Is there ever a right time to start a business?

We could subscribe to every podcast, take every online course, thumbs up every video Troy Dean puts out on Facebook and we still wouldn’t be 100% ready.

Imagine having a full-time job and peddling your small piece of software on the side. Before you know it, it’s making 500 to 1,500 in monthly sales. If you dedicate more time to it, you can turn it into an almost full-time gig. But when? If you dedicate more time to it, where do you focus that precious resource?

Travis Lopes just made that leap from full-time at Rocket Genius — the makers of Gravity Forms — to run his software business, forgravity.com. He’ll take us down (or up?) the decision tree on how he weighed the opportunity ahead of him. Also, what about building for a niche product within a niche product?!

I appreciate a good side hustle story.

Someone slogging away in the cubical but slowly building up an audience on Twitter on the weekends. I’m sure you know all about the “build in open” movement, and today’s guest really shocked me with that.

See, maybe like you, I’ve listened to Dave Rodenbaugh on his podcast (with my boss Craig) Rogue Startups, for years now. But what really got me in today’s story, is that he was never really even “part-time” into his business Recapture.io.

In fact, the way he put it, he was only devoting 10% of his energy into the business while being contracted at a corporate gig he recently had the chance to exit from.

There’s lots of fun stuff in today’s episode covering everything from managing a day job to which marketing skills you need as a developer to kickstart your business. I hope you really enjoy it.

Recapture – Dave and Matt – Matt Report

[00:00:00] This episode is brought to you by paid memberships pro well, actually it’s their other product. Site-wide sales at site-wide sales.com. It’s a complete black Friday cyber Monday and flash sales tool for WooCommerce or paid memberships pro. Before, you know it, the deal day holidays will be fast upon us. And you want to prepare your WooCommerce or paid memberships pro website. 

[00:00:20] With the site-wide sales plugin, use it to make custom sale banners, targeted landing pages or apply discounts automatically in the cart. Use it to track the performance of all of these promotional features using the reporting feature, which will paint the picture of your black Friday and holiday shopping sales. I use it to help make your woo commerce or paid memberships pro store more money. 

[00:00:43] Get the first 30 days for free. And then it’s an easy $49 a year. Check out site-wide sales.com. That’s site-wide sales.com to make more money. This holiday sale season.  

[00:00:56]Let me tell you about creator courses.com/matt and how you can save 20% off using code mat to grab a hold of the great courses instructed by none other than Joe Casabona. So, what can you get from creator courses.com/matt. Courses to help business owners create stuff with absolutely no code. Learn how to build a website using beaver builder, Gutenberg, or both.  

[00:01:23]

[00:01:23]And that’s not all visit creator courses.com/matt and save 20% off Joe’s other courses on PHP, full site editing in my two favorites. Podcasting in automation. I think learning the automation stuff is well worth the ticket in my eyes. Go to creator courses.com/matt. Right now. Seriously, stop the podcast and use code mat at checkout to save 20% off that’s creator courses.com/matt and use code mat to save 20% off today.  

[00:01:52]I appreciate a good side hustle story. Someone’s slogging away in the cubicle, but slowly building up an audience on Twitter on the weekends. I’m sure you know, all about the building open movement and today’s guest really shocked me with that. See maybe like you I’ve listened to Dave Rohde and bond his podcast with my boss, Craig rogue startups for years now. 

[00:02:12] But what really got me in today’s story is that he was never really even part time into his business. recapture.io. In fact, the way he put it, he was only devoting 10% of his energy into the business. While being contracted at a corporate gig, he recently had the chance to exit from there’s a lot of fun stuff in today’s episode, covering everything from managing and day job to which marketing skills you need as a developer. 

[00:02:38] To kickstart your business. I hope you really enjoy it. You’re listening to the Matt report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the [email protected] slash subscribe and follow the podcast on apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Better yet. 

[00:02:54] Please share this episode. On your social media. We’d love more listeners around here. And side note, [00:03:00] I had to rerecord with Dave after some Zen caster snafoos so we’re picking up from our conversation a little bit, warmed up. Okay. I hope you enjoy.  

[00:03:09] Matt: [00:03:09] One of the things that I caught you at a great time last time because you were only, I think like two weeks a free man on your own you get out of that sort of day job slash consultancy that you were in. I had you at an interesting moment where you were like, everything’s coming at me. This is exciting.

[00:03:28]I, I’m kind of like looking to go to the next chapter of, of running recapture. Is that feeling still here or now that we’re like a month into it, things have settled, like, oh my God, you 

[00:03:39] Dave: [00:03:39] know, it’s kind of funny. It hasn’t really, I have not felt that euphoria lift yet. I imagine at some point it probably will.

[00:03:48]No, th this is, this is definitely the honeymoon phase, right. And at some point the honeymoon phase will always go. But I still feel it. In fact, I was just having breakfast with my wife this morning. We were sitting outside and, I noted her. I said, Hey, it’s been, almost two months since I left the freelance job.

[00:04:03] And she went, I know. And I was like, and it’s still great. So, I still, I still get up in the morning and we go do our walk and I come back and I have breakfast and coffee and I’m like, I get to spend my day on whatever the hell I want to today, which is of course recapturing my business, but there’s something still very energizing about that.

