Terms

The Code Company founder Ben May talks at an industrial event (c) thecode.co

The Code Company, a professional agency that is focused on digital publishing, is one of 's most preferred partner. They are WordPress experts , and they work with large-scale design including migrations and integrations. developing hundreds of technology stacks for thousands of publishers.

The company has just replatformed Substack giant The Dispatch, a publication to provide news and comment on politics, policy and culture worth $1.9 million and with many thousands of subscribers. I talked to Stacey Astley Clark from the partnerships and communications team regarding the business and its services:

"Our director Ben May has been using technology to address issues since grade 10" starts Stacey. "He made his first website for a local business at the age of 12, and earned $400." Ben noticed that there was an emerging opportunity and a potential profession from all this, and so launched his agency in the year of 22.

The Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, however it did win a couple of publishing clients initially. Stacey describes: "We've carved out a niche in building technology to help digital publishers, and also migrating from other platforms to WordPress as well as building membership functions as well as ad technology. Our initial strategy was to be platform neutral however, we realized that a majority sucked! Now we work exclusively with WordPress; there were too many 'rescue operations on different platforms."

"The essential engineering aspects that is used to create the publishing of websites is exactly what is our job," Stacey continues. We assist publishers in solving complicated problems by using WordPress and discover ways to utilize technology to "increase the revenue of their business, achieve better efficiencies in the enterprise and decrease the risk of business involving technology".

Stacey and I both agree that 'tech is becoming less technological', and this is really important for publishing. "Sometimes you will have writers, editors and marketing professionals who are using technology, and must be able to use it without ringing a developer each five minutes.These are 'words people' and not tech people."

Code Company helps people create or migrate to technology stacks that make them self-sufficient. Code Company helps these people create or migrate to tech platforms that allow them to be fully self-sufficient "They require something to do everything it did previously, but in a easier manner. The Code Company often works with publishers that have websites that are struggling with debt from technology. Often a plugin won't give the features they need, therefore we believe it is easier to create an integration that is custom, to ensure users get what they want without sacrificing any things they do not."

Clients

The Code Company works with content businesses of all kinds including independent publishing to major entertainment companies. They recently launched the highly-publicized launch of Wondermind, a mental health content hub backed by celebrity Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. In the wake of the launch, Bhavik Trivedi, the Chief Operating Officer of Wondermind, commented: "I've never had a seamless launch. Until now. It was launched in the middle of the day, and it was gradually scaled as high traffic, and all our integrations performed flawlessly."

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The new Wondermind content hub (c) thecode.co

They also partner in conjunction with Nine, the biggest entertainment company in Australia. "We created their corporate website, plus publications drive.com.au which is the nation's top auto site in addition to Future Women, a membership community for professional women." The Code Company also launched eBay's local ads site. "That was a big issue because they'd never had regional leads prior to that and began to receive Australian leads because of that site," Stacey confirms. "We have recently launched a brand new website called Science Alert, which is a leading science publication within the US. It's operated from Australia, but most of its audience is in the US. We worked on that project for over a year and half!" she remembers.

However, it appears that the company's sweet spot is working with smaller established publishers that are looking to scale. "We inquire, 'How can show that you're able to publish? How do we get your business and your tech stack set up that you can scale your company?'" Stacey says. This is probably where most customers of The Cod Co lie; this might include independent media groups such as news websites Crikey and Her Campus, the female-led college students' media group within The US (that The Code Company changed from Drupal and moved to WordPress).

The HerCampus.com content hub is accessible to several devices (c) thecode.co

"We assist talented and creative creators who are feeling frustrated or hamstrung by their platform of choice as well as CMS (content management systems)," Stacey adds. "They're coming to us looking to find alternatives as they realize their current platform is restrictive on the things they are able to do. It's not flexible enough and takes a large portion of their revenue." In addition the need is becoming essential for creators at any scale to obtain data from first parties. "They're simply unable to access that data through platforms such as Substack. We're developing custom creator stacks to allow them to own their own audience," she explains.

Solutions and Services

The customers of The Code Company may be the ones who built their site themselves, or might have asked someone else to create it. In either case, they're working with many plugins. "As the site has grown, they're finding that the system is breaking down and they can't fix things themselves. This is causing inefficiencies, complaints from readersand the fact that they're unable to accomplish what they would like to accomplish. Sometimes they can't do things that are as easy as adding something on the menu." She confirms.

Mike McPhate at the California Sun states: "The biggest problem with my membership website of the past was that it was filled with glitches and unclear prompts on how to navigate the site. I'd get emails almost every day from angry users. Since I developed the website together with The Code Company and , I no longer get these emails from users and that's great!"

The California Sun (c)thecode.co

It is well-known that the performance of a website is crucial to publishers "If they lose performance it could cost them thousands of dollars," Stacey continues. "And they continue to hack out one plugin and sticking on the next. They're losing performance until the business isn't successful any more. After that, they'll be with us with this huge technology stack that is creaking, and they're aware that they could risk their site going out of commission due to poor performance."

More publishers are wanting to diversify their income sources, so more of them are looking at memberships and subscriptions. "We must find a solution that is reliable and secure. A large part of our work is to research methods that could transform the lives of publishers," she says. The Code Company works specifically with membership solutions, to avoid the what Stacey describes as "leaky paywalls". The Code Company's founder explains that: "We've worked with other membership solutions before and it's really easy to get around the paywall. If your business model, as a publisher, relies on the sale of content to users This creates a major issue."

There are new events and projects on the horizon

"The creation economy is booming," Stacey notes. "Creators have realized that SaaS platforms have limitations, so they're wanting to look at other alternatives. Diversification doesn't go out of the window for publishers, but it's also important to kind of keep looking at ways to be more engaging and get closer to audiences by providing more targeted and personalized content. Subscription offerings don't just create revenues, but they also provide opportunities to be closer to the audience and increase engagement."

"There are still print publications available that aren't fully digital, and we're still getting interest from those who are realizing that, if they want to survive it will be necessary to shift towards digital in some manner and a subscription service would form part of that."

In the context of recent events "Ben is a well-known face on the conference circuit," adds Stacey. Recently Ben spoke at the Mumbrella Publisher Conference in Australia as well as WordCamp US in San Diego. The talks covered the creator economy; focusing on 'the minimalist publisher' as well as how publishers can achieve more from less. The talks also discussed taking the lessons of the creators of larger publishing companies, often using membership solutions.

Founder Ben May is a familiar presence in the world of conferences. (c) thecode.co

It appears that the founder of the company has a deep understanding of the business. "Ben's been doing this all his life and there's not a problem he's not capable of answering," says Stacey. "The information I gather when I speak to customers is that, if they encounter an issue, they may be required to pay a different agency two weeks to go and investigate. The team at Code Company's technology is able to solve it within twenty minutes via phone since he's experienced every single one of them. It's a great thing for businesses to have that kind of troubleshooting."

In the end, Stacey says: "Publishing or running a website doesn't require as much effort as some people think it is. We're all about simplicity." She and I agree that it's easy to become caught up in the latest technology or theme or plugins - "these flashing lights aren't going to move the needle at all," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicities" It seems. Stacey says: "We offer the chance to connect with a tech company that can actually help you get the business results you desire with the most straightforward way that works, without using some buzzword."

Additional information

For more information details about The Code Company, to look through case studies of the previous integrations and migrations, as well as to learn more about working with them, go to their website thecode.co.