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If you are seeking new ways to increase your ROI on marketing with your commerce platform, or you may be an entrepreneur who wants to grow your team and be more efficient with your online business.
Talk Commerce with Brent W. Peterson draws stories from merchants, marketers, and entrepreneurs who share their experiences in the trenches to help you learn what works and what may not in your business.
Keep up with the current news on commerce platforms, marketing trends, and what is new in the entrepreneurial world. Episodes drop every Tuesday with the occasional bonus episodes.
You can check out our daily blog post and signup for our newsletter here https://talk-commerce.com
Brent Peterson (00:01.294)
Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Simon Jones. He is the founder of Code Extension. Simon, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day -to -day role and one of your passions in life.
Simon Jones (00:14.207)
Yeah, thank you, Brett. It's so nice to have an opportunity to talk to yourself and to chat to your network as well and to tell you a little bit more about what I do in Code Extension. So I set up Code Extensions a few months ago because I have a strong passion for digital and technology. I've been a founder myself of a digital agency previously.
worked in the Shopify space, Magento space, and the Drupal space as well. So I created Code Extensions with two aims really, that's to help agencies to discover new technology, but also to help tech vendors as well, to reach out to more agencies and to explore new partnerships. So I have quite a busy role really in connecting with agencies that could be founders, CEOs.
It could be solutions guys, and then also reaching out to tech vendors as well. Talking to them about their partnerships, how they currently engage with agencies and what that kind of looks like as well. So I try and build a relationship or a partnership with the agency and also the M -Tech vendor as well. So I spend most of my days on LinkedIn and on Slack as well. And...
I used to work for an agency previously before this, before Codex Entrions and my role was nine to five. This is just, it's zero to 23 .59. It's all day because I talk to people in America, Australia as well. So, which is great because I've got a young child so I can do the childcare stuff in the day and then I can work around here. So it's perfect.
Brent Peterson (02:08.046)
That's awesome. All right, so Simon, before we get started in content, you have volunteered to be part of the free joke project. I'm just gonna tell you a joke and all you have to do is say, should this joke be free or do you think we should charge for it someday? So here we go. My wife said, okay, start over again. Here we go. My wife said if I bought her one more stupid gift, she would burn it.
Simon Jones (02:26.431)
Go for it.
Brent Peterson (02:36.334)
So I bought her a candle.
Simon Jones (02:41.471)
That should be free, Brent.
Brent Peterson (02:45.102)
Alright. Yeah, that's perfectly fair.
Simon Jones (02:46.271)
But I like it though, I like it. That's a good dad joke.
Brent Peterson (02:53.966)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. I have been using a API to get my dad jokes on the fly and it was just too much work to try to weed through it and find a really, really bad one. So I'm relying on the internet a little bit more. So anyways, Simon, let's talk about it. So you, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Simon Jones (02:55.295)
or husband jerk.
Simon Jones (03:12.863)
the bad one.
Brent Peterson (03:19.246)
So tell us a little bit about your community, how you're getting things rolling and maybe the reasoning behind it.
Simon Jones (03:31.231)
Yeah, so our community is growing. We have some really good agencies that we kind of liaise with and work with here in the UK. From the majority of them working with Shopify. And they're from anyone from, I suppose, really small independent agencies to larger agencies that have got, you know,
100 plus staff, some of these guys work on some really exciting projects. So, but the community is kind of growing where all the time we're expanding, we're making new connections with agency founders in America and different parts of the world as well. It's just about bringing these guys together and introducing them to new technologies. Yeah, it's really just very, very interesting.
Brent Peterson (04:26.638)
So you did mention you spent a lot of time at LinkedIn and a lot of time on slack is the slack community that there is sort of a major Sorry, there's a Shopify slack Chan or slack group. That's what you're in to kind of go back and forth with people
Simon Jones (04:42.943)
I liaise and talk to mainly tech vendors using Slack. That's the way that we like to communicate. I did start to build a community on Slack as well for agencies when I started this, but it's a little bit of a slow burner, if I'm honest, and I think that's because there's so many different channels available.
