Tales from The Engine Room

[00:00:00] Caroline Beavon (host): Hello and welcome to Tales from the Engine Room, where we meet the people who make up the Skiff, a co-working community in Central Brighton.
[00:00:07] Tom Buck: I've had amazing things come just from very, very simple conversations of, I have this problem, or even just, Hey, I've had an amazing result here, and I want to show off to somebody.
[00:00:18] Caroline Beavon (host):
I'm Caroline Beavon. I'm a digital storyteller, and I'm based at the Skiff too. Across this series of eight interviews, we'll be meeting freelancers, remote workers, solo printer, and small team leaders. Asking the question, what are you working on today?
This week we meet Tom Buck, a data loving programmer with an entrepreneurial spirit.
[00:00:41] Tom Buck: I have got a website which analyzes mobile phone broadband speeds from around the uk. So you know, you're using your phone. Really annoying when Vodafone doesn't work on seafront in Brighton, for instance. And I've got a site which says, Hey, Vodafone not good in Brighton.
I want to make some money from it so just need to have on there at different points. Hey, here are some cheap deals for data only plans or mobile phones. It's an absolute nightmare and I hate it. And I'm writing a system which automatically grabs great mobile phone deals and puts them on there.
[00:01:18] Caroline Beavon (host): Right. So, okay. So first of all, so this, this, this data about kind of this coverage data Yeah. Is, that's all. Open data. The companies are promoting it themselves.
[00:01:26] Tom Buck: It is. It is. So anytime you type the word, if you type the word speed test into Google, you'll see a little box come up and it will say, do you want to run a speed test? And you click on that and. Shows some gauges moving hopefully in a good direction.
And then they save that in a project sponsored by Google called Measurement Labs, mLab for short. And they make all of this speed, all the speed test data available. It's quite large and unwieldily, and you have to jump through an awful lot of hoops to get it actually working. But at the end of it, you can give or take, say, yeah, here's a speed test that happened in Brighton on this type of device on this day. And here's the end result.
[00:02:08] Caroline Beavon (host): So that's, it's interesting because there's obviously so many of these huge data sets. No matter what the subject is, there's these huge data sets floating around, but not everybody obviously has the technical knowledge, the will, the patience to sit and battle through these. And you've, you've done that.
So you are now trying to leverage this huge data set into a business model. And that's where you are
[00:02:29] Tom Buck: now? Yeah. I mean, I've, I, I've used sites like this as being kind of lottery tickets, frankly. Like I, I've been doing SEO and online marketing for a best part of cool it, I don't know, decade, 15 years maybe. And I still can't predict what is going to go well and what isn't.
So I create these sites almost as a distraction from my main website, so that when I'm, wait, you know, SEO is very much a marathon rather than a sprint. You know, you make some changes and then maybe if the Gods are shining on you a month from now, you'll see a result.
And I use a lot of these sites just to distract from sitting there, tapping my fingers, going, oh, is it going to work? Is it going to work, please work, please work? Just about keep me sane.
[00:03:12] Caroline Beavon (host): Just the words SEO, I'm sure most people are listening are going, it is, it feels like witchcraft most of the time. It feels like you have no idea how it works. Some people seem to know all about it, other people don't
[00:03:22] Tom Buck: Within reason. I mean, it's got an awful lot of very confident not to terribly nice people speaking very confidently about their abilities and because of the random nature of it, so on. No, you can determine things you, you can follow a pattern of certain.
Okay. But because there are so many ways of, not manipulating search engines as such, but as manipulating people's expectations that the industry is trash.
Like a classic example is somebody will come along and say, great yeah. I'll get you on first page for Brighton. Web Developer. P h p, Laravel MySQL.
I don't know those technical terms on that. And it's like, yeah, of course you will. Because no other webpage is going to have that combination of words and row after row row.
[00:04:14] Caroline Beavon (host): Very specific. Very specific,
[00:04:15] Tom Buck: highly specific.
[00:04:16] Caroline Beavon (host): Of course you'll be on the first page
[00:04:17] Tom Buck: Exactly. Sure.
