Matt Report

You're an entrepreneur still trading time for dollars --  how do you get out of that? You launch a new WordPress website for a client and everyone is excited to go live -- but wait, they wanted you to upload their 1,000 pages of content. It wasn't your responsibility. Months later you realize you've been teaching them the same steps over and over -- when will it end? Cliff Seal joins us to talk about automating your way out of these tasks. We'll look at it from the actual practice of training someone all the way to bending WordPress to do the job for you. But that's not all. Cliff is a super smart guy and we're going uncover his entrepreneurial drive and what new projects he's launching. Interview with Cliff Seal Listen to the audio version So much stuff, so little time You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're going to amazed at how much Cliff can handle at once and hopefully you learn a thing or two along the way. How does a guy build themes, amazing WordPress SaaS products, freelance and work a full-time job? Guess what, he also refuses to work nights. Really. He also wrote this epic summary for my show, so I'm just going to repurpose it for the blog. Hope Cliff doesn't mind :) Who is Cliff Seal? 1. I left the position I automated myself out of about a year and a half ago. I basically worked on the idea behind the scenes for 6 months or so, knowing I could either move on to work elsewhere or shift my duties (as I did design, some marketing, and some video animation as well). I literally attached a proposal to dissolve my position to my two-week notice, breaking down how to move forward without losing productivity and calculating the amount of money they'd save. 2. I work at Pardot which is a part of Salesforce. I'm a Senior User Experience Architect, but I've also led (and built) a total redesign and rebuild for us (with one sort-of mini-redesign recently)—all our external sites are built on WordPress, so I get to dabble and do fun things every day. I've released a couple of plugins that came from small projects at Pardot, and I've also built some other really cool plugins that aren't quite ready for public release. On top of that, we have an official Pardot plugin which I picked up development on when I arrived, and I get to maintain it and build new features into it. 3. I've been doing WordPress development for about 5 years now, and continue to do contract work. I've been working completely off referrals for all those years, and I've never had a lull in business or had to lower my rates or work on projects I don't want to. 4. I'm the Product Lead at MusicGrid.me, a project that my friend Kyle and I co-founded back in 2010. It's a miracle of modern WordPress. :) I built in on WP simply to see how far I could stretch the capabilities of the platform, and it's amazed me every step of the way. On top of it being a cool community of music lovers, we also use the platform to provide paid advertising services in the form of embeddable widgets that record stores put on their website. 5. I'm probably going to be releasing a sweet, free theme between now and our interview. It's not a secret, but I'm not ready to push 'go' just yet, so I'll spare you the details. As well, I've been doing market research on a WordPress-based 'product' for the entire year, and have begun the pilot program with interested clients. It's a product designed specifically for clients with sub-$5k budgets who need to use the power of WordPress, but may not be able to afford extensive custom research and design. As well, it's built to allow them to grow in WordPress later on without having to start over (as you might if it were built wrong, or you used WordPress.com or SquareSpace).

Episode 52: A startup, some themes, a bit of freelancing and a full-time job

I can't believe it took 51 episodes to get the guy who puts the hustle in being a WordPress entrepreneur. Meet Syed Balkhi the man behind WPBeginner.com, one of the world's largest free WordPress resources. How does he manage this publication, monetize and build a team around it? He's also spearheading a new SaaS app built on WordPress and managing two other web properties that he's managed to monetize and become profitable with. Tune in to find out the full story from a true WordPress entrepreneur! Interview with Syed Balkhi of WPBeginner.com Listen to the audio version The art of hustle Syed shares some great insights for those of us looking to land that next opportunity. "It's not rocket science, just go out and do it." He once called Robert Scoble's phone to talk about his WordPress site. Shocked that Robert actually picked up the phone, but it worked! I've talked about not attending a WordCamp to find your next client and this rings true for Syed as well. Spend time where your clients are and not just networking for the sake of networking. Don't be afraid to approach folks and be approachable at the same time. The OptinMonster SaaS app & giveaway! When we recorded this, his SaaS app OptinMonster was right around the corner. We'll talk about the benefits of running a SaaS service on WordPress and what that means to the bottom line. The giveaway! Leave a comment below about how using OptinMonster could benefit your business and we'll chose a winner! What you will win: A free "Basic" version of OptinMonster good for your site, unlimited forms and 1-year of support. My very own Minimize Pro theme great for powering your blog or next WordPress project. Example: "If I had OptinMonster, I could capture leads for my __________ business!" So what are you waiting for? Comment below and enjoy the show!

Episode 51: A true WordPress entrepreneur

A while back I said Shane Pearlman is the Godfather of Freelancing. If that's true, than Bill Erickson is a made man. I've been a fan of Bill  since I stepped on to the scene of WordPress some time ago. From a distance, he has a really lean and mean service product. "Your WordPress website in 5 days all for twentyfive-hundred smackaroos." My headline not his. How does he achieve that AND land $20k clients? We're going to find out in this episode! Episode 50: Interview with Bill Erickson Listen to the audio version or subscribe on iTunes Systems, data, and more data People thought I was crazy when I recruited my cousin, former VP of operations for a manufacturing company. What does he know about tech and WordPress? Nothing. That's the point. What he does know is how to analyze where our time and costs are going and how we can improve in those areas to help build a sustainable system. This is exactly the approach Bill uses to run his day to day operations. With anywhere from 8 to 20 projects in the pipeline, Bill has fine tuned his process to accommodate scheduling and execution. It's not all guess work either, he studies the data like a mad scientist to understand his most profitable areas with the intent to drive revenue. Oh and he's a one man band -- very impressive. Contracts Live and die by them. After hearing how Bill structures his client contracts, you might feel a bit inferior. It's OK, that's why this podcast exists! Learn from the "war stories" he shares and pay close attention to his method of collecting payments. He ties payments to productivity and not  an arbitrary payment schedule based on time. Invoice client's on the start of work vs waiting until a set calendar day. Loved this. What do you think? Are you going to change anything in your business now?

Episode 50: Systemizing your way to more revenue

Roughly 2.2 million total free downloads across 9 themes and monthly revenue upwards of $35k a month. Meet Trent Lapinski, CEO of CyberChimps themes. I invited Trent on to the show to tell us all about what it's like to earn a living selling premium themes and supporting such a large install base. Aside from the massive responsibility of sites powered by their product, it's also looking like a business with plenty of room to grow. On to the episode! Interview with Trent Lapinski CEO of CyberChimps Listen to the audio version or subscribe on iTunes The cost of free We've talked about the freemium model in past interviews, but this is the first time I've heard someone refer to it as a great responsibility. And when you have one theme that powers more than a million websites -- yea, I guess he's right. Trent doesn't seem to mind the freemium model he's been able to capitalize from either. In a world of seeking a sustainable WordPress theme business, he seems to strongly believe that a pay once for the download can work. At the time of this interview, he was exploring paid support models and other upgrades to add to the revenue. What do you think? Can freemium + pay once for download work? It should be interesting to see what he and the team comes up with. Mergers and acquisitions One of the strongest moves Trent has made in the market so far was acquiring the Responsive theme from Emil. The deal made sense and only fortified the existing theme set CyberChimps had been working on. Now with roughly 2.2 million total free downloads and 20,000 paying customers, CyberChimps is on track to reach annual revenue of nearly half a million dollars. Fun and games Trent isn't all business. Like a lot of us growing up in the 80's and 90's -- he enjoys a video game or two. He leads CyberChimps as a company that inspires the team to enjoy their work and build a camaraderie with one another to enjoy success as one. There's even plans for everyone on the team to get a game console to bask in the glory of online gaming. Hope that was public info Trent ;) Hope you enjoyed this episode! Like what I'm doing subscribe to the newsletter!   

Episode 49: 2.2 million downloads w/ $35k monthly theme sales

If there were ever a mob or "Family" of WordPress freelancers, it's a safe bet that Shane Pearlman would be head of the family. I had always known about Modern Tribe and their successful plugins, but I never knew much about their progressive take on the WordPress service business. Now that I've had the chance to sit down and talk to Shane for about an hour, I'm seeing things in a whole new light. I hope this interview is as game changing for you as it was for me. Episode 48 Shane Pearlman of Modern Tribe interview Listen to the audio version You can also subscribe on iTunes or Podcast RSS. Money, power and respect Prior to this interview, my thought process was very simple. Raise my rates to bring in more revenue while being able to expand into other verticals. With that revenue, increase the power of my team by recruiting more talented developers and designers. Play that game right and you're on the road to respect. Or so I thought... Shane plays a different game and that's one of building the lifestyle that affords him happiness. Let's be clear, I'm happy with what my team produces and especially in our products. But can I run things smarter like Shane? Do I need to accrue the overhead of a large staff similar to 10up? It's debatable, but I hope the 12 years of knowledge Shane shares with us casts a new light on your WordPress business as well. The hustle I recently wrote about the hustle and what it means to me. I think the mantra of hustle is a bit scary and maybe irresponsible for the newbie entrepreneur. If you have a short runway, you might burn yourself out by working harder and not smarter. In this episode Shane shares his stories of hustle and where it landed him today. Running a high profile WordPress shop while having the time to surf and spending time with his family. See, I think hustle could be different for each of us and I'd like to explore that more in the future. No regrets It's easy for us to look back and bookmark the chapters of our failure. If we don't fail, we haven't pushed ourselves to the edge and more importantly we haven't learned from these experiences. Don't get me wrong success is glorious, but failure is important and humbling. Live your business life without the regret of failure. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this interview in the comments. Please share what you think of Shane and this interview. Tell a friend and subscribe to the newsletter!

Episode 48: The Godfather of Freelancing

How long have you been freelancing? Long enough to think you're the man? Brian Richards is one of the keenest entreprenerus that I've interviewed. The funny thing is, he never set out *expecting* to be one. See like most of us starting out in WordPress, we did some favors, got paid a little bit and then realized that we could make a living doing this. Brian joins us to share his #1 lesson before starting your own gig. Episode 47: Interview with Brian Richards of StartBox, WPSessions and WebDevStudios Listen to the audio or subscribe on iTunes Working for someone else There's a collection of great lessons in this interview for those of you just starting out in the freelance world. First, you might think it's going to be super easy. You're going to live on an island, bring in clients and live the good life. It's just what you always pictured it to be. Wrong. Second, you're not going to bring your talents to some agency that is going to 5x your rate to their clients. YOU want to make that money. After all, this is easy. Surprise, surpirse. You have to work for the man before you can be the man. That's a quote that drives Brian's entrepreneurial efforts. He's very humble and realizes not to take advantage of any situation and at the very least, use it as a learning opportunity. He's so passionate about this that he took a job that had a 3 to 4 hour commute just for the opportunity to work at a progressive web agency. Some @rzen resources http://rzen.net/life/working-from-home-is-not-for-the-faint-of-heart/ http://rzen.net/development/developing-for-success/ What else does he do? For a guy who never fancied himself a real entrepreneur, he sure does do a lot of awesome stuff. He's the creator of StartBox and the founder of WPSessions.com. He spends his days developing for WebDevStudios and is the co-organizer of WordCamp Grand Rapids -- wow. I won't get much more into it here, but he shares all of the juicy details in this interview! Like what's going on here? Share it with your friends and join the mailing list!

Episode 47: What every freelancer needs to know

What goes up must come down or in our case, what went down came back up?! You be the judge in my latest interview with Brad Touesnard of Delicious Brains and WP Migrate Pro plugin. Before Brad was helping you migrate WordPress databases, he had visions of bringing an app store like experience to WordPress. It's what he described as a failure to which has brought him new sucess. Perhaps the idea was too early for it's time? You be the judge in Episode 46! Interview with Brad Touesnard of WP Migrate Pro Listen to the audio & subscribe on iTunes The journey of success and failure Sound familiar? That's right, it's the intro of the podcast. Brad knows this all too well, but it's something that has brought him on to new roads in the WordPress marketplace. Without the failure of his first product, he wouldn't have made the pivot to his new widely popular product WP Migrate Pro. Something new to my cache of interviewees? The angel funding and advisory role Carl Hancock of Gravity Forms along with Adii Pienaar of WooThemes play to the success of Delicious Brains. We chat about how they got invovled and how that experience has shaped Brad's role from developer to entrepreneur. Methodical success Our favorite part of the show is when we get into the nitty gritty and how-to of launching the product. Brad shares his secrets for capturing leads, marketing and determining price. If you follow WordPress news, you know there's a healthy debate going on about sustainable WordPress businesses and we'll chat about that with our hero today. Random fact, Brad spent hours on crafting an e-mail that was no longer than a couple of tweets put together. Learn why he did that and if it was worth it in this episode. Outro music: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1120/jaoranary

Episode 46: The benefits of failure

Oh the WordPress media industry -- how we love thee. When the news of WPDaily.co shutting down landed on us so abruptly, it left a few of us scratching our heads to say the least. What would happen to it? Who would buy it? Where's my WordPress news? Well it's been a few weeks since the announcement of it's new home TorqueMag.io and I've invited the woman behind the scenes to tell us all about it. Meet Michelle Oznowicz former journalist, celeb ghost writer and now the future of WordPress news. In this episode we chat about how she found this job, what the plans are for Torque and offers advise to aspiring journalists using WordPress. Enjoy! Interview with Michelle Oznowicz of TorqueMag.io http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwUCBC8UVTk Listen to the audio version (Hooray video again! I figured it was important for the audience to see the face behind the news site. Since she's fresh to the WordPress scene and all. What do you think? Keep doing video or audio is just fine?) Why Michelle? A common question I saw fluttering around the Twittersphere on their launch day. Why Michelle? What does she know about WordPress? Well nothing really and that's the point. In an attempt to stay unbiased and have a platform where WordPress news can be curated by the community -- WPEngine hired Michelle. She brings her strong background of community building and a dedication to journalism up to bat for the new slugger in WordPress media. Can she hit a home run? You be the judge. Let me know what you think in the comments. My opinion WordPress media. That's what this is all about and I shared my thoughts in that previous article. I think Michelle is in an interesting space like the rest of us. On one hand folks say we don't need WP news, on the next there's more and more of it being slung at us. I think she's going to do a great job at building her own voice in our community and I wish her the best. It's not going to be easy, but as entrepreneurs we know this. On ads There's no ads on Torque...yet. We talked about her experience as a journalist and how ads can lesson the integrity of a publication. While I don't necessarily think ads are a bad thing, it's going to be interesting to see how WPE handles this in the months to come. What are your thoughts on ads? Let me know in the comments. Video, themes and e-mail lists -- oh my! Now that it's been a while since I've uploaded to YouTube, is it refreshing to have it back? By the way, if you like this theme we unveiled it to the world on WordPress.org. Lastly, if you like what I do please share it and sign up to the newsletter. Outro Music: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1017514/ready-set-stay