Growing up in St. Louis with three siblings with intellectual disabilities, Will Bubenik says he witnessed the inequities encountered by his family members.
“I saw from a personal perspective that it wasn’t that my siblings had trouble accessing the world. It was that the world was made inaccessible to them,” he said.
COVER STORY: Born without arms, St. Louis entrepreneur builds a company to make sure other disabled workers get the same chances
Today, as founder of St. Louis technology consultancy Nebula Media Group, Bubenik’s focus is on ensuring digital accessibility for those with disabilities.
Founded in 2019, Nebula provides digital accessibility services and products to help brands ensure their digital assets are accessible for those with disabilities. It works with companies to ensure accessibility on several digital components, including websites, social media posts and podcasts. Clients of Nebula have included American Licorice Co., LendKey and Utah's department of cultural and community engagement.
Through its work with clients, Bubenik said Nebula helps to ensure brands have digitally what would be considered the “ramps and rails” of the physical world, to provide an inclusive experience for all users. That can involve adding accessibility components like proper color contrast on screen, alternative text for images and captions to accompany audio and video.
Bubenik said he decided to launch Nebula based on his own realization that companies “can’t really showcase yourself as an inclusive organization and not have an accessible web presence.”
A 2020 report found widespread inaccessibility across websites as companies faced an increasing amount of litigation over accessibility complaints. In 2021, there were 2,895 website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal courts, according to research from law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP. That’s up from 814 in 2017.
At Nebula, Bubenik said the startup wants to help clients be more proactive about ensuring digital accessibility, "to not think of accessibility as a liability, but more like an opportunity.”
Nebula, with a staff of 12, has experienced rapid growth, with Chief Operating Officer Mark Pound saying the startup is projecting year over year revenue growth of more than 165% in 2022. Nebula has self-funded operations so far, though it has been awarded $50,000 equity-free grants from local startup funder Arch Grants and the University of Missouri-St. Louis DEI Accelerator.
