Jonathan Denwood of WP-Tonic
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Speaker 1:I'm told it's like a warm WordPress blanket that gets delivered to your doorstep every week. Looking for all things WordPress? The WP Minute has you covered. Hey, Jonathan. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Matt. I've been looking forward to this chat.
Speaker 1:WP Tonic, that's where you're famously, infamously known from. But you do other podcasts. Right? You you have multiple shows you've been running for quite some time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do two others. A year ago, I started the membership machine show, which is doing quite well. I think it's getting the the audience is going up. And I've got another company that is called mel-wright.com, and I do the Mel Wright show with another co host, Robert Newman, and I've been doing that for about four years, and that's aimed at Real Estate Agents.
Speaker 2:A slightly different audience to my beloved WordPress community.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk a lot today about WordPress media, creating media in general, how you get so many co you and Bob get so many cohosts. How do you do it? I can't get anyone to cohost with me.
Speaker 2:I'll be your cohost. I'll I'll I'll hold your hand, Matt. Don't worry. I'll I'll walk you across the street, but I'll be
Speaker 1:We'll keep that lead for later in into the show. But you've been I wanna focus on let's just chat about your mail product. You've been doing that for for years now, haven't you?
Speaker 2:About four or five years. Yeah. Mail. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And go ahead. Give me the concept of of that product again. I think we talked about it on the Map Report a few years ago, but give me the concept again, and and why should folks tune into that product?
Speaker 2:Well, it's it's a Swiss army knife. It's a kind of Kajabi for real estate agents. There's there's about dozen, but there's about half a dozen of these products in the real estate sector. It's a CRM, it's a landing page, it will send off a series of email and text messages. You can set up campaigns.
Speaker 2:It has a social media calendar where you can schedule Twitter well not Twitter because they switched off the API, but Facebook, Instagram, Pinsta, and it's got a testimonial generative system so you can get more reviews if you're a real estate agent all built in one platform, all built in WordPress and React.
Speaker 1:What's an easier customer to service? The real estate agents or the WordPress users trying to launch membership websites?
Speaker 2:Oh, god. Yeah. You're gonna get me into trouble. They they're they're they're different people, really. I think everybody's everybody's in a rush.
Speaker 2:Everybody's in a rush, and they don't really think. They spend a lot of time looking at YouTube videos and looking at about 15 different solutions and products but it's really quite surprising in both camps that they don't really, still don't really understand what they're trying to achieve with all these products and services.
Speaker 1:You think a lot of them, both camps, real estate agents, folks who are maybe starting membership sites for various reasons, whether that's a course, digital book, or some kind of organization. Do you think what do what do you think it is that they're missing? Like, at the end of the day, are they both like, no. You just have to let me do your website stuff and you focus on selling to your own customers. Like, stop chasing the shiny widget kind of thing.
Speaker 2:It's it's really it's yeah. I think it's that, but it's oh, I had to put this. I think on the real estate, they they really don't wanna spend any money. Right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Even if there's a due out a lot of agents when you obviously, we've gone through a massive property boom, and we're on the tail end of of what that leads to probably. So they normally and a lot of agents don't make a lot of money initially. And when they do start making money, they think, well, I don't need to spend any money on digital marketing. Brokerages tend to have a more long term view, and individual agents do. It's like everything, it's finding the right person that fits into your business outlook and the products that you're providing.
Speaker 2:Am I waffling there, or does that make any sense?
Speaker 1:I'm really just trying to
Speaker 2:I'm looking at waffling. Am I not, Matt?
Speaker 1:Just trying to draw the parallels between a lot of us in, the WordPress space for many years now for servicing clients, even if you're, you know, brand new to being a a WordPress freelancer or small boutique agency, trying to draw those parallels to real estate agents or other industries that have the same challenges that that we might have if you're servicing a client, knocking on a client's door saying, hey, do you want a website for your accounting, your law firm, your restaurant? I mean, it's everyone everywhere starting off has this challenge of not wanting to spend any money, but also chasing the shiny widgets of, oh, I gotta do all the things. I gotta do the social media. It makes me feel good. I gotta do TikTok and Instagram.
Speaker 1:It makes me feel good. But they forget, like, even us as business owners in the WordPress space forget, gotta make the money too. It's not just about chasing the shiny object. Get a platform like Jonathan's. It'll help you with your social media content and all this other stuff for real estate agents.
Speaker 1:But also remember, go out and make deals and and learn how to grow your business and don't just chase the sign shiny objects online like they're gonna like, people are just gonna fall into your lap and all of a sudden you're gonna be selling million dollar homes when you just got your license a year ago because rates were 2.9%.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's a lot of churn in that particular we get we offer DIY, so it's basically you do get a WordPress website, and we have templates. And it's based in Gutenberg now. It was Elementor, but I transferred to Gutenberg and Cadence. And we provide a half a dozen theme that can they can adapt or we got an we got a product that will adapt it for just under 500, put their logo up, change the colors, and they can and we we offer IDX integration.
Speaker 2:So they get a really nice WordPress website, and then we got all these other parts. But really, unless they're gonna invest a lot of money in SEO and content and evergreen content, and that that would take six months to a year, and They need a strategy and we can provide that, but we charge for that. We also got the paid advertisement. They can set up Facebook campaigns and set up a landing page in our system that that will trigger with a lead magnet. We provide a library of lead magnets that's suitable for that industry, and then we'll trigger off a series of email and text messaging, or we can run the campaigns for them.
Speaker 2:And most that stay with us, either they use the system and then they get fed up with it and then they're on to the next solution that will solve all their problems.
Speaker 1:Or
Speaker 2:they got enough budget, they they just get us to do it for them. Do you
Speaker 1:do you sort of take that same blueprint of service and deliverable for your membership product
Speaker 2:and service? No. That's more we we got a lot of people that actually do it themselves because I had to we're not offering a WordPress as a as a SaaS, really, as we are with Mailwright. I made the it's a tricky thing when it comes to the membership. We offer a load of value because we set up all the email side of it as part of the hosting package.
