With low barriers to entry, digital marketing is an attractive entrepreneurial prospect, but changing digital landscapes and high competition make it a notoriously difficult industry to succeed in over the long term. Lancaster’s own WebTek—a full-service website and digital marketing agency serving hundreds of businesses within and beyond the county—has managed to eclipse the status quo.
“When I started in 2000, it was just me,” said Kornel Kurtz, CEO and founder of WebTek. Kurtz started the company on a part-time basis but went full-time by 2005. Within months of going all in, he hired his first employee, then soon another. “Today we have 20 employees. I started as a generalist wearing all the hats, now the 20 employees are all uniquely specialized in specific roles,” said Kurtz.
This year, WebTek celebrated its 25th anniversary and is officially a second-generation family business. Kurtz’ two oldest children, Clayton Kurtz and Alexa Fisher, started at the company right after high school and, according to their father, truly excelled from the start. “Ten years later, they are both rock stars in their own right,” he said. “I personally have stepped way back and simply provide mentorship and leadership to the team as a whole.”
Fisher and Clayton Kurtz wrote in a joint social media post: “WebTek was more than just a business. It was part of our home. Part of our childhood. Part of the way we learned what hard work, integrity and commitment really look like. Now, we get to be part of the story.”
Some of WebTek’s web design and digital marketing clients include Smucker Innovations, True Point Realty, Quakertown Christian School, Eby Exteriors and Wallace Township.
While Kurtz initially grew the company in his family’s small brick starter home, WebTek now has offices in downtown Lancaster and Akron as well as a small satellite office in Sarasota, Fla. “It’s much harder to land jobs down there so our efforts remain here in Lancaster and will continue to be,” he said. “I never considered leaving Lancaster because this area is ripe for small business and I love Lancaster County. At this point we are so rooted in Lancaster with over 700 local clients, it would be almost impossible to up and leave.”
With artificial intelligence overtaking the digital ecosystem, Kurtz and his company are knee-deep in leveraging emerging technology to do their jobs better and create more value for their clients. With an approximately 90-percent client retention rate, their willingness to adapt has proven fruitful for the brand, its employees and the companies they work with.
“To continue pursuing my dream, I had to quit my full-time job of 15 years [with a] stable income and good benefits to venture into the unknown with a leap of faith,” said Kurtz about his initial foray into pursuing WebTek full time. That move, it seems, was the right one.
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