denting the universe with software since 1996

Add a software engineer with startup experience to your team.

Independent advice and hands on support to accelerate your business's product development.

Get your FREE guide to 9 Concerns of Successful Software Businesses

Download Today

Timely Questions

There are a million things you could worry about when growing a software business.

Once we've got to know you, your team and your business we'll ask you the right questions at the right time so you can focus on what's most important.

  • Have you considered using [3rd party service] to solve that problem?
  • How do you know your data is safe?
  • Do you know why [metric x] dropped last week?
  • What percentage of your users are active each day/week/month?
  • Have you asked [experienced contact] about that problem?
  • Does anyone even use that feature?
  • What would happen if [developer] stopped work tomorrow?
  • What are the top things users want?
  • Have you heard about [new trend] that might influence this?
  • How do your users react when they see that screen?
  • Have you tried using [technique] to solve that problem?
  • When did you last ask ten customers about that?

From £300+VAT/month

Honest Answers

Not all questions have easy answers, it's the unknowns that make your businesses risky.

We'll dig deep into your business, your data and your code to find answers that will help you make decisions critical to the growth of your business.

  • How to reduce hosting costs from $20K per month to $800 per months without impacting performance.
  • £100 million worth of customer data 'stored in the cloud' was at risk of being lost if a server crashed.
  • The startup with most customers wasn't the one most likely to succeed in a group of opportunities.
  • A way to increase conversions by 50% while only changing two lines of code.
  • The best candidate for a lead developer role with non-technical founders didn't have the best CV.
  • A feature that would have cost £100K to build and maintain would have only generated £10K revenue.
  • How to avoid a repeat of the damaging experience a business had from two days system downtime.
  • Why investing in an API and developer network was not the best strategy for a growing SaaS business.
  • How a struggling B2B SaaS business could differentiate itself in a crowded market.

From £3,000+VAT

Ambitious Solutions

Building and maintaining commercial software is hard, make sure it's worth your time and effort.

We only build custom software when we believe it can have a positive impact that's worth more to your business than 10X the cost of development.

  • A system to safely codify information used by all UK doctors perscribing drugs.
  • A niche social network backed by a popular UK TV celebrity.
  • Two of the UK's first Facebook applications for Oxfam.
  • A staff training system used by all American Express EMEA employees.
  • An mobile application to support a collaboration between the BBC and Facebook.
  • A portfolio management system used by high profile UK angel investors.
  • A social network analysis software-as-a-service monitoring the 36 most heavily used online services.
  • A logistics system handling over £5 million of music industry deals per month.
  • A metrics dashboard measuring the professional development of teachers in over 500 UK schools.

Ask

Organisations we've worked with:

Jonathan Markwell

View Jonathan Markwell's profile on LinkedIn

Jonathan Markwell, Coder Founder in Chief

Jonathan ran his first few lines of valuable code in 1996 after years of tinkering with computers and electronics. He has since written commercial software on four continents and spoken about creating great environments for building products around the world.

Jonathan is the founder of The Skiff, a 150 member coworking community in Brighton, England. He's witnessed what it takes for software businesses to reach >£80K monthly recurring revenue, acquire >1 million users and raise >$1 million. He's learned most while working to resolve challenging situations you'll hopefully never experience with dissatisfied users, dysfunctional teams, dangerous software, damaged data, dwindling finances and disastrous exits.

After 5 years of building businesses to serve product development organisations, Jonathan made his first product-based income while he slept in 2011. He continues to enjoy working closely with businesses in industries as diverse as education, marketing and music.

Jonathan's driven by his desire is to create healthy communities that apply sensible practices to build great products. Offline he loves to spend time sailing across oceans and cooking up memorable meals for friends and family with his wife, Anna.

In the media:

Nice things people have said about Jonathan:

0368210

Jonathan really came through for us in his personal evaluation of prospective technologists interviewing for the CTO position at QikCut. I would enthusiastically recommend Jonathan as a key ally in supporting entrepreneurs to make informed and strategic hiring decisions.

Michael Propper Founder, QikCut
144caa6

We've been in the software as a service business for over 10 years and Jonathan introduced us to a wealth of valuable opportunities we hadn't previously spotted. It was refreshing to get perspective from someone who genuinely understands how things work at the intersection of business and technology

Rebecca Kimber Cofounder, Create.net
144caa6

Jonathan recommended a change to our website that took 10 minutes to implement and resulted in over 4,000 additional downloads of our Android application within a few days. Great breadth of knowledge and ideas.

James Robinson Cofounder, OpenSignal
144caa6

Jonathan has a practical and broad knowledge of technology that, coupled with his thirst for learning enable him to spot opportunities to innovate and deliver solutions that develop the business.


James McCarthy Programme Manager, American Express

Appreciate the input thx.

Steve Ballmer CEO, Microsoft
Really?

Other Coder Founders:

When you need specialist advice and support we can connect you with one of over a thousand members of the three communities we founded:

The Skiff

A place to surround yourself with people you love working with.

Accidentally created out of our own Brighton office, The Skiff has become one of the worlds largest coworking communities. We work with over 150 active members and hundereds of friends who visit from around the globe.

Try it for a day

Open Coffee Sussex

Casual coffee mornings in Brighton with people who start tech businesses.

More than 500 entrepreneurs have participated in Open Coffee Sussex since we started it in 2007. The meetup is now one of the longest running and most popular groups of its kind in Europe.

Pop in next month

DevNest

Inspirational gatherings of people who love discovering new ways to code.

What we started as the world's first event for Twitter developers in 2009 became much more. Over 500 developers have explored new ideas at DevNests in London, Brighton, New York and San Francisco.

Learn about the next event