Speaker 2:We don't provide the inbox side, but we provide the transactional and the marketing email, and we configure that so they don't have to do that. And then we've got a very sizable we've chosen a library of what we think are the best WordPress plugin solutions, and I've bought all those licenses. I've decided not to just take them, which I legally could. I have bought all the lot, done deals with all the plug in because I didn't wanna burn to become a it's not illegal, but I think it's a little bit iffy to do it, so I prefer to have bought all the licenses, and I've done good deals. And some of the plug in people were very generous to me.
Speaker 2:And I owe them a couple favors to a few people. And we give a load of advice and support because my little team, we're all in learning management systems and buddy boss, so we're building websites out. So we provide there has to be a cutoff. What I mean is we do we are one of the few hosting providers that will update all the plugins as part, and it has to be self reported. If there's a problem with update with a plugin, the customer has to report it to us and then we will sort it out.
Speaker 2:Or they can go on a maintenance plan, and then we'll set up a staging site and do the updates on the staging site. And most of the people, when they're starting off, they don't want the maintenance. But as soon as they start making money, they normally do sign up with a maintenance, but we don't force it on them.
Speaker 1:How did that business evolve when you first started? Was it more hand to hand where you were designing one off websites, implementing the plug ins on their own hosting, and then you just decided, you know what? Let me just make this a a real hosting play. And now the customer can just spin up templated sites with me, and they want me to customize it, we can for an additional fee. How did how did that evolve that business?
Speaker 2:It just kinda did really because it's a bit tricky because I I didn't want it to become what I've called I don't know if that I didn't want it to become I've got nothing against the press as a service model, but I think it also is tricky because you can end up with what I call the worst of both worlds because there are you do have the hosting, there is the updating of the plug ins, there is a little bit more technical baggage. I think the SaaS competitors overplay that a little bit. It's become a lot better than it used to be if you use the right plug in combination. Because a lot of people I have we have clients that come to us and they've got over a 100 plug ins on their website, and they've got free versions of this of SEO plug in or security plug or they've got free caching plug ins on the site, and they wonder why things aren't working very well. So we provide so I didn't want but the problem with a totally WordPress as a service is you still have this technical, slight more baggage than true SaaS solution.
Speaker 2:But you're also getting the worst side of a SaaS, I. The good things of WordPress is flexibility, digital sovereignty, digital ownership. Now I wouldn't wanna build a business. I wouldn't wanna build a house on somebody else's land. I certainly wouldn't wanna build a business on somebody else's platform.
Speaker 2:I just don't been there, done that, got my ass burnt. I don't really wanna do that. And I don't think Is this a previous WordPress experience or something else? Something else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We've all been there. No. I was in The UK. I had a a reasonably large retail chain. Had about five units.
Speaker 2:Only small, but it was doing quite well. And dealing with landlords and dealing with
Speaker 1:a it's dealing with somebody's literal like, building your your business off with somebody's literal sandbox physical in the world, and and now we're in virtual.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was always in negotiation with a commercial landlord.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just a nightmare.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They don't care.
Speaker 2:Well, their purpose is to get as much revenue out of you. That that's the end of the relationship, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Have you seen I'm sure you've seen. You're probably gonna be talking about this on on your show if you haven't already recorded the the recent roundtable, but the page builder plug in quickly shutting down. There's also the opposite side, right, of that of that argument is, you know, customers in the WordPress space that are either freelancers and agencies who are just, hey. Give me the next thing.
Speaker 1:Give me the greatest thing. Is it oh, is this thing better, cheaper, faster? Give it to me. I'll start using it. And then not saying this particularly happened with Quickly, but I'm sure there's some percentage of people that jumped on it.
Speaker 1:Like, okay. Better shinier tool, and now it's gone. Right? There's that side of the of the of the WordPress world where customers buy these things from these people that they think are gonna be long standing companies. They look at a piece of software.
Speaker 1:Oh, must be like Google. Must be like Apple. They'll never go out of business. And then they just disappear because of whatever. I haven't seen any reasons for Quickly.
Speaker 1:Have have you ever faced that, or do you have any thoughts on this Quickly thing from that side of the house? These plug ins just disappearing and now somebody else is left holding the bag?
Speaker 2:Well, it's tricky, isn't it? But, you you know, there's a lot of silence in this podcast, isn't it? Unusual for me. Well, you're asking me some tough questions, aren't you? I would never do that with them.
Speaker 2:I would never do that with my guests. I asked them some tough questions, would I? It's just tricky because I think I personally it's only my personal thing. I totally I I think I think what he publicly declared. I've never interviewed a gentleman, and I don't really know him.
Speaker 2:But I've watched a few of his videos, and it seems a really interesting product. I personally have not utilized it. I think the public reason is probably probably the tip of the iceberg. There's probably a lot of other reasons, but this this publicly stated reason was the thing that tipped him to say I've had enough of it. I'm off.
Speaker 2:It's call it a day. I think it's like in our personal relationships. I think there's long term problems in our long some of our personal relationships. And then there's the thing that triggered it, the breakup or the bust up or in our professional partnerships. There's probably there's long term problems that are not felt can be honestly discussed, and then it there's the public trigger that blows everything up, but it's not normally the real reason.
Speaker 2:And I've I'm only presuming that this is probably the case in this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'll give you my thoughts, and and I'm interested to hear your reaction to them. I I think that the biggest issue is running a business is hard. Running a WordPress business is hard. And I think
Speaker 2:Well, can't I'm doing reasonably okay, but it's taken me twelve years. Right. I know. I lost my hair. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm just thankful I'm still alive after that, I'm not flying off to WordPress Asia. I'm not I'm not there. Yeah. So I'm bitter about that.
Speaker 1:We'll we'll get we'll get to that. But I want so running a business is hard. And I think that in this day and age, which is kind of funny to say in twenty twenty four, you you you would have thought this would have been a lesson learned a a decade ago when you and I started getting into podcasting and started talking about all this stuff. People still think people get hyped up. Hey, look at this person.
Speaker 1:They're running a business. It's a multimillion dollar business. Look at their mark. Like, look at them on social media. I can do that too.
Speaker 1:I can build this product. And when I build it, customers are gonna come. And sadly, not the case. And you have to be in it for the long haul. You have to be diligent in not just building the product, but getting your name out there because the other half of this, I think, is not only is business hard, but marketing and promotion and getting people to care about your product.
