The WP Minute+

[00:00:00] Miriam: Thank you. I'm excited about my new position, but also it's interesting to hear your feedback about the event because, yeah, the level of production was very high.

[00:00:07] That's how Elementor tends to operate, particularly around like video media. They're, they have a really strong team for that, but really the main goal of that event was to. , listen to their user base and share information and content with them that they've been asking for, for a while, particularly around the roadmap and also to generally try to like, give an, kind of a peek into the inner workings of the company and some of the team players there.

[00:00:34] So, that was my goal. But yes, I agree. The, the production level was very high and, and the team did an amazing job with.

[00:00:39] Matt: I'm gonna have a soapbox moment in a little bit about some of the feedback I've been seeing with Elementor over the last year or so, and particularly during that live stream. Don't worry, it's not bad

[00:00:49] No worries. Don't

[00:00:50] Miriam: worry. I wanna hear it all. that's my job,

[00:00:52] Matt: but I, I do want. Yeah. I do want folks to, to to know what is the new job, what's your new title? and I also wanna talk about Stratec as you are the founder of stratec, AC acquired by Elementor. We chatted last time when that went down. and I wanna learn more about it, in a little bit, but give folks the, the down low on what the new job is and, and what your

[00:01:09] Miriam: responsibilities are.

[00:01:10] Okay. So, my new role is head of WordPress relations at elementary and, A new role for me, obviously, but actually it's also the first time that Elementor has had someone in this type of role. And, the goal is for me to be a type of liaison between elementary and the broader WordPress community.

[00:01:28] until now, elementary has been, very active within the elementary user community, which is great. and, that's part of their success. but there's kind of like a missing overlap. in some ways between elementary and, and WordPress itself. so, with my background, I've been very active in the WordPress community for about 15 years.

[00:01:44] Miriam: Word camp organizer, word camp speaker, et cetera. founded two companies in the space, both, an agency and Stratec and sold both of them. So, the idea is to take that. Background in the context of where Elementor is at as a, a very significant player in our ecosystem and, and try to help with communication, between the company and, and the industry.

[00:02:03] Matt: So I, I recently did a video about this. I was, as folks listening to this, probably already know I was laid off in my job a couple weeks ago and I've, done, many rounds of interviews with, lots of WordPress brands across the industry, and I've heard. , which is great. A lot of brands wanting to invest in this community slash liaison slash communication role.

[00:02:25] Right. headed into 2023 and that, to me, that's amazing. It's amazing for you. It's amazing for some of the discussions I've had, it's amazing for other people who have committed to the WordPress community and built up a cache of brand and trust over the last, 20 years of word. , what does it mean to you though?

[00:02:41] Like, what, what do you think you're going to do on a day-to-day, or what are you doing day-to-day now from a strategic level? I mean, you don't have to give away the secret sauce, but like what is it that you do as that liaison?

[00:02:52] Miriam: So from from the day we joined elementary, I could see that, my background in the WordPress industry [00:03:00] could be helpful to them.

[00:03:01] And I, I had assumed that I would like help out while also leading, continuing to lead the Strat. Business unit, elementary's really, really strong. As a product and, and very dedicated to WordPress. But, they just, they haven't had someone in that kind of role as a face. And I think what you're saying about brands looking to fill that role, is it's really great to hear it's so important, particularly in a community oriented, ecosystem like our own, in terms of what I'm going to be doing.

[00:03:28] So first of all, , I'm like figuring it out as I go along . So everything I say, it's like, it's a learning experience for, for me and for Element mentor. I'm reporting directly to the C E o Yani Yi Luxembourg. this is a really important role to them, and so that's why they positioned it in this way. and the goal is for me to,be, At Word camps, at community events, really like be a listening ear.

[00:03:52] I know that, there's a lot of people who are tremendous fans of elementary, but there's a lot of frustration,with regards to Elementor and, being able to communicate with them. And also, there's questions around what's Elementor stance vis-a-vis WordPress as the platform, whereas the future of elements are going.

