Podcast appearances and mentions of matt fantastic

Join us for our last episode of the year with guests Max and Bobby, where we cover Trash Talk, a party game published by Friendly Skeleton and designed by Matt Fantastic and Andrea Pincumbe.  Also, check out Elm City Games if your ever in New Haven, CT.  38/42

This is Dice Tower Now for the week of April 25, 2022. This week, Netflix explodes with kittens, FFG spends its 25th anniversary scribbling all over TI4, Ticket to Ride improves on a 6½, and Maui beaches are definitely the Next Move.   TOP STORIES (1:45) Exploding Kittens announces digital game and animated series from Netflix Fantasy Flight teases roll-and-write Twilight Inscription BoardGameTables.com prepares crowdfunding for 4 expansions Catherine: The Tsarina's Cities coming from dlp Greater then Games announces Spirit Island: Feathers and Flame Gale Force 9 announces deck builder Firefly: Misbehavin' Party game Topic coming from Luma Imports Hangman Games starts DecaDesign micropublishing project The Gig jazz themed roll-and-write coming from Braincrack Games Save Patient Zero announced from Helvetiq Ticket to Ride: Poland coming from Days of Wonder Stellarion, the sixth Oniverse title announced by InPatience Publishing Beach area control title Maui coming from Next Move Games   CROWDFUNDING (14:00) Legacy of Thracks by Balázs Svéda and Svéda Studio Aldarra by designers Matt Fantastic and Benny McLennan, published by Arcane Minis Paradox Initiative by designer Brian Suhre and Elf Creek Games For Northwood! by designer/artist Wilhelm Su and published by Sideroom Games Fujiyama and Ajisai by designer and publisher Nanatsumu MagLev: Metro, Mechs, and More by Ted Alspach and Bezier Games   SPONSOR UPDATE (22:45) Destinies Community Editor released on Steam   NEW RELEASES (25:35) Murano: Light Masters by Carlo Camarotto and Francesco Testini, published by Matagot Darwinauts by designer Chris Bryan and Green Couch Games Dr. Who: Don't Blink by Dylan Birtolo, Josh Derksen, and Thomas M. Gofton, published by Gale Force 9 Familiar Tales by Jerry Hawthorne and Plaid Hat Games Zapotec by designer Fabio Lopiano, published by Board and Dice Golem by designers Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, and Simone Luciani, published by Cranio Creations Azul: Queen's Garden by designer Michael Kiesling and publisher Next Move Games Katarenga by designer David Parlett and Rio Grande Games Long Shot: The Dice Game by Chris Handy and Perplext     CONNECT: Follow our Twitter newsfeed: twitter.com/dicetowernow Dig in with Corey at DiceTowerDish.com. Have a look-see at Barry's wares at BrightBearLaser.com.

