Mike Jerome

I do love a good stat. Of the 654,000 interactions on our live platform last week, 40,800 were over our API. If your supplier doesn't offer open APIs included in the base product, and you're thinking "meh maybe we don't need em" then you are stuck in legacy la la land. API's bring the efficiency and interaction products need in a modern adaptive platform. That 1992 CSV FTP Ping Pong you are pretending works fine will bite you on the behind one day. If you'd like to learn more about how Rubixx interacts with third party systems, slide in my DMs or ask one of our clients who used to have whatever you have now.

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Well worth finding out about, if you’re in the position.

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With Black Friday sales in full swing and advent calendars being readied in the run up to Christmas, the last thing you want to worry about is if your website can stand up to the increased traffic. I've taken a look at the importance of load testing your website over this period, to make sure you can make the most of this key period in retail. https://lnkd.in/dHZvhNJP

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If you are a #Sage50 user, you've probably heard of #SageIntacct by now - one of the fastest growing finance systems in the UK (and beyond). If you've not heard, then you're probably asking, why should you have? Well in short, because many businesses using Sage 50 are moving to Intacct. But why? Well, a recent report from #Sage, based on feedback from their customers, identifies five common reasons businesses are transitioning from Sage 50 to Sage Intacct. If any of these issues sound familiar, it might be worth considering the switch: 1. Relying too much on Excel for reporting – it’s time-consuming and hard to maintain 📊 2. Multi-entity consolidations – which can take hours, if not days 🕒 3. Limited remote access – a big issue in today’s flexible working world 🌍 4. Manual workarounds – where there really should be proper integrations 🤦‍♂️ 5. Processes that don’t scale – leading to errors as the business grows ⚠️ Take a look at the report attached for more detail. It includes some really useful questions to help you assess if Sage Intacct might be a better fit for your business. #finance #erp #SmallBusinesses

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Team Topologies for breakfast, anyone?🙂. Last week, Spectrum IT Recruitment invited me to introduce some of their awesome clients to new ways of thinking about how they structure their software teams. The session started at 8:30 am with a great breakfast selection put on by our hosts. Then we kicked off a 90-minute section introducing some key concepts and quickly got people hands-on trying to solve a real-world problem using the Team Topologies modelling shapes. It was great fun, and we had great engagement from everyone attending. #TeamTopologies #SoftwareTeams #GrowingOrganizations

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Did you know? 🤔 New Legislation has come into effect in the UK that will impact how people can work remotely or flexibly. This isn’t in the pipeline, this has already come into effect as of 6th April. It feels like it has slipped under the radar! 🍌 I’m experiencing some cognitive dissonance on this one 🤯 as I both agree that flexible working and remote working can be incredibly productive and provide people with increased happiness, wellness and motivation, whilst at the same time I agree that there is huge value from getting into an office with your team for specific projects, discussions or those watercooler moments. So what is the solution? Answers on a post card as I don't think I've met anyone who's nailed it yet! This post is not meant to be the pros and cons of hybrid working, so let’s get into what the new legislation means for you: ·     Employees can now request flexible or remote working from day 1 ·     Employees can make 2 requests per year and don't have to explain the impact to the company ·     The company now has to explain why it won't work (rather than the employee having to explain it will) ·     Employers have to respond to requests within two months (down from three) ·     You can reject a claim, but would need to do so in a 'reasonable manner' and running a process to assess the advantages and disadvantages 💡 My advice would be to be absolutely clear and transparent on the ways of working at your organisation, what do you mean by remote, does flexible working mean doing the school drop off, but then actually you have daily stand ups at 8am every morning, will you expect people to be online outside of work hours and can they be offline during work hours? Flexibility is great, but at the moment the definitions are still unclear in most organisations. #flexibleworking #uklegislation #wfh More (official) information: https://lnkd.in/eRJMiFuG

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I've loved seeing the total transformation in our developer experience over the last year. Kieran Mountford and the team have worked so hard, with loads of feedback from our developer customers. What's new? 🙌 Go SDK Earlier this year, we launched two new SDKs, and we’re happy to announce that our Go SDK has been tagged as v1. It joins our PHP and Node SDKs, which have already helped developers quickly and reliably integrate Paddle. We are also excited to share that our Python SDK is also nearing its v1 release. This will bring us one step closer to our goal of offering four fully mature, first-party SDKs by the end of the year, making Paddle integrations even easier across the most popular languages. 🚀 Paddle + Next.js Starter Kit Built on Next.js 14 and other tools and libraries that we’re huge fans of like the shadcn component library, Tailwind CSS, and Supabase, this starter kit provides best practices for integrating Paddle into your Next.js project. It comes with a flexible pricing page, inline checkout implementation, and an authenticated dashboard with simple billing management features—all ready to go out of the box. 🤖 We’re excited to unveil one of our most requested features: the Webhook Simulator. We know that testing Paddle integrations can be a bit of a challenge, especially when it comes to understanding when webhooks will fire or recreating scenarios in a sandbox environment. The Webhook Simulator changes all of that. More details from the team here: https://lnkd.in/et6fDpu5