[00:04:07] Things like that. And, and I'm here to clarify that. And I'm going to be working on particular projects around contributing, back to WordPress. So, early, very early stage, stages. So, nothing concrete yet, but the idea is to, be an active participant in five for the future, which I think,it really, it really, I, I, not only, I think this, the, the company thinks this, it's really important for this to happen, at this stage.

[00:04:29] and, and, I, I don't know for for sure it's going to happen, but I, I hope we'll maybe, possibly do a ward camp in Israel. so that could be exciting and bring the community over here maybe, but also reinvigorate the local community. I organized five ward camps in Israel in the past, and it's been a while since there was one here.

[00:04:48] And it's really about time,things like that. But, as I said, I'm going to be learning as I'm going. I'm going along. I'm going to work Camp Asia. I'll be speaking on a panel about building communities in your country, so I'm excited about that. And, I'll also be speaking at a pre-event that Human Made is organizing about WordPress for enterprise.

[00:05:03] With my Strat background, I have learned quite a lot about that. and yeah, generally to be a helpful person and liaison and people giving me feedback and I can, take it back to the company and, try to help with general communication, and yeah, just be there to be the go-between kind of thing.

[00:05:17] Matt: I, I think the particular advantage you have, and I, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna frame it how I think about it. So, cuz a lot of people just heard like what you're doing, like, oh, cool. Like, I want to do that , like I want to be a community liaison for another brand. And yes, on the surface you might sound, it might sound like.

[00:05:34] Oh, like all you have to do is show up and hang out with cool WordPress people and talk about it. Like that's awesome. Yes. But, Miriam has business experience, a team R leading a team experience, building a product, all of that stuff is, is just so powerful when you're out in the community connecting the message with, let's say, Elementor, with their end users.

[00:05:56] But you also know, if an end user came to you and [00:06:00] said, Oh God, it would be amazing if you had these 58 templates that I could install for free. You might hear that and somebody might be like, cool, I'll tell the team. But you know, from the business side, like, okay, that that's probably not gonna happen.

[00:06:13] And from the development side, that might not happen. And you know how to jockey those kinds of conversations, which a lot of people who just want to hang out with who WordPress people and be like a community person, they don't have that experience. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm saying in your particular advantage, the business.

[00:06:29] and the end user side, and that's a connection that I. a lot of brands are gonna be investing in in the future. So, kudos to you for, for connecting those dots. thanks. I Is that something that you, cr you created or, or you said like, Hey, I really want to do this, or,

[00:06:42] Miriam: so just kind of spawn up.

[00:06:44] It's, first of all, your, your perspective on, on my background is interesting. I think it makes a lot of sense because, I have a lot of empathy. both towards end users and towards product creators. And also, by the way, part of my role is to, I want to be creating strong relationships with, with products in the ecosystem.

[00:07:00] Not necessarily elementary related, but products that are helpful to elementary users and so that we have a conversation going with them as well. Because I know that there can be frustration, let's say, from a plug-in developer. Let's say there's a compatibility issue with elementary and they just don't know who to talk to.

[00:07:13] That's what I'm here for. And having that developer background, the product background, team background, I can do that effectively. so yeah. And then in terms of how this product, this role came about, . I actually, I always figured that whenever I moved on from Stratec and I didn't know when that was going to be, my next role would probably be something like this.

[00:07:31] it just seemed to me to make a lot of sense and to be something that also I was, the concept of behind it is exciting to me and also it's essentially what I've been doing anyways, over the years, when I had my agency and when I, when I was running strata,building, relationships and connections.

[00:07:46] Miriam: I love, I love meeting people, and I, I love doing that. And, yeah, so I've got like 15 years of that behind me. I didn't, I didn't expect this to be a role at elementary, and I don't know if they, how long they were thinking about it. I, I think they understood, when we joined Strata, when we joined elementary.