It becomes a bit of a, it's just one more Slack community for agency to kind of use. So I've kind of like made a decision to park that for the time being and just to focus on LinkedIn, which is just, it's always going to be much more powerful when you post something on LinkedIn. Lots of people obviously will get to see that post, reposting things and tagging people.
It's much more powerful. So, so we, so I talked to more agencies on LinkedIn and then I guess more tech vendors on, on Slack really. So the community itself is, is pretty much based on, yeah.
Brent Peterson (05:54.83)
Okay, and so tell it.
Brent Peterson (06:00.27)
Right, okay. So tell us a little bit about how you help. I'm assuming you're helping tech vendors and agencies kind of connect together and work on projects and figuring out how can you get those people to collaborate.
Simon Jones (06:17.663)
Yeah, kind of we organize partner intro calls, as we call them, where we'll create a session on the website, we'll post it to LinkedIn, and then we'll just invite certain agencies to come and have a look. So every, so when we work with a tech vendor, we'll organize and we'll post one event where they can introduce themselves to new agencies. They can talk to them about their product, how a partnership works.
So we're always looking at ways where we can try and bring in new agencies to work with them so they can expand their agency partnership program.
Brent Peterson (07:09.678)
All right, Simon, I think I lost you there.
Brent Peterson (07:48.782)
All right, can you hear me?
Simon Jones (07:51.686)
I can hear you, Brenn, yes, I can't see you though.
Brent Peterson (07:53.934)
All right, good. Now I put you in load date mode. So we're, should be a little more stable now. All right, so I think we, I lost you. You were talking about how you connect tech vendors and agencies. So maybe start over there.
Simon Jones (08:09.318)
Yeah, so, yeah, so we organize partner intro calls where tech vendors get an opportunity to talk to other agencies, they get to explain about their programs, their partnership programs, how they work with other agencies, any kind of like revenue share programs as well. So we organize these sessions with them just to
I suppose, put them in front of a new audience. And it works really, really well. So we're working with a company now called NIDILRR, who are based over in California, I think. And we're organizing ongoing sessions with them to introduce them to agencies here in the UK. And it's going really, really well. So yes, very, very good.
Brent Peterson (09:00.686)
All right, so let's just walk through an idea. So if I have a tech solution that I think I have, and I want to get it in front of some agencies for Shopify, let's just say, how would you do that? Like say I'm the tech partner, I would like to have your help in getting in front of those people. Walk us through how that looks.
Simon Jones (09:30.598)
Yeah, good question. So we organize as well. We organize LinkedIn live sessions and these sessions could be with the with an existing agency partner that you may have and or one of your existing merchants. So if you work, if you're already working with a well known brand name, let's jump on a call. Let's jump on a LinkedIn live session and let's do something like this where we talk about how your company has helped this one.
this one merchants. So that then builds up like a case study. Um, we can then also invite other agencies to join us so they can ask some, some questions as well. But I, I, either way, if, if no one wants to join us, these sessions would also be recorded. Um, they'll be shared on YouTube, they'll be shared on the website and across our digital kind of platform as well. So those are the ways where we, um, look to try and raise brand awareness for, for, for various different, um,
tech vendors that we work with.
Brent Peterson (10:34.222)
And if I'm again just kind of trying to understand or help our listeners understand the benefits here as an agency, where would I, is it mainly around that sort of customer case study interaction that they get the biggest value from it? Or is it finding other partners to help with that agency?
Simon Jones (10:58.662)
It's finding new technologies for the agency so they can suggest to their clients. A lot of agencies are very, very proactive in terms of they will then suggest new technologies to their clients. So by setting up these monthly calls with them, it helps them to understand what's new and what's available. So they can then go and contact their existing client base and say, hey,
we've been talking to this vendor here, I think you should have a look at it because it's fantastic. So that will help the agency. And off the back of that, the agency will then also get some more work as well in terms of implementation, but also the ongoing revenue share as well from that one tech vendor. So, and then as for the merchants, they potentially get, they get to have some new functionality on their website.
but potentially they get to stay ahead of the competition as well. So it's a win -win for both the agency and the merchant as well.
