Tag - Moonfruit

Wed, 13 Jun 2012

Clare

Clare

Wed, 13 Jun 2012, 10:04

Chatting about the journey to £18m cash exit with Eirik Pettersen, CTO of Moonfruit

This interview took place at the Moonfruit office, Central London. June 2012 and appeared on the Blue Glue blog.

As one of the earliest members of Moonfruit, there is a lot we want to know from Eirik right now. The London based team of designers and developers who are passionate about providing great design and products that support small businesses and individuals, has been acquired by the directories giant Yell for £18m in cash. But firstly…

….a huge congratulations to you and the team on the exit. What has the last few weeks been like for you?

It’s been a real rollercoaster, with many emotional highs and lows. You never really know if it’s going to happen or not right until the very end. As you pass through the various stages of the deal, it gets more real and you get excited but often the day after you can be quite sad. It’s probably akin to giving away your daughter’s hand in marriage – you are happy, but at the same time you are sad to be handing over something you’ve cared deeply about for many years.

But to put that all in perspective, we are really excited about working with Yell in the future – there are many opportunities and it will be a fun and challenging ride.

How has your exit strategy changed over the years, if at all?

I’ve been told the best exit strategy is to not have an exit strategy! The most important thing is to create a valuable and sustainable business, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do for the last 12 years. As we continued to explore various partnership opportunities, often the conversations turned into corporate development discussions and what Yell were doing was the most appealing.

How did you “groom” Moonfruit for sale, if at all?

As I said, the best way to make yourself attractive to a potential acquirer is have a healthy business, with good past performance and a credible and exciting business plan. It means making the right choices for the business, showing leadership and being able to exploit opportunities.

What kind of people have got you to where you are today?

Smart ones that can get things done. You can get people who are smart and can’t get things done – they create work. And you can get people who can get things done but aren’t smart – they create work as you have to clean up their mess afterwards.

Great programmers. Laziness, Impatience and Hubris, are the three great programmer attributes according to Larry Wall, the inventor of Perl.

We want developers writing programs that Moonfruit users find really useful (laziness means they work hard to make computers do most of the work), that take huge pride in their work (hubris) and that write programs that are fast and anticipate user’s needs (impatience means they don’t tolerate inefficiencies).

You have a good record of staff retention at Moonfruit, any tips?

Things are coming in threes today! Purpose, Autonomy and Craftsmanship are the three things that we try to give to everyone at Moonfruit.

Take a look at Dan Pinks article on motivation – he says that people need to be able to solve problems their own way and have the freedom to solve the problems creatively at a level of craftsmanship that gives them satisfaction. I want people to come to work because they feel they are solving some kind of problem, and I want them to know that they fit into the system in a way that really matters.

When we set up Moonfruit 12 years ago there was a strapline we always brought up in interviews, which is where the company actually came from, “Allowing people to share their passions online.” We do look for people who have passion in what they do. It isn’t just about doing a job, it’s about fulfilling a passion, if you will. People work the hours they work because they love being here and solving the challenges.

How have you found the right people over the years?

In the early days, ‘99 and 2000, we used lots of agents. I also did much of the work in the beginning and used my own networks, especially in the lean years up until about ‘06/’07. In about ‘08 when we started to grow a lot faster, we couldn’t find people through JobServe and other online job ads so easily, and there was little in the way of Linkedin and Facebook. It was pretty much just MySpace in those days and all you could really do there was find another band member.

So 3 years ago we changed how we hire, and had a policy not to use agents. For me, I didn’t see where the value was. We partnered with BlueGlue as their approach seemed closer to what we did ourselves, using seeder companies and trying to find people in similar companies with a similar ethos, rather than a bank of candidates in an agency. It was also good that the BlueGlue system could go across all the areas we needed to hire in – not just tech. We are really happy with the hires we have made together so far.

Thanks Eirik - always a pleasure to chat with you.

Mon, 21 May 2012

Clare

Clare

Mon, 21 May 2012, 11:59

Content and Media Intern

Who we are

Moonfruit is a central London-based high design, DIY website builder. The team comprises developers, designers and entrepreneurs who are passionate about great design and great products. Moonfruit helps to support small businesses, start-ups and design centric communities around the world.

