Houston's longest-tenured web design company under one ownership. This is the story of how it started — and why it matters to you.
In 1994, Glenn Brooks, Jr. made a bet on the future. Armed with a Bachelor of Science in Commercial Art from Southwest Texas State University and 13 years of experience in Houston's advertising, marketing, and print industry, Glenn saw something most people hadn't yet: the internet was going to change everything.
Inspired by a personal challenge from his father, Glenn Sr., he launched WebWize. The timing was bold — almost reckless. In 1994, almost nobody had heard of the World Wide Web. Trying to sell a website was, as Glenn puts it, "the fastest weight-loss program known to man." Sales were rare. Months went by with little income.
"With a mortgage company breathing down his neck, Glenn rented his home and moved into his horse trailer. It was a cold first winter."
That's not a metaphor. Glenn literally lived in his horse trailer through the winter of 1994–95 to keep the business alive. With regular 16-hour days and an unshakeable belief that the web was the future, he ground it out. Over the next two years, the word slowly spread. Sales began to increase. Glenn moved back into his home.
That kind of grit doesn't leave you. It becomes the culture of a company. It's why WebWize clients get a team that works harder, stays longer, and cares more than any agency that started with venture capital and a ping-pong table.
Glenn Brooks, Jr. launches WebWize in Houston, Texas — one of the first web design companies in the state. In the early days, that meant learning HTML by hand, line by line, and running a Macintosh Quadra 700 as a live web server that handled both email and websites — and needed a hard reboot every six hours just to stay online. Glamorous? Not exactly. Foundational? Absolutely.
WebWize is officially incorporated as a Texas corporation. What began as a one-man operation had grown into a full-service web design agency. The company expanded into custom web application development, adopting ColdFusion as its core programming environment on Windows servers — building dynamic, database-driven websites at a time when most businesses still thought a website was a digital business card.
The market began to shift. Content management systems emerged as the dominant model for web development, and three platforms competed for the top spot: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. WebWize watched the market closely, tested all three, and made the right call early — WordPress was the clear winner in usability, flexibility, and ecosystem growth. WebWize transitioned its entire development and hosting infrastructure to WordPress, a decision that positioned the company perfectly for the decade ahead.
WebWize made a strategic shift away from physically owning and operating its own servers, embracing cloud-based infrastructure and managed WordPress hosting. The company became an agency partner with WP Engine, one of the industry's premier managed WordPress hosting providers — learning the nuances of WordPress performance, security, and scalability at an enterprise level. This era also saw WebWize earn a reputation as Houston's go-to Divi agency, mastering the Divi theme and page builder to deliver custom, visually rich WordPress websites at scale.
When WP Engine announced its investment in headless WordPress and the development of Faust.js, WebWize didn't wait to see how things played out — we dove in headfirst. Recognizing that headless architecture represented the future of high-performance web design, WebWize rebuilt its own website on a Next.js + WordPress headless stack and began offering this technology to clients. Today, WebWize is one of the few Houston web design agencies with genuine, production-proven headless WordPress expertise.
Over 3,500 websites launched. More than 200 active clients. WebWize is Houston's longest-tenured web design company under continuous single ownership — and we're still building. After more than three decades in business, the mission hasn't changed: build websites that work, serve clients who deserve better, and stay ahead of every shift the web throws at us.
Longevity in this industry isn't luck — it's the result of consistently delivering results and treating clients like long-term partners. Here's what that means for your business:
Flash websites. Mobile-first. Penguin updates. Core Web Vitals. AI search. We've navigated every major shift in web technology and search — and we'll navigate the next one too.
When you hire a newer agency, you're paying for their education. With WebWize, you get more than three decades of solved problems and proven strategies from day one.
We've built websites for Houston businesses in every zip code and every industry. We understand the local market, the competition, and what Houston customers respond to.
Agencies come and go. WebWize has been here since 1994 and we'll be here next year. Your website investment is protected by a company with a proven, multi-decade track record.
Glenn Brooks, Jr. is the founder and driving force behind WebWize. A Houston native who returned to his hometown after graduating from Southwest Texas State University with a BS in Commercial Art, Glenn spent 13 years in Houston's advertising, marketing, and print industry before launching WebWize in 1994.
His background in commercial art and advertising gives WebWize a perspective that pure technology companies lack: design has to serve business goals, not just look pretty. Every website WebWize builds is designed to attract, engage, and convert — not just impress.
Glenn's hands-on involvement in every WebWize project is what separates us from agencies where the founder is just a figurehead. When you work with WebWize, you're working with the person who's been doing this since before most web designers were born.
Free consultation. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about your goals and how we can help.