Chico web design & development:
websites, apps, and software worth shipping.
Rune is a Chico web design and development studio that turns your idea into a real, live product - websites, e-commerce, mobile and desktop apps, and custom software. Built by an engineer who spent a decade shipping software at companies like Zoom and now teaches web development at Butte College.
One studio for the whole product
From a one-page site to a cross-platform app with a custom backend, Rune designs, builds, and ships it.
Websites
Fast, modern marketing sites and web apps that load in a blink and rank well.
E-commerce
Storefronts that convert, with smooth checkout, payments, and subscriptions.
Mobile Apps
iOS and Android apps that feel native, from a single codebase or fully native.
Desktop Apps
Cross-platform desktop software for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Custom Software
Internal tools, APIs, dashboards, and automations tailored to how you work.
Marketing & Growth
Brand, SEO, and analytics to turn a great product into a growing business.
Real products, live in the wild
A few things we have designed, built, and shipped. Every one is online right now, so go click around.
The rest of the fleet
10 sites liveA slow website is a lost job
On a phone, people leave a site that takes more than a few seconds - and Google ranks slow sites lower. We tested a typical template site against a Rune custom build on Google's mobile benchmark, identical conditions.
Typical template site
Google performance score
A Rune custom build
Google performance score
A blank screen is a lost job
When something breaks at a customer's house - a blown-over fence, a burst pipe - they stand in the yard with their phone and call whoever loads first. Nine seconds of a blank screen means they hit back. That's a $5,000 job gone to a competitor, and you never knew it happened.
Speed is how Google ranks you
Google measures load speed and uses it to rank local results. Fast, clean code - plus structure that says exactly what you do and where - is what pushes a business into the Map Pack, where most local calls start.
Measured with Google Lighthouse (mobile, identical throttled conditions). A real launch behind a global CDN pushes the custom build even faster.
A build you can actually follow
No black boxes and no month-long silences. You see progress every step, and you own everything at the end.
Discover
We start with a conversation about your goals, users, and constraints, then map the fastest path to something real.
Design
You see the product before we build it: clickable designs, clear scope, and a fixed, honest quote.
Build
We ship in small, visible steps so you always know where things stand and can steer as we go.
Launch
We handle deployment, hand you the keys, and stick around for support. You own the code, always.
A studio that works the way you wish agencies did
Senior people, plain talk, fixed prices, and code that is yours to keep.
Local and hands-on
Based in Chico, you work directly with the person building your site. Happy to meet in person, and it works great fully remote too.
Fixed, honest quotes
Know the full price up front. Plain-English updates and no surprises on the invoice.
Built to get you found
Fast, mobile-friendly pages plus local SEO and Google Business Profile help, so Chico customers actually find you.
You own everything
The finished site and its code are yours to keep. No lock-in, no page-builder trap, no monthly ransom.
Erik Mellum
Founder & Lead Engineer
Meet Erik
Born and raised in Chico. The same person builds your site, start to finish.
Rune is Erik Mellum, born and raised in Chico. He has a Computer Science degree from Chico State and teaches Web Development and the Capstone course at Butte College, so the person building your site is the same one who trains new web developers.
Before Rune, Erik spent years building software for larger tech companies. That same reliability and care goes into a local business website as into software people depend on every day.
You work directly with Erik from first sketch to launch. No account managers, no offshore handoff, no template farm, just honest local work that's yours to keep.
Erik is one of the best teachers I have had at this school. His teaching style takes the mystery out of programming and simplifies it in a way that makes me feel confident.
You have been such a rare combination of mentor, partner, and friend. You guided me through challenges, pushed me when I needed it, and supported me both professionally and personally.
Questions Chico business owners ask us
Straight answers on cost, timeline, ownership, and getting found on Google.
Every project is fixed-price and quoted up front, so you know the full cost before we start - no hourly surprises. A simple marketing site, an online store, and a custom web app each sit at different tiers. Tell us what you need and we will send a firm quote for free.
Most small-business marketing sites go live within a few weeks. Larger e-commerce stores and custom web apps take longer. You get a realistic timeline with your quote, and we ship fast - several sites in our portfolio were live within days.
Yes. Rune is based in Chico and builds for local businesses across Chico, Paradise, Oroville, Durham, Magalia, and the rest of Butte County. Most of our portfolio is local service businesses - HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction, and more.
Yes. The site and its code are yours to keep. There is no proprietary page builder locking you in, and no monthly ransom to keep your own website online.
Yes. Every site we build ships with local SEO baked in - fast pages, clean structure, structured data, sitemaps, and Google Business Profile guidance - so you show up when Chico customers search for what you do.
Custom marketing sites, e-commerce and online stores, booking and lead-capture sites, and full custom web apps. If it runs in a browser, we can build it - all hand-coded, fast, and mobile-first.
Have something to build?
Tell us what you are dreaming up. You will get a real reply from a real engineer, and a clear idea of scope and cost.
Let us build the thing
Tell us a little about your project. No pitch decks required. We will follow up with next steps and an honest read on scope and cost.