[00:04:27] Like, it’s all, it’s my own experience. I’m not really beholden to anybody other than the customers. I don’t have to do. Stupid bullshit meetings and phone calls and status reports and just all of that stuff that I had to deal with in the corporate world. It’s just all gone like that lift that sh that weight has still lifted off my shoulders.

[00:04:47] And I am just as happy then as I am. One 

[00:04:51] Matt: [00:04:51] of the things I think you hide really well. And I don’t know if this was intentional or I maybe just never even saw it because I’ve always been just looking at what you were doing with the recapture. You’ve been on the show, my podcast, before you have the podcast with Craig, who’s a happens to be my boss.

[00:05:07] I never knew how much. And then we had our discussion more in depth. I never knew how much that freelance gig. Was sort of like weighing you down or how much it consumed when you and I chatted. I think you, throughout the, the ratio of like, it was 90% day job in 10% recapture, and that was kind of mind blowing, like how you manage that, how did you manage like so much of recapture with only 10% of energy.

[00:05:37] Dave: [00:05:37] That’s an excellent question. And some days I’m amazed that things were able to progress along as well as they had because of that exact issue. And in fact, that was one of the main things I think that sort of drove me into this direction, like recapture could be doing so much better and here I am barely giving it enough oxygen to survive.

[00:06:00] [00:05:59] Why, why can’t I do more? So, but it wasn’t always this way. The freelance thing, it was probably at one point it was like 40% freelance and 60% everything else. But at the time that 60% was a good chunk of the WordPress plugins. I had that I ...

Probably just like you, the exploration for the secret ingredient to running a successful business is a tricky one.

Speaking for myself, I can tell you that I’m constantly trying to learn and dissect what some of the most successful brands are in my space.

• How did she do it?
• What does the website look like?
• Productized service or digital product?
• Smash that like button on a secret formula to generating $5m in Facebook ad sales

All of this with our blinders on. Sometimes, the real secret, is just staying in the game. Jason joined us eight years ago, right when he and his wife Kim were making the transition to full-time product sales, leaving custom client work behind.

Now, Paid Memberships Pro has over 100,000 active installs according the WordPress.org directory and his business is getting a lot more focused on…doing what works.

Has he considered convergent PMP into a hosted solution? What about outside acquisition? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out!

This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by how to market your plug-in dot com a framework for the sleep deprive developer. If you ask yourself, how do I get more downloads for my plugin? What about more sales? Should I do this lifetime license thing? You need to pick up the book, how to market your plugin over app. How to market your plugin.com.

Programming is about computer behavior. Marketing is about human behavior. Fortunately for us both a fairly predictable and you can learn more inside the book. How to market your plug-in dot com.

This book will help you market while you’re building your plugin. Instead of treating your marketing as a last resort. I can’t tell you how many times. How many interviews I’ve had, where the developer has just fallen upon luck and chance that they have a business in front of them. People are downloading their plugin. People are buying their plugin, but they hit a certain point of plateau where they need to scale. They need to get the word out there and this book will help you do it. Check it [email protected]. Thanks for supporting the show.

This episode is also brought to you by media, ron.com media ron.com Ronald Ereka he’s back. He creates WordPress plugins. In fact, one of his plugins I was searching for the other day. Totally forgot that he made it called highlight and share. He creates a highlight and share plug, and you can highlight sections of texts and share them with your network right on your WordPress website.

Event tracking for gravity forms, simple comment editing and custom query blocks.

I’m going to click into the event, tracking for gravity forms. Of course you’ll need gravity forms, but you can download event tracking for free, right from either his website, media, ron.com or search for it on wordpress.org. It’s got 30,000 plus active installs. Well at the time of this recording, it was, it was updated a week ago. But if you’re looking to connect Google analytics, Google tag managers, to your gravity forms. Well to do a vent trackings, this plugin will do the trick. Check out media, ron.com for more of his plugins, reach out the Ronald you reca. If you have any other questions about building a WordPress plugin for yourself.

Thanks for supporting the show.

Probably just like you, the exploration for the secret ingredient to running a successful business is a tricky one. Speaking for myself. I can tell you that I’m constantly trying to learn and dissect what some of the most successful brands are doing in my space. How did she do it? What does the website look like?

Product I service or digital product. Smash that like button on a secret formula to generate $5 million in Facebook ad sales.

And all of this with our blinders on. Sometimes the real secret is just staying in the game. Today’s guest first joined us eight years ago. Right? When he and his wife were making the transition to full-time product sales, leaving custom client work behind. Now paid memberships pro has over 100,000 active installs, according to the wordpress.org directory and his business is getting a lot more focused on doing what works.

Has Jason considered converting, paid memberships pro into a hosted solution. What about outside acquisition? You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out. You’re listening to the Maryport.

A podcast for the resilient digital business builders. Subscribe to the newsletter at maryport.com/subscribe or follow the podcast on apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts better yet. Share this episode on your social media. We’d love more listeners around here. Okay. Let’s get into today’s episode.

With Jason.

hey, Jason, welcome to the program.

Hey, it’s great to be here. I’m a big fan, a big listener, and it’s good to just get to chat with you again. Um, I’m going to do this every couple of weeks.

