About

An engineer who builds websites.

I'm James, and RiverWood is me. I build websites and custom web apps for small businesses: the site that brings work in, and the tool that runs the business behind it.

What I'm not is a designer who picked up web development. I started in 1998 looking after server systems, and spent the next 25 years building corporate networks and manufacturing systems, including work for BMW and AT&T, and a stint as UK IT Manager at HELLER, a global machine tool manufacturer.

That's the difference between a site that looks fine on launch day and one that's still fast, secure and reliable two years later. Hosting, backups, security and speed have been my job my whole career, so they get done properly instead of left as someone else's problem.

Networks haven't gone away either. Switches, VLANs, routing and wireless were my day job for years, and I still pick that work up now and then, usually as part of a project I'm already on. Depends what else I've got on, but it's always worth asking.

You won't get passed to an account manager or chased by a sales team, because there isn't one. You get me, and if something goes wrong, I'm the one who sorts it.

Built properly, and yours to keep.

Everything I build is handed over with the code, the data and plain-English documentation. No licence tied to me, no platform you can't leave, and nothing you'd need me to unlock. If you want me to keep looking after it, that's because it's working, not because you're stuck.

A good fit if

  • Your website looks dated, or brings in nothing
  • You're running the business on spreadsheets and memory
  • Off-the-shelf software almost fits, but not quite
  • The same admin eats your evenings every week
  • You want a straight answer about AI

Probably not if

  • You want the cheapest site possible
  • You'd rather not be asked questions about the business
  • You're after buzzwords to impress someone
  • You want it live tomorrow, whatever the state of it

Sound about right? Have a look at what I've built or what I do, then get in touch. No pressure, no jargon.

Get in touch

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