Introducing Kodeco — The New raywenderlich.com
Kodeco is the new raywenderlich.com. Come learn about our fresh new brand, what’s new, and what’s staying the same as always!
– By Chris Belanger, CMO
This post is one in a series about our rebrand; read them all here:
Introducing Kodeco — the New raywenderlich.com – (you are here)
Why Rebrand? The Backstory of raywenderlich.com
To Infinity and Far, Far Beyond
319 Days to Building a New Brand
If you’re reading this, you’ll no doubt have realized that RW now looks a lot different… and even has a different name! Kodeco is the new raywenderlich.com, but the same great content, the same great team, and the same great instructors are still here, just as they were before.
If you wanted to learn a little more about our change to Kodeco, then we’ve got some details below for you on what’s changed – and what’s staying the same!
Did raywenderlich.com Get Acquired Or Sell Out?
Nope! Kodeco is simply the new name and brand we’ve created for our company and our tutorial team. We’re still the same, independent mobile development and learning community that we’ve always been.
Why The New Name?
A little history first: raywenderlich.com started as a personal blog by Ray Wenderlich, our founder. As time went on, the blog began to grow, adding team members bit by bit, until today we have 28 company employees that help us keep things running, along with our team of 300+ content contributors from around the world who help produce the content you know and love at raywenderlich.com.
Ray has always been proud of the team, but as Ray moved more into the operational behind-the-scenes aspects of RW, and the size of the content team grew, he realized that the name of the site didn’t properly reflect the contributions of the team as a whole. In fact, changing the name of the site has been on Ray’s radar for years.
We’ve spent the better part of 2022 working with our entire team of contributors to come up with a name and brand that we felt better reflected what we do as a company, as a team, and as a community. And Kodeco is the result of those efforts.
Why Did raywenderlich.com Rebrand Now?
Even though Ray has been hoping to change the name of the site for years, it never felt like the “right time” to undergo a name change. We were busy growing the site, growing our content team, and growing our internal company as well. We’ve always been a lean organization, and on top of that, we knew it would always be a challenge to rename something that had become a mainstay in the world of mobile development.
However, in late 2021 we made the decision to move ahead with a new brand. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 50 years ago and the second-best time to plant a tree is today. With our teams helping to build out new site features, new products like bootcamps, and new platforms like Flutter, we knew that our new initiatives also needed a new brand and name to better reflect our global community, and to give us a broader foundation on which to grow in the future. Enter: Kodeco.
What Does “Kodeco” Mean?
That’s a funny story. When we set out to find a name, we looked at literally hundreds — hundreds — of names. From literal to abstract, from the funny to the sublime, from techy to artsy, we considered them all. But what we discovered in that process was that our team really wanted two things – a name that reflected their identity as a coding educational community, and a name that wasn’t too meaningless. We eventually circled around code + community + company and came up with Kodeco. And there’s a hidden secret in that name, as well as our stylized K logo with the repeating blocks.
Since the name is pronounced “Code-ECHO”, we also take it to represent our duty to educate other developers, and lift them up so they, in turn, can help educate other developers. So the legacy of our mission “echoes” down through each successive generation of devs. The repeating blocks in the logo also represent that echo factor, but also a sense of connection between our team, and devs everywhere. Teamwork helps you dream bigger.
What Changes Will I Notice?
Most of the changes you’ll notice up front are all cosmetic; we’ve redesigned our website and its pages quite a bit, but we’ve maintained the basic structure of our books, videos, and articles as you’ve come to know them. You’ll also see that our email communications are now coming from the @kodeco.com domain, and have Kodeco branding on them. But what hasn’t changed is our high-quality content, or our mission to help devs everywhere level up to be the best developer they can be.
One thing we couldn’t really work around was password managers that have saved your credentials for your account on the site — you’ll have to log back in again. If you can’t remember your password (who remembers passwords anymore, amirite?) you can use our password reset feature, or contact support@kodeco.com for assistance.
What Happened To The Tutorial Team?
The tutorial team is all still here — they haven’t gone anywhere! Instead of being known as the raywenderlich.com Tutorial Team, they’re now proudly known as Team Kodeco. All of your favorite authors and instructors are still here to help you skill up and grow your future as a developer.
Why Does Some Of My Content Still Have raywenderlich.com On It?
We have a lot of content. No, scratch that — a TON of content. And there was no possible way we could go through all of that content and update it all to reflect our new look and feel. Besides, it’s not the name or the graphics that matter when it comes to content — the value is in what our expert authors and instructors bring to you, week after week. Eventually you’ll see more content with Kodeco branding on it as time goes on!
Is All My Progress Data Still Saved?
Absolutely. Your progress data, bookmarks, notepad entries, forum data, badges and everything else has been retained. If you find any weird issues, simply email support@kodeco.com and they’ll do their best to get you sorted.
What About The raywenderlich.com App?
Our official raywenderlich.com app (code named emitron) will take just a little longer to update visually and on the app stores. However, it will still work in just the same way as it always has.
Where Did Ray Go?
Good question! We’re not sure. Have you seen him? Just kidding — Ray is here as co-founder of the company as he always has been. He’s still around in the background, helping dream up possibilities for the future, and he’s excited about what is to come!
What’s The Plan For The Future?
Our CEO, Matt, has a great article covering that here. In 2022, we introduced new things like badges, professional development seminars, bootcamps, state of mobile development surveys, and more. There’s lots on the horizon, so subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.
Are Your Social Handles Staying The Same?
Well, the original handles (@rwenderlich) will be around for some time, but our new social handles are below — give them a follow!
- https://www.facebook.com/KodecoDevelopers
- https://twitter.com/kodecodev
- https://www.linkedin.com/company/kodecodev/
What’s The Difference Between Razeware And raywenderlich.com And Kodeco?
So when Ray first set out to be an indie developer, he formed a company and called it Razeware (“Ray’s ware”, if you need to be beaten over the head with the joke). And at that time, as one did in 2010, he started a blog named, unsurprisingly, raywenderlich.com. Over time, the blog eclipsed Ray’s work on indie apps, and “raywenderlich.com” became the brand we were known by.
And yes, having @razeware emails instead of @raywenderlich.com emails caused a lot of weird questions over the years. It also set up a weird divide between the main 25-person company Razeware, and our 300-person-strong raywenderlich.com Team. So we unified everything under the Kodeco banner, as one community.
Where To Go From Here?
There’s a lot of interesting projects on the horizon for us, including more bootcamps, more live events, more books, more videos, and more of the great article content that you’ve grown to love. But our original vision to be the best educational site for mobile developers around the world hasn’t changed at all.
We’re excited to have you along for the ride — thank you for your support over the years, and we look forward to having you along for the ride as we grow as Team Kodeco!