[00:08:03] it was really important for me to continue leading alongside Josh, my co-founder, to, for the transition to hopefully, go as smoothly as possible, and integrating our team with Elementor. and emotionally, I wasn't ready to, to kind of step aside. but I we're at the point now where the team is well integrated in Elementor.

[00:08:19] Miriam: we already are working with people who aren't from the core, or like OG Stratec team on Stratec, and they're bringing their value and their, talents to the team. And I started to, I, I do feel like it's a time where, I can comfortably step aside and let you know other people do what they're doing well.

[00:08:36] And, and also I started working on Strat. we, we founded the company in 2018, but I had already been like, working on the concept before that. I had joined some s startup accelerators, so I'm also ready for a change. so yeah, so when they came, when they approached me with this idea, at first, it's, it's a very bittersweet.

[00:08:54] Idea. when I met, Yoni, the c e o and he was like talking to me about this role, we were in a meeting room with glass [00:09:00] windows and I, I, like, I had my , my face and my hands kind of looking like I was upset. Someone walked by and she was like, are you okay? Are you still part of the company? ? Like she ? Yeah.

[00:09:11] Yeah. But it was like, It was an exciting idea for me, but also, it's bittersweet because, strats like my other baby, and, it meant moving on, but it's, I think it's the right thing for everyone and, and that's how it, that's how essentially came about and, and we've been building the concept and strategy behind it and.

[00:09:27] but, and as I said, well, I'll be learning as I go along, but, yeah. but now, I've come to terms with it. I'm very excited and I, and I don't have to fully leave Strat. I'm going to continue there in an advisory capacity. I'm still involved, with product related things, as it comes up.

[00:09:39] Miriam: So, so it's a good, it's a good balance for me.

[00:09:42] Matt: So I'll put you in the hot seat. Just a touch. Okay. , I've been, reviewing, I mean, and I think we've talked about this before, either. Publish live on, on one of my podcasts or maybe personally together. But I look back, I look at the feedback from, I guess, the loudest folks in the room of like, during that live stream, on Elementor videos I see on, on YouTube in Facebook groups.

[00:10:06] And the demand from page builder users blows my mind. , right? Because I feel that Elementor gets an unfair. shaken all of this cuz I see so many people demanding things like, why haven't you rolled this out? Why isn't this better? And I look at it from a 50,000 foot view as a, product, kind of like a product person myself, Elementor trying to make web development easier.

[00:10:32] Like we're, they're trying to take 20 years of crusty old language and turn it into a click and drag interface for you to build a. And you're demanding things for a $50 license, and it blows my mind. Now, you don't have to directly respond to, an individual user in that response, but it's a pretty difficult challenge, I guess, for you and maybe for Elementor, but.

[00:10:57] I'm sure you have ways of smoothing things over, as part of your strategy, but, I mean, what are your thoughts on price points and expectations for users that like at minimum we're selling the, selling their services for what, at least a thousand bucks a website. Right? Literally a thousand bucks a website off of a $50 license.

[00:11:15] I mean, come on people. Let's be a little bit more fair here.

[00:11:18] Miriam: I know. So,

[00:11:19] Matt: Maybe those are things you want to say, but you can't because you're an Elementor. But I'll say it for you. No,

[00:11:23] Miriam: no, it's, and I'll let you sort of, it's great what you're saying and I'll, I'll share my perspective. Particularly, I still see myself as kind of, I'm not an outsider at elementary, but I'm very new.

[00:11:32] Like I've been there for six months and actually prior to using elementary, so joining Elementor, I wasn't an Elementor user. In my agency, for example, we didn't build websites with elementary. We used advanced custom fields or whatever. So, I. I, my perspective, my character is kind of a geeky developer type of person, so I always had a hard time with elementary's approach to the software, which is kind of like adding a layer to WordPress.

[00:11:57] I like things to tie into the core. [00:12:00] they've improved that by the way, over the years. but since joining elementary, I've, it's opened my eyes to a number of things. One, the insane volume of usage of. I, I call it a platform. It's, we, we say plug-in, but, but elementary does so much that it's way more than a plug-in.

