Podcast appearances and mentions of nathan rice

Dive into the realm of design and manufacturing workflows with Nathan Rice, the innovative force behind iFab. Discover how concepts evolve into steel masterpieces through meticulous design and advanced manufacturing, powered by the technologies incorporating Augmented Reality, CAD and automation in future. Nathan unveils the crucial details of the workflow in bringing a concept idea to life, through to construction! Along the way he humbly shares insights on the impact of technology on the industry, reflecting on the past and forecasting the future. Learn about the key skills driving success in this field—sketching, critical thinking, research, and communication—all grounded in design thinking's fusion of creativity and problem-solving. Tune into this video episode, offering a roadmap into the captivating world of design, manufacturing, and innovation workflows.

Síguenos en: En una reunión de Genesis Shapers de abril de 2022, Nathan Rice (cofundador de StudioPress) comentó que estaban pensando en traspasar algunos de los plugins de StudioPress a otros autores de confianza. Los plugins que elegimos: Genesis Portfolio Pro (+10.000 instalaciones activas) Genesis Author Pro (+3.000 instalaciones activas) Simple Social Icons (+100.000 instalaciones activas) Genesis Simple Share (+30.000 instalaciones activas) Pasos a realizar por ellos Poner al día los plugins (revisar warnings PHP etc) Añadir a OsomPress como «committer» en los plugins del repo de WordPress (visible desde la pestaña de «Advanced view» Traspasar los repositorios de Github Pasos a realizar por nosotros Eliminar los assets con la marca de StudioPress (en SVN) Explicar el cambio de propietario en el changelog del plugin Cambiar el autor de StudioPress por OsomPress Dejar los contribuidores y añadir nuestros perfiles Eliminar Circle CI de los repositorios Escribir un post para explicar el cambio en el blog de OsomPress Realizar primero todo el proceso con el plugin que menos instalaciones activas tiene. En este caso, Genesis Author Pro con 3.000. https://profiles.wordpress.org/osompress/#content-plugins

Síguenos en: En una reunión de Genesis Shapers de abril de 2022, Nathan Rice (cofundador de StudioPress) comentó que estaban pensando en traspasar algunos de los plugins de StudioPress a otros autores de confianza. Los plugins que elegimos: Genesis Portfolio Pro (+10.000 instalaciones activas) Genesis Author Pro (+3.000 instalaciones activas) Simple Social Icons (+100.000 instalaciones activas) Genesis Simple Share (+30.000 instalaciones activas) Pasos a realizar por ellos Poner al día los plugins (revisar warnings PHP etc) Añadir a OsomPress como «committer» en los plugins del repo de WordPress (visible desde la pestaña de «Advanced view» Traspasar los repositorios de Github Pasos a realizar por nosotros Eliminar los assets con la marca de StudioPress (en SVN) Explicar el cambio de propietario en el changelog del plugin Cambiar el autor de StudioPress por OsomPress Dejar los contribuidores y añadir nuestros perfiles Eliminar Circle CI de los repositorios Escribir un post para explicar el cambio en el blog de OsomPress Realizar primero todo el proceso con el plugin que menos instalaciones activas tiene. En este caso, Genesis Author Pro con 3.000. https://profiles.wordpress.org/osompress/#content-plugins

Rendering Unconscious episode 223. Nathan Rice is a psychoanalyst and clinical supervisor with a private practice in New York City. https://www.nathanerice.com He is faculty at The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center (PPSC): https://www.ppsc.org Follow him at Twitter: https://twitter.com/nyctherapist This episode available at YouTube: https://youtu.be/EUrUohnOy2w You can support the podcast at our Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl Your support is greatly appreciated! Rendering Unconscious Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, a psychoanalyst who lives in Sweden and works with people internationally: www.drvanessasinclair.net Follow Dr. Vanessa Sinclair on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/rawsin_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rawsin_/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drvanessasinclair23 Visit the main website for more information and links to everything: www.renderingunconscious.org The song at the end of the episode is "Unquenchable Fire" by Vanessa Sinclair and Pete Murphy from the album of "Night of the Hunter" available from Trapart Films / Highbrow Lowlife: https://vanessasinclairpetemurphy.bandcamp.com Many thanks to Carl Abrahamsson, who created the intro and outro music for Rendering Unconscious podcast. https://www.carlabrahamsson.com Image: Nathan Rice

Jack is joined by his high school friends Connor Boehm and Nathan Rice to recap the seventh week of the NFL season (0:00 - 24:50) and the eighth week of college football season (24:50 - END).   Along the way they talk Justin Fields' development after a brutal game at Tampa Bay, the source of the Chicago Bears' enduring problems, the Kansas City Chiefs' early season struggles, the Bengals 5-2 start, Jack's updated top 25 college football rankings, how the often-overlooked Mountain West conference compares to the Pac-12 and ACC, Pittsburgh and Wake Forest taking over the ACC, SMU and San Diego State's cases for the College Football Playoff, Ohio State looking like THE Ohio State once again, another great showing from NFL Draft prospect, Nevada quarterback Carson Strong, and much, much more!

Matt and Dusty are joined by Daniele Saquiera of AgRural in Brazil and Risë Labig, Marketing Specialist with Ohio Ag Net & Ohio's Country Journal to get an update on all things related to South American agriculture. Plus, Matt has interviews with Nathan Rice from NRCS on grazing, Ryan Concklin of Wright and Moore on Taxes, and Doug Walton and Mike Weasel talking about land and property markets. All of that and more thanks to AgriGold on this episode of the podcast!