Speaker 1:In a algorithmically driven social media landscape is challenging. And a lot of folks who get into this game are developers first, not marketers, not sales folks, not promoters, don't know how to tell great stories. And, yes, some of them are unicorns because they build an amazing product, and it just blows up because it's an amazing product. But if you have an average product or even a great product, it's still hard to get that name out there and sprinkle on whatever public stress
Speaker 2:you have. Well, I think it's even I think it's even more complicated than that. I'm not gonna name names, but I know I know some WordPress solutions, plugins, they're awful, but they're high they are highly successful.
Speaker 1:But because probably their marketing and promotion.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Or they they just it was the right solution. It was just a little bit better than all the other worse solutions. Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know? Yeah. There's all and luck. We don't Yeah. We don't like 100%.
Speaker 2:Light that comes to a lot of it, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:I was looking at my old product. You probably remember when I launched the plug in conductor. And
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know about this, don't you?
Speaker 1:Not only did I get steamrolled, I I invested in the customizer. And I was just looking at this the other day because somehow we had a companion plugin called Note. It's still there. Wordpress.org/plugin/note. And that was the Gutenberg interface inside the customizer because
Speaker 2:I've met I bought it. You got my money, and I I hold it against you forever, man. I will I'm still waiting for my
Speaker 1:refund. Refund. And and I was looking at it the other day, and I
Speaker 2:was like,
Speaker 1:man, was I luck? I was way too ahead of the curve, and I invested poorly in the customizer because I was told we all were told the customizer was the place to go. And I was looking at a video I was make I made years ago with the same blue line that you get when you're in the Gutenberg editor when you go to put in a block. We built that same interface with a little icon tray that popped up just like Gutenberg. I was just laughing myself like, man, I launched this way too soon.
Speaker 1:And and I was because I'm reflecting as I write my weekly dialogue, I'll talk about quickly at in the newsletter at the wpminute.com/subscribe. But Can I talk to you?
Speaker 2:Can I bring up can I bring up one thing that does concern me over all that? And I've been part of the problem, and I had a little chat with you when you last came on the round table show, and I admitted I made a couple mistakes. I'm only human. We all make mistakes. It's learning from them, isn't it?
Speaker 2:But I think the thing that is that there's sub little communities in WordPress. There's little posses, as I call them. And, you know, passion is one of the great things. You wouldn't find the kind of passion that you get in WordPress that you would find at a Salesforce convention or HubSpot. You just ain't gonna find the kind of passion and commitment.
Speaker 2:And that's really great, but it also has a dark side. You know, the dark side is really going after people personally. And there are some people in the WordPress community that I despise, that I think are shysters. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them. My word has I'm no saint, but my word, I try and keep my word and I verbally or when I've written a contract in my own blood, I try and keep it.
Speaker 2:Whereas there's other people I've done business in WordPress, their word their word is worthless. Unless you got a blood contract from them or you you got the money up front, you might as well forget that their word doesn't mean nothing. But what has become is they got these little posses, and they they're nasty. They go after people, and they go after people not I don't I don't like this product. It's not my cup of tea.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. But they personally go after people, don't they?
Speaker 1:There's a misconception. I don't have a great way to frame this, but because I fall victim to this too. There's a misconception of ownership in WordPress where we feel like we all own this thing because it is open source and and we we tout that, hey, it's open source. Anybody can take it, do anything you want with it, we can do anything with it. And while that's all true, I think that that feeling of ownership can get us all into trouble.
Speaker 1:Right? It creates those posses, it creates those pockets within the community where you're either a hardcore developer and you look at folks like like me, and you're just like, here's this guy who talks about business. Get out of here. You and your podcast and your news you know, your news newsletter, that's that's foolish. I'm a developer and I'm I'm committing stuff to core.
Speaker 1:We don't that's not what WordPress is. What you do is not
Speaker 2:what I WordPress wanna I'll tell you one one of the it's somebody on my experience. It's it's really shameful for me to admit this. I really didn't think anybody listened to my podcast. I didn't really think anybody took any notice of what I said. And I when I go to word counts, I'm always amazed people.
Speaker 2:You're Jonathan. I've been listening to your I don't think anybody listens, but, no, there is quite a few people that but I I until about eighteen months ago, I didn't think I didn't then I then I got into a bit of trouble with a certain posse in WordPress. And then I realized, oh, yeah. People really are listening what you're saying. And if you rub them up the wrong way, they're gonna hold it against you forever.
Speaker 2:They're they're gunning for you. You you need to shut up, Jonathan, because you're digging a you're dig they they what you think is just a bit of English sarcasm and a little bit of in Britain, we like a good argument in the pub. We like a bit of banter. There's a lot of people, certain group of people in WordPress that they don't like it. They're gonna hold it against you forever.
Speaker 1:How valuable do you see your how much impact do you think your content has on the community? Do you look at this as your way of contributing back just the content? Let's just talk the WP Tonic. Like, do you see this as your way of giving back to the community?
Speaker 2:No. Not really. It would be easy for me to say that. It would be disingenuous. I just do it because I like podcasting and I like talking to people basically.
Speaker 2:And I and I just I think I've always felt that about your interviews and your position. I think you've always wanted to be honest with your audience, and I've always felt that way as well. I I I'm sure some of the things I've said to my little English little comments have rubbed you up the wrong way. I'm sure so but I don't actually I'm not that vindictive. There's a couple people that personally said things about me that I think had some element of truth to them, but were outrageous also.
Speaker 2:And what's got me in private? They've said to me, well, we we've publicly made these statements about you, Jonathan, and we know we know they're untrue, but we've done it because our audience expects us to say that. And there's one I I had to lose a couple real I fought with friends, and they just they just publicly slandered me. And they said, oh, we know it's untrue, but we did it because it's money, Jonathan. It's what our audience expected.
Speaker 2:And I find that nauseating. I would never do that. And I'm I'm certainly no saint, but I would never do that. But it doesn't bother some people, does it?
