I’ve just given a talk at WordCamp Raleigh this past weekend on building a sustainable WordPress product business.
I’ve learned a lot over my 7 years in the WordPress space, and I’ve shared much of it in this talk. You can view the slides below.
The Journey from WordPress to Everything Else with OptinMonster
If you haven’t heard the announcement yet, here you go: OptinMonster has now moved from a WordPress-only plugin to a hosted platform solution.
I’ve heard more than a few people surprised by this decision, but this decision should come as no surprise to most people. After all, OptinMonster was intended to be a SaaS application in the first place but it failed miserably.
So instead, we pivoted and turned OptinMonster into a WordPress plugin. OptinMonster grew to be incredibly popular over a relatively short period of time, even with it being just a WordPress-only product. We quickly gathered tens of … [continue reading]
2014 Year in Review
2014 has been an incredible year! I want to pause to rejoice, reflect upon and remember all that has happened this past year.
Brian Lowe, the lead pastor at Exodus Church where I attend, preached an excellent sermon on Psalm 48 about the Israelites rejoicing, reflecting upon and remembering all that God had done for them. As I look back at 2014, I want to do the same.
It’s so very easy to look at the year to come and dream about all the exciting things that will happen and forget about the exciting things happened in the year before. … [continue reading]
How I Grew My Email List by 800% in Two Weeks
Yes – you read that title correctly. I was able to grow my email list by 800% in just two weeks! Bazinga!
When I decided to look over the stats today, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I had hoped that some of the things I was implementing on my site would result in higher conversions, but I never expected the growth to be so rapid and sustained. In fact, today is not counted in this calculation, but based on the subscriber growth rate for today, it will continue to beat the previous day average of the last two weeks.… [continue reading]
How to Build a Successful WordPress Product
I just returned from WordCamp Orlando 2014, and I was asked numerous times over the course of the weekend on how to build a successful WordPress product.
That is an excellent question. Most people struggle to make the transition from one type of business (typically freelance or consulting) to the product business and never realize their dream of running a successful product business. While I’m not sure there is one surefire formula to success, I do believe that I have learned a few key things from creating multiple successful products in the WordPress ecosystem.
This is not an exhaustive … [continue reading]
Effectiveness and Efficiency
I’ve recently been reading through an incredible book, What’s Best Next, that gives a gospel centered approach on the Christian view of work and productivity.
One of the ideas that Matt promotes early on in the book is the idea that effectiveness efficiency. I couldn’t agree more.
To explain his point, he gives a comical story of him going to handle an insurance claim for a house fire. In the story, he goes to the house to find a man quite surprised to see him there. After he tells him why he has come to his house, the man … [continue reading]