[00:04:18] Caroline Beavon (host): Give me the first page for web developer Brighton. Now we're talking,
[00:04:21] Tom Buck: now we have a problem. Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:22] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. Okay. Okay. So I'm really interested in, in this idea of leveraging data into a revenue model, and this is obviously the, the, the big open data conversation has been happening for, for years. Mm-hmm. I know there was a lot of dancing around it, but how do we monetize it? Cause if we can monetize it, we can do more interesting things with it. So how do you begin to take, take the, the data, whatever the data is Yeah. And think how you can monetize it. Like what's that kind of thought process?
[00:04:49] Tom Buck: It's right at the start. Yeah. I, my business philosophy behind all of this is that marketing defines everything like the, the, the entire company. It's, it's all gotta start from marketing. So you've gotta think, okay, why is somebody going to visit my site?
Very loosely, you go, oh, they're interested in internet speeds. Yep. On phones. But in practice you're going, well, why is that person interested in internet speeds on their phone? That's probably because they're moving somewhere. Or they're frustrated with their current speeds or like something's not right, or they thinking you're getting a new phone.
But either way, they want data in their hands so they can make an informed choice. And so that informed choice is what I'm thinking. Okay. If I can make data that is otherwise completely inaccessible available to, you know, normal people out there.
[00:05:40] Caroline Beavon (host): Normal. The normal, yeah. Most of us. Most of us who don't wanna sit and jump through all the hoops that you mentioned earlier, to get home with this,
[00:05:46] Tom Buck: to fire up excel to. Check this stuff. Yeah, so you, it makes sense then if somebody's searching for that and then I can match them up with that, that's great. Here's the data. You make an informed decision, and by the way, here's some links to stuff you're gonna be interested in. Right? And that really feels like, you know, a win-win when you're not shoving stuff down people's throats, but it's there because they probably should be interested in it. Right. That's, that's the idea.
At least that's a good solid business model. You know, creating a need for something and then showing people, here's, here's the, here's the answer. I, and also here's something that kind of connects to that. That's you strike me very much from conversations we've had. You know, you seem to have that entrepreneurial spirit that you want.
You are looking for something new all the time. Is that when you say That was fair, I think that's fair.
I just. Find lots of things interesting. I think you know, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely on the autism spectrum to some extent, and I think that is one facet of that is just going, I find a lot of things in the world interesting and I want to play with them.
[00:06:44] Caroline Beavon (host): Do you find any challenges on the spectrum? Obviously it's leading to a, an intense interest in certain things. Mm-hmm. And taking it probably further than maybe some, maybe other people would, but then that means that you are turning it into something very interesting. Do you find any downsides to that as well?
Is there anything where you go, oh, I wish my brain didn't do that.
[00:07:00] Tom Buck: Yeah, lots. Yeah, I think probably noticed sitting across from me right now, I'm not doing a lot, a lot of eye contacts, like often talking with, staring over in one corner or things like that.
For the projects themselves, not that many.
Okay. I'm not a great writer. Mm-hmm. So often get a lot of input on that. Did, did go back a few steps? I did start my current company with a, a business partner of mine which hasn't worked out like we've ended up shuffling things around a bit. So I've gone back to being a solo solopreneur, but he, Jameson did cover an awful lot of my blind spots on this particularly with, you know what's the way to phrase it. Grabbing people's intent. I think, like I'm not always a hundred percent matched up on this is what people will be thinking about when they're on this page or what type of copy will really work for people. Okay. But now artificial intelligence exists and that's covering up all those spots there.
[00:07:59] Caroline Beavon (host): So if that leads to my next question and, and also answers another, another question that was coming up.
So I know from sitting next to you in the office that you have a You are one of the main, so shout shouters for ChatGPT and the benefits of that. So is a tool like that goldmine for you in terms of just helping you generate copy and generate content in that way? Not saying it fills that gap from your, your former partner, but it. Helps in some way. Yeah.
[00:08:26] Tom Buck: Oh, it's, it's a massive tool. And, you know, just, I've gone from being completely strict. I've got, I've gone from being an absolute skeptic of this technology, technology to evangelical, frankly, with the latest release. So it means that I can do things like, I run a, a very popular, probably the number one crime statistics site in the uk.
If you want to find what's going on in your neighborhood or other areas or get comparisons, then this side you're probably seeing in your search results and we've got some newsletter on there where we just send out what's been happening over the last month. Mm-hmm. And yeah, I write fantastically boring copy for that newsletter.