Brent Peterson (12:06.478)
And if you were to kind of set up a, let me think, set up like an agenda, what would that look like? How would that be for the end user to experience?
Simon Jones (12:26.47)
How do you mean the end user? So we deal with.
Brent Peterson (12:28.43)
Like the, like, yeah, so the target of the live session or the LinkedIn live is other agencies or who is your target then?
Simon Jones (12:44.518)
So we could do two things. We can have the LinkedIn Live with the agency partner where they talk about, so that the vendor and the agency talk about their existing partnership and how they work together talking about the success stories. So what that does, it raises the profile of that tech vendor so other agencies can get to hear about the success stories as well. So.
In terms of the agenda itself, the call is, the calls are quite, they're about 30 minutes long and they just talk about the previous history, the experience of, of agency and, and vendor, um, and the success stories they've got and how they've worked together. So the main goal really is to help the, um, help the tech vendor just to raise their profile and to, so that they, they get to talk to more agencies. That's the whole.
That's the whole purpose really.
Brent Peterson (13:45.294)
Okay, yeah, that was trying to get to who is the target audience at its other agencies, right?
Simon Jones (13:51.398)
other agencies. My network is just agencies. We don't deal with merchants. It's just agencies.
Brent Peterson (14:03.79)
Um, so talking about the Shopify community, um, how, like I'm new to the Shopify community now, and I just got introduced to the partner Slack channel for Shopify. And, um, it's been interesting. The first thing that I, that I got introduced to was something called Donut where they put us together with a one -on -one with somebody from the community. So you can kind of meet other people. Um, and then of course I did get hit up by, um,
by other agencies saying that they can outsource all my projects, which I'm somewhat annoyed by. Tell us about your passion in terms of community and community building.
Simon Jones (14:42.534)
Yeah.
Simon Jones (14:51.942)
Oh, that's a really good question. That's a really good question. A little bit of a tricky one to, not tricky, that needs to be thought about this, but I'm passionate about helping both agencies and the vendors as well. And as part of our offering as well to a tech vendor is that when we do the...
one -on -one calls with their existing agency partners. We'll work with them too. And then on the basis of the call, we'll then create a review on their product from the agency and we'll post it to the website. So that helps to draw in other agencies when they're looking for different solutions. And what that does it...
It builds a community really because as an agency, they want to know which tech vendors to work with and which not to work with as well. So when they see a review on a certain app on the website from someone that they know and they trust that alone as well, it kind of like it helps to build the trust and it helps to grow the community too. So I'm really, really passionate about.
growing the reviews for these tech vendors. So it helps the smaller companies as well. It helps them to get more established, but it also helps the more established brands as well, who have worked extremely hard to get where they are, to build up their reviews as well from all of their partners. So yeah, the reviews is something that I'm really, really passionate about. And I'm working with several vendors now.
to help them build up their profile to the community, it grows as well.
Brent Peterson (16:58.446)
Yeah, I think I remember you showed me on your website that you have a sort of a marketplace style of different vendors, right? So how does that help to build that community? And second, I guess, follow up, does it sort of compete with the Shopify marketplace?
Simon Jones (17:23.942)
Absolutely not. So the Shopify is a really good question actually, Brent, and I'm glad you asked that one. Code Extensions is completely different to the App Store. So the App Store has reviews from merchants, merchants only. As an agency, you cannot leave a review on the App Store. So Code Extensions is a place where agencies, that can be agencies, it can be freelance developers.
It can be anyone that's worked with an app. They can then post a review about the app on our website and you can't do that currently on the app store. Shopify don't allow that. Don't don't allow it. So what we do is we we help. We provide a platform where agencies can actually post and share their experience working with other other tech vendors and it's it's really, really helpful. The feedback that I'm getting from.
agencies that I work with it's it's a really really powerful tool. The challenges that I've got is that all of these guys are just so busy so I'm having to work a little bit harder and think a little bit differently to get to get the reviews from them. So it's just to answer your question that it's completely different Brett.
