Justin Willhite

The short version

I spent nine years at Twitch (acquired by Amazon in 2014) building creator programs from the inside. I managed partnerships with more than 500 creators, built the systems behind global content operations, and learned — sometimes the hard way — what actually works when brands and creators try to work together.

Before that, and alongside it, I've been a creator myself for over a decade. That's not a line item on a resume — it's how I think. When I'm building a website for a Sonoma County small business or running a creator campaign for a brand, I'm thinking about the person on the other side of it: the customer walking into the car wash, the viewer deciding whether to trust a creator's recommendation, the business owner looking at their analytics and trying to figure out what it all means.

Why I started Willhite Strategy Group

After leaving Twitch, I moved to Santa Rosa and started taking on projects for local businesses and brands. What I kept noticing was the same pattern: businesses paying agencies that didn't really know them, creators getting matched with brands they had no connection to, websites that looked great on launch day and fell apart six months later because nobody was actually watching them.

I started Willhite Strategy Group to do it differently. The agency has two main sides:

• Web design for Sonoma County. Custom-coded sites for local businesses — not templates, not agency overhead. Built for speed, ranking, and owners who need to actually run their business without fighting their website. See the Easy Breezy Car Wash case study for what this looks like in practice.
• Creator programs for brands. Vetted creator matching across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, backed by a 467K+ creator database with real scoring — not vanity metrics. See our creator services for how it works.

What I believe about this work

Software should serve the business, not the other way around.

Most small businesses end up serving their software — fighting with a Wix template, paying for features they don't use, waiting for someone else to update their hours. I build websites that owners can actually run. Fast, editable, owned by you.

Local knowledge is a real edge.

A web designer in Sonoma County who understands the tourism split in Healdsburg, the commuter market in Petaluma, or the SSU/Graton draw in Rohnert Park will build you a better site than a national agency that's never been north of the Golden Gate. The same is true for creator marketing — cultural context matters.

Measurement beats marketing-speak.

I care about load times, conversion rates, review counts, and actual sales. I don't care about buzzwords. If I can't show you a number that moved, I didn't do my job.

Own what you pay for.

Domain in your name. Code you can take anywhere. Hosting you control. That's not a favor — it's the standard, and anyone who resists it is telling you something about themselves.

Projects & clients

• Easy Breezy Car Wash (Santa Rosa) — 14-page custom website, owner dashboard, kiosk system, 417-row member import. Read the case study.
• Multiple creator campaigns for DTC brands across beauty, wellness, and food verticals — case studies forthcoming as clients give the green light.

Where to find me

• Email: hello@willhitestrategy.org
• Website: willhitestrategy.com
• Based in Santa Rosa; available for in-person meetings across Sonoma County