It was 2AM in the morning in Canada and Maria had just called Noah to tell him that her travel visa to Canada had been rejected. We had hoped to get married in Canada so that we could speedup the immigration process, but the Canadian visa rules for Ukrainians was particularly strict. They wanted Maria to own property in Ukraine to ensure that she would return and for her to have an extensive travel record for her to be allowed to come to Canada, even for just a few days.
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With Maria’s visa denied, we began planning for our wedding in Ukraine. We had finished the marriage school and were officially approved. Our date was set for January 18th, 2020. After being separated for several months, Noah flew back to Ukraine and we had an incredible wedding.
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From there, we flew to Barcelona and the Canary Islands in Spain for our honeymoon.
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Afterward, we began the next journey of filling out a million forms of paperwork to apply for Maria’s residency in Canada. We knew that being apart for several more months would be challenging, but we were willing to do whatever it took to make our relationship work. At the start of February, Noah flew back to Canada to return to his job with the provincial government.
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Shortly after, Maria left her design job so that she could focus on growing her skills and planned to go to the Netherlands to visit her mom in March who was working there. Since Noah needed Maria’s signatures on immigration paperwork, it was the perfect excuse for him to meet with her there. So, Noah purchased a flight, and met with Maria in Amsterdam.
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And that’s when all hell broke lose, AKA, the global lockdown. With covid spreading, Canada recalled its citizens to the country and Ukraine closed its borders. Now Maria and her mom were stuck in the Netherlands and Noah had to return to Canada. It was a chaotic and unpredictable situation, and all that we could do was wait...

Back in Canada, Noah submitted our immigration paperwork and we made time to talk via video calls each day. Maria would end up stranded in the Netherlands for three months with her mom until Ukraine reopened their border, but she was able to put this time to good use developing her design skills.
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In October, Noah booked time off from work to travel back to Ukraine to see Maria. We still had not heard anything from Canadian immigration.
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NOTHING, not even a receipt that they had received our paperwork.
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When we were married, we had hoped that by this time we would already be together. Instead, we were still at step 0 with the Canadian government. Had they lost our paperwork or would we have to wait for years for her to be approved to come? We didn’t know.
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Finally, after Noah’s trip to Ukraine in the fall, we received an email from Canadian immigration stating that they had received our package and would begin working on it. However, months continued to pass, and we continued to wait.
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We missed spending Christmas together, and then our first wedding anniversary. Finally, we received another email from Canadian immigration saying that our papers would be delayed due to covid and that they could no longer provide any timeline on how long it would take.
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Seriously?
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We had been married for over a year and they could give us “no timeline” on how long we would have to wait until her visa was approved? Maria had met a woman in Ukraine who had sent in her Canadian immigration paperwork before us, and she was also still waiting. To top everything off, Canada had just announced that any Canadian entering the country would be fined $2000 as an incentive to not travel. So now Noah would be fined just to go and see Maria! It was insane. The situation was crazy and so we decided that we needed to regain control of our lives and do what it took to be together.
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Our plan?
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Bolinder Design.

Can you imagine being separated from your spouse directly after your wedding for over a year without any idea of when you would be allowed to be together? You didn’t get to spend any holidays of anniversaries together and if you decided that you wanted to see each other, you had to pay a $2000 tax just to come back to your country, not to mention the loss of work due to having to quarantine for two weeks. Well, that was us.
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Both of us talked about our situation and it was getting ridiculous. We decided that rather than waiting for the government’s approval to let us be together, we would just make it happen. Our solution was to open our own business and run it together (literally being together) while we country hopped until they let Maria come to Canada.
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So, what would be our business? Well, Maria’s passion was web and graphic design, and Noah’s passion was strategy, so we decided to open a company that would produce beautiful, strategic websites that would not only looks amazing but get people results, and it would be called Bolinder Design. No took a period of leave from his job and returned to Ukraine.
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Since we both loved coffee and it had been a significant in our relationship, we decided that we would incorporate coffee as theme in our business. Just as a cup of coffee brings joy, we would aim to build websites that bring joy, and our services would be named after different cups of coffee.
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We spent some time in Ukraine and then travelled to Tbilisi Georgia for the summer. Being together traveling to new places and doing work that we loved that brought joy to our clients was an amazing experience. Just as we were planning to move to the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, the Canadian government contacted us with news that Maria’s visa was going to be approved.
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It had been a year and a half, but better late then never. We flew back to Ukraine to get her visa so that Maria could finally come to Canada!

