Episode 131 – Cate DeRosia

Introducing Cate DeRosia

Cate has wandered around WordPress for the last five years speaking, organizing, and being an engaging human. Currently, she’s building out a family business and investigating how to expand HeroPress into a new kind of membership site.

Show Notes

Twitter | @mysweetcate

Website | HeroPress

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions and our guests share their stories, ideas, and perspectives.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 131.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we’re joined by Cate DeRosia. Cate has wandered around WordPress for the last five years speaking, organizing, and being an engaging human. Currently, she’s building out a family business and investigating how to expand HeroPress into a new kind of membership site. Hi, Cate. We’re so glad you’re here.

Cate: Hi, thanks for having me.

Liam: It’s our pleasure, Cate. Thanks so much for joining us here. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself more than what Tara shared?

Cate: Sure. I’ve been around website development since about 1996. My husband is Topher. He’s a longtime developer. I like to say that he started building websites before the internet had pictures. We’ve been married for 22 years. I homeschooled both of our girls who both graduated. The youngest graduated last year. So it’s really nice to be done with that. And I’ve been transitioning into whatever I’m going to do with my next stage of life.

Having a family that’s so deeply ingrained in WordPress, I wanted to see if that was something that I could pursue too. I’ve done a lot of ad jobs. I’ve done some work for WPSessions. I’ve done some work for Tom McFarlin. I’m really good at content related things, a lot of the soft business skills, the things that are starting to develop in WordPress as viable potential career options. And it’s kind of led me to building out a family business that encompasses the development work Topher does occasionally along with the things my younger daughter Sophie is interested in, a more of a management implementation kind of level, and then the content work that I like to do.

So it’s really helping do the extra things that websites need. It’s no longer enough to just have a website. You need to have a website where people want to be. And we’re looking at putting in the time to build out engaging websites or to add engaging aspects to websites to help improve customer loyalty and to actually better represent the business and its personality on the website.

Then of course, we also worked via HeroPress. We’ve had here press for about five years. It’s been a really interesting adventure. It’s been a little bit like the mistress in our family. But it’s also something that we are looking at turning into something that is community membership-based where people in the community can support some new content initiatives to help build better resources for other people who are entering the WordPress community, particularly in places where resources aren’t as easily accessed.

So, third world countries, just anywhere around the world. Even where I grew up just two hours north of where I am here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the opportunities are difficult to find. And so if we can turn HeroPress into a place where not only people are inspired but can come to find actual practical help, we think it’d be a real asset to the community.

Tara: Sounds like you have a lot to share.