[00:12:17] It's a platform. And sure, we're talking, I think now there are over 12 and a half million, active installs or something like that. That's insane. And. because of joining elementary, people start talking to me as an elementary, which makes sense. for example, we're Kemp, us or online or whatever, and I people to say things to me like, I am in love with elementary.

[00:12:38] It's changed my life. I've built my business on it. or I spoke to someone who leads a community in the far East and she was like, we all love elementary. We have elementary meetups, and we're just, people walk around proudly with elementary t-shirts, so, I've seen the tremendous value that Elementor brings to millions and millions of people.

[00:12:57] And, and it sounds ridiculous and farfetched because it's a platform, but like it has changed people's lives in that it's enabled people to build businesses, and support themselves wherever they are. It's incredible. So when you have that huge, user base of over 12 million. Then, you're obviously going to have unhappy people and in general mm-hmm.

[00:13:16] as we all know, the unhappy people are the loudest . So, I hear one-on-one, the positive feedback, but then the negative people, they are very happy to write in all caps online, what they think. so, I think that, it's important to listen and I know that the top leadership Elementor listens very, very closely to all this feedback and takes it really to heart, which I think is really impressive.

[00:13:38] Cuz if it was me, I would be like, well look, 12.69. . People love it, and a hundred thousand don't, right? But they, they really take it to heart. And then there's an additional kind of silver lining to this, which is that the people who are the most demanding, it's because they care. And so there's that perspective as well, which is that they want it because they want to keep using elementary and they're frustrated for whatever reason, and they're expressing their frustration because they care.

[00:14:03] So, . there's that, and then it's just generally the internet where people feel entitled to everything, even if they're just paying 50 bucks a year and . It's just, that's just, it is how it is and, it's good they have a voice and that they can express themselves. It's important to take it with a grain of salt, but also to pay attention, particularly when there's trends to what people are saying.

[00:14:21] Like, in the live show, they announced mega menus. People are like so excited about mega menus. I never thought I would see so much excitement about a menu. . . And so, I see, and this is the other side of this. Yeah. People are entitled and people complain really loudly and sports scheme mind that they're the, generally the minority and et cetera.

[00:14:40] But,over the last, I don't know, year or two years or something, there was, there, there a disconnect did develop between element of the company and the user. in terms of, having a way to express what the users wanted and Elementor responding, or at least acknowledging or addressing. And this live show [00:15:00] event was a, from my perspective, and I think from a lot of people's perspective, it was a game changer for Elementor because it was the first time that elementary was.

[00:15:09] in that format, addressing their user base directly and saying, we heard you and now we are going to share with you our plans. And they brought like top people from the company to present. I mean, Gabby is a top product leader. sheo, he talked about performance. SHEO is like, One of probably the performance experts on the, on the planet, to share their knowledge, to share the plans, and really like, and also everyone from the elementary team had everyone but the people who need to, were reading the comments and listening and analyzing and learning.

[00:15:38] From them. And the idea, by the way, also this live show, it was like dec, they decided to do it like a few weeks ago and then everyone scrambled and like basically didn't sleep for a few weeks and then did it. So , that was how it worked out. And you still describe it as applesque, which is a testament to the hard work that went into it.

[00:15:55] It wasn't perfect. , the idea was, let's do it. Let's do the best we can. We'll learn from it, and then we'll do better the next time. And the goal is to do these more frequently. So anyways, that's how I see all of that. As a person who developed a product, I, I've experienced this where, there's the big complainers, but then there's also the people who love it and aren't as loud.

[00:16:13] And it's, it's all good. I, it's good to have communication open. And that's the goal with my role in, in elementary in general.

[00:16:18] Matt: Yeah. As somebody who, spends his time, analyzing these, these types of things, when we look at,wordpress.org,WordPress, and this has come up before, I'm not the first to say it has, a branding problem, right?

