Post Status Podcasts

Brian Gardner initially found WordPress as a blogger. His journey led him to found Studio Press which eventually became part of WPEngine. Brian and Cory flashback into what was and lean into the potential future of WordPress.

Top Takeaways:

• Workflow Education. Getting adoption for workflows can be challenging. Agencies may resist changes to their workflow even if the change may bring significant benefits. Investing in education is key. Contributing to WordPress education by testing things and hosting workshops and demonstrations can ensure the project as a whole succeeds.
• Scaling is the Safety of WordPress. Many of the page builder softwares are not built for much beyond brochure-type sites. The extensibility of WordPress makes so much possible for businesses looking to deliver excellent customer experience or expand their site capabilities.
• Competition vs. Cooperation. Today there is far more competition in WordPress. In the early days, competition existed alongside cooperation. We were competing while we shared, learned, and grew together. This cooperation led to innovation within WordPress and cultivated a vibrant, growing ecosystem. A shift towards community innovation can remind us that a rising tide lifts all boats.

• Blogspot
• Revolution
• Studio Press
• Nathan Rice
• WP Tavern
• Justin Tadlock
• Webflow
• Figma
• AJ Morris
• Rafal Tomal
• Design Kit
• Frost
• WordPress Learn
• GoDaddy
• Automattic
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Weebly
• Shopify
• Sarah Dunn
• Gravity Forms
• Pagely
• Beaver Builder
• Elementor

• Brian Gardner (Developer Advocate, WPEngine)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

In this episode, Corey Maass and Cory Miller share the results of submitting their WordPress plugin, Crop.Express to the repo. As they continue to build their product live, they develop branding, messaging, and strategy to validate their business and cultivate an audience.

Top Takeaways:

• Expanding Outwards. Repo offers inherent discoverability for WordPress products, but cultivating broader awareness is necessary for a product to succeed. Creating brand assets, a website, and a newsletter create conduits for growth.
• Feel Out Your Brand. Be cautious not to box yourself in with branding. Consider what feeling you want people to get when using your product. Go a little deeper and have a little fun exploring the solutions and feelings you hope to offer as you create your branding. Move from literal to conception to better understand what defines your business.
• Ring the Bell. Identify your customer’s problem and keep talking about it. Invite ideal users to talk about it. Leverage your personal platforms to highlight the pain point and how your product improves it. By telling that story and having others do the same, you start to build a case for your business.

• Crop.Express
• Bill O’Reilly
• Generate WP
• Canva
• Minesweeper
• Photoshop
• Stock Unlimited
• Fiver
• Instagram
• Unsplash
• YouTube
• PayPal
• Content Journey
• Zoom

• Corey Maass
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

In this episode, Corey Maass and Cory Miller share their initial version or MVP of the product they are building, Crop.Express.  Together they work through enhancing UX, selecting the right business model, crafting marketing messages, and more.

Top Takeaways:

• Work Out the Workflow. You will teach people how to use your product with demos or tutorials. While you want to make adjustments to improve UX, you don’t want to constantly change the workflows for your product. Being thoughtful on the front end can result in better usability and less change.
• Business Models. Building a product also means determining a business model. Offering some functionality for free can gain exposure for a base product. Adding a pro or paid version with increased value to deliver a better end product for a customer.
• Focus on Feedback. As a product builder, you work to anticipate pain points and solve for them. With a quality product, you will solve real struggles for users. But there is a reason users are uninstalling. Accessing their input and experience could be the key to taking your product to the next level.

• Crop.Express
• Canva
• Elementor

• Corey Maass
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

Learn from Mark Westguard, founder of WS Form, a powerful, next-generation WordPress form plugin. Mark and Cory discuss how AI is starting to integrate into the world of WordPress and how the WP Form software is leveraging its power. 