Jack is joined by Connor Boehm and Nathan Rice to break down another weekend of football. First, they discuss Indiana's tough fight against Ohio State, Northwestern's big win over Wisconsin, the Heisman race and college coaches on the hot seat; they also provide a college football scoreboard update and highlight all of the weekend's biggest games (0:00 - 39:30). Then, Nathan and Jack recap Sunday's slate of NFL games, discuss the MVP race, and take a look at the biggest storylines in professional football (39:30 - END).

Jack welcomes Nathan Rice to the podcast to recap Week 15 of NFL action. What do they make of the Cowboys' statement win over the Rams? Where did the Bears go wrong this season? What does the Bills' 10-win season mean for Buffalo fans? Later, Nathan gives his College Football Playoff picks.

Special guest Nathan Rice joins us to talk Halfway to Hopscotch [March 23 at R&D Brewing] and Cass McComb's new album Tip of the Sphere HALFWAY TO HOPSCOTCH INFO: https://www.facebook.com/events/1009278815943298/ Songs Heard: Blood Orange - Saint (Nathan's live taping) Cass McComb's - The Great Pixley Train Robbery

In this episode of PressThis we interview lead developer of the Genesis Framework for WordPress Nathan Rice. Nathan will be sharing what he and the rest of the newly expanded Genesis engineering team and core contributors are working on for the future of Genesis. Nathan will cover exciting new updates for Gutenberg, a partnership with Google, and audits the team is doing into the digital marketing features within Genesis. Don't miss your chance to learn about how the framework that revolutionized WordPress, will continue to do so with Gutenberg and beyond! Listen now!

In this episode of PressThis we interview lead developer of the Genesis Framework for WordPress Nathan Rice. Nathan will be sharing what he and the rest of the newly expanded Genesis engineering team and core contributors are working on for the future of Genesis. Nathan will cover exciting new updates for Gutenberg, a partnership with Google, and audits the team is doing into the digital marketing features within Genesis. Don't miss your chance to learn about how the framework that revolutionized WordPress, will continue to do so with Gutenberg and beyond! Listen now!

Happy 200th! Special guest interviews, BQotW, Questions and Answers

Nathan Rice, the creator of the Genesis Framework, shares his insights on maximizing the power of Genesis for WordPress. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why 201,344 website owners trust StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Launch your new site today! In 2009, Nathan Rice, along with Brian Gardner, released the Genesis Framework for WordPress — fundamentally altering the way themes are designed and implemented on WordPress. The Genesis Framework continues to evolve and in this episode, we discuss the history of Genesis, what issues to avoid when designing a new WordPress theme and where Genesis is going in 2018. In this 28 minute episode, Nathan Rice from StudioPress shares his unique insights into the evolution of Genesis and where the framework is going. Listen to Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes Important links from this episode: WordPress Plugins developed by StudioPress Try StudioPress Sites Sites Weekly Newsletter Subscribe to Sites on Apple Podcasts Connect with Sean on Twitter

Kelly Meyer, owner of New Braunfels Brewing Co., brewer Nathan Rice, and beer expert Justin Chamberlain, come on the show to talk about their beers that blur the border of beer and wine. Their Sur Lie program, beers that they age over different sorts of wine yeast, has captured the attention of collectors and aficionados, and we taste 6 different releases aged over different wine lees. These guys are pushing the bar of what beer can do in terms of food pairings, complexity, and bringing beer to a broader wine-loving community. Proust!

On our last Extra, "A Blind Second Chance," we blind tasted 4 beers from New Braunfels Brewing Company. It didn't go well. Well, their new Head Brewer heard it, and offered to bring more of their beers, and sat with us to discuss them on mic. The Beerists are: John Rubio, Grant Davis, and Mike Lambert. With special guest, Nathan Rice. Subscribe! Point your podcatcher to our RSS feed: feed://feeds.feedburner.com/thebeerists Subscribe via iTunes (Give us a review and a rating!) Support Us! Make a per-episode pledge at patreon.com/thebeerists      twitter.com/thebeerists facebook.com/thebeeristsor email us at info@thebeerists.com

