Shawn Johnston

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT SHAWN JOHNSTON

Most agencies don’t struggle because they can’t design or code.They struggle because their systems can’t keep up with the work.I learned that the hard way. For 14 years at Forge and Smith, my team and I built more than 600 WordPress sites: beautiful ones, won awards, did everything “right.” But behind the scenes? We were drowning in the same problems everyone else faces: developer bottlenecks, rigid themes, slow hand-offs, ballooning timelines, and clients who needed changes yesterday. Eventually I hit the point where duct tape workflows and heroic dev pushes weren’t going to save us. We didn’t need more talent. We needed better systems.So we built one.Refoundry started as an internal experiment: Could we remove the repetitive, manual parts of web production without sacrificing creativity, performance, or control?Turns out the answer was yes—if you combine the best of Gutenberg, low-code principles, and component-based design into one flexible, themeless system.Today, Refoundry helps digital teams build and evolve WordPress sites up to 70% faster, with fewer bottlenecks, less tech debt, and a lot more creative freedom. Designers can move. Strategists can contribute. Developers can finally focus on the hard stuff instead of heading-tag housekeeping.As a neurodivergent founder, I care a lot about clarity, accessibility, and removing chaos from the work. Websites should be fast, scalable, accessible out of the box, and easy for teams to own, not something only one person on the team feels “safe” touching.If you’re an agency owner or technical lead trying to reclaim your margins, empower your team, and get out of production purgatory, we’re probably solving the same problems you’re tired of talking about.Always happy to compare notes on low-code, systems thinking, accessibility, or the future of building on WordPress. Let’s connect.