Notes from
the build.
Thoughts from the years of making software, building businesses, learning in public, and figuring out what comes next.
Start with the story
FOUR NOTES ALONG THE WAYNivo Slider: The Story So Far
I should start this article by explaining the fact that I am not a born and bred entrepreneur. I’m a developer at heart who has literally stumbled upon “success” just as I was beginning to get interested in the whole business side of the web. I’ve been wanting to write this article for a ...
↗ 02 / 2016Selling My First Business (Dev7studios.com)
Last week I sold my first business. It’s not the first project I’ve sold, but it’s by far the biggest and was my main source of business income for five years.
↗ 03 / 2024Stripe acquires Lemon Squeezy
In an unexpected turn of events, Stripe has acquired Lemon Squeezy 🎉
↗ 04 / 2026Leaving Stripe and getting back to building
After two years as an Engineering Manager at Stripe, I've decided it's time to get back to startups. Some reflections on the journey so far, what I've learned, and what comes next.
↗The full archive
52 POSTS2026
2025
2025 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past fifteen years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
Business of Laravel Podcast
I was recently on the Business of Laravel podcast chatting with Matt Stauffer about using Laravel to build Lemon Squeezy as well as a bunch of other topics.
2024
2024 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past fourteen years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
Stripe acquires Lemon Squeezy
In an unexpected turn of events, Stripe has acquired Lemon Squeezy 🎉
2023
2023 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past thirteen years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
Indie Bites Podcast
I recently had the pleasure of talking with James McKinven, host of the Indie Bites podcast, about my background and why I love side projects.
2022
2022 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past twelve years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
10 lessons I’ve learned as a Software Engineer
I’ve been a Software Engineer and web developer for over a decade now. Companies such as Dell, AOL, and eBay have used my software to create unforgettable experiences for millions of people around the world. I’ve built, run, and sold software companies that have generated hundreds of thousand...
Make Lemonade Podcast
Recently, JR Farr and I had a chat about my career and all the stuff I’ve been up to over the last decade for our new Make Lemonade podcast.
2021
2020
2020 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past ten years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
Making Lemonade
2020 has been a strange year, and not just because of all of the chaos of dealing with a global pandemic. In an unexpected turn of events, in March this year I was approached by Orman Clark (my old boss) about becoming a partner in a new venture he was starting with Jason Schuller and JR Farr.
2019 Year In Review
As has been my custom for the past nine years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
2019
Yo! Podcast
This week Rob Hope was kind enough to invite me on to the Yo! Podcast to chat about the Nivo Slider, side projects, online tracking, productivity and Biffy Clyro (of course).
Grace
I'm delighted to be able to announce that on the 6th of August 2019, at exactly 8 pm, Grace Catherine Pellegrom came into the world weighing exactly 7lbs.
Expecting Again
We're thrilled to be able to announce that my wife and I are expecting again! Another wee bundle of joy is due to arrive in August 2019.
2018
2018 Year in Review
As has been my custom for the past eight years, I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been, looking ahead to the year that is to come, and noting down these reflections for posterity.
2017 Year In Review
As has been my tradition for the last seven years now I like to spend a bit of time at the end of the year reflecting on the year that has been and looking ahead to the year that is ahead, and note down some of these reflections for posterity.
2016
2016 Year In Review
As has been my tradition for the last six years now, I like to spend a bit of time on the last day of the year to reflect, consider the year that has been and the year that is to come, and note down some of these reflections for posterity. What a year 2016 has been.
Selling My First Business (Dev7studios.com)
Last week I sold my first business. It’s not the first project I’ve sold, but it’s by far the biggest and was my main source of business income for five years.
How and why I built Web Uptime
Back in May this year I launched a new side project called Web Uptime. Web Uptime provides multi-location website uptime monitoring for your sites. I’m not going to talk so much about what Web Uptime does here, you can see the marketing site to find out more, rather I’m going to talk about ho...
Becoming a Father
On the 23rd March 2016 at 10:31pm my life changed. I had spent months pre-empting what it would be like to become a father.
2015
2015 Year In Review
For pretty much five years running now I’ve taken time at the end of the year to reflect on the year that’s been, and look ahead to the year that’s to come. Last year I wanted to continue to work smarter, not harder and strike a better balance of “busyness” in my life. While I’m not s...
The Dangers of Selling under Non-Disclosure
Back in the summer I sold one of my small SAAS apps that had around 100 paying customers. After trying a few private channels someone recommended I try selling the app through a broker. I had sold a few apps on Flippa before but nothing of this value and I wanted to see if I could get a decent va...
Expecting
It’s great to finally be able to announce that my wife and I are expecting a wee bundle of joy in March next year. It’s been a bit of a long road for us with many trials along the way.
WordCamp Miami 2015 Review
Last week I attended my fist WordCamp in Miami. As I said before it really was a week of firsts. It was my first time in the USA (and my first time in Miami obviously), my first long haul flight, my first WordCamp and the first time meeting the Delicious Brains team.
I’m Changing My Job
For the last 3.5 years I’ve been working as a web developer over at ZillaMedia. In my time there I have worked on some awesome projects including building Snippi, working on PremiumPixels and building WordPress themes for ThemeZilla.
