Named after a coastline.
The Great Lakes are America's Fourth Coast. We named a web studio after them because we believe this region deserves better than templates and empty promises.
Why “Fourth Coast”?
The United States has three famous coastlines — the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf. But there's a fourth one that most people forget about: the Great Lakes.
Over 10,000 miles of freshwater shoreline. Five lakes that together hold 21% of the world's surface fresh water. An inland sea system that shaped American industry, connected the Midwest to the world, and still moves more cargo than most ocean ports.
I grew up along the St. Lawrence Seaway in Upstate New York, watching cargo ships from the Great Lakes make their way downriver to the Atlantic. When I moved to Racine, it felt like closing a loop — thousands of miles from home, but connected by the same water.
I named the company Fourth Coast Web because this region doesn't get enough credit. The businesses here are doing real work. They deserve websites built with the same care and engineering as anything on the coasts. That's the whole idea.
“I was tired of watching businesses get sold websites they don’t own, built on platforms they can’t leave, by people they never talk to. So I built something different.”
— Andrew Hickman, Founder
The problem we set out to fix.
Here's what I kept seeing: a business owner pays $3,000–$5,000 for a website. They get a WordPress theme with a logo swap. It loads in 8 seconds. It's not mobile-friendly. And when the developer disappears six months later, the owner can't even log into their own hosting.
That's not web design. That's a scam with a receipt.
I started Fourth Coast Web because I knew the standard could be higher without the cost being unreasonable. Custom-coded WordPress, 100/100 PageSpeed, full ownership from day one — built by one engineer who actually picks up the phone.
How we got here.
East Coast Agency Work
Andrew spent over a decade building websites and digital platforms for agencies in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. — high-stakes environments where downtime was a fireable offense.
The Move to Wisconsin
After years on the East Coast, Andrew relocated to Racine. The Great Lakes region felt like a homecoming — thousands of miles from Upstate New York, but connected by the same freshwater system he grew up on.
Fourth Coast Web Is Founded
Andrew launched Fourth Coast Web with a simple idea: local businesses deserve the same quality of engineering that national brands get. No templates, no page builders, no vendor lock-in.
First Clients & Published Guides
Racine Tire & Auto became the first full case study. Andrew published the Guide to Performance-Driven Web Design and began building the educational content library.
AI-Ready Architecture & GEO
Fourth Coast Web launched its AI Visibility guide and began implementing Generative Engine Optimization — making client sites citable by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
Four things we won't compromise on.
WordPress, Custom-Built
Every site is hand-coded from scratch. No page builders, no bloated themes. Clean architecture that gets faster as it grows.
You Own Your Website
Your code, your hosting, your domain. If you fire us tomorrow, you keep everything. We think that's how it should work.
100/100 PageSpeed or Bust
We don't treat performance as a nice-to-have. Every site ships with perfect Lighthouse scores because slow sites lose money.
Transparent Pricing, Always
We publish our prices on our website. No discovery calls to find out what things cost. No surprise invoices three months in.
Where Fourth Coast Web is headed.
We're still a one-person shop, and that's by design. I take on a limited number of projects each quarter so I can give every client the attention their business deserves. No rushing. No cutting corners.
The focus for 2026 is AI-ready architecture. Google, ChatGPT, and Perplexity are changing how customers find businesses. The sites I build are structured so AI engines can read, cite, and recommend them — not just index them.
If you're a business owner in Southeastern Wisconsin — or anywhere, really — and you want a website that actually works for you, I'd like to hear from you.
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