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Carrie Dils. Carrie has been around the Genesis community for a number of years. She s a WordPress developer, consultant, speaker, and teacher. She loves sharing what she s learned with others to help them be more successful in their business. She hosts a weekly WordPress podcast at OfficeHours.fm and is a course instructor for Lynda.com. In this 29-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Carrie Dils discuss: What open-source means How open-source projects can be attractive to developers The pros and cons of open-source Using helpfulness to build authority The benefits of an open-source ecosystem The expansion of the Office Hours podcast Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Follow Carrie on Twitter Visit CarrieDils.com The Office Hours Podcast Carrie on Lynda.com The Utility Pro Theme The Genesis Facebook Group The Transcript Why Open-Source-Based Communities Are So Powerful Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us. Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host a conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and then other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. Voiceover: StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, Brian and I are joined by Carrie Dils to discuss why an open-source-based community is so powerful. Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. Welcome to StudioPress FM. I am your host Brian Gardner, and I’m joined, as usual, with the Vice President of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. We are very excited about today’s show because we are continuing the series where we talk to members of the Genesis community. Today, we’re joined by Carrie Dils. Carrie has been around the genesis community for a number of years. She’s a WordPress developer, a consultant, a speaker, a teacher, among many other things. She loves sharing what she’s learned with others, and she wants to help them be more successful in their business. She hosts a weekly WordPress podcast called OfficeHours.fm and is a course instructor over at Lynda.com. Carrie, it’s a huge pleasure to have you on StudioPress FM. Welcome to the show. Carrie Dils: Hey, Brian and Lauren. It’s so great to be here. Brian Gardner: Now this is full circle for us both as we’ve both been individually guests on your show, and now we get to come back to the point where you are a guest on our show. Carrie Dils: Yeah, and just to be clear, there’s no money swapping hands there for the podcast swapping. Brian Gardner: This is like a weird version of linking back and forth, reciprocal linking, right? Carrie Dils: I’ll link to you if you link to me. Brian Gardner: I’ll have you on my show if you’ll have me on your show, that kind of thing. All right, let’s get this going. Carrie Dils: Let’s do it. Brian Gardner: Carrie, you’ve been developing websites for many years, almost 20 to be exact. We won’t ask how old you are, but you built your first site back in 1997. Some of our listeners may not have even been born then. That’s funny, but give us the low down on your career path — how you became a developer, when WordPress came into the picture, and also what got you involved with Genesis. How Open-Source Projects Can Be Attractive to Developers Carrie Dils: Just to be clear, I was a toddler when I started developing websites. That’s how I started in 1997 and still have this great youth about me. I started working with websites back when it was plain old basic HTML days, working with FrontPage and other cringe-worthy tools at that time. My career has taken many winding roads, but five years ago, I discovered WordPress and was in love with it and the power of what it could do right out of the box, started tinkering with the code base, and got into starting to customizing themes. As I was getting into the theme space, I tried out a bunch of different themes and eventually stumbled on Genesis. What I liked about Genesis, for some reason it clicked. It clicked to me the way that it’s built around action hooks and filters. I felt at home with that and started to dig in there. I think that was four, five years ago. Feels like forever. Lauren Mancke: I also built my first website 20 years ago. I was in middle school, so toddler is very impressive to me. Brian Gardner: Now you guys are making me feel old because, 20 years ago, I was out of high school, out of college, and a grown adult so let’s move on. Lauren Mancke: Anyone who’s listened to your podcast knows you are from Texas, and you’re a fan of craft beer. You actually picked a pretty good one out when I was down in Texas last. Another little fact about you is that you worked at Starbucks as a barista. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that experience? Carrie Dils: Yeah. First of all, when I found out that Brian Gardner loves Starbucks as much as he did, I immediately started to bribe him with coffee. I had this wild hair in my mid-20s. I thought, “I want to open up a coffee shop,” but I didn’t know a thing about business or running, specifically, a café for that matter. So I decided to go learn on somebody else’s dime. That somebody was Starbucks. I was with them almost nine years in various capacities. At the end of that career, I’ve decided that under no circumstances do I want to own a coffee shop. Brian Gardner: Now the beauty of being an online entrepreneur is that a) you can work in your underwear and b) work whenever you want. As I know, I worked in a convenience store, retail really is the pits if you’re not overly passionate or making a ton of money from it because then you’re working for someone else, the holidays, weekends and nights, and things like that. I’m sure with you at Starbucks that probably was the same way. Carrie Dils: Oh yeah. No pun intended, but the grind of it was tough. My weekends happened on a Tuesday and a Wednesday. The hours were odd. Sometimes I would be there at five in the morning, and other times I wouldn’t be leaving until close to midnight. It’s just a weird … it’s for young people. I’m too old for it now. Brian Gardner: Its for people who were not 20 in 1997. Carrie Dils: Just to come clean, I’m in the plus-40 crowd now. I lied about the toddler thing. Brian Gardner: Lauren’s the one drinking Similac these days, right? All right, back to nerd talk. WordPress open source, Genesis open source — coincidence? Or are you someone who truly believes in the open-source community? In other words, did you choose these platforms which happen to be open source, or did you choose them because they are open source? Carrie Dils: That did not even enter my thought process. I can’t say when I started that I fully even understood what open-source software meant, so it turns out that it’s a happy coincidence. Having now worked in an open-source community, there’s so many things that I love about it. Not just the community of people, but the actual process of developing open-source software, it’s cool. Of course, Genesis, too, you guys wisely or unwisely gave me access to the repo, and I’ve gotten to contribute a couple lines of code to the Genesis project. It’s fun. It’s fun to have your name on