Chris Ordonez and Scott Norton are co-founders of havadot. They talk to Journal photographer Connie Grosch about themselves and their jobs.

Chris: We’re geeks! Extremely curious, early adopters, constantly looking for the next thing. We’re creating a platform for connecting global design talent with clients here in the United States. You have all of this untapped talent in the developing world. They’ve never had the ability to connect to global markets. The Internet technology we are developing will allow these people to connect with the people who need their services.

Scott: We took a class together last year in which we essentially created this business. We’re focusing on developing our absolute core competency, so we have to provide a pretty narrow band of product. The thing that is most valued is graphic and Web design, and that’s the simplest thing to put through the system. Our biggest challenge? How to turn an ambiguous vision from a client in one language into hard requirements for someone who may be speaking another language and may not know any cultural elements?

Chris: How to translate crucial cultural data that they need — visual cues, nuances — that will allow them to create a project that is custom to you. Young designers consume our culture or the European way of life through blogs that are everywhere. We’re using video — Webcams — and a database of blogs and news aggregation software.

Scott: Right now we’re filtering the information, e-mailing it, but the purpose of the software is to automate this.

Chris: That’s our secret sauce — that’s the technology we’re developing.

Scott: The orientation to education outside of America and the connectivity of the Internet is what’s fueling all of this. And it’s only going to get bigger and more intense. We’re going to allow people to feed their families and be creative. We’re trying to make it happen for the freelance designer. Altruism does exist.

Chris: We’re in it because at the end of the day we have an opportunity to change the way people make a living in other parts of the world. And we grew up with the Internet. It’s the way we think. In middle school I was in hacker clubs until I got into soccer. The hacker mentality makes me curious enough to get into things I don’t know anything about.

Scott: I’m reading financial, design, technology, and cultural news from all over the world while I’m eating my breakfast cereal. Information addiction is something you develop over time.

Chris: We’re in a really awesome time. If you have a computer and an Internet connection and some smart guys in a room, you can do a lot without taking on a lot of expense. We’re living off Asian noodles, we share a room, and we don’t have a family to feed. We find this so exciting we don’t sleep.