Like there’s a thunderstorm today and I’m going to, you know, the thunder storm is gonna cancel this one too, and I’ll have to reschedule for next week.

so I last had you on eight years ago, when you were one of the founding. Interviewees of the Maryport podcast, a lot has changed. And a lot hasn’t changed. Uh, for paid memberships pro and your business. Uh, and for WordPress. Chris lemma re recently wrote a post about, uh, the future success of WordPress, which we’ll get into in a little bit and sort of how he sees hosts playing a role in the adoption of WordPress, uh, streamlining WordPress onboarding, even specific flavors of let’s say membership sites, e-commerce sites, that kind of thing.

But go back in your time machine and let me know, where were you mentally? Eight years ago with the business. And when we first interviewed.

Yeah. Um, so that, that would have been 2013, which would have been a couple of years after paid memberships pro launched. And at that point PM pro was really a loss leader for our consulting business.

So it was mostly just Kim and I, and we had a couple of contractors, um, you know, who helped out with random things. But we, you know, we had a membership plugin for WordPress and we parlayed that into, you know, 10 to $30,000, you know, gigs installing WordPress from membership sites and things like that. Um, and we were, we were doing that transition of like, Hey, how do we transition from a consultant company to a products company?

We were just starting that around 2013 and, and also like figuring out our first hire. I remember how hard, like the first hire was, um, And now it’s kind of like, you know, we’re hiring all the time. It’s like, it has to be a process where we’re constantly, like we have relatively low turnover of employees and we’ve been like, grateful for that.

But even that, like just growing and, you know, people go occasionally that, you know, we have to, as a process now, like hiring people as a process, it was like a huge deal. The biggest thing of the year, you know, in 2013. And now it’s just another process. Yeah.

Probably one of the most, uh, popular, free membership plugins that are out there.

I know there’s a lot of plugins out there that sort of skate by semi membership. You know, they’re doing like log-in and access control, but certainly not to the degree of integration, ad-ons support general reach that you have memberships a hot space. Uh, when we...

The important role of an in-house media creator (or content creator) to a brand, especially in the software space, has been a topic weighing on my mind for a while.

In today’s episode, I break down a few clips from a recent episode of Bootstrapped Web, where hosts Brian & Joran discuss their challenge of filling this role.

I refer to this as Founder Marketing.

When a young company is hiring for this role, it’s a responsibility that can’t be left to the fundamental content creation tasks. A capable candidate must be able to channel their inner founder in order to create content that resonates across: sales, marketing, product, and support.

Someone that not only knows how to create a piece of content, but that also is as passionate for the business as they are the audience.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or engage with the following Twitter thread.

My friends @CasJam and @JordanGal are looking to hire for the "Media Creator" role. I do this for @CastosHQ and have lots of thoughts.

Someone that can execute, what I call, "Founder Marketing."

Let's start a

Forming a successful partnership in business might be the most powerful, yet, most challenging things to do right.

This goes beyond simply linking to each others business or handing over the occasional customer referral. I’m talking about two (or more) partners both handling responsibilities and working towards a shared goal for the overall mission.

Tara Claeys, founder of Design TLC, has a certain knack for this stuff. She co-hosted the WordPress podcast Hallway Tracks along side Liam Dempsey and is now laying down the roots with a new partner in podcasting, Aubrey Bursch.

So I think it goes a little something like this: Aubrey invests her knowledge and experience with Easy School Marketing into the podcast content, while Tara flexes her strengths in design, compassion and years of podcast experience.

Together they host Mindful School Marketing, The Go-To Podcast for Independent School Professionals.

Tara Mindful School Marketing Matt Report + 2

[00:00:00] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by mal care. Learn more about Malik here at Dot com. You’ve heard me talk about mal care before, but they’re back with some interesting updates. Not only are they the WordPress plugin with instant WordPress malware removal. Well, let me read some of these features. 

[00:00:15] Deep malware scanning. They know about malware that other plugins don’t. Number two, that one click malware removal process makes it super easy to remove from your WordPress website and number three, a new feature called auto bot ultra defense system. Okay. I made that ultra defense system part up, but get this, it automatically blocks the bots hitting your website. 

[00:00:35]So, not only does that protect your website, but in the long run, it’ll improve speed of your site from not letting those bots through the doors. Check out mal care at care.com that’s mal care.com. I don’t want to be a malware specialist. You don’t either check out mal. care.com. thanks for supporting the show

[00:00:56]Matt: [00:00:56] episode of the Matt report is brought to you by search WP. Find search [email protected]. Let’s talk about the power of their metrics. Add on for a moment. Since I redesigned the Matt report website, I put search front and center on my homepage. Why search WP metrics metrics. Give me the inside data to what visitors on my site are looking for.

[00:01:18] I love the graphs and the actionable advice that it provides me. I can make informed decisions to create new content or optimize existing content that my audience is searching for. Remember when Google gave you all of that search data? Yeah, it was great. Back then, way back then when they gave it to us, they don’t give it to us anymore.

[00:01:36] Put on-site search front and center for your visitors. Get that data back. Get searched [email protected] along with their metrics. Add on that search wp.com. Thanks for supporting the show.

[00:01:49] Forming a successful partnership in business might be the most powerful, yet most challenging things to do. Right. That’s probably an understatement of the year. This goes beyond simply linking to each other’s businesses or handing over the occasional customer referral. I’m talking about two or more partners, both handling responsibilities and working towards a shared goal for the overall mission. 

