Sterner
Stuff
A digital product agency
Enterprise WordPress and product development
Your CTO for Hire
Sterner Stuff provides not only technical skills to manage your company's mission-critical web services, but also C-suite insight and guidance when planning those services and how they impact your bottom line.
Begin with a fixed-fee, no-obligation roadmapping. You bring your goals, we'll bring our expertise, and together, we'll create a plan for the future of your company's digital products.
Our Technical Competencies
Custom, cloud-based software solutions
There are tons of off-the-shelf software solutions out there with sales people promising they'll be the silver bullet for your business. And many times, they can be!
But as your business scales, your problems become bigger and your needs become more specific. You may be staring down your budget wondering why you're using a "good enough" solution with a five-figure monthly licensing fee.
Or you may be first in your field, offering brand new services that require a completely custom platform to properly deliver to your customers.
Wherever you fall in the above, Sterner Stuff is here to help. With custom-built software, we can ensure your business is ready to meet all the challenges ahead with solutions that work exactly the way you need them.
WordPress for Publishers
Meet Fluctuations in Traffic
Increase uptime and cut costs all at once. Auto-scaling WordPress isn't unique to your publication. Let Sterner Stuff advise and execute on a migration to one of our enterprise WordPress hosting partners. The next time you get a big scoop, your website won't break a sweat.
Diversify Monetization with Gutenberg
Extend WordPress's block editor with custom widgets, giving your authors the power to execute on unique, context-specific monetization efforts with your financial partners.
Performance Audits
Fast sites mean happy users. Happy users stay longer and are more likely to interact with your advertisers. This higher revenue per user is great for monetization, because everyone knows new users are more expensive than existing users. Let Sterner Stuff tune your site and bump your bottom line.
WordPress for eCommerce
Sterner Stuff's Base WordPress Offerings
Worry-Free Updates and Maintenance
The base level of our core service offering is an excellent turn-key solution for all kinds of small businesses. No more managing your own website, and technical assistance is available via a direct line rather than an insufferable chat widget.
WordPress For Small Business Course
If the Worry-Free plan isn't right for you yet, we've made this guide for you. Take actionable steps to make your WordPress website more reliable.
Each lesson arrives in a convenient email, and you can reply to get a little hands-on assistance.
Learn more or just sign up for this free course.
Level 2: "My Website Isn't Helping My Business"
You have a WordPress website, but it feels like a huge waste of money. It happens. Some shops churn-and-burn through websites, shipping them overseas, with no understanding of your business, your problems, or your goals.
With Sterner Stuff, your website will be goal-driven as an integrated part of your business. Get started with Sterner Stuff Insights.
Level 3: You Need a New Website
Ready to dive right in, eh? You:
- Don't have a website
- Don't have a mobile-friendly website
- Hate your Wix, Squarespace, or GoDaddy Site Builder site
- Have a great new project in mind
Starting with a clean slate is a great opportunity to lay the groundwork that so often gets missed right off the bat.
WordPress Websites Get Hacked
WordPress and its plugins receive security updates all the time. If you don't update your site, you risk it going down, and it'll take all the business it brings in with it.
For just $112 a month, Sterner Stuff keeps your site safe from bad guys. It'll also be lickity-split fast and secured with an SSL. Get started now!
Why Sterner Stuff?
Cloud-based software development, tailored to you
If your costs are scaling 1:1 with your income, is it really growth?
Efficiency. Intelligence. Dashboards. Databases. A custom software solution from Sterner Stuff is what you need.
WordPress theme and plugin customization
We're recommended by the people who make the plugins. There's a right way and a wrong way to customize WordPress. I'll let you guess which way I'm doing it.
Long-term support plans
Sterner Stuff's worry-free support plan comes with hosting, updates, up-time monitoring, SSL certificates and more.
Sterner Stuff Design is a joy to work with. Ethan is professional, incredibly expedient, and a great dev on top of all that! Over the course of a month, he helped develop several modules, troubleshoot bugs, and even muck around in the weeds with really small details to make the site more efficient and standards-compliant. Can't recommend Sterner Stuff Design enough!
Brent Barkley
Lessons Learned
Remove WordPress Actions with Object-Bound Callbacks
Often, it’s very simple to disable a filter or action in WordPress. Core’s adherence, merit notwithstanding, to working in the global namespace meant many plugins and themes followed suit. So unhooking a function was as simple as: But as PHP has matured, plugin and theme authors have moved toward more frequent use of modern structures…
Hiring: PHP Developer Seeking to Leave Freelancing
The Sterner Stuff team is growing! We’re seeking a self-motivated PHP developer fresh off a solo-preneur endeavor. You: a self-motivated PHP developer always seeking to learn. Obsessed with doing things the “right way”. At some point, you decided to try your hand at freelancing, either due to circumstances or for a shot at something new…
The Sterner Stuff Work-From-Home Starter Kit
Working from home is brand new for a lot of folks, and it’s full of quirks and challenges. Even for someone who’s worked from home or a flex office for a while, COVID-19 has caused me to re-evaluate my setup. To maximize your productivity, here are a few products you shouldn’t live without. But First……