Our Story — Northforge

It started with Evan watching a friend pay $12,000 for a website that took eight months to launch — and didn't even work properly on a phone. The agency had a beautiful pitch deck. They had account managers. They had quarterly business reviews. What they didn't have was a finished website.

Around the same time, another local business owner showed us a site they'd paid a freelancer $400 for. The freelancer had vanished a week after launch. The contact form didn't send emails. Nobody knew the password.

Both extremes had the same problem: nobody actually cared what happened after the site went live.

We knew we could do better. Modern tools meant we could build faster than agencies without cutting corners. Staying small meant our clients always knew who to call. And treating every site as a long-term partnership — not a one-and-done invoice — meant we'd actually stick around.

That's the whole pitch. Custom websites, built fast, operated forever. Made by humans who give a damn about your business succeeding.

Three principles we won't break.

/ 01

A website is the start of the relationship, not the end.

Launch day is exciting, but it's day one — not the finish line. Your business changes. Your customers change. Your site needs to keep up. We stay involved because that's when the real work begins.

/ 02

You should always own what you paid for.

No proprietary platforms holding you hostage. No surprise fees to access your own files. If you ever want to walk away, we hand off everything cleanly — code, content, accounts, documentation. That's how trust works.

/ 03

Speed and quality aren't a tradeoff anymore.

Modern tooling changed what's possible. We can ship a custom-designed, properly-coded site in two weeks because we use the right tools — not because we cut corners. Anyone telling you it has to take six months is selling you their overhead.

A small team, on purpose.

Founder + Strategy

Evan Crane

An entrepreneurship student and former student-athlete at Florida Gulf Coast University, Evan founded Northforge to help local Southwest Florida businesses get the kind of clean, professional websites that usually only big companies can afford. He handles strategy, design direction, and client relationships — keeping every project grounded in real business goals.

Engineering + Build Lead

Zakil Gallant

A Computer Science student at Florida Atlantic University, Zakil leads the build side of every project — turning designs into fast, reliable, well-coded websites. He's driven by a simple goal: use his skills to make a real impact on the businesses and communities here in Southwest Florida.

Built because we were tired of the alternatives.

Why this exists.

Three principles we won't break.

A small team, on purpose.

Sound like your kind of partner?