Top Takeaways:

• Harnessing the Power of Open AI. The possibilities are endless with the revolution of AI as an open-source tool. Making the most of its capabilities allows WordPress users to create more intuitive and integrated content, like better fields and options in WordPress forms.
• Create, Edit, Moderate. AI should be seen as an assistant working alongside you to help generate your content. You’re still essential in the creation process, and it’s important not to rely on AI 100% for accuracy. You can get creative prompts, edit for grammar or spelling and generate unique images, but moderating that content is essential.
• The Future is All-in-One AI Integrated Tools. Limiting time spent running around to different AI software is good for business. So how can that be accomplished? By integrating the AI capabilities into WordPress tools, where everything you need is in one place. These are the things we look forward to in WordPress software and plugins

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• Mark Westguard on Linkedin
• WS Form
• OpenAI
• ChatGPT
• DALL-EWordCamp Europe

• Mark Westguard, (Founder of WS Form)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

In this episode, Cory Miller and Arnas Donauskas, Web Hosting Product Owner at  Hostinger, talk about what it means to truly value customer obsession. This core value has shaped Arnas’ career path, from his roots in customer service to creating products to provide simple website restoration and security for principal vulnerabilities.

Top Takeaways:

Customer Obsession. Users are facing daily challenges that need real-time solutions. Think about their problems. Value their feedback. Sometimes clients are limited because we haven’t kept up with the speed of evolving technology. Approaching things from a user perspective to prioritize and build products creates optimal impact.

Removing Manual Work. Wherever possible, we are working to automate things to provide more easy buttons for clients. Automating things, creating single-click solutions, and providing the best examples and guidance to reduce users' steps to accomplish tasks.

Possibilities with AI. Everyone is eager to see how AI will change the industry. Cory and Arnas discuss the potential opportunities AI creates to build even better products in the future.

Gravity Forms Gravity Forms is a powerful form builder for WordPress and the #1 choice for businesses and web professionals across the globe. Its vast array of features, intuitive drag-and-drop form editor, and extensive ecosystem of add-ons, ensure customers can design beautiful, intelligent, and accessible forms for any project requirement.   

• Hostinger
• Hostinger Website
• Backup Buddy
• Chat GPT
• Cloudflare

• Arnas Donauskas (Web Hosting Product Owner at  Hostinger)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

Learn from the owner of Freemius, Vova Feldman, as he talks with  Cory Miller about the opportunities for indie developers, how to best bring products into the industry, the importance of community, and more.

Top Takeaways:

• Living in an Open Source Ecosystem. Developers don’t need to reinvent the wheel. With such a large ecosystem of products, finding a secret niche spot to develop your product isn’t always the best or even attainable solution. Doing something better than the next company is sometimes all it takes for great success.
• The David and Goliath Struggle. It’s obvious that there has always been and will continue to be an unbalanced level of success between independent WordPress product owners and large companies. But that’s not to say there isn’t room for everyone; there is. An independent startup can move much faster into achieving short-term goals and growth than large-scale established companies can with a heavier workload and slower forward movement.
• Valuing Community Over All Else. The WordPress community is what drives the future of WordPress. It’s not so much all the great new things the system offers but the people behind the process. Taking that same thought into your business, making people the center of your solutions, is an undeniable way to create a business that is surrounded by community.
• Removing Language Barriers. Creating website language translation is becoming more of a priority. It ties in with the need for developing a better user experience for your customers. Your community needs a specialized way to interact with your products and site. That’s one main task Vova’s team is tackling for their customers this year

Elementor enables web creators to build professional, pixel-perfect websites with an intuitive visual builder. Quickly create amazing websites for your clients or your business with complete control over every piece, without writing a single line of code. Join a vast community of web creators from all around the world who deliver exceptional websites using Elementor.

• Freemius
• iThemes
• Elementor
• WooCommerce
• Yoast
• Vova Feldman on Linkedin 
• WordCamp Asia

• Vova Feldman (Founder & CEO, Freemius)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

In 2001 Bradford Campeau-Laurion began his career in publishing technology at Forbes Magazine, which evolved into utilizing WordPress in the enterprise market. Today he leads Alley Interactive, an agency focused on publishers, non-profits, museums, and brands. Brad shares his extensive experience in publishing technology and his view of the strengths and challenges within the enterprise market of WordPress.