[00:02:10] Tara clays, founder of design TLC has a certain knack for this stuff. She co-hosted the WordPress podcast hallway tracks alongside Liam Dempsey, and is now laying down roots with a new partner in podcasting, Aubrey Birch. So I think it goes a little, something like this. Aubrey invests her knowledge and experience with easy school marketing into the podcast content while Tara flexes her strengths and design compassion, and years of podcast experience. Together. They host mindful school marketing, the go-to podcast for independent school professionals. 

[00:02:40]You’re listening to the Matt report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the newsletter at maryport.com/subscribe and follow the podcast on apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts better yet. Please share this episode on social media. We’d love more listeners around here. 

[00:02:56] Okay. Let’s talk to tara and aubrey and why they started this [00:03:00] crazy podcasting thing that they 

[00:03:02] Tara: [00:03:02] First of all. Thanks for that. Nice mention and hallway chats is really a labor of love that Liam Dempsey and I did for three years. And I think that was it a great experience for us and introduced me to podcasting and it was a complete community donation, there was no business development involved with it at all.

[00:03:21] And so, and we loved it and I continue to love it. But As time went on during that three-year period of time, I started niching down my own WordPress agency to do work for mainly schools and nonprofits. And as part of that process reached out and met other people in the school, community, marketing community, Adria among them.

[00:03:38] And she and I have been in a mastermind for over a year now. And so we struck up a good friendship and also collaboration, our services sort of overlap. And so the long answer is that we in that. In that relationship that we built as hallway chats was sort of winding down. I really didn’t even miss a beat before reaching out and seeing if Abby would like to do a podcast that that was directed toward our, our common target audience, but also that we could have fun doing as well.

[00:04:12]So there is a business development aspect of this for us, as well as a community aspect as well.

[00:04:18]Matt: [00:04:18] The, yeah, you’ve obviously have a knack for finding.

[00:04:25] Great co-hosts, which is not an easy feat in the podcasting world. It’s one that I have failed miserably at for about nine years as a podcast. It’s like just trying to find somebody who just wants to talk to me for an hour every week. What’s wrong with that.

[00:04:39] Shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s very difficult. Aubrey, I’m going to pass the question over to you. Is this your first time into podcasting? And if so, how did you feel 

[00:04:49] joining 

[00:04:50] Aubrey: [00:04:50] And it’s been a blast. And I am so thankful every day that Tara actually asked me to do a podcast with her because I was thinking around February, 2020, I was like, I should launch it. Podcast. And I’m so glad I didn’t act on that first impulse because Tara’s kind of taken me under her wing and really like showed me everything that goes into, preparation for a podcast, execution, everything.

[00:05:15] And it’s just been a great learning process for me. And also Tara?

[00:05:19] is one of the most generous, amazing. Like solid people you’re you’ve ever met. I, as you probably know, Matt. And so we just kind of hit it off in terms of, understanding each episode and what our flow was with the episode.

[00:05:34] And so we jumped right in and she’s been just such a great...

There’s a fine balance between optimizing your services for profits and providing satisfactory value for the money you charge your customers.

Let me frame that for you: A high-touch, white glove services business is people + time intensive.

If you own a boutique agency, you’re aware of the time and money you invest on all of processes around building a website.

It’s hard to prove value for, too.

And if you’re launching something like a done-for-you service, chances are there’s less customer interaction + hand holding, but at a price point that reflects the value.

You’re doing something the customers perceives as valuable for the money they’ve agreed to pay you, and your internal processes are efficient enough that you are profitable to repeat this type of work.

Lindsay Halsey, co-founder of Pathfinder SEO is taking this to the next level, with a guided approach. You get a valuable product, a valuable service, and then you sprinkle some controlled face-to-face time on top.

A guided productized service.

I’m absolutely fascinated by this and I think it’s the natural step to increase value in a world now saturated by productized services on one side, and Software as a Service on the other. Marry both worlds, and you get an extremely happy customer.

I hope you enjoy today’s episode, if you do, please share it with others!

Lindsay Halsey PathFinder SEO

[00:00:00] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by mal care. Learn more about Malik here at Dot com. You’ve heard me talk about mal care before, but they’re back with some interesting updates. Not only are they the WordPress plugin with instant WordPress malware removal. Let me read some of these features. 

[00:00:14] Deep malware scanning. They know about malware that other plugins don’t. Number two, that one click malware removal process makes it super easy to remove from your WordPress website and number three, a new feature called auto bot ultra defense system. Okay. I made that ultra defense system part up, but get this, it automatically blocks the bots hitting your website. 

[00:00:34]So, not only does that protect your website, but in the long run, it’ll improve speed of your site from not letting those bots through the doors. Check out mal care at care.com that’s mal care.com. I don’t want to be a malware specialist. You don’t either check out mal. care.com. thanks for supporting the show

[00:00:55]Matt: [00:00:55] episode of the Matt report is brought to you by search WP. Find search [00:01:00] [email protected]. Let’s talk about the power of their metrics. Add on for a moment. Since I redesigned the Matt report website, I put search front and center on my homepage. Why search WP metrics metrics. Give me the inside data to what visitors on my site are looking for.

