-
8th July 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
How to connect the platform
Back when we build our first marketplace, I remember looking at the payments problem and feeling genuinely stumped. You have buyers on one side and sellers on the other. Money needs to flow between th…
-
3rd July 2026 · YouTube ↗
The Cost of Building Internal AI Tools
AI tools make it easier than ever to prototype new ideas, build internal tools, and experiment quickly. At Steadfast Collective, we help organisations turn ambitious ideas into reliable digital produc…
-
25th June 2026 · YouTube ↗
Your Membership Dashboard Is Lying to You
By the time your renewal chart dips, the members who caused that dip stopped engaging six months ago. So you're not looking at a dashboard. You're looking at a postmortem with nicer graphics. I'm goin…
-
22nd June 2026 · YouTube ↗
AI Won't Replace Senior Developers. Here's Why.
We're just wrapping up day two, and I thought I'd give you a quick summary of some of the great talks here. There has been so many good talks - all about how we, as developers, can use the value we br…
-
15th June 2026 · YouTube ↗
Stop Fixing - Start Growing.
Learn how membership organisations can reduce operational costs, improve engagement, and grow member lifetime value through better digital platforms. Your membership platform should not just sit there…
-
12th June 2026 · YouTube ↗
Stripe Just Changed Online Payments Forever
Stripe Tour London delivered some huge announcements for online businesses. If you take payments online, these are the Stripe updates you need to know. #ai #ecommerce #fintech #online #money
-
9th June 2026 · YouTube ↗
No Lesson Too Valuable
Education is such a big part of our history and DNA here at Steadfast Collective. Seven years ago, we started to produce videos. We've produced hundreds of them now, all teaching you a little bit more…
-
1st June 2026 · YouTube ↗
Why Your Website Feels Slow (And Why More Servers Won’t Fix It)
You click a button on a website and nothing happens for 8 seconds. The issue isn’t the server - it’s what’s going on behind the scenes. In this video, I'll explain queues, caching, and jobs in plain E…
-
21st May 2026 · YouTube ↗
Why Laravel Developers Ship Faster Than Everyone Else
The main theme I hear over and over again from non-technical clients is the same. "I don't need to write the code, but I want to understand what my team is talking about." Eloquent is probably the sin…
-
14th May 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
Why Chasing New Members Is Costing You More
A community leader said something to me a while back that I haven't been able to shake. Their back door was bigger than their front door. They were brilliant at getting people in. Events full, campaig…
-
7th May 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
Your database is lying to you
A membership director told me recently that her renewal rate was "about 82%, give or take." Give or take. That phrase stuck with me, because it wasn't her fault. She genuinely couldn't tell me. The nu…
-
7th May 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
The dashboard told me too late
There are two types of membership dashboards I see association membership leaders using: Archaic. It's a spreadsheet. It's rarely updated, it's awful to look at, and it's hard to work out what's going…
-
30th April 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
The platform problem nobody talks about
A CMS held together with plugins. A CRM that half-talks to the website. A renewal flow that only one person in finance truly understands. A comms lead hand-coding HTML because the theme won't bend. Th…
-
10th March 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
What hospitals and airports can teach community builders
I gave a talk at a developer conference last week. A thousand people in Amsterdam. The topic was Laravel, the framework we use to build platforms. But my talk wasn't about code. It was about hospitali…
-
5th March 2026 · YouTube ↗
Speaking at Laracon EU 2026!
This year, I had the opportunity to speak at Laravel's annual Laravel EU in Amsterdam. In this video, I chat through how the event went, what the speakers shared, and my experience on stage. #Laravel…
-
27th February 2026 · YouTube ↗
How AI Is Transforming Online Communities
AI is changing how communities operate. In this video we discuss how to use it to personalise member experiences, increase engagement, and build stronger connections at scale. www.SteadfastCollective.…
-
12th February 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
Bring Clarity.
