Meet the team
Don't just squirrel away your ideas.
Let’s turn them into an amazing website!
We’re Tanja and Jelger, a husband and wife team of website fanatics, based out of Vancouver BC. In 2012 we started our first business together and we haven’t looked back! We even still like each other after working together for over a decade!
First we owned a successful wedding photography company. But after wrangling thousands of people for portraits, we were ready for a new challenge. (Ask us about our wild wedding stories)
We left Pachelbell’s Canon in D behind us and shifted our focus to digital work and founded Chunky Squirrel Services.
BEST DECISION EVER!
Chunky Squirrel, for (and by) small business owners
Tanja
Our main squirrel
Tanja will answer most of your messages and she’s the one that goes “squeee” when seeing a squirrel in real life.
Through her work as a wedding photographer in Vancouver’s highly competitive market, she first learned about the importance of good SEO practices in 2013.
95%
of her clients found her on Google, thanks to implementing what she learned in various courses.
She also successfully completed a digital marketing course from Alacrity in 2021 and keeps her SEO knowledge up to date.
Jelger
Our technical squirrel
Jelger is a quiet thinker and loves solving puzzles. He built his first website in 2001 in Word with HTML, yes he’s a dinosaur! All these years of experience left him with a deep understanding of how websites work.
Figuring out custom technical solutions for our clients is his favorite activity.
His ideas have saved clients thousands of dollars.
Jelger also created our custom
He successfully completed the
Harvard CS50 Introduction to computer science
and continues to learn more code
The Squirrel Squad
We team up with a talented local graphic designer and an amazing copywriter.
Tanja couldn’t draw if her life depended on it (see evidence) and you’ll see Jelger running away in the distance if he has to write a blog post. That’s why we work with BC based experts in their fields!
Our personal story
Many moons ago, we met in Belgium, where Jelger was a suave lawyer and Tanja an excited physiotherapist. Our first long conversation when we started dating was about… (you guessed it) squirrels. Later on Tanja would hide a toy squirrel (named Ferdinand) in various spots of Jelger’s apartment as a running joke.
In 2011
We moved to Vancouver
to start our Canadian adventure
Now many years later, our new goal is to live amongst the actual squirrels on our remote forested property in the interior of BC.
Come say hi!
Our #1 value:
Ethical websites and ethical SEO!
Our #1 value:
We want you to have access to all the information
No gatekeeping and full transparency!
We promise to explain to you how everything works and what work has been done on your website. Even if you don’t want to know, we still have all the information for you in case you need it.
Client testimony
“Tanja and Jelger were so professional and helpful from our consultation until the end product! I have noticed an increase in website visits and engagement already in the past few months. Thank you Chunky Squirrel Services for your wonderful work!”