Terms

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

The Code Company, a professional agency that is focused on publishing via digital media and is among's preferred partners. They are WordPress experts and work with large-scale design including migrations and integrations. creating hundreds of tech stacks for hundreds of publishing companies.

The company just launched a relaunch of Substack giant The Dispatch, a publication for reporting and commentary on policy, politics and culture worth $1.9 million, and boasting hundreds of thousands of readers. I spoke to Stacey Astley-Clark who is part of the communications and partnerships team regarding the business as well as its offerings:

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

Code Company Code Company didn't deliberately get into publishing, but did get a few publishing clients initially. Stacey describes: "We've carved out a niche in building technology for digital publishers and migrating from other platforms to WordPress as well as building membership functions and advertising technology. We were initially platform agnostic and then discovered that a majority sucked! Now we work exclusively with WordPress There were also too many 'rescue operations on different platforms."

"The essential engineering aspects, that goes into publishing websites, is the thing We do" Stacey continues. They help publishers solve complicated problems by using WordPress and come up with ways to utilize technology to "increase the amount of revenue they earn, generate better efficiencies in the enterprise and decrease the risk of business involving technology".

Stacey and I are both of the opinion that 'tech is becoming less technical', which is essential for publishing. "Sometimes you will have journalists, content creators as well as marketers who use technology and need to be able to use it , without calling an engineer each five minutes.These are 'words people' who are not "technical people"."

Code Company helps people create or migrate to technology stacks that make them self-sufficient. Code Company helps these people build or move to technology stacks that make them fully self-sufficient "They require something accomplish the tasks it had before but in a much simpler manner. We frequently work with publishing companies who have sites that are struggling with debt from technology. Often a plugin won't give them everything that they want and we've found it to be more efficient to build an integration that is custom, to ensure they get everything they want without sacrificing any items they do not."

Customers

The Code Company works with content businesses of all kinds that range from small-scale publishers to huge entertainment corporations. Recently , they successfully launched Wondermind which is a content hub for mental health that is backed by celebrity Selena Gomez and Newsette CEO Daniella Pierson. Speaking of the launch, Bhavik Trivedi, the Chief Operating Officer of Wondermind, commented: "I've never had a seamless launch. Until now. The site went live and was scaled to accommodate traffic spikes and all of our integrations were flawless."

The new Wondermind media hub (c) thecode.co

They also collaborate with Nine, the biggest entertainment group in Australia. "We built their corporate site and also publications drive.com.au which is the nation's top auto site in addition to Future Women, a membership site for professional women." The Code Company also launched eBay's local ads website. "That was a big one because they never had regional leads before and they were able to get Australian leads because from that website," Stacey confirms. "We have recently launched a brand new website Science Alert, which is a leading science publication within the US. The website is run by Australia and the rest of the readers are from the US. We worked on that project for over a year and quarter of a year!" she remembers.

It seems that the firm's best fit is with smaller established publishers which are trying to expand. "We ask, 'How do demonstrate that you are able to publish? What can we do to get your company and the tech stack in the right shape for you to scale your business?'" Stacey says. That's probably where the bulk of The Code Co's clients lie; this might include independent media groups such as news website Crikey and Her Campus, the female-led college students' media organization in the US (that The Code Company has moved to Drupal and moved to WordPress).

The HerCampus.com content hub is accessible to many platforms (c) thecode.co

"We help smart and ambitious creators that find themselves frustrated, or frustrated by their platform of choice or CMS (content management system)," Stacey adds. "They're coming to us looking for alternatives because they're finding their current platform is restrictive to the things they are able to do. The platform isn't very flexible, and also they earn a huge chunk of the revenue." In addition, it's getting more and essential for creators at any scale to obtain data from first parties. "They're just not able to get that through platforms such as Substack. We are building custom creator stacks to allow users to control their own fan base," she explains.

Solutions and services

The customers of The Code Company may have created their own website they may have enlisted for help from someone to design the site. Either way they're using numerous plugins. "As the site has grown, they're finding that things are starting to break and they're unable to fix them by themselves. This is causing problems, and complaints from the readersand the fact that they're unable to perform what they'd like to accomplish. There are times when they're unable to do something that are as easy as adding something to their menus," She confirms.

Mike McPhate at the California Sun affirms: "The biggest problem with my membership website of the past 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 with The Code Company and , I no longer get 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 to publishers "If there is a drop in performance the publisher could lose millions of dollars" Stacey continues. "And they continue to hack out the same plugin, and then re-installing the next. Their performance keeps dropping until their business just isn't successful any more. After that, they'll be with us with this huge creaking tech stack, aware of the risk of their site going slow due to the performance."

A growing number of publishers want to diversify their income sources, so they are increasingly exploring memberships and subscriptions. "We have to come up with the best solution to make it reliable and secure. A large part of our work is to research tools that are going to transform the lives of publishers," she says. Code Company Code Company works specifically with subscription solutions to get around the what Stacey refers to as "leaky paying walls". 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 business model, as a publisher, relies on paid content This creates a major challenge."

Events and new projects are in the near future

"The market for creators has exploded," Stacey notes. "Creators have realized that SaaS platforms come with limitationsand are looking to look at other alternatives. The need for diversification will not go out of the window for publishers, but it's also important to kind of keep looking for new ways to connect with audiences through more customized and targeted content. Subscription offerings don't just create income, they provide an opportunity to get closer to audiences as well which can increase their the amount of engagement."

"There still exist print newspapers in circulation that aren't fully digital, and we're continuing to receive inquiries from publications that are realizing that for them to continue to exist, they'll have to pivot in some way to digital and subscriptions will be a part of it."

As for recent happenings "Ben is well-known at conferences," adds Stacey. Recently Ben was a speaker at the Mumbrella publisher conference in Australia in Sydney, as well as WordCamp US in San Diego. His talks focused on the creator economy and focused on 'the minimalist publisher' and ways publishers can achieve more from the resources they have. This includes taking lessons from the creators of larger publishing companies, often using membership solutions.

Founder Ben May is a familiar face 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 and there's not a question that he can't answer," says Stacey. "The experience I receive through conversations with clients is that in the event of problems, they could be required to pay a different agency two weeks to go and investigate. The tech staff at the Code Company will solve the issue in 20 minutes over the phone since he's experienced all of the issues. This is a huge advantage for any business having that level problem-solving capabilities."

In conclusion, Stacey says: "Publishing or running a website doesn't have to be as complex like people imagine it to be. We're all about simplicity." We acknowledge that it's easy to become distracted by the latest gadget or theme or plug-ins "these flashing lights aren't going make a difference in any meaningful way," she smiles.

The Code Company revels in "smart simplicities" it seems. Stacey says: "We offer the chance to connect with a tech company that can actually help you achieve the results that you want with the most straightforward way that works, without simply dropping any buzzwords of the moment."

Additional information

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