EP451 – Accelerating WordPress w/ Jonathan Wold

This week on WPwatercooler Sé Reed and Jason Cosper will be talking with Jonathan Wold about some of the economic and development problems facing plugin-based businesses in the WordPress ecosystem, and his new plan to help. https://guildenberg.com Summary In EP451 of WPwatercooler, titled “Accelerating WordPress w/ Jonathan Wold,” hosts Sé Reed, Jason Cosper and Jonathan Wold dive deep into the WordPress ecosystem, its growth, and its integral role within the open web. They highlight the importance of the open-source nature of WordPress, its extensibility through plugins and themes, and the vibrant community that has formed over the past two decades. Reed and Wold emphasize the unique incentives present in open-source projects, which foster passion and diverse contributions, in contrast to proprietary platforms. The hosts explore the role of commercial plugins and businesses in addressing gaps in the WordPress ecosystem, citing the significance of tools like Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and Pods for website development. They also discuss the resilience of the WordPress community in the face of competition from proprietary platforms and assert that the project’s real strength lies in its global contributors’ collective efforts. Wold shares his vision of WordPress as an operating system and notes the importance of product companies in driving its growth. He identifies three main challenges faced by these companies: monetization, compatibility, and an unnamed third challenge. Wold also highlights the need for a healthy, resilient web with pockets of development worldwide, exploring the differences between centralized and decentralized communities. The podcast delves into the issues within the WordPress ecosystem, including its complexity, hosting companies’ reluctance to recommend specific plugins, and challenges for investors due to its decentralized nature. Wold introduces Guildenberg, an organization aiming to help product companies overcome these challenges by offering neutral support in the WordPress ecosystem. Guildenberg will initially operate as an accelerator, working with individual products and assisting with distribution, partnerships, and hosting company relations. Guildenberg’s ultimate goal is to foster long-term thinking and support founders’ best interests, including when they’re ready for an exit. The organization aims to help founders find non-hosting company buyers and may even consider acquiring some companies themselves. Wold emphasizes the importance of backing founders and preserving the overall health of the WordPress ecosystem.