If it's just me. I mean, it is, it is very special.
[00:09:10] Caroline Beavon (host): I mean, it's factually accurate from start to finish, but you know,
[00:09:13] Tom Buck: Soporific it's glorious. And G P T makes my copy engaging and makes really dull stuff like actually yeah good to read.
[00:09:24] Caroline Beavon (host): what a time saver. What A stress saver.
[00:09:27] Tom Buck: Oh, oh. The stress relief from it is, is gigantic. Yeah. Yeah. Or you know, just for any of it, just going, oh, I need to, Here's Tom's doll. Copy that. I would normally sit there for a day and just yeah, get really quite stressed and torn up inside and, and
[00:09:40] Caroline Beavon (host): I'm useless at everything!!
[00:09:42] Tom Buck: Exactly. You start tearing the lumps off yourself by mid-afternoon and having a cry, and eventually you power through us and you produce something, which isn't great, but at least it's serviceable.
And now I've got this tool where it's like, no, this actually makes stuff work.
[00:09:54] Caroline Beavon (host): It gives you a if, at the bare minimum it gives you a starting point, then off you go. Yeah. It's interesting. You've, you've picked up on one of the challenges that I think most people who work alone face at some point is, is the blind spots that you mentioned earlier and and how you overcome those and how how, how you build the things that you build on your own.
And how, so you are obviously based at the, based at the Skiff, what is it, does this place help with with filling those gaps that a part, having a business partner might not, you know? So almost having another person in the room, even if it's someone you don't work with,
[00:10:30] Tom Buck: massively, massively.
Like, I mean, don't get me wrong, you have to have the confidence to stand up and go, you know what? I am really struggling today with. Problem. Yep. Or, you know, generally sometimes have a whine in the kitchen. And say, this is, I'm really struggling with this bit. And I've had amazing things come just from very, very simple conversations of I have this problem.
This is something where I'm feeling a bit, or even just, Hey, I need to boast. I've had an amazing result here and I want to show off to somebody.
[00:11:03] Caroline Beavon (host): Or, I mean, and, you know, almost just having some, even if it's just a little bit of this is what I'm working on today, it could, it doesn't even need to be a problem or a, or a, a boast it could just be. This and somebody else goes, oh yeah, that, have you thought about X, Y, and Z? So people will chip in even if you don't ask them to in a, in the best way possible.
Absolutely.
[00:11:23] Tom Buck: And you know, I've, I've built up a ...theres a Skiffmate called Tom Parslow over there. You know built up bit of relationship with him on where we cover each other's backs on some design work on our respective businesses where, you know, he'll say, Hey, I've got this new screen, can you just come and give me your opinions?
Like, I'll, and likewise, I'll do a same and just go, look, does this work? Yeah, yeah. Come here. What, what, what's it like? And, you know, that's invaluable. Wow.
And then for another one of my sites I was really struggling with getting people to engage with a few areas and sign up for a newsletter. And, you know, I've been round, I, I think I've probably been speaking about this problem for about six months, maybe even a year. It has been a long time that this one has been really winding me up. And I was speaking to Nick the other day about it, about a month ago to be precise, and he went oh, have you just tried asking people. You know, they click on this, you want to see us information, just give us your email address. You don't have to sign up for a mailing list, but if you're interested, give them some check boxes. Yeah. And it's like, oh, right. I've now got a newsletter that's growing out. A hundred people a day.
[00:12:36] Caroline Beavon (host): Simple. Yeah.
[00:12:37] Tom Buck: Simple. Precisely.
[00:12:39] Caroline Beavon (host): It's all down to isn't, it's almost like a hive mind, but also the fact that you can be so close to the problem that you can't see an obvious solution sometimes. And I do this with projects online, and I'll have sit down and have a conversation with you or someone else here and I'll go I've been banging my head against the wall for days now about this thing, and all you have to do is just float it to the top of the conversation and everyone will chip in with some ideas. Yeah,
[00:13:00] Tom Buck: no, precisely. It's easy. It's great for that. No, you know, it always happens organically. It's never, I've come in and I'm going to harrangue people just, oh get in their ear. It's always just been like, oh, I wasn't expecting to solve that. And yet somehow now it is.
