Member Spotlight: Troy Robinson, Lionsrock Web Creative

Troy Robinson is the founder of Lionsrock Web Creative, a company committed to helping business and organization leaders convey their brand's value to industry influencers using collaborative design, engaging media, simple web publishing tools, and target-audience evaluation.

Where and when do you get your best ideas? My best business principles come from ancient writings, like The Proverbs and The Beatitudes, and from entrepreneurial, insightful communities like Hacker News, Product Hunt, Webflow Forums, and 36 Degrees North.

What’s a work tool or ritual that you couldn’t live without? I can't live without my daily bike ride to and from our office. The fresh air increases my appreciation for life. As for tools, my browser tabs are constantly open to Figma interface designer and Facebook (for looking up how to spell people's names).

What skill would you like to master? Aside from growing my coding and design ability, one skill I want to perfect is language translation. I hope to assist remote, native people groups in West Africa in forming their own written languages and in accessing critical works of literature in their heart-tongue.

What advice would you give to someone seeking to launch or grow a business? I would encourage them to be curious, compassionate, and tenacious in conversation. There's always another business problem to solve, but the moments we share are most precious.

What’s a big “win” you experienced in the past year? One recent success of ours was leading the custom website design for one of Tulsa's premier film producers (kkp.film), a project that involved decisions of public relations experts/project managers (Resolute PR, another 36°N company), a web developer, a graphic designer, and business leaders- each with their own technical language and end goals. Within a couple months, we increased our internal communication, found design harmony, and helped provide for ever-growing brand acknowledgement on Google, Facebook, and beyond.

What are you most looking forward to in the year to come? I'm most excited about potentially hiring another Lionsrock web-marketing consultant to learn design and web development evaluation. Like many, I envision that Tulsa will grow through forward-thinking businesses connecting with tech-minded entrepreneurs who listen deep to local needs.

Why 36 Degrees North? I joined 36 Degrees North because of Oral Roberts University professors advising me to plant here, and I've stayed at 36 Degrees because of the encouraging business community, invigorating tech conversation, and determined vision for Tulsa's (my hometown's) growth.

Do you want to give any shoutouts? Thank-you to Dustin for his tenacious 36 vision and to Lauren, Sarah, Jessica, Tom, Jamie, Daniel, Genyce, and Maye, i.e. our 36 staff who give us our family-like and learning-focused atmosphere. Also, I'm exceedingly grateful for the business-faith, insightful industry conversation, and spiritual encouragement provided by Andrew Brister, Grant Burke, Nicole Morgan, Russ Kirkpatrick, Ben Gennetay, Derek Webb, Zack Austin, Malachi Blankenship, Casey Allen, Amy Buchan Siegfried, Sofia Nagda, Harlan Hutson, Mat Zalk, Beth Macias, Josh Friesenhahn, Nathan and Justin Pickard, Jon Grogan, Maria Grimm, Cindy Hutchins, Greg, Josh, and Luke of Mozilla, my North Tulsa housemates and neighbors, my BC/Collective church family, my brothers and fellow designers Michael and Daniel, Baylor and ORU professors including Bruno, Dr. Schneider, Dr. Weeks, and many others. Also, special thanks to my programmer dad Tim and artist aunt Kacy who inspired in me towards web technologies and design far before apps were cool.