Speaker 1:The longer I podcast about WordPress, the more I realize why local news and journalism has been decimated by mainstream media because there's a lot and I there's folks in the community who will reach out, but we were talking before we hit record. Right? Our both of our inboxes, I'm sure, are filled with products, plugins, themes, services. Hey. Can you review my my plugin?
Speaker 1:Can you do this on your YouTube video? Can you talk about this on your blog? Can we get a link over here? For free without any compensation. The same goes for, like, community news.
Speaker 1:Hey. There's this big heavy topic. You should be talking about this. And this will get into our talking about WordPress media. But I'm just the guy who talks about WordPress.
Speaker 1:Sure. For the last eleven, twelve years.
Speaker 2:But How long Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1:This is not this is not some media back. This is not WP Tavern owned and and and funded by Audrey Capital. This is me doing this on the side, trying to make it sustainable with sponsors. But what this is not a day job. This is not a media empire.
Speaker 1:And oh, by the way, there's a donation link. And if you want to support me and folks like Jonathan, you should donate, sponsor, join the membership so that this can be a a bigger thing. Like, I've been trying to work towards and have been failing for the last three years because nobody sees the value in this kind of content. And that's the dilemma, I think. WordPress news is just not big enough.
Speaker 1:There's not enough interest. There's not enough eyeballs, but also seen as super important. And that's how I relate this to, like, local news. People hate the local news, at least in my area. They always make fun of the local news.
Speaker 1:They're never buying subscriptions, but then when there is some major story from a corrupt local government or something happening around the area. They say, where's the people writing about this? Well, you didn't invest in it. Right? You can't keep
Speaker 2:Yeah. If I accept it, I take sponsorship just to pay for the general running costs. I keep doing the show because it's in the WordPress space, and I have a business in the WordPress space, so I get a certain degree of Google. It helps me with domain authority and my SEO strategies, but I've accepted. Also, if you unless you're in the education, it doesn't appeal I know you you made loads.
Speaker 2:I watched them. I learned from them. You did a really good job. I forgot. I watched some of your early videos where you had a partner.
Speaker 2:I forgot his name when you did training videos.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Way back in the day with Dan when he worked for me at the studio.
Speaker 2:What what's happened to Dan?
Speaker 1:Dan is a project manager somewhere. I don't know where I haven't I haven't spoken to him in a while.
Speaker 2:Oh, well. And you can do those videos, and they can generate a lot of views on YouTube, can't they? Well, they you you must that's tricky. It's alright, ain't it? Yeah.
Speaker 2:The business side appeals to me a little bit more, And I just accept that you ain't gonna get a large audience. And the only thing that annoys me, and I think it annoys you, is you get these people that say, we've got no money or and then they it's obvious they have. They just don't wanna spend it with you, which is their prerogative, but you wish that they just wouldn't give you this drivel that they ain't got no money. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm Insulting your they're just insulting your intelligence, aren't they?
Speaker 1:When I'm raising sponsorship money for me, anyway, it's to reinvest back into the WP Minute, have more writers, have more editors for like podcast stuff, grow the media, and like really provide a product because again, I just spoke to somebody before we hopped on, they're launching a new product and they're like, hey, if you know a good way to how to get my name out there, I'd love to know it. Yeah. It's $79 a year at the WP minute, and you join the Slack. I just promoted you by creating a free piece of content. And now, which would be great is if you just return the favor and join the Slack group, $79 a year, and and have that interaction.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, it's it's quite challenging when, you know, folks say they don't have any money yet, like you were mentioning before, are gonna drop tens of thousands of dollars to fly their even small team halfway around the world to, you know, WordCamp Asia.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But it's also the cons it's the con the consequence of affiliate marketing. And when I've got a sponsor, if they bring in their affiliate mark manager, I know the conversation isn't gonna go well. Yeah. It's done.
Speaker 2:It's finished it's finished with because they want pragmatic return on the investment. They want one to see $1 investment and get $510 back. I don't know what platform. Maybe Facebook again with using artificial intelligence because we run on my other business, we run a lot of Facebook campaigns, and it's one of the reasons why Facebook shares have just rocketed because even though I hate my I hate the founder with a passion. Well, I'll say that I've never met him.
Speaker 2:I don't know him as a human being. I just thought it's just the public figure, I don't like, put it that way. But the conversation isn't gonna go well because of the dominance in WordPress. And it it's not it's not the smaller companies. You can understand you gotta watch every dollar when you're a small business.
Speaker 2:But these are large players in the WordPress space, and they're just dominated by affiliate the affiliate side and but they they can spend val tens, hundreds the kind of money you can spend on Facebook and on Google Ads, the kind of money they're laying down. They they they're laying down real real money every month, some of these WordPress businesses, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Do you think that's just the nature of affiliate marketing, or is it a cultural thing with a lot of products in the WordPress space?
Speaker 2:That's a difficult one because we gotta be practical here. You've been in business. You you're you've pulled the arrows out of your back. You're war hardened like me. You've been there.
Speaker 2:You've done it, haven't you? So you got they gotta be practical. Yep. It's just that it's so unsophisticated, and that's the this. You don't know because there's they're going to WordPress Asia.
Speaker 2:You're not. You're not either. Maybe we're maybe we're just winging. Maybe we just need to get on with it. Who knows?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:So when you look at your sponsorship for the Tonic, let's just just for the WP Tonic, you wanna just get by with covering costs. Right? You're you're you're not looking to
Speaker 2:You you wanna do you want, you know, you wanna do a real professional journalistic based enterprise, and I admire you, I don't actually wanna I just do a little chat show. I have people come on, and I take just getting some. I've had a few people sponsor me, and I'm very grateful for them. And I just got a new sponsor last week, and they've covered me for six months, and it just covers my costs. But I like the interviews, but the membership show started that a year ago.
Speaker 2:And it's around WordPress, also membership, and but that's what my main business is, one one of my two businesses. And it's clear cut. I do it to promote my business, so I think that's much more clearer, isn't it? And my other podcast, for my other business, it's about real estate marketing and digital marketing, and that's what my product offers. So it's clear cut, isn't it?
Speaker 1:You switched to Gutenberg, Cadence, got away from Elementor.