[00:13:14] Caroline Beavon (host): Lunchtime, it's lunchtime about this, this place. Seriously? Yeah. It's the best because you, you commute quite a trek to come here, don't you? This is not like a 10 minute walk for you, is it?
[00:13:23] Tom Buck: No, but it sounds more difficult than it is, but also, you know, I'm, I'm based in Hayward's Heath and that's a 15 to 20 minute train journey. That's a, a small walk. But no. There, there is a, another co-working space that is literally like, I think I could throw a stone at it from my back room, from my, from my, my, my bedroom window. It's so close. But no, ab absolutely come to the Skiff. It's got the right level of separation.
Having a short commute is amazing. It really sets, you know, for the way my mind works, just having about 15 minutes in the morning where I don't have any interruptions and I can just sit and think about whatsoever. It, it is invaluable.
[00:14:04] Caroline Beavon (host): Nice. Doesn't mean, because if you're going to travel that, that train journey into Central Brighton, obviously you could get off the, get off, off the train and throw several stones and hit several co-working spaces. In fact, everywhere you look now, there are co-working spaces in Brighton. So what is it specifically about this one that, that helps in terms of what, what you need from, from a space.
[00:14:25] Tom Buck: So it's a combination of the people and also it's a home from home. I know that I, I, I know that I can come here, I can, I just know what I'm getting how to use the space, space works for me as much as I work for it, if you will.
Yeah. You know, the, the, the self-managed side of it works really, really well. You know, we don't have somebody here who's work sat at a desk and that is their sole role, is to watch the door, see who's coming in and welcome people
[00:14:51] Caroline Beavon (host): sometimes. That would be amazing.
[00:14:52] Tom Buck: Yeah. Sometimes it would be granted. But, you know, I like the fact that if somebody wants to come and have a look, it's somebody who works, who shows 'em around.
I, I think it's incredibly valuable.
[00:15:03] Caroline Beavon (host): Yeah. It's, it's, i, I definitely second that it's, It's I've visited at the spaces and there's nothing quite like this one in terms of just the warmth and the things that we've talked about several times.
What I'm really interested in is, is how people use their time.
So how do, how do you structure your day when you're here, when you're working from home. Right. How do you structure your week, your day, in terms of how do you get the stuff done?
[00:15:28] Tom Buck: Oh, that's a very good question. I, I genuinely have no idea. Which is not a helpful answer.
[00:15:33] Caroline Beavon (host): Well, maybe it's not a structure, right. Is it more of just what comes next or how do you make sure it all gets done?
[00:15:38] Tom Buck: I, I have Strangely focused work ability, right? Where as long as I find the work itself engaging, a big caveat then I don't have a problem just sitting down, getting work done. But, you know, I've, I've, I've always got a list of different tasks I need to get done. And if I'm really struggling to get one thing done, I've got a whole list of other things I can choose from in instead. I'm incredibly lucky on that.
[00:16:09] Caroline Beavon (host): And that's shifting project potentially.
[00:16:11] Tom Buck: So, it can be, or it can be just something as small as what's a good example?
I need to just add a few boxes on a website that say the speed available here is X megabits a second. That's actually, that's just the, that's the job itself. Yeah. It's a, yeah. 10 minute thing at best. And I've got a whole collection of those. Just you're lined up and it's like, okay, here's a big job.
I'm not enjoying it. It's winding me up. Yep. I'll just go do something easy and get my brain flowing like that instead. Nice. I guess I tend to save the more chewy bits of work for the afternoon.
[00:16:49] Caroline Beavon (host): Really?
[00:16:49] Tom Buck: Yeah. That's when I tend to get my head down and just power through stuff.
[00:16:52] Caroline Beavon (host): So your peak, so in terms of peak hours, your kind of afternoon?
[00:16:57] Tom Buck: Yeah. I mean, annoyingly I, I, I have a family, love them to bits. They're great. It does tend to cut off my natural working hours quite severely, but I'm, I'm always most productive between about five and seven.
No, right? So, you know, by the time that's kicked in...
[00:17:15] Caroline Beavon (host): ...there's parents everywhere going, no chance. No chance.
[00:17:18] Tom Buck: Forget it. Done.