something bigger than yourself, and I think open-source software lets you do that. Lauren Mancke: Speaking of WordPress and open source, there seems to be a lot of drama involved when it comes to the word ‘open source’ because it could be the interpretation of what it actually means, but it seems like there are a lot of people who point fingers of other people misusing it. Would you agree or disagree with that sort of thing? Carrie Dils: I try to steer clear of all DramaPress, as WordPress drama is lovingly called. I think there is a misunderstanding of what open source means and maybe what the ‘rights,’ big ol’ air quotes there, are of people being able to contribute to a project. I think the misunderstanding there is that, yes, while anyone can contribute, it’s not a free for all. There’s process. There are ultimately decision makers deciding what goes into a code base and what doesn’t. I think there’s disagreement there about whether the decision makers are either the right decision makers or making the right decisions. That’s the drama I just try to steer clear of. What Open-Source Means Brian Gardner: I’m going to jump ahead to a question I have because I realize there’s a good chance some of our listeners don’t know what open source actually is. I don’t want to assume that they do, so I’m going to actually read the definition from the website. “Open-source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared in modified or unmodified form by anyone. Open-source software is made by many people and distributed under licenses that comply with the open-source definition.” Basically, you can inherit the code base of any project and do what you want with it — and this is the big thing — as long as you also then release whatever derivative you do or come up with, with the same license. Basically, it’s a kumbaya-ish feel where opportunists have a tendency to come in, and this is where the drama starts, to try to selfishly monetize and then close off pieces and parts of their business. The phrase that we use is the ‘spirit of the GPL,’ which is the General Public License. That’s more or less open source and what WordPress is released under. You have a good thing. You have someone with some bad motives come in. Then all of a sudden drama starts. The hope is that everyone really freely … it’s an open community. They help each other. They take code from somebody. Then they better it, or they use it to build something else. Both WordPress and Genesis work within that ecosystem. There’s clearly some perceived downsides in an open-source community, but at the core of it all are some values that we all share, as I just mentioned. WordPress has grown tremendously, as has StudioPress and our Genesis community. Do you think the growth of all of that, as a whole, would be less if the software that we’re working with was proprietary? The Benefits of an Open-Source Ecosystem Carrie Dils: I think so. I don’t have any solid data to actually back that up, but my gut is that because of that spirit you mentioned it, kind of that helpful spirit of, “Hey even if you’re my competitor, let me show you my code and how I fixed this problem.” That pushes the software forward more quickly than if that was not the case. Again, just conjecture, but I think definitely the fact that it’s open source has made it as popular as it is. Brian Gardner: What was that noise? Carrie Dils: That was my dog shaking. Lauren Mancke: That’s a big dog. Brian Gardner: No kidding. That was an earthquake. Carrie Dils: Actually, you mentioned I was in Texas. I have a couple of horses in the house. Brian Gardner: Horses, armadillos, rattlesnakes. Genesis, the community that we’ve built, for sure has grown, at least in my opinion, because of the fact that it’s open source, and we’ve basically given the license or the ability of people to build off of that in any way that they want — whether that’s taking code and teaching and training around that or whether it’s taking our themes and developing other themes as derivative works of our themes. There’s been, as you know, with your Utility Pro Theme, a lot of work that has gone into it from our end, but the community has given back so much. I just got 20 emails overnight from Gary Jones, committing to the core project of Genesis. The good thing is, when it is working the way it should, I realize Gary has incentive to help build Genesis the framework. He has a business built around that, and if he can contribute code back to the main project, that helps benefit him and helps expedite and speed up processes by which he uses our work to then make money off of it by doing free-lance projects and so on. I’m totally cool with that. It’s win-win. He helps us with his work and his code, as you have, Carrie. Then you get the benefit of that. Bill Erickson and Jared Atchison, two other guys I know that have come to us and said, “Hey, happy to help because this will help me and my freelance business.” Carrie Dils: That’s where the beauty of it comes in. People are giving and taking, and we’re all benefiting from it. You mentioned even sharing code with competitors. We call that ‘co-opetition,’ where we’re going up against each other, but also helping. The hope is that 1+1 really becomes three. A lot of times your competitors are the ones who get too busy and then have to refer work even to you then because they just can’t take it all. It’s really a great system when it’s working properly. Carrie Dils: Yeah, it’s an interesting ecosystem. You’re so right, that co-opetition term is an interesting one, one I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about and won’t ramble on here on your show. But I think there is certainly a ‘you get back what you give,’ and even if you’re giving with some ulterior motive. Ulterior motive doesn’t have to be negative. It could be somewhat self-serving, but you’re still contributing and giving and doing that. One of the things that folks that are new to WordPress, or even new specifically to Genesis, I always encourage them to dive in, start getting involved in the community. The best way to do that is through forums, just answering questions. Even if you’ve been around WordPress one week, then you know more than somebody who’s only been around it one day. You have the knowledge to start contributing back by just helping somebody else. Lauren Mancke: We talk a lot about all the good things of the Genesis community, the WordPress community. That’s only natural for this show to do that. But what are some things that you’d like to see differently in the Genesis community? The Pros and Cons of Open-Source Carrie Dils: This isn’t going to be specific to Genesis, but I see it a lot in Genesis because that’s one of the communities I’m more heavily involved in, but there’s this disparity between … let me just get down to the point. I hope that I’m not going to offend anyone. No names mentioned, but I had a support request come through — and this is not a one-time deal, it’s happened multiple times — where someone is being paid as a web developer or a web designer to deliver a website for a client, and what they’re asking for in support forums is for the work to be done for