Brent Peterson (18:40.814)
Um, so just a small follow up on that. I did, I know there's a lot of, um, apps out there now that, that take reviews as a verbal, like you could just have somebody say, Hey, give me a review on your iPhone and as a, as a voice message, and then we'll transcribe it and put it into text. I suppose it's not any easier than, than trying to get somebody to write it down. Have you, have you, what, what, so we, we also do, um, our, our company content basis does reviews for agencies or.
not reviews, but case studies. And we do that in more of an interview process where we interview the agency and we interview the client. And then through those interviews, we put together a case study for the agency on behalf of them, which highlights their client. Have you looked at trying to do a 15 -minute call to help?
to try to solicit those reviews out of them and then turn that into an actual review or do you just rely on them and putting their reviews directly on the website?
Simon Jones (19:50.47)
That's a really good, another good question. That really is a great idea actually as well. I have approached some vendors with that idea. Some are quite guarded, but some are actually quite open to that. Currently what I'm doing is I'm looking at the vendors that I'm working with, going to their website, seeing which case studies they have listed and promoted, and then using that.
that content to upload to our website. So we have a bit of a collection of case studies that have been built up. What I would like to do though is to take these case studies here and expand on them slightly. So if there's a case study which is listed on a partner's website, I would like to run a, I think it'd be a really good idea. So thank you for bringing that to my mind. But I'd love to...
I jump on a call with them and the agency and just talking to them. Why did they choose that one vendor? Asking them a series of questions as well. How have they helped the business? What impacts has it had? And just some good questions like this. So, and that would work really, really well. I think you have the case study and in the middle of it embedded it, you have a video as well talking about the overall experience. So that is definitely something that I would like to do. Yes.
Brent Peterson (21:17.902)
What do you see more important now in the market in terms of getting vendors together? Is it just the awareness? Is it the fact that maybe some agencies don't understand that they need a tech partner in some solutions to help them?
Simon Jones (21:42.47)
Um, yeah, I mean, there's, I was talking to, uh, I was talking to an agency yesterday about a vendor, India. Um, and I showed them the, the, the, their website and they were like, this is, this is super cool. Um, obviously they're a vendor that's, that's really, you know, as well, it's very, very popular in America, not so much here in the UK. So it's just about putting these.
agencies in front of, sorry, putting these tech partners in front of different agencies and we could do that by online sessions. We could do this potentially by organizing various events as well and bringing together more agencies where they get to just get away from their desk, get away from the usual nine to five emails and laptops. And they just, they get away from...
the usual, the normal office, I guess, and all the distractions where, and they spend time with vendors, they can talk to them about their product and just engage with them. So these are, this is something else that we're quite passionate to do as well as to organize these events. And an event could be like an agency dinner, maybe it could be some fun activities like go -karting, paintballing, but it just helps to build that partnership up with the vendor and with the agency as well. So they get to.
potentially work together in the future.
Brent Peterson (23:12.142)
Have you found, I know that you said you work with a lot of agencies in the US, but do you see a cultural difference between how agency interact and is there parts of the world where there's not a lot of collaboration and there's parts where there's a lot more collaboration?
Simon Jones (23:30.726)
Um, I've only, I've only just started to reach out to, to agencies in the States, but it's from, from my, for my initial, um, if I'm, what I'm doing now, there's a, in terms of the collaboration, it does appear to be a little bit different. Yeah. But I'm still trying to figure out why that is and how to get my head around it. So, um, I'm a little bit new to the, to that right, right now, but.
That does appear to be a slightly different different kind of like vibe. Yeah with agencies in America or the states and The UK definitely yeah, but I'll come back to you on on that one
Brent Peterson (24:16.142)
Have you looked at, I know you're focused on Shopify, have you thought about or looked at expanding into other platforms?
