About Elementive

How We Came to Be

We (Matthew Edgar and Andrea Streff) formed Elementive in late 2014 after working together for over four years in a client/consultant relationship. We were both ready to make a change in our careers and after working together for so long we knew that we could build a new business we would both be proud of – Elementive.

There are a few questions we get asked more than any other: how did you the two of you meet, how/why did you decide to go into business together and then there is a third unspoken question of are you married? We want to answer all of those for you! Let’s start with the last one, no we are not married – at least not to each other. We are good friends and steadfast business partners who care equally about the work we do and the lives we each live outside of Elementive.

We met in early 2010 when Matthew was the lead web development consultant for a non-profit organization called Qualistar Colorado and Andrea was hired as the Marketing Director. We were both thrown head first into a complex website redevelopment project that took nearly 10 months to complete. The project was not just a simple reskinning of the website, but had a complex eCommerce system, community calendar, job board and integrations for advanced search functionality, registration forms and so much more.

Through this monstrous project, we quickly learned a lot about each other; how we work, how we handle stress and the standards of work we hold ourselves and others to. For many, this could have proven to be a major failure point, but for us, we formed a resilient client/consultant relationship which led us to achieve and complete several amazing projects. In our time working together, we developed a highly sophisticated Child Care Search that was licensed and resold to several other states, developed complex online application systems, training platforms and took a relatively small website that received 2,000 visits a month to a growing website that received 12,000 visits a month.

In early 2014, we both arrived at a point in our careers where we were looking for a change. We had both started to explore different opportunities. Matthew had started a SaaS company the year before and was also completing his Master's degree. Around the same time, Andrea had started to apply for new jobs in the marketing field. Then one day after Andrea asked Matthew if he could be a business reference for her, it struck Matthew that maybe we were both looking in the wrong place for what was next in our careers.

Matthew took a leap of faith and reached out to Andrea to see if she would consider going into business together. Without much hesitation, Andrea thought it sounded like a great idea! Then, we started the process of really figuring out what we would do and if we could really go into business together. For months, we met early in the morning before work and late at night developing our business plan and by November 2014, we were ready to get started. Andrea resigned her position as Vice President of Development and Marketing at Qualistar and Matthew began notifying his existing clients of the coming change. In January 2015, Elementive completed work for our first client.

Our individual skillsets, education, training, and career paths are quite different, but very complimentary. The merger of our individual expertise and strengths is what makes Elementive unique and a strong partner to our clients. We blend our deep technical expertise with strong analytics skills and marketing know-how to deliver meaningful results for our clients. Together, we have over 40 years of combined experience in web development, marketing, and analytics.

Since we started in 2014, we have also relied on the expertise of other professionals to support our client's individual needs. We have worked with sub-contractors who specialize in design, development, advertising, and content. We have built long-standing relationships with our sub-contractors and consider them part of our team and success.

We hope this introduction to who we are, what we do and how we came to be encourages you to connect with us. We would enjoy the opportunity to meet you and explore opportunities to work together. You can learn more about each of us below and contact us to learn even more. We look forward to hearing from you.