By David Halevi
Most web users may not realize it, but the chances are very good that the attractive web display ad they saw today was made by an Israeli web designer.
That's a pretty neat trick, considering the countless ads and banners out in cyberspace. Israeli design on the Internet has spread so widely because Google is ferrying its manifold customers to the
DesignPax website for reasonably priced, quickly executed and top-quality ads.
That deal with Google is just one of the unique aspects of this young American-Israeli online design site. DesignPax co-founder and CEO Ayal Ebert describes his company as “a self-serve design shop for websites, banners, Facebook fan pages -- even videos.”
Customers submit their work to DesignPax, get a price quote with no add-ons or “extras,” and are guaranteed turnaround within 72 hours. The customer gets up to three free revisions, no questions asked. “The DesignPax system takes the mystery out of web design, and puts the customer in control of the process,” says Ebert.
“Previously you would search for a freelance designer on a site like Craigslist, and make a deal based on what they presented as their credentials. But freelancers often have a number of jobs to juggle, so you often find yourself waiting long beyond your deadline for the work to be done,” says Ebert. Then there are cost overruns, extra fees for revisions and myriad other potential pitfalls.
“With us, the process as well as the results are guaranteed,” says Ebert. DesignPax designers can concentrate on what they do best and leave the business side of things to Ebert and his partner and co-founder, Guy Falkovitch. Both men grew up in Jerusalem.
It’s all done in Israel
DesignPax has Jerusalem and New York offices, and most of its customers are in the United States. But when the partners started the company in 2009, they determined to have all the design work done in Israel.
After checking out the competition, they found that they couldn't get better work or a better deal anywhere else. “We examined the possibility of outsourcing the work to other English-speaking countries, like India, but we found that they couldn't communicate effectively with customers,” relates Ebert. “Only in Israel do you have the combination of an affordable Westernized workforce that can relate to North American customers.”
DesignPax has about a dozen full-time designers working in Israel, and a similar number of part-timers. But thanks to the Google deal, the need for personnel is growing by leaps and bounds, and the company is in the midst of a recruiting drive.
DesignPax “started out with banners, and when that was successful we moved into other areas. Now we're really a full-service online design studio,” says Ebert. The company -- which Ebert says has been profitable since day one -- was started with money Ebert and Falkovitch poured into it, and they haven't sought money from investors until now.
“We decided recently to solicit some investment money to expand into some projects we would like to initiate,” says Ebert. “We are about to close a round of funding that will let us bring some great new projects online. DesignPax is a very exciting concept in web services, and our new products will be even more exciting.”