company that frequently works in the entertainment and music space. They are the creators of Glue – a simple mobile & web content publishing system, and Merchsquad – a simple solution to ecommerce and order fulfillment. They also recently launched fanWagon with co-creators Clear.