Collis Ta’eed Interview

Alrighty kids time for another interview! This time we have one of Australia’s / the worlds most awesome web dudes in the hot seat…

DG:First off, can you give us a bit of an idea of who you are, what you do and your favourite things?
CT: Hi, I’m Collis Ta’eed and I work at Envato where am CEO otherwise known as Chief Email Officer My favourite things are planning new sites and projects which I do over tea mostly with my trusty moleskine notebooks!

DG:Can you explain the process you go through, from concept to completion,when developing a website?
CT: New sites usually begin with some idea for a hole in the market or an unmet demand. I then spend a lot of time thinking up plans in my notebook or researching to see what else is out there. I will sometimes also start looking for awesome domain names, not so much because it’s important this early on but just because it’s kinda fun Next comes the logo and theoretically I should do wireframes at this point, but in practice I usually open Photoshop and just start designing.

I’ll also often start writing a project spec at this point including use-case scenarios to explain how the site would be used and to document out functionality it should have. I’ll then give this to the developers to go over and then we begin building!

Of course in practice there is lots of back and forth and usually things get delayed while we find the resources, sometimes I will midway throw out an idea, sometimes I’ll get halfway and then find out there is someone doing exactly that elsewhere, and sometimes everything falls into place and we build and launch pretty quickly. It’s very variable and depends largely on the type of project.

The quickest sites to build are sites where we use a platform like WordPress, and the longest are big custom development projects like the Envato Marketplaces.

DG:We’ve seen the internet evolve and change enormously over the past few years, where do you think it is headed next?
CT: I think we’re definitely at the point where mobile technology is finally, really blossoming. I’d say it will be a long while of watching mobile’s implications change how we use the internet. Things like life-logging, location based networks, and so on where we see mobile devices adding new abilities to the internet are very exciting.

Another area I imagine might improve is around our identities online. In a perfect world we would each have a single identity with multiple layers of security for different logins and passwords, a single internet wallet that we use for purchasing, a single set of contact details that then route to whatever clients we wish to use, a single social graph that then plugs into applications and so on. Of course this might be a complete pipe dream, but I do think there will be some improvements in how we manage our online identities in the future.

DG:What sort of projects will does 2010 hold for Envato?
CT: This year one of our big focuses is building an underlying platform for our Tuts+ network. Currently the system is all running on WordPress and aMember and is quite messy and hard to build features on. We’re beginning work now on slowly rearchitecting and building a Plus platform that we will then use for many years to come. It’s an enormous job of course, so it will be a long while

The Final 5
What is your favourite website (that isn’t your own)? I love TechCrunch!
If the internet was never invented, what would you be doing? I think I’d be a historian maybe! I’m reading a history of the United States and I have to say it’s awesome!
Do you have a party trick? I’m able to bore people to tears by talking about internet stuffs that they don’t care about
What is the most played song on your iPod? I don’t have an iPod!
Where is the best place in Melbourne for a beer? I don’t actually drink myself (I’m a Baha’i), but Melbourne’s best burger is at a place called “Andrews” in Albert Park!

DG:Who would you like to see interviewed next?
CT: I’d love to read an interview of the guys behind CampaignMonitor or MailChimp, I love both those services!

DG:Any final shout-outs / words of wisdom?
CT: Just to say thanks for interviewing me and having me on the site!

Be sure to check Collis’ and Envato’s work out at;
Website: www.envato.com
Blog: www.thenetsetter.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/collis

A MASSIVE thank you to Collis from DelightfulGoodness for the interview…what a champion!