The WP Minute+

Matt: Hey Lawrence,
welcome to the WP minute.

Laurence: Thank you Matt.

How are you?

Matt: Doing well.

I saw you posting on blue sky, about
your content creation role at, Freemius.

And I'm like, wait a
minute, he's doing content.

I love content.

We're doing YouTube.

We're doing tutorials and talking
about the wonderful world of

creating content and WordPress.

Give us the, the backdrop.

What, what do you do at MIUs?

Laurence: So, at Freemius, I joined
Freemius as a WordPress developer.

I'm mainly working with
the websites and so on.

It's a dynamic place and you find yourself
like doing different kinds of things.

So you'll find yourself, trying out
the support, find yourself, Besides

doing the development, like working
with the websites, then you're

dealing like with the APIs and so on.

So it's a very neat place
if you want to grow.

And that's how I found myself, jumping
into, like the content team, even though.

Initially I started out
as a WordPress developer.

Yeah.

Matt: as well, right?

It's youtube.com/at

techie press, T-E-C-H-I-E
press, seven and a half thousand

subscribers, 200 something videos.

I mean, you're no slouch
on YouTube either.

do you still do that?

And, and did, did Vva look at you
and go, oh wait, you do content too?

Yeah.

How about some of that over here?

Laurence: So, I don't know whether I
should be saying this, but, during one of,

Matt: You can say it.

You won't get in trouble from Vova.

I know him very well, and if he says
anything to you, just direct him

Laurence: Yeah.

So, one of the things that made my
CV stand out when I was, applying

at was the YouTube channel.

Because they were able to
go and see what I can do.

And also just generally see who,
like the type of person I was.

Understanding what I'm doing or,
like generally it was my portfolio.

And that excited them.

And right now it's been two
years being at Freemius.

So now is the time when I'm plugging
into the content team, to help out.

But unfortunately,

Matt: made you,

Laurence: oh, sorry.

Matt: I was just gonna ask, what made you
start your own personal YouTube channel?

Like, why did you start doing content?

Laurence: I love sharing knowledge, but
I realized that many of the WordPress

content creators in terms of, like
development, most of them would come

in and after some time sort of die out.

So as a new developer, someone
who wanted to learn, I found

that there was a big space.

So I wanted to be able to just fill in,
in there, and then also make content

that would help other people generally.

Matt: After 200, making 200 something
videos, do you have any sense as

to why those WordPress creators
burn out or stop creating content?

Laurence: Yeah, it's the same old story.

you get a good, you get a good
job, and there's a lot of demand.

Maybe there are things that change
in life, like family coming in.

And so it's usually a responsibility that
takes you away and it's a hard balance.

Sometimes you make it, sometimes you
realize, nah, I don't think it is for me.

Matt: Yeah.

Sometimes people will publish, you
know, a hundred videos, 200 videos, and

they only get a handful of subscribers.

Maybe they only have a hundred, 200
subscribers and they're pulling their

hair out going, my God, how much more do
I have to do, you know, to sustain this?

do you remember early on what it was
like for you uploading YouTube videos?

Were you nervous?

Were you looking for an audience?

How did you start, you
know, growing your audience?

Laurence: Vividly, I remember the first
time I thought about, initially my first

video was me teaching my son how to
play the recorder, like his first notes.

And then I realized, I don't
think this is what I want to do.

Something much better.

So I started making YouTube videos.

Sometimes I would be seated under a
tree, make sure there's not so much

noise, hit record, and then upload those.

I gave me an adrenaline rush to
see that they were always going up.

yeah, eventually settled in and then
started making longer form videos.

I'm trying to.

Get the quality right.

and it's still a process
that I'm undergoing really.

Matt: When you started out, creating
the content, were you also, did you

have like a full time job as well where
you were developing or you freelancing?

How did you balance that time?

Because that's the other thing
is it is such a time commitment.

Nevermind just like the content
commitment, but now you have to carve

out many hours just to get one video out.

How did you balance the time?

Laurence: So when I started the
channel, I was a high school

teacher teaching, information,
communication and technology, ICT.

so.

In between that and coming home to
my family, I, I had a young family.

I just had to strike a balance.

The thought was, you know what, if this
hits big, maybe YouTube will be able to

pay our rent, get her for some bills.

so it was from that point of view.