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𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 👎 endless salesy talks, pitches and fake demos from companies..ugh i thought so too...until i got to put this cheeky cat gif and make everyone laugh hard at the first ai x nocode conference in the uk what a moment of pride - other than hosting the insanely cool No Code Weekend's IRL edition in london with 200+ builders in partnership with 100 school and feel the electric energy of people who refuse to be boxed in by old career rules. a room buzzing with energy that's anything but your typical conference noise. no staged presentations, no selling courses. just raw, unfiltered stories from people who've actually bet on themselves and won. real connections > corporatey networking. 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤: - founders who built businesses with zero coding skills at the start - career pirates who rewrote their professional narratives - makers/indies using ai and no-code to demolish traditional barriers - individuals who prove that your next big move isn't about permission - it's about possibility imagine sitting down with a founder who pivoted from a dead-end corporate job to building a million-dollar no-code startup. no get rich quick from your couch style pitch. no code summit crowds couldn't stop talking about how epic this was. and here's the real deal – this community doesn't care if you're tech, non-tech, student, professional. there's space for everyone. 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 (𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐱 𝐚𝐢) 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬. Ashton Wesley Kieran Ball James Devonport Matt Roberts 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: - stories and actionable (practical) advice matter more than slides - potential has no gatekeepers - your wildest professional dreams get dissected, understood, and made possible - front-row insights for generalists/ops/makers navigating the ai era you will get to have coffee and interact with the amazing Karla Fernandes (Design and No-code Expert) Sonia Calvo Claudia Cafeo 🏳️‍🌈 Ghada Fourane Laura Richards FCIPR Mike Wiendels Eli Beachy Kelly Claus and many more OGs and stars from the community that the char limit wont let me add, ugh. and later we do hangout with Pierre-Simon Ntiruhungwa for a nocode drinks sesh in the evening 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬 (80% off) 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐲 22𝐧𝐝, 2025 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐛 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦! and if you know someone who should attend, tag them here. hopefully i've sold you on it, if not comment and ill try my best to evangelise you, jk. ps: at Lilac Fund - we're sponsoring 5 general + 10 student spots. applications open till jan 30. zero excuses not to bet on yourself.

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Upskill Fast with Our Frunded Short Courses We’ve got two short courses starting next week 👉 Intro to Web Development 👉 Agile Project Management —and a whole range launching in January These are hands-on, practical courses designed to give you maximum impact for minimal time - just two sessions a week over four weeks. Perfect for anyone looking to: 1. Take on more responsibility at work. 2. Build confidence with new skills. 3. Move your career forward - quickly and effectively. 💡 Bonus Round - these courses are: - Taught by industry pros who know what works. - Designed for busy professionals - delivering the essentials without dragging it out. And this is just the start. From data analytics to team building, UX, and web accessibility, there’s a load of other courses starting in January but recruiting NOW Places are limited, and funding ends in March, so don’t miss your chance to get involved. https://lnkd.in/eMpSzp2g

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Just like a dog, bespoke software is not just for Christmas. 🎅 I know what you’re thinking. What could I buy the company for Christmas? Your thoughts, no doubt, immediately go to a bespoke system to finally do what the business does, a UX that delivers for the users and empowers them to be their excellent selves. While this is an admirable pursuit, which I would encourage and support you with, I’d like to offer caution. Just because you buy it at Christmas and make people happy, if you don’t look after it, it will slowly decay, underperform and make you all miserable. My advice would be to take that leap of faith, enjoy the benefits and to partner with someone who knows your business needs may change but their commitment to them won't. Invest in your software and have a long and happy relationship. ---- Your business needs may change. Our commitment to them won't. When it comes to bespoke Christmas software: partner with Redox.