Recently i've been working alongside a membership organisation looking to increase their onboarding conversion rates. While I can bring best practices and UX thoughts to the table.... If your prospect…
-
29th January 2026 · Platforming Community ↗
AI Workflows for Membership
"I'm currently on the Mont Vallon lift in Meribel, how long is the red and black off this lift. Tell me about them". This was a question I asked ChatGPT last week, while skiing. At work, and at ho…
-
28th January 2026 · YouTube ↗
Laravel for the rest of us: What Is "Open Source"?
Today we're answering a simple but important question - what does "open source" mean? LaravelForTheRestOfUs.com
-
12th January 2026 · YouTube ↗
Laravel for the rest of us: The Laravel Ecosystem
Today we're exploring Laravel's ecosystem - what do all these tools do? LaravelForTheRestOfUs.com
-
9th December 2025 · YouTube ↗
Laravel for the rest of us: The YouTube Series!
Today we're answering a simple but important question - what exactly is Laravel? LaravelForTheRestOfUs.com
-
18th November 2025 · YouTube ↗
What’s New in Statamic V6: Official Developer Walkthrough
Once a month our developers come together for a "Dev Town Hall". Sometimes we invite external folk - and this time, we had Joshua Blum join us to walk us through the new upcoming features for Statamic…
-
13th November 2025 · YouTube ↗
Why I Wrote Laravel For The Rest Of Us
As developers, we use loads of magic words. Routing cues, controllers... And for a developer, even one just starting out, these words make sense. But for product owners, managers, founders - well, the…
-
23rd October 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
When to Build Your Own Platform (and When Not To)
I’ll let you in on a secret, not every membership organisation needs a bespoke membership platform. Here’s a comparison: not every business needs to own an event space. Most are perfectly fine renting…
-
9th September 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
Design for Awe
Summer’s drawing to a close, and as the mornings are crisp and dimmer, I’ve been reflecting on the events I’ve attended, people I’ve met and incredible work we’ve delivered. In a meta-moment, Christin…
-
3rd July 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
Community Building - the LEGO way.
I recently had the chance to speak with Jake McKee, who is a principal consultant, who has worked with or for the likes of LEGO, Apple and many more.
-
24th June 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
Speed to Activation: Why Canva’s Communities Don’t Wait Around
When I speak with Australians in the tech space, there's one brand they're incredibly proud is from down-under...
-
19th June 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
Human Connections at Scale: Inside B Lab's Community Philosophy
“Community is built by people.” That reminder from Silvia Laserna, Community Manager at B Lab U.S. & Canada, is more than a soundbite.
-
10th June 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
The Technology Is Not the Community
Community strategy often starts in the wrong place: platform first, people second.
-
5th June 2025 · Platforming Community ↗
Documentation Is Freedom
Good documentation doesn't limit you - it gives you freedom. If the day-to-day stuff is handled, you can spend your energy on the creative parts of the job
-
6th July 2023
London Marathon
In April I ran 40-something km around London. The first half couldn’t have gone better. Two hours for a half marathon around London, which hundreds-of-thousands of people cheering you on. Then you hit…
-
6th July 2023
Steadfast Collective X Lobo Creative
Steadfast Collective has acquired Lobo Creative, a UX/UI and branding studio based in Wimborne.
-
5th June 2023
Building community over food
There’s something about the shared experience of food which connects people like no other.
-
7th February 2023
Skiing and Degrees
Did you know I'm the only grandchild without a degree? My grandparents saved for each of us to go to university. They were both headteachers and both highly respected in their fields. However, I dropp…
-
9th January 2023
The Happy Newspaper
The newspaper is a quarterly antidote to negativity. It’s a printed newspaper celebrating all that’s good in the world.
-
4th January 2023
2023 & a Marathon
2023 is a big year for me personally.