You never know what happens.

as long as I'm happy, some people are
also gaining from this because initially

WordPress is what gave me the platform to
sort of like start development and even

get my job teaching at the high school.

So I was thinking, you know what,
somebody else could probably

run the same risk that I am in.

So it was a 50 50.

Do good and you never know
the universe will repay you.

Matt: Yeah, that's great.

Were you teaching tech and
WordPress at high school?

How

Laurence: it's a Cambridge
education system.

So they will look at developing websites.

You'll do networking, tech, the
whole shebang of I of, computing.

So you get small fragments of
everything, basically from grade four.

Which is like year four of school
till grade 12, which is, the next

class before you go to college.

Matt: much did WordPress play
a role in, in that education?

Like when you shared it with
students, how much of, of the

curriculum was, was about WordPress?

Laurence: It's the
website development area.

Because I want you to know a little
bit of HTML, CSS, JavaScript.

As a way of showing the
real world implementation.

I also experimented with the
students how to use WordPress.

Now, the funny thing is that our local
curriculum, which is not Cambridge

right now, has a similar module.

And their teachers, our local teachers
association, is basically like, trying

to make sure that they all learn
WordPress because it's an easier way.

For developing websites,
and it's a big thing.

So if you're big on social and
you're following the Uganda,

teachers association, you'll see
that many of them are trying to

get WordPress, to the students.

there are a couple of guys who are trying
to make sure that they have a thousand

WordPress ninjas in the next five years.

So, yeah,

Matt: The, one of the over things I
always talk about, like when I talk about.

You know, my, my love for WordPress and
like why I've supported it for so long is

that because it is one of those tools, and
I don't want to talk about like what your

opinion is on AI, everybody's sick and
tired of me talking about it already, but

I want to get your opinion on on AI and
its impact, but one of the thing that's I

think is overlooked is WordPress, like if
you want it, like, how did I learn how?

Like car, like car, motors
and engines in cars work.

Well, I had like a moped with one
cylinder and I took it apart and I

learned how the cylinders fired with the
spark plug and how gap fuel, you know,

poured into the cylinder head and caused
the combustion and I kind of learned

all that stuff from, from a young age.

And then, same thing, when I got into
computers, I took apart a computer, I

learned how a hard drive and connect it up
to a motherboard and how CPUs and memory

chips connect it to the motherboard.

WordPress is that tangible thing
for me that somebody can pick apart

and understand here's the front
end, here's the back end, here's

the management, here's the admin,
and because it's this complete.

Thing.

I think it's a great place for people
to, to learn, even if they don't

use word, like even if your students
didn't use WordPress after they left

your, your school or your, your,
your class, they could take that and,

and, and understand how bits of the,
of the web work is, is that a crazy

thought or, or how do you see it?

Laurence: I think you're
right on the money.

there are people who start out with
WordPress and eventually, head out into

the more traditional languages and even,
go to greater heights of developing

desktop systems and all of that.

So it's a platform.

Personally, that helped me learn more
of PHP development and that's one of

the skills that I really, really need
when I'm doing my work at Freemius.

besides the more web based,
languages, I would say.

Yeah.

So it's a nice platform for you to
springboard into your next career.

Matt: One of your, well, I'm looking
at your top, videos right now.

Your top videos are custom WooCommerce
payment gateways, setting up visual, VS

code, right, for WordPress development,
FTP sync and local development.

A lot of it is, is dev.

Heavy, whereas a lot of us in, the
YouTube space are doing much more on, you

know, here's this great plugin review.

Here's this new theme
that's being launched.

I'm guilty of it.

That's kind of the content that I do.

but your, your content
is much more methodical.

How long did it take for you to
make these more technical videos?

Like a 30 minute video took you how
long of 15 minute video took you?

How long?

Laurence: So relatively a 15 minutes
video will take you about six hours.

So take one, take two, take three,
preparations, then go down to editing

and cutting out what you don't like
depending on your whole process.

But you're looking at about four to
six hours for you to just make a film.

for the longer ones, the 30,
what I did was record chunks and

then keep on coming back and then
patching everything together.

So the longer 30 minutes videos
would take you almost a whole day.

To just do

Matt: Yeah.

Yeah.

What, what tools were you
using at the time, to make

your content workflow easier?

you know, four or five years
ago, were you just using like,

screen, Camtasia or ScreenFlow?