[00:17:20] Caroline Beavon (host): Absolutely no chance. Right. Okay, so you are definitely a kind of a late afternoon, evening, evening worker.
[00:17:25] Tom Buck: Yes. Once, once the girls are in bed and it's all settled down, I dunno, eight o'clock I'll normally put in a few hours. Okay.
[00:17:31] Caroline Beavon (host): And that's the perk of being a freelancer, right? Is that you can pick up those hours to suit you. And it's, it's amazing the amount of people I know who, who, for whatever reasons, either neurodiverse or they have commitments or, or energy issues or, you know, whatever it is. Just being a freelancer means that they can go, actually, you know, I just work, I work four hours, seven days a week, or I work three days a week and I'm currently thinking about working three days a week. And it's just nice to have that flexibility, isn't it? To just go Yeah,
[00:18:00] Tom Buck: completely. And it's flexibility that, look, it's no directions too. See, my, my daughter's currently she, she has various appointments on a Tuesday morning. It's like, oh great, I can just take her for that and it means I just shift my day back by a couple of hours. Yeah. And it's no real stress.
[00:18:18] Caroline Beavon (host): No one's going to mind that you are there cuz it's you. That's Yeah, you are. You are the, you are the you. So what's next for you then? Cause I know you mentioned the crime website, I know that's something that you've been talking about for a while.
[00:18:30] Tom Buck: So is that site is driving me mad.
[00:18:32] Caroline Beavon (host): Is that your, is is that kind of your, your next big, next big project or is it something that's back burner bubbling away?
[00:18:38] Tom Buck: That one is, Bubbling away a bit.
Okay, so this crime statistics website, crimerate.co.uk is an unexpected hit. It's my most successful. If you just looking up vi the number of people visiting it, it's my most successful site ever. It's ridiculous. No one on there wants to buy anything. No one on there wants to spend any money, which will make sense.
And with hindsight, I mean the, that site, funny enough, the only reason I created it was because I was dealing with quite severe burnout at the start of 2021. You know, after mm-hmm. All that lockdown nonsense, I was just spent Oh, yeah. And I discovered that the police release opened. Crime data and I was like, oh, this, no one's really doing it, like taking this data and presenting it in a nice way.
Mm-hmm. And it was great. I just ran with it for two weeks. Solid. Had, you know, whale of a time. Of course. Aside from the subject matter and yeah. Got the site out there and it, it, it was like somebody had lit torch paper underneath it. It just went [firework noise].
So anyway, that's now building a decent newsletter on it. And, you know, numbers on that are growing, haven't figured out. How to monetize that. But we shall see. I mean, I prefer quite low-key monetization if it's all possible. But anyway, that's one on the back burner.
Phones, net reports, where the bulk of our company's money come from, that's a broadband comparison site that's hopefully just gonna keep on chugging away, picking up maintenance.
What else do I have?
I've got company data site at Spark Lines Code uk. That one is, yeah, that one's bubbling away. My care Home sites one is bubbling away. Mm. The mobile data one is bubbling away. And then, I don't know, I'm, I'm tempted to start looking at open energy data.
It feels like that's starting to open up a bit and I, I'm not sure what, but it feels like there's, they, they could be something interesting there,
[00:20:30] Caroline Beavon (host): especially because of the current climate, literally.
But, you know, the, there's energy is such a hot topic right now, and it will continue to be for, you know, the, for foreseeable future, getting some kind of way of harnessing that data would be...
[00:20:43] Tom Buck: yeah. And, but it's, I mean, I'm, I'm just still trying to figure out what the angle is. I mean, all my sites are based around geographies. And, you know, I'm always interested in, I live in Hayward's Heath. How does that compare to Brighton for X? Yes. Whether it's care homes, whether it's broadband crime, energy, crime. So that, that's the, and I'm not, I can't quite figure out the angle for energy on that yet, but I'm curious to see if there is something
[00:21:06] Caroline Beavon (host): that's really interesting. Tom, that was wonderful. I've got a couple more quickfire questions, although they never end up being quickfire.
[00:21:12] Tom Buck: We've just had lunch. What was for your lunch?
Today? My lunch today was the Sweet Chicken of Pokeball from the Japanese place on the corner of Sydney street.
[00:21:20] Caroline Beavon (host): Is that Kito Kito?
[00:21:21] Tom Buck: That's the one, yes. Keto. I think that's what it's called. So good
[00:21:23] Caroline Beavon (host): Kito Kito on Sydney Street is, yeah. It's, and and that's a Friday tradition.
[00:21:28] Tom Buck: Absolutely. I'm, as I alluded to after this, yeah, there's, there's some things where it's like it accidentally became a Friday tradition and now it's entrenched, like there is no choice.
[00:21:37] Caroline Beavon (host): And, and is it true? I that at one point somebody tried to not have poke bowl on a Friday, and you tried something different and it, it did not.
[00:21:47] Tom Buck: It's disaster. Disaster. I, I, I, I still can't quite forgive him for that. That, that was Tom. And this said Tom Parlow again. Yeah. He stuck his foot in. He's just like,
[00:21:53] Caroline Beavon (host): Troublemaker
[00:21:54] Tom Buck: you're not going there. I I, it was disaster - traipsed around North Laine for ages. Everywhere else was shut. Ended up having the world's worst toasty from a station. Oh, it's unforgivable. Still angry about it.
[00:22:06] Caroline Beavon (host): Poke ball friday. Yeah. It's a tradition.
Now obviously you live in Hayward Heath and you, you work in Brighton.
If you didn't live in Hayward Heath, where would you live? UK or worldwide?
[00:22:18] Tom Buck: Ooh, that's a tricky one. Do I have my kids with me?
[00:22:22] Caroline Beavon (host): Let's say this is post kids leaving home kids. Oh, I, where would you retire? Maybe, I don't know.
[00:22:28] Tom Buck: That's good. I mean, in a perfect world. Yep. I, you know, this is serious money, so you need to have, you know, your nice London pad
[00:22:35] Caroline Beavon (host): Money no object. Yep.
[00:22:36] Tom Buck: You know, I, I do Miss London an awful lot. I love London. Pad in Brighton obviously, of course. And then I need a big house in the countryside where I can play really bad, really loud electric guitar without anybody complaining.
[00:22:51] Caroline Beavon (host): I love this. I love the fact that your answer to this question is not, You know, desert Island or I'd like to live in The Bahamas.
It's actually several different pads, like a pad in London, a pad in in Brighton, and then something in the countryside where you can stretch your different, different parts of your brain.
[00:23:07] Tom Buck: Rock out.
[00:23:08] Caroline Beavon (host): I love that. I love that. And if you could earn the same doing any job, what would you do?
[00:23:15] Tom Buck: I always wanted to be a hotel lounge pianist.
[00:23:20] Caroline Beavon (host): Really ?
[00:23:20] Tom Buck: Genuinely. The, when I was looking at going to university right around the turn of century. Mm-hmm. God, that makes me sound old. When I was looking to go to university around the, the turn of century, I was looking at music courses. Yeah. And yeah, I've been studying classical music. I've got all those qualifications and all that stuff moving into jazz.
And it eventually came down to quite a stark choice of go to university and struggle and earn a degree, which has got nothing to do with IT or anything like that. Or go and work for a dot com in, in London and earn stupid money on day one. Wow. And yeah, I followed the.com and it was a lot of, lot of fun while it lasted.
Yeah. Yeah. But no, I would still love to have been playing the Girl from Ipanema in the corner of a lounge.
[00:24:09] Caroline Beavon (host): Wow. And where would that lounge be? Like some, have you, have you got, like, have you kind of built out the dream? Are you in some kind of, you know, 1940s Vegas? Have you, have you got like a world that this exists in this bar?
[00:24:22] Tom Buck: Yeah, I, I was thinking back, but kind of like, yeah. London's where my heart is, I think that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, somewhere a bit spit and sawdust, it can't be too glamorous,
[00:24:31] Caroline Beavon (host): not seedy Soho?
[00:24:33] Tom Buck: Well, I dunno. As long as somebody appreciates, you know. Erm, this is dedicated. A little lady in the corner
[00:24:39] Caroline Beavon (host): and you can find out more about Tom's Broadband speed websites@fairinternetreport.com and Tom himself is on Mastodon tom@cow.army
if you're interested in working alongside people like Tom and myself, then head to the skiff.org and don't forget to subscribe to Tales from the Engine Room. And we'll see you next time.