We are looking for a smart, up-and-coming graduate to join our team for a summer (3 month) or 12 month placement with the opportunity to go permanent. This is a great internship opportunity for a university student interested in marketing and PR to gain the experience necessary for employment in the future and to gain an overall knowledge of an exciting business/industry.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Writing content for the website, blog, press etc.
  • Editing and checking of content
  • Assisting the Online Content Editor where necessary
  • Engaging with customers via social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
  • Answering emails and liaising with our PR agency
  • Assisting and appearing at networking events
  • Assisting in general marketing tasks

You will report to the Marketing Director and work closely with the Community Manager as well as the designers, customer support team and occasionally with the software development team.

Qualifications

  • Excellent written and spoken English
  • Good literary and creative skills
  • Innovative
  • Good understanding of Facebook and Twitter
  • Strong interest in marketing
  • Any degree with good grades (current or recently graduated)

This internship will be paid at minimum wage rates.

How to Apply

To apply for this role please send a covering letter and a copy of your CV to jobs@moonfruit.com

Wed, 21 Mar 2012

Clare

Clare

Wed, 21 Mar 2012, 14:28

A Successful Husband-Wife Team

This interview by Sramana Mitra first appeared in her blog. Part 1 of the interview is reproduced below but you can read the whole of it here.''

Wendy Tan White is the CEO of Moonfruit, a company she co-founded with Eirik Pettersen and Joe White. Moonfruit is an on-demand website development platform that allows anyone to develop a website for any purpose in a matter of minutes. Prior to Moonfruit, Wendy worked at Arthur Andersen as an IT consultant and helped establish Egg.com. Joe worked as a website developer while finishing college and completed projects for clients such as Disney and Egg.

Sramana: Let’s start by reviewing your personal backgrounds.

Wendy Tan White: I studied computer science at Imperial College in London. It was a great experience and a great college. I used to program really old assembly line systems, which is a far cry from where we are today. Both of my parents worked in IT, which was unusual in those days, especially for my mother. She worked for DEK in Reading, England.

After college I ended up working for Arthur Andersen. It was good commercial experience although it was not my passion. I ended up in a financial services IT consultancy. One of my first big career step came when one of my clients headhunted me to help set up the Internet bank Egg.com. It was the first UK Internet bank which came around in 1997. That is where I got the bug that led me to try and understand how communities work on the Internet. Initially I approached that from the perspective of banks, but I quickly started looking at how people shared their passions online. That is when I founded Moonfruit in 1999.

I was quite lucky that my boss at Egg told me that if I stayed around a bit longer, he would help seed the business, which he did. He also let me work part-time at Egg to give me the opportunity to get the business started while being able to maintain some income. He was a tremendous mentor.

Sramana: When you started Moonfruit, what was in your head?

Wendy Tan White: It has always been about democratization. As a developer, I realized that if someone wanted to publish something online, they could not do it themselves if they were not a developer. I wanted to give them a simple user interface to share their passion online. It did not matter to me if it was a hobby, business, or passion. These were the days before blogging and social media.

We ended up building something that was like a PowerPoint editor. It really was a SaaS product, which was not a common concept in those days. The idea was that it was a very literal editor. It was a visual editor to create a website.

Joe White: My story dovetails into this. I was at Cambridge getting an economics degree. In the summer I started working at a software company, which is where Wendy was in the graduate program. When she left that company to go to Egg, I was going back to my finals at Cambridge. One of the guys I met at that company was interested in setting up a web design agency in 1997. I told him that I was going back to school and that I could look for some clients with the intention of sharing the work with him if I were able to find some clients. The first client we got was The Big Issue, then we got the London School of Economics, Disney and a few others. By the time I graduated, we had a group of clients that included Egg.

I was traveling between London and Cambridge, balancing school and work. I got to know Wendy when I went to work on commissioned projects at Egg. Wendy was the one commissioning work to us. When Wendy decided she wanted to leave Egg to start Moonfruit she got me involved, along with Eirik, who is our other co-founder. This all occurred before we were married.

