Podium

We build beautiful bespoke Websites, Mobile Apps, Online Ordering Systems & Social Media Management
(1)

Podium Apps Ltd is an exciting new and innovative global company (started in Belfast) that specialises in the development and management of business apps. Founded in early 2015 by Ross Porter & Kieran Donnelly, who between them hold over 20 years experience in the Telecommunications Industry, alongside extensive business and web/graphic design knowledge. It was during this time that they discovere

d a market need for a new medium of business to client interaction, which has lead to the development of Podium Apps Ltd. Podium Apps already boosts a wide range of clients from various business sectors, such as Education, Hospitality and Retail to name but a few. All of our apps are expertly designed, developed and created using incredible technologies trusted by companies the world over. All of our apps are bespoke, created with in-depth client consultation and using our extensive market knowledge to ensure maximum client satisfaction. Part of the success of Podium Apps has come from its ability to sign agreements with Apple, Android & Microsoft, allowing our customers to benefit from all areas of the app world. Podium Apps Ltd work in conjunction with one of the fastest growing business app development companies within UK | Ireland, USA & New Zealand, in terms of revenue, customer acquisition and customer retention allowing us to keep at the cutting edge of our field. "Your customers are mobile, Your business should be mobile too"

02/09/2026

Always nice getting a new website over the line, but even better when it’s for an absolute legend like John Martini 🙌

The new JJP Coaching website is now live, and this was a really enjoyable one for us to put together.

John has more than 20 years of experience in coaching and bodybuilding, including competing on the NABBA Universe stage, so there was a lot more to get across here than simply “here’s a PT, here are his prices”. His coaching is properly hands-on, with personalised training and nutrition, weekly check-ins, direct support and the JJP Coaching app keeping everything together in one place.

We wanted the website to make all of that easy to understand without overcomplicating it. You can get to know John and his approach, see how the coaching actually works, look through client results, compare the different plans and get started directly through the site.

And honestly, it’s lovely getting to build something for people who are genuinely bloody good at what they do.

John has spent years helping people train smarter, build muscle, lose body fat and, probably most importantly, stop bouncing between random plans and actually stick to something built around them. The new site finally gives all of that experience a proper home online.

Massive thanks to John for trusting us with it. We’re delighted with how she’s turned out.

Go have a nosey 👇
🌐 jjpcoaching.co.uk

And if your own business has moved on a fair bit since your website was last touched, give Ross and the team a shout. We can sort that too.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

31/08/2026

Is your team getting jobs through WhatsApp, checking stock on a spreadsheet and working out tomorrow’s delivery runs somewhere else entirely?

That sort of setup is incredibly common, especially in businesses that have grown quickly. One system gets added here, another workaround appears there, and before long the team is spending half its time updating, checking and passing information between different places.

That’s where custom software can make a lot of sense.

At Podium, we can build around the way your business already works. That could mean managing deliveries and routes, assigning jobs to drivers or teams, tracking stock, keeping tabs on work from start to finish, automating repetitive admin or standardising the way certain jobs are handled across the business.

The point isn’t to throw more technology at you. It’s to look at the jobs your team is already doing every day and see whether some of them could be handled a hell of a lot more simply.

And because we’re building it specifically for the business, we can concentrate on the things you actually need rather than trying to force your team around a system that was made for somebody else.

If you’re running a busy operation and there are bits of it held together by spreadsheets, messages, paperwork and people having to remember far too much, give Ross and the team a shout.

There might be a much easier way of doing it.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

28/08/2026

Have you guys ever heard how Basecamp actually started?

Before it became the software company most people know today, 37signals was a web agency trying to manage client projects and, like a lot of businesses, they had emails everywhere, documents in different places, feedback getting lost and far too much time being spent just keeping everything organised. So they built something for themselves to make the job easier, and that internal tool eventually became Basecamp.

I love stories like that because, for me, the mindset behind it is more interesting than the software itself. They could have just accepted that the process was messy and carried on, which is what happens in plenty of businesses. Something is awkward, slow or annoying, but because it has always been done that way, nobody really questions it.

The people who keep moving forward usually do question it. Why are we still doing this manually? Why does this take three steps when it could take one? Why are we paying for something that only half works? Could we build something better? And if this is annoying us, how many other businesses are dealing with the exact same problem?

That doesn’t mean every frustration is secretly the next Basecamp, but there’s definitely something in staying curious enough to keep asking whether things could be better rather than getting too comfortable with the way they’ve always been done.

Some opportunities come from looking outwards and finding something completely new. Others are already sitting inside the business, disguised as the thing everyone keeps complaining about.

Keep questioning. Keep improving. And don’t be too quick to accept “that’s just how we do it” as an answer.

If there’s something in your business you know could work better, give Ross and the team a shout.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

26/08/2026

Do you actually own your website?