Top Takeaways:

• Shifting to Paywall Content. Perhaps a major misstep in early online publishing was setting the expectation of free content. Now print subscriptions are down. Publishers can’t secure advertising without extremely high volume. And consumers are hesitant to pay for online subscriptions. 
• WordPress Creator Economies. Within WordPress there are software and content creators. Software creators the directory to serve as a centralized community and marketplace. Content creators face a bigger challenge to find their market because there isn’t a collaboration tool and algorithm like a social platform driving the creator economy of WordPress.
• Enterprise WordPress vs. Competition. The closed platforms have appeal-single providers, monthly pricing models, built-in solutions. To customers who aren’t aware of the benefits of open source, it can be confusing to help them understand the optionality and freedom they relinquish even if the initial investment of time and money is more. Enterprise WordPress faces the challenge of crafting appealing solutions without becoming the antithesis of open source.

Founded in 2010, Pressable is a world-class managed WordPress hosting provider built on the same data network as WordPress.com and WordPress VIP. With industry-leading performance, 24/7 expert support, a 100% uptime guarantee, and seamless integrations with WooCommerce and Jetpack, Pressable provides the tools you need to manage your WordPress websites and grow your business all in one place. TRY PRESSABLE→

• Bradford Campeau-Laurion 
• Alley Interactive
• Joomla
• Drupal
• Forbes
• New York Times
• New York Observer
• Slate
• Kaiser Family Foundation
• National Science Foundation
• Figma
• Austin Smith
• Matt Johnson
• Time Magazine
• The Points Guy
• Washington Post
• Defector
• Deadspin
• Bright Spot
• Rebel Mouse
• Brightcove
• Tom Willmot
• Human Made

• Bradford Campeau-Laurion (CEO, Alley Interactive)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

Mario Peshev had an interest in technology from childhood. After working as a software developer, he transitioned into WordPress and founded his own agency, DevriX. They coined the term “WordPress retainer.” It is the mantra fueling their operations and one they hope other agencies will adopt. He joins Cory Miller to dive deep into the how and why of WordPress retainers, sharing his experience and his hopes for the future of WordPress.

Top Takeaways:

• WordPress Retainers: Business doesn’t have to be feast or famine. Several other industries utilize retainers because they provide consistent revenue and secure client commitment for ongoing work. The entire world is living around monthly costs. Not aligning your service-based business with that model is counterintuitive. Essentially it is just selling hours in bulk, turning services into products. Allotting 10% for project management while using the rest to prioritize and execute projects. The longevity and security enable you to plan, diversify, hire well and grow.
• Learn How the Sausage is Made: If you want to start your own business, work in a similar business for a few years. Learn what it takes to operate, what roles are needed, and how the pipeline works. Work with bosses, teams, and clients to learn how you want to build and operate once you’re on your own.
• Increase Adoption by Building Simplification: Many of us started in WordPress because of the famous 5-minute install, and any design could become a theme. It was easy, but now building on other platforms is actually easier. WP needs to create tools to solve for this in order to increase adoption by younger generations.

Elementor enables web creators to build professional, pixel-perfect websites with an intuitive visual builder. Quickly create amazing websites for your clients or your business with complete control over every piece, without writing a single line of code. Join a vast community of web creators from all around the world who deliver exceptional websites using Elementor.

• Mario Peshev
• DevriX
• Oracle
• Java
• Blogger
• Live Journal
• HubSpot
• React
• NitroPack
• Angel List
• Envato
• SAP
• VMware
• Cern
• Hadron Collider Company
• Unicef
• Jango
• Python
• Figma
• Elementor
• Ghost
• Fediverse

• Mario Peshev (CEO, DevriX)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

In this episode, Corey Maass and Cory Miller discuss the origin of the WordPress product they are creating. Together they explore the benefits of partnership, the challenges of being a creator, and what it takes to build viable solutions. This is only the beginning of their process and partnership, but it’s loaded with experience and insight from the journeys they have had within WordPress that brought them to this moment, as well as takeaways they’ve discovered with their new undertaking.