Wendy Tan White: Eirik Pettersen was my best friend from university. He was a physicist but would do programming on the side. We always talked about starting a business together in college but we ended up going our different ways after school. When we set up Moonfruit, I wanted him to come in as CTO, and Joe’s agency built the prototype that we went out and raised money with.

Tue, 20 Mar 2012

Clare

Clare

Tue, 20 Mar 2012, 09:56

The Good Web Guide

The Good Web Guide asked Wendy Tan White, founder of Moonfruit, to share some of her favourite websites. See the article here.

Wendy Tan White is the founder and CEO of Moonfruit, a design-led DIY website builder company - "We do all the hard work so that you can be free to design your own website in just a few hours with no technical knowledge." Wendy's aim is to democratise the web and to this end, Moonfruit has just launched a Shopbuilder which means you can create your own shop which will publish to mobile and Facebook automatically. Since the launch in October 2011, over 60,000 shop sites have been developed and worldwide over 4 million websites have been created in the last 12 years, 1.5 million in the last 12 months. Wendy has won many awards but winning Entrepreneur of the Year at the CWT everywoman in Technology Awards in 2011 was a highlight.

As well as running Moonfruit, Wendy is mother to a 7-year-old and 4-year old. She lives in west London with Joe, her husband and the COO of Moonfruit.

WENDY'S FAVOURITE SITES

Designers Guild - When my home feels neglected (as it frequently does), I make it feel better by treating it to something bright and colourful from this stylish homeware shop. An antidote to greige!

Tech Crunch - The site that has all the up-to-date news and stories on the tech world including start-ups and investing.

Reuters - Another site which is excellent for all news as well as tech news - and (declaration of interest coming up) it includes a regular blog by Joe White.

Water Forward - A simple idea to provide fresh water for 1 billion people who don't yet have access. You can easily donate $10 using social media and to spread the word.

The Kernel - Edited by Milo Yiannopoulos, this site publishes high-quality writing about the way technology is rapidly changing our lives and is not afraid of debate, comment and controversy!

Hsaba - My father is Burmese so this blog is one of the many that I follow to source recipes and chat about Burmese life and food.

Pinterest - This online pinboard helps you to organise your life and to share the things you love: recipes, kids, photos, crafts, storage, motivational words and much much more.

Thu, 8 Mar 2012

Clare

Clare

Thu, 8 Mar 2012, 15:44

"Business in You" - more than just hot air

Entrepreneurs and business owners need to fight their own cynicism towards government initiatives, argues Moonfruit.com co-founder Wendy Tan White in Real Business.

As co-founder of Moonfruit.com, I am supporting the government’s Start Up Britain initiative and its recent "Business In You" campaign – which aims to show there’s a business idea in everyone.

Now that I've gotten over the shock of seeing my face plastered on a billboard on the A4, I wanted to explain why these schemes are so important for entrepreneurs and growing businesses – as well as the UK economy in general.

Like most entrepreneurs, I am sceptical about “initiatives” for startups and SMEs, and fatigued by a glut of patronising “how-to” guides. Many corporate-led outreach programmes are CSR- or PR-driven; while there’s nothing wrong with this in itself, it means that support for new businesses is often one-way and short-term, and ceases once the case study is published. Like a one-time charity handout, it does little to support a new business in its ongoing growth and evolution. I like action!

So what’s different about "Business In You", and why have I laid cynicism aside?

Firstly, challenging economic times have necessitated a more symbiotic relationship between the government and UK businesses – of all sizes. While startups and SMEs still need the support of big corporations, larger companies can call on the agility and speed of smaller businesses. All businesses could do with the support of their government to help them be financially sustainable in difficult economic times.

In turn, the government needs the support of its businesses, particularly entrepreneurs. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, SMEs account for 99 per cent of all enterprise in the UK, and nearly two thirds of private-sector employment. Put simply, the government needs us to help boost the economy and fight increasing unemployment, so it is within its interests to create a support network that makes a difference way beyond a political gesture.

Increasingly, we all need a symbiotic business ecosystem to survive – a positive, supportive environment based on "pay-it-forward" goodwill. It is this ecosystem that makes Silicon Valley such a startup hotbed, where each service provider plays a part in an ongoing and collaborative success story.

