We’re diving into a conversation we honestly don’t hear enough about.
We’re bringing one of our agency partners, Lindsay — the founder of Made to Thrive — onto the pod. She runs a custom development agency building fully custom-coded websites on platforms like Shopify and WordPress for brands, influencers, and growing businesses.
We had the opportunity to collaborate with her on a client project recently, and it opened up such an important conversation — because there’s a big difference between custom-designed and custom-developed websites.
And if you’re scaling… if you’re feeling friction on your website… if your website feels a little “held together” instead of built to grow with you… This episode is going to click.
Today we’re breaking down:
- What “custom developed” actually means
- When templates and front-end design are enough
- And the real signs it might be time to invest in something fully custom
Because sometimes it’s not that your website is broken…
It’s that it was never built for the level you’re at now.
Custom Design vs. Custom Developed
When someone builds a custom home, they need an architect. You can’t have a home builder building without the architect, without the plan.
Your web designer is the architect. They’re going to mock up a proof of exactly how the whole site will look, including the navigation and all the elements.
But at the end of the day, it’s just a picture. You need the builder to come in and actually build the house.
So Lindsay and her team are the builders and the construction crew that comes in. They have the full working model, where every piece is already decided and beautifully laid out.
But it goes one step further than that. What if you have a brand new custom house? You don’t call your architect—you call your builder. They’re the support that you need as you’re fixing things.
That’s how it works with Lindsay’s clients. As a tech team, they help with the daily ins and outs, maintenance, and support questions.
Who should and who should NOT invest in custom development yet?
Lindsay often tells inquiries that they don’t need custom development or don’t need it yet, because it is for a specific type of business and a specific place in your business. A lot of times, a template is the right place to start to figure out where you’re going and what you need.
It’s very rare for Lindsay to tell someone with a brand-new business that they need a custom-developed website. It’s not going to be the right place to invest your money from the start.
When a template or lower-end website stops working for you—outgrows it, or can’t do what you need it to do—that’s when you should consider something custom.
Have You Outgrown Your Current Website?
Many of Lindsay’s clients will realize they’re quickly outgrowing the capabilities of Squarespace or Showit. Her team primarily works in WordPress because its custom design capabilities are limitless.
WordPress is great at indexing so much content. You can have as much content as you want, and it’s organized and cleaned up on the backend.
Her team is taking something really complex from a strategy and development perspective, and they’re making it easy for clients and users.
Other platforms aren’t meant for these types of capabilities. WordPress is meant for high-content sites.
For anybody with a really complex content structure, there is nowhere else to be except WordPress (unless you’re e-commerce, but that’s a whole different conversation!).
Is AI Changing Development?
Lindsay’s team first began discussing AI in 2021 and decided how they would approach it. They quickly realized that in this industry, if you don’t adapt to using it for your good, you’re going to die.
Your business has to adapt because AI is not going anywhere, whether we love it or hate it.
Her team took the approach that the Duo team does: how can AI make our lives better?
Example: When they’re on line 2,032 of code and forgot to put a semicolon, their entire theme breaks. While coding on a pre-development site, they had to manually find that break. Now, AI can help them flag mistakes and quality-check their work.
AI speeds up all their processes across the entire project, from the admin side through to post-launch checks. When they’re checking for website speed or errors, AI can quickly scan, diagnose, and fix what’s wrong in a way that they never used to be able to.
To Lindsay and her team, AI is NOT a shortcut. They aren’t custom-coding sites in a day or replacing team members. They’ve been able to use it as a tool, but it hasn’t even come close to what a human eye can do. It doesn’t see or think through these really technical items that you have to lean on experience to solve.
Are You Ready for a Custom-Developed Website?
A custom-developed website isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a content creator or influencer, it might be the best option for you.
Our website currently lives on Showit, but who knows? Maybe someday we’ll hire Lindsay and her team to build a custom WordPress site for us. But for now, we’ll keep referring our clients to them for custom-coded websites.
Connect with her team if you need a custom website!
FAQs About Custom-Developed Websites
Template websites use pre-designed layouts with limited flexibility, while custom websites are fully tailored to your needs. This means better branding, improved SEO structure, faster performance, and the ability to add unique features as your business grows.
If you’ve already experimented with templates and other website builders and you haven’t found the capabilities you need, yes. A custom website would be worth the investment to adequately grow your business.
Most custom websites take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks, depending on the size, complexity, and features required. Timelines can vary based on content readiness and feedback during the process.
Yes! Custom websites are built with SEO in mind from the start. This includes optimized site structure, clean code, fast load speeds, and the ability to strategically target keywords.
More About Lindsay
At Made to Thrive, we build custom-developed WordPress websites for content creators and brands who want more from their online presence. From influencers growing partnerships to food bloggers scaling traffic to brands expanding their digital reach, our sites support where you are now and what comes next.
Our all-female development team specializes in fully custom WordPress theme development using the native Gutenberg editor. This allows us to create sites that feel intentional, elevated, and polished while staying flexible and easy to manage as content evolves.
Everything is built thoughtfully, with performance, SEO, and long-term scalability considered from the start.
Listen to Our Convo With Lindsay!
Apple Podcasts | Spotify
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts with over 20+ years of combined experience working with big brands. They are educators and co-founders of Duo Collective; a boutique organic marketing agency specializing in SEO, branding, and custom websites for women-led small businesses and creative entrepreneurs.
Ready to grow your visibility and become unforgettable?
Learn more or work with our team here.
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