Like what tools helped
you get the videos out?

Laurence: so initially I wasn't big
on the tools to make things easier so

I started out with OBS and then just
clipped things with my iMovie and then

eventually I moved on to using ScreenFlow.

managed to make a few savings from
the channel about ScreenFlow, and

I realized it was a better tool for
me to record and then edit in one.

Yeah.

So that's, that's how I transitioned.

Yeah.

Matt: similar to WordPress when you can
find the right tool to get that job done.

ScreenFlow is the one that I still
primarily use, although it's also one

of the ones that I, it's like, when are
you going to give us some new updates?

Like, like this, this is, this is still
kind of getting a little bit, you know, I

feel like that average consumer now with.

With ScreenFlow, I'm like, all these other
places, I can do text to speech, I can

edit with, I can edit the text and that'll
edit the video, better transitions,

like, there's so much other cool stuff
happening in other apps, but I still go

back to ScreenFlow at the end of the day,
and I guess that's where they get me,

it's they're just like, they know I'm
going to come back to use it, because

it is like the best editing experience.

Laurence: if a tool is not
broken, then why try to fix it?

they nailed on the basics and
all the newer, cool, shiny

tools that are coming up.

are sort of trying to
leverage AI as a topic.

They don't give you that comfort
and that confidence that I'm going

to record 30 minutes straight and
I'm going to have all my stuff.

Autosaved on my computer and I can be
able to recover them and then, do like

more complex stuff, in terms of editing.

Yeah, so ScreenFlow is like
that nice balance between Adobe

Premiere Pro and ScreenFlow.

For example, yeah,

Matt: Yeah.

Yeah, I

Laurence: I mean screen

Matt: So you're building up.

Laurence: The

Matt: Oh, yeah, I use ScreenStudio as

Laurence: studio.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, just for short stuff because
like short clips because if you're

editing, this is getting inside baseball
right now, but if you're editing, long

form videos on the screen, so it's
terrible, like trying to like find the

thing and delete the zoom in and do it.

It's like the timeline is just way
too basic for long form videos.

so years are going by, you're,
you're uploading videos to

your personal YouTube channel.

How did you find Freemius?

I mean, we already hinted at what
you do at Freemius, but how did

you find Vova and team at Freemius?

Did, did they notice your content?

Did they, did you use that
as leverage to get the job?

How did that all come together?

Laurence: No.

So, after COVID hit, I
left high school teaching.

And sort of continued my freelancing, but
then I realized I wasn't making ends meet.

And, Freemius was looking
for a WordPress developer.

It was right there on their website.

so I just submitted my CV and
hoped things would go well.

And yep, they gave me a call.

It was just

Matt: Was it Vova that, was
it Vova that called you?

Laurence: yeah, so I got an, an email
from him and at that time he was still

doing the, the first like meetup face
to face and we got to just talk and,

of course they talked to my references,
but I think they liked what they had

and then they said, Hey, would you
be happy to do a technical interview?

And that's how things moved
until eventually got in.

Yep.

Matt: Yeah, and so you leveraged all
of like your development stuff that you

had been learning and and teaching other
people Over on the YouTube channel.

What kinds of things were you?

Challenged with when you first
started Freemius it has a pretty what

I'll call a complex product right?

I mean API's license keys your
You're, you're distributing software.

There's payments, there's all this stuff.

There's reporting on that data.

It's not a, you know, small
plugin, at least in my opinion.

What kind of challenges did
you have when you first started

and how did you overcome them?

Laurence: So I got in as a WordPress
developer and my first task was to work

with, the website and at that moment,
at that particular time, Freemius

needed to revamp its whole blog.

so that's the first thing that I worked
with, working with existing data and

just writing like, a theme over that.

Now that was the time when
we were divided, really

deciding whether should we go.

Gutenberg, or should we keep
things classic editor and so on.

So the challenge was in there,
like deciding whether you want to

like dive into this new tool that's
available, how long is it going to

take you to come up with a final
product at the end of the day?

but eventually we came up with a
solution and we have a nice looking

blog, I would say right now.

Yeah.

Matt: Yeah.

How much has, yeah, we'll bring, we'll
go, we'll go into the bigger topic,

which is like the, like the AI or the
big topic of, of the end of the year, I

guess, which is like AI and how that's
impacting, WordPress development.