Behind The Brand W Preston & EZ Bluez: Matt Fantastic by WNHH Community Radio

There's no better feeling than when you launch something that just clicks with people. I guess at the end of the day, folks that build businesses or create content are simply seeking acceptance. We want to see our idea flourish, to be adopted by the masses, and to leave an impact. When Maciej Palmowski launched WP Owls with his wife Agnieszka, it was (and still is) a publication that served the Polish community. But it clicked. People clicked, literally on to the website and their stories, so the co-founding duo decided it was time to go global. Combined they've published over 200 articles about WordPress and the community on the blog, with no signs of stopping. Oh, and if you're wondering how to get a job like WordPress ambassador at Buddy, you'll learn a thing or two about CI/CD today! Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Maciek: some people are afraid when it comes to version control system. This is a command line tool. So it's scary and it's only for developers now. That's not true. We can use get crack and it's really easy. We can use tower and there are probably some other tools also even using a gift and their web version.[00:00:20] This, this is also a really friendly approach[00:00:23] This episode is brought to you by mind size visit dot com for maintenance for WordPress. Woo commerce and more. Over at mind size. Dot com Hey, you know, it's all the rage these days. Woo commerce. You know, what's so difficult to maintain as a freelancer and a small agency. Woo. Commerce. Outsource your maintenance to mind size over@minesites.com. They're the only, service company that I know that servicing specifically for WooCommerce and supporting you as an e-commerce shop as a merchant. so you don't have to worry about how the heck to scale woo commerce, which is also one of the hardest things.[00:01:00] Yes. There's a lot of great hosting companies out there. But they're not going to help optimize the code, drill down under the hood and really make the right decisions. For your WooCommerce site. Check out mine, sys.com and check out their WooCommerce service plans so you can get to better ruin. That's a, probably not a joke. We'll use again. Check out mine. sys.com. Thanks for supporting the show.[00:01:25] Hey, do you like WordPress content in media? Like this? Do you like WordPress news and getting the hot takes community journalism and op-eds from your peers and colleagues in the WordPress space. Consider supporting the WP minute and the Matt report. By buying me a coffee over@buymeacoffee.com slash Matt report.[00:01:45] You can join the membership, which also has a private discord you can chat with like-minded injured individuals and get your hands in the WordPress news every single week in our discord server. Going to buy me a coffee.com/matt report that's buy me a coffee.com/matt report There's no better feeling than when you launch something that just clicks with people. I guess at the end of the day, folks that build businesses or create content are simply seeking acceptance. We want to see our ideas flourish, to be adopted by the masses and to leave an impact. When launched WP hours with his wife. Agneshka it was instill is a publication that served the Polish community.[00:02:22] But it clicked. People clicked literally onto the website and their stories. So the co-founding duo decided it was time to go global. Combined, they published over 200 articles about WordPress and the community on the blog with no signs of stopping. Oh, and if you're wondering how to get a job like WordPress ambassador.[00:02:41] At buddy get, you're going to learn a lot about that today, along with continuous integration and continuous development. If you're a small agency or a freelancer, it's time to start getting serious about how you manage code. And that's what today's lesson is largely about. Okay Onto today's episode[00:02:58] Matt: one question I didn't throw at you. How did you become a WordPress ambassador?[00:03:02] I see a lot of folks these days on my Twitter stream saying I would love to just work for a brand and talk about WordPress and talk about their products, any insights into how to land an awesome job like yours.[00:03:13] Maciek: To be honest, it's walls a bit of coincidence because. I was working at WP M Def as at their second line of support.[00:03:22] So I was mostly a developer and at some point Rafael, the CTO of Bobby, just reach out to me and asked, Hey, would you like to become our ambassador? Because on one hand, the day learned that WordPress is really getting bigger and bigger, and it would be a great idea to I have someone promoting their, their tool in worker space.[00:03:44] And on the other hand, we had the, we had the chance to meet earlier on because one of the organizers of a word can Poland it will be the last word component. So it was 2019 and there were one of the sponsors right then. So we had the chance to talk to meet. And I was using body for many, many years.[00:04:03] I was always asking questions asking for some new features. So, so, so they remembered that there, that there is one month. Of the dirt and he knows WordPress, and he probably likes our tool because he worked at a few companies and every time he asked us about something, because every company I switched during the first few years, it was one of my first decision.[00:04:28] Maybe let's try to adopt the body because it will speed up. Rework. So in the end, I, I have a chance to work here. And this is what I would say. This is a really a dream job.[00:04:40] Matt: Yeah. We're both biased because we both work for companies that represent WordPress in some either direct or indirect fashion.[00:04:46] And I have for many years now but this is a, this is a role that I think. Whether it's an ambassador hat or a title or some other title that, that you might get. I think this is a smart move for a lot of other WordPress companies to really invest in is you need to bridge that gap as we'll talk about in a moment, you need to be able to bridge that gap between that technology and that sort of average consumer of that technology, because it can't just be developer speak and it can't just be the marketing speak some at some point, these brands need to cross over in the.[00:05:17] And shake hands and agree that somebody can speak both sides of it. Exactly. And, and this is just an amazing time in WordPress. This space was so much acquisitions and, and big money coming into the space and bigger brands adopting. I think folks like you and I are going to be much more valuable.[00:05:32] Maybe we should ask for raises as you and I[00:05:36] Maciek: wait w with all our taxes rising in Poland, this, this is for sure what the, what I will do at the beginning of the next year[00:05:44] Matt: you were in here first. Okay. So let's talk about CIC D I know the definition, I'll let you define it. And more specifically why it's important for.[00:05:55] Let's say the smaller agency, who's starting to grow their business and take on bigger projects. Why should they invest in these areas?[00:06:02] Maciek: Yeah. So, CIC, D H first of all, it has nothing to do the CD part with compact disc. So don't worry. And I also heard that it sounds a bit like COVID and that's true.[00:06:14] It's it sounds a bit like this. And I think this is the biggest problem of Of our company of our world because this definition is everyone who hears this aggravation just don't know what are we talking about? Because some folks just won't do. I think they want to use this word just to feel more important or better or something like this.[00:06:37] To tell it more easy. It just automation it's just deployment automation. That's all because the CACD means it's continuous integration and continuous deployment. So, it's everything about testing and deploying in, in an automated manner[00:06:54] Matt: and to, and to illustrate, sorry to cut you off, but to illustrate like the typical.[00:06:59] The typical sort of a WordPress boutique agency, myself included. So I started an agency. I started with me and just my dad and I'm the technical one. My dad's helping him like run the business. We start growing an agency. We start selling more projects. Now I have. Relinquish my, my development skills with air quotes.[00:07:16] This is like 20 years ago and hire other developers and designers. Suddenly we have this small team of people and just sharing a single FTP account is no longer the answer to scaling in the same way of building websites and more complex websites. As we started taking on bigger projects over time, investing in a tool like this, whether it's buddy get or.[00:07:38] Is a smart move for anyone who's starting to grow a larger team and get on bigger projects. Cause it's just going to keep everything organized to a degree. Exactly.[00:07:46] Maciek: Okay. I work at body and this is my favorite tool, but it doesn't matter which one we will use. The whole CICT is not the tool it's a methodology or some would call it.[00:07:59] It's a philosophy of how we work. It's just about about the fact that we should test everything on one end and on the other end, on the other hand the way how we deploy stuff to the server is in an automated manner. The only thing that can be done manually is just the is just approving the.[00:08:19] Should we release this version. The rest should be automated in some way. And this is something perfect for also first of all agencies, because everyone also thinks that CIC D is just for those enterprise with like zillions of people and stuff like this. And that's not true. CIC, it will be also perfect for smaller companies because we don't have to invest for example, in in QA, because we can write some tests because there are so many methods and so many tools, thanks to which we can test our, either our code, either how our page behaves.[00:08:57] We can even Some part of accessibility testing only for dental or for 40% if I remember, but still it's more than, than, than a quarter of possibilities and we can test it everything. Each time we deploy our code and this can make not only our product better. It can be Teper because we won't waste so much time doing the boring stuff, because let's be honest testing at this point.[00:09:31] It will was[00:09:32] Matt: for everybody. Don't worry. You're not alone. Yeah.[00:09:35] Maciek: Probably saw it's, it's one of the most horrible things I could do. It's boring. It's repetitive. I just hate it. I just hate it. And every time I can create a short script that can do something for. I'm trying to do this, and this is exactly the same what most big open source project do, because could you imagine developing WordPress without having any tests and believing that moving something in Wandon of WordPress won't break something in the other.[00:10:08] So, especially that, yeah. Let me put[00:10:11] Matt: my business hat back on my agency hat back on. And I remember back in the day when my developers would, bring this to me and they'd say, Hey, we have to implement, of course the ICD, this methodology we have to do testing. We have to do all of this stuff. And the only thing that ran through my head was, oh my God, how much time and money is this going to cost me?[00:10:30] And how much is this going to slow down? The the timeline to launch a project or, get this iteration out to the customer who, only has a certain condensed budget is this thing is this of the mindset of look, it's going to be a little painful now, but in the future, it'll be much easier if that's how I've.[00:10:49] Digest that over the years, a lot of pain now, but a lot less stress in the future.[00:10:56] Maciek: Yes, that's it? Because this was a problem. I also had that one company I worked at that every time with other developers, we try to, Hey, maybe let's try and add some tests. We will. We'll benefit from it in the future, because right now, probably it will take us some time, but there are also like a few methods of writing tasks because we can either try to have like 100% coverage, which I think doesn't have a sense in any situation.[00:11:29] Or we just could try to focus on those critical parts of our website of our application. So if we know that. Some part of our website is critical. Let's say we know that our contact form is like the most important thing on our side. We should just write that small as using, for example, Cyprus testing.[00:11:53] If everything is working after each deployment, we don't have to cover everything. This is the only critical part we will need. Of course, the more tests, the better. And as you said, This is the problem that some agency owners or business department have that this is one more thing that the developers have to create.[00:12:16] So it will take much more time. And that is true. That is that's really true because this will take some extra time, but on the other things,[00:12:26] Matt: Sorry, go ahead. I just want to just ask the interject in this one question, cause I'm actually just really curious of, as, as I hear you talk about it and framed in a different way than I've heard over years, but a business owner again says, Hey, that con that sales lead form very important to our business.[00:12:43] That's where all of our sales contacts come in or our checkout page. Very. Business owner puts his hat on and says, Hey, isn't this why we're here in WordPress? We have gravity forms. We have WooCommerce, or these well-developed plugins. Isn't this code tested before it's shipped. How does something like this solve against that?[00:13:00] When we might be saying, boy, we just paid 200 bucks for gravity forms, license, what do we need to test this for?[00:13:06] Maciek: Because there are, there are few reasons. First of all, Gravity forms. Developers are humans and they also sometimes make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. This developer in the middle name.[00:13:20] Yes. This guy at get lab once just like destroyed their whole database and then they learned. They don't have backups. So yes, every wild makes[00:13:31] Matt: sound for six hours the other day. Yeah.[00:13:34] Maciek: And to be honest, after like removing the whole database, being down only for six hours. Great. Really, they, they get a tremendous job with with restoring everything can and stop.[00:13:45] But yes, they are humans. Second of all, our website runs on. Which can also break. There are so many moving parts. Also, there are other blockchains that could conflict with our plugin. So it's always better just to add this one extra test for our critical parts, because okay. That deployment will take, like, let's say five minutes longer, but I think it's much better rather than losing like $200.[00:14:17] Just like that before releasing the hotfix. So, so yeah, this is, this is something that, okay. It will take some time, but in the end, especially when we w when we plan to have a longer collaboration with, with this client, this will be something that all those tests will really help us in, in, in many things.[00:14:39] For example, if at some point we will want to. Like refactor some parts of the code then refactoring without having tests. It's maybe not impossible, but this is a very dangerous task because then we want to know anything about those loose ends. And so yeah, this, this artist situations, when, when, when this are something really, really.[00:15:01] Matt: Before we get to talking about you, co-founding, WPLS a couple of other questions here on the CIC D stuff. Is there a particular, so in podcasting, right? So I help people@mydayjobatcastles.com, getting them set up with podcasting. And it's not just, Hey, here's how you use Castillo's. They come to me and they say, oh my God, how do I start?[00:15:23] How do I get a podcast off the ground? How do I create content? How do I interview people? There's all of these other questions that come into creating an account at cast. Those that we have to submit. Things like testing and training and education and stuff like that. How do you all solve that at your day job?[00:15:39] How do you help people sort of on onboard to this new methodology, if it's new to them and make them successful so that they're not missing the things that really make it a valuable, a valuable solution?[00:15:51] Maciek: There are very few things that, that we can do. First of all Foundation of using CICT is using any version control system.[00:16:00] So this is the first thing we have to educate people on is using get just like this. If someone isn't using any version control system then this is something. Th this person has, has to learn. That's why we, for example, had this webinar together with get crack and because they have a really great tool for forget.[00:16:22] And yeah, because this is also a thing that some people are afraid when it comes to version control system. This is a command line tool. So it's scary and it's only for developers now. That's not true. We can use get crack and it's really easy. We can use tower and there are probably some other tools also even using a gift and their web version.[00:16:45] This, this is also a really friendly approach. I, so many people who wrote books using good using markdown and using pull requests for, for comments from, from other. And this is a really interesting method to do this, and it's, it's, it's totally possible. And like I said, this is the foundation of CIC D without it, we, we just won't know what changed and thanks to version control system.[00:17:10] We can, we can see those things on the other hand, because. That's beyond the CACD. It's kind of boring like that because CAC just connects the cool parts because we have this like cool server. We have this, our cool website and deploying one from the other, like this is the boring part. So, so I also try, especially on my Twitter sometimes to show some cool ways what we can do which I see, for example I think that the last week I posted how to, how to connect our pipeline.[00:17:47] So every time that our deployment is successful, it will lounge. I have the tiger on my, on Spotify, on my phone. And it works. Yes. It's useless in a way it's warm.[00:18:00] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. You don't want that going off on like a board meeting and we launched a new website and like I had the tire comes on, like hired this[00:18:07] Maciek: guy, I say, okay, this is a really great sign.[00:18:10] It's working. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's really terrific. And I also discuss with, with one of our, of our writers at the body he created an action to start a game server. I just don't remember in which game does by like in a press of a button and just like that, it just automated everything, created some balls that lounge everything on amazing.[00:18:34] It was working. So yeah, it's, it's, it's not only about moving files from one place to another. We can just do so many interesting things. It's just up to us. And because there are so many tools that have some open API APIs, CLS or anything. So it's so easy to connect everything with everything. So, so it's really great.[00:19:00] I. Even, like I said, I, now I have this, I have tiger, but I could, for example, using IFT T connect to. Our pipeline with like changing color of lights at my house, because why not? Again,[00:19:17] Matt: but again, of course, open API is automation. All of this stuff is fantastic. It's fantastic because. It allows you to have like this creative sense to unlock things that even the companies who are creating don't even haven't even realized yet.[00:19:33] Right? Like you were able to do things like notify your team about deployments that happen in different channels and different methodologies. Yeah. It's, it's fantastic. When you start to unlock all of this stuff, that creative mindset that you have that interest to explore and to develop and investigate I'm sure is what led you to releasing WP owls, right?[00:19:56] Like you've loved WordPress. You wanted to explore more of it. I assume I don't want to put words in your mouth and I'll let you explain it. But you know, here you are. I think 50, at least at the time of this recording, 55 issues published on WP owls.co walk me down that path. When did this start and who did you start it with and why are you still doing it?[00:20:20] Maciek: So, yeah, this is, this is a funny story because the Polish version has. More than 150 issues already. So it's much older. And it started with with the fact that I didn't listen to my wife carefully because at some point she asked me, Hey, maybe we will run a WordPress newsletter or something like this.[00:20:43] I'm using Facebook, just, just for our Polish community. And I wasn't listening. I just said, yeah. Great idea. Yeah. Let's do it. And yeah. And now we are those more than 100 episodes of the Polish issues of the Polish version, more than 50 of the English one. So yes, yes we are. We are still doing it. And when we started, especially because the Polish community.[00:21:12] Even if it's quite big, we all knew each other. So it was rather simple when we just posted that, Hey, we are starting the published version of WP hours. Many people are like at start started to follow in gas. And at some point we realized that Facebook wasn't the perfect choice. So we created our own website.[00:21:33] And when we have hit the 100 episodes, we decided, okay, it's time to go global. It's time to go global let's let's lounge, the double owls English version. And we fought that. Okay. We will have a bigger community, so it will be much, much easier to promote because we saw how it works with with our Polish community.[00:21:57] And we were a bit mistaken with some of the assumptions because for example, the most important marketing channel when it comes to the Polish version is. Estelle it's Facebook and for the English version, Facebook just doesn't work. I could almost remove it. And I think that no one would even even care about it.[00:22:21] Twitter is the most popular mediums here, which is great because I learned that I really loved with her opposed to Facebook, which I, which I really hate with all my heart.[00:22:34] Matt: Well, do you think it's, do you think the. For the Polish version is more successful because it's just where you started or are Polish people more, especially in the WordPress space, more tied to Facebook as it communications?[00:22:48] Yes.[00:22:48] Maciek: I figured that because in Poland looks like the Twitter is slowly mostly used either by politics or by a journal. So everyone is arguing with everyone and that's all when it comes to using our polished weeder. So yes, I, I really fully understand why people don't want to to use it.[00:23:12] And they like, especially Facebook groups because those are closed communities. But with CA when it comes to the English version The whole WordPress Twitter community is very open is it's really great. And I really loved it. I really love it. I really like hanging out there. So just, just, just like this enter, I think that I, I'm not sure when, when will, it will be published, but tomorrow, so it will be 19th.[00:23:43] It will be the first whole year of WP hours. We will be celebrating our first, our first barge night. And and I must say the going global was, was, was a great decision. It was a great decision. Okay. It is some ex it needs some extra work because every time we have to translate everything to English, because still thinking in our native languages much easier.[00:24:11] Yeah. But but like I said, it, it was worth it. We could lounge our our guests editors let's call it program. And w w and this is really the part of which I am so proud. This is working so great. And and yeah, we are. W we are hoping that it will, it will only get the better,[00:24:31] Matt: oh, congratulations.[00:24:32] On a year. I just celebrated nine years, a couple of days ago for, for this particular show. Once you pass a year, there's no turning back. They say you cannot stop at this point. Yeah, that's[00:24:44] Maciek: true. That's true because. Th we already see how much work we have put into something. And it would be a shame just to stop at that point.[00:24:53] Matt: Did, how do the goals change at all? Like what was the original goal for the Polish. Was it for you to just maybe get exposure to lead into maybe hiring you or something like that? And how do the goals change if at all shifting to a global presence?[00:25:07] Maciek: We have only one goal and it was more of a contribution towards WordPress.[00:25:13] That's all. We fought for a short while about monetizing it, but we. Once we decided that we don't want it. We don't want it. We, we want a WP hours and the Polish version to be our hubby rather than our our job B like, how is this nicely called? And This was the only thing that we want to achieve.[00:25:34] We wanted to give back something from, from us. And we know how many things are happening in the, in the worker space. So putting everything in one place I think it's a, it's, it's a nice contribution that that, that we are doing with the English version that all living that we that we wanted is just to, just to continue.[00:25:56] Doing this contribution about in the, in, in the larger scale. And even if we did not fault and we are, we don't want to monetize it. I, I would lie if I would set that it didn't help me with my, with my job because it's so much easier to connect with people because If I would be just much upon Muskie from, from body, less people would know.[00:26:22] And when I'm contacting them like, hi, I'm I work at at body, but you also may know me from WP ALS and many people already know me. So which ma it's so easier to connect with. If you saw our guest editors list, like there are, so I would call them workers, rock stars. We had, we had yells, we had Mar YAG.[00:26:47] We had so many interesting, interesting people from, from the workless world. And without WP ALS, I don't think I would even have had the courage to talk with with some of them, because why? Because. I am. I'm just, I wouldn't be just a workers ambassador and this makes me, and this makes it a bit easier, but I still remember the moment I wrote wrote an email asking Demariac from, from yells to be our guests to Dieter.[00:27:18] For sure. I had the small slip deprivation because I would never do it being like, because this is Marielle from yellows. This is yeah. I am here and she's right. So the interesting thing and the surprise in the morning.[00:27:34] Matt: Yeah. The, the interesting thing, and I sort of alluded to this earlier.[00:27:38] How this is an interesting time for like content creators, especially in, especially in the WordPress play space, in any space in every space. I should say. It's just very apparent in WordPress because content creators can get jobs for brands to, again, bridge those gaps between marketing and product or especially marketing and technical.[00:27:56] The other interesting thing, I think, which is going to carry through. Forever at this point, I think is folks like you and I, and some folks listening who are content creators who have a body of work that is valuable, but more importantly, an employee. Somebody who hires you to work for them, sees that as valuable and allows you to continue to do it.[00:28:19] Let me frame this from some experiences that I had when I got out of the day job, running my agency and looked for a full-time job back when I was having kids five, five or so years ago at this point, that body of work like you were saying, allowed me to, talk to other companies to get jobs.[00:28:39] I'd say 80% of them back then were, were like, yeah, this is awesome. Like continue to do the Matt report. You can work for us and keep doing it because it's a benefit to us really at the end of the day. And I get to retain that ownership. And it's not looked at. Oh, you're doing like a side hustle while you're working for us.[00:28:57] Like, no, that's not gonna apply. And I did have some of those conversations with very notable WordPress companies, I should say, which I won't say on air, but a few of them were like, no, no, you, if you work for us, you'd have to stop doing the mat reporting. And I was like, oh, okay, this, this conversation's done pretty quick because that's just not going to happen.[00:29:13] But what I'm getting at is I think content creators have this advantage from here on out. Like you can continue to create. Have it as a valuable asset to yourself, to the company you're working for. If both parties can agree that this is a, an okay relationship. I think the future is pretty bright for content creators to continue to love, like do this hobby thing, like as you put it and work for a company, but find mutual mutual benefit.[00:29:40] That was a long way of getting to that is no real question. But do you have any thoughts around the future of like content creators and how you can leverage that as an additive?[00:29:48] Maciek: Yeah, I think that, that, that, you're absolutely right with this because I think that many, because when, when I started my, my job in with workers, I remember that every time when we were creating sites, that there were like three types of of let's call it workers.[00:30:04] We had graphic designers, we had developers and we had the marketing team and there was. There were so many gaps between all of those teams. And now when I w when I look at some work titles of different people, I see that are more and more jobs that are connecting those gaps. We have now, all those the developer relations jobs, oldest, embassy leaders, advocates, and so on, I would still like to be called, I dunno, I worked with you in the corner or something.[00:30:36] Matt: Because why your pay rate keeps going up every time, the longer this conversation goes on, you and I are going to be getting paid a lot more money.[00:30:42] Maciek: Yeah. So, but, but, but this is Suffolk, this that I think that many companies started to realize that it's not so easy that, that the job we are doing became more and more complicated in so many on so many levels.[00:30:58] Not only when it comes to the technical stuff. But here, here also, we have all those headlights, not headless, so many approaches of doing our, our workers is right. But on the other hand, there are so many approaches when it comes to communication to writing content and. So for sure there will be more and more jobs that will be doing that, that will specialize in one small thing and it will benefit for forever.[00:31:30] Because really having specialists on things that may sound stupid for someone it's sometime maybe a big win. I don't remember who, but someone in our corporate space is is, is promoting himself as an expert about, about pages. And, and this is a great approach because the about page is something really useful.[00:31:55] Yeah, and it can get, it can build that relation between the reader of the website and to do, to become a future client or something like this. So, so yeah. Maybe a few years ago, hiring someone who calls himself an about page specialists may sound, let's call it weird, but now why not? Right. It may have sense.[00:32:21] Matt: Yeah. A hundred percent. I want to turn our sights on. Talking about creating content in the WordPress space, maybe WordPress, journalism, news, podcasting, and all the, all of this fun stuff you say that you, you want to keep it as a hobby. You don't want to turn it into a jobby, which I I'd imagine.[00:32:37] As soon as you first, as soon as you take your first payment, and let's say an advertiser suddenly, now you're sort of thrust into this area of like, okay, now I have to turn this into a business. I know this really well because I take sponsorship money. There is a need, I think. And again, there's not going to be a direct question here.[00:32:52] I'm just going to frame it and then happy to get your thoughts. I think there is a need for like great for great WordPress content, not just tutorials, not just interviews but content lead with opinion, journalism research, et cetera, et cetera put out there into the world because there are.[00:33:11] Sponsors out there. There are businesses out there that would like to support it. There's also businesses and brands out there that want to get their product or service out in front of other readers, listeners, viewers, if you're doing stuff on YouTube, there's plenty of, of market share out there. I don't think our particular space has matured enough.[00:33:34] And I mean that for both parties on one hand, I think the product owners that are out there are simply just looking for, for numbers, right? They want, they want clicks. They want page views. They want downloads, they want views. They want all of this stuff. Rightfully so. And there's less concern of great quality content.[00:33:53] And then. There's the other side of the product owner, who's like, Hey, I got this great product. How do I get it out there? I want the world to know about it, but the taverns not talking about it, I guess my work here is done. I think they just give up. Right. And there's no formal outreach.[00:34:10] There's no real true effort to reach out to folks like you and I to. To really do that. And if it is, it's just like this, please talk about my products. So you can promote me thing, which also sucks. Right. And then we flip that sphere around to the content creators, like uni where, ah, yeah, some of us, we, we get burned out from doing these projects because.[00:34:31] Whatever it's, it's just not enough people paying attention to it. There's not enough money in it. The WordPress world is largely out of our control to, to a degree. So there's things moving that we just can't control. Can't use the word WordPress or in, in any of our commercial endeavors there's stuff like that.[00:34:48] Fairly chaotic world. How do you see bridging the gap between, product companies that want to support great and unique content and want to get their product out there and the content creators like you and I, and others that are listening to this to like, keep things going and get valued at a particular.[00:35:07] Level that they should be valued at a big, huge topic. I just threw at you. But your thoughts on any of this?[00:35:13] Maciek: Yeah, that's right. It's, it's huge. Maybe I will start with a little background because for, for few years I had the chance to work at one of the biggest Polish technical portals and. There were, there were a lot of advertisement or, and I had the chance to contact with so many media agencies, advisors, and so on.[00:35:36] And this was the point when I realized I really hate advertisement in like any way. And when I am still thinking when it comes to WP ALS how to. Get some money, but not for me because I'm, I I'm earning enough at, at, at my day job, but to get some money just that I can found something something else for, for example, I could pay money for, for writers and like still trying to find the way, how to, how to make an advice advertisement that won't lose.[00:36:14] Like it's, it's an ad it's it's, it's, it's something really difficult. It's, it's something really difficult because like I said, I had banners, I had, I hate sponsored tags because in many cases you can feel that someone paid for it and it's it's, it's not real. It's not real. It's it's it's it's, it's just fake.[00:36:37] So[00:36:37] Matt: yes, this is, but don't you think in the WordPress world? Don't you think specifically in the WordPress world, we have an advantage as creators to either write or say ads that we really care about. Like if you're using, your particular buddy, get a software or if let's say gravity forms, sponsor the show, like I could really talk well about, gravity forms.[00:37:00] Cause I know that. Don't you think we're in a particular advantage to the make advertising?[00:37:05] Maciek: Yes. That is true. That there are many products that that I could advertise with. We'd like. Can you heart or anything? I would, I won't have to worry about that. I am, let's say lying to the people because yes, I could say those words, but this is, this is one problem about me because I always were at minimalist developer.[00:37:27] I use as few plugins as possible. So I could say great words about advanced Gusto fields. I could say great words about the body. About timber, but it's an open source project that wouldn't advertise in any way and maybe about Yoast because I always use them too. So there are not many products that I could advertise in a way.[00:37:53] And on the other hand, I know that there are so many services that are probably great, that are that are really far towards the users. And if I could find a way to. To figure out how to create those advertisements in a way that. Th that's will look more real more for, to, to, to my top, to my readers.[00:38:18] And it will be a great moment for me when I, when I, when I figured it out, I'm still trying to, to do, to find a way how to, because like I said for, for me, it would be great if I could sponsor some other people to, to, to write some great tax to to develop their. Stuff like this,[00:38:37] Matt: because there are so many, it sounds like advertisement and sponsorship is, is still on the table.[00:38:42] Like you're still exploring it. It might be something that you do with th[00:38:45] Maciek: this bout. Yes, it, it, it is it's but like I said, it's, it's not for me. I would just like want to have the possibility to, to pass the money, to, to, to people that. That needed more because like I said, I'm, I'm really happy with, with how many money I earn each month still.[00:39:05] If they want to tell them to give me a raise, I'm still open. So[00:39:09] Matt: they definitely will after this call Machek thanks for hanging out today and talking about all of this wonderful stuff. Listen, if you're a small agency boutique agency, you have a few developers on your team starting to take on bigger projects.[00:39:21] You're starting to punch above your weight. Sign those 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred thousand dollars deals. It's time to get serious. Find my check. Well much I can tell us where can they find you to connect on the CIC D software that we talked about? And then where can we find you? If we want to write a post on WPLS[00:39:37] Maciek: I've instilled, the best way would be to connect with me through fruit for Twitter.[00:39:42] You can find me my nickname is . I hope that maybe you will, you will provide them. My link to my Twitter and accounting in a written way. And I think this is this. This is the best way to connect with me because it's, it's universal for all my worlds.[00:40:01] Matt: Fantastic stuff. Everyone else listening to this, my report.com report.com/subscribe.[00:40:06] If you want your weekly news delivered to you in five minutes or less, the WP minute.com. Sponsor us over there@buymeacoffee.com slash Maryport. Join our private discord. Join the conversation, get your hand in the. WordPress news. See you in the next episode. ★ Support this podcast ★

