What is your least favorite thing about dealing with technology, especially websites? I’ve had a number of commercial websites over the years, and the boogeyman has always been the same: the fact that the entire process is completely user-unfriendly.
Even today, creating a website of decent quality that is sufficiently robust for commercial purposes is beyond the capabilities of most non-techies; and, even today, having a website done professionally takes a lot of time and a non-trivial upfront cost, anywhere from $5,000 on up to tens of thousands.
But, the real fun starts after that. Once your new website is up, get ready to have all kinds of fun navigating the labyrinthine back end of the website to make simple changes, and forget about making any real changes to your sites layout unless you want to pay an astronomical hourly rate to have it done for you.
Meet Joshua Toenyes and Jessica Baldwin, the young entrepreneurs who have found a solution to the problems endemic to business-to-customer technology. A military veteran and a mother of two, respectively, they have managed to achieve the long-elusive trifecta in web design: fast, good, and affordable.
Toenyes and Baldwin provide what has long been the holy grail for web managers: Front End Editing. You can edit your website in real-time, changing almost anything yourself in a simple and intuitive user interface. Cardsetter is designed to provide that. This is what I and many others have been looking for for decades, and as soon as I meet Josh and Jessica, I had to know what made them tick.
Joshua Toenyes grew up in Billings and went to West High School. When he turned eighteen, he enlisted in the Navy and served on the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill as an Electronics Technician. At one point, seeing potential, a division officer asked him “What are you doing with your life? You need to get your act together. Go to college and become an officer.” Josh took his officer’s advice to heart, but didn’t see a long-term career for himself in the Navy. He enrolled in college from the ship, and studied almost full-time during his last four years in the service, earning his Associate’s Degree. Once he finished and was discharged from the military, Josh went to UC San Diego and earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, simultaneously working full-time as a software consultant. After graduating, most of the people he knew from school were going to the Bay Area to work for big tech companies, but Josh knew that wasn’t for him: he wanted to start his own company instead. He moved back to Billings and started working at WebGrain in 2015. Shortly thereafter, he met Jessica Baldwin, who also worked for the company, and together they came up with their idea, leaving WebGrain in 2016 to incorporate CardSetter.
Jessica Baldwin was born and raised on a farm and ranch in Baker, MT. She has a long family history of small business and entrepreneurship: her parents were independent business people, and her grandparents owned a drive-in theater, where she worked growing up. Jessica says she always felt like she was meant to own business; from a young age, “Everyone in my family always had their now thing going on.” After graduating high school, Jessica went to MSU Bozeman and got a Business degree with a marketing option. Immediately after graduating, she got engaged and moved to Billings, where she started working at an ad agency. As part of her job, she attended an SEO conference in San Jose and started getting into digital marketing. Jessica spent six years in the marketing department at MetraPark; there, she helped transform their digital marketing system from retail emails to professional software and social media.
At the same time, Jessica started a side hustle most Magic City natives have at least heard of: Billings 365, a local event calendar and business director. Montana attracts a lot of tourists, but people from out of town often struggle to connect with the true local culture. “Locals always knew instinctively what there was to do, but there wasn’t a comprehensive source for anyone else. Visitors needed info on hiking trails, local restaurants, and local stores that aren’t the mall.” The endeavor taught her a lot about sales, building an audience, and what it takes to really generate revenue for a business. While running Billings 365, Jessica went to work for WebGrain.
Her experience with Billings 365 and Webgrain were what inspired her to start Cardsetter. “WordPress sites were to restrictive for a non-technical administrator. What Billings 365 needed, I believed other businesses needed also.”
Josh and Jessica worked well together at WebGrain, and his technical expertise combined with her digital marketing savvy made them the perfect entrepreneurial team. After incorporating and laying the groundwork, they went through Early Stage MT’s intensive weeklong hyperaccelerator for Montana entrepreneurs, which helped them refine their vision and pitch. They raised a seed round of funding led by Frontier Angels, which enabled them to both come on full-time and get the company off the ground. Leveraging Josh’s Computer Science background, the duo developed their own proprietary website technology, designing it to be powerful and able to handle large amounts of content.
They have already found success. As of June 2021, hard setter has over 200 paying monthly customers, and their growth is beginning to become exponential. People liked CardSetter’s value proposition: “An easy-to-use website platform with design and set-up included. Customers don’t have to go through the difficult hurdle of designing and building a website themselves.”
Most of Cardetter’s customers are small business owners looking for an easy way to manage their website. They lack the time and technical expertise to manage a traditional site for themselves, and the money to outsource everything and do it properly. CardSetter disrupts the traditional website business model, allowing cash-strapped new businesses to get a great and serviceable website at a reasonable rate. How reasonable? New clients can have a website up and running in about a month for a one-time $199 setup fee. Thereafter, clients pay a modest monthly fee of as little as $49, to $129 for realtors, to $199 for full commercial clients. Jessica says “CardSetter is great for solo-preneurs. It allows you to test your idea with minimal cost and have expertise on your own website.”
Unlike other do-it-yourself platforms, CardSetter is there to help its clients when they need it. Their hybrid model fills the gap between going it alone and using expensive ad agencies.
Joshua Toenyes and Jessica Baldwin credit the local community with getting them off the ground. “We have found Billings and Montana to be a favorable place to start our business. Frontier Angels and Early Stage MT helped us gain a deeper understanding of investment capital and connected us to a network of truly dedicated mentors. While we serve customers all over the United States, we truly enjoy serving our hometown customers, which is a large fraction of our business.”
I always ask interviewees about their favorite things in Billings, often receiving unique answers. Josh was no exception: his favorite part of Billings is the Shiloh Conservation Area, and he likes eating at The Divide restaurant. Even though Jessica grew up in Baker and moved to Missoula in 2019 with her husband and two daughters, she came to love many things about Billings during her time here. Her favorites: the brewery scene. Swords Park. The Coffee Shops. And, most of all, the people.