Has AI started to impact you?

Are you leveraging AI for anything?

what are your thoughts on AI
and developing with WordPress?

Laurence: Definitely, AI is a,
like a time saver, I would say.

I'm using it, mainly with, tools
like Copilot and then, of course,

ChatGPT, asking a few questions here.

So in the olden days, you had to scour,
The whole WordPress documentation just

to find one little function that's
going to help you solve something.

But,

Matt: Hold on, I want to, you said olden
days, which was like six months ago.

Laurence: yeah, I'm trying
to be like a gen Z here.

But, yeah, you needed to like scour
the whole documentation and there

are some hidden gems in there.

But AI is trained on all this content.

So it knows the right tool.

You'll just give it your scenario.

And then it will give you
the tool, go read about that

documentation and say, this is it.

So I don't have to go to stack
overflow and read like five different

articles to get that one solution.

just to, just to start off my
whole journey with, developing

a particular feature.

Yeah.

Matt: How do you feel about that?

How do you feel that the answers are
so direct in terms of like coding,

which I guess is a technical thing.

It's almost, well, I guess.

Season developers might argue this point,
but it's like, it's either on, it's either

on or it's off, I guess, you could say,
like, it's gonna work for me or it's not,

but I guess there's nuance in that, it's
like, how much code is it giving you, et

cetera, et cetera, but how do you feel
about that directness, versus, if you were

younger, and you were just starting out,
some of that exploration of going to 18

places, Actually, it was kind of useful.

It was terrible for time,
but you, you saw a lot more.

And I feel like you maybe stumbled
around and found some other

things that you didn't know about.

And I think that that's what's going away
with these direct responses from ChatGBT.

Again, no direct question, but
do you have any thoughts on

Laurence: Yeah.

Yeah.

I always believe that in the information
edge that we're in, things are not hidden,

like everything is right in front of you.

but if you, unless you tell chatGBT not
to explain the solution and you just say,

give me the solution, it's going to pour
out all the reasons of why A is so, and

why do we go to B, and why do we go to C.

So, you end up learning the
basics of a particular thing.

Let's say you're starting to learn HTML.

It will explain why you need to
have the body, why you need to have

the head, and why particular things
are in this particular section.

So you end up learning the basics,
just like in traditional school.

so unless you're going
advanced user on it.

Then you're still going to get
your traditional teacher in

front of your classroom block.

Matt: Yeah.

I was thinking to myself, you know,
when I first started to see AI come

onto the scene, I was like, man, if
I was in school, if I was still in

high school and nobody knew about
ChatGPT, I'd be passing every class

with, you know, with straight A's.

So as the teacher, inside of you, the
one who actually, you know, taught,

other students, how does that make
you feel like AI in the classroom?

Is it a good thing?

A bad thing?

How do you see it from that teacher's
perspective of like truly understanding?

a particular topic.

Mm.

Mm

Laurence: is brilliant
to use in a classroom.

I don't think we should shy away from
it Let me give you a scenario if you

had your friend flip their paper and
show you the answers It is sort of a

similar situation with using, using AI.

So you're just copying off the
answers and then dropping them

into your own paper, right?

Matt: hmm.

Laurence: If I'm using, let's say chat
GPT, and I'm learning about algebra

and say, can you give me like 10
different questions for me to practice?

about algebra, and this is
like a sample question I had.

It will be able to generate for you
ten different questions that you can

put in a question for your students.

it can be nice practice for the students.

And it can even model different scenarios
that would be out of the ordinary.

For the student.

So it can be used for both good and bad,
but for most cases, when I've looked at

how people using AI to cheat their way
into stuff, eventually they get caught.

It's up to you to just say, you
know what, let me use it for good.

Mm hmm.

Mm

Matt: sense.

My, I have three young
boys, eight, six and five.

And, my middle son, came home with
his English homework the other day.

And, you know, it's, you
know, it's, it's on paper.

It's, you know, they call her stuff in.

I mean, he's, he's young, right?

So it's just like, here's the 12
or 18 words, whatever it was that

they're focused on this week.

And, he didn't, getting him to do
stuff on paper and like cut the

paper out and put the words together.

It's just, it's a very difficult task.

so what I did is I was able to

a bolt, which is a front end
sort of, you know, take human

words and build an app with it.