Speaker 2:Well, we still supply it, and I wish Elementor the it's a great product. Yeah. Sorry. I I keep interrupt you. Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I'm not being rude. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:So you're you're back all in with the with the core WordPress experience or close to it anyway. Right? Because you're you're using Cadence. How how did you feel coming out of the Mullenweg interview about the future of WordPress? Like, are you are you hyped about it?
Speaker 1:You're English. You're not gonna get hyped. But How do you feel?
Speaker 2:It's so true, isn't it?
Speaker 1:How do you feel about it? You're I do you feel better
Speaker 2:I'm down, I know. I'm English. I've had some American friends say, we love you, Jonathan, but can you brighten up?
Speaker 1:Yeah. As I side side note, since we're talking about since we're talking about WordPress media. I don't know if you watch the oh god. Now I'm gonna forget the name off the top of my head. It's WP Cafe.
Speaker 1:It's the two guys from The UK. They have a a booking plugin. Not a booking plugin. A job board plugin, Mark,
Speaker 2:and I can't find it. Oh, I'm running two businesses plus to do free podcasts. I can't keep up with it. Oh, I I I join in. Going on.
Speaker 1:There are there are two guys from The UK. I I think it's yeah. It's WP Cafe. And it's hilarious to me because those guys those guys always seem like they they just hate their job and they hate podcasting. And I'm like, then every time I have to remind myself, oh, you're just you're just British.
Speaker 1:You're you're you're that that's why you guys have this this stigma of of the approach to this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, you wanna know, you're about to live in a country where it rains, say, at eight months of the year and, like, it's like Seattle for seven months. You know? Get that. What do you think would happen to you?
Speaker 1:So I I work one of my colleagues at Gravity Forms, Megan, I work with one of on the marketing team. Fantastic. And she's in The UK. And I I just have this desire to go to The UK and explore all of these cities. They it seems fantastic.
Speaker 1:I when I look at it from the outside, it just looks fantastic. Some of the the other
Speaker 2:day It's that a small country can have all these different accents. You can go from Manchester to Birmingham, which is less than 50 miles, and it will have a totally different way of speaking, manalism. It's just amazing in the modern age that you can have all these dialects and different cultures and different landscapes in such a small country. It's quite amazing, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and a lot of the cities and towns where I'm where I live, because we're I'm in New England.
Speaker 2:New England.
Speaker 1:Is all of it's all Somerset, Swansea, Gloucester, Bristol. It's that's where all the towns around me is everything over there too. So I I don't know. It's this this natural affinity. Are you a Jeremy Clarkson fan?
Speaker 2:I can't stand the Geezer. I wish him well, but That's exactly
Speaker 1:what Megan says to me.
Speaker 2:I can't stand him. He's such a pompous prick. But there we go. That's He said some awful he said some awful things about minorities And
Speaker 1:Oh, did he? I I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. He's got a he's he's made a career, and he write he write. Don't wish him well. He's not dummy in the arm, but it's not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just watched that
Speaker 2:for him. He's funny in some of these old used to watch Top Gear, and he was funny. As he got older, hopefully, we get a bit mellow, and we learn from life. He seemed go the opposite direction, get worse.
Speaker 1:Let me get back to Mullenweg and the core experience. And and how I'm gonna frame this is because I feel like
Speaker 2:My interrogation. I got my tools to trade out.
Speaker 1:I feel like we're we're we're set to have another gold rush in WordPress. Like, you uncovered that. He said it was, like, a ten year rebuild.
Speaker 2:Into that. Mean, you mean I had no idea where that bloody one came from.
Speaker 1:But but do you feel like like from the stuff that you're seeing as a business owner talking to people constantly on podcast interviewing Mullen and Weg, do you feel like we're set to have something great in the next couple of years as a core experience?
Speaker 2:Or not. It's a shame if it all goes pet a shame. I just don't understand the geezer, but he's a complicated man. He's hugely successful. He's no idiot.
Speaker 2:He's much sharper than me. He handled me with ease, but I'm not a professional broadcaster presenter. I'm just some geezer in Northern Nevada that does the a little podcast, but I did I think I think I did my I think he was taking a bait with us. Kirk took took the piss out of me, and he said he keeps coming and says, you infurate me. Man, it does.
Speaker 2:He just infurates me. He infuse. But what does he care? He's too busy counting the money, isn't he? Or going to Antarctica to talk to his king penguins.
Speaker 2:He's probably there right now, and he's subascical, isn't he?
Speaker 1:No. He's in work campaigning. He's in work campaigning.
Speaker 2:That was that's just the why was who did he do that you see, who did he do that podcast in in Antarctica?
Speaker 1:Oh, think it was probably with Tim Ferriss who he's also with.
Speaker 2:He was the oh, that was the biscuit, wasn't it? That was so like, how the other half live. We're having a little chat in Antarctica, as you do, don't you, Matt? As I do all the time.
Speaker 1:But do you feel but do you feel like we're we're we're See, that's
Speaker 2:the English song is that it gets me into so much bloody trouble because it's hope Matt Bauer gives the, like, the starling version of I hope he doesn't draw up a list.
Speaker 1:No. I mean,
Speaker 2:I believe Yeah. A little lie because I I must have a line around the block. Must
Speaker 1:I'm the only WordPress podcast he doesn't listen to. Do you so I do you
Speaker 2:feel only gave up my show because the other, the Walter cooler won't won't have anymore. No. Thanks. That's so great. That that's my ego.
Speaker 2:Go down the hill.
Speaker 1:But do you feel like WordPress core is headed in the right direction?
Speaker 2:Who knows? I don't think they know. No. I don't think they got any idea what they're really doing, do you? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I I don't get any. But, you know, I'm not and maybe we ask too much because no. Let's let's let's look at it a year ago, you know, unless you were in that Pacific field, and it did seem to be a bit of a dead end AI. It's been around since the nineteen fifties, and it's come up and it's died down. And then but nobody realized it's been building up in the background, but you had to be in that particular sector.