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 lingered in the air for a few years now. When you unlock it's power of custom post types and fields with a dash of REST API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data. Yet with an interface that I struggle to drag a single block into the 3 column of my page layout. Today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress, specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years but that usability struggle I mentioned earlier? Yeah…that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform you may have heard of before on the show before — Webflow. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of designing a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. Episode transcript [00:00:00] Dave: switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:00:08] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. I also had have still, a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:00:25] Matt: This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by foo plug-ins or specifically foo plugins, foo gallery. You can find it@foo.gallery. There's a new pro commerce plan, and it gives you two way integration into WooCommerce. So if you want to sell photos, you can sell photos with foo.gallery and woo commerce. [00:00:47] It makes your job. Super easy, especially if you're a photographer. I just had family photos taken the other day and I looked at the big conglomerate website that my photographer sent me. He said, man, it would look so much better if you. Right through WooCommerce, especially if you use something like foo gallery, check out food, art gallery, and learn more about their pro commerce plan. [00:01:09] Check out their WooCommerce integration. They have a great way to watermark and protect your photo galleries. Check them out and thank them for sponsoring the show. It's food, art gallery go-to food art gallery today. Start selling images with foo gallery and. [00:01:27] As designers or developers, even product makers when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point right now. Whereas the software is evolving Reed Gutenberg in full site, editing the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that's a statement which has lingered in the air for a few years. [00:01:50] When you unlock its power custom post types and fields with a dash of rest API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data yet with an interface that I struggle to drag and drop a single block into a third column of my page layout today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years. [00:02:12] But the usability struggle that I just met. Yeah, that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform. You may have heard of before on the show web. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of devising a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. [00:02:34] You're listening to the Mer report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. If you'd like to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/matt report. And buy me a digital coffee or joined the membership to jump into our private discord server with others. Chatting it up about the. [00:02:48] And greatest in our crazy WordPress world, that's buy me a coffee.com/maryport. And thanks to Fu plug-ins for supporting today's show. Check out food gallery food art gallery for more. Okay. [00:03:00] Here's my interview with Dave.  [00:03:01] Dave: I had a lot of resistance, a lot of inner resistance to partly because, switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:03:15] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. But I mean, I also had have still, but, I had at the time, like a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:03:35] And so it, it really was kind of. It, it, it was, it was a real kind of crunch time for me for thinking that I have got to the point where I cannot use these tools anymore. I'm finding that I actually I'm finding that. I'll talk about the details in a moment, but I can't in all conscience recommend this particular combination of tools that I am well-known for and, very well paid for I can't carry on. [00:04:05] So, believe me, it was quite a, quite a risk. I think I remember one of my students say, and I've mentioned it's something in, in the, in the little private Facebook group that I've got for one of my courses. And he just said career suicide. Nice. So, [00:04:23] Matt: for thanks for the vote of confidence. [00:04:25] Dave: Awesome. I mean, it, it probably had a point, you probably had a point  [00:04:29] Matt: What was that? Oh, just real quick. What was that concern for you to say? You know what, I don't feel like I can recommend these tools anymore. Was it more a, an ELA mentor thing? Was it more a WordPress thing? I mean, we're in this chaotic times where it's like, Gutenberg is still trying to get better full site editing's coming in. [00:04:48] You layer on the complexity of a piece of software that wants you to build a website a certain way? Are we just hitting a perfect storm here? Or was there something specific? [00:04:57] Dave: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I had got to the point where I started, well, I've, I've been using WordPress since 2007, something like that, so for my own personal projects and my own client projects, I'd use WordPress for, for a good long time. It was when I actually decided to teach online. I long story, I think we've covered this plenty of times before, but for 10 years I was actually a school teacher. [00:05:23] I'm a, I am a qualified teacher, so I was a qualified teacher, teaching young children in the, in the UK. Like in the nineties and early two thousands. And I then got into web design and build up a great business, but it just decided that I just miss teaching so much. So for me, around 2016 ish, I decided I actually want to get back into teaching, but I want to teach the thing that I've been, I've been working with the web design tools that I'll be working with for, for, for many years, what, what a perfect combination. [00:05:54] So, I did a lot of research, long story, but I'd discovered elements or which was [00:06:00] just in its earliest stages at the time. And thought this combination of tools is brilliant for, for my target market. My target market is always non coders. People who don't want to code and probably feel a bit nervous about the prospect of. [00:06:14] Th they, they want to build websites, but web design technology, web design tools, web development, isn't something that is natural to them. It's not something that they are completely off-air with. And. So I always see my job as taking people who look at all this stuff and think, oh, wow, this is so complicated. [00:06:35] And possibly quite scary. It's my job to say, it's all fine. Just do this, this and this. And it all works out. So in a sense, I'd particularly chosen WordPress and elements or that particular combination, because it just seemed right for my target. Now over the gears, elements or has added on features and features and features WordPress itself, as you say, is changing dramatically. [00:07:02] I think ultimately that will be for the good of WordPress. Definitely. I know a lot of people complain about Gothenburg, but I think it is getting there, but it got to the point where I started to think would I in, in, in all kind of conscience, I suppose, would I, conscious now. Recommend to somebody who once frost-free hassle-free stress-free web design experience, where basically stuff just works. [00:07:30] All of the scary kind of hustle behind the scenes all the kind of configuration, all the. The, the stuff that people complain about WordPress, which is actually a strength at the same time, which is it's plugin plugin system, plugin architecture, but I'd got to the point where, for my own use of WordPress, but also just being sensitive to the needs of my students and the needs of the people who I work with day in, day out to help with this stuff. [00:08:01] I just saw massive frustration. Massive massive frustration with constant plugin updates, constant issues with plugins. It's not new in WordPress at all, obviously, but you know, updating plugins to find that something's broken, there's a conflict with something else, finding websites that now this is, I think, quite a bit of elemental issue cause they do, they have had a history of releasing some quite buggy releases in in more recently. [00:08:30] But you know, finding that a website that worked perfectly well, last time they logged in now, suddenly it doesn't work in, in some way there's some functionality broken or there's a, there's the layout that's suddenly off. Issues with hosting and all the RS, all manner of different things. It's kind of like that little drip, drip trip, the, the Chinese water torture, I think is called, the, the drip, drip, drip, drip of, of, of, of constant issues where I just thought there's, there's gotta be a better [00:09:00] way. [00:09:00] I know that, for instance, like I use Thinkific for my online course. And it's just all done for me. I can get on with actually creating courses, uploading the courses and teaching, there are, there are, I don't know, email marketing platforms where that the heavy lifting and the stuff that I don't need to know is done in the background so I can get on with my job. [00:09:22] And I started to think that there must be something better than this constant stress and worry and, and hustle. And maintenance and all of these other things, which is what led me to start looking at other possible or the solutions.  [00:09:39] Matt: I've seen the love, hate relationship with Gutenberg, how fast this piece of software has been iterated on. And just all the changes you couple that with ELA mentor, which is also on a rocket ship ride, they're growing, they're adding new features. They've hit a bout of turbulence, I guess is probably the nicest thing that I could say. [00:10:01] I know I've seen you and Paul on Twitter really hammering it home with element or for good reason. And they have to be conscious, I think, of element or they have the conscious of just not throwing the kitchen sink at everything for the sake of the kitchen sink.  [00:10:17] I feel like folks who are looking for a web flow solution understand that they should invest some money in a platform. That's just going to do it without the FOS updates, hosting issues. Incompatibilities with other plugins, like I will pay the, have that done on Webflow versus the WordPress side of it where it's like, man, there's so many variables that, that can be thrown at this. [00:10:46] Where are you getting that feedback from your audience?  [00:10:48] Dave: Yeah, it was it was, as I said, at the beginning, it was a very, very reluctant look looking for something else for very, very lots of, lots of reasons. I didn't want to be looking anywhere else. Yeah. Partly it was, it was my. And it was partly because of elements or boogie releases. So I got on with, for instance, I needed to build a new website for myself late last year, and they installed a new instance of WordPress and elements. [00:11:14] I was like, global colors just didn't work at all, just broken. And so, so w there were several issues like that just personally for myself, as it was like, oh, what, what is it now? There was not, and it's not just, it's not just elements or, I think. Lots and lots of other, other plugins as well, but let's, I'm probably focusing on elements are maybe a bit too much, but, but yeah, it certainly wasn't a good feeling from my audience and students by, by any means. [00:11:43] I mean, my, my group, I sort of private group was just every day there was just something of like, why isn't this working? Why is this thing broken now? Or it wasn't just necessarily as WordPress. It was like hosting as well, or. I think because. Because the, [00:12:00] because of the plugin architecture and there are plugins coming down the pipe every single day as you. [00:12:04] And I know constantly with, with new features and, potentially solving problems with SEO and page speed and everything else. So th th there were those issues with stuff just being broken and being hard. And, people struggling just to keep up with a frantic pace of change. I think that that was partly the thing, but I think also it was just, I think, yeah, just, just, I, I suppose people just I'm just trying to think of the best way to put it really. [00:12:33] Yeah, just, just gen general kind of anxiety about, about stuff being broken and stuff. Just not being easy, I think is the easiest way to put it. Yeah. [00:12:43] Matt: I want to ask you this question. This is going a little bit deeper in sort of like the creator in the, in the creator mindset, the, the business of being a creator and monetizing on, let's say YouTube and affiliate sales. It probably wasn't an easy decision to make either because one would imagine knowing what I did with affiliate sales, for elements. [00:13:06] Which was a flea on an elephant's ass, probably compared to what you and maybe others have done. It was probably a tough business decision to write, to be like, look, I'm making money. And I think you and Paul and, and, and the other folks that I communicate with on, on YouTube, you do affiliates. Right. I think of immediately when peoples think affiliates are like, oh, what are you trying to sell me? [00:13:29] What kind of cloaking device are you using on these, on these links? Like at one point in your, in your career, you're like, Elementor is a fantastic tool at this time. And they have an affiliate program. Why not recommend this and make money? It's a legit way when you're doing it a legit way. I don't have any other better way of saying that. [00:13:49] So I'd probably, at some point you were like, oh man, like I will be turning off this. Potentially of money. What was that like? And did you have, do you have any thoughts or feelings around affiliate sales and how this helps make the decision  [00:14:01] Dave: Yeah, well, I mean, affiliates, the affiliate business model was never ever my intention when I first started my thing was I'm going to sell courses and affiliate sales were have always just been a bit of a nice to have. When I first started my YouTube channel started making videos about this fairly brand new tool called elements or at the time I happened. [00:14:22] I mentioned my affiliate link. I think it just dropped it in the description. Sometimes I would, occasionally when elements I had an offer, I would let my email list know which was regrowing. My, my business model was growing my email list to sell courses in a nutshell. That's it. And it still is. Grow the email list to sell courses. [00:14:41] But thank goodness that I was an affiliate for elements or in those early days, because in the first kind of nine months of me getting to the point where I even had the confidence to make a course and to feel like I could sell it at all, we're going back to 2017 now, which seems so long [00:15:00] ago, it was only a few years, but yeah, the, the, the, the affiliate income from I was an affiliate for very, very few. [00:15:07] Elements or generate press. I don't know, maybe a hosting platform as well. Well, the income from that was better than I'd been making, working full-time as a web designer. And it absolutely saved my ass because if I hadn't have had that income I think the whole online course thing probably would have failed. [00:15:28] Now. I say that because I. Way too long to actually make a product and offer it to my, offer it to my audiences, to my MLS. So these days when I mentor and help people create products and make online courses, one of my first things is to say, is this a build. As a small and email list, as you can get away with find a hundred people and sell something, make something to sell. [00:15:55] It can be very low value, not low value, low, low price. It doesn't matter, but start making something and start selling something straight away, because it's only then that you can start getting true feedback about what people actually want, what they're prepared to pay for and where you? [00:16:11] should put your energies. [00:16:13] But yeah, the affiliate thing was, was massive, but. W my, the income of saying about, I'm not, I'm not saying it's a brag, but it's a multiple six figures a year. Business is mostly from courses. It's mostly from selling courses. I'd say 90% is from selling courses about WordPress and elemental, specifically about using those tools. [00:16:36] And yeah, to say that it's career suicide, there's the phrase, career suicide. [00:16:42] Matt: And you were, you were lucky enough to get to a point. Did you turn ads on, on your YouTube  [00:16:48] Dave: No, no, no, no. Never never had no, no, no,  [00:16:51] Matt: Just because you didn't want the experience or the user to have that experience of ads, or you were never looking at it  [00:16:59] Dave: I think, I think what I wanted to do was just to make sure. The foolishly probably, this is, this is not a savvy business head talking, but I think I just want to, just to make sure that when people watch my videos, that we're just not being interrupted by ads and, they could just actually enjoy the experience of, of watching the videos. [00:17:18] And I suspected that probably the income from that wasn't particularly going to be too great anyway. So I just always kept monitorization off for that reason. Really.  [00:17:27] Matt: My YouTube story is like, how do I get into this game? How do I create this content? And I quickly, but I don't say quickly, it took me six months to burn out, doing like three videos a week or maybe three or four videos a week. I had this ambitious goal of doing it like every day. And I just flatlined burned out. [00:17:46] I didn't literally didn't touch it for a year. And then all of a sudden. Ad sent, sent me the first check for a hundred bucks. Right. Then I logged in and it was, I had tripled my audience without uploading a video in a year, just because of SEO. [00:17:58] The light bulb went off. [00:18:00] Like you fool, you shouldn't have given up, you should have done it less. So you didn't burn yourself out, but you shouldn't have given up. And again, like life gets in the way YouTube stuff is so far away. My daily routine that I haven't uploaded episodes. And, but I still am making three or 400 bucks a month in ads. [00:18:19] And I have a lot of kids, so diapers are expensive. So I leave the ads on, but I, I, I can certainly, I can certainly see in your world where these bigger products, bigger prices, the brand, the value, there is a target for you to focus on. [00:18:34] Dave: Yeah. [00:18:35] definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I was the one that I think I wanted that sense of kind of trustworthiness. Yeah. just that experience. Really. I was not to say that people with ads, I watch, oh, I've got YouTube premium now, so I don't see any ads, but seeing ads on people's videos, I actually don't, I don't personally tie that into a decision that's made by the creator of the video at all. [00:18:55] It doesn't, I understand how it works as well, but I don't ever think, oh, they've, they've got ads turned on. They obviously don't care about my experiences as a viewer. It doesn't enter my head, so  [00:19:06] Matt: side note, I also signed up recently for premium, like late was finally one of those things where, you know, before you sign up for premium, every time you logged into YouTube, they'd be like, do premium, do premium, do premium. And I'm always like clothes, clothes, clothes. And I tell you, Dave, I am like, screw it. [00:19:23] I'm going to do it. Right. Like finally, you got me YouTube, literally a thousand pop-ups later is probably what my conversion metrics were. You finally got me and I signed up and I watched my first video with no ads. And I was like, wow,  [00:19:41] Dave: Yeah, well, consider the side.  [00:19:43] Matt: brain, because my brain was trained so much now with like their three pre-roll ads and then the, the pop-up in the middle of the banner and then like the mid roll. [00:19:53] And when I'm doing work for Casto, sometimes I'm in the Castle's account and I'm uploading my videos for Casos and I'll be watching something. And I'll be like, what is this ad? Like, my brain is like, what is this? Like, it was happening. And like, oh yeah, I'm not in my premium account. [00:20:08] Dave: It is awesome. I think it's. worth every single  [00:20:11] Matt: It is, it's. it is.  [00:20:13] Dave: Yeah, definitely.  [00:20:15] Matt: when I go on vacation with my children and recently w we're going to, we were in Florida and they're watching TV, cable, TV, and there's commercials. And my kids are literally asking me what dad, what is this? Why, why isn't the show playing? Because they're so used to Netflix and Disney plus. [00:20:33] Dave: Yeah.  [00:20:34] Matt: And they see a commercial and they are freaking out. They're like, what, what is a show? Where's the show? And I'm like, it's just a, it's a thing called commercial kids that you didn't grow up with. Welcome to my world.  [00:20:46] Dave: Oh, wow.  [00:20:46] Matt: All right. As we get into the back half of this conversation, web flow, did you, you said like, I want to find a platform that is easy, all encompassing. [00:20:59] Was Webflow [00:21:00] is in the back of your mind or did you start doing some homework and then you settled on Webflow? [00:21:04] Dave: Yeah, Well, I had, I'd actually been recommended Webflow several times over at least two years, probably more. And every time somebody said to me, you've got dude, you've got to check web flow out. And these were people that are trusted and respected friends of mine, colleagues, people all over the place. [00:21:19] And people who had never looked back, it would just adopted it for their agency as their go-to tool. And they moved from WordPress. And every single time somebody recommended it. I said, well, yeah, I've heard of that. I'll check it out. And then I would immediately toss the idea in the bin and think there is literally no way I am looking at any of the tools because I've got a lot of, as we've said, a lot invested in, in WordPress and everything. [00:21:44] So yeah. Yeah. So, so actually choosing Webflow. I, I had a little look around to see anything else. I obviously don't, didn't bother looking at the Squarespaces and the Wix and things like that. But yeah, the web flow was pretty much, pretty much the only one that I considered now, I actually tried it and gave up three times, like completely just thought, right, come on, come on. [00:22:07] You can do this. I mean, how hard can it be and gave up three times because it's not actually. It's not actually, it's not a beginner's platform. It's not designed for people who that, that Squarespace is designed for. You don't get a lot of pre pre-made designs and in fact, it's harder to use done. [00:22:26] I would say a WordPress page builder, probably not oxygen because oxygen is based very, very, very much on web flow as I understand. But yeah, it was, it was hard. And what I also found as well is. I well, partly so, so what would happen is I'd give it a try and think, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I just, haven't got time. [00:22:46] I'll persevere with what I'm using. And it was the third time there was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I've got to figure this out. And in some ways it really appealed to me because when you start, well, we'll go into the details too much. But when you style anything in Webflow, you literally click on it. [00:23:04] A podcast doesn't make this a very good visual medium for me to explain this. But when you click on anything in web flow and you want to style it, it could be literally any element whatsoever. You give it a name, like a class, a, you give that class, whatever styles you like. You've got all the styles at your disposal, really easy, nice UI. [00:23:23] And then you just use that class on anything else that you want to give that, that that's those, those same styles. The sense of having literally on, con on limited global styling, not having to go to some separate styling panel somewhere to constantly kind of keep going back and sort of adjusting things. [00:23:46] And also not being out there, I suppose. Th the page, whatever the page builder developers decided the global styles are that you're going to have is what you're stuck with. You're limited by that. [00:24:00] Usually we web flow. You can just do what you like now as a, as an, actually like a dinosaur old school, HTML and CSS hand coder back in the day, this really appealed. [00:24:12] Because I used to write CSS and I'd have one single CSS file, which I could just create as many styles as I liked, and I could control them all from one place. So it was that particularly about web flow. That just super appealed to me, the lack of the lack of limits, really. I'm not being, I'm not being, I'm not being hampered by. [00:24:32] I mean, it's great. For instance, elements are just as an example, the whole load of widgets and know there are probably a million different third-party add-ons as well. It will all bring a load more widgets as well. And it is amazing. You can drag a widget on the screen, just onto the canvas. It just produces, your tabs or your, your posts Lao or whatever it is. [00:24:53] But you still fairly limited by the styling options that that developer has decided to give you where it was with Webflow is just completely open-ended. The problem, the problem it's like everything in life, concentrate offs. The problem with that beautiful open-endedness is that you can make a real mess. [00:25:14] If you're not careful, if you've not kind of got a system and a workflow and a, an a way that you decide that you're going to name classes and use them and reuse them, it can be a bit of a mess. And that's the issue that I hit immediately. The wet floor. The Webflow university, which is web flows own a free training is absolutely brilliant. [00:25:36] I mean, as, than, as an educator myself, as a teacher myself, I mean, I, I just think those videos are astounding. They're incredible. And I think it speaks volumes about a company like that who have invested so much time and energy into training their users. So that stuff was helpful. and it kinda got me got, definitely got me so far, but I was, I think because my teaching in WordPress and other mentor was all about, you've got all these tools, you've got all the colors in there, all the crayons in the box, but you need a system, you need a workflow, you need it. [00:26:16] You need, you need to set yourself limits. So. Yeah, you can produce sites really quickly, really productively, profitably and not have to think too much, you've got a system and you just do it and you just build them. So I, that was, that was the, that was the sticking point with Webflow. And it's what I ended up actually building a framework myself though. [00:26:36] There isn't anything really, there are web flow frameworks out there, but they all had issues for me. So I ended up building my own, [00:26:43] Matt: I've tried Webflow before. And me it's as much more of a like shiny object syndrome and a little bit of like this whole, like no code. Movement where it's like, I don't know. Sometimes I've thought of sat back and be like, man, if I could just have like a database that I use, like connected with Zapier [00:27:00] and I could like automate these things, I see all these other people do it, like in two seconds on the back of a napkin. [00:27:04] And I'm like, I want to do that too. And then like, I jumped into like web flow and I'm like, oh God, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just going to sound, I'm going away from this, this leads. And what I'm getting out of here is like, You tried it three times, whatever failed. And you're like, ah, somebody could just teach it my way you built it. [00:27:22] Right. You built the course to like, get people over that hump quite literally coming from WordPress to web flow. The name of your course is there a particular. Cut like a WordPress user or WordPress stack that somebody might be using. Who's like the perfect fit to, for your course number one, but for web flow, like certainly somebody who's us, I'm just a simple lowly WordPress blogger is probably not gonna need your course is probably not going to need web flow, but is there a certain, a certain avatar that is a perfect fit for your course, but for also to, to, to reap the benefits of web. [00:27:59] Dave: . I would say that people who I mean, if somebody is a WordPress developer, right? So we'll, we'll, we'll discount those people immediately, people are building their own themes and things like that then. Absolutely. Definitely not. I'm sure that WordPress gives you all of the, all of the control and the power and everything that you need. [00:28:14] So I would say more people who are trained to be. I'm trying to build full, fully functional websites using WordPress under page builder. I would say the people who definitely need a page builder of some kind. Now, when I'm in Gothenburg , is a page builder and it's developing fast as well. So I would say people who are using those tools particularly you, I, as I said, in a sense, web flow is a bit more complicated. [00:28:42] So it's, it's not just the. It is in some ways, but there isn't, the, the pre-built here is everything done for you. Aspect of quite a lot of the stuff that comes with a page builder. So there are certain things that you need to understand in the background. You need to understand what's going on. You need to understand a little bit about. [00:29:03] HTML and CSS as well. So just an, an understanding of just like how HTML interacts with CSS, just on a very basic level to understand things like inheritance, so when you set a style on the body, for instance, that is going to trickle down to everything underneath it, all the content and everything underneath it all, unless you override it. [00:29:26] So there are, there are concepts like that, that in a page builder, those people. I don't really even need to ever think about particularly, you can just eat just budge, something together quite, quite easily. I would say though that I, I do know of quite a lot of, of from end developers I suppose, backend developers as well, who really enjoy using web flow because it allows them to effectively write HTML and CSS without having to actually write HTML and CSS. [00:29:54] Cause like a graphical user interface for, for. Well, for me, [00:30:00] I am more than happy to recommend web flow to my audience, which are, as I said, non coders, they need a page builder and they're a little bit nervous about, all the multitude of different tools and, and, and things that they need to know. [00:30:15] Matt: I'm curious. I mean, I know the, as of, as of this time, which is September 17th at 11:30 AM Eastern standard time in new England, which is where we, we won't get into the  [00:30:28] Dave: I mean I'm in the old one.  [00:30:30] Matt: in the old one. You're in the original one. The, I know the course is not for sale yet. I'm curious. And I've seen it. [00:30:37] I think I've gone through the first two modules and, and, and, for the listener out there, like when Dave says he takes time, like it took me so long to do this. Yeah. But the quality is just mind blowing and I can't even imagine Dave, how much time you've spent on it. I don't, I don't know if you have a number of hours counted or if you even want to admit how long you've been into it. [00:30:57] I know it's not for sale yet. Do you, as of this recording, but maybe when we launch this recording do you anticipate. The some turbulence there. Right? So people in WordPress they're very much used to free or low cost web flows, paid the pain for your course. What are your thoughts? What's the gut tell you on promoting this as a business owner. [00:31:17] Dave: The first thing I would say is that when I started thinking about building a business, making online courses at all, my first thought was who on earth is going to pay any money for the learning, any of this stuff? And there's, there's this thing called YouTube. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's just full of all the free advice and tutorials and walkthroughs. [00:31:37] You could, you could ever hope for I purposefully, actually, I got over that mindset issue quite quickly, it's nonsense, but people are prepared to pay and they're prepared to pay good money as well for an investment in their career and their time and their stress levels and everything else. So, in terms of me worrying too much about people paying for a course or even paying for a platform, doesn't really worry me too much because the people who buy. [00:32:04] My course is our people. They are. I always think that out of my email list, probably, I don't know what the numbers are. 5% will buy something that I'm I make and those people are prepared to pay. I don't know how much my courses have been. I think, I think, I think the highest price, no stress WordPress was, which is discontinued now. [00:32:26] Not in know fairly indefinitely. I think there was about 800. For that. So, between sort of 4, 5, 6, 7, 800 bucks for a course, those people are absolutely. I mean, the web flow, cause it isn't that at all. I think it starting at two nines. So that's, that's, that's a bit lower just to, just to get started with at the moment. [00:32:48] But I'm, I'm, I'm fairly convinced and I am delighted to appeal to people who are willing to invest in their education and their professional development and the tools [00:33:00] that they use as well for an easier life. And so actually ultimately get a return on that investment, in terms of faster builds and not having to worry. [00:33:10] About updating plugins and maintenance and stuff, breaking and having to fix things and all that sort of thing. So, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't really worry me. It's all. [00:33:19] Matt: Yeah. I mean, when you have somebody who's already, I did an article. I, again, if I was a professional podcaster, I would have this up, I think element or web flow. Let's just see if my site ranks first. It  [00:33:31] Dave: Oh, oh, harsh,  [00:33:33] Matt: Element or web. Oh yeah, it does. I'm on the first page. Okay. A little, a little bit down on the first page, if you Google element or web flow, but I say in defense of element or versus web flow, and this site publish this February of this year, God man, you just, I didn't even understand time anymore. [00:33:48] February 11th, 2021. When folks were talking about the price hike of element, or now I'm not here to argue whether or not the. The approach of what Elementor was doing with bugs and features and whatnot is fair or not. I didn't have anything against the price hike, if you will, for ELA mentor, because man, I feel like so many people are making money with elementary or. [00:34:12] That even if you bought their $1,000 a year for a thousand websites, I mean, if you're somebody who's producing a thousand websites, you're at least charging $2 for one of those websites, right. You're selling these websites for at least $2, you've doubled your money. Right? So I was never against the raising of the price because hopefully that raises value of all things WordPress. [00:34:34] But my point here is people are already spending money in the web flow world. Whereas. Hats off and kudos to you. You're selling courses in the WordPress world where a majority of people are used to free. So you already were fighting a battle that I've not been able to solve  [00:34:51] Dave: Yeah, there is. I mean, there is a sense isn't there because WordPress is open source. Everything should be. And you, you hear that all the time. And I think that's just going to be a constant issue. Really. One thing that when I actually looked at certainly for, certainly for the people that I'm M in my course out, and the people that I kind of want to help when you actually look at the price of Webflow, cause people say, God, man Webflow is so expensive. [00:35:13] I think, well, if you look at it, you pay an account. I won't go into all the massive details, but you pay an account plan fee, which is basically a single monthly families, about 24 books. Which allows you to build, buy all, to build onstage on a, on a web flow.io domain all your web flow sites you've got in development, and you can share those with clients and you could even just make those live on the S on the staging sub domain, if you didn't want to point a live domain of them. [00:35:41] So that's 24 bucks a month. It's basically similar to, if you've got like an Adobe creative cloud subscription or you've got an elemental license on it and a theme license, and it just allows you to use the platform. So that to me is like, well, that seems perfectly fair. And then you [00:36:00] pay a per site site plan fee as well, which I think is about 20 bucks a month. [00:36:05] Now people who are hosting. Crumbing websites onto, I could attend books a month hosting plan, and they're quite happy with all the configuration and the setup and everything that, that entails and possible performance issues and whatever, then absolutely. I mean, knock yourself out. [00:36:23] Brilliant. But if you compare to, I mean, let's just take a WordPress managed host, like Insta, for instance, I think Ken stir last time I looked, it was 20 bucks a month. Now w so, so for each live site, you've got a domain pointed to, to web flow. You're paying 20 bucks a month for that. I mean again, if you're not making at least $20 a month back from the website, then there's something wrong. [00:36:48] You, you, you really should be a book. Also with that. You also get like the CDN, you get all of the page speed stuff set up for you, and it's all done for the, the sites are blazing fast, absolutely brilliant. All green, like top of the range, kind of page speed scores, the host inside and out for you. [00:37:07] Security. So sorted out for you. All of the functionality seems to me in many ways, if you were a person who would appreciate managed hosting, and it seems to me that that is actually a pretty good deal overall,  [00:37:21] Matt: I tend to agree things get a little crazy when you start getting into the e-commerce world with web flow the way that they do pricing, I broke it all down in this, in this post. Although this post is now a few months old and I'll link that up. I'll try to link that up in the, in the show notes. [00:37:34] But  [00:37:34] Dave: was a simplified.  [00:37:36] Matt: Yeah. At the end of the day, like the trade-off again is support all in one platform. If you really wrestled with, I want to own everything for the sake of owning it, and it's a whole mind, it's hard to make that mental leap and appreciation leap. I don't have a better word right now, but like, it's hard to make that leap from WordPress if you're really stuck in that, in that  [00:38:01] Dave: Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would say to anybody that it's not like, I certainly don't set say to everybody, you must use Webflow is far better than WordPress. That's actually not what I'm saying. He probably comes across that way. There are trade offs with everything, and if ownership. Or certainly a feeling of ownership anyway and having control over every single aspect of that, of your website and website workflow and everything else, if that is important to you, for whatever reason, that's great, but there's a trade off in the maintenance and the plugin updates and stuff, breaking and everything else. [00:38:37] That's the that's that's, that's the deal, you w you can't have your cake and eat it kind of thing. I think he's just true of everything in life. Same with Webflow, yep. You don't have all of those hustles, but Yeah. [00:38:48] you've got a platform where you are in a way renting the site from, from Webflow. [00:38:53] What if Webflow disappears overnight? There were all these concerns. I mean, I've got, I've got kind of, answers for all these [00:39:00] objections, but There are also just very, very quickly. One of the biggest objections is she's quite funny to me is about recurring income from care plans. [00:39:10] So people will say I've got a pretty good business making recurring easy money every month by charging clients to keep the website updated the WordPress website update. And make sure it doesn't, it doesn't break for them. What am I going to do about that with Webflow? Because he just works, what's the, what, what, what, where am I going to make this money? [00:39:29] My short answer is always, well, first, if all things were equal and you could build a website in WordPress or web flow, and let's also say that either of them would be appropriate for the project, Really recommend WordPress because it's prone to problems, it's prone to problems and it, and it breaks. [00:39:51] And you can charge the client forever in order to, just to be basically lightly. No, let them have a working website. It sounds a bit harshly. It sounds like I'm kind of over again things, but that's kind of how it is really. Now my view is the client, your clients don't care. About how you did something, all that, how long it took you, all the steps you took, they are, they only care about the result on all the clients are paying you for, for, for a care plan, just in terms of the maintenance side of it, not talking about anything else. [00:40:24] Well, the maintenance side of it, they are paying you so that their website is rock solid. Isn't down works perfectly, and it just doesn't have any issues. Well, why can't you charge the client for the. You've found a better or the best platform that you think for their particular needs for their project that has all that in place. [00:40:46] You've spent all this time and money learning the platform. Why not charge clients for that? I, I don't think clients particularly cared that you've got to update plugins. You've got to spend X amount of time doing that. I think it's a bit of a non argument, rarely.  [00:40:59] Matt: I think at some of the tiers on web load, there's a little phone number you can call, right. So good luck. Yeah. Calling yeah. Calling you got a dozen plugins doing. Things, you're not going to call PIP in and, and, WooCommerce, you're not going to call these people and get them on a conference call to figure out what your site is at the end of the day. [00:41:18] You look, you're paying for that support. And web flows. As far as I know, in the news web flows slated to be a IPO and, and be a publicly traded company here in the states. And they're a private company now, but they've raised over 140 million. So they're probably valued at billions. I don't even know what money is these  [00:41:33] Dave: Probably, yeah, exactly. yeah, MailChimp is worth what was it? 12 billion, or something like  [00:41:37] Matt: half the half the banana industry or the entire globe?  [00:41:41] Dave: So, so w what is money.  [00:41:43] Matt: yeah. What is money via Canva? Just raised Canva just got another 400 million valued@fortybillioncanva.com. It's just, I don't know, Dave, what are we doing wrong here? [00:41:57] Dave: Well, I'm I think I'm going to hang these [00:42:00] headphones up.  [00:42:01] Matt: I'm going to make a canvas course. What am I doing with Webflow? Here's how to make a template in Canva. Oh man. It's called WordPress to web flow. His name is Dave Dave for you can search for Dave for you can go to date for.com. You can search him on YouTube. You can go to WP two w f.com or pressed a web flow. [00:42:21] Dave, anything else that any other place that people should find you? Yeah. [00:42:24] Dave: The other thoughts that you've covered up. So everything there, my friend. Yeah. [00:42:27] Brilliant. Thank you very much.  [00:42:29] Matt: Fantastic stuff. It's my report. My report.com my report.com/subscribe. Hey, if you want to support the content happening here at the Matt report, go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. You can join the membership there and be part of the, the news right now. It's about the, the WP minute. If you want to be involved in the news, you wanna have your hand in shape. [00:42:49] Our weekly WordPress news, the five minute dose of WordPress news every week@wpminute.com. Go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Support the show. Thanks for listening. 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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 WordPress world…for now. I had a chance to sit down with him earlier this morning to hash out all the feels around this news. I hope you enjoy the episode, please share it with others! Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Hey,[00:00:01] Matt: everybody. Welcome back to a special episode of the Matt report, breaking news almost. And not this one's not erring on the WP minute, but we broke a lot of news on the WP men. They go to the WP minute.com. If you want your weekly dose of five minute WordPress news delivered in your inbox every week, uh, this episode is sponsored by easy support videos, easy support videos, support your WordPress users right inside the WordPress admin.[00:00:23] Using videos. Check out easy support. Dot com why am I doing this in line with the episode? Because we have a special guest today, Pippin, Williamson, Pippin. Welcome to the program. Thank you, Matt.[00:00:35] Pippin: It's great to be back.[00:00:37] Matt: I woke up writing my weekly script for the WP minute and I was getting all of the acquisition news in there.[00:00:43] I was getting all of the liquid web and learn dash and what WooCommerce was up to and I was ready to send it to my executive producer and I looked on Twitter one last time. And there you were saying that Sandhills was acquired. My awesome[00:00:59] Pippin: motive. Sorry to screw up your, uh, your scheduling plan.[00:01:04] Matt: I had a donut in my mouth and I'm trying to type in like, oh my God, what's happening.[00:01:08] I was real newsroom, uh, breaking moments here. First of all. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, at the top of this episode, what I want people to do is an, a link this in the show notes is please. For the love of all that is holy. If there's anything you do with what I say here at the med report, read the blog post on Sandhills dev.com that Pippin wrote about the breakdown, phenomenal piece, one of your best, the best that you have written, uh, you know, uh, to, to bookend this, this, this book, this chapter of your life.[00:01:49] Uh, you know, it's, it's, it's actually an emotional thing for me. I don't have a question straight away. It's an emotional thing for me. I feel like I've been part of this journey with you. Have you felt that same vibe from others in the WordPress?[00:02:02] Pippin: You know this entire morning, um, when we publish the, the announcement that all of the WordPress products were joining automotive and that after a transition period that I'm retiring from WordPress, um, and moving onto some other things, uh, it has been pretty much a constant stream of messages from.[00:02:25] Friends colleagues, people that we've met once or twice at word camps and, and so many friends. And, um, from over the years, just, you know, saying hi, saying congrats, mentioning, you know, something about, you know, what we did together. You know, there's so much. People that we have worked with over the years and that I've had the amazing opportunity to get to know.[00:02:51] Um, so yeah, it was it's, it's been a pretty wild ride and a journey and hearing how many different people, um, have been impacted by the work that we've done over the last 10 years is an amazing way to, um, you know, maybe conclude this part of it.[00:03:14] Matt: They're in my, in the WP minute, uh, script that I wrote today, I said that you are your Sandhills and you specifically are either one of the most respected.[00:03:30] Product companies in the WordPress space, if not the most respected, uh, WordPress plugin company in the space. There's yeah. There's such a deep connection that I think a lot of people share this. It's what makes WordPress special, I guess, is because we all get, so the reason why we're all so emotional about it, or at least I know I am is because we all get so connected with one another.[00:03:51] We want to see each other when we want to see the software do well. I'm retiring from work. I was, I just ran to grab a coffee before we hit record. And I was thinking about some of the questions that I was going to ask you. This is probably a pretty blunt question to ask, but there's the side balconies of the world.[00:04:13] And then there's you and me, right? How do you frame yourself to be able to say, okay, I'm retiring with WordPress from WordPress. I don't even think the word retire is. In vocabulary. What do you think makes the entrepreneur your yourself as an entrepreneur versus SIADH maybe so different and has that played a role into making this decision?[00:04:40] In other words, we're world domination,[00:04:43] Pippin: really? So it absolutely played a role. You know, one of the, one of the most challenging parts of, of this type of transition is we have this, this huge history of, of, of customers, of our team, of our products that, you know, those don't just turn off those don't just suddenly go away because I'm moving on to other things.[00:05:11] What we have to try really, really hard to do. I spent an enormous amount of time on over this last summer is finding the best avenue for those to carry on for the products to carry on for the customers to continue to be supported better than we were ever able to do. And, you know, finding the right fit that ensures that that will happen.[00:05:34] Truthfully requires someone like CYA, you know, SIADH is extremely laser-focus. And driven for his mission of helping small businesses. And he, his, you know, the first thing when, when he, and I started talking about this in depth over the summer, one of the first things that I, I asked him is, you know, what are you, what are you going to do?[00:05:58] And what is the time, um, you know, do you plan to continue working on these and building these for years to come quick answer was, yeah, for at least this next 60 years, uh,[00:06:12] You know, that is something that is a huge amount of reassurance for someone in my position that is, you know, knows that it's time to move on to something else, but also, you know, agonizes over the details of how do we ensure that the customers and the team and the products are taken care of and, you know, knowing that he is committed to the long-term future, um, is extremely important to me.[00:06:36] Um, You know, I, I recognize a couple of years ago that while I have had an amazing time and I absolutely loved the last decade, I'm not ready to keep doing it for another decade, you know, I need to do something else. Um, so[00:06:56] Matt: yeah. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you've always been one, that's been transparent with your posts and, you know, income reports and all this stuff with, with the product and the services side of the product services side of things.[00:07:08] Uh, but to sort of put your entrepreneurship. Scars, you know, in front of everyone. Right? Cause I know what it's like to run a business at a very much smaller scale than obviously you, you and I had spent some time in a mastermind years ago where we were just banging heads with things that were just so uninteresting, probably to both of us, like talking about taxes and like when VAT came out and you're like, good, I don't want any of this.[00:07:36] I didn't choose to be the janitor and the tax guy doing this stuff. It's not fun. I just want to code and. You stumbled onto the success that you had, and it is, it's a totally different weight. And I think a lot of people are jaded in this space. Sometimes myself included saying he's got everything he wants and needs right in front of him with this busy.[00:08:00] But sometimes it's not what you want. And, and what you wrote in this piece. Uh, again, please read this people about family, your father, your grandfather has a deep connection to me because I started a business with my father. He started a business with his father and it's this lineage that has, you know, gone on.[00:08:20] So, I mean, it really hits home with me. But I think a lot of people just want you to keep going. And sometimes it's, it's not what you, what you want. And, uh, again, no real question here just like applauding you to,[00:08:32] Pippin: you know, the thing that I think so often people don't realize or think about enough until they find themselves in that position.[00:08:40] Is any, anybody who is, is heading a team or a company. When they no longer have the passion for it or the drive, or maybe not that their passion for it has gone away, but maybe passion for something else has eclipsed. It is the longer that they stay in that seat, the more disservice they are going to do to their customers and their team and all of the people that they work with in some capacity or other, you know, anybody who leads a ship needs to be the best of themselves.[00:09:16] As much of a time as they possibly can. Um, because that's the only way that you can do your absolute best to take care of, of your team, of your customers and of your business. And when you are no longer your best in that seat, the best thing you can probably do, if you can, if you know that that is a permanent thing and not just a transitory.[00:09:40] It's put someone else in that seat. Uh, it's hard to do, and it's really, probably even harder to admit to yourself when you reach that point. But if you don't, you know, that that's what causes amazing things to decline over time. That's what causes businesses to slowly fail and, and start to suffer is when, you know, obviously there's other factors too, then, you know, there's other things that can cause somebody to go downhill.[00:10:03] But when, when the captain of the ship is, is no longer. Wanting to be there, no matter what their level of dedication, you know, it hasn't been.[00:10:12] Matt: Yeah. How does that unfold internally at, or how did it unfold internally at Sandhills? Like when you got the gut feeling, did you gut check and, uh, you know, talk to the, the, the top brass at, I dunno, what, what you, what you title them, but do you talk to the top brass and say, I got this feeling.[00:10:31] What do you all think before. Dispersed[00:10:33] Pippin: everywhere for this one. It, um, it unfolded in a couple of ways. So first, uh, you know, a much longer string of events is I'll say that it first started to happen years ago for me, which was basically the day that I, you know, one day I recognized I had hired myself out of it.[00:10:54] 'cause I had, you know, we had, we had grown the team. We had hired, we had grown the dev development team, the support team, the marketing team, even the leadership team. And I re realized that like, I don't, everything that I did, everything that I used to do that I was passionate about is now somebody else's responsibility.[00:11:13] So that happened years ago. Uh, and that was probably one of the first periods where I started to like really recognize that, you know, I don't know that being a CEO is. What I desire to be in the long-term future. I just want to write code again. I spent the next few years trying to get back into code and it, it never happened for one reason or another.[00:11:36] There's lots of reasons. Um, you know, here, here and there, I would, I would dive back in and have a little bit of, of success building something for fun. Um, but like on a day-to-day basis, I never returned to being in the. And it, and that was where my, my true passion was. I loved writing code. I loved the, you know, just cranking something out and, you know, more or less building something from nothing.[00:11:58] It was so fun and magical. So that when realizing that that had happened, that, that transition where I was no longer doing that. Is the first step to what got us to today. And that was years ago, much more recently. Um, basically, uh, when my, my dad's health issues that I mentioned in the blog post popped up, that was when I, I think I really got serious with myself to admit that it was probably time.[00:12:31] Um, at that time I wrote out a message to my partners, um, and. Basically told them. I wrote, I wrote up this very, actually a very short message and it was just titled the exit is near and FYI. Here's basically the way that I'm feeling now. And I think I'm going to start having conversations. And, and that was, it was very, it was very brief, but then we, you know, we followed up and had a lot of in depth conversations as, as a partners group for the next several months.[00:13:05] And then, you know, I kept wavering. I kept going back and forth and, you know, deciding to, to sell something you've spent 10 years building isn't some, like, at least I don't maybe, maybe some people, it happens this way, but for me it was not like a light bulb moment. It was not this, you know, one day I just know, you know, okay, that's fine.[00:13:27] Let's do it. No, it wasn't that at all. It was, you know, it's this, this inkling, this feeling, this, this like weight in your stomach that says. I think it's time, but I'm a F I'm truthfully terrified of that commitment of that, you know, actually making that choice. So over, over a couple of months, you know, trying to figure out if that was the right move or not, I finally decided, you know what, I'm going to take a sabbatical.[00:13:54] I'm going to take three months off the entire store. I'm going to close slack, I'm going to close base camp. I'm going to close emails, disabled, all notifications. I'm going blackout mode for the next three months and see what happens that the, you know, our, our team was set up and so effective that, you know, I was able to do that.[00:14:17] Um, I was not necessary for the day-to-day operations. And so I knew one of two things was going to happen. Through that sabbatical either. I'm going to go out, get refreshed and decide, you know what? I love this. I want to keep going. Um, I'm back, I'm 100% committed and let's put the pedal to the let's hit the gas, or I'm going to know for sure that this is the right move.[00:14:44] Um, and obviously with today's new news that we announced, um, we know how that ended. I knew that it was the right move after I'd spent several months away from it. And you know, it just helped me realize that I'm ready for this.[00:14:59] Matt: Yeah. I mean, and again, I've known you for awhile. A lot of people have known you for awhile, but if you haven't known PIP in, um, You know, just all like the moments at word camps, replaying in my head with like sitting with you and you sitting with your team and just like whatever diving into code features, new product announcements.[00:15:18] How are you going to market this? How are you going to grow the team the whole, how do I get a great team chemistry? Like your. Like the painting that I have of you over your time in this space has never been like, how do I build this thing to sell it? Right. And over the years I've seen which I guess, like, I don't fault anybody anymore.[00:15:35] I used to have like really strong opinions on it, but now people want to build a business and sell it, whatever, Hey, that's just another way of going about it. Like you're building it to sell it, to acquire it. And it's all strategically done. Thumbs up, Hey, that's your way of doing it. Um, you know, and, and just seeing the way that you've done over the years, you know, knowing that this was, this wasn't the intention, although as you highlight, it was[00:15:57] Pippin: a reality that was known to have a strong likelihood of happening,[00:16:01] Matt: right?[00:16:01] Yeah. There's a, there's a point in the, um, in the blog post where you say every business owner knows or will eventually learn that there are three possible fates for their. One one day it'll be passed on to someone else perhaps whose family inheritance, uh, to it's solely or rapidly decline at some point, uh, be shut down entirely three.[00:16:22] It'll be sold to a new owner, uh, for one reason or another. I want to just shift gears a little bit in the conversation. Get a little bit more like strategic businessy, uh, on number two, uh, it'll slowly or rapidly decline at some point be shut down entirely. Um, before we got on, I was talking to somebody else.[00:16:39] Who's going to be writing up a piece on the business of WordPress space. They asked me a couple of questions about what I think about this and why acquisition is so hot right now. Um, I think that there are a lot of mature businesses like yourself, or like Sandhills, where you get to a certain point where, Hey, it's successful.[00:16:57] It's good, but you hit this plateau. And in order to get to the next step, the next stage. You have to almost build a whole other business model or hold a product whole or business. It's not just, Hey, two X, my effort now it's like 50 X my effort to get to that next point strategically that did that have a, a role in this.[00:17:20] And then we'll talk about awesome motive and how I feel like you slot into that, that suite of services. But was that a thing for you?