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Software developers - take a break! 💥 Here’s an amazing story about freelance, releases and customer requirements that will make you smile. A cathartic tale of the freelance journey. 🔴 No dragons were harmed in the making of this film. 🐲 “Freelance” is a comedy that deals with themes of resilience, professional frustration, mental health and work ethic. Sources: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/e9ppxifs 🔗 https://lnkd.in/e9VxsAGS © Video Credits: Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego @lucianomunoz, Tumblehead #humor #sdlc #productdevelopment #aidevelopment #softwareproduct #productmanagement #softwaredevelopment #softwaredevelopers #freelance #freelancers #customerrequirements #saas #saasproduct #ai #airace #softwarerequirements #srs #AgileDevelopment #requirementsengineering #aiapps #softwareengineering #functionalrequirements #ProductRelease #Sprint #CraftTheProduct #resilience #professionalfrustration #mentalhealth #workethic #freelancing #wellbeing #wellbeingatwork #motivation #havefun #weekend #weekendvibes #saturdayvibes

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My break wasn’t really a break because we had our biggest December ever. So now in January and with the team coming back on board for a new year I’ll be finding some space for myself. We had record sales, and the stuff we’ve been preparing for all year happened. Our Anti-fraud software for WooCommerce exploded with 176% income growth in December YoY and we started bursting at the seams a little bit. This is a mature product. While I have my own separate political thoughts, from a business perspective the injection of business confidence that the Trump result has had is immediate and clear in our sales. Like, next day kind of clear. It wasn’t the new feature we launched yesterday that catapulted this. It was because of what we did the past 12 months that made it happen. Now we enter new territory with this software, where what worked in the past 12 months does not work for the next 12 months. In fact we need an almost completely different approach to this next phase of growth and, so yeah, no holiday for me. As with any new big changes, I need to be there at the start to ensure the direction is set well. After that, I can back off and let the team do their thing.

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We at Pensar IT fully appreciate that everyone needs to cut costs from time to time, but we also understand the importance of maintaining quality. So to get you off to the right start, we’ve put together a simple guide that will tell you everything you need to know about how to manage your IT costs effectively without sacrificing quality. Check out our latest blog piece for more details: www.pensar.co.uk/blog #IT #ITSupport #Blog #ITBlog #Costs #Budget #Quality #ITProvider

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One of our competitors just relaunched itself. It's totally super exciting packed with buzz words and promises. Problem with it is..... erm..... it's a bit of a nothing burger. They haven't announced that they’re dropping any of their legacy software. They haven't committed to anything different like bringing development back to the UK, reducing upgrade prices, shedding clunky on prem or remote desktop products or.... in fact anything tangible. Feels like a big marketing yawn from an over-staffed over funded marketing team. In a world where customers are thinking differently and buying differently, corporate Americanised "hurray for everything" marketing BS has so little real value that I feel you could have spent that rebrand money on real change and had less noise but more impact. In fact you should have just given the rebrand money to a homeless charity. Still, I am sure the marketing execs are all congratulating each other. That's what matters right?...... If I were a shareholder or a business looking to acquire them would I be reassured........erm... nope.

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Retailer John Lewis is reinstating its "never knowingly undersold" price pledge, now extending to online sales for the first time and using AI to match prices with 25 top retailers. The revival of this policy aims to regain customer trust amidst a challenging period that led to job cuts and store closures. This move follows the High Street's struggles with the pandemic's impact and the shift towards online shopping, resulting in a net loss of 5,000 stores last year. Rival Marks & Spencer is also undergoing a significant restructuring, while Debenhams has transitioned to an online-only brand. This trend of collapsed retailers re-emerging as online platforms continues to evolve, with Asos recently announcing plans to sell a majority stake in Topshop.

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📸 Foto Finish Friday 📸 I haven't done a #FotoFinishFriday for some time... 🐿 Picture is of a sign helpfully telling me this is a Red Squirrel... I won't reveal where it was taken, but it is in my favourite place in the world, Wensleydale North Yorkshire. Not the best picture of them I have taken, but love the composure of it! 🏦 This week has been an interesting one; I woke up on Monday to Fraud on the business account, which meant hours of time trying to get Tide to actually give some support. The week could have started better! 😣 Talked with so many people so sorry if I miss you. I even ventured out of the office for meetings with Alistair Kennedy (ACIIS) about new projects and pricing for a job and Alex Dearing about the future potential in the Solar industry. Calls with Craig Keys, Cristina Cruz and a with Catherine Ann Reid after her epic (and well-deserved) week as the star of the Female Founders Rise advertising campaign. The week would not be complete without talking with Les Selby and being part of the great work he does for Made Smarter Yorkshire & Humber I visited Sainsbury's Hull store several times this week. Honestly, it looks like the place has been ransacked. I have reached out to them to offer support as I know from previous experience with Tesco that this is a problem our RFID Inspection system can solve. If you are reading... reach out! It was a big week with the Rt Hon Rachel Reeves budget. There has been a lot of fluff about how CGT will kill off all entrepreneurial spirit in the UK, which it won't. The changes to NI contributions will cause more difficulties, although not for most businesses employing less than 8 people who will actually pay less. No one likes paying taxes, but all in all, a balanced, fair budget. I await to see how the throw-away lines about investing in R&D will show in reality. Investment in Innovate UK, Made Smarter UK and the like is the ONLY way in which we will grow the economy. 🤓 I am waiting excitedly for next week when some interesting RFID tags come through for a client. I have seen pictures, and they look ace... I won't reveal what they are; that isn't my privilege to do, but it is a very exciting project. Unfortunately, the bike 🚲 is poorly, a broken spoke which on the face of it should be simple, but the non-standard size and carbon rims mean it is an order in part so I won't be getting out for the usual ride this weekend. I will have to find something else to do...! Whatever you are doing, I hope you have a great weekend. ________ I am Matt, at Veribli we offer smart RFID technology and a platform that allows you to control and automate your production, track your assets, create smart products and build, direct long-lasting relationships with your customers and enabling a circular ecosystem. At Axsi Systems Ltd we track health & safety tasks & inspections for cleanliness, HACCP, fire doors, construction sites and much more. 📧 info@veribli.com 📲 01482 455855

