Harris Web Works recently moved to Woodbridge from New Haven. The company of five moved from the New Haven coworking space Agora (formerly The Grove) to 245 Amity in March.
Harris Web Works focuses on building ecommerce systems for businesses, particularly business to business ecommerce. The company is a certified agency partner in Magento, an ecommerce platform owned by Adobe.
“We’ve had steady growth since 2012 because of the lessons I’ve learned over the years. I’m a more cautious business owner and I’m better at planning and I’ve narrowed our focus,” says owner Matt Harris.
Harris’s business career had a rocky beginning. He started his first business as a consultant in New York City and after the dot-com bubble burst and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks he and his wife left the city and moved back home to the Midwest. There, he found a job with a company that went bankrupt but one of its clients told him that if he struck out on his own they would follow him. When he and his family decided to move back to the East Coast he came with two clients, he ended up losing both – one went bankrupt and other gave up on eCommerce.
He chose New Haven from a MetroNorth map – he wanted to be close, but not too close, to New York City. In New Haven he started working from his home, and in 2012 his business was strong enough to rent office space at The Grove in New Haven. As the business grew he hired more employees. Eventually Harris Web Works was one of the largest business at the downtown coworking space. “We love Agora and downtown, but it started to seem like, as a business, we were ready to have our own space,” he said.
Harris had recently moved to Woodbridge (the strong school system played a big role in the decision) and realized the town was an ideal location: Proximity to Route 15 lets him and his staff easily access clients across the state. “We also have many clients in the Valley so to get there quickly is great,” Harris says.
For more information, visit harriswebworks.com