2014
2014 Year in Review
It’s that time of year again to look back, take stock and reflect on what a year has brought. At the end of last year I resolved to be working smarter, not harder. While I may have achieved this goal to a certain extent there have been certain unforseen situations in 2014 which have hindered my...
How Raneto got to the front page of Hacker News for $0
On Monday morning around 11am I released Raneto my new project for creating Markdown powered Knowledgebases in Nodejs. After I came back from lunch (around 2pm) I was stunned to see I was at spot no. 6 on the front page of Hacker News and remained there for the rest of the day.
Cow Launcher
Over Christmas I decided that I wanted to achieve two goals this year that I have been putting off for a while. I wanted to make a game, and I wanted to get an app on the Apple App Store.
Becoming a Devtrepreneur
Recently a fellow Devtrepreneur contacted me to ask a few questions about my path to becoming a Devtrepreneur. So I decided that I would make my answers public in the form of this blog post so that others might gain a bit of insight into what has worked for me.
2013
2013 Year in Review
I like to take the opportunity at this time of year to look back, take stock and be thankful for what the year has brought. As with last year, this year has had its up’s and down’s but in general has been a good year.
Pricing is Hard
Over at Dev7studios we sell WordPress plugins and Web Apps so I’ve had to make decisions on single product pricing as well as SaaS pricing over the years, and none of it has been simple.
Selling to a Mass Market
One of things I discovered after launching the Nivo Slider WordPress Plugin was that the people who bought the plugin were not the people that I had expected to buy the plugin.
Bootstrapping a Small Software Business
I’ve been running a small Web Development company for more than two years now. Dev7studios has been successfully profitable from day one. That may sound great, but that is partly because we are such a small scale company. In fact Dev7studios started as more of an outlet for my development ideas...
Devtrepreneur
I always feel a bit guilty calling myself an “entrepreneur”. I mean I do run a successful company which I’ve bootstrapped myself (“successful” here meaning that it is a profitable lifestyle business where I can afford to hire a few extra folks to help spread the load). But I don’t thi...
2012
2012 Year in Review
So it’s that time of year again to look back, take stock and generally be thankful for another year. This year has been very mixed for me with up’s and down’s, however the one thing that has stuck out for me this year is how busy I’ve been.
Complexity Exists. Make it Clear.
I’ll always remember being taught how transistor switches worked in my Technical Studies class at high school. I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t wrap my head around how it worked. Then my teacher sat us down and explained it to us in such a simple way that everything just “clicked”. Ligh...
2011
Nivo Slider: The Story So Far
I should start this article by explaining the fact that I am not a born and bred entrepreneur. I’m a developer at heart who has literally stumbled upon “success” just as I was beginning to get interested in the whole business side of the web. I’ve been wanting to write this article for a ...
Getting My Web Development On
So today I started my new job as a full-time Web Developer working for Orman Clark. Working from home has been great so far, and I’m loving my new iMac that I purchased recently to help me get my work done more efficiently.
The Next Chapter
For the last 3 years (excluding my final year of uni in-between) I’ve been working as a Software Engineer with a company that specialise in North Sea Oil and Gas. While the job has been enjoyable enough, as time has gone on, one thing has become very clear. I don’t want to work in this industry.
BioThemes Closes
A year after starting development work on BioThemes, and about seven months in business, John O’Nolan and myself have decided to shut down BioThemes. We both feel this is the right decision and neither of us feel upset that we’ve reached this point.
Forget the Recession, Start a Business
I was interested to hear Lord Alan Sugar’s opinion when asked about the new season of The Apprentice. Talking about the show’s new prize (£250,000 investment rather than a job) he said...
You Don’t Need a Brilliant Idea to Start a Startup
In this article Paul Graham states that “you don’t need a brilliant idea to start a startup”. I’ve been thinking about this recently and about how true it is.
The Nivo Slider is 1 Year Old
Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the now world renowned Nivo Slider. To celebrate here are some fun facts about the slider over the last year.
BioThemes
For the past few months now I’ve been hinting that I’ve been working on something huge and exciting but couldn’t tell anyone what it was all about. Well today I can finally reveal what it is that’s been keeping me busy and excited and I’m sure you’re going to love it.
2010
I don’t think I’ll forget 2010
As a year draws to a close I always find it helpful to look back and take stock of what has happened over the year, and this year has been an especially mental year for me personally. It’s good to be thankful for what you have in your life and what you have achieved or been blessed with over th...
Developers, Design is Important
I think part of the problem with a lot of developers today is that they don’t spend enough time caring about design. Maybe they are scared of design, maybe they simply don’t want to learn how to do it or maybe they just think it’s not their job.
I’m Married
If you’ve maybe been wondering why I’ve been so quiet over the last few weeks and if you don’t follow me on twitter then you probably should know that I got married two weeks ago. I’ve been going out with Fiona now for 5 years and we had been engaged for 2 of those.
I’m Qualified
I received my exam results the other day. I’m now an officially qualified Software Engineer with a Bachelor of Science Honours degree from Strathclyde University. I received a Second Class Honours degree, upper division (which translates as a 2:1).
Developers, Sell Your Scripts
Before I even begin saying anything this article is not about encouraging developers to sell their scripts on sites like CodeCanyon (not that there is anything wrong with that). Rather I am going to take you through the process of things I did when creating the Nivo Slider, other than simply crea...