About

Nick Dubé started his journey in the design business with a lot of passion, working from home, and putting his soul in the game, taking any work he could lay his hands on.

Since the beginning, Dubé Creative (as Heartburst was first called) worked with purpose driven organisations focusing on every aspect of design — web, print, video production… This was then when the first part time employees — Joy Carrick & Ash Evenden — jumped in, helping Nick realise his creative vision.

As time went by, it was clear that there was a need to specialise. Dubé Creative’s expertise in the digital environment was growing exponentially, so it shifted to a purely web design focus. With this specialisation came strength and further recognition.

The team doubled its size, moved to its very first office in Narre Warren and added its first full time employees — Krystle Wright and Nicole Goldup. With this growing team of very motivated people things started to look good for Dubé Creative.

The season that followed was a hive of activity, with a contract that saw the business create web designs for over 80 not-for-profit associations. Association Online was a fast growing software product that enabled membership management for industry associations. Every Monday, we would start a design for a new association with a new acronym to remember!

At the helm of Association Online was general manager, Neil Evenden, an astute business administrator with a passion to make a difference through technology. This was the beginning of a working relationship that would have significant influence on our next season.

TA few years later, when Neil’s time at Association Online came to an end, it became clear that he and Heartburst could work together to become something bigger. A new mission was planted in Nick and Neil’s mind, to empower not-for-profit organisations with excellent online experiences that help advance their cause.

Neil had heard the term “heartburst” used to describe the passion and inspiration that drives a person to start a charity organisation. And so Nick and Neil partnered up with the idea of lifting Dubé Creative to be a fully blown digital agency, helping nonprofits pursue their “heartburst”.

With a new name, Neil as a partner, and a bigger and brand new office, the future was looking bright.

During the first two years of the Heartburst era the work was incredibly successful. Their clientele doubled its size, growing from 50 to over 100 new clients.

The team grew to 8, including a digital producer and front end developers. The number of projects running accelerated with sometimes 15 projects developing concurrently.

Despite how promising everything was looking, 2016 was a tougher year. It was a time to decide whether to push forward or to back off. It was everything or nothing, and with the team in mind HB pushed through these tough times, never giving up, because if a thing was worth starting, it’s worth seeing through.

It was during these challenging times when Lee Jones came into our story for the first time — and although he did not know yet, he was about to become part of the soul of HB — In the middle of an uncertain season he brought together two companies.

Lee introduced Rob van der End, CEO of Day3, to Nick and Neil and not long after, Day 3 acquired Heartburst. This new partnership was the union of two forces that came together from the realisation of their aligned values and compatible workforce — Day 3 with its many years of software development experience, and HB with its rich heritage in web design.

In a twist of fate, two years after the union of Day3 and Heartburst, Lee joined Heartburst/Day3 as General Manager, bringing on board new leadership to help the businesses to grow and improve. Not long after, a new project management system, led by Matt Emerson, was also brought to the team, and with his impressive PM skills he is contributing to the leadership's strategy to ensure or core promise to our clients — that we will do what we say we will do, when we say we will do it, for the price we said we would do it for.

With a profound commitment to helping others to make the world a better place, and the intention of making things happen, Heartburst is looking to the future with confidence and ambition. We are living out our own heartburst. And as a company we want to offer you the best experience, as a team that cares we want to help YOU in the pursuit of your “heartburst”.