Terms

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

The Code Company, a specialization agency that concentrates on publishing digitally, is one of 's most preferred partners. They're WordPress experts , and they work on massive-scale overhauls including migrations and integrations. developing hundreds of technology stacks to support hundreds of publishers.

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

"Our founder Ben May has been using technology to address issues since grade 10" starts Stacey. "He made his first website for a local firm in year 12, and earned $400." Ben noticed that there was a growing opportunity and a potential profession 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 get a few publishing customers initially. Stacey describes: "We've carved out a niche in building technology for digital publishers as well as moving from different platforms to WordPress and building membership capabilities, and ad tech. Our initial strategy was to be platform neutral, but then realized that a majority did not work! Today, we exclusively use WordPress There were also several'rescue operation that were a result of other platforms."

"The essential engineering aspects that is used to create publishing websites, is the thing we do," Stacey continues. They help publishers solve difficult problems with WordPress and find methods to make use of technology to "increase their revenue, create more efficiency within their business and minimize risks associated with technology for business".

Stacey and I are both of the opinion that  technology is getting less technological', and this is crucial for publishing. "Sometimes you will have journalists, content creators and marketers using tech and must utilize the technology without having to call an engineer every five minutes.These are "wordspeople", not 'tech people'."

The Code Company helps these people develop or transition to tech stacks that can make them self-sufficient "They require a system that is able be able to perform the same tasks as before but in a much more streamlined manner. We often work with publishers who have sites that are struggling with debt from technology. Often a plugin won't give them everything that they want therefore we believe it is easier to create a custom integration, so you get all the features they need with none of the stuff they don't."

Clients

The Code Company works with content companies of all sorts that range from small-scale publishers to large entertainment groups. Recently they have launched the highly-publicized launch of Wondermind the content hub for mental health that is supported by famous Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. In the wake of the launch, Bhavik Trivedi, Chief Operations Officer at Wondermind said: "I've never had a flawless launch. Until now. It was launched 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 work in conjunction with Nine, the biggest entertainment company in Australia. "We developed their corporate website and also publications drive.com.au one of the top auto website and 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 major one because they never had regional leads before and they started getting Australian leads as a result from that website," Stacey confirms. "We recently built a new website Science Alert, which is a leading science publication within the US. It's operated from Australia and the rest of its audience is in the US. The project was in the making for a year and a half!" she remembers.

It seems that the firm's best fit is with publishers that are a little smaller that are looking to scale. "We are asking, 'How do show that you're able to publish? How can we put your company and the tech stack in the right shape so that you can grow your company?'" Stacey says. That's probably where the bulk customers of The Cod Co are located; for instance, independent media groups such as news website Crikey and Her Campus, a female college students media group located in the US (that The Code Company moved from Drupal to WordPress).

PT0CpapgDKohJvS2XTfd The HerCampus.com content hub across multiple devices (c) thecode.co

"We help creative and innovative creators who feel frustrated or trapped by their existing platform and/or 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 what they can do. The platform isn't very flexible, and takes a large portion of their revenue." Additionally the need is becoming increasingly important for creators at any level to collect first-party data. "They're just not able to obtain that information through platforms such as 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 and/or asked somebody to build it. Whatever the case they're using numerous plugins. "As they've progressed, things are starting to break and they're unable to fix them for themselves. It's creating a load of inefficiencies, complaints from readers, and they can't accomplish what they would like to do. 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 old membership site was that it was filled with errors and confusing prompts on how to navigate the site. I'd get emails almost every day from unhappy users. Since I developed the website together with The Code Company and , I'm no longer receiving those emails from readers and that's great!"

The California Sun (c)thecode.co

We all know that performance is a major factor for publishing companies "If there is a drop in performance, they can lose thousands of dollars," Stacey continues. "And they're constantly hacking away at one plugin and sticking on the next. Their performance keeps dropping until their business just isn't efficient anymore. Then they'll come 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 revenues, which is why many are looking at subscriptions and memberships. "We must find the best solution to make it reliable and secure. A large part of our job is researching tools that are going to be life-changing for publishers," she says. The Code Company works specifically with the concept of membership, which is to prevent what Stacey describes as "leaky paying walls". She explains: "We've worked with other membership solutions before and found it straightforward to circumvent the paywall. If your model of business is based on publishing, and is reliant on paid content This creates a major issue."

New projects and events in the near future

"The market for creators has exploded," Stacey notes. "Creators are realizing SaaS platforms have limits, and they're looking to look at other alternatives. The need for diversification will not go away for publishers. But neither is the need to constantly look at new ways to engage with audiences with more personalized and targeted content. Subscriptions do more than just generate revenues, but they also provide an opportunity to get closer to audiences as well, increasing engagement."

"There still exist print newspapers available that aren't fully digital, and we're still getting interest from those that realize that in order to be successful the competition, they'll need to change into digital and subscriptions would form part of that."

On the note of recent events "Ben is well-known at conferences," adds Stacey. Recently, Ben spoke 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 how publishers can do more with little. This includes taking lessons from creators for bigger publishing organizations and, in many cases, using membership services.

The founder Ben May is a familiar name in the world of conferences. (c) thecode.co

It appears that the founder of the company knows the industry inside out. "Ben's been doing this all his life, and there's never a question that he can't answer," says Stacey. "The feedback I get through conversations with clients is that if they have problems, they could need to shell out another agency for two weeks to visit and investigate. The Code Company's tech team will solve the issue in twenty minutes via phone since he's experienced all of the issues. It's a great thing for businesses to be able to do that type of troubleshooting."

To conclude, Stacey says: "Publishing or operating a site doesn't require as much effort like people imagine it to be. We're all about simplicity." We acknowledge that it's easy to be lost in the latest tech or theme or plug-ins "these flashing lights don't have the potential to move the needle at all," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicities" it appears. Stacey says: "We offer the chance to connect with a tech company which can assist you to get the business results you want, in the simplest possible method that is effective, not using any buzzwords of the moment."

More details

To read more about The Code Company, to read case studies about the previous integrations and migrations, as well as to learn more about working with them, visit their website thecode.co.