Makena Delaney Designs Brands and Websites That Sell First

“Pretty is step 2,” Makena Delaney says. Before she designs a single page, she helps each client sort out what the business is selling, in what order, and in what words. Makena calls it merchandising, and she says it is half the job nobody hired her for. Her clients are excellent at what they do, and step 1 makes sure their websites show it.

Makena Delaney is the founder and creative director of Makena Creative, a brand and website design studio in the Nashville area. In more than 7 years, she and her small team have built more than 300 websites for solopreneurs, startups, and service businesses. Makena is a member of the Entreprenista League, and she is now taking the name she made in Nashville’s networking rooms online.

“Looking like the real thing is how you get taken seriously and charge what you’re worth,” Makena says.

Her path from would-be business coach to a go-to name for brands and websites around Nashville came down to being in the room.

A website for her dad

Makena planned to be a business coach for network marketers. Then her dad asked her to build a website for his business, and it came easier than she expected. Every networking room she walked into was wall-to-wall coaches, and a friend pointed out that design was scalable and desperately needed.

Her first business name, Gnat Graphics, lasted 2 months. It also booked her first clients. “A great version 1 out in the world beats a perfect one that lives in your head,” she says.

Reading people, then making it beautiful

Makena has a business administration degree and a master’s certification in business performance coaching, which trained her to read how people are wired, what they are trying to say, and where they are headed. Before design, she was a makeup artist, which she calls “a crash course in how much looking the part changes the way a woman walks into a room.”

“The fonts and colors are the vehicle,” she says. “Getting you right is the point.”

The market gets a vote

Makena started out building websites and only websites. Anyone who asked for a logo got the name of someone else, and Makena never saw them again.

“It took me an unreasonable amount of time to ask the obvious question: if this is the business that keeps showing up at my door, why am I fighting it?” she says. So she learned brand design and built a team around it. Her lesson for other founders is short: “Your niche is a hypothesis.”

A vet practice that looked finished on day 1

A veterinarian came to Makena Creative with a dream and a name for her new animal hospital. There was no logo, no website, and no open door yet. She wanted a vet practice that felt nothing like the usual vet office, and Makena’s team built it with her from scratch, from brand and website to copy, brochure, and signage.

Her launch-day message was a string of OMGs, which Makena counts as her favorite kind of client feedback. A few weeks later Makena walked into the finished building, saw the brand in real life, and got emotional. Yes, they took a selfie under the logo.

“She opened her doors on day 1 already looking like the beautiful, luxury practice she set out to build,” Makena says. Four clients cried at their website reveals this year. “They were finally looking at the version of their business they had been trying to describe to people for years,” she says.

A birthday dinner full of clients

Lead generation was her hardest lesson. For a long time Makena believed there was a machine she could install, a funnel or system that would bring in clients forever, and she spent real money looking for it during a slow summer.

“Lead generation is a sales job done consistently,” she says. “The day you open the doors, you become a marketer, and you don’t get to stop.” So she went back to what was already working: being in the room, at more than 20 networking events every month. Nearly all of her business comes from networking and referrals.

The proof came at her 30th birthday. Thirty people came out to a restaurant to celebrate, and all but 2 of the women at the table were clients she had built a brand or website for. “I had built the kind of business where clients turn into friends,” she says. “Which is the coolest kind, in my opinion.”

More rooms, and bigger ones

Showit, the website builder Makena designs on, invited her to speak to its Design Partner Community in fall 2026. Next she is taking her name online through podcast guesting, speaking, and a lot more time on camera.

Behind the scenes, her team’s DreamBuilder hosting program looks after about 150 client sites long after launch day. The studio is growing it alongside a Showit template library so more businesses can get a great brand at a price that makes sense.

Her advice is to get in the room and look like the real thing when you walk in. “Your business is not a cute little hobby, so don’t let your brand tell people it is. You can’t sell a dream looking like a nightmare!” she says. “And if you spot me in one of those rooms, come sit with us.”

You can follow Makena on LinkedIn and Instagram, see the studio’s brand and website work at makenadelaney.com, and browse her Showit website templates in the Makena Creative shop.

If you are ready to see what is possible inside the Entreprenista League, sign up here for a free info session.