Most designers can't tell you what it feels like to stand on an Olympic podium. Shaun can. He won gold with the New Zealand men's eight rowing at the Tokyo Olympics, and then, at 29, walked away from the sport that had shaped his life since he was 14.
Four and a half years on, Shaun runs SK Digital, has built over 110 websites and has just picked up his first Rocketspark Gold Design Award for Glassbox, a full rebrand and website for a Hamilton software company that's taking on the world. That's why we sat down with him for this Designer Debrief.
This one's a bit different to our usual debriefs. Before we get into the build story, we wanted to dig into the rowing years, because a lot of how Shaun runs his business traces back to that time.
Fifteen years of hard graft
"My rowing journey was a massive part of my life," Shaun says. "From when I was 14 or 15, all I did was row until I was 29. Fifteen years of hard graft. A lot of great moments, but mostly failure."
That's not false modesty. Elite sport is built on failure, and Shaun credits it with almost everything he's learned about running a business. But first he had to get through the hardest part: stopping.
"The shift was really hard. You're known as an elite athlete, and every cell of your body identifies as one. Then one day passed and I wasn't that anymore. The whiplash you get from changing paths is pretty destabilising."
His answer was to pour himself into something new. While still rowing, Shaun had taken on part-time work with a design studio around the corner in Cambridge. Physical work was off the table, since every ounce of energy belonged to the team, so websites made sense. "I can do websites, I can learn about SEO, I can learn digital marketing. That's all on a laptop. I can do that in between trainings."
The studio work introduced him to Rocketspark, based in the same town, and to a community of people who got him excited about the industry. When rowing finished, he started SK Digital.
The Olympic mindset, copied and pasted
Shaun's answer to what carries over from sport to business came fast.
"To be really successful in sport, it's all about doing the boring stuff exceptionally. All the unglamorous work, day in and day out, holding yourself to a high standard when no one's watching. That's what makes a really good athlete, and it's what makes a really good business owner. I literally copied and pasted the way I operated in the Olympic team into how I operate in business."
The team mentality came with him too. Shaun points out he was never the strongest athlete in that Tokyo eight. "What I hung my hat on is that I was the guy who wanted to champion the crewmates around me. My goal was to be the glue of the crew, to hype people up and make them believe in themselves. That's the role I've stepped into in business. My clients are my teammates, and I tell them that. If they succeed, I succeed."
He handles pressure the way he did on race day. "The way I thought about the Olympic final, knowing all of New Zealand was watching, was: the work's been done, I just have to follow the process and execute. That same approach works in business. When a high pressure moment happens, you fall back on your process and focus on doing all the boring steps exceptionally well."
It hasn't all translated cleanly. Applying a four-year Olympic cycle to a business with no finish line saw him flirt with burnout, and goal setting is still a work in progress. "Sometimes I'm a dog chasing cars. I don't know what I'd do if I actually caught one." One goal was easy to pick, though: 100 websites and Platinum Partner status with Rocketspark. Done.
Imposter syndrome hasn't skipped him either. "Honestly, every day. But the more evidence you stack up, the less of an issue it becomes. And I felt the same thing sitting at the start line of the Olympic final. It's normal."
Enter Glassbox
Glassbox is the kind of client Shaun loves. The team is spread across Hamilton and Palmerston North, builds the software behind self-service fuel pumps, works with giants like Costco and has grown on the strength of the product alone.
There was one problem. "They'd grown despite having a home-built, crappy website," Shaun laughs. "They'd be at these big international conventions, people amazed by their software, and then someone would ask, what's your website? And they had this horrific one-page site designed in-house by their developers. It didn't even have an SSL certificate. That's when they realised, we're exposed. This thing is holding us back."
The project came through Simon at Waitomo Fuels, someone Shaun knows through rowing, and the pitch put SK Digital up against big-name Hamilton agencies. "I was like, SK Digital is in the same conversation as this massive agency with all this headcount? I was nervous. But what I've come away learning is that some of those big agencies are really good, and other times they're just a big team trying to align themselves. If I was talking to a younger version of myself, I'd say: back yourself. The people you're up against aren't as good as you think."