[00:01:17] I love the graphs and the actionable advice that it provides me. I can make informed decisions to create new content or optimize existing content that my audience is searching for. Remember when Google gave you all of that search data? Yeah, it was great. Back then, way back then when they gave it to us, they don’t give it to us anymore.

[00:01:35] Put on-site search front and center for your visitors. Get that data back. Get searched [email protected] along with their metrics. Add on that search wp.com. Thanks for supporting the show. 

[00:01:49] There’s a fine balance between optimizing your services for profits and providing satisfactory value for the money you charge your customers. Let me frame that for you for a second. High touch white glove service business is [00:02:00] people in time intensive. Anyone that has run a small boutique agency knows that the time and money you invest on all processes around building a website is hard to prove value for. And if you’re launching something like a done for you service. 

[00:02:12]Chances are there’s less customer interaction and handholding, but at a price point that reflects that value. You’re doing something, the customer perceives as valuable for the money they’ve agreed to pay you. And your internal processes are efficient enough that you’re profitable. Every time you repeat this type of work. 

[00:02:28] Lindsay Halsy co-founder of Pathfinder. SEO is taking this to the next level with a guided approach. You get a valuable product with a valuable service. And then you sprinkle some controlled face to face time on top. I guided a product I service. I’m absolutely fascinated by this. And it’s the natural step to increase value in a world now saturated by product I services on one side and software as a service on the other. 

[00:02:53] Marry, both worlds and you get an extremely happy customer. You’re listening to the Matt report, a podcast for the [00:03:00] resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the [email protected] slash subscribe and follow the podcast on apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Better yet. Please share this episode on social media. We’d love more listeners around here. Okay let’s dive into today’s episode with lindsay 

[00:03:17]

[00:03:17] Matt: [00:03:17] One of the things I want to dive right into this, because Pathfinder SEO is not just. Hey, come hire you to do SEO stuff, right? It’s more than the services side. What is, what do you compliment the services side 

[00:03:30] Lindsay: [00:03:30] with that Pathfinders? We consider our approach to be a guided pathway. And when you think about the SEO world if you’re a business owner and you’re looking to get found on Google, you essentially have two options.

[00:03:42] One go and hire an agency. Have them build the traffic for you and engage in SEO. Or to take a, do it yourself, approach, take courses, install, plugins and learn your way through the process of growing your own traffic. And, and so we for many years for about 10 plus years have been over on the agency [00:04:00] side, delivering SEO services.

[00:04:02] And one of the things that we heard from business owners is that sometimes they can’t afford a professional to hire. And, and they can’t outsource that piece of their marketing. Other times they can’t find an agency, they can dress. To deliver sound SEO services, and yet the courses and things that, that take them out there and give them a lot of information.

[00:04:18] A lot of insight, the software out there gives a lot of insight, but doesn’t always actually show them the process to follow. So they didn’t really know what to do. And, and so that process-based approach to SEO is really what we specialize in over at Pathfinder on this guided approach. And so we share our process that we developed over 10 years break SEO down into a series of easy to follow steps.

[00:04:41]We include coaching because who doesn’t want to jump on a call with a mentor coach friend and, and get your answers answers to your questions and get held accountable for kind of going to the gym and doing the workout of guided SEO. And then tools. So you can do your keyword research, get your monthly reporting, track your rankings all in Pathfinder.

[00:04:58]And, and so that’s really where, [00:05:00] where we’re coming from is that happy medium between hiring an agency and going DIY. But then we also kind of discovered along the way that a lot of freelancers and a...

Today’s guest used to sit on the opposite sides of the WordPress hosting competition table from me.

At one point in his career, he was pumping out content on Kinsta’s blog like an absolute machine while I was raging against that machine, selling would-be customers on Pagely’s hosting stack.

So where is Brian Jackson, former marketer at Kinsta now?

He co-found Forgemedia with his brother Brett, and have released 3 unique plugins, two of which help WordPress site owners optimize their sites for ranking and social sharing. Oh, they tossed a coupon plugin in there too to help affiliates increase sales for good measure.

Once frienemy now Matt Report guest, I’m excited to share this conversation with you today.

Brian Jackson Forgemedia Matt Report

[00:00:00] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by mal care. Learn more about Malik here at Dot com. You’ve heard me talk about mal care before, but they’re back with some interesting updates. Not only are they the WordPress plugin with instant WordPress malware removal. Well, let me read some of these features. 

[00:00:15] Deep malware scanning. They know about malware that other plugins don’t. Number two, that one click malware removal process makes it super easy to remove from your WordPress website and number three, a new feature called auto bot ultra defense system. Okay. I made that ultra defense system part up, but get this, it automatically blocks the bots hitting your website. 

[00:00:35]So, not only does that protect your website, but in the long run, it’ll improve speed of your site from not letting those bots through the doors. Check out mal care at care.com that’s mal care.com. I don’t want to be a malware specialist. You don’t either check out mal. care.com. thanks for supporting the show

[00:00:56]Matt: [00:00:56] episode of the Matt report is brought to you by search WP. Find search [00:01:00] [email protected]. Let’s talk about the power of their metrics. Add on for a moment. Since I redesigned the Matt report website, I put search front and center on my homepage. Why search WP metrics metrics. Give me the inside data to what visitors on my site are looking for.

