Brighton Web Host Owner Tim James:
Glass Artist / Web Designer / Web Host

By trade, Tim is a glass bead maker and instructor. Together with wife Lily, he owns and operates the Beaded Lily Glass Works studio, as well as its associated websites.

Now:

Originally from the US, Tim and his family moved to Italy in early 2001, where they lived for 11 years. Early on, in addition to his glass work, Tim began creating websites commercially, primarily for local artisans and shopkeepers. In 2009 he took his web work to another level by becoming a web host, then called Florence Web Host (www.FlorenceWebHost.com).

Early in 2012, after more than a decade living in Italy (4 years in the Tuscan town of Lucca and 7 in the heart of the Florence artisan district, the Oltrarno), Tim and his family made the decision to relocate their lives and business to Brighton UK. 

Then:

In the mid-1990's, out of necessity, Tim dove head-first into the world of website design. Learning by doing, he built their first e-commerce shopping cart website on a wing and a prayer. They were pleased that when they sold that website and the associated business a year later, the website was averaging over $1000 a month. He has come a long way since then in terms of technical knowledge, sense of structural design, proper use of color and imagery and effective online promotional skills.

The bulk of Tim's web creation and promotional know-how comes from hard-earned personal experience. As an owner of numerous small businesses over the years he has learned that the advertising "trap" can do as much to put you out of business financially as help your business grow. Beginning with his first e-commerce web site in the late 1990's, he began to compile a working knowledge of the tools available online that can free the small business owner from those costly hazards, allowing for a more effective, efficient and economic online business. This led to his discovery of Open Source web development programs that are community created and maintained, and freely available online for download and modification.

In 2006 he began creating his first Zen Cart (www.zen-cart.com) e-commerce shopping site, which is an open source program. That website (www.BeadedLily.com), and its sister-sites Tubular Wire Mesh Ribbon (www.TubularWireMeshRibbon.com) and Beaded Lily Glass Works (www.BeadedLilyGlassWorks.com) are still today the cornerstone of the retail business he owns and operates with his wife Lily. He has since created scores of sites, both for their own business ventures as well as commercially.

As a small business owner and artisan, Tim uses his web skills and self-promotional program to take ideas from conception to sale all in one day. Below is a brief promotional video created in Florence, Italy by Lily & Tim for their Beaded Lily studio: