The #PressForward Podcast

Today is a somewhat shorter episode, and I like it so much for several reasons. Firstly, it was never meant to happen, also because the chat went in directions that I literally never expected and finally there’s just so much synchronicity in it, as you will find out later!

Mark Maunder is the founder of Wordfence, the WordPress security solution that I’m sure you’ve heard of. I met him at an evening security event at WordCamp Europe, and we spoke for a couple of minutes.

The next day, I was recording interviews and as I finished one, he happened to be walking by. As you will discover, Mark likes his tech and he was interested in the recording desk that we were using. So I started to show him how it worked and before too long we had located the record button, pushed it, and this short interview is what resulted.

To start with we talk about how Mark and the team at Wordfence have started to take a real and active interest in events like WordCamps. They see this as a way to interact with the community, but also to get to know their customers in a way that no online system can match. Seeing them face to face and talking through what they need from Wordfence has proven to be the best way to know where the product should be heading.

Speaking of community, the conversation then takes a somewhat unexpected turn. Mark quietly drops into the conversation that he’s been working with a talented team of filmmakers to produce a WordPress documentary, a film about the WordPress community.

Mark talks about how he’s been bitten by the film bug and how the creation of the film has been a project that he’s been inspired by, but also how he’s tried to ‘let go’ of it… allowing the filmmakers to have full ownership of it instead. He’s clearly proud of the results and well might he be.

If you watched Matt Mullenweg’s ‘State of the Word‘ address at WordCamp US in 2019, then you’ll have seen that film. It took up about 25% of his entire address!

I have to agree with Mark, it’s a great film and shows the WordPress community (something that we at this podcast know) in the best of lights.

We then change directions again and talk about Wordfence. Another wonderful story. Mark talks about how Wordfence was a product that came about after a series of other projects which simply did not get the traction that he’d hoped. This is a story of not giving up.

We learn that Mark and his family had reached the very end of their savings and had moved in with his relatives. In effect, Wordfence was a last chance at creating a product that was profitable… and it worked!

From an interesting start as a black hat hacker, Mark brought his years of experience to bear and created a product that is now the security solution for many thousands of WordPress websites.

So this podcast has so much synchronicity. I release a podcast recorded months ago and by coincidence Mark’s film get’s premiered just a couple of days before.

The story that Mark tells reeks of ‘staying the course’, keeping going in the hope that that little light at the end of the tunnel will grow bigger and brighter. All this in the same month that WP and UP have the Never Give UP campaign in full swing!

Somehow I think that this podcast was meant to be aired on this exact week, but I have no idea how it ended up being so very well timed.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we hear from Jason Resnick. As is so often the case with this podcast, it touches on so many areas of Jason’s life.

We go right back to the beginning and learn about his childhood fascination with technology. How this meant that he spent quite long periods of time by himself, playing with his gadgets. We also talk about how his parents divorse affected him, both in the past and now.

We then jump forward and get into a discussion about how he has coped with episodes of depression and how he has been able to get support from himself and his close family.

So this is a trigger warning that in this episode we discuss depression and divorce.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On todays podcast I’m going to be talking to Justin Busa, one of the founders of the popular Beaver Builder Page Builder plugin, but before that… a little bit of housekeeping.

We’d love for you to get involved with WP and UP and that that can be done in many ways:

You could talk about this podcast on social media, or talk about it on your own website

You could rate it on Apple podcasts

Or you you can subscribe to us on your favourite podcast player, which can be done by going by going to wpandup.org/podcast-feed

We’re also running an awareness campaign throughout October 2019 called #NeverGiveUp. The services that WP and UP provides are incredibly valuable. They are helping and supporting many people. We know that our community needs the support that we provide, but these services come at a cost. Thanks to the likes of Green Geeks and WPMU Dev, we’ve been able to get to where we are now, but if WP and UP is to continue, we need your help to finance it. You can head to wpandup.org/nevergiveup – to find out more about exactly what an organisation like WP and UP costs to maintain.

From there you might like to head over to wpandup.org/donate and donate something yourself. It really does not need to be a lot, just a few dollars will help us provide phone support or keep our online support community open.

So today is another episode which was recorded live in the halls of the Estrel Hotel in Berlin. This was the location of WordCamp Europe in 2019. You’re going to be hearing some background noise, as I found it nye on impossible to keep 3,000 WordPressers quiet!

Today I talk with Justin Busa. Justin is one of the founders of the Beaver Builder plugin. I’m sure that you’ve heard of it, but if you haven’t it’s a drag and drop interface for building out posts and pages quickly.