them. I realize I’m painting in broad strokes. That’s not everyone. What I would love to see is that, if people are going to take this on professionally, that they actually are professional about it and take the time, invest the time to learn the skills to do that. I think that type of individual can devalue what a lot of people are doing legitimately and well, if that makes sense. Brian Gardner: I know you’re not referring specifically to the people who really just don’t know how to do something and are really asking for help on how to accomplish a task. Rather, you’re addressing more the people who I guess ‘lazy’ would be the right word. “Oh, will you just do all this work for me, so I don’t have to do it for my client?” That’s one of the downsides, then, of this open-source community — and this gets into that dark side — is that there’s a tendency for certain behaviors or patterns for people to come in and, to some degree, can be toxic. There’s an expectation that, “All of a sudden I’m going to start mooching off of and expecting … ” I think of the TV show Survivor. We’re huge fans of survivor. Once in a while, you get somebody who comes in there, and he starts eating more rice than he should. He’s drinking more water than he should, and he’s not playing fair. He’s sort of disrupting that community by being self-serving and selfish. The open-source community is more of a servant-first mentality, and everything in life, not everything is perfect. And I’ve seen it, and I try to address it and encourage behaviors to change or otherwise. A lot of times the community corrects itself, which is good. I can see what you’re saying, that there are people who have a tendency to come in and take more than they give. I guess we all go through seasons that we have to, but the hope is, at some point, that person says, “I’ve taken enough. I’ve built a business around this with the help of a lot of other people. Now it’s my turn to give back.” Carrie Dils: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been that person asking questions in support forums when I was first starting out — so certainly not at all. To your point, being clear about I’m not talking about people who genuinely don’t know and want to understand. It’s, I guess, maybe a difference in attitude. I wish I could attribute this quote to the right person because I just heard it, and I don’t remember who said it, but in regards to seeking help in an open-source community. It was, “For every question you ask, answer another question” — that idea of balance and being reciprocal with your knowledge. Rather than just showing up and taking, to also give back. People that are new to WordPress or new to open source, I don’t think they maybe even know that conceptually that’s a thing they ought to be doing. Maybe we have to teach other people how to be good stewards of open-source relationships. Giving Back to the WordPress Community Brian Gardner: We speak about this in terms of Genesis, but also, to some small degree, I do feel a bit of conviction myself just with StudioPress and our company as a whole that we’ve benefited so much from the creation of WordPress, what Matt did back in the day, and all of that. I feel like over the last few years we’ve been so busy and doing our thing that we’ve probably taken a little bit more than we’ve given. So we’ve tried to do our best. Maybe it’s come out in just by providing opportunities for people like you and others in the community, just a way to monetize and build a business around it. I know that, as we move forward, there’s a few things we’re doing within our company to help give back to the big project of WordPress. One of those things is we’re going to take some of Nathan’s time — Nathan Rice, our lead developer — and earmark some of his time throughout the week to give back to WordPress, the big project, as a way to pay that back. There’s a few other things. I’ve actually tried to spend a little more time on the support forums at WordPress just to help people out because I forget. It’s easy to get complacent, on cruise control, and say, “Thanks, WordPress, for helping us kick start our business,” and then to go back and remember that there’s so many people who are new and just need help. Their questions aren’t dumb and things like that. Moving forward, I’m trying to go out of my way to help bring back a communal sense that I felt years ago that I’ve lost over the last couple of years. Carrie Dils: That’s awesome. That’s really exciting to hear about Nathan. Brian Gardner: So going along with what we just talked about, by far, in my opinion, the best thing about the Genesis community is the Genesis community. There are so many folks out there willing to lend a hand, whether it be, like you said, in the forums, or the Genesis Facebook Group, even the Twitter hashtag. That’s a great place for people to ask questions and to give back, like we talked about. No question here really. I just wanted to thank you as a member of that community. I’ve seen you on a number of occasions go out of your way to help people. You write tutorials, and you do all of this stuff for people. I know a lot of people have helped you along the way, too. No question here, really — just a way of saying thank you for your participation and helping build our ecosystem. I know that you have your own incentives for that. You’re building a business, which is great, and I hope that that continues to grow and to flourish. Just wanted to say thank you for what you’ve done. Carrie Dils: I appreciate that. Right back at you. You guys have had an incredible way of supporting the developers and people in the Genesis community that want to build businesses around it. It’s kind of great. StudioPress can make money off of WordPress, and StudioPress customers can make money off of StudioPress. It’s a giant circle of life. Brian Gardner: Yes, we love it. Lauren Mancke: So speaking of making money off of a wonderful community, is there a strategy involved for how being helpful and having the gift of teaching can affect your business? Using Helpfulness to Build Authority Carrie Dils: Absolutely! It wasn’t something I started out with in mind. Really, giving back to the community was something I started doing just as a thanks for all the community had given me. As I started to blog tutorials and that sort of thing and grow an audience that needed help with WordPress or Genesis, I saw opportunity there. Definitely, Brian, I can’t remember the exact phrase you used, but yes, there is an incentive for me to continue giving back to the community. I guess it comes back to me in indirect ways, but certainly helps to build authority and teaching courses. Helping other people just lends back to the credibility and my personal brand. As always, even now in my 40s, I’m not sure what my personal brand is, but I know that it’s a good thing for it. Brian Gardner: We talked about your podcast, OfficeHours.fm. A lot of people may not know this — it started out as a Genesis podcast, one that I was on a number of times, as was Lauren. Midway through, you switched to just Office Hours. In other words, you ditched the Genesis name, which I am completely okay with. In