Tom, head honcho of Coding Monkeys (Web Design) and Lost Ferret (E-commerce) based in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK, talks about the business behind running two successful web-based companies and why he can’t stop buying Apple products.
Seriously. He can’t stop. I’m not sure if it’s an affect of over zealous British pride or his love of Bob Geldof or watching too much Gordon Ramsay. Either way, this coding monkey, is working for more than just bananas. That line was cheesy, wasn’t it? Sure was.
Let’s get straight to the good stuff! Gimme a run down the Coding Monkey’s Macs:
Mac Pro. 2.8GHz, 300GB 15,000 rpm HD, 16GB 800Mhz RAM.
Macbook Air. 1.8GHz, 64GB SSD
iMacs: 24″ 2.7GHz, 500GB HD, 4GB RAM & 20″ 2.4GHz 320GB HD 4GB RAM
Shizzam! That’s some serious gear!
I’ve got 2 more iMacs, a Macbook and a Powerbook as well.
Greedy! So, what’s your honest opinion about the Macbook Air?
Absolutely amazing, except for a small issue with iChat video lag. Guess Rev 2 will fix it or maybe a firmware update. Reading forums, it seems an overheating issue or something. Which seems very typical of Apple products. But it’s so quiet and light and just beautiful.
You started up your web design company by yourself when you were just 18. That takes some serious bollocks! What was your initial business plan for CM, and how were you able to make it happen?
The initial business plan for Coding Monkeys was basically non existent. It was as simple as getting work in, without much idea of how that was going to happen. I was very naive in what was going to happen, yet the idea was simply to be better than all of the local competition in terms of the service offered. The key success to where we are now is working with great people who also want to achieve in what they do. If you have creative people and let them be creative, it’s a win win situation. I’m also really lucky to have a fantastic salesman who is deeply passionate about what we do, so it reflects well when meeting clients.
I notice you only use Terminal for coding. Why don’t you use any normal apps like Dreamweaver or any WYWISYG stuff?
Basically because Vim gives you direct access to the server, so you can work on everything incredibly quick, as if you were working on it locally on your computer. There’s no actual uploading of any files, and you can navigate the entire page with great ease - all without using a mouse. It also has great features built in, like the ability to split pages so you can access differences, and if you’re working on a project with more than 1 person, it’s easy to see who’s editing files without overwriting anything - a problem that seems to occur too often when people don’t use it.
What is your goal when you’re coding?
Initially when working on my own, it was all about doing the least lines of code, all clumped together so that only I could read it and that was fine. Since running the company, it’s all about writing the cleanest code, outside of the templates so that a designer can easily go and edit everything. The main thing I do is benchmarking different functions to make it the most efficient, and I always want it to be the best solution, so do often spend too much time trying to better it.
So how do you maintain a productive work flow between running your company and coding?
Everything always comes down to a compromise. I find I’m most effective at working on something in my spare time, like in the evenings or weekends and therefore have most of the day to work on the running of the company and the management of it. As the company grows, more staff are being taken on and within a few months I won’t be doing any of the code anymore.
On your website you say you are available for calls from clients at 3:25am. Has making yourself available for clients had a part in your success?
Absolutely. Offering a great service is one thing, but customer service is very important. People should be treated well - it’s common sense, yet so many companies fail on that premise. We’ve won a £20k contract from being available on a Sunday evening to take a call from a potential customer, who decided to go ahead after speaking to me for an hour.
What’s the lamest request you’ve had for a web site?
Every other week someone contacts us for a cost to create the next Facebook, Bebo or MySpace yet we never hear back from anyone after giving them a base price.
So they’re cheapskates!
Nope, just unrealistic expectations. If you really think the idea is going to make you rich, take the risk. A lot of people except to become rich by investing next to no money into an idea, which is often unrealistic. Even sites like YouTube and Facebook survived on Venture Capitalists investing millions into them to begin with.
Recently, you split CMs into two separate companies, Coding Monkeys for web design and Lost Ferret for e-commerce. Why did you decide on the split?
In my opinion, a company has to stand for one thing. When people think of certain companies and single words will come to mind and that is the impact of brand. If you end up doing too much, you dilute your brand. Like Mercedes, who now offer lower end cars, and McDonalds who tried to enter the adult market with an adult hamburger, resulting in substantial loses. So, it seemed natural to have the company represented as high-end design and one that specialised on specifically making the clients money through our e-commerce platform. If you do an entire Flash website for client X, then do a website that makes client Y millions of pounds in e-commerce, you’re a web design company. But if you separate the two, then they each have a single word related to them: branding/design and e-commerce, so it becomes easier to reference them.
So what are your goals with your e-commerce company, Lost Ferret?
Quite simply, to create our clients as much money as possible, using our 3 in-house developed systems: Aurora CMS, Aurora Stats and Aurora Optimiser. Each of which all contribute to increasing the conversion rate and sales of our clients.
Do you hope to find the missing ferret one day?
I would expect to find him with the monkeys smoking a cigar.
Monkeys really shouldn’t smoke.
