Terms

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

The Code Company, a specialization agency that concentrates on digital publishing It is one of the preferred partner. They are WordPress experts and work on large-scale redesigns as well as migrations and integrations. They are developing hundreds of technology stacks for thousands of publishing companies.

The company recently relaunched Substack huge The Dispatch, a publication that provides news and analysis on policy, politics and culture worth $1.9 million, and boasting many thousands of subscribers. I spoke to Stacey Astley-Clark, in the communications and partnerships team regarding the business and its services:

"Our founder Ben May has been using technology to tackle problems since grade 10," says Stacey. "He developed his first site for a local business in the year 12 and earned $400." Ben noticed that there was an opportunity and a potential profession in all of this and thus launched his very agency in the year of 22.

The Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, but it did win a couple of publishing customers initially. Stacey explains: "We've carved out a market for ourselves by building technologies for digital publishers and moving from different platforms to WordPress and building membership capabilities and advertising technology. We were initially platform agnostic and then discovered that nearly all of them were a disaster! We now work solely with WordPress; there were too many 'rescue operations on different platforms."

"The crucial engineering work that is used to create the publishing of websites is exactly what is our job," Stacey continues. The team assists publishers with complex problems using WordPress and find ways to utilize technology to "increase the amount of revenue they earn, generate better efficiencies in the company and reduce the risk of business involving technology".

Stacey and I both agree that  technology is becoming less techie' and this is essential to publishing. "Sometimes you will have writers, editors as well as marketers who use technology and must be able to use the technology without having to call 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 stacks that can make them independent "They require something to do everything it did previously, but in a easier way. We often work with publishers who have sites that are creaking with tech debt. Often a plugin won't give all the functionality they require, therefore we believe it is easier to create an integration that is custom, to ensure you get all the features they need without sacrificing any things they do not."

Customers

The Code Company works with content companies of all sorts including independent publishing to major entertainment companies. Recently they have completed the high-profile launch of Wondermind, a content hub for mental health that is that is backed by the likes of celebrity Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. The launch was praised by Bhavik Trivedi who is the Chief Operation Officer of Wondermind, commented: "I've never had a smooth launch. Until now. The site went live and was scaled to accommodate traffic spikes and all of our integrations worked perfectly."

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The new Wondermind media hub (c) thecode.co

They also partner in conjunction with Nine, the biggest entertainment firm in Australia. "We created their corporate website and also publications drive.com.au, the country's leading auto portal and Future Women, a membership group for women who are professionals." The Code Company also launched eBay's local ads site. "That was a major deal because they had never regional leads before and they started getting Australian leads as a result of that site," Stacey confirms. "We recently built a new website Science Alert, which is an important science magazine within the US. It's run from Australia, but most users are in the US. We worked on that project for a year and a half!" she remembers.

It seems that the firm's most successful area is working with publishers that are a little smaller which are trying to expand. "We inquire, 'How can demonstrate that you are able to publish? How do we get your business and your tech stack to be in the best shape for you to scale your company?'" Stacey says. This is probably where most customers of The Cod Co lie; this might include small media companies like news websites Crikey and Her Campus, an all-female college student media group in The US (that The Code Company changed to Drupal in order to switch to WordPress).

PT0CpapgDKohJvS2XTfd The HerCampus.com Content hub that is available across multiple devices (c) thecode.co

"We help creative and innovative creators who find themselves frustrated, or frustrated with their current platform and/or CMS (content management system)," Stacey adds. "They're seeking us out for alternatives because they're finding their existing platform is limiting in terms of their capabilities. The platform isn't very flexible, and takes a large portion of their revenue." In addition that it's becoming essential for creators at any scale to obtain first-party data. "They're simply unable to access that data via platforms like Substack. We are building custom creator stacks that allow the creators to have their own audience," she explains.

Solutions and Services

The Code Company's clientele might be the ones who built their site themselves, or might have asked someone else to create the site. In either case, they're working with many plugins. "As they've advanced, things are starting to break and they're unable to fix them by themselves. It's creating a load of problems, and complaints from the readersand the fact that they're unable to perform what they'd like to do. Sometimes they can't do things like adding items to their menus," she says.

Mike McPhate at the California Sun affirms: "The biggest problem with my old membership site was the fact that it was rife with glitches and unclear prompts about how to navigate it. I would receive emails nearly every day from angry users. Since I developed the website in conjunction with The Code Company and , I'm not getting those emails from readers which is just amazing!"

The California Sun (c)thecode.co

It is well-known that performance is critically important for publishers "If they lose performance, they can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars" Stacey continues. "And they continue to hack out an application and sticking with an additional. Their performance keeps dropping until the business isn't effective any more. After that, they'll be with us, with this big creaking tech stack, aware that they could risk their site going out of commission due to poor performance."

A growing number of publishers want to diversify their revenue so more of them are looking at memberships and subscriptions. "We have to come up with the best solution to make it reliable and secure. Our main work is to research methods that could be life-changing for publishers," she says. The Code Company works specifically with membership solutions, to avoid the issue of 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 straightforward to circumvent the paywall. If your model of business, as a publisher, relies on content that is paid for it can be a huge challenge."

New projects and events in the near future

"The creation economy is booming," Stacey notes. "Creators are realizing SaaS platforms have limitations, so they're wanting to explore other options. Diversification isn't going away for publishers, but there is a need to keep looking at new ways to engage with audiences with more personalized and targeted content. Subscriptions do more than just generate income, they provide opportunities to be closer to viewers as well which can increase their engagement."

"There are still print publications available that aren't on digital and we are continuing to receive inquiries from publications that are realizing that in order to be successful it will be necessary to shift towards digital in some manner - and that subscription offering will be a part of it."

In the context of recent events "Ben is a well-known face at conferences," adds Stacey. Recently Ben gave a talk 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 accomplish more using the resources they have. It is also possible to learn from the creators of larger publishing companies which often use membership-based solutions.

The founder Ben May is a familiar face at conferences. (c) thecode.co

It seems the company founder has a deep understanding of the business. "Ben's done this for the entirety of his life, and there's never a question that he can't answer," says Stacey. "The information I gather through conversations with clients is that if they have an issue, they may need to shell out another agency two weeks and look into. The Code Company's tech team is able to solve it within twenty minutes via phone, because he's seen every single one of them. That's gold for a business to have that kind ability to troubleshoot."

In conclusion, Stacey says: "Publishing or operating a site doesn't require as much effort as people make it. The whole purpose of our company is to avoid complexity." We agree that it's easy to become distracted by the latest gadget or theme or plug-ins "these flashing lights aren't going to move the needle significantly," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicities" it appears. Stacey concludes: "We offer the chance to connect with a tech company that can actually help you achieve the results that you desire with the most straightforward method that is effective, not simply dropping some buzzword."

More details

To read more details about The Code Company, to see case studies on prior integrations and migrations and to look into working with them, visit their site thecode.co.