Our Journey

The history and pre-history
of SIDE, all on one page.

Illustration of person
2001
I SAW YOU IN A MAGAZINE

Noam is crowned Create Online magazine’s Young Web Designer of 2001. Andy emails: ‘Would you design a site for us?’.

Together they make a handful of websites for Channel 4 that are widely ignored.

A magazine cover
2004
Mint Digital is born

Noam and Andy start Mint Digital with the dreams of (i) staying in business and (ii) creating internationally famous cross-platform entertainment formats.

Young Andy and Noam looking at a screen
2006
Mint launches Islandoo

'An internet phenomena to rival MySpace' says The Independent. The FT gives it half of page 3.

Newspaper cut out of Islandoo feature
2013
StickyGram bought by PhotoBox

Mint spin-out Stickygram exits, leading to the mother of all office parties in Berlin.

It also leads to a tsunami of crazy business ideas: photos on marshmallows, beer on bikes, tube socks, commuter belts, Erlang deployment services.

Stickygram preview, 3x3 images on a microwave
2016
That’s all folks… or is it?

Mint calls it quits after 1.4 decades, 102 team members, 14 awards, 3 exits and 1 adopted alpaca.

14 years of Mint Digital badge
2018
The altruism itch

Noam starts Design Club, a non-profit to teach kids design thinking.

Two girls holding up activity cards from Design Club
March 2020
Covid response

Noam and Andy start a handbook to help asylum organisations cope with Covid. It is used by over 3,000 organisations within a week of lockdown starting.

A screenshot of the Coronavirus Asylum Handbook
April 2020
No-code + social impact

SIDE Labs launches. 2 months later, we hire Will Hepworth, proud northerner and Webflow maestro.

SIDE with their new recruit, Will
September 2020
Academy is born

We start our ‘no experience, no qualifications required’ academy. One of our favourite things at Mint was giving young talent a break. At SIDE, we aim to do this bigger and better.

The two first academy members alongside the SIDE team
2021
18 Webflow sites

We go all in on Webflow! Holy crap, we wish this tool had existed in 2001. Life would have been very different.

We love all our children, but these are two of our favourite:

A screenshot of the YMCA Changing Minds and VCAA Going Green Together homepages
October 2021
launch party

After 20 years of bashing away at keyboards, we charter a small flotilla to celebrate.

Two photos from the SIDE launch boat party

Be part of our journey

How can we maximise your social impact? Get in touch to discuss how no-code can propel your venture.

hello@sidelabs.org
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