[00:01:18] I love the graphs and the actionable advice that it provides me. I can make informed decisions to create new content or optimize existing content that my audience is searching for. Remember when Google gave you all of that search data? Yeah, it was great. Back then, way back then when they gave it to us, they don’t give it to us anymore.

[00:01:36] Put on-site search front and center for your visitors. Get that data back. Get searched [email protected] along with their metrics. Add on that search wp.com. Thanks for supporting the show.

[00:01:49] today’s guest used to sit on the opposite sides of the WordPress hosting competition table. For me, at one point in his career, he was pumping out content on  blog, like an absolute machine. [00:02:00] Well, I was raging against that machine selling would be customers on Paisley’s hosting stack. So where is Brian Jackson?

[00:02:06] Former marketer at Kinston now. He co-founded forge media with his brother, Brett and have released three unique plugins, two of which help WordPress site owners optimize their sites for ranking and social sharing. Oh, they tossed that coupon plugin in there too.

[00:02:20] To help affiliates increase their sales for good measure. Once frenemy now, Matt report guests. I’m excited to share this conversation with you today. You’re listening to the Maryport podcast for the resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the newsletter now. report.com/subscribe and follow us on apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, better yet.

[00:02:40] Please share this episode on social media. More love we get more listeners. There are around here. Okay. Don’t forget to listen to the WP minute podcasts. It’s weekly. WordPress news. And under five minutes while I just said it every week, the WP minute.com. It’s the WP minute.com. Subscribe to the [00:03:00] newsletter there.

[00:03:00] Brian Jackson, here we go.

[00:03:02] Brian: [00:03:02] I am running just a small little agency with my brother. We’re both the co-founders of forge media is what it’s called.

[00:03:09] And we have a, kind of a marketing blog where we talk about WordPress related stuff in marketing and SEO. And then our main focus is actually our, we have three different WordPress plugins that we develop. One is a coupon plugin for like affiliate marketers, and other one is a social sharing plugin.

[00:03:27] That’s really kind of focused on the performance aspect of it. And then we have our perf matters plugin, which is basically trying to tweak, WordPress to get it to be as fast as he can kind of a compliment to. Some of the other performance plugins that are already out there. So like we see a lot of people are using ours along with another one.

[00:03:47] Matt: [00:03:47] \ I’m going to take this in the reverse order when we had our pre-interview something that just struck me. What is the attraction to. Social sharing plugins. I feel like it’s one of [00:04:00] those things, whereas , isn’t this solved already. Shouldn’t it be solved by WordPress at this point.

[00:04:06]Social media is obviously here to stay. We’re recording this in the year 2021. You’d think that those buttons, those things for sharing your articles and your posts out would have been solved already. What is the attraction to that? What’s so good about that. 

[00:04:22]Brian: [00:04:22] And actually. I would actually say since we’ve been in developing our programmatic plugin for a while, and now we’re developing our social sharing plugin, the social sharing plugin is actually more complex to develop than our performance.

[00:04:36] One sounds strange, but behind the scenes, there’s a lot more that goes on. Especially once you get into. Doing the social share counters and how to make that work for performance stuff. And then just Pinterest is just a nightmare to work with because you have your things, like you click a Pinterest image and it brings up all the images on the page.

[00:04:57] There you can select there’s different [00:05:00] things you have to go through. And WordPress is just never going to be up to par compared to The social sharing plugins. I think WordPress will get to the point where you’ll eventually have a nice block with, I want these three buttons. Here’s my block.

[00:05:11] I’ll drag it into the widget. We’re pretty much close to that. But as far as going beyond that, I don’t think we’re press ever...

It took me a while to draw out what I wanted to say in today’s monologue about our guest.

This will be his 6th appearance on the show. With this episode, we’ve covered 4 different SaaS based businesses, with a handful of digital products and one service-based business that’s still running, of which, I’ve never fully interviewed him about.

I really should since it’s the cashflow center he has to fund all of these business experiments he’s chasing.

His name is Brian Casel and he’s trying something new, it’s called ZipMessage. It’s an asynch way to share videos with customers & colleagues. Out of everything he’s worked on, I think this will be the software project that defines his career in the software business.

Just like I called it with Paul Jarvis and Fathom Analytics taking over his product world, I bet we’ll have Brian back on for a 7th time when he sells his company to Microsoft.

Enjoy today’s episode!

