Brandon Kelly, Craft CMS – Three Lessons Learnt

This week our ‘Three Lessons Learnt’ podcast featured Brandon from the Craft CMS team. Brandon is the founder and CEO of Pixel and Tonic who created the content managing system titled Craft CMS. This system aids web agencies in building websites that their clients are then able to content manage going forwards.

If you haven’t yet listened to the podcast, here’s a summary of Brandon’s three lessons that he learnt when starting up his own business:

Don’t take your existing customers for granted. Brandon has learnt from his own mistakes in this, having lost half of their sales after a few months of announcing their new, competitive product. He says not to take your current situation for granted as clients are always capable of moving onto something new. His advice to avoid this is to stay professional, keep delivering what customers are looking for, and treat them with respect.

Be transparent with your community. After seeing how their competitors were treating their communities, Brandon decided to learn from their mistakes. The team aim to be as transparent as possible whilst keeping future plans somewhat close to their chest as to keep some elements a surprise. Brandon suggests trying to keep things open to the public and being honest; particularly on a personal level. Being honest when people write into the company is key to being transparent.

It is important to give your team members a voice. Brandon says that no matter what your team are talking about, give them room for their opinions. Often they are seeing things from a different perspective to you and you may be overlooking something. Trust that you have hired smart people and that they have smart opinions to voice. Respect your team and give them all a fair stake at the table.

It was great to have Brandon on this week’s podcast. You can find him over on Twitter @brandonkelly or find Craft CMS @craftcms or via their blog www.craftcms.com/blog.