Once we finished our mandatory quarantine in Canada, Noah took Maria on a road trip around his home province of British Columbia to show her the sights. Maria was overwhelmed by the natural beauty and took looks of videos. You can see some clips of our road trip here: ( ). Of course, Noah took Maria to the lighthouse by his house that she had showed him on their first date. 
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However, despite Canada’s beauty, we could see that the political atmosphere was deteriorating with the government taking away more and more of people’s freedoms. We certainly didn’t have to stay in Canada. Now that we had our business, we could work from anywhere, and both of us enjoyed traveling to new places and focusing on the things we loved. Noah decided to hand in his resignation so that he could continue focusing on our business and after two months in Canada, we were off globetrotting again. 
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So that’s the story of how we found each other in the world, fell in love, and found a way to stay together. Bolinder Design began as way to keep us together, and now it’s more than that. Bolinder Design is not only a way for us to stay together, but it’s a way we help people all around the world build stunning, minimalistic websites that get them results so that they can grow their businesses, increase their influence, and achieve their dreams so that they can have a greater positive impact in the world.
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And our story continues. Currently we are in Turkey, traveling and ensuring that Bolinder Design builds websites that are like a good cup of coffee, the kind that brings joy to others and makes the world a better place. (Now you know the backstory to why our business is coffee themed). If you would like to join us in our story, we would love to talk with you about how we can partner with you in building the website of your dreams. Reach out to us today and tell us about your dream website and we will help you make your dream a reality.

So, what are some lessons we have learned through our journey together from meeting each other to opening Bolinder Design?
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We will give you ten. The first five are from Noah.
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1. Understand what you want: The first key to success is identifying what it is you want. If you don’t take the time to understand what it is you want, you won’t get it.
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2. Make a plan to achieve your dreams: Once you have identified what you want, you need to build a realistic plan to get there. Once I understood that I wanted Maria, I started building a plan for how I could develop a relationship with her. I built a friendship with her while she wasn’t dating and made sure that I was saving money so that I could live for months in Ukraine the following year. If you don’t have a plan, plan to fail.
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3. Take action: Once you have your plan, you need to act on it. Plans are worthless unless you actually follow through on them. Know what you want and have a plan? Great, now get moving. 
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4. Chart your own path: When there isn’t a path to what you want, create one. So many people stop because they don’t see a path to where they want to go. But think about it. If you go to a park and find a path, someone created that path when there wasn’t one. Rather than limiting yourself to paths other people have made, be willing to get your hand dirty and build your own if necessary.  
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5. Be persistent: If you really want something, you need to go after it with 100% intensity. If I hadn’t been fully committed to making my relationship with Maria work, it wouldn’t have happened. I would have been fooling myself to wait for her to come to Canada and date me. That would have never happened. When I kept hitting roadblocks, rather than turning around, I found a way around them. If you are not completely committed and persistent, when the going gets rough, you’ve had enough, and you quit. Persistence is what wins the day. 

The next five lessons from our journey come from Maria.
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1. Prioritize to achieve your goals: I have learned that if you want to accomplish your goals, you need to set priorities. Now that I am running a business, I am responsible for getting things done, and I’ve learned that things don’t usually just happen, and they certainly don’t happen fast if they are not a priority. By knowing and setting my priorities, I am able to get the things done that matter.
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2. You need to work hard for success: It’s nice to think that success will come naturally and should be easy, but this is usually not true. Even if you love what you do, it takes work to grow. That’s why it’s so important that you like what you do, because it’s much harder to work on things you don’t enjoy.
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3. Have a schedule: I used to wake up and do whatever I felt I wanted to do. Trying to change that by having a schedule didn’t feel authentic. But when I opened my business, I understood that I could not keep living my life that way because I had too many things I needed to get done! If I wanted to achieve my goals, I need a schedule.
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4. Lacking inspiration is not an excuse: I am a creative person and I used to think that I had to be in a creative mood to do work. But one day I was listening to one of my mentors, Chris Do, who compared designing to cutting hair. “Have you ever walked in for a haircut and had the person working there say, ‘Sorry, I’m just not feeling inspired, you will have to come back another time.’” It was then that I realized that lacking inspiration is just an excuse that was holding me back.
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5. If you want to grow quickly, ask for help: It’s okay to ask for help. Actually, it’s the best way to succeed. You become like the people around you so make sure you are spending time with people who you want to become like and ask them for help.

Now that you have gotten to know us better through this series, in our final post we want to share about our vision for Bolinder Design and how we might be able to serve you.
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In today’s online world, your website is your business’ calling card. It’s often the first point of contact your brand has with potential customers which means that it is important to make a powerful impression so that you can turn visitors into paying customers. If you are a serious business, having a website is essential.
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The problem is that there are hundreds of millions of websites out there. If you looked at a new website online every second for 24 hours every day, it would take you over 12 years to visit each active website! There is a lot of competition.
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The good news is that few websites are truly exceptional, which means that your website can standout if you put in the effort.
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But having an exceptional website takes work and most people don’t have all the necessary skills to build one.
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That’s where we come in. At Bolinder Design, we create stunning, minimalistic websites that get results so that your business can make a powerful impression and thrive.
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Both of us have a unique set of skills that we bring together to make the magic happen.
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Maria understands how to create beautiful designs that you and your customers will love. She has a master’s degree in marketing and has worked on many projects that have sold five-figure contracts to international brands.
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Noah is an expert in strategy and works with Maria to ensure that each of our websites has a plan to deliver results. An award-winning writer who has published multiple books, he holds a degree in professional communication.
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Thanks for staying with us through this series! If you would like help creating an unforgettable website to grow your business, we would love to hear from you!