Simon Jones (24:27.11)
Absolutely. Yeah. One of the reasons why I called it Code Extensions was because it allows me to expand into other platforms in the future as well if that if the need arises. So I'm not just I don't want to just just pigeon myself with Shopify or e -commerce. There's potential for it for the Code Extensions to grow into perhaps mobile development as well.
and to do something very, very similar in terms of like create building a community, um, listing out some, some mobile apps, um, that, that, uh, in the, in the Flutter space maybe, or the different, different various technologies. So it's over time, it hopefully will develop into different econ platforms and then potentially going into the mobile space as well. But at the moment I've only got one pair of hands. So, uh,
Yes, that's a challenge itself.
Brent Peterson (25:26.35)
Well, you can employ your children. So you actually have more. So there you go. Yeah. Give it a few years, right? Yeah. And next thing you know, your kid is going to introduce you to somebody from overseas and you'll be having a conversation about agencies from your child's introduction.
Simon Jones (25:33.35)
That's one idea I could do, yeah.
Simon Jones (25:42.502)
Hahaha.
Simon Jones (25:53.446)
Yeah.
Brent Peterson (25:55.726)
Just switching gears a little bit to the economy, have you heard from other agencies what the feeling is now for 2024? How other agencies are they starting to hire again? Are they starting to get more projects from clients? What is the word on the ground in the UK especially?
Simon Jones (25:57.382)
Probably.
Simon Jones (26:17.126)
Yeah, good question. I haven't actually heard. I haven't heard about the like so called recession or the how they're finding things this year. Last year, though, I know for for a fact that a lot of agencies were actually struggling. A lot of agencies that I know that they were they were making or that they were laying staff off as well making redundancies. So.
They felt the pinch. I know that there's a few agencies that I'm talking to this year now. What they're doing is they're being a lot more proactive. So they're not just waiting for the inbounds to come in. They're actually going out and trying to find it. So a few of them, they're suggesting to their clients that they should look at certain technologies. So they're trying to work with them and to generate their own leads.
So, but I haven't heard what things are like 2024 on my LinkedIn feed. I am seeing quite a lot of light new, I'm not seeing quite a lot of agencies with new clients that are popping up and they've, and they've, they've secured this, this project and that project. So that's quite good. But the overall picture I, I'm not too sure really.
Brent Peterson (27:44.398)
Yeah, I guess the feeling I've started hearing is that maybe the merchants are feeling better about where the economy is going to go and there's less uncertainty and now they're starting to projects, which is going to lead to having to hire more developers and kind of get us back into a positive cycle. Simon, we, yeah, go ahead. Sorry.
Simon Jones (28:09.414)
Yeah, one thing is I was talking to another agency earlier in the week, actually. And they're one of the biggest Shopify partners here in the UK. And they actually told me that a lot of merchants that they work with, they're starting to now shop around when it comes to working with various apps. So.
So rather than just using the usual suspects in terms of the apps that they work with, they're now looking at the app store to see if there's a competitor that offers something similar, but a lot cheaper. So maybe I, although, cause I don't have any, any contact with merchants, but that's come from one agency where they're saying that merchants are also starting to now feel the un -pinch as well by shopping around. So yeah, I just thought I'd, I'd mentioned that too.
Brent Peterson (29:03.598)
Yeah, and so much of it is just the perception and mental and what people are feeling and hearing. A lot of times it's more based on that rather than it's based on actual data.
So Simon, we have a few minutes left here. I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about whatever they'd like. Simon, what would you like to plug today?
Simon Jones (29:20.998)
Exactly, yeah.
Simon Jones (29:32.102)
Yeah, I just would like to plug my own business really, Brad. And if anyone, if you're an agency or if you're a tech vendor that's listening to this and you'd like to have a chat with me to find out, you know, a little bit more about what I do and how I can help either your agency or your agency partnerships, please contact me. I can give you some free advice as well. I can, we can...
perhaps do some free sessions together. But I want to help you. So feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or drop me through an email as well. And let's have a conversation.
Brent Peterson (30:15.95)
Yeah, that's perfect and I will make sure I put those contact details in the show notes. Simon Jones, it's been such a great conversation. I appreciate you being here today.
Simon Jones (30:24.07)
Thank you.
Simon Jones (30:28.326)
No, thank you too Brent and thank you very much for having me too.