Sounds like a daft question, but you’d be surprised how often a business comes to us wanting something changed and nobody really knows who owns the domain, where the site is hosted, who has the admin access or even which account everything was originally set up under.

And that can become a right pain when you decide to move agency, rebuild the site, change email provider or simply need somebody else to get in and fix something.

When we build for a client, we want them to know exactly what they have and where it lives. Domain, hosting, logins, integrations, analytics, email, whatever sits behind the setup. You shouldn’t feel trapped with the person who built your website simply because they’re the only one holding the keys.

Good support should make you want to stay, not make it difficult to leave.

It’s one of those boring little things nobody thinks about when they’re choosing a web company, but it can save a serious amount of grief further down the line.

If you’ve no idea who currently owns what behind your website, or you’re thinking about moving things over and don’t know where to begin, give Ross and the team a shout. We’ve untangled plenty of these setups over the years.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

24/08/2026

Do you run a business that could benefit from offering gift cards, without having to rebuild half your website or bring in a load of new kit to make it happen?

That’s exactly what Podium Cards was built for.

We’re now helping more than 200 businesses across the UK and EU sell digital gift cards, from restaurants and bars to salons, studios and businesses selling experiences.

Setup takes around 15 minutes. Add your logo and colours, choose the amounts you want to offer, connect your payment method and you’re ready to go. No monthly fee, no dedicated POS equipment and no tech team required.

Customers can buy online, the card is delivered digitally, funds settle to your account and your team can redeem from a phone, tablet or laptop. You keep the customer data too, rather than handing that relationship over to somebody else’s platform.

And now that Podium Cards is WooCommerce compatible, it’s even easier to slot gift cards into a setup you already use, without creating a whole separate system around it.

The pricing is pretty straightforward too. There are no setup fees, no monthly subscription and no per-card cost. It’s 3.9% + 30p per transaction, compared with an industry average of around 7.2%, with payment processing, hosting, design, support and platform fees all included.

So if gift cards would make sense for your customers, members or clients, you could genuinely have a branded setup live and ready to sell by the end of the day.

Start free: app.podium.cards/sign-up
Book a 15-minute demo: tidycal.com/kieran/podium-cards-demo
🌐 podium.cards

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

21/08/2026

A heads-up for NI businesses, especially if you’ve got plans to invest in the business this autumn.

The next Go Succeed Grant round opens on 1 September, with funding of up to £4,000 available towards eligible capital costs.

A few of the important bits:

•⁠ ⁠Up to 50% of eligible project costs can be funded
•⁠ ⁠Maximum grant of £4,000
•⁠ ⁠Web development and ecommerce websites are included as examples of eligible expenditure
•⁠ ⁠You need to have completed at least 60% of your Go Succeed mentoring before you can apply

So, for example, an eligible £4,000 project could potentially receive £2,000 towards it, while an £8,000 project could receive the full £4,000 grant, subject to eligibility and approval.

This is something we know particularly well at Podium because Ross is a Go Succeed mentor himself, working directly with businesses across Northern Ireland through the programme. So if you’re wondering how it all works, what stage you need to be at or what sort of project might make sense for the business, you’re speaking to someone who already knows the framework.

And there’s plenty of value in the programme beyond the grant itself. The mentoring gives you a chance to properly look at where the business is, where you want to take it and what might help you get there, with someone experienced there to bounce ideas around with.

If a new website or ecommerce site forms part of those plans, the Podium team can scope out what you need, build something properly around the business and provide the quotation required to get things moving.

Up to £4,000 towards an eligible project is definitely worth knowing about.

If you’re thinking about applying, or you’re not quite sure where to start, have a chat with Ross. He knows the programme, knows the process and can point you in the right direction.

Go Succeed:
Register: go-succeed.com/sign-up/
Grant details: go-succeed.com/grants/

Funding is subject to Go Succeed eligibility, assessment, availability and approval.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

19/08/2026

AI can make a good team faster.
It doesn’t make a bad team good.

We embrace it, we’ve invested in it, and we’ve expanded the team to include people who specialise in it because we know just how useful it can be when it’s used properly.

It helps us optimise the websites we build, explore better ways of doing things, create useful internal tools, speed up parts of development and sometimes spot opportunities for a client that might not have been obvious at the start of a project.

The difference is, we never rely on it to do the thinking for us.

We still build our projects properly from the ground up. We still make the calls around structure, functionality, SEO, security and how something should actually work for the business. Then we bring AI into that process where it can genuinely make the end result better, faster or more useful.

That’s very different from asking AI to build the whole thing, taking whatever comes back and assuming it must be right.

AI is brilliant at expanding what a good team can do. It can help test ideas, improve systems, automate repetitive work and open up completely new opportunities. But it still needs experience, judgement and somebody who knows when the answer it gives you is brilliant… and when it’s complete rubbish.

