Terms

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

The Code Company, a specialist agency that focuses on publishing digitally and is among's top partner. They're WordPress specialists and are working on massive-scale overhauls, migrations and integrations, creating hundreds of tech stacks for hundreds of publishers.

The company has just replatformed Substack huge The Dispatch, a publication for reporting and commentary on policy, politics and culture that is worth $1.9 million, and boasting hundreds of thousands of readers. I talked to Stacey Astley Clark, in the partnerships and communications team on the business and the services it offers:

"Our founder Ben May has been using technology to solve issues since grade 10" starts Stacey. "He developed his first site for a local company in the year 12 and earned $400." Ben noticed that there was an business opportunity as well as a possible career in all of this and therefore launched his first agency at the age of 22.

The Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, but did get a few publishing clients initially. Stacey says: "We've carved out a specialization in the development of technology to help digital publishers, and also switching from other platforms to WordPress, building membership functionality as well as ad technology. Our initial strategy was to be platform neutral, but then realized that a majority did not work! Today, we exclusively use WordPress; there were too many 'rescue operations that were a result of other platforms."

"The critically important engineering stuff, that goes into publishing websites, is the thing we do," Stacey continues. The team assists publishers with difficult problems with WordPress and find ways to use technology to "increase their revenue, create more efficiency within their business and minimize the risk of business involving technology".

Stacey and I are both of the opinion that 'tech is becoming less technical', which is really important to publishing. "Sometimes you have editors, creators of content and marketing professionals who are using technology, and must be able to use it , without calling developers each five minutes.These are "wordspeople" and not tech people."

The Code Company helps these people create or migrate to tech stacks that can make them fully self-sufficient "They require something to do everything it did prior to that, but in a more streamlined manner. The Code Company often works with publishers that have websites that are creaking with tech debt. Often a plugin won't give them everything that they want and we've found it to be more efficient to build an integrated system that's custom designed, so users get what they want with none of the stuff they don't."

Clients

The Code Company works with content organizations of all types, ranging from independent publishers to huge entertainment corporations. Recently , they completed the high-profile launch of Wondermind, a content hub for mental health that is supported by famous Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. The launch was praised by Bhavik Trivedi, Chief Operating Officer of Wondermind stated: "I've never had a smooth launch. Until now. It was launched and was scaled to accommodate high traffic, and all our integrations were flawless."

FuqQ9UfLAmNAKjVpzFCV The brand new Wondermind content hub (c) thecode.co

They also collaborate together with Nine, the biggest entertainment group in Australia. "We built their corporate site as well as publications drive.com.au which is the nation's top auto website, 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 a big deal because they had never regional leads before and they were able to get Australian leads as a result of that site," Stacey confirms. "We just launched a brand-new website Science Alert, which is an important science magazine within the US. The website is run by Australia, but most of the readers are from the US. The project was in the making for over a year and quarter of a year!" she remembers.

But it seems the company's best fit is with slightly smaller established publishers which are trying to expand. "We ask, 'How do demonstrate that you are able to publish? How can we put your business and your tech stack to be in the best shape for you to scale your enterprise?'" Stacey says. That's probably where the bulk of the clients of The Code Company lie; this might include independent media groups such as news websites Crikey and Her Campus, an all-female college student media organization in the US (that The Code Company has moved from Drupal in order to switch to WordPress).

PT0CpapgDKohJvS2XTfd The HerCampus.com content hub is accessible to several devices (c) thecode.co

"We aid creative and innovative creators who feel frustrated or trapped by their existing platform as well as CMS (content management system)," Stacey adds. "They're reaching out to us for alternatives because they're finding the platform they're using is limited in terms of the things they are able to do. It's not very flexible and also they earn a huge portion of their revenue." Furthermore that it's becoming more important for creators of any level to collect first-party information. "They're just not able to access that data through platforms such as Substack. We are building custom creator stacks that let them to own their own audience," she explains.

Solutions and services

The customers of The Code Company may have created their own website, or might have asked somebody to build the site. Whatever the case they're using a lot of plugins. "As the site has grown, they're finding that things are starting to break and they're not able to repair things by themselves. The result is inefficiencies, complaints from customers, and they aren't able to perform what they'd like to accomplish. It's not always like adding items on the menu." she confirms.

Mike McPhate at the California Sun states: "The biggest problem with my old membership site was that it was filled by errors, as well as confusing instructions regarding how to use it. I would receive emails nearly every day from frustrated readers. When I created the site in conjunction in conjunction with The Code Company and , I'm not getting those emails from readers, so that's just wonderful!"

The California Sun (c)thecode.co

As we all know, the performance of a website is crucial for publishers "If there is a drop in performance the publisher could lose thousands of dollars," Stacey continues. "And they're constantly hacking away at an application and sticking with an additional. The performance of their site keeps declining until their business just isn't successful anymore. They'll join us, carrying this massive technological stack creaking in the background, conscious of the possibility of their site going down due to performance."

More publishers are wanting to diversify their revenue so many are looking at memberships and subscriptions. "We need to find a solution that is efficient and secure. The majority of our work is to research solutions that will be life-changing for publishers," she says. The Code Company works specifically with membership solutions, to avoid what Stacey describes as "leaky payment walls". Stacey explains: "We've worked with other subscription solutions in the past and it's really easy to get around the paywall. If your model of business is based on publishing, and relies on paid content, this presents a large challenge."

There are new events and projects coming up

"The creator economy has boomed," Stacey notes. "Creators are realizing that SaaS platforms come with limitationsand are looking to look at other alternatives. Diversification isn't going away for publishers, but neither is the need to kind of keep looking at new ways to engage with audiences by providing more targeted and personalized content. Subscriptions do more than just generate income, they provide an opportunity to get closer to audiences as well and increase participation."

"There remain print magazines available that aren't online and we're still getting interest from those who are realizing that, in order to be successful the competition, they'll need to change into digital and a subscription service would form part of that."

On the note of recent happenings "Ben is a well-known face in the world of conferences," adds Stacey. Recently, Ben spoke at the Mumbrella Publisher Conference in Australia in Sydney, as well as WordCamp US in San Diego. The talks covered the creator economy and focused on 'the minimalist publisher' and how publishers can accomplish more using the resources they have. It is also possible to learn from creators for bigger publishing organizations and, in many cases, using membership services.

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

The founder of the business knows the industry inside out. "Ben's done this for the entirety of his life; there's no issue he's not able to answer," says Stacey. "The information I gather through conversations with clients is that if they have an issue, they may have to pay another agency for two weeks to visit and investigate. The tech staff at the Code Company will solve the issue in twenty minutes via phone, because he's seen every single one of these. This is a huge advantage for any business to be able to do that type ability to troubleshoot."

To conclude, Stacey says: "Publishing or running a website doesn't need to be as complicated as some people think it is. Our whole ethos is anti-complexity." We are both of the opinion that it is easy to be lost in the latest tech or theme or plug-ins "these flashing lights aren't going to move the needle significantly," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicity" it appears. Stacey states: "We offer the chance to locate a technology partner who can help you attain the success you want with the most straightforward method that is effective, not just dropping any buzzwords of the moment."

More details

To read more about The Code Company, to see case studies on prior integrations and migrations as well as to learn more about working with them, check out their site thecode.co.