[00:16:31] I think there's, it's cuz there's no one direct, like, Hey, where's the marketing department? There's, it's all volunteers, right? Mm-hmm. . So of course there's, there's that as the caveat. People aren't like, Hey man, I'm gonna go and start up a WordPress site. maybe now they are, which is great because of what's happened with Twitter and, and Macedon and like, people are starting to realize in 2023, Hey, maybe, maybe we shouldn't give all our content to platforms, social platforms and ai.

[00:16:57] Mm-hmm. , generating machines, which is cool, but WordPress has a, has that branding problem, but WordPress also has 50% of the web, let's call it . So there's also, that benefit. So when I see Elementor. Who builds on top of, of WordPress, they're very smart to have a strong branding and marketing vision because you have to.

[00:17:17] That's gonna be a particular advantage. Yes. It's still to, to WordPress, but you can sway a whole bunch of people who. Might have like just disregarded WordPress, but then saw Elementor and said, well, this is cool. Like this makes sense. Absolutely. and that's a, I think that's a particular strategy that, you know, a lot of WordPress products, not just Elementor or Page Builders, but a lot of WordPress products should take, because now's the.

[00:17:37] The advantage because at any time,Matt could switch the old, , the old off button on, on what we can all do. And, it might all just go to wordpress.com one day. I mean, I doubt Yeah, that's the advantage that,

[00:17:47] Miriam: that they have. But, what you're saying is, so there's a few things to that.

[00:17:51] One is, also since joining elementary, I've learned. that a lot of users come to WordPress, not directly to WordPress. They come through elementary. So elementary is [00:18:00] contributing to WordPress's general, user base in a significant way. And I think that needs to be recognized that they're offering a user experience that, People prefer, and I understand why, because it's basically no code and you can get a site up and running relatively easily, on WordPress, which has also advantages because WordPress is open source and has a strong, contributing community, and I think has a strong future.

[00:18:24] Having said that, I think we all need to be a bit concerned about the future of WordPress. We can't just be like, well, it's essentially 50% of the internet, so we're good. We need to make sure that the user experience in general with WordPress is aligned with the way people expect. Products to work today.

[00:18:43] I was talking to someone from, who's connected to hosting companies and he said a lot of people sign up for an account on hosting companies and don't actually activate their account. And I'm talking about a lot. And why is that? Because they get to the installation stage and they're like, what is going on here?

[00:19:01] Right , like it's, in, in my day when I started using WordPress, that was like a cool, streamlined installation process for a piece of software. But these days people just wanna be like, click, I have a website, and now they have to go through this whole thing. So, we are competing with the rest.

[00:19:16] All of us are competing with the, the other products and the rest of the web and, we really need to take to heart that. That we all need to be working on WordPress's brand, and making it something that's appealing in whatever way. But, if we don't, then, we risk losing just our, our market share and, and the future.

[00:19:35] So I don't think it's dire at all, but I think it's something that we all need to keep in mind that, . Yeah. We have a strong base. And yeah, in many ways WordPress is still the ideal solution for, website builders, but we have strong competition. And on the user experience side of things, we are, in many ways losing.

[00:19:53] So elementary does help with that. but it's, I think something that the overall industry needs to keep in mind.

[00:19:59] Matt: Elementor also has a strong,I guess investments, the first word that comes to my head, a strong investment in, community side. Mm-hmm. , I, I know at one point there was like, a directory.

[00:20:10] Sort of, hire an element or a professional. I don't, I don't know how, if that still exists, but I know they do a lot with highlighting folks in the community, other builders with different skillsets, not just, Hey, I can design a site with Elementor, but I can also do marketing copywriting. Mm-hmm. , or at least that's the last iteration that I saw, which I think is again, a particular advantage over heck, even wordpress.com and, and Jetpack.