I love the way lawyers and PR agencies are not afraid of putting skin in the game themselves and when one senior law partner stopped talking about time on the clock and warrants and instead about the "magic" in the valley I had to smile.

David Cameron’s Tech City speech last year suggested that Silicon Valley could provide a useful model for more entrepreneurial Britain. I was sceptical about Startup Britain when it launched, but I’ve experienced their positive ecosystem in action: at the recent launch of Moonfruit ShopBuilder, the outgoing StartUp Britain CEO and founder of Enterprise Nation Emma Jones spoke at the event, PayPal lent us their auditorium and both organisations promoted it to their communities. Some 150+ SMEs attended.

The government is also backing up its campaigns with a number of tangible measures. Its extension of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee System will help more businesses borrow the money they need, while the Startup Britain Marketplace aggregates offers, events and links for new businesses that are really designed to help.

The MentorMe matching site will find you a mentor and the initiative the PM seemed most keen on when I spoke to him was the freeing up of unused government office space to provide new businesses with variable, low cost working space.

It’s certainly a creative idea but logistically challenging. Partnering with experienced incubators/co-working spaces like TechHub, WhiteBearYard and Club Workspace would help turn this from an idea into reality, quickly. So while I understand why people could be cynical towards yet another “initiative”, I believe it’s up to us to take the steps to make sure "Business In You" is more than just hot air.

Wed, 1 Feb 2012

Clare

Clare

Wed, 1 Feb 2012, 14:31

Easily Create a Website with Moonfruit

This article by Sam Cater originally appeared in AppStorm

Many tools and packages exist online to help people create websites with minimal effort and involvement. Of course, each one has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are more aimed at creating blogs, while others are better for single-page info sites.

Moonfruit is another competitor in this market. It looks stylish, promises to be simple, and … you do want to create a new site, right? So what does it have to offer, and what are its pros and cons? Lets take a look…

Making Creativity Easy

Moonfruit is designed for people with absolutely no web design experience. It attempts to give small business owners and individuals easy access to web management and creative tools. So without further ado, lets take a look at the site itself.

Choosing a template to work with

The first step in creating a site is choosing one of hundreds of themes as a starting point. From there it’s a case of altering and tweaking pretty much everything you see into a website that you would use to represent yourself.

The tools in the editor are very simple and easy to use, which is great because that’s exactly what people need. The elements, contents and formatting can be added and removed in a way that resembles Word or Publisher, so most people will feel comfortable using it. Moonfruit effectively turns a website into a page-by-page online document, where everything you see is configurable and can be adjusted as required.

The Editor window - More tools are made visible by selecting the categories at the top.

The content of the site has been intelligently and automatically mobile optimized.

A very useful feature Moonfruit has is automatic optimization of your site for mobile viewers. You don’t even have to configure or enable this, it’s there from the word go, no plugins, or code to meddle with. It didn’t show the Gallery image you can in these screenshots, however I am sure that this is solvable. Mobile-optimization is important these days, as with the growth of smartphone and tablet computer popularity, more and more views may come from such devices.

Another factor that would definitely make Moonfruit appealing to people who want a hassle-free experience is that the hosting and domain settings are handled for you. No FTP client is required, and there are no HTML or CSS files to manage. The web interface handles it all. On the subject of domains, you can link one you own to Moonfruit in a matter of minutes. They guide you through the process of changing address records with the company you purchased the domain from and so forth. You can also use Moonfruit to register a new domain if you so wished.

The social aspect of a websites? They are included too, with Twitter integration, RSS feeds, comment boxes, forum backends, and chat widgets.

Costs?

Free website? Why thank you, yes.

They start you out on a 15 Day Free trial with 20MB of storage space. For any more space than this you have to crack open your wallet.

I chose the trial at first, and was expecting to have a really restricted interface and being prompted to pay for extra features. However when I signed in a popup box asked if I wanted to continue my 15 day trial, or keep a site for free. I clicked free, and the only condition is that I have to sign in every six months to keep the site ‘active’. Seemed like a good deal to me.