Speaker 2:And then he does it with OpenAI. It it looked like it just exploded. It would've it would've mapped that coming. So predicting the idea that they've got some long term plan, maybe we're asking too much anyway. So I don't know, do I?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's all it it seems the problem with WordPress, it's all smokes and smoke and mirrors, and I think it's part of Matt's psyche. I think he likes the he likes the dark arts in a way. He likes it that way. It some way, it seems that I don't know if it's me.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I'm losing the plot. Seems a certain passive it's always been there, passive aggressiveness. Your your emails are not answered and you're excluded from certain Slack channels and you're not marked. Rather than just say to your face, well, wish you well, but you're not my cup of tea. You know, we didn't like what you said.
Speaker 2:Can we put our position? There's always been that kind of passive aggressive kind of look at Sahari Gate as I call it. Everybody knew that being the marketing manager was a god awful job and nobody should take it on. You gotta be crazy. That's just a godforsaken position that anybody with their right mind should run a mile from it, shouldn't they?
Speaker 2:But I don't understand why. And this need for automatic to make out is her. Because I don't really consider WordPress to be a truly open source project. Never has been. It's kind of it's a kind of quasar open source project, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Because of the amount of automaticians that commit to CORE.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, it's yeah. But on the other hand, that's good and bad because if you didn't have all that money, that would as as I pointed out to the great leader, as I call him, he's invested over $900,000,000, didn't he? He had some of the most hardcore VCs of Silicon Valley. But without that money, WordPress wouldn't be where it is because without all that, some of that money being poured in by all the engineers and all the people from Automatic, it wouldn't be where it would be, would it?
Speaker 1:I've never bought in to the to the conspiracy that he like, five for the future and giving back to WordPress core is just to move up the chain to wordpress.com into into Feed Automatic. Do you feel like it's a quasi open source because potentially that's what's happening? Or again, that it's just a lot of the direction of WordPress is decided by automatic?
Speaker 2:I have no freaking idea because Matt is such I really like Matt. Yeah. Honestly, he's a very charming person, isn't he? He really puts the charm on. And as we remarked and Kurt was there, he got very animated before we went live, and he got very emotional.
Speaker 2:Unless he's a if it was just a pure act, he he's in the wrong business. He wants to become a Hollywood actor because he it was a great if it was all acts because he got very emotional, and we were both surprised. And I quite like that. I just think this part of his character does this is kind of deviant, and it's not surprising that he's a pretty sharp business type, isn't he? Must be.
Speaker 2:Mustn't he? To get the kind of success that he's got. I think it's just part of him that likes it. Likes it all smoke and mirrors, isn't it? He likes it all to be kind of unsure and nobody really knowing what's going on.
Speaker 2:I think it's part of his character that likes it, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think a lot of tech leaders, once they get to a certain level or pedigree in their business that they they take on some kind of other form. Right? Like, you know, Elon Bezos.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wrote that MacMailick then he 100%.
Speaker 1:Right. I've always said that. I've always said that automatic is the best stewards for WordPress is right now anyway. But what about my theory of, let's say, another tech company came in, say GoDaddy, that had a huge interest in WordPress and also had a bankroll that could bring in as many auto one for one. One automatician, one GoDaddy.
Speaker 1:That they could commit the same amount. I think that would be a challenge for Matt because now you would have the same kind of influence automatic has, but now coming from another corporation. Like if a 100 automatician showed up at a word camp to commit on contributor day and a 100 GoDaddy developers showed up that same time, I think there'd be I didn't know. I don't think people would understand what they would would do.
Speaker 2:They're all wolves circling the carcass of WordPress. They're all they're all in the same pack, but the wolf pack is a hierarchy, ain't they? And they're all looking, can we can we boot the alpha alpha wolf? And they're all in the same pack, but they're all competing around the carcass of WordPress, aren't they? That's a lovely vision, isn't it?
Speaker 1:So now I know what the outlook of WordPress is for you.
Speaker 2:I think it's open source that well, he uses it as a deflector in his shield, and but it's true. It is open source. I think elevators stood a chance until they fucked things up, didn't they? I'm not even sure they were. I'm not even sure what they kind of might they kind of oscillate in and out of WordPress.
Speaker 2:They kind of seem to want to do their own cloud thing, and then they realize that it was the developers. And then so they become all chummy again and have all these meetups around WordPress WordPress meetings and that, whatever they're up to. And I think their old marketing director's come back, isn't he? I think he's
Speaker 1:Ben.
Speaker 2:I think I saw that on my radar. He's come back. So it'd be interesting. And I think I think he wasn't I don't think he was that happy with their efforts, was he? I think that kind of rubbed him up the wrong way.
Speaker 1:I think you a company that size again, like, when you look at Elementor's rise to their fame, and then getting raising some outside capital, which then puts dilutes that control over, like, where that company is going. But also at the same time, it's the same, like, same issues with Automatic and what Matt is faced with. Same thing Elementor's faced with, same thing you and I are faced with, not enough time. Even with all the resources, it's just not enough time, not enough people to get this thing turned around in the direction we wanna go. WooCommerce, perfect example of that.
Speaker 1:Although on the face, any mathematician, Matt included, will tell you everything's fine. But also knowing like No.
Speaker 2:That's part of WordPress that I don't no. Just not omitting the reality
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Wanting this kind of I don't know how to maybe you can word it. What is it about? It's a kind of this necessity for everybody to be treated with any respect. They've got to be your message, haven't they? It's kinda it is kind of North Korean kind of I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't do it. Listen.
Speaker 1:I mean, it it's it's not just automatic. Nobody really wants to talk bad about their employer, so there is that challenge of it. But I think it's it's just not enough people and not enough time. They've got the money, but they can't hire, train, and and redirect the ship fast enough at automatic and at Elementor. And and that's what a lot of people face.
Speaker 2:I I think I know where you're coming. I just disagree with you there. I think it's just pure cultural. I'm I just think it's the culture of automatic and that, and I I think that's where if you're the head of it and you do it's really hard to omit it. And they're they're pissing about with WooCommerce.
Speaker 2:It should be could be something even better than Shopify. There's such a ton of money there, ain't it? And this ten year thing with Gutenberg, oh my god. Just get it. Just get it.
Speaker 2:You know? Well, something like that is never done, and you gotta be honest. He pointed it out to me. You got all the technical baggage. It it must be horrendous.