And I built him.

Like a little game that he could play
with those 12 words and it was all like

built in react had sound effects It was
fun for for a kid to play with those

kinds of things are truly amazing, right?

That's really shifting and I totally
agree with you It's like leaning

into that stuff for AI is just like
it's mind blowing to what what you

what we can do with it right now

Laurence: Yeah.

So I think teachers can also just
ask AI, I'm teaching this topic.

How can I be very creative about it?

And it would give you solutions.

I think there's much more that
we can dig from it and utilize.

Matt: Yeah What's the
future for WordPress and ai?

one of the things that I've been
thinking about is, you know, you could

look at it and say, well, just build
me a, you know, hey cursor or co-pilot,

build me a WordPress alternative.

, what's your thoughts on the existence
of the sustainability, the future

of WordPress in a world where AI
seemingly could do what WordPress does?

Laurence: So it depends from
what angle you're coming from.

If you are a developer, I don't think
AI will ever replace developers.

For starters, okay, it can throw
out some code, but in most cases

that code needs to be refined.

AI is very open sided, like
it's not opinionated in how

you do particular things.

So as a developer, you'll need to sit
in and think through the solution,

find the best way to optimize it.

so developer.

site covered.

They're never going to go out
of fashion or out of need.

If you're looking at it as a content
creator, still in order for you to

make, diverse content, like you're
writing a blog, you cannot depend on

your solely on AI to give you that full.

300 words that's going to take
someone's soul, like it doesn't take

away the creativity that the human
mind has, but it can give you a basis.

Yeah, exactly.

that's for the content creators, but
I also see it, giving us nice visuals.

Like if, in places right now,
people are using it to do like.

Text to speech and, graphics
from that particular text.

So there's a nice balance
to it, that we can have.

yeah, that's it.

Matt: Yeah.

Has, you know, you don't have to give
us all the secret sauce at Freemius,

but is Freemius doing anything with
AI, for, for front end customers

that customers can interact with
AI at any level of, at Freemius?

Laurence: Yeah.

we've trained.

we have a bot that we've trained with our
documentation so that in, in, in any case,

if you want to, to find a particular,
like you have a particular question, the

AI will provide you with like resources
that you can read right in there.

And all we need to do is just
make our documentation better.

And that means people will
be served much, much better.

Matt: What product feature
are you working on these days?

I mean, I know we just talked about
the content stuff, but what are

you doing that people will see when
they're interacting with Freemius?

What can they either praise you
on or yell at you about when they

interact with, with Freemius?

Thanks.

Thanks.

Laurence: I think I
have something for you.

You have been a big proponent
for data liberation.

That's something, Matt has talked about
and recently we have been making sure

that people can be able to export whatever
kind of data they have on Freemius.

And we've been progressively, doing that
for the different sections that we have.

So.

Interesting thing is, one of, the,
the, the people that are using Freemius

the other day just developed a chat
GPT bot that is using that data and

they're doing crazy stuff with it.

So, yeah, data liberation is one thing
that we've really, really, put a pedal

on besides the bug fixes and all of that.

Matt: Yeah, that's fantastic.

Yeah, I mean obviously whenever it
comes to any kind of Like, e commerce

platform, you know, connecting up,
you know, your payment, to a system.

And it's like a platform play.

There's, there's always that
hesitancy from people to be like,

Oh God, I gotta connect this up.

it's gonna have all my data and, you know,
am I gonna be able to move this stuff

from, you know, one platform to the next?

And it's great to hear that,
that you all, are investing.

In that stuff.

Lawrence Bahari, thanks
for hanging out today.

Where else can folks go to say thanks?

Where can they go to meet you online?

Where do you want them to go?

Laurence: So I have a very
old blog that I last posted on

eons ago, which is omchigai.

com, but I spend a lot of my free time
on Twitter, just reading about what

people are developing and occasionally
sharing a joke here and there.

And of course, newly on a blue sky.

Matt: Yeah, fantastic.

That's where we connected.

I'll have all that
stuff in the show notes.

And don't forget to check out,
Lawrence's YouTube channel, youtube.

com slash at techie press and
all of his work at Freemius.

So WP minutes, the WP minute.

com slash subscribe.

It's the number one way to stay connected
and we'll see you in the next episode.