[00:17:26] Pippin: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, like any, any business that has been going for. Uh, while, you know, and, and at this point we were, uh, almost 10 years old. Um, the sandals development as a, as a company, as a brand is eight years old.[00:17:41] But the products, you know, it's been, I think, 10 years since we launched EDD, um, or close to it, um, you know, what, what used to work, what works when you're really, really small and you're new and you're growing. It's not the same thing that works today. You know, when, once you reset maturity point, um, it's a totally different set of challenges.[00:18:05] Um, and the consequences for getting your approaches wrong are a lot more significant. Um, you know, w at our peak, we were a team of 28 people, you know, if we, if we screw up and we do. Aim for the future properly. And we don't manage our growth and we don't recognize where our pain points are. You know, the consequences of that are a lot more significant than when, you know, it's just two or three people that are, you know, mostly just late night keyboard hacking and having a good time doing it and, you know, have a little bit of success with it.[00:18:41] Yeah. So, you know, when I said that when I, when I went on a sabbatical, I knew one of two things was going to happen. And one of those possibilities was that we were going, I was going to come back refreshed and ready to just hit the gas. We have definitely been at that stage for the last couple of years where we were trying to figure out how do we hit the gas?[00:19:02] You know, we're, we're still doing good. We're still comfortable, but the signs are there, that what we're doing. Is not going to sustain us for the next 10 years or even the next five years. There are, there are changes that we're going to have to make. Um, you know, we didn't, we ended up going through this process with automotive before we really had to dive into what those changes were going to be.[00:19:27] And so, you know, I honestly, I can't tell you what they are cause I, cause I don't. Um, but we knew that we were going to have to adapt our approaches and adapt our strategies and adjust, um, and do things in a different, in at least some form of different ways. Um, because it wasn't going to be enough to get us through the next five years.[00:19:46] Matt: I think a lot of successful. And this is, and again, these are just my opinion and obviously happy to hear yours, which just, you just hinted that really. But, you know, you get to a certain point where it's like, Like, if you looked at EDD or your suite of prod products, let's say affiliate EDD. So you have like the affiliate side of e-commerce you have e-commerce, but then it's like, okay, what does everybody want?[00:20:10] You know, with e-commerce is, I don't know, maybe like the hot thing of, uh, customizing checkouts or lead gen or all of this stuff. And it's like, man, That's like another 10 years, right. To like, think about how to build that, like the thought process on how to succeed with that. Yeah, man, it takes so much time and money, um, to really get to that.[00:20:34] So, and I[00:20:35] Pippin: thought a very careful planning. Yeah. I had[00:20:37] Matt: a lot of planning. It's. It's not like the concept of cowboy coding in the early days where it's just like, yeah, just throw another feature and see what happens when you say throw another feature. It impacts 28 employees that you're responsible for tens of thousands.[00:20:52] I'd imagine customers that you have, and it's not just as flip, flip of a switch. That is, is that easy to just change? Oh, that feature wasn't good. Let's pull it back out. Like no, maybe nobody will notice. Oh no, it doesn't work that way. Uh, it's very hard. Uh, I want to talk about finding a suitor for the company.[00:21:11] Now I know how SIADH found you because quite literally, I was at a word camp where I think SIADH was walking around, asking if anyone was for sale. This was like five, six years ago. And I think he would literally walk around, Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? So I know he's got into your ear years ago.[00:21:31] I wrote a blog post back in February, 2020, where I predicted they would buy e-commerce. And I had a discussion with somebody privately that they would probably look to EDD to sell, to, to acquire. Did you look at anybody else? Did you have those conversations and what was[00:21:45] Pippin: that like? So when I first announced, uh, to my partners team, that I felt it was time for me to, to find an exit, uh, immediately after that.[00:21:58] I started reaching out and having conversations with people. Um, and I talked to quite a few. Um, I had. Uh, and I, I mentioned this a little bit in the, in the blog posts, but there were a couple, there are some requirements that I really needed to have met. Um, and so as I, as I started to reach out to, you know, people that I thought might, might be interested, I had a, I had a list of, you know, maybe 10, 10 companies or individuals that I felt.[00:22:29] Would fulfill the requirements that I needed. So number one, that, you know, obviously they had to be capable of doing it. Um, and, and both, you know, both from a finances perspective, but also from, you know, their ability to carry on what we had built. You know, I had no interest in. You know, selling, selling this to a private equity group that, or venture funded group that their goal is just to, you know, cash cow and kill and shut it down.[00:22:56] No interest whatsoever. So I had, I had a few requirements. The, I had to trust and know that their ability. Was there to carry on what we built to. They had to take all of the products. Um, I was not interested in piecemealing, the suite of products that we've built. We have a lot of overlap between our products, between the team that works on the products, um, and our customer base.[00:23:25] I did not want to, you know, send one, one, place one to another one to another, and then try to figure out, okay, what goes there? What goes there? What goes there? That just sounded like a disastrous nightmare that wasn't going to end well for anyone except maybe myself, maybe. So they had to take the whole suite of products.[00:23:43] They had to take the whole team, you know, no acquisition is perfect. No transition is perfect, but I needed them to commit, to taking the whole team, be willing to take everybody, you know, if somebody didn't want to go over, that was, that was okay. That was understandable. But they needed to have that commitment from day one.[00:24:00] If we're taking this as a complete package, um, and. You know that as we, as we had those requirements, um, it, it, we, it, it narrowed down our candidates list, if you will, um, pretty quickly, um, because for one, you know, we'd go in, we'd have a conversation and then somebody would be like, this is great. I really love this stuff.[00:24:24] But honestly, I only want to feel like it'd be cool. Thanks for your time. Maybe I'll circle back to you if you know, if something else doesn't work out and we repeated that quite a few times, uh, CYA. And I have known each other for a long time, uh, actually fun stories at site. And I have had conversations in the past, um, specifically around EDD.[00:24:45] Um, and I turned them down early on and that was several years ago. Um, so it's kinda fun to come full circle now, but with when, when I approached SIADH, um, and I, I told him very bluntly said, are you interested having a conference? If the answer is yes, here's my four main requirements. And if the answer to any one of those is no thanks.[00:25:09] Um, let's not waste each other's time and it was immediately. Yes. Um, so he, he was very, very interested and was immediately happy and will in knew that he wanted to meet all of those requirements.[00:25:22] Matt: Yeah. I mean, I could see, I could, I could definitely see like the negotiation room where like you're both in the room and then SIADH leaves and his lawyers come and you're like, Hey, we say, Hey, where are you going?[00:25:32] Like you leaving, are you staying up, stay around for this conversation. How long did that process take? Was it months Fido two months. But[00:25:39] Pippin: so, um, it, it's, it's funny the way that you characterize it, because while like, I think that's probably how a lot of people expected negotiations with sign to go.[00:25:48] Honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth. Um, it's when, when you negotiate with SIADH, when you sit down and have a conversation with him, it's a very one-on-one candid conversation. We hopped on a lot of zoom calls and we chatted face to face, and I never once negotiated with the attorneys or anything.[00:26:06] You know, it's always cited is extremely personable actually. Um, and he and I have always had a really good relationship. And so we were able to be very candid with each other and, you know, share what we, what we need. What we wanted, what our, what our desired outcomes were and what our challenges were. Um, and then, you know, when an issue was raised, um, you know, whatever it was, we addressed it and we worked through it.[00:26:30] Um, it was, uh, it was a wonderful experience. Honestly, I would, I would repeat the process with SIADH again in a heartbeat. Yeah.[00:26:40] Matt: Uh, we, uh, you know, Matt report listener, you can look forward to a, uh, interview with Saya next week. He's a little. This week. I don't know why he does things on his plate, but we are going to S we are scheduled for an interview next week.[00:26:53] So look forward to that PIP and wrapping up, wrapping up here. Um, yeah. So the hinting at the size of the deal, I won't directly ask you the questions. I mean, you are retiring. Life is probably pretty good for at least the next couple of years. Yes, no, we'll be, we'll[00:27:12] Pippin: be. Okay.[00:27:14] Matt: Uh,[00:27:14] Pippin: we are plenty to put our focus on you.[00:27:17] Matt: I like in the blog post, uh, you sort of say, uh, in the section, what's next for Pippin, uh, after finishing the transition period with automotive, I'll retire from WordPress, then put my focus into spending time with family nature conservation efforts, which I know you've been big on even years ago. I remember you talking about some of the stuff you were doing in Kansas, uh, in Sandhills brewing.[00:27:40] Listen, you, I like how you just threw that in there, kind of the Sandhills, really. But if anybody who does, like, I follow you on Instagram, right. For Sandhills brewing. And I remember it's this like, Hey guys, like on our mastermind calls, check out these bottles I made. Right. And it's just like, you know, You got like a six pack and like I made these bottles and then like our next call, you were in like your tub in the bathroom.[00:28:01] Like, look at my tub full of beer. And then it was, Hey guys. Uh, I got so many crates in my basement. Like I have to get like a rental store. And then now, like Instagram, you have people working for you. I see the, you know, the Instagram models holding the beer there's food. There's build-outs, that's like a whole, like you're not retiring from businessman.[00:28:19] You get a whole.[00:28:20] Pippin: Other big things. It's a pretty, pretty hefty operation at this point.[00:28:24] Matt: I mean, that's going to probably still take up a lot of your time, I'd imagine. And you run that with your brother.[00:28:29] Pippin: I do. Yes. Uh, my, my twin brother and one other business partner. Um, so we, we built two different locations.[00:28:36] Uh, my brother and I live about three hours apart and, uh, we, we really wanted to build this brewery together. Uh, and then we realized like, well, I'm not going to move and you're not. So obviously the next best thing is we build, do locations. Let's do it.[00:28:53] Oh, COVID tool is a interesting monkey wrench. You know, all of them. Everything about COVID aside. I will tell like the, the health and the, the stupid politics around it and all of the worries and the concerns and the financial sides I was telling you that that is one of the most interesting business challenges I have ever gone through is trying to run a hospitality business during a global pandemic.[00:29:16] I have no interest in repeating it. But it is something that I think has been a very, very valuable experience because of how many different things it taught us. You know, if you want to see a great like years from now, we're going to go back and look. At businesses that, that survived businesses, that failed businesses, that thrived and businesses that you know, everything in between.[00:29:43] And we're going to have so much valuable learning about building resiliency and flexibility, and like the ability to pivot in businesses, because that was what, you know, March, 2020 was like, that's when, when that happened. Your businesses that succeeded and made it through were those that had some level of financial resilience because do the hit the hits to the hospitality industry was brutal to had the flexibility and the willingness to change.[00:30:20] And then, and three, just the, the wherewithal to. Chug on and no pun intended, but like seriously, like that was a drag. That was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done in business was surviving COVID as a hospitality business. Um, and, uh, yeah, there's, there's gonna be so much to learn from it in the years to come, uh, as we, you know, are able to take steps further back and reflect on it.[00:30:50] Matt: Yeah, man. Uh, yeah, even, I mean, congrats on that. You know, as somebody who. Again, has been in a S has seen a small, uh, portion of your experience growing a business. When I see these things, when I see like the success of like, where you're going with that brewery, like as fast as it happened, I felt pretty fast to me.[00:31:11] I'm sure it felt, I dunno, maybe fast to you, but yeah, it depends on the day I looked at that. I was like, man. Yeah. This, dude's not long for WordPress, because like I know like, man, if I could just give up everything, I would just go cut people's grass and just be like, there's no worries about the colors I'm picking for you.[00:31:28] There's no worries about like sound audio quality. I just go cut your grass. You just tell me where to cut the grass. And like, that's what I would do for the rest of my life. If it could sustain, uh,[00:31:37] Pippin: you know, three kids you're years ago when, when my brother and I. Well, we're getting ready to commit to building this brewery.[00:31:45] Um, he, he said something to me. I think we were just sitting down late at night. One time. He was like, you know what? I realized why I liked beer and he wasn't talking about the why he likes drinking it or making it, it was why it likes the business of beer, you know, in the software world, we get this opportunity to work with and keep my, my brother runs a software company, 3d animation, right?[00:32:05] Yeah. Uh, so, you know, we get this opportunity to work with. Amazing customers and amazing people. But do you know what the truth is? Like the only time that we actually get to talk to customers, unless we, except the outreach that we do do with them is when there's a problem at the end of the day, all I am is a problem solver.[00:32:27] People bring me problems. Good, bad, enormous, small. It doesn't matter, but I just, I solve problems. You know, like if you've ever heard somebody describe themselves as, you know, like a code janitor or something like that. Like I was not for the longest time that my, my role as, uh, as the CEO of this company was basically to be a janitor, you know, because at the end of the day, everything that comes to me is typically a problem.[00:32:52] I'm kind of tired of solving problems. So the beautiful thing about. Do you know what happens? People come to celebrate. People are happy to see you. You know, when you work customer support, most of the time, people aren't happy to talk to you. People are doing so begrudgingly because there is a problem and they want, and you have the ability to fix their problem.[00:33:14] But with, with beer, people come to celebrate, they're happy to see you. They're thrilled to be in your space, you know? Yes. There's the, there's some darker sides to it. They come to more and they come when they're sad or upset. But in general, you, you are a bearer of good news and they're there because they want to be there.[00:33:33] Um, and that is a very interesting, like psychological difference in the industries. Uh, And it was so refreshing. Yeah. Yeah.[00:33:42] Matt: I can imagine. And look, if I had beer in front of me right now, I would raise a toast to you and everything early in the morning. Well, you know, it's never too early when you're selling beer.[00:33:53] Um, I'd raise a toast. To you and everything that you've done over the years, uh, you know, we hopped on this call last minute. I feel like I was rambling with some of these questions as a seasoned podcaster, but I feel like I'm just trying to hold onto the final threads of my Pippin in the WordPress world.[00:34:10] Um, like, like the Sopranos ending and just watching that last episode, like, I can't believe it's over. Uh, w will you show up at other WordPress events and do you have any final statements for the WordPress community?[00:34:22] Pippin: It's been an amazing journey. Um, you know, my, my current intentions at this point are, you know, truthfully to see what happens.[00:34:33] I don't have any short-term plans to continue working in WordPress, but I don't know what the future is going to hold. Uh, My, my goal and my hope is that sometime in the future, be it in six months in nine months, in 10 years, the itch to code again will strike and I'll build something completely for fun.[00:34:55] Uh, and it might be a WordPress. It might be something totally unrelated. Um, but if it does then, you know, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. Um, so truthfully, I, I don't know, uh, it's been work. WordPress has. Been a wonderfully weird world. And, uh, some of my best memories, the best people I've ever met are from WordPress.[00:35:20] Um, it's given me the opportunity to travel around the world and visit so many amazing places and see, and meet people from all of them. Uh, I, I realized something a few years ago. That was really pretty cool. Is that because of WordPress and because of what this. Community has made possible. I think I know somebody in probably every major city of this world, you know, I may not realize they're there, but I think it's pretty darn close because of just the connections over the last 10 years that have been made.[00:35:58] And that's amazing. And so fricking cool. Um, so you know, this might be the, you know, the end of my WordPress experience, uh, And I will miss it. I will, but I'm happy to end it on a high note where I know my team, the customers and the products are an exceptionally good hands. You know, the truthfully the future for them has, has never been brighter.[00:36:32] And, uh, I'm really looking forward to watching what they do.[00:36:36] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Bravo to you, sir. Thanks again for everything. Uh, Twitter, I guess now is probably the best place or do you know anyone? You don't really want to talk to people anymore? Stay away from me. I'm come[00:36:46] Pippin: buy some beer, email me, uh, you know, my Twitter account is still active.[00:36:51] But, uh, I, I'm not very active on Twitter. I was very active today for the first time in months and months and months. Uh, but so contact me via email. Um, it's pippin@sandhillsdev.com. Uh, you can find me@sandozdev.com. That is that's still my place. Um, and, or you can find me at my personal website.[00:37:09] Matt: Fantastic everyone else.[00:37:10] matterport.com airport.com/subscribe. Don't forget to miss. Don't forget to miss. No, don't forget to not miss your, your weekly dose of WordPress news. over@thewpminute.com. Support the show by buying me a coffee. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you again, Pippin. And for the last time, please read the blog post, which will be, uh, linked up in the show notes.[00:37:33] Fantastic PR. To the saga that is Pippin Williamson in the WordPress world. Thanks everybody for listening. And we'll see you in the next day,[00:37:42] Pippin: everyone. And thank you. Ma'am. ★ Support this podcast ★

