Things I make, code, automate and turn into working products.
32 articles in this pillar.
For years, WordPress was the default for content. Pushing it to its limits taught me invaluable lessons about managing information at scale and why I eventually started building my own publishing platforms.
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One of my earliest ecommerce projects was T-ShirtMe, where customers could design their own T-shirt and I built the shopping-cart system myself. After years of using WooCommerce, I have ended up building more of the infrastructure myself again.
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I think affiliate websites are heading somewhere much more interesting. Instead of building another shop full of products, answer the question properly first, then let relevant products appear naturally inside the answer. I’ve been connecting Awin feeds, Affiliate Brain, live product data and 1jump2.com to see what that looks like in practice.
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After more than 20 years building websites, I no longer assume every new idea needs the same platform, structure or technology. Moving from client web design to building my own products taught me to start with what the project needs to become.
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Premium users can now see AI-powered market observations alongside InPlay’s live suggested trades, adding another layer of context during the trading day.
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InPlay.finance collects an enormous amount of stock market information every trading day. I’ve been building a new layer in Control Room that can understand that historical data, find genuinely interesting questions within it and use it as the evidence behind useful AEO articles.
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InPlay.finance started life inside WordPress, but over the years it became a product in its own right. I’ve finally moved it into my own Control Room ecosystem, giving me a much better foundation for the next stage: turning live stock market data into genuinely useful AEO content.
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I connected my 1J2 Control Room to ChatGPT and accidentally built something much more useful than another dashboard: a business system I can interrogate in plain English.
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I spent years thinking the website was the product. Eventually, building ecommerce sites and business systems taught me that the most valuable work often happens behind the scenes.
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Many years ago, anxiety got to the point where I would avoid opening my email altogether. Eventually I employed a PA to help me organise it. Years later, I realised I could turn the system she taught me into software. Today, I submitted Susan Port to the official WordPress Plugin Directory.
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Today I built a proper Client Room for 1J2, bringing recurring services, invoicing, payments, reminders and reporting into a system I actually control. It also means a small change for existing clients: future 1J2 invoices will now be sent through my own billing system.
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Long before AI, I was already looking for ways to remove repetitive work and build systems that could multiply my effort.
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CapCut putting audio extraction behind a paywall was annoying. Adding a watermark was the final straw. Instead of finding another app, I built the features I needed into my own TikTok Shop video workflow, including direct Grok integration that turns still images into AI video clips.
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Long before APIs and AI assistants, I was building systems to automate repetitive work because doing it manually simply didn’t make sense.
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How I built pay.1j2.com, a reusable payment service connecting Loyalty and my other projects to Stripe through secure requests, webhooks and callbacks.
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After years on hold, I’m finally building Loyalty, a digital platform designed to help independent businesses encourage repeat customers. Here’s the story behind the project and how the idea has evolved.
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Launching a website was only the beginning; the real lessons came from the continuous, often unseen, effort required to keep it alive and thriving online.
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Some local businesses wanted more enquiries. Others already had enough work and simply needed a credible presence online. That distinction taught me to stop assuming every website had the same job.
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I liked Google Ads when I could see what was happening and act on the detail. As more decisions moved into automation, losing that visibility reinforced how much I value systems I can inspect and understand.
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For years, I chased technical perfection in web design and SEO, believing the best-built sites would always win. I learned that flawless code and high rankings didn't guarantee business success.
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Building basic websites for local businesses in the early 2000s seemed straightforward. But those simple projects taught me profound lessons about real business needs beyond just having a digital presence.
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Google’s latest guidance for AI search has made me think differently about AEO. If AI can generate perfectly acceptable content about almost anything, the valuable bit is increasingly the knowledge, experience and context that only your website can provide.
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Building websites for local businesses taught me that the site itself was rarely the whole answer. The real value was in understanding their deeper business needs.
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From pixel perfection to intricate tech, I used to obsess over web design details that now seem trivial. Here's what I learned about building truly effective online presences.
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For years, web design, SEO, ecommerce and Google Ads were services I provided for businesses. Eventually I realised the part I loved was not running an agency at all. It was building. That realisation changed what I chose to work on next.
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Looking back over twenty-five years, some of my best ideas began with something small that simply didn’t make sense.
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After years of building websites and software, I found myself falling back in love with affiliate marketing. Here’s why today’s tools have made it more exciting than ever.
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Understanding the deliberate decisions behind a creator's strategy provides the strongest explanation for performance shifts on TikTok Shop, rather than relying solely on raw data.
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How I turned a printed wholesale T-shirt catalogue into an online business, reached the top of Google and eventually sold the website to a larger competitor.
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An introduction to my journey building websites, software and online businesses over the last twenty-five years, and the lessons that continue to shape the products I’m building today.
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A reflection on enduring business principles and personal motivations, seen through the lens of a nearly two-decade-old interview, highlighting consistency amidst technological change.
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UDID (Unique Device Identifier) is a 40-character string that is used to identify an iPhone or iPad.
Read articleI also provide website development, hosting, maintenance and ongoing technical support for businesses through 1J2.