Stories

The Simple Websites That Taught Me Complex Business Lessons

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.

What Building Ecommerce Sites Taught Me About Product-Market Fit, Not Just Traffic

Building ecommerce websites for clients taught me early on that traffic and rankings were only half the battle. The real lesson was understanding product-market fit and customer retention.

What Building Websites for Local Businesses Taught Me About True Business Needs

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.

Why I Stopped Building Websites for Clients and Started Building for Myself

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.

The Printed Catalogue That Became My First Exit

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.

Twenty-Five Years of Chasing Better Ideas

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.

Reading My 2007 Guardian Interview Nearly Twenty Years Later

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.

What April Taught Me About TikTok Shop

A personal retrospective on a month of intense growth and unexpected challenges on TikTok Shop, highlighting key lessons learned through direct experience.

The Website Was Never Really the Finished Product

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.

I Built My Own Client Room, and 1J2 Invoicing Is Moving Into It

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.

Why Context Matters in TikTok Shop Affiliate Journeys

My recent TikTok Shop activity showed a dip in performance, but the real lesson wasn't in the numbers themselves. It was in understanding my own deliberate choices during that period, and how those choices directly influenced the outcome.

CapCut Finally Pushed Me Too Far, So I Built My Own AI Video Editor

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.

The Scroll-Stopping Power of Contrast: Why Colour Matters on TikTok

Before anyone hears your hook, they’ve already judged your video. Here’s why contrast and colour can make the difference between a scroll and a view.

The Myth of the Perfect Website: When Technical SEO Missed the Business Point

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.

From Google Traffic to Business Value: The Evolution of "Website Visitors"

For years, website traffic was the main goal. But I learned that not all visitors are equal. My journey showed me the crucial difference between traffic numbers and true business value.

Why I Rarely Start With WordPress Anymore

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.

AI Suggestions Are Now Live on InPlay.finance

Premium users can now see AI-powered market observations alongside InPlay’s live suggested trades, adding another layer of context during the trading day.

Turning InPlay’s Market Data Into Useful AEO Content

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.

InPlay Has Outgrown WordPress. So I’m Bringing It Into Control Room

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.

I Built a Control Room I Can Actually Ask Questions

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.

More Videos = More Sales? TikTok Shop Data Isn’t That Simple

When a creator posts more videos and earns more money, it is tempting to assume one caused the other. But TikTok Shop performance is affected by sales events, existing content, traffic, conversion and product demand. Numbers are useful. Understanding what caused them is far more useful.

I Built a WordPress Plugin Because I Used to Be Scared of My Inbox

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.

I Think I Just Watched the Future of Search Happen

I’ve been building content around the idea that people will increasingly discover websites through AI rather than traditional search. Today, I watched it actually happen.

What I Used to Obsess Over in Web Design That Now Seems Trivial

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.

Answer Engine Optimization: Why AI Search Feels Like the Early Web Again

AI search is changing how people discover products, and for the first time in years I feel like technical affiliates have an opportunity to get ahead of much bigger retailers.

I Spent 20 Years Chasing Google Rankings. Here’s What Actually Mattered.

After more than 20 years building and ranking websites, I’ve learned that lasting SEO success comes less from tricks and more from useful content, strong websites and understanding what people actually want.

TikTok Views Suddenly Down? 5 Things to Do Before You Panic

If your TikTok views have suddenly dropped, you are not the only creator asking what is going on. Here are five sensible things to do before deleting videos, changing your strategy or assuming your account is broken.

Hooking Viewers: Why Price Curiosity Caught My Eye on TikTok Shop

I've been looking at my TikTok Shop affiliate journey, and one thing that really stood out was how different video hooks performed. Specifically, hooks that played on 'price curiosity' seemed to make a significant difference.

Why I’ve Always Been Obsessed With Automation

Long before AI, I was already looking for ways to remove repetitive work and build systems that could multiply my effort.

Don’t Scale Chaos: Build a Strategy Before You Chase More Videos

Forget arbitrary upload targets. Before you try to make more TikTok Shop videos, build a strategy that’s actually worth repeating.

The Day I Realised You Don’t Need to Be the Biggest

A foundational business philosophy derived from an early career lesson, emphasising niche building over market domination.

The Best Businesses Start With an Irritation

Looking back over twenty-five years, some of my best ideas began with something small that simply didn’t make sense.

From Google Rankings to TikTok Algorithms

The platforms have changed dramatically, but the challenge is still the same: getting in front of the right people at the right time.

Before AI, I Was Automating Everything I Could

Long before APIs and AI assistants, I was building systems to automate repetitive work because doing it manually simply didn’t make sense.

Why Affiliate Marketing Became My First Love Again

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.

Building a Central Payment Layer for Everything I Create

How I built pay.1j2.com, a reusable payment service connecting Loyalty and my other projects to Stripe through secure requests, webhooks and callbacks.

Why I’m Finally Building Loyalty

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.

The Biggest Thing I Learned in June

The Simple Reason Most TikTok Videos Fail

Why I Think Most People Are Looking at TikTok the Wrong Way