Wu-Tang is for the children, but this episode is not for the children. Matt Fantastic joined me to talk game design and a lot of other topics that are not for the faint of heart. We've known each other for a whole bunch of years. I had a ton of fun recording this one. Credits: Freddie Mercury by James Fenton from the Noun Project

My guest will be Matt Fantastic. Matt primarily does freelance game design and development for publishers around the world as the creative director of Forever Stoked, the creative studio he founded over a decade ago. He also owns a game shop/library (Elm City Games), is sometimes an adjunct instructor of game design, publishes indie games, books, zines, vinyl records, and other creative weirdness with killjoy and Prettiest Princess, is a Creative Director at Vice Games, founded the New Haven Game Makers Guild, organizes Fantasticon, and does consulting/fixing across the game industry as well as for corporate clients like Netflix and Yale. Growing up in a house of gamers, educators, artists, and community organizers along with an adolescence filled with basement shows and political protests, Matt's professional life is rooted in collectivism, art, nerdery, social justice, and DIY punk rock.

Before There Were Stars from Smirk and Laughter Games. Players: 3-6 Playing Time: 40-60 minutes Age: 10+ Designer: Alex Cutler, Matt Fantastic, Alexander Wilkinson Artist: Marthy Angue, Lisa Falzon Publisher: Smirk and Laughter Games. More information can be found at Smirk and Laughter Games' website at https://www.smirkandlaughter.com/ And board game geek's site https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/243780/there-were-stars Today's game review is inspired by the fine folks at Indie Game Alliance. Indie Game Alliance is a great resource for board game developers. Our demo team stretches the globe in order to get your game out there in the eyes and hands of those who want to play games. Pro members get access to over 900 volunteers from all around the world. Our volunteer minions will learn your games, teach them at their local game stores, conventions, and other events. More information about Indie Game Alliance can be found at https://www.indiegamealliance.com/ Follow Overland Gamer https://www.facebook.com/groups/OverlandGamer on Facebook and let us know what you think. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. Follow us on twitterhttps://twitter.com/gcgamersconnect --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/overlandgamer/support

Games Discussed:Welcome To… - Benoit Turpin (07:30)TEAM3 - Alex Cutler, Matt Fantastic (15:41)Lanterns Dice: Lights in the Sky - Chris Bryan (25:38)Nova Luna - Uwe Rosenberg, Corné van Moorsel (30:34)Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write - Ignacy Trzewiczek(35:37)MegaCity: Oceania - Jordan Draper, Michael Fox (II) (38:12)

Finally, we finish the conversation with Elm City Games Owner Matt Fantastic, as we continue the conversation with co-host Colin Ryan. In Part 2 of this two-part episode, our favorite

This week, Elm City Games Owner Matt Fantastic joins us in the studio with co-host Colin Ryan. In Part 1 of this two-part episode, we talk about the board game

This episode of Getting Geeky with Gamer Leaf is powered by Logan Chops Reviews   Congrats to Eric Schwartz and family on the addition of a new mini-meeple to the Mighty Meeple Household!   Gamer Leaf sits down with Alan Gerding to talk all about Matt Fantastic’s That's Not Lemonade!  through Thu, July 12 2018 5:59 AM MST.   To find the on twitter: @Playtkg or go to their website: Tuesdayknightgames.com   AAA: Ascension  which is currently on sale at 60% off so you can get it for $3.99 instead of $9.99 for Steam’s Intergalactic Summer Sale going on now through July 5th https://store.steampowered.com/   Alan loved Ascension so much he proposed to his wife with the help of Stoneblade games Alan Flips the Mic on me and asks me some questions. About how I found Tuesday Knight Gaming Podcast, Thanks for introducing me Jimmy Hudson from the boardgames Closet Podcast   lindsey rode of Dog Might Games is also discussed and how Stephen Avery helped put her down during Origins this past week. Not to worry no Lindsey’s were injured or actually killed in this game of assassin. Want to be on Tuesday Knight podcast? Alan tells us how: podcast at tuesdayknightgames dot com   Sir delton brack of Malthouse games is thanked for editing my favorite podcast!   Kickstarter Corner:    DNH5 - Carcosa is running now. It ends July 1, 2018.     Last One In, A Zombie-Themed Card Game  through Tue, July 3 2018 7:36 AM MST. this game is backed by We’re not Wizards!   Yard of the Month  Princess Leaf moves up her # of likes for this game ALOT  through Sat, July 7 2018 7:31 AM MST.   Dragonscales Fantasy RPG by James M Ward and Stephen A Lee  through Mon, July 9 2018 6:14 PM MST.   The Forgotten Dungeon Mega Adventure - AD&D, D&D5e, DS, 77W  through Mon, July 30 2018 8:26 AM MST.    Lunar 5000  through Thu, July 12 2018 11:15 AM MST.  

Recorded at Metatopia 2016 Presented by Matt Fantastic. How many cards are on a typical printing sheet? Can half an inch really save you that much money? Is it possible to license a mold? These sorts of questions shouldn't be the first thing you think about when making your next amazing game, but they can play a huge part in how realistic it is to actually get into print. Join Matt Fantastic as he talks through a bunch of common mistakes, easy fixes, and ways to look at your design/project that will save a bunch of money when it comes time to actually make it.

Recorded at Metatopia 2016 Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry, Cat Tobin, Matt Fantastic, Zev Shlasinger. Have you ever played (or made!) a fantastic game, and then wonder why no one has it? Ever wonder why no one other than the Kickstarter backers bought a certain game? Ever make a game, then try to go through distribution and realize you'll lose money selling that way? Not all games are designed for retail sale! This panel will discuss the design choices that see success in a retail setting, and if retail is right for your game. Topics discuss will be graphic design choices and packaging, pricing and 3 tiered distribution, Organized Play and Demoing, and using retail sales as marketing.

Today we talk with Amber Cook and Matt Fantastic about personal branding!

I am delighted to bring to you a podcast with Matt Reese, a Columbus photographer who has built up the Commons Studio photography company with a social mission. His social mission has three aspects: First off, Commons Studio provides paid internships — something virtually unheard of in the photography business.  (Because why would you pay your future competition?)  But Matt believes it is important to pay young photographers who are just starting out and teaching them the ropes of the photography business, especially how to price their work and establish themselves. With digital photography, the cost of becoming a photographer and learning how to take good pictures has dropped — but then young photographers work for unsustainable prices, or misunderstand the value of the rights to the work… which lowers the expectations in the marketplace making it more difficult for all photographers. By educating new photographers on how to price appropriately and manage their digital rights, Matt is effecting the overall sustainability of photography as a business. The second aspect of the studio is Shot For Shot — for each headshot produced, Commons Studio gives one headshot away to someone in need.  Matt is dedicated to helping individuals get back on their feet, and helping them develop their image as they transition.  This one-for-one is a common theme in social enterprises, and a great way to build a business where social change is funded by one half of the business.  I love this approach because it sends the message that you can develop a business and earn a profit while delivering real value to your community. The third aspect to Commons Studio is to do business with "good" companies. Any companies which aren't wholesome, or not in line with the values of Commons Studio are turned down as clients. This way Matt Reese is promoting work within a sustainable community, and multiplying the impact of social change in Columbus. It was a real pleasure to speak with Matt - he is such a dynamic and engaging fellow, and it was awesome to hear his story on how he is using his talents to build a company making a difference.  His studio has a pretty cool history of its own, but you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out more about that — I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think in the comments! And... if you need a headshot, reach out to Matt at the Commons Studio and make a difference at the same time! Read Full Transcript [00:00:00] Adam: . So we are live. I'm your host, Adam Morris, and here we are on our podcast talking about people, helping people do awesome stuff, make awesome stuff happen. Today I'm talking with the social entrepreneur, Matt Reese. We're going to hear about everything that you've done with your photography business to fill it up as a social enterprise. [00:00:31] Matt: Fantastic. Or do you wanna get started here? So, [00:00:34] Adam: uh, well last time I ran into you, you were telling me a little bit, you were sitting on a panel discussing what social enterprise is. And I realized I didn't know. Um, I always thought it was just a company that was, had a social mission that was helping somebody out. [00:00:50] And you explained to me that it's a lot more than [00:00:52] Matt: that. Yeah. I mean there are a lot of ways that you can go about doing it. A lot of people think like maybe a social enterprise is limited to helping people on like the lower end of like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like supplying water or food to children in Africa. [00:01:07] And that's great. That's a, there is absolutely a need for that. But. There are a lot of other ways that you can apply social enterprise as well, where we do, it's a bit higher up on that Mazlow's hierarchy, but I feel it's just as worthy. So we are helping folks, uh, take the first steps into a longterm employment. [00:01:25] So we're doing that in a number of ways.

There's no time no time at all we must get to the games there's been so many all the time one after another hurry hurry we must get to all of the games01:26 AYURIS: Riftforce (Carlo Bortolini, 1 More Time Games, 2021)Games Played Last Week:03:07 -Septima (Robin Hegedűs, Mindclash Games, 2023)10:42 -White Castle (Israel Cendrero & Sheila Santos, Devir Games, 2023)16:25 -Paku Paku (Antoine Bauza, Ravensburger, 2017)20:45 -Nekojima (David Carmona & Karen Nguyen, Unfriendly Games, 2023)25:02 -Catch the Moon (Fabien Riffaud & Juan Rodriguez, Bombyx, 2017)27:25 -TEAM3 GREEN (Alex Cutler & Matt Fantastic, Brain Games, 2019)30:58 -Piazza Rabazza (Guido Hoffman and Jens-Peter Schliemann, Zoch Verlag, 2022)33:43 -Tumblin' Dice (Carey Grayson, Randy Nash, and Rick Soued, Eagle-Gryphon Games, 2004)35:38 -After Us (Florian Sirieix, Catch Up Games, 2023)43:12 -Raising Robots (Brett Sobol & Seth Van Orden, Nauvoo Games, 2023)46:49 -Moonrakers (Max Anderson, Zac Dixon, and Austin Harrison, IV Studio, 2020)52:14 -Great Western Trail: New Zealand (Alexander Pfister, eggertspiele, 2023)53:09 -Tiger and Dragon (Hashimoto Atsushi, Oink Games, 2021)56:21 -Mosaic: Wars and Disasters (Glenn Drover, Forbidden Games, 2023)1:01:00 -Ready Set Bet (John D. Clair, AEG, 2022)1:03:12 -Fairy Tale (Satoshi Nakamura, Z-Man Games, 2004)1:05:04 -Hollywood 1947 (Travis Hancock, Facade Games, 2023)1:08:46 -My Island (Reiner Knizia, KOSMOS, 2023)1:11:08 -Daybreak (Matt Leacock & Matteo Menapace, CMYK, 2023)1:17:37 -Arborea (Dani Garcia, Alley Cat Games, 2023)1:19:48 -Nucleum (Simone Luciani & Dávid Turczi, Board&Dice, 2023)News (and why it doesn't matter):1:25:25 Anno 1800 Expansion1:25:54 "Pop culture" That's Not a Hat1:26:33 Albedo available as print and play!Cards: https://kaiherbertz.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/albedoprintandplayfullcolor.pdfRules: http://hespiele.de/downloads/albedo_en.pdf1:27:35 City of the Living: Prosperity (by Reiner Knizia) with zombiesAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy