About Me
The story so far
I'm Charlie — a design engineer who's been building software since I was 13. What started as a kid trying to run a Minecraft server turned into a decade of shipping products, founding companies, and learning what it takes to make things people actually use.
I believe design isn't just about how something looks — it's about clarity, intention, and experience. Every pixel matters, but only if it serves the person using what you've built.
The Journey
Started learning to code
I'd been running Minecraft servers for a few months and got frustrated with the tools available. So I taught myself to code at 14 — figured if I wanted something better, I'd have to build it myself.
Spoof
Servers were hard to grow without a marketing budget, so I dove into Minecraft's obfuscated internals and figured out how to inject realistic virtual players. They had real IPs, real ping, could pick up items — the works. It was my first time building something people actually paid for.
BazaarTracker
Built a price-tracking tool for Hypixel Skyblock just before COVID-19 that blew up to 800k+ monthly visitors and generated over $4,000/mo from selling advertisement space. All this whilst working a 6-day week job, which later got acquired for a 5-figure sum.
Analyse & JoinServers
After BazaarTracker was acquired, I quit my 6-day a week job to work on 2 new ventures. Analyse handled analytics for game servers where we processed over 2 billion records. Meanwhile JoinServers helped players discover awesome new servers. Both ended up getting acquired by Tebex and Curseforge (Overwolf).
AtoBeach
After over a decade building successful ventures in gaming SaaS, I'm testing my knowledge somewhere new. AtoBeach is a modern travel platform that brings flights, hotels, and destination info together for UK travellers who want sunshine without the stress.
Philosophy
"Attention to detail can’t be (and never is) added later. It’s an entire development philosophy, methodology, and culture."
- Marco Arment
Get in Touch
Always open to interesting conversations and new projects. Reach out at hey@charliej.com