Speaker 2:And I think you pointed that out when you came on the round table show. Seeing when they got a new update, a call, and what goes through the process, it's just must be mind numbing. So you always want to give him and I like that, and I wanna give automatic. And most of the automatic people I've met have been extremely nice to me. It would be which is horrible.
Speaker 2:It'd be so much not easier if they were horrible people. But they're not. They're all such nice people normally. I've had some nice discussions. They'd always be nice to me.
Speaker 2:They've even given me some sponsorship money, I was amazed at that. And, yeah, I just don't I think I just don't get it. Nobody's been able to explain it really coherently to me.
Speaker 1:I've been spending some time talking to a couple people that I'm gonna be featuring more on on the podcast that started in WordPress through page builders. So Mark Zemanski, he's gonna co host a couple of live streams with me. He got into WordPress few years ago, got in through Elementor, younger guy wanted to build websites, and he learned WordPress through Elementor. And that's all he knows. Like, he doesn't know WordPress like you and I.
Speaker 1:Like, when we started, we had to crack open a code editor, edit functions PHP. We had to learn HTML, JavaScript, CSS.
Speaker 2:I'm sweating there. You feel me all
Speaker 1:about the That was the, like, the WordPress that we learned. He came in in a much beautiful, much more cozy situation where he had a drag and drop builder. And a lot of the stuff he says to me is he asks me about like the direction of WordPress and how to get involved and why are they making the decisions this way and and he sees WordPress as a product. Like he sees it as, well, why aren't they making this product better? Why aren't they doing this with the product?
Speaker 1:But that's not how it's that's not how it comes together. It doesn't come together like a corporation of a product team, marketing team, sales team, c suite team, and this thing gets shaped. It's shaped from core contributors. Yeah. A massive portion of them are automaticians, but it's not built as like a product first thing.
Speaker 1:Don't you think if they made Gutenberg the only way to get Gutenberg better and to make WooCommerce compete against Shopify is to just flatline the open source side of things, like get rid of the way that we know it? Like, that's the only way I could see them making that better is to make it a more closed source approach.
Speaker 2:I don't really technically know. I I would hope not. I I I think there probably is a third way. I think I totally understand what you've just outlined, Denise, and I think there's always been a resistance about having I think if you've got a premier plug in, you should actually pay to have it checked over and get a kind of tick mark that it's been authorized. I I think the free directory is fine, but they it's gotta be made clear that the these are kind of they haven't gone through authorization.
Speaker 2:I think there's always amazed me. I think you've got the arrows to pull out is that, like, you try to put some themes through, didn't you? And I I remember listening to your put. You said the it was like, you I think you would rather go to a dentist and have all your teeth removed to go through that process. Okay?
Speaker 1:Right. Submitted my theme.
Speaker 2:Any kind of crappy plug in. It seems you can throw it in. You're on a 100,000 websites. I never really understood that one myself. No one's ever been able to explain that contradiction to me.
Speaker 1:Well, it's it's again, it's this it's this weird setup that we have. Right? It's it's you can't do it in any other technical platform, Apple, Microsoft, Google. There's no open source channels. You don't see how this the bread is made.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, when you submit a theme like I did twelve years ago, and it's called journal, this is the title because you're journaling. I mean, it was a pretty straightforward thing. And it was denied because the word was too generic. Yet there was a theme called poker.
Speaker 2:I just would have loved to be in the office when you got the message. It'd be denied. I think the language was interesting, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:It's water under the bridge because the guy who denied me was Otto, and I bought him a beer when I was at work.
Speaker 2:How could I say? I love Otto. He's he's such a nice person with you. I bet I never met him, but Kirkus, and he seems to be I call him the grand seed of WordCast. Grand Lord.
Speaker 2:He seems to like that title. He did me into the I take that as a sign.
Speaker 1:I wanna I wanna close it out by talking about, like, committing back to like, contributing back to this. You feel like you don't you don't necessarily do it with Atonic. I feel like I do it with my media. But, like, where where do you see folks who are not developers giving back to to WordPress? Because there's definitely some characters out there lately who are selling their own products and services who just, like, totally put WordPress down.
Speaker 1:But if it wasn't for WordPress, they wouldn't be able to sell their products.
Speaker 2:Are you talking about Kevin?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll let you fill in the blanks.
Speaker 2:Go on. What are you are you talking about Kevin?
Speaker 1:So how how does one give back?
Speaker 2:Yeah. You're not gonna answer that, are you, mate? I don't don't hold it against him, actually. We're all got we're all selling our book of business to some degree. It's about how we do it.
Speaker 2:Kevin, he's been on my show twice. I watched a few of his videos. He's very passionate. He's got his way of wanting things, and he's and he does he does support. He will give his due.
Speaker 2:He will go on a show, and he'll take heat, and he he will just sit there and respond in a certain logical way. I thought some of the criticism when he did that video were were to me, and I was a developer for a period time, seemed to me to be a lower intermediate layout, and you really couldn't do that layout in native Gutenberg. And we're six years into the project. You know, I think he was he's he was I won't say right, but I think what he was pointing out, I think a lot of us knew that. And the response he got and the absolute bonker response that he got from that, it was truly amazing to watch.
Speaker 2:And these a certain group of WordPress developer types lost lost the plot, basically. But it doesn't mean that I agree with every word that Kevin comes out of his mouth because I don't. I don't. I don't agree with most of what comes out of my own mouth, let alone somebody else's.
Speaker 1:Kevin's one example. I mean, there's many, and we've seen this we've seen these examples over and over again for the last twenty years. Right? Starting with Chris Pearson, that thesis theme. Right?
Speaker 1:When Oh, yeah. Like, that is it's the same thing. It's like my this thing here is better, different. Why doesn't WordPress do it this way? And then we saw that on repage lines, Vata theme, and then Elementor, Beaver Builder.
Speaker 1:Like, there was always something popping up that was like, this is the best thing right now, and everyone's crazy for not using it this way, and why doesn't WordPress catch up? Like, I've we've just seen this story a dozen times already.
Speaker 2:Well, nobody would answer. I'd expect intermediate layout to be achievable in work native WordPress six years in. I do not expect that you need to add custom custom CSS. I do not expect that you've gotta go in and do a custom plug in. I do not expect that you need to go into a JSON file and start knocking it.
