A Chat With: Julian Perrott at BarkWeb
By Donna Fielder and Sarah Cronk
MD Julian Perrott at BarkWeb, a web development company that launched in 1999 and moved to Eastbourne in 2010, caught up with Chalk this month to explain more about his career and the company.
Chalk: So, you started BarkWeb back in 1999! What led to you starting the business back then and how has it evolved over the years?
Julian: “I had quite a varied career journey that led to me starting up the business. I left school and went to art college, then started working in a restaurant to earn some money. I worked very hard, was very ambitious and probably very lucky, but nine months later I was running the place and employing 45 people - at just 19! From there, I ran a number of independent restaurants, did quite a lot of troubleshooting, and worked horribly long hours. I’ve also been an ice sculptor, a light manufacturer, sold stationery and print on a big scale, and studied architecture!
“But throughout all of this, I had a real interest in tech. In the restaurants I was running, I was trying to get as much tech into them as possible. When I was selling stationery in London, I designed and commissioned the build of a bespoke ordering system for my client Lehman Brothers. I think tech is now in my blood.
“Around 1995, I had been collaborating with a company building websites in HTML and VMRL, as we thought 3D was the way to go at that time. We were starting to try to build e-commerce websites, which was very challenging in those days. Remember, this was before Google was born and you needed to use a dial-up modem over a phone line to get a ridiculously slow internet connection.
“When I was making and selling lights a few years later, I made a website to help promote that business. People saw my website and this generated a demand for me to build for other people. That was certainly more profitable than making lights, which was fun, but I struggled to make any money! And so it began…
“By 2003, I had picked up a steady stream of clients and was operating quite stably as a sole trader. In 2003, we decided to become a limited company.
“Our core business back then, and for many years after that, was website design, build, and maintenance. In more recent times, we have focused more on our core expertise of bespoke web development, with associated services of SEO and PPC.”
Tell us more about BarkWeb today - what services do you offer? What is your core specialism? How many of you are on the team now?
“There are 6 of us in the BarkWeb team and we have been operating from our office in Hyde Gardens for over 10 years. We have fluctuated in size over the years but have found we can operate most efficiently with a small close-knit team.
“The majority of our business is web development. We build bespoke websites and code for various companies, including some fintech companies. A lot of our work recently has been joining data sources and putting dashboards together.
“SEO and PPC is another big chunk of our business. We work using an evidence-based approach and deliver exceptional value to our clients; our client retention demonstrates our success. This is definitely a growth sector for us currently. We have over 20 years’ experience, have seen Google change dramatically, and are constantly monitoring industry changes. The landscape could look very different soon with AI now in the mix.
“We have some large development projects ongoing. For instance, we are in the late stages of developing an online auction platform in partnership with one of our clients, who we will work with to resell.
“We have also been working for over 10 years on, and with, our own Content Management System, recently named Jolojo, and we are getting very close to launching the MVP. This platform will make it very economical to build a website. It’s been developed with both usability and Google firmly in mind. In time, we will be offering additional plugins and functionality that users can purchase to grow and evolve their sites.
“Jolojo has been a major undertaking and, since 2018, we have been refactoring the front end in Svelte. This is a relatively new language so we have been working closely with the Svelte developers, reporting issues and giving feedback.
“We have over 50 clients already using Jolojo. We are looking forward to rolling it out to a wider audience.
“Our business approach is very much becoming: ‘write once, sell many’. We see a future for the business as a SaaS provider with Jolojo.”
How has business been going for you and what would you say is your biggest challenge currently?
“Business has been very good for us over the past 10 years really, no complaints. Over the last 8 months, we have turned down a lot of work to focus on finishing Jolojo, which has been quite tough. But investment and belief are an important part of running a business and are necessary unless you want to remain stagnant or just offer the same services as everyone else.
“Recruitment is a big challenge. Finding experienced developers is hard, especially as we don’t use bog standard languages.
“However, we are very good at training people; we have offered junior roles and apprenticeships in the past which has been challenging, rewarding and, from a business perspective, reasonably successful. The problem we have is that once we have spent the time training and getting them up to speed, we can lose them to bigger companies with deeper pockets.
“Regarding apprenticeships, I think these are an excellent vehicle for both businesses and people wanting pathway into an industry. I think the key to hiring apprentices is recruiting the right one. They need to be a good fit for your business and you need to pay them a decent amount.
“You cannot fully rely on the apprenticeship provider to do all the training for you: you will need to do a lot to get them up to speed on your way of doing things. The training we have given is very fast-paced, but this has been necessary to get new staff up and running quickly. The digital marketing apprenticeship scheme we have facilitated is particularly good.
“Our last two developer hires were looking to work with the modern programming languages we use, so there is definitely an interest in these and it does differentiate us from other employers. We are currently looking to hire another experienced Svelte developer, if anyone wants to get in touch!”
What advice would you give people trying to start working in your field?
“There is a great variation of roles in the work we do. Ideally you need to do reasonably well at school; your Maths and English will always be important. Hone your design skills if you are interested in that side of things. But the most important advice I can give is ‘be interested’: there is nothing stopping anyone from just getting started by taking an interest in the area, researching it, researching the companies that you could be working for, and seeing what is happening locally.
“Get in contact with those companies - ask them to take a look at something you have built. Those companies will be keen to talk to you if they think you are a strong candidate for a future role. But you need to show the commitment and interest: there are many tools at your fingertips to learn pretty much anything yourself now.”
Why have you chosen to keep the business in Eastbourne?
“I like Eastbourne and my family is happy here. I really don’t want to commute anywhere. We have a great office in Hyde Gardens and it’s a lovely place to be. There are reasonable connections to other towns and cities and there are loads of great places to visit both inside and outside of the town. We have looked at moving on a few occasions, but Eastbourne has always won at decision time.”
Can you tell us about your involvement with the Creative, Cultural, Digital and Media Taskforce? What has the initiative achieved so far and what’s on the To Do list? How can others get involved?
“I started to attend the sessions, out of interest to start with, and eventually became joint chair. We have been doing a number of things:
Making sure the apprenticeship system is working, relevant to the training employers want to give, and ensuring that apprenticeships are addressing the skills requirements of the future
Promoting work experience
Supporting the Talent Accelerator programme
Promoting the Industry Champion and Enterprise Adviser schemes
Helping educators to update their digital skills teaching, and influence the curriculum
Working to ensure that the Arts are seen as equally important as the other STEM subjects, to the extent that STEM is now called STEAM in East Sussex.
“We are always looking for more employers in the group - if anyone within Chalk Eastbourne would like to find out more about it, please get in touch with me.”