[00:20:31] I feel like I've, and I've said this out loud before as well. , look what shop. I mean, Shopify now is a bad example, , but over the last few years they did bolster their partnership community, their add-on community, whatever they call it. I always felt like they did a pretty good job of that as a commercial company, although maybe not so much these days, but I think that's like a pr, a great advantage that a product, can, can incorporate into not only their marketing, their brand messaging, but helping other people get connected with other professionals who use their product.[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] And I think that's where WordPress. Like I was saying, dot com, jetpack.org really loses out because, man, there's so many people that, that build websites with WordPress, obviously, that there should be a center point, to bolster the, the builder community of WordPress, but Elementor does that.

[00:21:15] Great. Is that something that. you'll be integrating in with your efforts or still too early to tell?

[00:21:21] so with regards to elementary builders, there are a number of people on the elementary team who have, roles related to that. elementary has always been pretty strong with their, with the elementary community.

[00:21:32] Miriam: And, that I think will continue to, to be the case. I think that directory does still exist. It might be hard to find, but, someone actually just shared the link with me, so. Somewhere . and yeah, elementary does a great job of supporting and celebrating, elementary users. My goal is, less around that and more around, creating relationships and potentially collaborations or who knows, like again, this is something that we can see how it goes with, with other companies and products, in the.

[00:21:58] and, just, yeah, like have, have an open channel of communication. basically the reason my title is head of WordPress relations is because I'm going to work on creating real relationships. What happens with those relationships in the end is, we'll see, but I think good things will happen when people.

[00:22:16] Miriam: Have a connection, and a relationship with, with someone, then, ideas can flow and, exciting things can happen. So, so that's, that's going to be more of my focus.

[00:22:26] Matt: I wanna talk about, a little bit about the future of WordPress. We started hinting at it a little bit, like we should all be supporting it, marketing it, but also it's, it's something that could be taken away at any time.

[00:22:36] A lot of us have learned our lessons about playing in someone else's sandbox, for sure. For the second, for the second, state of the word. In a row. I heard Matt again reiterate that he feels that blocks, can or Gutenberg project or blocks can be, or might be bigger than WordPress in the future in terms of size, implementation, I guess integration, however he sees it.

[00:22:57] That's always been an interesting angle for me because what got me into Word, what really got me into WordPress in the early days is when he used to say that WordPress was an operating system for the web, which is a, a tagline I really bought in heavily with Yeah. back in the day and, and I look at blocks as, okay, that's his iteration of that statement probably.

[00:23:15] We've seen Joe Spolsky, who has built two unicorns in the tech space with, Trello and. the code repository, of course, I'm gonna forget the name of it. Co stack Stack Overflow . Oh, he built both of those companies. He's launching, he's launching, this sort of blocks revolution that he's, running independently of, of WordPress.

[00:23:34] Of course. Future of WordPress for you? Is it, is it blocks, is it these micro chunks of code that are spread out across the world, but all sort of, I don't know, communicate back to the WordPress project? What are your thoughts on that?

[00:23:47] Miriam: It's a good question. I appreciate the vision and I think it's in line, with Matt's approach to building products in general.

[00:23:53] Like, I think I, I don't know exactly how he saw building WordPress in the beginning. pretty early on he started talking about it, [00:24:00] taking on more and more, shares of the internet in general. And, and that's where it headed. So I appreciate a giant vision that says, okay, this thing, this new thing that we're building is so useful that it's going to be huge and even potentially bigger than press.

[00:24:15] so I, I really appreciate that and I think that's, . Matt is a great leader for WordPress in general, because he keeps looking forward. But having said that specifically about blocks, it's hard for me to just comprehend how it, how they bring so much value to the internet that that's where it's going.

[00:24:35] Miriam: It doesn't mean I'm right at all. I, sometimes I'm, I have a very good eye for things that are going to be success. sometimes even before other people, and sometimes I don't understand why something will be successful. And then it is, and then I get. , I feel like I, I personally need to see it being used in just more scenarios and to understand why or how that could be such a hugely valuable thing that it kind of takes over the internet.

