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Impellio Media Co.
Building for the web
since 1998
Nearly three decades of web development, media incubation, and consulting. The things we build age well.
Nearly three decades and counting
We started building websites in 1998, when the web was young and so were we. We've been at it ever since — through the dot-com crash, the Web 2.0 boom, the mobile revolution, and whatever we're calling this current era. Every wave brought new tools and new fashions. We adopted what proved useful and ignored the rest.
We work from a small seaside town in Goa, India. Every line of code, every design decision, personally crafted by Ajay Jaiman.
Ajay wrote his first code in 1988, on a machine that would now belong in a museum. He's since led venture-backed startups, consulted for global corporations, and shipped products used by hundreds of thousands of people. More to the point, he's still doing it — not managing from a distance, but writing the code himself.
That's nearly three decades of practice. Not three decades of telling other people what to do.
What we do
Three things, done well.
Media Incubation
We build products we want to use — and have been doing it for over two decades. Pitara, one of Asia's largest children's websites, has been publishing original content since 1998. PublishersGlobal connects the global publishing industry across 130 countries. These aren't side projects. They're businesses we built, run, and stand behind — year after year.
Web Development
End-to-end development in Ruby on Rails, Jekyll, and Hugo. We don't build websites; we solve problems that happen to need one. Good design is invisible. What matters more than how something looks is how it works — and whether it'll still be working in five years. Ours generally are.
Digital Consulting
Strategy, design, and architecture consulting backed by decades of hands-on practice. We run our own products at scale, so when we advise on performance, user experience, or technical decisions, it's because we've wrestled with the same problems ourselves. Not theory. Practice.
Selected work
Projects we've designed, developed, and continue to maintain. Some of these relationships are older than many of the agencies you might be considering.
Since 2008 · Ruby on Rails
PublishersGlobal
The publishing industry's meeting point. An information marketplace connecting 18,000+ organisations across 130 countries — publishers, service providers, rights professionals, and authors. Built in 2008 and continuously developed since. It's had more updates than we can count, and it's nowhere near finished.
> VISIT SITE_
Since 1998 · Hugo
Pitara Kids Network
One of Asia's largest children's websites, publishing original educational content since 1998. Thousands of pages of stories, science features, activities, and illustrations — with content regularly licensed by leading publishers worldwide. It's been online longer than most of the websites you use daily.
> VISIT SITE_
Since 2019 · Ruby on Rails
Publishing News
Automated news aggregation for the publishing industry. The system selects, tags, and categorises industry news as it breaks — no human editorial intervention required. Natural language processing does the reading; we built the reader.
> VISIT SITE_
Since 2014 · Ruby on Rails
RushFinder
A community platform for adventure sports enthusiasts. User profiles, trip reports, events, and discussions — connecting everyone from weekend hikers to professional expedition leaders.
> VISIT SITE_
Since 2007 · Jekyll
Quadrant Infotech
A business process outsourcing firm and one of our longest-standing clients. Nearly two decades of designing, developing, and maintaining their corporate web presence. They've stayed. So have we.
> VISIT SITE_
Since 2018 · Hugo
Gurgaon Ki Awaaz
A non-profit community radio station broadcasting 22 hours a day on 107.8 FM to over 500,000 listeners in Gurugram, Haryana. A vital information bridge for communities that mainstream media tends to overlook. Built and maintained pro bono.
> VISIT SITE_
We are small by design. The person you speak to is the person who writes the code.
There are no departments, no account managers, no pipeline. Just one person who has been doing this for nearly three decades and is, by now, rather good at it.
When you discover that a product you rely on was built by a small studio, the natural question is: will they still be around next year? In our case, the answer has been yes for twenty-eight consecutive years.
We take only the projects that match our skills and our values — and most of our clients stay for years. Some have been with us for nearly twenty.
How we work
Six principles that guide every project.
01
Define what 'good' means
Every tool has a function. A cutting knife must be sharp; a display knife need not be. We define success before we start building, not after.
03
Prototype early
Digital allows endless iteration. Build rough versions quickly, gather feedback, refine. Perfection at launch is a myth; perfection through use is the goal.
05
Understand the user
Even when the goal is to change user behaviour, start by understanding it. Empathy first, then architecture.
02
Think in decades
We resist the quick fix. Every architectural decision is made on the assumption that this code will still be running in ten years. Usually, it is.
04
Function before form
What a product does matters more than how it looks. Especially for tools people use every day. Ornamentation is easy. Utility is hard.
06
Test everything
Test-driven development in both code and design. We measure rather than assume. It's less romantic but considerably more reliable.
Our stack
We've taken a long winding path from hand-written HTML in the 1990s to where we are now. These days, almost everything we build runs on Ruby.
Ruby on Rails
Our primary tool for complex, long-lived web applications. Mature, well-documented, and excellent for products that need to run reliably for years. Which is all of ours.
Jekyll & Hugo
Fast static sites for projects that don't need a database. Corporate sites, content-heavy projects, documentation. Built once, served fast, maintained easily.
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
The fundamentals. We've been writing them by hand since 1998. Frameworks come and go; these stay.
PostgreSQL
Reliable, battle-tested data storage. For when the data matters — and it usually does.
Test-Driven Development
Not a methodology we adopted because it was fashionable. We've been writing tests first since we discovered it makes everything else easier. And less frightening.
Get in touch
If you have a project in mind — or simply want to know more about how we work — drop us a line. We respond to every message personally. No autoresponders, no ticket numbers.
Most engagements start with a conversation — no pitch decks, no proposals with thirty pages of methodology. We'll ask what you need, tell you honestly whether we're the right fit, and if we are, scope the work together.
Or email us directly at support@impellio.com