Top Takeaways:

• The Power of Partnering: Many entrepreneurs aren’t interested in partnership. But they create an opportunity to own and contribute the things you do well alongside someone who has other skill sets, strengths, and experiences. Partnerships offer space to practice open dialogue while showing respect and gaining perspective. They are a great solution for all the things you can’t do, don’t want to do, or shouldn’t do.
• Build for a Need: Sometimes we create things believing we have brilliant ideas that will attract an audience. But where problems exist, so do the needs for solutions. You can trust if you have a problem, other people likely have the same problem and need a solution.
• Look to Make Things Easier: When you have to go out of your workflow to do a task, things feel frustrating and clunky. Finding ways to integrate tools within our natural workflow adds tremendous value to the user experience.
• Products Require Passion and Capacity: Yes, you may have the ability to create really cool, helpful things. But if you lack a sincere passion for the products you build or truly don’t have the time they require, they tend to fall flat somewhere along the way. You tap out at the end of your skillset or energy, and even though there may be real potential, the passion and time to carry things forward are missing.

🙏 Sponsor: GoDaddy Pro

Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with GoDaddy Pro. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. GoDaddy Pro is free — and designed to make your life better.

• Crop.Express
• WordCamp
• Ninja Forms
• Kanban for Wp
• Photoshop
• WooCommerce
• ITM Security
• Trello
• Pippin Williamson
• Dustin Bolton
• Chris Jean
• iThemes
• Slack
• Convert Kit
• Nathan Barry
• WordPress.org
• Yoast

• Corey Maass
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧

Tiffany Bridge has been working in WordPress almost since the beginning of WordPress. She is the Product Manager for WordPress eCommerce at Nexcess and talks with Cory Miller about their hosting services and products, specifically highlighting the benefits and capabilities of Store Builder. They dive into optimizing UX in WordPress, the benefits of open source, and more.

Top Takeaways:

• WooCommerce Simplified with Store Builder. As you know, WordPress and WooCommerce love to hide settings in layers of menus. Nexcess saw the struggles people had in trying to set up eCommerce sites and created StoreBuilder as an easy tool to go from zero to having an online store. This removes the initial learning curve required to get started in Woo and sets up a DIY tool for merchants.
• A Platform to Grow with You: One of the great things about setting people up on WordPress and Woo as they start businesses is the flexibility available for future growth. If their model totally shifts, they can just uninstall a plugin and add another to obtain the functionality they need to sustain their business growth without the hassle of migration or the increased fees of a platform.
• Solving for What Users Shouldn’t Have to Know. Kadence and so many WordPress and WooCommerce plugins are designed for WordPress professionals. We are working to leverage the power of Kadence by creating a top-notch user experience for people who don’t know what things like a border radius or gutter are. These tools enhance and expand the power of WordPress, so creating solutions that lower the knowledge barrier to entry is the kind of work that moves WordPress forward.
• You Can Own Your Own Platform. Often people aren’t aware that this is an option. From Etsy to Twitter, controversies tend to increase demand for alternatives. Bringing more awareness to individual ownership on the web-for blogs, stores, or anything else-empowers people to show up online and conduct business on their terms.

🙏 Sponsor: GoDaddy Pro

Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with GoDaddy Pro. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. GoDaddy Pro is free — and designed to make your life better.

• Store Builder
• Automattic
• Team 51
• iThemes
• Expression Engine
• WooCommerce
• Magento
• Etsy
• Ghost
• Kadence
• Liquid Web
• Tiffany’s Blog
• Tiffany’s Mastodon

• Tiffany Bridge (Product Manager of WordPress eCommerce, Nexcess)
• Cory Miller (CEO, Post Status)
• Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

The Post Status Draft podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. 📝

Browse our archives, and don’t forget to subscribe via iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher, Simplecast, or RSS. 🎧