Speaking
Hi, I'm Pete, Managing Director at Steadfast Collective; my passion is working with smart creatives to craft digital applications that bring people together.
The last 10 years have seen me go from a developer on a website with over 13 million members to starting, growing and selling an agency, building a SAAS with over 13,000 users and then starting Steadfast Collective, a development agency focused on helping communities gather online.
I've had the privilege of speaking at various events around the UK, to both technical and non-technical audiences, sharing my story, experiences and lessons along the way.
If you'd be interested in me speaking at your event, reach out at [email protected]
Previous appearances
Agency Collective Podcast - August 2022
Digital Ocean shark week - Feb 2021
Steadfast Collective Podcast - 2019 till current
PHP Hampshire - April 2019
PHP Brighton - Oct 2018
Southampton Solent University - 2018
PHP Hampshire - March 2016
I'm happy to talk about everything from leadership to product development and everything in between.
Here's a sample of the talks I've given previously.
Leadership lessons from climbing Mt Doom.
Armed with an icepick, crampons and a positive attitude, we set off on our 18km climb up Mt Doom, the volcano from the Lord Of the Rings films.
This was back in 2015. I had just left my first business and was about to start again with Steadfast Collective.
That adventure has too many leadership lessons not to share.
The Smart Creatives
Smart Creatives are shaping every sector, including yours.
Whether it's coffee or consultancy, these individuals are the impact makers.
A Smart Creative is an individual who doesn't chase compensation; they pursue the ability to cause change and disrupt industries. While being experts at their trade, they can step back and see the bigger business picture allowing them to find solutions to significant problems.
Armed with execution skills and without the fear of failure, Smart Creatives are often the unsung heroes of thriving organisations, putting their team's objectives above their own accolades.
Eric Schmidt, a co-founder at Google, believes Smart Creatives made Google the Goliath it is today.
We'll dig into how to hire, spot and nurture Smart Creatives in your organisation.
Community First. Product Second.
1,000s of applications and products launch daily, and most fail.
How do you ensure yours doesn't?
Building a community around your idea before you start building is possibly the most important decision you can make when launching something new.
I look at the how and why behind building a community, sharing stories of when products succeeded and failed based on the strength of the community around it.
Tap: the journey to 13,000 users.
Tap entered the already overcrowded WordPress hosting space in 2013, with a team who knew little about server-management, back-end development, or how to market a SAAS.
Eight years later, Tap is now established in the managed WordPress hosting sector, having seen over 13,000 websites created. But how did we get there?
As a founder, I share my insights and war stories on building a product more ambitious than any of us ever realised.
A deep dive into many make-or-break moments as we juggled running a full-time agency and a full-time product before moving onto our playbook for growth and our automated future.