A studio built around two disciplines.
Most small businesses end up hiring twice — once for someone to build the thing, once for someone to market it, and then spend their own time translating between them. We started Venon so that wouldn't be necessary.
Jamie builds and secures the systems. Hannah works out how they reach the people who need them. We've been doing this together on client projects while finishing our degrees, and the work is now steady enough to do it properly.
We're upfront about being early in our careers. What that means in practice: we're cheaper than an agency, you get direct access to the people writing the code and the copy, and we care a lot about the work being right, because our first fifty clients are the whole foundation of the business.
Jamie
Security & Infrastructure
I'm in the final year of a Level 8 honours degree in Networking and Cyber Security, having finished the Level 7 stage with First Class Honours at 70%. I handle everything on the technical side of a project: the build, the infrastructure it runs on, and the security posture of both.
That last part isn't a bolt-on. Most small business websites I've been asked to look at have the same handful of problems — missing headers, unpatched dependencies, credentials sitting in the wrong place, no plan for what happens after a breach. I'd rather build it right the first time than be called in after.
BSc (Hons) Networking & Cyber Security — Level 8, final year
Level 7 stage — First Class Honours (70%)
Hannah
Marketing & Commercial
I'm in the final year of a Level 8 honours degree in Business with Marketing, having finished the Level 7 stage with First Class Honours. I work on the side of a project that decides whether it earns anything: positioning, the words on the page, the route to customers, and what happens after launch.
A site that looks good and converts nobody is a failure with good typography. I'd rather start from who's buying and work backwards to the build.
BA/BBS (Hons) Business with Marketing — Level 8, final year
Level 7 stage — First Class Honours
How we work together
Why two people is the point.
When the person who built your checkout is in the same conversation as the person tracking why customers abandon it, problems get fixed instead of forwarded. There's no brief being translated between a dev shop and an agency, no one blaming the other, and no account manager between you and the work.
It also means we say no to things. If a project needs a ten-person team, we'll tell you that rather than take the deposit and struggle. We'd rather have a short list of clients who'd recommend us than a long one who wouldn't.
Working principles
Three things we don't compromise on.
You own everything.
Code, repositories, domains, accounts, analytics. On day one, not on request.
Fixed scope, fixed price.
You get a written proposal before anything starts. If the scope changes, we re-quote before doing the work, not after.
Security isn't an upsell.
Every site we ship gets hardened as standard, whether or not security is what you hired us for.
Tell us what you're trying to build.
Send us the shape of the problem and we'll come back within one working day with an honest answer about whether we're the right fit.