10 years of Space 48
Today we celebrate Space 48’s Tenth Birthday. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long! We started the day with our monthly business update, with a lot of reminiscing about where it all began. Back in 2008, our MD & Co Founder Jon Woodall, had a burning desire to progress his work in the ecommerce industry and start his own business. It was then that the first public release of Magento happened.At this point we have to mention our Technical Director and Magento Master Tony Brown. Jon & Tony used to play golf on a Thursday night, and it was during their games they talked about ecommerce and they found that Jon’s commercial knowledge was taken to the next level when coupled with Tony’s technical knowledge. An opportunity arose for them to work on an ecommerce website and as Tony had been starting to get to grips with Magento, they decided to take on the challenge. It all started in Tony’s spare room, and not only did he have a website to build, he was teaching Jon how to code too. This was the start of Space 48 as we know it and saw Tony join the business in 2010.
2011 saw our first ever Magento Enterprise build, and every year that goes by our customers continue to grow and it’s all testament to the team of people we have, and their expertise in the ecommerce industry. We’re extremely proud of how far we have come and our achievements.
Quote from our business update from Jon: “No-one starts with the end in mind, and what to take from this is that whatever you think you want to do, you just need to get it started. There will be successes and failures along the way, but you don’t learn without failure”.
I know Jon will be the first to admit one of the things he didn’t ever dream would be so successful is the developer conference we created – Mage Titans. Stemming from a desire to share knowledge and bring the world’s best Magento developers together, Mage Titans was created back in 2014. A platform attracting people from all over the world and a conference that has now expanded internationally. You can find Mage Titans in the UK, US, Spain, The Netherlands, Mexico & Italy. Our team are extremely passionate about their contribution to the community and we have a number of regular contributors in our ranks.
Fast forward a few years to the present day and our acquisition of Meanbee in Bath saw Space 48 add some extremely talented people to the team and the addition of yet another Magento Master – Tom Robertshaw. The team are now an integral part of Space 48. Tom has recently written a white paper, and it’s one of the most thorough pieces I have seen. It really does show his expertise in the sector. It’s focused on preparing yourself or your team for an ecommerce project and what needs to be considered, with a key features section of a few of the main platforms. Here’s the link if you’d like to take a read.
The ecommerce world is so fast paced and changes daily. We’re currently going through an extremely interesting time with Adobe acquiring Magento and I know the community are really excited to see where things go. As Space 48 have grown we have realised that our passion for making the right choice for our customers needed to be demonstrated not only through our actions, but through our partnerships too. 2018 has seen us partner with both Shopware & Shopify Plus as part of the next chapter for us. We pride ourselves on our expertise and the consultancy we provide to our customers, and being able to work with Magento, Shopware & Shopify puts us in quite a unique position and allows us to meet all of our customers needs. It’s a really exciting time for Space 48.
We plan to finish 2018 on a massive high and we have some amazing projects that we are working on – so keep your eyes peeled!