We’re excited about where all of this is going and we’ll keep embracing it as it develops, just without handing over the keys and hoping for the best. If you’ve got a website, app or idea you want built properly, with the right technology used where it genuinely helps, give Ross and the team a shout.

Use it. Learn from it. Build with it. Just don’t stop thinking for yourself.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

17/08/2026

Affordable websites for small businesses, built properly from the start.

At Podium, we build everything from straightforward business websites through to ecommerce, booking systems, customer portals and completely custom builds. Speed, mobile performance, technical SEO and site structure are all considered from day one, with hosting, security, backups and ongoing support looked after too.

And there’s a reason we put so much into the stuff sitting underneath the design.

According to HTTP Archive’s latest Web Almanac, only 48% of mobile websites met Google’s “good” Core Web Vitals benchmarks. In simple terms, more than half were falling short somewhere when it came to speed, responsiveness or how stable the site feels when somebody is actually using it.

Portent also analysed more than 100 million page views and found that, across the B2B sites they studied, a site loading in one second converted at around three times the rate of one taking five seconds.

Google looks at page experience as part of the wider picture when ranking websites too, so having something that looks nice is only part of the job. How it’s built, how quickly it loads, how it works on mobile and whether Google can properly understand what’s there all matter.

That’s why we don’t just grab a template, swap the colours and call it done.

Websites start from £60 per month, with payment plans available.

If you need a new site, or reckon yours could be doing more, give Ross and the team a shout and we’ll get you sorted.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

14/08/2026

Knowing what to do is the valuable part.

I watched a video a while back where someone was talking about the strange way we sometimes put a value on expertise.

If one person takes three days to solve a problem and somebody with years of experience can look at the same problem, know exactly what needs done and have it sorted properly in a few hours, why should the person who took longer automatically be worth more?

If anything, you’re paying for the years that made those few hours possible.

I think about that a lot in business. You’re not only being paid for the time you physically spend doing the job. You’re being paid for what you know, the mistakes you’ve already made and learned from, the problems you can spot before they happen, the ideas you can bring to the table, the people you know and the experience that lets you make better decisions without having to learn everything at the client’s expense.

That’s why I’ve never really understood the race to be the cheapest. We’re certainly not here to fleece anybody, and we’ll always be upfront about what something costs and why. But after more than 12 years building Podium, working across 40+ countries with everyone from local start-ups to global brands, I’m also not going to pretend that experience has no value simply because somebody else can offer to build a website for less.

Sometimes experience actually means doing less. Knowing what doesn’t need built, spotting a better route before weeks are wasted going down the wrong one, having the right contact when another part of the business needs sorted, or getting something right the first time because you’ve already seen what happens when it’s done badly.

And that applies whatever industry you’re in. If you’re genuinely good at what you do, don’t feel guilty about charging accordingly. Keep learning, keep building your network, keep getting better at your craft and know the value of everything you’ve accumulated along the way.

Your customers aren’t just paying for your time. They’re paying for your judgement, your experience and the years it took you to know what to do with that time.

If you’re looking for a team that brings a bit more than just the build itself, give us a shout. We’re always happy to have a chat about what you’re trying to achieve and where we might be able to help.

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

12/08/2026

This is the kind of feedback we love to see 🙌

A massive thank you to Chelsea’s Creations for the mention (and for calling us geniuses… we’ll happily take that one 😂).

We originally started working with Chelsea and the team on their website, but over time that relationship has grown into a lot more. As we’ve got to know the business, we’ve been able to throw ideas around, introduce them to other companies who could help move things forward and, most recently, work together on completely changing how their customers experience an appointment in the showroom.

They’ve now got a fully digital setup where customers can browse pre-built packages or start completely from scratch, choose individual items, colours and options, then see everything coming together visually on a 50-inch screen before receiving their quote.

What we particularly like about this project is how much it changes the experience for the customer. Chelsea’s wanted to move away from people sitting with bits of paper trying to imagine how everything might look, and instead give them a much more visual, interactive way to build their package and actually see their choices coming together in front of them.

It’s also a great example of the kind of relationship we want to have with the businesses we work with. Yes, we’ll build your website, but we also want to get to know what you’re trying to achieve, be there to bounce ideas around, make introductions where we can and keep an eye out for other ways technology could help you do things better.

Absolutely buzzing to see the new showroom up and running. A huge congratulations to Chelsea and the whole team on what they’ve created, and thanks again for trusting us to play a part in it 🙏

𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘂𝗺
📲 07751 938205
📆 tidycal.com/rossporter
📧 [email protected]
🌐 www.podium.dev

Address

Belfast

Website

https://podium.dev/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Podium posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Podium: