Matt Report for WordPress, SaaS, and No-Code business

Now that the WordPress acquisition market has cooled a bit, it’s time to stoke the fire on all things Gatsby and JAMStack-y-ness….again. Don’t let Full Site Editing steal all of the thunder, there’s still so much happening around headless WordPress and the ability to integrate 3rd party APIs to take the place of plugins. Look,…

I mentor at a local business accelerator for sustainable startups that have community impact. Small — no, tiny — startups that are just getting out of the idea phase. More often than not, this is the founder’s first leap into running a business. About 6 weeks into this 12 week program, I teach a class…

As designers or developers — even product makers — when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point. Where as the software is evolving, read: gutenberg + fullsite editing, the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that’s a statement which has…

The WordPress acquisition world was rocking this week. If this week were a heavyweight fight between Learn Dash and Sandhills Development, Pippin would certainly be the beloved veteran. You can hear more about his side of the story in this podcast interview. Today I got to sit down with Syed Balkhi, founder of Awesome Motive,…

Today’s a bittersweet moment in WordPress business land with the announcement of Awesome Motive acquiring Sandhills Development suite of plugins including Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, and more. I’m honored to call Pippin my friend who has helped me “grow up” in the WordPress community. I’m happy for him, and sad that he’s retiring from the…

Even with all of the WordPress consolidation happening, there’s still plenty of opportunity ahead for the industry. There’s lots of potential users, customers, and room for investment (note: we just saw the acquisition of Yoast happen by Newfold, formally EIG. If I had to guess, somewhere between a $30-50M deal.) If you though the plugin…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…