fact, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I applauded that move. I realized that, to some degree, Genesis within the context of the whole Internet is a very small piece of the pie. WordPress, in and of itself, is a bigger piece of the pie, and there’s even more outside of that. So I commended you for that in my head. I think it’s a smart move. I completely understand that. Just talk to our audience a little bit about why you made that transition and how that’s been for you since then. The Expansion of the Office Hours Podcast Carrie Dils: First, thank you for that. I appreciate that. I started realizing that the topics that we were talking about, they could apply to broader WordPress principles. We’re talking about development tools, or hosting environments, or process and things that would apply to anyone working with WordPress. I was limiting my audience to people who thought we were just talking about Genesis all the time, so if someone wasn’t familiar with Genesis or wasn’t using Genesis, they were never ever going to tune into the show. By dropping the name Genesis and just going with OfficeHours.fm, I felt like that was my opportunity to stretch my legs a little bit and invite other people within the WordPress community on to share their knowledge. Even since that transition from Genesis to just plain Office Hours, the show has shifted. It’s still somewhat techy, but it’s not super techy. It’s really been more focused around the business of WordPress and those of who either provide services or products based around WordPress, what are some of the business skills and things that we can do to be more successful. That’s more the recent direction of the podcast, and that’s kind of a sweet spot for me. I’m going to go ramble again. Brian Gardner: Ramble away. Carrie Dils: As web developers or designers, we’re technicians, right? We like to get in code. We like to solve problems — whether we’re solving it with code or with a beautiful user interface. Those are the things that we’re good at, but actually running a business is not a skill that is inherent to most people. Unless you grew up as a kid working in a family business or unless, Brian, like you did, working in a convenient store, and just being around business, you don’t know that. You just get stuck. Here, you’re a technician and you want to be successful and make money doing web development and doing the thing you do, but if you don’t have the right business skills, then you kind of stagnant there. When I say my ‘sweet spot,’ I really enjoy business. That sounds nerdy, but I like the numbers. I like everything that goes along with the mechanics of running a business. To be able to take that knowledge and share it with people who are like me, other technical people like me, my hope is that they can be more successful in their business just by doing things a little smarter. Brian Gardner: When Lauren and I were heavily asked by those in our company to come up with StudioPress FM, one of the big concerns I had would’ve been the same thing you felt with that Genesis name, in that people would think we’re only going to talk about StudioPress stuff or Genesis stuff, try to sell our products, or whatever. This series is the first step in trying to go outside of just that perception. I didn’t want the same 30 people to be listening to our show, and I wanted to open it up to topics and things that, even though they pertain to Genesis and our ecosystem, can go well outside of that. For instance, we had Rebecca Gill talking about SEO, and that’s clearly not a Genesis thing. It’s not even necessarily a WordPress thing. It’s something that a general business owner, or someone who’s online trying to become an entrepreneur, that’s something that they can take away. The hope is, I’m sure this is the same case for you, when you shed that and go more ambiguous, you turn it from a ‘I’m just going to talk to my people’ to a potential lead generator, right? Getting people from the outside who don’t even know who you are, what products you build, or any of that. The hope is they’ll say, “Wow, I like what these people are doing or what Carrie’s saying,” and it’s an authority opportunity where you can teach somebody something they may not know, then bring them in. The podcast for you, now that you shed the name of Genesis, really, I think there’s a lot of opportunities, especially Office Hours. That’s a very broad term, and you could do all kinds of things with that. I look forward to seeing where you go. Carrie Dils: Thank you. Lauren Mancke: What does the future hold for Carrie Dils? What are some things that you’re working on, and what should we expect to see from you in the next year or two? What to Expect in the Future From Carrie Carrie Dils: Well, you mentioned Rebecca Gill and SEO. I’m not sure what all you guys talked about, but I’m actually partnering with her to do an SEO Bootcamp in early 2017 that I’m very excited about. I’ve always admired Rebecca, professionally and personally, and this is an opportunity to get to work with her and partner with her on something. Super excited about that. The podcast season two comes to an end with tomorrow’s show. Then I’m going to take a little break and revamp, redo some things under the hood, and then the launch season three of the podcast later this fall. I can’t tell you what all it is going to be, but it’s going to be awesome. Also, it’s on my bucket list in 2016 to write a book, so I don’t know. Brian Gardner: You’ve got three months to do that. Carrie Dils: I’ve got three months. I’ve been told that, that might be a little ambitious, but we’ll see. Lauren Mancke: You can do it. Brian Gardner: If you’re looking for something to do, in five or 10 minutes when we’re off this, you can go listen to the episode of StudioPress FM with Rebecca because it’s being published probably as we speak. And yes, we did promote the SEO Bootcamp conference on that, so hopefully that will, at the very least, bring a few people interested over there to you guys. Hopefully, that will work out. Carrie Dils: Thanks! Much appreciated. Where (and) When to Catch Carrie’s Show Brian Gardner: So everybody listening, are you looking for success through leveraging WordPress as both a tool and a platform? If so, we heavily encourage you to check out Office Hours, Carrie’s podcast, especially with season three coming up. You can tune in live every Thursday at 2 o’clock Eastern as she interviews a variety of folks within the WordPress ecosystem — from plugin developers to marketers, to business owners. For more information on that, visit OfficeHours.fm. And if you like what you heard on today’s show, StudioPress FM, you can of course find us there at StudioPress.FM. You can also help us hit the main stage by subscribing to this show in iTunes. It’s a great way to never ever miss an episode. Carrie, we want to thank you so much for being on the show. As we look forward to doing more episodes, we’d love to have you back to talk more specifically about some of things that you’re doing as a way to take that expertise you have and bring that to our audience. Carrie Dils: Thanks, guys. I always enjoy chatting with y’all.