[00:25:00] so I, it's, it's really hard for me. It's, it's hard for me to, to say I feel like that type of functionality exists in other products. Do we need to unify it around the web and what, how is that an advantage? It's un, it's unclear to me, which doesn't mean anything because , I don't, I'm, I always know everything.

[00:25:19] Miriam: It's just, it's hard for me to understand it. I think in general, when, when, Gutenberg like was announced and, and became the emphasis of development, I was relieved. , I think that was, I still was managing my agency. And the reason I was relieved is because of, it relates to what I said before about the future of WordPress.

[00:25:36] I was very concerned about, the future of WordPress because the user experience is, is so problematic and challenging. Like you put someone in there who's a content creator or marketer, and they are just like, where do I look first? What do I do first? I have no idea. I see all this stuff with the sidebar.

[00:25:52] Miriam: I don't know what any of it means. I'm totally confused. Eventually they can get the hang of it, but that's, that's very problematic. first experience. So, I saw Gutenberg as kind of bringing modern approaches to content creation and, that we see in other platforms to WordPress, which, I thought was a good thing.

[00:26:07] And I, and I still think it is, it's really important. But in terms of what I think the future of WordPress is, I think it's going to be comprised of a number of other types of trends. So, for example, , no code in general. how are we helping users, with Gutenberg and beyond, use WordPress in a seamless way where they don't have to think about what's going on around WordPress.

[00:26:31] They shouldn't have to worry about a server and they shouldn't have to almost worry about hosting or things like that. So I think, So that's, that's one thing. Obviously, it's not gonna be a surprise. I think that bringing modern approaches to web development, to WordPress makes it more appealing to developers, which is key developers are decision makers, and we need them to be excited about using WordPress.

[00:26:50] So, the headless static trend. Yeah, shocking, right? Cause I founded a company in this space, . But I think that the headless static trend helps make WordPress more appealing to a more [00:27:00] technologically savvy audience. that is really, really key. yeah. So, those are just some, some examples of, of trends.

[00:27:07] there's some exciting things that are being worked on, like the playground or S Q L light that I think, make WordPress a little bit more fun to work with for developers than it was. So these are, these, these types of projects, I think, Are important. And blocks too, maybe. I mean, for WordPress?

[00:27:22] Miriam: Yeah, for the web. I don't know. but these are all good things, right?

[00:27:24] Matt: Yeah, I mean, when I, again, Elementor sits in this interesting sort of crossroads of,pure WordPress users, and then there's, especially over the last couple of years, but really interested to see with, the economy in 2023, the sort of maybe lull in technology.

[00:27:41] I mean, there were tons of no-code solutions over the last few years. , which maybe spawned up from,COVID days lockdown. Nobody's doing anything except for coding. like playing with new toys. Mm-hmm. and stuff like that. And, I was wondering back then, a couple years ago, like, wow, like now people are gonna be hit with dozens of like no code alternatives to WordPress and even alter like easier alternatives to Wick and Squarespace.

[00:28:06] Yeah. these little micro builders of, of data, that people could put together, with blocks, just not with Gutenberg blocks. And it was really interesting to see that. And I'm, I'm curious, I have. Real hard line speculation of this, but I'd imagine that you start to see those things go away and Elementor sort of stands out as a no, as like a no-code, low-code tool to WordPress, which is a good.

[00:28:29] I assume a good position for them, to be in. So the web and this fractured c m s, space that we've seen, I, I think is gonna be interesting to see how it pans out in, in 2023. Cuz no code was a hot topic for the last couple of years for

[00:28:43] Miriam: sure. Yeah. no code, a lot of these topics become hot topics until they just become kind of, par for the course and everyone's like, oh, that was a topic.

[00:28:50] like, cuz now it's just,

[00:28:51] Matt: you know what I mean? It's like now I just ask chat Gino to do my whole website for

[00:28:56] Miriam: me. So , but I think no code was like, being a standing out as a trend was important. And I think you're right elementaries, as company stands out in that space and that's I think why they have like, Whatever million websites running on their platform, because it provides a lot of people an easy way to, to build websites as needed.

[00:29:15] but I do think that as, as a company, it's really important to also speak to the developer base. I'm always going to be biased around that because that's always been like my, my comfortable space. But, but what's been really nice at elementary over the last while as well. Is that they now have a developer's, content area, in their site.

[00:29:32] Miriam: And, they have some, like, some of the best WordPress developers in the company like that in the world. one of them is, someone named Rami Cheva and he started writing developer oriented content. Really great stuff. Like I'm talking about. These are heavy pieces. and, I'm hoping that kind of content starts to get a wider audience because, while elementary is often perceived as like, a developer be like, that's not for me.

[00:29:54] That's the, I wanna like get into the guts of the thing or whatever. But, but it does have, developer [00:30:00] oriented features, that can make, their experience better as well. So I've been excited about seeing this content coming out from rummy and people should, people should look

[00:30:06] Matt: it up. It's good.

[00:30:07] All right, so I don't wanna let you go without you talking about your baby Stratec . how's, how is the product, positioned now that you are sort of, pivoting away from that and, any cool new features or enhancements coming out that folks

[00:30:19] Miriam: should know about? So, we actually did a roundup of like the stuff we released in 2022.

[00:30:24] It's on our blog, and I don't remember like offhand what's in there, but we did some really, really cool stuff, that we released. basically the vision has continuously been to enable people to, to publish a site as a fully static site while keeping the user experience tied to the native WordPress experience as much as possible.

[00:30:42] So people shouldn't, have to like, be learning too many new things in order to use. And, a lot of our feature releases, so in 2022, were related to that. And, it's really exciting to see, our customers using strata and getting a lot of success from it. By the way, this is something that Sheila I mentioned to him showed me.

[00:30:59] there's a core web vitals, data source from Google, and you can compare different hosting companies and their performance overall. and Stratec blows everyone away. I'm serious, , like, I'll send you the link after. It's insane. Like everyone, because we were running a static site. and it's just always going to be more performant, always more reliable, et cetera.

[00:31:18] Miriam: So, seeing these great results and, our customers say to us they can sleep well at night because they don't have to worry about the site crashing or, being breached, or it's just like the most solid way to run a, a WordPress site while you still get to retain, the advantages of WordPress.

[00:31:30] So, the product has really like improved by leaps and bounds and, and yeah. So, it's, it's doing well. our product direction is very exciting. also we, something I learned over these past years is listening closely to our customer base, our user base, and we prioritize based on that, where it makes sense.

[00:31:47] Like what you said, like, I want 58 templates. Okay. That's, that kind of thing. Or I want, I don't know what, but we've improved our published time so that it's faster and we have more dyna support for dynamic functionality using edge, functionality and technologies. And, it's just, it's a really cool product and I'm excited to see, where it's at and I know it's gonna go great places.

[00:32:04] I feel like I did my part that I'm good at, which is getting something from zero to one. I don't know if you're familiar with that book Zero to One, but I feel like I can filter a lot. There was no product. There is a product. It's being used. People are successful with it. It's a great product. They love it.

[00:32:19] Miriam: We get amazing feedback. and now it's time to really, grow it and, and other people. Can probably do that better than me. And so they, it's a, it's a good place for it to be at.

[00:32:29] Matt: I mean, I, I'd say you got it from zero to a hundred. I mean, let's, let's be fair here, , like, I think you took it a little bit more beyond one.

[00:32:35] Oh.

[00:32:36] Miriam: With all of your, thank you.

[00:32:38] Matt: With all of your efforts, Miriam Schwab, where can folks find you to

[00:32:40] Miriam: say thanks? okay. So I'm in, make WordPress, slack, Miriam Schwab. I'm in Post Slack, I'm on Twitter. My dms are open, Miriam Schwab. you can email me miriam elementary.com. and you can come see me at Work Camp Beja and say hi in person.

[00:32:52] That would be really fun.