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Why did you do this? a friend asked me a few days ago and I think I now have the answer. Some things we do don't necessarily have a clear purpose or goal when we do them but we do them anyway. It is only later that we discover why - and this was the case with this project. About 10 years ago, I decided I wanted to build an app for the Google Play store and I had an idea for what I thought would be an interesting game. Leverage a physics engine to model a rope, put some bugs on it and have the player think about the smartest way to solve the onslaught. After about 5 years ago, I ran out of time to support this app so I simply unpublished it. People that had installed it could keep playing it but no one could download it anymore. Earlier this year, talking to my now teenager son, I saw an opportunity to revive the game and teach him about launching an app on the app store. What seemed to have no purpose 10 years ago, now took upon a special meaning that would help my son learn truly what the effort involved in launching an app. And what an effort it was. After 3 months of team effort (this was almost as much effort to build the game!) we've finally relaunched BugRope. If you have an Android phone, you can download this simple, ad free, purchase free game and have 10 minutes of fun from here: https://lnkd.in/gmaKuP8G If you notice any bugs while playing the game, let me know 🤣. If you leave a nice review on Google Play that would be much appreciated

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Interesting LNETM event at the London Stock Exchange last night - the topic was Unraveling (Future of) SAAS… Three great presentations and then a panel session on SAAS. Really interesting stats, one in particular talking about the average enterprise subscribing to nearly 400 apps!! That’s an amazing statistic, and almost unbelievable. I then thought about all the apps we use and subscribe too, and then wondered if that number was an understatement :) Interestingly no mention of how AI could change the SAAS landscape. SAAS apps and services are typically generalised services that process your data. They are generalised so they can appeal to a broad spectrum of potential subscribers, and so you often have to compromise on the functionality and service quality levels, and if you customise these services, you can end up in a world of pain, long backlogs, and costly future maintenance upgrades. AI features are of course being added to these SAAS services, but the real issue is more fundamental. These SAAS technologies have typically required massive investment to create sophisticated tooling at enterprise scale, engineered for hyperscale operation for use by thousands and millions of concurrent users. AI App Builders will allow you to create your own apps, not code snippets, but fully functional enterprise scale apps. These are apps are - Built to meet your specific needs and requirements - It’s IP you have created and own - An asset you can add to your balance sheet - You are processing your data without it being pushed into a 3rd party SAAS service - You can consolidate all of the apps you need into one enterprise platform - You now have access to all your own data to analyse and make actionable insights - Use TAAP’s technology and the apps are maintenance free and can run for 10 or more years, or until you need to make changes The cost of owning software will drop through the floor, as will legacy technical debt. The SAAS landscape will change significantly, why subscribe to something that’s a compromise, that you don’t own, and you can’t differentiate yourself against your competitors! AI App Builders will be the catalyst for significant change to the SAAS landscape, let alone how the future will look when we become gatekeepers of our data and our own AI machine built systems. One of the panel suggested this is the end of human ingenuity - it’s quite the reverse, it’s the dawn of a future that will allow us to do so much more, with AI technologies helping us shift mountains, doing things we just hadn’t even considered possible because of the scale and effort of the work involved. AI is going to elevate our thinking, broadening our ideas and potential, and that’s why you need to consider AI as a tool, the more you use it, the more proficient and awesome you’ll become. It’s a great time to work in IT and with AI, unless you work in a SAAS company with all this uncertainty! AI App Builders are a stepping stone towards AGI.

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