-
25th October 2022
Starting is hard. (But it's not the hardest bit)
Starting a business is hard. There are so many possible directions you can take. It's full of risk, disappointment and graft. Only 40% of UK businesses make it past year three. Starting is only the be…
-
24th August 2022
Know your role
As we watched the chefs prepare plate after plate, one thing was clear; Each person knew their role.
-
25th July 2022
Positivity is infectious.
At my first England game, I saw the Lionesses play at St Mary's Stadium, which usually is home to Southampton. I've seen my fair share of games at St Mary's, but the atmosphere was unlike other games…
-
7th June 2022
Remote onboarding
Every team is different. Every team onboards new members of their team differently. Here's how we do it.
-
7th June 2022
Why Collision Conference?
We fly out to Toronto this week to join the 33,000+ folk at Collision Conference. Why did we pick Collision Conference?
-
25th April 2022
Dyslexia as a superpower.
My school work, emails, and even texts often don’t include words I want them to because I have no idea how to spell them.
-
22nd April 2022
The Wonder of Shared Experiences
The real question is, how can we have more of these collective community moments?
-
25th March 2022
BenchPress 2022 Live
BenchPress is a yearly report, now in its 10th year, which takes data from agencies across the UK to help take the temperature of the landscape.
-
16th March 2022
Community keep the world spinning.
There are different reasons why the team champion the idea of community, but for me, it's simple.
-
7th March 2022
The Value Bank
A while ago someone told me about the concept of 'The Value Bank'. I can't remember who or when I first heard about it, but here's the gist...
-
3rd March 2022
The Smart Creative
Based on a study of 101 post-mortems, 23% of them concluded that the primary reason behind their startup’s demise did not have the right team. That was the third-highest behind, no market need and ran…
-
2nd March 2022
Macro vs Micro Tasks
As a business owner, you're switching between macro and micro tasks throughout the day, it's exhausting. You can be planning budgets for the next year when the phone rings about a very specific micro…
-
1st March 2022
Leadership should be calming and inspiring for your team
Empowering leadership is based on having trust in your team and conveying that sense of trust by giving them the responsibility to get things done.
-
28th February 2022
Remote Rhythms
Two years ago, like the rest of the world, our team packed their laptops into their bags and headed home to stay safe.
-
12th January 2022
It's time to reorder our business goals
With the team, all in one room, Rachel and I took the opportunity to go through each of our 2021 goals in detail. We started by running through them in the order we always have.
-
18th October 2021
25 Lessons from running Steadfast Collective.
These are my personal thoughts on the crucial lessons I've learnt over the years of running Steadfast Collective; a development studio.
-
11th October 2021
30 Coffees. 30 Stories.
Over the past three months, I’ve had over 30 coffee dates - over Zoom of course. Around half the people I chatted with I already knew, the other half were strangers - aside from a little LinkedIn digg…
-
16th August 2021
Error messages and baby monitors
At home, we have recently had a few WIFI-related struggles. I made a few changes, which, unknown to me, caused our baby monitor set up to fail. In theory, it should have still worked. We hit issues li…
-
20th July 2021
Never judge a book by its cover
At ten years old I was captivated to pick up and purchase; The Incredible Internet by Michael Fox.
-
14th July 2021
Affirmation
One of my personal favourites is Tomorrow I'll Be Brave by Jessica Hische. It's a beautifully written and illustrated book that emphasises self-affirmation. One page reads; tomorrow, I'll be strong. I…
-
7th July 2021
The Sprint Vs The Stride
As I look back over the last 6 years running Steadfast Collective, I see a two parallels to running
-
27th June 2021
Why we really gave away £15,000.
Back in 2019, we ran a similar giveaway, the winner was the QE2 activity Centre. Once chosen, we had a chance to view their activity centre and we were blown away by the inclusive safe haven they have…
-
14th June 2021
Change of trajectory
We're making some changes at Steadfast Collective. Over the past few months, we've spent time looking back over our six years as a company, looking ahead to the future and we're ready to make a change…