About Kraken

Kraken is a development-focused eCommerce agency, founded in 2018. For over a decade, our CEO, Erik Hansen, has been helping brands and retailers build and grow engaging eCommerce experiences at a different agency he co-founded in 2007, Classy Llama.

We are small by design. While large agencies have their advantages, being small allows us to only hire the best engineers and only work with companies where it’s a good fit.

We’re not a “full service” agency; we don’t offer UX optimization, SEO optimization, paid search, or other marketing services. Our goal is to be the best development-focused eCommerce agency and to partner with your in-house team or marketing agency to drive your business goals.

Partnerships

We’ve been Shopify partners since 2020 and believe in the power that the platform has to simplify and power eCommerce on a global scale, without the higher cost of ownership involved in a deployed platform.

BigCommerce is a flexible ecommerce platform powering tens of thousands of merchants globally. Their B2B and multi-storefront capabilities make them a great solution for merchants who need both B2C and B2B commerce.

Klaviyo’s marketing automation platform helps our merchants convert email and SMS more effectively.

Adobe Commerce (Magento)

We’re heavily invested in the Magento ecosystem. We’ve helped write a couple of Magento 2 certifications. Our CEO holds six Magento 2 certifications, and he was a “Top 50 Magento Contributor” in 2018. We are a Magento Community Insider. We’ve worked on two projects that have been selected as a part of Magento’s Innovations Lab (Show Me Cables and VisualPartsFinder).

Team

Erik – Founder & Senior Software Engineer

Back in 2007, Erik co-founded an Enterprise Magento eCommerce agency, Classy Llama, and worked in that agency for 11 years. In 2018, he started Kraken with the desire to deliver world-class technical expertise at reasonable rates by running a team of cross-disciplined individuals with a small management/sales/marketing overhead.

Erik has led scores of Magento implementations over the years. His primary role at Kraken is to lead client engagements and oversee our development team.

He’s involved in the Magento ecosystem: he has helped write a Magento development book, frequently blogs about Magento best practices, has spoken at Magento conferences, and holds several Magento certifications. He has also contributed significantly to core Magento code.

Outside of the office you’ll find him spending time with his family, mountain biking, and enjoying nature

Perry – Senior Software Engineer

Perry is a certified Magento developer who has worked in software development for the past 20 years and Magento development since 2015. In that time, he’s worked with dozens of clients, gaining deep satisfaction from crafting solutions to their problems. He works closely with Kraken clients, helping architect and build solutions on Magento.

In his free time, Perry enjoys hiking, gardening, tinkering with technology, retro gaming, Laravel development, and spending time with his family.

Chris – Senior Software Engineer

Chris is a certified Magento developer who has worked in web development for 10 years. He’s worked with Magento since 2015. He’s passionate about working closely with clients to utilize technology in order to build solutions and provide value to their businesses.

In his free time, Chris enjoys spending time with his family, disc golfing, and hiking

Branko – Senior Software Engineer

Branko is a certified Magento developer who has worked with Magento from its early beginnings, back in 2008. Throughout his career, he has honed his skills in integrating various payment and shipping systems, crafting custom order flow functionalities and other 3rd party system integrations. Aside from coding, he has also written a couple of Magento / PHP books.

In his free time, Branko enjoys spending time with his family, cats, and watching TV shows.

What's with the name?

The mythological “kraken” was first documented in Viking literature as a massive sea creature, capable of sinking entire ships (our founder is half Viking). We like to think they were just giant octopuses that were really good at doing their jobs. Our hope is that our team will make an outsized impact with the work we do.

On a more personal note, when our founder’s middle son was a toddler, he and his wife would frequently joke about not “awakening the kraken”—so krakens have a special place in his heart.

Our Location

We’re based in Springfield, MO. Our office is in Quarry Town and overlooks the Sequiota Greenways Trail.

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