[00:01:39] Matt: [00:01:39] It took me a while to draw out what I wanted to say in today’s monologue about our guests. This will be a six appearance on the show. With this episode, we’ve covered four different SAS based businesses with a handful of digital products and one service-based business. That’s still running of which I’ve never really fully interviewed them about. I really should. Since it’s the cashflow center, he has [00:02:00] to fund all of these business experiments. He’s chasing.
[00:02:03] Can you guess who it is? His name is Brian Casel. He’s trying something new. It’s called zip message. It’s an async way to share videos with customers and colleagues. Out of everything he’s worked on. I think this will be the software project that defines his career in the software business.
[00:02:19]Just like I called it with Paul Jarvis and fathom analytics taking over his product world. I bet we’ll have Brian back on for a seventh time when he sells this business to Microsoft. You’re listening to the Maryport a podcast for the resilient digital business builders. Subscribe to the [email protected] slash subscribe and follow the podcast on apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Better yet. Please share this episode on your social media. We’d love more listeners around here. Okay.
[00:02:46] Let’s talk to Brian and find out why he’s launching yet another product. Hey everybody. Welcome back to what I’m calling the Brian report. Brian. Oh man. Welcome back to the podcast. You’ve [00:03:00] clearly won the, a amount of recurring times on the, on the merit port show. I should just have applied for all of the products that you launch. I should just have a podcast all to yourself and everything that you have going on today.
[00:03:12] We’re talking about. If that’s
[00:03:13] Brian: [00:03:13] not a sign of failure, I don’t know.
[00:03:15] Matt: [00:03:15] What is failure show castles here to talk about what might be another failure, the message you can find zip [email protected]. I’m going to open this up. I think a lot of people know your backstory. If they haven’t, they can listen to the half a dozen shows that you and I have already done on this podcast.
[00:03:33]Why this product last time we. We chatted. You were just getting your, you were, you were getting that sort of Ruby on rails, getting your chops down on that, like learning how to build whole other platform and suddenly zip message appeared out of nowhere. How, why, when did it come about, why did you pursue it?
[00:03:51] Brian: [00:03:51] Yeah. I don’t, I don’t remember exactly when our last show here on a I’ll call it Matt report aired. It must’ve been [00:04:00] probably around 2018 or 2019. I can’t believe it’s actually been that long, but you and I have chatted since then. The, so a little bit of of the timeline process kit, which is, you know, I still run and still going that product.
[00:04:15] I basically started working on it really full-time in January of 2019, I kind of started planning it in 18, but really got full-time into it in January 19. Launched that to first paying customers by around June of, I want to say, yeah, 2019, and then really focused a hundred percent on that. Throughout 19 and 20 and into 20.
[00:04:40] And then at the end of 2020 you know, process kit just got to the, to that place where a lot of SAS get to where, you know, a couple thousand in MRR it’s really slow to grow. It has some. You know, so some, some challenges I tried a bunch of stuff and I’m still trying some stuff, but I decided at, [00:05:00] in around December of 2020 to just take a step back and start to open my mind to like, maybe I should try another product or two or three.
[00:05:12] And actually like back in, back in, you know, back in January, the idea was. Let’s let’s throw a couple of ideas at the wall and see what sticks, but there was really this one idea called zip message, which I had the idea and midway through 2020, but I, you know, I shelved it along with all the other shiny object ideas in my long list of them.
[00:05:29]But I was like, let me just try this. Take a little breather from, from really pushing on process kit, put it, put the roadmap on process could a little bit on, on maintenance mode. And and I went into zip message and, you know, I really liked the idea. I was attracted to the idea because a number of different things.
[00:05:46]First of all, you know, in, in a lot of ways, it’s sort of really every business that I ever get into, I’m trying to course correct from something that I learned in the, in the previous one. Right. One of the big challenges with process kit [00:06:00] has been that it’s a really big. Product, which means it’s a really big task to adopt.
[00:06:05] If you’re a new customer, like it literally takes new customers a good month, at least of. Of like everyday work on their part to, to
[00:06:13] Matt: [00:06:13] really, they have to appeal the process out, template it out into your system, if you will, and then engage people to, to use it. And I remember you and I chatting a lot PR you know, privately between the two of us, like, wouldn’t this be a great idea, like free templates to like kickstart that and nurture.
[00:06:30] Yeah.
[00:06:30] Brian: [00:06:30] And, and we have templates in there which really did help a lot in, in late 20, 20. Added the templates and put them like front and center in the onboarding experience. So actually since then we’ve had, you know, more customers, self convert without, without the heavy customer support load that it did have for a while there.
[00:06:45]And that, that continues, I guess it’s just super slow, you know, to, to grow and, and become a thing. And for those that don’t know, like in the background, I also have audience ops, which I’m not super involved in day to day, but that, that is the other business that I have that, that sort of.
[00:07:00] [00:06:59] Funds all the runway for, for getting into SAS. So it gives me a little bit of space and time to be able to explore different ideas which is, which is really nice. But with zip messaging, I really liked it because the first things that really attracted to me as the business idea is that it’s so fast to get value from, you know, like again, process kit is like, you got to really commit like a good month to get, to really start to get value....

I came across Kristen Youngs’ YouTube channel while I was exploring the popular no code Bubble.io platform.

At first, I thought she was creating the typical tutorial videos channel around this very popular app building platform, but as I explored more, I realized she was building a very unique business behind the scenes.

I think most of us in the client services or consulting space, long to have an additional stream of income that isn’t directly tied to our consulting hours. You’ll often see a digital download, a one-time course, or a finely-tuned productized service that effectively optimizes our work effort to profit margin ratio.

But what Kristen and her partner are building at coachingnocodeapps.com is something of a hybrid.

It’s a coaching series, a course, and recurring consulting for customers that need help building out their Bubble app.

In the WordPress world, this might be like selling a web design course for Elementor while you do monthly check-ins to help your clients build out new pages or add new functionality.

Needless to say, I really like this model.

Kristen brings the knowledge in today’s episode. I’m going to leave you with this one question to ponder as you continue on…what do you think the most challenging part of her business is?