Speaker 2:I expect a in a basic intermediate layout to be achievable in native Gutenberg. And until somebody can give me a yes and I've asked a few people, and I've asked them on my podcast, and I I haven't got answer about that. I just get I don't know. Well, you just need to add plug ins. You need to do this, the other.
Speaker 2:I just don't expect that. And you can say you're wrong, Jonathan, and I'm fine with it. It's just my opinion. So that's why I asked him on because I thought I thought it's just hilarious. But I was well I'm well aware of Kevin's, and I've told I've said it in front of him on when I've interviewed him.
Speaker 2:You got your book of business. You're pushing it. I wish him well. I I don't I I don't get all work. I I I think people need to get some balance in their life.
Speaker 2:This is this thing, the Ukraine. I've got friends fighting in the Ukraine with the Ukrainian foreign legion. They're putting their lives I've financially supported what that's real life. This isn't this is just yeah. It's money.
Speaker 2:There's big money in WordPress, and I think that's what brings out I think that this is what this is really about, isn't it? This is why Kevin that's why he rubbed up. There's big money at play. There's a lot of money in WordPress. There's a lot of there's a lot of readies that can that can be, and it brings the worst out of people, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:At the very least, it's it's folks' livelihoods. Right? I mean, even if it's whether they're going after, like, a big trying to build a page builder thing and or just, hey. I'm just trying to build websites for people. That's what I think a lot of the the issue here is why it's I feel like we have to be very careful when we think ownership of WordPress.
Speaker 1:I don't know another way to put it. It's almost like a spiritual thing. Like, don't think anyone owns it, but it exists. And if we give back to it, it continues to exist. But we know that we can't go all in on feeling like we own this because that's where the chaos comes from.
Speaker 1:So just give back to it, know that it exists, take your piece of it, and and move on and and do what you can with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But for all its for all its all all its frustrations and problems, it's still a quasar open source. The fundamental core is with open source. The reason why I say it's quasar is that I I I understand. I don't I I never really until he wants to totally give it up, I actually don't want Matt Mayerweig not to be part of WordPress.
Speaker 2:I think some of his responses, there was a power dynamics about his Twitter, whatever it's called, x. It always will be Twitter, far as I'm concerned. I think some of these responses were not even beneficial to him, and he's always had this little tendency to get a little bit sharp with the elbows and sharp at the if you're him taking on and he said I thought I was interested that he said, I regret what I said about GoDaddy. Well, I'm not bothered because it's GoDaddy. They can look after themselves as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2:Right. Alright? It's when he uses his sharp elbow on somebody. And some of these people who's used it, I don't even like. They're not being very fair towards me.
Speaker 2:They've caused they're publicly in they think I don't know. They've gone on Slack channels and now that, and they called me a racist. If I had the money, I'd go after them. I'd go after them legally, but I haven't got the money and I haven't got the time. So these people, I've got no time for them anyway, but I still don't like it because of the power dynamics.
Speaker 2:He goes after them, and they're just individuals. And but I thought that was interesting. He brings up but he's he brings it up with the GoDaddy. Well, I think GoDaddy can look after themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I agree. It's when you go after the the individuals, and that's again, I I am I'm a 100% with you. I I don't really want anybody steering the ship other than him and and automatic right now. We talked about this on your podcast.
Speaker 1:The worst thing that could happen is having a committee that we all had to
Speaker 2:report to. Yeah. But the well, kind of. But I'm a believer. I think in I think this is the next thing.
Speaker 2:I might be wrong. I just think in the next twenty, thirty years, the only bleaching agent to corruption is democracy. And I just think as open, you don't need a committee, you just need somebody to be voted in and them to have a period of time, he or she, she or he or whoever, needs a period of time where they're running things. But periodically they are brought in front of the bleaching agent of a democratic process.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I agree with that. It would be wonderful, but also extremely difficult to to to to to create. And
Speaker 2:Well, I think as a leader and and he's a great he is a really interesting person. And like all people, he's not black and white. He's not a saint, but he's not the devil. We're all the same. We've all got good and evil in us.
Speaker 2:We're all mishmashed. Yeah. It's only the psychopaths and the sociopaths. They don't they don't care. The rest of us, it's always ongoing feeling in us, isn't it?
Speaker 2:He's no different. You know, people say, oh, he's the devil. Other people say, oh, I love him. He's just a person better, but I just don't he he just needs the insight to clean the act up and bring some governance in it. And I know he leans to to the darks, the smoke room or whatever.
Speaker 2:I think he just likes it a bit. He just needs to clean he just needs to give a bit, but that's his business, isn't he? He don't he don't gonna listen to me, is he?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think he has the general interest. I mean, as one would probably have like what if you built something this sprawling and important across the web, and then oh, by the way, you have like 12 other products that that is under the automatic umbrella, and you feel like I can do it all. Like you get to this point where you're so well read, so well trained, you have a different level of feedback loops than the normal business owner has when you get to that stage. Were you like, yeah, I can do this man.
Speaker 1:I can take some mushrooms and go to Burning Man with my buddy Tim Ferriss. And I've had an experience that says I can run 12 different products across the automatic empire and including Tumblr. And that's the part I think he's really challenged with. He shouldn't. And, yeah, the public outburst things kinda brought him down a notch for me in terms of leadership.
Speaker 1:Man, probably not feeling that great about it anymore. Let's let's maybe build a off board an off off ramp to building some leadership and some governance. One or two sergeants or lieutenants you wanna put in place. Not gonna happen.
Speaker 2:No. Oh, well. There we go. We have to but WordPress moves on, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:I've gotta go. I've taken up too much of your time, Matt, but I have to come back. I've really enjoyed this chat. Hopefully, you have.
Speaker 1:Hour and ten minutes. You broke a new record. Yeah. Jonathan Denwood, WP Tonic.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to tell you, I I really you've done a fantastic job in your podcasting career, and I've listened to a lot of viewing views. And you've done a really great job, Matt.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that, Jonathan. You too, my friend. That's it for today's episode. Get the weekly newsletter at thewpminute.com/subscribe. Wanna support the show and join a group filled with WordPress professionals like you?
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