ApostropheCMS makes a content management system for JavaScript teams. It started inside a web design agency in South Philadelphia, where Tom Boutell was the first developer. He moved into leadership, became CTO when the product spun out as its own company, and took the CEO role a couple of years ago. The company is open core: much of the software is free to download and use, and ApostropheCMS sells licensing, hosting, and support around it.

The Evolution of ApostropheCMS

  • The agency years: ApostropheCMS began as the tool a Philadelphia web design agency built for its own client work.
  • The spin-out: The product became its own company, with Tom moving from first developer to CTO to CEO.
  • Today: ApostropheCMS gives its core software away and builds for two audiences at once. Developers work full time in JavaScript and TypeScript, with Astro extensions, instead of switching to an older language like PHP. Editors get tools they can use without hours of training, including customers who manage a whole dashboard of sites.

ApostropheCMS is built on the belief that developers and editors shouldn't have to compromise with each other in order to have the best experience. It should be the best experience for both.

— Tom Boutell, CEO

The Challenge: Research Nobody Called Research

ApostropheCMS's hardest work goes into the editing experience. When a customer in talent acquisition wants a widget that lists open jobs, the company has to make placing and managing that widget feel like a modern product, across one site or many. That work takes time, energy, and real research effort. For years, the team did not file it under that name.

  • Unrecognized R&D: Work the team later saw as obvious research and development was simply the job at the time.
  • A process to decode: Figuring out what qualified, what did not, and how to submit it correctly took real effort, on top of running the company.
  • No line of sight: Credits arrived as money from the side, hard to connect to a year or project and hard to forecast.
  • Five years to reconcile: State and federal credit work had piled up across years. The team needed one sit-down with its bookkeeper and accountant to answer where everything settled and what came next.

Research and development at ApostropheCMS is an interesting story, because I hadn't thought of it in that way when we were first doing work that later we recognized was obviously research and development. So it's been a process of understanding what we do, unearthing its significance as research and development.

— Tom Boutell

The Solution: Partnering with Arvo

Geoff DiMasi, who founded the agency ApostropheCMS grew out of, had always pushed to find the incentives meant for a small company doing research. He connected ApostropheCMS with a local specialist who handled its federal credits for years. That specialist is the one who said the work was outgrowing what he could do well, and pointed them to Arvo.

  • Made the rules usable: Arvo sorted out what was eligible and how to document it, so the team could answer questions it used to guess at.
  • Set a yearly rhythm: The credit became a normal annual process instead of a one-off scramble.
  • Straightforward all the way through: Clear communication, and clear billing, so the company knows what it owes.
  • Built for forecasting: ApostropheCMS can predict what the credit will be and plan around it.

I love the tax credits. I hate the tax credits. It is such a pain to make sense of it, to sort it all out, to understand what's eligible, what's not. We're here to do the right thing, but what is the right thing?

— Tom Boutell

The Impact

  • $519,897 in credits: Across seven study years, Arvo identified federal and state credits worth an 8.8x return on what ApostropheCMS paid.
  • Applied where it helps: Credits go against payroll taxes, which matters for a company reinvesting in its product.
  • Operations, not mystery: Tom describes his strongest suit as CEO as the COO side of the job. Credits now run like any other operation.
  • More research, not less: Knowing the credit is there encourages the company to keep doing the work the credit exists to support.

I get to the end of that, and I'm feeling the frustration of all the process. And then I hear a number, and that number can be applied to our payroll taxes. And I say, that's worth this entire conversation, much as I hate to admit it.

— Tom Boutell

Arvo is a great partner because they have really helped normalize the federal tax credits process for us. They've helped us streamline it and make it something that we see as a normal annual process that contributes to our bottom line and helps us continue to take risks in a way that is good for everyone. — Tom Boutell

Conclusion

ApostropheCMS gives its core software away and makes its money on everything around it. That model only works if the company keeps investing in the product, and keeps taking the risks that come with building something new. The research credit is designed for exactly that, but it only helps if a company can see it coming. Arvo turned a yearly puzzle into a yearly process. The work was always research. Now it is counted that way.