You’re listening to the Matt Report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. Subscribe to the newsletter at mattreport.com/subscribe and follow the podcast on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Better yet, please share this episode on your social media! We’d love more listeners around here.

Kristen Youngs Matt Report Podcast

[00:00:00] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by mal care. Learn more about Malik here at Dot com. You’ve heard me talk about mal care before, but they’re back with some interesting updates. Not only are they the WordPress plugin with instant WordPress malware removal. Well, let me read some of these features. 

[00:00:15] Deep malware scanning. They know about malware that other plugins don’t. Number two, that one click malware removal process makes it super easy to remove from your WordPress website and number three, a new feature called auto bot ultra defense system. Okay. I made that ultra defense system part up, but get this, it automatically blocks the bots hitting your website. 

[00:00:35]So, not only does that protect your website, but in the long run, it’ll improve speed of your site from not letting those bots through the doors. Check out mal care at care.com that’s mal care.com. I don’t want to be a malware specialist. You don’t either check out mal. care.com. thanks for supporting the show

[00:00:56] This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by gravity forms. One of the [00:01:00] most trusted longest lasting oh geez. Of the WordPress product space, gravity forms. 2.5 has arrived. All new builder experience, tons of certified developer. Ad-ons. And the most accessible form plugin in existence. If you’re doing complex form stuff on your WordPress project, user registration, storing data, connecting them to other automation workflows, you know, not to look any further than the plugin I’ve been paying for since 1997. 

[00:01:25] Okay. Maybe not that long, but it’s the first plugin I ever bought and happily renew every single year checkout gravity forms, 2.5, all new builder experience. At gravity forms.com. That’s gravity forms.com.

[00:01:39] I came across Kristen Young’s YouTube channel while I was exploring the popular no code bubble.io platform. At first, I thought she was creating the typical tutorial videos around this very popular app building platform. But as I explored more, I realized she was building a very unique business behind the scenes. I think most of us in the client services or consulting space long to have an additional stream of income [00:02:00] that isn’t directly tied to our consulting hours. You’ll often see a digital download a one-time course or a finely tuned productized service that effectively optimizes. 

[00:02:09] Our work to profit margin ratio. But what Kristin and her partner are building at coaching no-code apps is something of a hybrid. It’s a coaching series, a course, and a recurring consulting for customers that need help building out their bubble app. In the WordPress world, this might be like selling a web design course for Ella mentor. While you do monthly check-ins to help your client build out new pages and, or add new functionality. 

[00:02:33] Needless to say, I really liked this model. Kristen brings the knowledge in today’s episode. I’m going to leave you with this one question to ponder as you continue on, what do you think the most challenging part of her business is? You’re listening to the Matt report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder, subscribed to the newsletter at 

[00:02:51] port.com/subscribe and follow the podcast on apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Better yet. Please share this [00:03:00] episode on social media. We’d love more listeners around here. 

[00:03:02] Kristen: [00:03:02] I am the co-founder of a company called coaching no-code apps, and we essentially help entrepreneurs, business owners, people who already have existing businesses or people who are looking to launch new businesses.

[00:03:15] That are app based. We help them go from their idea stage to having that first version app that they can either launch within a business and help scale their operations or launch as a brand new business. And they don’t need any coding backgrounds, no technical skills in order to do that. 

[00:03:37]Matt: [00:03:37] We chatted in our, pre-interview talking about like how excited I was when I first discovered bubble. And I was like, Hey, coming from the WordPress world, this is in my eyes. I was like, this is going to be like a page builder. I can just drag and drop things around and I could build myself an app and I’ll, I’m going to be a superhero.

[00:03:52] And I was like, wouldn’t it be nice to connect up to a rest API of WordPress or like my podcasting host company [00:04:00] and get this data. I was like, how do I do that with bubble? And I started like researching it. I started doing it myself and I was like, God, no way, am I going to be able to do this by myself?

[00:04:09] And then I found your video and I was like, Oh man, there’s, there’s a lot of stuff to this, no code. And this bubble thing is there, like one thing that really sticks out. In your engagement with customers, that same feeling that they share with you, thought this was going to be easy and Oh my God, I’m going to need your help with this.

[00:04:27] Is there like one or two things that you come across every day with this stuff? 

[00:04:30]Kristen: [00:04:30] Yeah. And I think it’s less about specific technical functions and more so just because when people hear about no code. They think that it’s going to be easy. And I think it gives the impression that you can kind of just come on board, whatever platform it is, and have a custom application up and running within, maybe a few hours or a few days.

[00:04:58]A lot of people, they don’t [00:05:00] realize how complex th...

Over the last few years, I think one of the most important lessons we’ve learned is that our community can go beyond WordPress. From the tools and the code, to the neighboring software’s we use to get the job done.

Whatever that “job” is for you.

It could be publishing a simple blog or helping a university with a multi-site solution for an intranet — WordPress is powerful, but the solution can be expansive. Our stack is moving well beyond plugins, and that’s a good thing.

One person leading the charge to expand our knowledge in this space is Christie Chirinos, former product manager at LiquidWeb and now host and creator of the Open Source Economist podcast.

If you’re selling an open source product (or any product for that matter), Christie is someone you want on your team. I’m excited to learn more about the open source space through her new podcast.

Okay, don’t forget to subscribe at MattReport.com/subscribe, let’s get into the show!