Obviously if you want a site for small businesses and enterprises you are going to have to break the 20MB limit, but for individuals or small groups it seems you can have a website on Moonfruit for nothing.

Bolt-ons

There are several pieces of functionality you can add into your website if so required, such as a blog, or even a shop.

Blogs

The blog interface is very simplistic, offering only minimal functionality. What you see in this screenshot is all that you get. However for those of you familiar with feature-rich WordPress, remember that this entire service is geared towards people looking for straightforwardness and simplicity. Whilst it may look pretty bare, this is all that a blogger really needs. Three design modes are offered, Text, Image, and Article, so it definitely won’t be replacing WordPress any time soon.

For the original article, please click here

Clare

Clare

Wed, 1 Feb 2012, 14:20

How to survive a crisis

This article by Emma Haslett originally appeared in Management Today

It can be hard to stay in calm control through economic turbulence. As Rudyard Kipling wrote: 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs ... yours is the earth and everything that's in it.' That's more easily said than done. But, in his book Managing Through Turbulent Times, Anthony Holmes says it's important to distinguish between a crisis and a problem: 'A problem is straightforward, while a crisis changes and evolves.' So how do you keep a zen frame of mind even when your business is suffering?

Admit defeat

When things start to go pear-shaped, it's easy to hum loudly and hope the problem goes away. And denial may not come just from you. Wendy Tan White, CEO of website builder Moonfruit and seasoned crisis survivor, says that in the run-up to the original dotcom crash her business model clearly wasn't working, yet her investors put her under pressure not to change tack. The sooner you react to what's happening, the easier it is to work on a solution.

Look after number one

By its very nature, a crisis causes panic, so the first challenge is to think clearly. Often, your instinct is to keep pushing until you find a solution, but the best course might be to remove yourself from the situation - even if that means just taking a walk around the block. As the person in charge, says Tan White, it's important to look after yourself. 'Put your own lifejacket on first, keep your head clear, then you can look after everyone else. There's no honour in going down with a sinking ship.'

Phone a friend

When your livelihood is under threat, it's hard to look at a crisis objectively. If you're emotionally invested in something, it is difficult to set your feelings aside. If you find yourself at a loss for ideas, call for outside help: a friend, mentor or coach - one whose judgement you trust and who might have experienced a similar situation and can calmly talk you through your options.

Plan ahead

When you're up against it and your team is thinking with all the rationality of a cornered animal, this is easier said than done. Even in mid-crisis, though, planning is essential. Anthony Holmes says: 'You will need a well-thought-out plan B. It might not be as good as plan A, but if plan A isn't working, move on immediately. And the moment you do that, go away and work out plan C.' Jenny Irvine, chief executive of the Pure Package, adds that planning for the worst-case scenario often covers all eventualities. She had planned for her business to be 'burnt to the ground', she recalls, so when some laptops were stolen, it didn't present a problem.

Communicate

When your business runs into trouble, don't beat about the bush, because once the rumours start, they will serve only to erode your employees' morale. The more open you are with your staff about what is going on, the better they will respond and the more empowered they will feel. Try to keep staff informed in advance about what their roles will be when a crisis hits. 'It is about knowing who is in charge,' says Irvine. 'People need to know whose job it is to step up and find solutions.'

Look for opportunities

They say every cloud has a silver lining - which is worth keeping in mind as 2012 shapes up to be ever-more financially taxing for businesses. But as your competitors slash their costs, keep your eye on the future and don't stop innovating. During the previous recession, many businesses dutifully battened down the hatches, only to find that when things improved, their competitors had outmanoeuvred them. One company's crisis can be another's golden opportunity.

Don't live in the past

The most important thing to remember is that you cannot turn back the clock. A genuine crisis isn't a temporary blip - it will change your business forever. As Holmes explains: 'You can't drive a car forward looking through the rear-view mirror.'

For the rest of the article, click here

Tue, 20 Dec 2011

Clare

Clare

Tue, 20 Dec 2011, 11:37

Moonfruit: A New Website Building Service

This article by Kayvon Ghoreshi originally appeared in Social Web Tools

Anyone and their kid can build a website nowadays, and the trend doesn’t seem to be stopping as more and more services pop up to help you build your website. One of the newest services to enter the market is Moonfruit.

In a nutshell, Moonfruit is an easy website builder, but it has a unique style to it. The templates that Moonfruit offers aren’t something you would expect from this type of service. Similar services often have incredibly basic templates you can build your site off of. These templates often have very basic color schemes, and seem blocky in nature. Moonfruit avoids those limited templates and give you some very modern looking templates that look much more professional.

Moonfuit offers immense customization. Every piece of text and picture that you add to your site can be rotated, adjusted in font and size, and even have links attached to it. This sheer amount of customization can be performed all over your site. You can alter backgrounds to have a certain color pattern or even an image if that suits your site better.

The service is also incredibly friendly to people trying to open up a business site. Moonfruit lets you set up an online shop. The shop is automatically compatible with the web and mobile devices and integrates PayPal so your customers can have a smooth shopping experience. Social media is also integrated into the shop so your customers can like and tweet about what they are getting, which should in effect get more publicity for you. The store also stands next to your blog which can be added to your site and have the same level of customization and social media integration to get your content the exposure it deserves.

So that is what Moonfruit offers, but how well does it do in execution? The answer is slightly less than desirable. The Moonfruit interface isn’t exactly the drag and drop interface that you might be used to with other services. It looks more like a Microsoft Office program where you can insert stuff and have options in an overhead toolbar. At times the interface can feel cluttered and you may have no idea where a feature you want is among the menus. Moonfruit also comes with different pricing options ranging from free (where you’ll have ads on your site) to plans costing $12-35 that give you upgrades such as Google Ad vouchers, more shop space, more bandwidth and storage, better support, and the ability to have members and member pages.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Moonfruit is the best web design experience I’ve ever had. It definitely has some flaws with its interface and some glitches with some of the features, but for being a brand new site in the niche it definitely impresses. If you want to give it a shot, Moonfuit offers a 14 day trial before you make any decisions on purchasing a plan.

To see the complete article, please click here

Wed, 14 Dec 2011

Clare

Clare

Wed, 14 Dec 2011, 10:07

Video: Moonfruit's Joe White on surviving the dot com crash and thriving in the recession

This video by Dan Martin originally appeared in BusinessZone: Technology, Business profiles

Web design company Moonfruit raised millions of pounds in funding during the dot com bubble of the 1990s and then almost collapsed after the crash. A decade on, the company is thriving again. Dan Martin met co-founder Joe White to find out why.

To see the video, click here

Tue, 25 Oct 2011

Clare

Clare

Tue, 25 Oct 2011, 12:07

Facebook Storefront Builder Moonfruit Starts Fast

This article by David Cohen originally appeared in AllFacebook

One of the newest players in the Facebook storefront game reported a red-hot first two days.

ShopBuilder, launched by U.K.-based do-it-yourself website builder Moonfruit, officially launched October 19, and more than 4,500 storefronts went live within the first 48 hours, with 30 percent of those coming from the U.S., according to the company.

That large number suggests that Moonfruit simply extended existing clients’ web storefronts onto Facebook pages enabled for commerce. Then again, the 4,500 is dwarfed by the nearly 4.2 million websites that the vendor has been responsible for.

Moonfruit described ShopBuilder as an out-of-the-box e-commerce solution for Facebook, websites, and mobile, targeted toward small businesses and individuals.

ShopBuilder is also integrated with PayPal, allowing users to begin accepting funds via the payment platform immediately by registering an email address, without the need for a merchant account.

Moonfruit said integration with eBay and other online marketplaces will happen soon.

Here’s how Moonfruit describes ShopBuilder: The Moonfruit ShopBuilder automatically publishes your shop onto web, mobile, and into Facebook. You only have to set up your shop once.

It offers a mobile optimized checkout for phone shoppers integrated with PayPal. It allows you to push your products into your Facebook and Twitter stream. It allows your customers to like and tweet their browsing and buying habits. It can be designed and published by you like every other Moonfruit tool. It’s even free.

The free version of the application includes advertisements, while ad-free versions of the app cost money.

For the complete article, click here

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