About Frank Deardurff
About Frank
Hi, I’m Frank Deardurff
You may know me better as That One Web Guy.
I’ve been working online for nearly three decades, and I’ve worn a lot of hats along the way. I’ve built websites, designed graphics, developed online tools, created software, written books, taught business owners, worked behind the scenes on marketing campaigns and solved more technical problems than I could begin to count.
The easiest way to explain what I do is that I like to figure things out. Someone comes to me with a website that isn’t working, an idea they don’t know how to build, or a problem they can’t quite put their finger on, and I enjoy helping them sort through it. Sometimes the answer is technical. Sometimes it’s marketing. Sometimes it’s design. Quite often, it’s all three.
- ~30 yearsbuilding online since the early days of the web
- 10 bookson websites, business and publishing
- Founderof Yurpl, PayBlue, SupportDsk, PushTimer and more
Where did “That One Web Guy” come from?
There’s actually a funny story behind the name.
Back before webinars were a thing, much of the online training world happened through teleseminars. People dialed in by phone, often while connected to the internet through dial-up at the same time. It sounds prehistoric now, but at the time it was cutting edge.
The problem was my last name. Deardurff never came through clearly over the phone. People had trouble hearing it, spelling it and remembering where the two F’s belonged. I needed something simpler.
That took me back to high school, when I wanted to be a singer in a band. That never happened, but I’d already picked the perfect band name: That One Band. Someone would ask who you saw this weekend, you’d say “That One Band,” and it would go around in circles until they realized that IS the name.
Years later, I brought the idea back. That One Band became That One Web Guy, and the conversation went like this:
Exactly. The name stuck, and I’m still using it today.
I’ve always been a builder
My career didn’t begin with websites. I started in art, drafting and technical illustration, which led me deeper into computers. I worked in networking and IT, became a Microsoft Certified Professional and Certified Novell Administrator, and somewhere along the way the internet showed up and changed the direction of just about everything.
I started building websites in the early days of the web and quickly learned that knowing how to build a website wasn’t enough. A site could be technically perfect and still accomplish nothing. It had to communicate clearly, help people find what they needed and lead them toward taking action.
That pulled me into marketing, conversion, search, ecommerce, membership sites, automation, online products and eventually software development. One skill kept leading to another, because there was always another problem to solve.
- Technical Illustration
- IT & Networking
- The Web
- Online Marketing
- AskDatabase
- Author & Trainer
- SaaS & Apps
- Today
Founder story
How AskDatabase became Yurpl
In the early days of Ask Campaigns, responses were being delivered through email. Then one campaign generated so many responses that email just wasn’t the right tool anymore.
My thought was simple: why force all of this through email when the responses could live in a database, where they could be organized, searched and actually used? That solution became AskDatabase.com, which later evolved into Yurpl.
Some of the best products don’t start with someone deciding to launch a software company. They start when somebody says, “There has to be a better way to do this.”
That same thinking carried into payment systems, membership tools, marketing systems and the SaaS applications I’m still building today.
A front-row seat to the internet growing up
Being online this long has given me a front-row seat to an incredible amount of change. I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, coaches and business owners across many industries, supporting projects involving people such as:
Armand Morin · Alex Mandossian · Mark Victor Hansen · Stephen Covey · Brian Tracy · Les Brown · and many others
Some of those projects were highly visible. Others meant solving a problem behind the scenes that nobody outside the project would ever know happened. Both taught me a lot.
Technology has changed dramatically, but the fundamentals haven’t. People still need to understand what you offer. They still need a reason to trust you. And your website still needs to help them take the next step. That’s why I’m always interested in what’s new, but much more interested in whether it actually works.
What I do today
My work still crosses several areas, but they all connect. I help business owners improve their websites, clarify their marketing, create better experiences for their visitors, develop products and turn ideas into working solutions.
I don’t believe every problem requires tearing everything down and starting over. Sometimes a website needs a rebuild, but often it just needs an experienced set of eyes to say, “Here’s what’s working, here’s what isn’t, and here’s what I’d fix first.”
There’s more to life than websites
As much as I enjoy technology, there’s more to me than what happens behind a computer. My faith and family are incredibly important to me, and I’ve always needed a creative outlet.
- Faith
- Family
- Graphic design
- Drawing
- Photography
- Music
- Genealogy
- Woodworking
Most of my projects start with the thought, “I wonder if I could make that.” Some became businesses. Some became books. Some became software. Some probably should have stayed ideas. Either way, I usually learned something.
After all these years, I’m still curious, still learning, still experimenting and still building.
Have something you’re trying to figure out?
Maybe your website isn’t producing the results you expected. Maybe you have an idea you’re trying to turn into something real. Maybe you know something isn’t working, but you’re not sure what needs to change.
You may not need another agency or a complete rebuild. Sometimes you just need someone who’s been doing this long enough to recognize the problem, ask the right questions and help you find the next right step. That’s the kind of conversation I enjoy.