In this inaugural episode of StudioPress FM, we focus on the story of the founder of StudioPress, Brian Gardner. Lauren Mancke and Brian discuss how he started the premium WordPress theme industry, StudioPress, and the Genesis Framework. In this 29-minute episode Brian Gardner and Lauren Mancke discuss: How Brian’s career began His start with blogging, WordPress, and freelance development When Brian and Lauren began working together almost ten years ago The one client that changed everything The birth of the premium WordPress theme industry The launch of StudioPress and the Genesis Framework The biggest business decision Brian ever had to make His favorite parts of the journey and lessons he learned along the way Listen to StudioPress FM below ... Download MP3Subscribe by RSSSubscribe in iTunes The Show Notes StudioPress.com Revolution Theme Find out more about Brian on BrianGardner.com Find out more about Lauren on laurenmancke.com Follow Brian on Twitter at @bgardner Follow Lauren on Twitter at @laurenmancke The Transcript The Story of StudioPress Founder Brian Gardner Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us. Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is the being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host a conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and then other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. Voiceover: : StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform. Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, we’ll focus on the founder of StudioPress, Brian Gardner, and his story. We will share how he started the premium WordPress theme industry, his company StudioPress, and the Genesis Framework. Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. This is founder of StudioPress, Brian Gardner, and today I’m joined with my co-host, who happens to be vice president of StudioPress, a killer photographer, a mom, the best designer on the planet, Lauren Mancke. Lauren, how are you doing today? Lauren Mancke: I’m doing good. That’s quite an introduction. Brian Gardner: You know, you’re not following the script. You’re supposed to say, “I’m good. Really excited about this, Brian. How are you?” Lauren Mancke: I’m going to go off script. Brian Gardner: All right. Hey, listen up, everybody [paper crumpling] — that is us throwing the script out of the window. Welcome to the show. Lauren and I have been excited to finally record our first episode. It seems like we’ve been talking about this forever now. Although as creatives, we want everything to be perfect. What I learned last year when I did the No Sidebar podcast is that scripted shows sound like scripted shows. As two creatives, we are going to just fly by the seat of our pants. We are thankful you are listening. We have a lot to cover, just today, in the series, and just on the whole podcast as a whole. How do you want to kick this off? Lauren Mancke: I was thinking I could ask you a couple of questions. This first episode, we want to talk about you, Brian, and maybe I could do a little interview style. Brian Gardner: This is my show because next week will be your show. I guess what we thought was that we would just introduce the StudioPress FM podcast with a little bit about my story, a little bit about your story. Then I think we’re going to go into the redesign of StudioPress. From there, we were going to, after that foundation was set, just go through and cover all kinds of topics — from design and branding and strategy, bringing in members of the community, from Genesis as a whole also. Let’s get this started. Lauren Mancke: Let’s start at the beginning. Even before you became an entrepreneur, how did you get started in the working world? How Brian’s Career Began Brian Gardner: Let’s go back to my job history. I think that’s a little bit of foundation for all of the things that ultimately brought me to where I’m at. Back in high school, I was a cashier and stock boy at a local convenience store. Unlike other people — my friends, they were into sports, and they did their thing — I actually had to work. I spent three or four nights a week, one day or two over the weekend, working at a local convenience store, doing all kinds of things. That was just kind of a get-me-started job. Then I went to college, and believe it or not, one of my jobs was being a janitor of the dorms. When you are paying your way through, you’ve got to pretty much take any job. For me, that was just something I needed to do. It was actually kind of fun because our dorm was one of them. That was an interesting experience. I’ll get to later why certain things like that kind of built into who I am now. Most importantly, after college, I went back to the same convenience store I worked at. This time I was hired on as a manager. I was working 50 hours a week there, pretty much living there and getting to know all of the customers. There was this one experience while I was there that really started the formation of who I am now. That was, somebody had brought they were bringing coffees out to their car. They dropped the tray and spilled coffee all over the sidewalk. She came back in, and she told us, “Hey, I’m sorry. I have to go get more coffee.” My boss at the time said, “Don’t worry about it. Fill your cups up and head out.” I looked at her. I’m like, “Aren’t we going to charge her again?” She said, “No. No, of course not. Benefit of the doubt, it’s a loyal customer. We take care of them.” That was my first experience or the introduction to the idea of customer service and how you take care of people because that type of thing goes a long way. I worked at this convenience store for a couple years as the manager, got to know these customers. We were in a neighborhood, so it was the same people that came through all the time. One of the older gentlemen who came in and got a coffee and donut every morning, one Saturday slipped me his business card. I got to know him pretty well, and we talked when he would come into the store and whatnot. He slipped me his business card, and he just says, “Call me.” I was confused, kind of had an idea of what he was thinking, so I called him. In short, he basically offered me a job at his company, which was an architectural design company and was a five-day work week, eight to four type of thing, holidays off, that type of stuff, which was so different from when I was working at the time. I was like, “I don’t even care what you do, but I’m going to say yes because I just want to get out of this.” I became a project manager at this architectural firm. I was probably the youngest by probably 10 years there. I was kind of seen as the kid, the computer guy who taught himself a lot of stuff on the computer, which will ultimately get to where we’re at now. That’s my work history in a nutshell. Just things there I learned that are much more applicable to what I do now. Lauren Mancke: At that architectural firm, isn’t that when you started writing on your blog? Brian’s Start with Blogging, WordPress, and Freelance Development Brian Gardner: Yeah, let’s go back, I think 2006, 2007 is where it was. I was very confident with what I was doing, but I was also bored. It was a desk job. I was crunching numbers and estimating projects. As even a creative back then, I wanted to start writing. This was back in the day when Google’s Blogger was the big thing and WordPress was very, very new. I started blogging on Blogger. It just didn’t do anything for me. A friend of mine said, “You should check out this WordPress thing because it’s a much better, more sophisticated thing,” which is funny because compared to where it’s at now, back then it was archaic. I installed WordPress and figured out through Googling around how to set up WordPress install and what was web hosting and all of that. I started blogging on the side just as a fun thing to do. Yes, I did a little bit on the clock to kill time. I started blogging, and that was the start of the entrepreneurial journey. Lauren Mancke: Right, because that’s when you started to do freelance jobs, right? Brian Gardner: Yeah, what happened was, I didn’t like the theme I was using. Back