The build
Glassbox handed over the keys to the castle: a complete rebrand and a brand new website, due before a major trade show in Las Vegas in October.
For the rebrand, Shaun brought in Jane Byrne, one of the designers he partners with from the Rocketspark community. "The only instruction I gave her was, let's pay homage to the existing branding and elevate it. She's a genius. She came up with such a powerful, simple brand. We presented three versions and recommended the first because it was bold, simple and timeless. They said, yep, first one. We love it. That's us. No edits."
That brand guided the rest of the build. Photography could have been the sticking point, but the team were up for it. A professional photographer shot the crew in their workshop and office, then on site at one of the fuel stations running their software. "A lot of software companies hide behind their software. People want to see the people behind a business. It's a trust thing."
The site puts plain language up front and technical detail deeper in. "The home page is easily understood. The further you go into the website, the more technical it gets, because there are engineers who need to understand the capabilities of the software. Glassbox were really happy with how we thought through how a user would actually interact with it."
From first enquiry to live site took about three months, delivered well ahead of the Vegas deadline. Decisions were fast because Shaun dealt directly with the directors. "Really quick decision making, which I appreciated a lot. Honestly, this was one of those projects where everything went really well. Dream client."
What the Gold Design Award meant
When the Glassbox site won a Rocketspark Gold Design Award, Shaun's first move was to shoot an off-the-cuff video the moment he saw the announcement. "We were stoked. Absolutely stoked."
“I was really proud to win a Gold Design Award, especially because I'm not a designer by background. My competitive streak just wanted to tick that box." True to form, he won't take all the credit. "I had help from an amazing designer (thanks, Jane) for the actual design of the website, so I can't take full credit there. But it's one I put a lot of work into the strategy behind, how we wanted it to appear and come across. Glassbox is a company taking on the world, and I really wanted them to have something they were truly proud of."
Award or not, Shaun holds every project to the same standard. "A gold standard website is doing all the fundamentals exceptionally well. Strategy behind it, design that's intuitive across every device, copy tailored to the actual audience, professional photography, reducing friction so it's easy to get in touch. Each box on its own doesn't make a massive difference. It's when you combine them all, and you've got a client who trusts your process, that you get the opportunity to produce a gold standard website. I view quite a few websites in the SK Digital portfolio as gold standard, even though they haven't won awards. A gold standard website is exactly what the client needs, helps their business grow and is something they're truly proud of."
The result
"Every piece of clothing the team wears now has the new logo. Every piece of marketing collateral has the website on it. They're showing it loud and proud. This business was growing, and now they're growing faster."
The result Shaun talked about most was what the new site did to the team behind it. "When you take a website from quite average to really good, you can't underestimate the effect it has on a team. They see their website and go, far out, that's us. That has a team culture effect, and it's reflected in their performance. You don't even think about that as an outcome of upgrading your website."
And what's he most proud of? Classic Shaun: "How it all came together. It felt like a proper team effort, where everyone was aligned and everyone trusted each other to do a really good job. It comes back to my rowing days. What I was really good at was being the glue, and I felt like I lived up to that with this project."
Shaun's tips for other designers
Do the boring stuff exceptionally well. The fundamentals, done to a high standard every time, are what separate good websites from gold standard ones.
Back yourself. The big agencies you're up against aren't always as good as you think. Trust your instinct and your evidence.
A website is never set and forget. "It's a live online CV, brochure and credibility signal that needs to be continuously updated. Keep showing the projects, the reviews, the case studies, and you'll beat the competition."
Own your mistakes fast. "You will have times where you underperform. Take accountability immediately, work with the client and set it right straight away. Then take the feedback without emotion. It cuts down your learning cycle."
See the work
Check out the finished site at glassbox.co.nz, and see more of Shaun's work at skdigital.co.nz.
If you're building something on Rocketspark that you're proud of, we'd love to hear about it. You might be our next Designer debrief.
