Episode 86: Evan Sheingross and Daniella Knelman

Introducing Evan Scheingross and Daniella Knelman

Evan has been creating websites since the last century. Daniella has a 14-year background in higher education. Together, they’re now trying to grow Evan’s business into something that can sustainably support their family of four.

Show Notes

Website | Minimal Chaos

Blog | Minimal Chaos Blog

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 86.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Evan Scheingross and Daniella Knelman. Evan has been creating websites since the last century. Daniella has a 14-year background in higher education. Together, they’re now trying to grow Evan’s business into something that can sustainably support their family of four. Hi, Evan. Hi, Daniella.

Daniella: Hi.

Evan: Hi.

Tara: Hello. Welcome. So glad that you’re here today. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourselves?

Evan: Sure. I guess I will go first. I am Evan and I’ve been making websites since the Dinosaur days of the late ’90s. And working professionally, running my own business, doing so for over 10 years now.

Daniella: Hi, I’m Daniella. I’m Evan’s wife. I guess you can put that out there.

Evan: Sure, that’s helpful.

Daniella: [laughter] Yeah, Evan’s wife. The WordPress community and the web development community is pretty new for me. I’ve always watched Evan. I’ve been in the background watching Evan run his business and build websites for over 10 years, but I actually had a separate career in higher education, working in student affairs at a local university for almost 14 years, I guess. Wow, that makes me feel kind of old. But recently, I left my position and we decided to give it a go and really see what we can do together working towards one goal and growing Evan’s business. So here we are, trying to make it all happen.

Tara: Wow. Can you tell us a little bit more about that decision and how long it took you to come to it and what was involved and sort of more about your plans, what role you’re going to be playing in this new venture, Daniella?

Daniella: Absolutely. In some ways, I would say we’ve always thought about doing this probably since Evan actually went 100% out on his own. He had worked for some companies in the early days, but then I think starting in 2009, he was doing his own business completely. We’ve always thrown around like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be great if we worked together? I think we’d be a good team. We’re doing it in other ways in life pretty well so maybe we can bring that to a business.” But it really financially didn’t make sense. I had a career that I really enjoyed but I would say 2015 was the first time we really thought hard about doing this and actually sat down and looked at the numbers and started talking about strategy. That was probably when our first son was about six months old. We were starting to feel those effects of being first-time parents and juggling me being back to work and kind of the chaos that goes along with having a small child. But after looking at the numbers and really thinking it through, we said, “No, this isn’t a good time for us.” So we kind of kept talking about it every now and then but I stayed at my position. Then our second son was born in November of 2017 and I would say that for us was a big shift. We were managing with one and then we brought a second one in and it ...