Hi, I'm Michael Puente.

21 years behind the counter

I run a small business too.

I've owned a brick-and-mortar bakery for 21 years. I know the early mornings, the payroll, the slow weeks, and how the website ends up last on the list when there's a store to run.

Over those years I grew the business well beyond where it started. We added wholesale accounts, built a bigger team, and put real work into selling and marketing online. Much of what I'll recommend for your website, I've tried on my own business first.

Trained in why people buy

Psychology and business school.

I hold an MA in social psychology from The Ohio State University, focused on consumer psychology with an emphasis in quantitative methods, and an MBA in marketing and international business, also from Ohio State.

In plain terms, I studied how people choose where to spend their money and how to measure whether a change is working. On a website, that comes down to small decisions: what a customer sees first, how few taps it takes to find your hours or place an order, and checking the numbers 90 days later.

What I've built

I rebuilt my own sites first.

I've been into computers since seventh grade. I've moved websites for several of my own businesses off Squarespace and onto custom-coded HTML. They load faster, look sharper on a phone, and cost less to host, and I can change anything without fighting a template. That's the same work I'll do for you: keep what's good about your current site, rebuild it properly, and hand you every file.

A few other things I've built:

• An AI Dungeon Master. A desktop program that runs a full Dungeons & Dragons adventure from the written storybook. You talk to it out loud, it answers in spoken character voices, and a team of AI helpers works behind the scenes to play every character and monster you meet.
• A dance-music finder. Built for my partner. It shows you one style of house or techno, then another, and narrows things down from your picks until it can name the kind of dance music you like.
• A portal for my band. Our set lists, which cover songs are ready to play and which are still in progress, and a vote on what to learn next.

Why I started this

The plan I had in business school.

When I was getting my MBA, my goal was to consult for small businesses and help them grow. I ended up running one of my own, and I learned the job from the other side of the counter.

Walk-In Website brings me back to that first plan. I love working with owners, and I like seeing a good business get the customers it deserves. I'd rather show you a finished site than pitch you an idea, so I build it before we meet and bring it to your shop.