I’ve met Justin several times before and so the conversation flowed freely. We talked quite a lot about the plugin, but also about his company, how it’s grown, how it’s moved from an office to a distributed model recently, and how that actually works.

We also chat about Justin’s thoughts on the WordPress community and how he feels he fits into that, and the role that WP and UP is playing to keep that community healthy.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re going to be talking to Sujay Pawar about how he scaled his plugin and theme business but before that a little bit of houeskeeping…

The #PressForward podcast is created by WP and UP. We’re a non-profit working in the WordPress space to help you, your colleagues, in fact anyone. The work is just beginning, and today I want to ask you for your help.

We’re running a new campaign called #NeverGiveUp. You see, the services that WP and UP provides are incredibly valuable. They help and support many people but they come at a cost. We know that our community needs the support that we provide because it’s being requested frequently. But it cannot be done for free. Thanks to the likes of Green Geeks and WPMU Dev, we’ve been able to get to where we are, but if WP and UP is to continue offering support, we need more financial help. You can head to wpandup.org/ngu - short for Never Give Up to find out more about exactly what an organisation like WP and UP costs to maintain.

From there you might like to head over to wpandup.org/donate and donate something yourself. It does not need to be a lot, just a few dollars will help us provide phone support or keep our online support community open.

So please help us, so that we can continue to support the WordPress community. Thank you.

Today we hear from Sujay Pawar. He’s a WordPress business owner based in India. You might well have heard of some of his companies products because Brain Storm Force are the folks behind the Astra theme and Schema Pro, Ultimate Addons for Elementor and many more.

We have a wide ranging chat, covering subjects such as how he got started with WordPress and how he managed to grow his company and keep his team happy.

Sujay lives in India and the conversation also covers how businesses in India do things differently from other parts of the world, and it’s really fascinating.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember... Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I talk with Oliver Sild. Oliver is based in Estonia and is really into internet security. Having built websites in the past, he always found himself having to secure them, so they built tools to monitor their own sites.

It’s a constant battle in which the bad guys make a move and you have to react. After doing this for a while Oliver decided that their internal tools could be used just as easily by others, and so the company WebARX was born.

They have made WordPress an important part of WebARX, monitoring plugins and offering updates and so that’s why Oliver was at WordCamp Europe – to meet the people who use his product.

We have a wide ranging conversation touching upon internet security, how to secure your site, what kind of things can go wrong, who is behind all the mischief that we hear about online as well as how Oliver has embraced the WordPress community.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the #PressForward podcast we talk with Marius Vetrici.

It’s a fascinating discussion from my point of view as it tackles a subject that not all that familiar with… meditation.

Before that though we chat about Marius’ background working in the technology space and how he’s been all around the houses when it comes to programming languages.

So Marius is very keen on meditation and has been using it in his life for many years.

We talk about how he discovered it and what benefits he feels that it brings to his life. It can all be summed up in one word… equanimity. The ability to have a greater perspective when things are not going so well, but also when things are!

We then get into a chat about how you actually perform the meditations that he does. What you concentrate upon, what sensations it encourages.

There’s also a little time spent discussing how you might get started on your own journey of meditation. You don’t need to possess anything, and you could get started immediately. That said, Marius does recommend that those who are serious about meditation try to get on a seven or ten day retreat, as these extended exposures to a meditative environment reaps rewards in the long run.

Very interesting chat, and I hope that you enjoy listening to it!

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Onto today’s episode of the #PressForward podcast I talk with Gary Pendergast.

Gary has been working with WordPress for a long time and his many contributions have really shaped the way that WordPress has developed. He’s an employee of Automattic, but is seconded back to the Open Source project on a full time basis.

It’s one of the episodes that was recorded in the corridor at WordCamp Europe in Berlin this year and so the sound has a little background noise.

We talk about how he got started with WordPress, what he’s been involved in and where he hopes the project goes in the future. Having been the project lead for multiple releases, we talk about what that responsibility feels like, being the person to push the commit button and update hundreds of thousands of sites.

We get into his love of the community and how he regards it as somewhat special; a place in which he’s made real friends over the years.

He’s a very knowledgeable WordPress contributor and much of his work will have, no doubt, been used by you at some point. He’s also a very calming figure and someone that I warmed to very much, being very amiable in our short time together.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we cover two topics with our guest Richard Bland – limiting agency growth and grief.

To begin with we chat about his involvement with WordPress and his passion for the project. We then begin a discussion about why Richard has chosen to keep his agency small.

Some of this was accidental, but much of it was very deliberate. You see Richard takes the approach that whilst work is an important component of life, it’s certainly not the component. Richard wants to make sure that he has adequate time to do the things that he really loves, like spending time with his family.

We talk about the pressures to grown your agency and how this is often presumed to be the only model. Grow and then grow some more. After that’s done, grow a little more. There is no end it, unless you never go down that route.

Richard works with local clients and is happy that way. He knows them and they know him and that works well. He knows how many clients is too much and sticks to this limit.

We also get into the difficult subject of grief as Richard talks very openly about the loss of his brother.

Richard and his brother were very close, more like father and son and so his passing was a really difficult time. We talk about how Richard coped and how it affected him.

It’s a very honest conversation and present some different perspectives.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we are back in the WordCamp Europe corridor, this time speaking to Carole Olinger, but I’ll get to that later…

Carole gets a special mention today because she’s come on board the WP and UP team. She’s going to be the Crew Chief of the HeadToWCEU project. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s well worth further discussion.

Some of the WP and UP team are doing an extended bike ride next May… It’s departing from from Berlin and arriving roughly a month later in Portugal. The locations of the previous and next WordCamp Europes to be specific.

The intention is to show that little changes can have a big impact over time. We’re not athletes, and are getting on with our lives whilst adapting them slightly to accommodate the time needed to train for this 3,000 ride.

A project of this magnitude needs a fair amount of organising and so Carole has kindly offered to assist us with that. So you might hear me mentioning her name around here in the future. By the way, if you want to find out more about the ride you can go to our dedicated website - headto.org

Before that was even the kernel of an idea I met up with her during WordCamp Europe in Berlin this year.

We had a lovely chat with Barbara Saul from WP and UP about Carole’s WordPress journey.

She came to WordPress from the most unusual of places. Having zero interest or knowledge in WordPress, she attended a WordCamp with her husband, curious to see what it was all about…. She fell in love.

This started a frenzied journey as Carole became deeply involved with WordPress and within a matter of months she was hosting events and MC’ing at WordCamp Europe.

It all happened so fast – she became a fixture and was easily recognised because of her distinctive purple hat.

New horizons were opened and new careers paths forged, and then her WordPress honeymoon came to an end.

She decided to step away from WordPress for a while… to regroup and find out more about herself and her personal motivations.

This journey included depression, anxiety, injury, meditation, yoga, exercise, a different approach to her diet – in short, she completely reimagined herself.

She’s now tentatively putting her toes in the water to see what’s next. Although this is still shrouded in mystery, two things are for sure – her future will contain bikes and dogs!

So go take a listen to the podcast to hear it directly from her…

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we talk to Petya Raykovska who works for the growing WordPress agency, Human Made.

We recorded this at WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin, and the location that we chose was the main thoroughfare corridor! This means that we were really well placed to be found, but also that it means that there was a fair amount of noise in the background. But… it’s the noise of 3,000 WordPressers having a great time, and so I’m sure that you can ignore it!

We talk about how Human Made got started, how they have managed their growth to a count of 70 employees currently and how they manage their distributed working model.

We also talk about Petya’s relationship with WordPress. She started in 2007 and quickly became deeply interesting in the project; working with translating WordPress with the Polyglots team.

Then we have a chat about WordCamps and how they can open doors to all sorts of possibilities. This might be business opportunities or the chance to make real and lasting friendships.

WordCamp Europe is very close to Petya’s heart, having lead the team for many years as well as being a regular speaker. She gives an insight into how the increasing popularity of WordCamp Europe has meant that they teams have to work pretty much all year around to make sure that the event can happen. Lots of people, lots of teams, lots of hours dedicated by all the volunteers.

Petya thinks that volunteers is a great way to get yourself involved with the WordPress community if you’re looking for a way in. You meet new people and being to understand the mechanics of all the things that need to go into WordCamp’s organisation. You get to work on common tasks for a common goal.

Petya also has a real interest in helping the younger generation become involved with WordPress, and as such she has been running sessions specifically designed for children.

Now there have been many of these sessions in locations all over the world and many, many children have had a chance to get a feel for owning their own space on the internet. It’s such a great project.

It’s a lovely, wide ranging chat and I hope that you enjoy it.

Interviewed by Nathan Wrigley.

We hope you enjoy the show, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We’re always looking for feedback, if you have any thoughts or comments, please do reach out.

And remember… Together we can #PressForward

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.