Terms

The Code Company founder Ben May talks at an trade show (c) thecode.co

The Code Company, a professional agency that is focused on publishing via digital media It is one of the most preferred partner. They are WordPress specialists and are working on large-scale redesigns, migrations and integrations, creating hundreds of tech stacks for hundreds of publishing companies.

The company recently relaunched Substack giant The Dispatch, a publication that provides news and analysis about politics, policy, and culture worth $1.9 million with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I had a conversation with Stacey Clark from the team of partnerships and communications regarding the business and its services:

"Our director Ben May has been using technology to tackle problems since grade 10," starts Stacey. "He created his first website for a local company in year 12, and made the sum of $400." Ben noticed that there was an emerging business opportunity as well as a possible career from all this, and so launched his first agency at the age of 22.

Code Company Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, but it did gain a few publishing clients initially. Stacey says: "We've carved out a market for ourselves by building technologies for digital publishers as well as switching from other platforms to WordPress, building membership functionality and advertising technology. At first, we were platform-neutral, but then realized that the majority of platforms were a disaster! Today, we exclusively use WordPress; there were numerous'rescue operations on other platforms."

"The critically important engineering stuff, that goes into publishing websites, is what We do" Stacey continues. We assist publishers in solving complex problems using WordPress and come up with ways to use technology to "increase the amount of revenue they earn, generate better efficiencies in the company and reduce tech-related business risk".

Stacey and I are both of the opinion that  technology is getting less technological', and this is essential for publishing. "Sometimes you have journalists, content creators as well as marketers who use technology and they need to be able to use it without ringing developers each five minutes.These are 'words people' and not tech people."

The 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 simpler manner. We often work with publishers that have websites that are struggling with debt from technology. Often a plugin won't give all the functionality they require, therefore we believe it is better to design an integrated system that's custom designed, so users get what they want with none of the stuff they don't."

Customers

The Code Company works with content businesses of all kinds, ranging from independent publishers to large entertainment groups. Recently they have successfully launched Wondermind the content hub for mental health that is supported by famous Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. Speaking of the launch, Bhavik Trivedi, the Chief Operation Officer of Wondermind, commented: "I've never had a flawless launch. Until now. The site went live in the middle of the day, and it was gradually scaled as the increase in traffic and our integrations worked perfectly."

The new Wondermind Content Hub (c) thecode.co

They also collaborate in conjunction with Nine which is the largest entertainment firm in Australia. "We created their corporate website as well as publications drive.com.au which is the nation's top auto site, as well as Future Women, a membership site for professional women." Code Company also launched the Code Company also launched eBay's local ads site. "That was an important issue because they'd never had regional leads prior to this and started getting Australian leads because of that site," Stacey confirms. "We have recently launched a brand new website called Science Alert, which is one of the top science publications within the US. The website is run by Australia, but most of the readers are from the US. It was a project we worked on for about a year and quarter of a year!" she remembers.

But it seems the company's most successful area is working with slightly smaller established publishers who are seeking to grow. "We are asking, 'How do show that you're able to publish? How do we get your business and your tech stack in the right shape so that you can grow your enterprise?'" Stacey says. This is probably where most of the clients of The Code Company are located; for instance, non-traditional media organizations like the news site Crikey and Her Campus, an all-female college student media company within The US (that The Code Company moved to Drupal in order to switch to WordPress).

The HerCampus.com content hub across multiple devices (c) thecode.co

"We aid creative and innovative creators who find themselves frustrated, or frustrated by their platform of choice as well as CMS (content management system)," Stacey adds. "They're reaching out to us for alternative options because they're seeing that the platform they're using is limited to their capabilities. The platform isn't very flexible, and also they earn a huge portion of their revenue." In addition the need is becoming increasingly important for creators at all levels to gather first-party information. "They're only able 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.

Services and solutions

The Code Company's clientele might be the ones who built their site themselves and/or asked somebody to build the site. Whatever the case they're using a lot of plugins. "As they've progressed, the system is breaking down and they can't fix things themselves. This is causing issues, as well as complaints from readers, and they can't accomplish what they would like to do. There are times when they're unable to do something as simple as adding something to the menu," she confirms.

Mike McPhate at the California Sun confirms: "The biggest problem with my previous membership website was that it was riddled with glitches and unclear prompts about how to navigate it. I received emails every single day from unhappy users. After developing the site with The Code Company and , I'm not getting those emails from readers, so that's just wonderful!"

The California Sun (c)thecode.co

It is well-known that performance is a major factor for publishers "If the performance drops, they can lose thousands of dollars," Stacey continues. "And they're constantly hacking away at one plugin and sticking on an additional. Their performance keeps dropping until the business isn't efficient anymore. They'll join us, with this big creaking tech stack, aware of the possibility of their website going down due to performance."

A growing number of publishers want to diversify their income sources, so they are increasingly looking at memberships and subscriptions. "We have to come up with the best solution to make it reliable and secure. A large part of our job is researching methods that could be life-changing for publishers," she says. Code Company Code Company works specifically with the concept of membership, which is to prevent what Stacey calls "leaky paying walls". Stacey explains: "We've worked with other subscription solutions in the past and it's really straightforward to circumvent the paywall. If your business model is based on publishing, and is reliant on content that is paid for This creates a major challenge."

Events and new projects are in the near future

"The market for creators has exploded," Stacey notes. "Creators are realizing SaaS platforms have limits, and they're looking to consider other avenues. The need for diversification will not go away for publishers, but there is a need to constantly look at ways to be more engaging with audiences with more personalized and targeted content. Subscriptions don't only generate revenues, but they also provide the possibility of getting closer to the audience which can increase their the amount of engagement."

"There remain print magazines available that aren't online and we're receiving interest from the ones that are realizing that in order to be successful the competition, they'll need to change into digital - and that subscription offering could be one of those ways."

As for recent events "Ben is well-known in the world of conferences," adds Stacey. Recently, Ben gave a talk at the Mumbrella publisher conference in Australia in Sydney, as well as WordCamp US in San Diego. The talks covered the creator economy, focusing on the minimalist publisher' and how publishers can accomplish more using the resources they have. The talks also discussed taking the lessons of the creators of larger publishing companies, often using membership solutions.

Founder Ben May is a familiar face on the conference circuit (c) thecode.co

It seems the company founder is an expert in the field. "Ben's done this for the entirety of his life; there's no problem he's not capable of answering," says Stacey. "The feedback I get from speaking to clients is that, if they encounter a problem, they might have to pay another agency two weeks to investigate. The team at Code Company's technology is able to solve it within twenty minutes via phone, because he's seen each of the issues. That's gold for a business to be able to do that type problem-solving capabilities."

In the end, Stacey says: "Publishing or managing a website does not have to be as complex as some people think it is. Our whole ethos is anti-complexity." We agree that it's easy to become caught up in the latest technology or theme or plug-ins "these flashing lights don't have the potential make a difference significantly," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicity" It seems. Stacey states: "We offer the chance to locate a technology partner who can help you get the business results you want with the most straightforward manner that's effective, and not just dropping some buzzword."

More information

To learn more on The Code Company, to look through case studies of the previous integrations and migrations, and for more information about the possibility of working with them, visit their site thecode.co.