Terms
The Code Company founder Ben May talks at an trade show (c) thecode.co
The Code Company, a specialization agency that concentrates on digital publishing, is one of 's top partner. They're WordPress experts and work with large-scale design, migrations and integrations, developing hundreds of technology stacks to support hundreds of publishers.
The company recently relaunched Substack the giant The Dispatch, a publication to provide news and comment on policy, politics and culture that is worth $1.9 million with many thousands of subscribers. I had a conversation with Stacey Clark who is part of the communications and partnerships team, about the company as well as its offerings:
"Our director Ben May has been using technology to solve issues since grade 10" starts Stacey. "He made his first website for a local firm at the age of 12, and made the sum of $400." Ben noticed that there was an emerging business opportunity as well as a possible career within this field and therefore launched his first company at the age of 22.
Code Company Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, however it did win a couple of publishing clients in the beginning. Stacey says: "We've carved out a specialization in the development of technology for digital publishers as well as moving from different platforms to WordPress and building membership capabilities as well as ad technology. At first, we were platform-neutral, but then realized that a majority were a disaster! Today, we exclusively use WordPress There were also numerous'rescue operations on different platforms."
"The essential engineering aspects, that goes into publishing websites, is the thing we do," Stacey continues. We assist publishers in solving difficult problems with WordPress and find methods to make use of technology to "increase the amount of revenue they earn, generate greater efficiencies within the company and reduce risks associated with technology for business".
Stacey and I are both of the opinion that 'tech is becoming less technical', which is crucial for publishing. "Sometimes there are journalists, content creators and marketers using tech and must be able to use the technology without having to call a developer at every 5 minutes.These are "wordspeople" and not tech people."
The Code Company helps these people develop or transition to tech stacks that can make them independent "They require a system that is able to do everything it did previously, but in a more streamlined method. We often work with publishers who have sites that are in debt to technology. Most plugins don't offer them everything that they want therefore we believe it is more efficient to build an integration that is custom, to ensure you get all the features they need without sacrificing any items they do not."
Customers
The Code Company works with content businesses of all kinds, ranging from independent publishers to major entertainment companies. Recently , they successfully launched Wondermind the Mental Health content hub that was backed by celebrity Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. In the wake of the launch, Bhavik Trivedi who is the Chief Operating Officer of Wondermind said: "I've never had a smooth launch. Until now. The website went live in the middle of the day, and it was gradually scaled as traffic spikes and all of our integrations performed flawlessly."
The brand new Wondermind content hub (c) thecode.co
They also partner with Nine The biggest entertainment group in Australia. "We created their corporate website as well as publications drive.com.au one of the top auto site in addition to Future Women, a membership site for professional women." The Code Company also launched eBay's local ads site. "That was a major deal because they had never regional leads prior to that and began to receive Australian leads because from that website," Stacey confirms. "We recently built a new website called Science Alert, which is an important science magazine within the US. It's run from Australia, but most of the readers are from the US. It was a project we worked on for about a year and half!" she remembers.
It seems that the firm's sweet spot is working with publishers that are a little smaller that are looking to scale. "We are asking, 'How do demonstrate that you are able to publish? What can we do to get your technology stack in the right shape for you to scale your enterprise?'" Stacey says. This is probably where most of the clients of The Code Company lie; this might include non-traditional media organizations like news websites Crikey and Her Campus, a female college students media organization within The US (that The Code Company changed to Drupal and moved to WordPress).
PT0CpapgDKohJvS2XTfd The HerCampus.com content hub across multiple devices (c) thecode.co
"We help smart and ambitious creators that are feeling frustrated or hamstrung by their platform of choice or CMS (content management software)," Stacey adds. "They're coming to us looking for alternatives because they're finding the platform they're using is limited in terms of 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 data from first parties. "They're only able to get that from platforms like Substack. We're building custom creator stacks that allow users to control 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 somebody to build it. Either way they're using many plugins. "As they've progressed, issues are beginning to show and they're unable to fix them for themselves. The result is problems, and complaints from the customers, and they aren't able to do what they want to accomplish. It's not always as simple as adding something to the menu," She confirms.
Mike McPhate at the California Sun affirms: "The biggest problem with my previous membership website was that it was filled with errors and confusing prompts about how to navigate it. I'd get emails almost every day from angry users. Since I developed the website with The Code Company and , I no longer get those emails from readers and that's great!"
The California Sun (c)thecode.co
We all know that the performance of a website is crucial for publishers "If the performance drops the publisher could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars" Stacey continues. "And they keep hacking out an application and sticking with an additional. They're losing performance until their business just isn't efficient no more. Then they'll come with us with this huge creaking tech stack, aware of the risk of their website going slow due to the performance."
A growing number of publishers want to diversify their revenues, which is why many are exploring memberships and subscriptions. "We have to come up with an option that's efficient and secure. The majority of our task is looking into tools that are going to change the way publishers work," she says. Code Company Code Company works specifically with subscription solutions to get around what Stacey refers to as "leaky paywalls". The Code Company's founder explains that: "We've worked with other membership solutions before and we've found it very simple to bypass the paywall. If your model of business, as a publisher, is reliant on the sale of content to users it can be a huge issue."
Events and new projects are on the horizon
"The creator economy has boomed," Stacey notes. "Creators are realizing that SaaS platforms aren't without their limitationsand are looking to explore other options. The need for diversification will not go away for publishers. But it's also important to constantly look for new ways to connect with audiences by providing more targeted and personalized content. Subscriptions don't only generate revenue, they create the possibility of getting closer to viewers as well which can increase their engagement."
"There still exist print newspapers available that aren't fully digital, and we're still getting interest from those that realize that for them to continue to exist, they'll have to pivot into digital and a subscription service would form part of that."
In the context of recent events "Ben is a well-known face in the world of conferences," adds Stacey. Recently Ben gave a talk at the Mumbrella conference for publishers in Australia, and WordCamp US in San Diego. His talks focused on the creator economy, focusing on the minimalist publisher' and ways publishers can accomplish more using the resources they have. It is also possible to learn from authors for larger publishing firms which often use membership-based solutions.
The founder Ben May is a familiar name at conferences. (c) thecode.co
The founder of the business has a deep understanding of the business. "Ben's done this for the entirety of his life; there's no problem he's not capable of answering," says Stacey. "The experience I receive from speaking to clients is that, if they encounter problems, they could have to pay another agency two weeks and look into. The team at Code Company's technology can literally solve it in 20 minutes on the phone because they've seen all of the issues. That's gold for a business having that level problem-solving capabilities."
To conclude, Stacey says: "Publishing or managing a website does not need to be as complicated as people make it. The whole purpose of our company is to avoid complexity." She and I are both of the opinion that it is easy to become lost in the latest tech or theme, or even plugins "these blinking lights won't be able help the needle move in any meaningful way," she smiles.
The Code Company revels in "smart simple" it seems. Stacey says: "We offer the chance to connect with a tech company which can assist you to achieve the results that you want by implementing the most simple method that is effective, not just dropping some buzzword."
More information
To learn more about The Code Company, to read case studies about the previous integrations and migrations, and to look into working with them, check out their site thecode.co.