About Carl Riedel

Creator & Developer of CARL

I am not your typical software vendor. I build tools because I need them in my own world first. If something saves me time, removes guesswork, and proves itself under real use, then I clean it up and make it available to others. Selling is usually the afterthought, not the plan.

CARL exists for exactly that reason. I needed a CMS that was fast, secure, and completely under my control. WordPress had burned me one too many times. So I built my own.

I am a full-time SEO web designer and software developer who has been traveling and working across Europe, the Caribbean, and South America for over 15 years. I specialize in mass page SEO, lead generation, and PHP-based web systems — and I avoid WordPress whenever a proper alternative exists.

How I Got Here

I grew up on a farm in a big old plantation house in Curaçao — Dad was a farmer, Mom was a landscaper. Building things and watching them grow is in my DNA.

My career took a few unexpected turns before landing in web development. I worked as a railway electrical engineer in the Netherlands, a freelance network administrator in London, and eventually as a software technical analyst for FileMaker (Apple) — which is where I first learned to code. That was probably the most enjoyable job I ever held.

From there, I moved to Sohnar, a British agency management software firm with offices in London, New York, and Sydney, as a software engineer. Then in January 2010, I left corporate life entirely and started on my own.

In those early days, I cleaned a local high school for 2 hours and 45 minutes every day to pay the bills, then spent another 14 hours a day learning internet marketing. It took a full 18 months to earn my first commission online. I'm stubborn that way. If internet marketing was what I wanted, internet marketing was what I was going to make work.

Projects I've Built

FeedMakr — RSS feed aggregation and profile management. Built to manage and post to unlimited Web 2.0 and social accounts, keeping them updated with quality content without constant logins.

Keyword Scrubber — A tool for cleaning bloated keyword lists fast. Remove duplicates, geo-targets, and negatives in seconds.

SB Osteopathy — A client whose WordPress site kept getting hacked despite multiple security plugins. I converted it to straight HTML on private servers. No hacks since. Check it out.

CARL — This one. A PHP CMS that generates static files, requires no plugins, and gives you complete ownership of your content and data. Built because I needed it. Made available because others do too.

A Bit More Human

Because life is not just code, dashboards, and deployment pipelines.

Parachute jumping — Yes, I jump out of planes on purpose. It is the fastest way I know to silence overthinking. You either commit or you don't. No half measures.

Mountain and rock climbing — When I'm in Curaçao, I make time for this. You cannot multitask on a climb. That's kind of the point.

Fast walking competitions — I compete every year in Curaçao when I'm there. Fun, humbling, and a good reminder that consistency beats hype.

Plastic waste upcycling — One of my favorite downtime projects is turning plastic trash into planters. It scratches the same itch as building software: take something messy, redesign it, and make it useful again.

Growing my own food — I plant whenever I can. There is something deeply satisfying about building a system that produces results slowly, reliably, and without drama. Nature is the original long game.

One core belief: do something fun every day and stay young at heart forever. If you cannot laugh and play a little, what is the point?

Contact

Support: [email protected] (email only — fastest response)

Mailing address: 6 Menzies Court, Minster on Sea, Sheerness, ME12 3JP, United Kingdom