then, there was a free theme repository. I had pulled down a theme, and as a neat freak and organizational type of person, I opened up these files that made up this theme. Of course, I didn’t even know what a theme was, or PHP files or CSS, back in the day. I was flying blind and just trying to see what would work and what wouldn’t work. Ultimately, I cleaned up the theme I was using. I renamed it. I thought I was like this real programmer kind of guy and, at one point, decided to make themes available on my site. I would take themes and customize them, got my feet wet with design, and did what I felt was right, and started making these themes available for download for free in hopes that people would use them. The links in the footer would go back to my site, and they could read all about my journal and stuff that I was going through, which I figured people might be interested in. Who knows? I did that, and some of those people who would download the themes would ultimately contact me and say, “Hey, I’m using your free theme. I want to know if you can help me change a few colors or whatnot.” These little freelance jobs that I took, $25, $50, to kind of tweak a few things grew into more of a thing where people would ask for full custom sites types of things, $250, $500 back in the day is what I charged. It was vacation money back at the time. Lauren Mancke: That’s about when we met, right? That’s when our paths crossed? When Brian and Lauren Began Working Together Almost 10 Years Ago Brian Gardner: Yeah, I can’t remember what year it was, but I think it was Wes who reached out at one point, your old boss. Lauren Mancke: It was 2007. Brian Gardner: 2007, yeah, so he reached out and asked if I could do a couple of themes for I don’t know if they were your client sites or even his own site. He contracted me to do a couple of these sites and obviously connected me to you because you were the one who had done the designs for him. I was going to just do the development part. You and I back then, even though, fast forward nine years, we had no idea that we would be really working this closely together. That was the start of our relationship, just kind of on a casual, you were a client of mine type of thing — and look, here we are. Lauren Mancke: Those were some pretty basic sites. I’m glad they are not on the Internet anymore. Besides us being your client, did you have any other clients at that time? The One Client That Changed Everything Brian Gardner: Yeah, there were a couple other people who, believe or not, were regulars that they had more than one project for me to do. It was nice to kind of have a few people who would continually send me work. Moonlighting was pretty much my gig, and I was doing these sites late at night, on the weekends, and a little bit during the day at work, but I don’t ever like to admit that. That’s how those types of things happen. Maybe a year or so into that part of my life, I had this client, a Boston real estate guy, and he was pretty much the guy that changed everything. Lauren Mancke: How did he do that? Brian Gardner: This is a story I tell all the time. To this day, I do not mention his name. I prefer to keep him in anonymity. I think that, at some point, and I’m 95 percent kidding when I say this, but I still think he’s going to come back and ask for royalties because he really was the guy that changed my life, my family’s life, really a lot of the things that transpired since then. I was doing a freelance custom design for him. He wanted a real estate blog. I whipped up this design, and I was like, “I’m going to above and beyond,” and created this template that would work as a front page, so it would look more like a website than a blog. Then I sent him a link to the demo, and I said, “What do you think of this?” He wrote back, and he says, “This is great, but it’s not what I need. I need just a blog, and it’s got to be very basic.” I was crushed. I thought to myself, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever created. It’s way better than anything else that’s out there,” but he rejected it. He said that it wasn’t that I wasn’t good enough, it was just better than what he needed. It didn’t suit what he was looking for. At that point, I was left with this design, and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. The Birth of the Premium WordPress Theme Industry Brian Gardner: Thankfully, I had built an audience, and I did what felt right. I followed my gut and just wrote up a blog post and said, “Hey, this is something I created. Would anybody buy it?” That risk, that blog post was the catalyst to what would then transpire over the next year or two of my life, which was the formulation of Revolution because people wrote back on the blog and comments and said, “Heck yeah, that’s great. I would love to buy that.” I followed up that blog post with another one. Basically saying, “How much would you pay for a premium WordPress theme?” To this day, it’s arguable that, that is actually how the premium WordPress theme industry was named. Lots of people gave feedback, ranged anywhere between $50 and $100. Even then, I had no business training, no schooling, and any of that stuff, but I knew that was an opportunity. I knew that there was probably hundreds of people who actually wrote on that and said, “I would buy that.” I knew it was an opportunity to create something in a way that could be packaged and resold. That was the Revolution WordPress theme. Lauren Mancke: I’ve definitely heard that you coined the phrase ‘premium WordPress theme.’ I think it’s pretty amazing that you were able to just start an entire industry like that. Brian Gardner: Most of these types of stories, especially startups nowadays, they usually come back to, at the core of that story, some sort of passion projects, something somebody created to solve their own problem. It’s never well, it’s not never, but most success stories come out of the accidental entrepreneur concept, which is people who don’t set out to go do something. It just happens, and then they roll with it. For me, that was totally the case. At the time, I think Shelly was either pregnant or we were trying to get pregnant. I had no interest in leaving my day job because it was stable. I had income. I had vacation, benefits, insurance, and all that stuff. Never in a million years after I started selling Revolution did I think four months later I would be quitting my secure, stable job to do this ‘Internet thing’ — but that’s how it played out. Lauren Mancke: How did Revolution then turn into StudioPress? A lot of our listeners might not know how that transitioned. I know I know because I was there, but give us a little rundown of how that transition went down. The Launch of StudioPress and the Genesis Framework Brian Gardner: The short story is, back in the day, even though WordPress itself was an open-source project, Revolution, I was selling it as a proprietary thing where and I’ll link to a couple of articles around this in the show notes. In short, I decided to take Revolution, which at the time we were selling, and make it open source. In other words, apply the GPL license to it. Part of that process was difficult because I was making a big change and risking potentially a lot of money. I called up Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, and asked if he would be willing to have a conversation with me about this. At the time, there were few other people who started selling themes. They were also doing a proprietary license deal, which was, in a sense, against the ideology of WordPress and open source. I didn’t want to be seen as a black sheep. I called Matt, and he said, “Yep.” I flew out to California and met with him. At the point, CEO of Automattic, which is the company behind WordPress, and the three of us sat alongside Jason Schuller, my friend from Press75 at the time. We sat in a room and talked about Revolution going open source. Out of that conversation, it became Revolution 2, which was sort of a, as I look back, hokey transition. It was just my way of saying, “This is Revolution done a different way.” Not too long into that, I was served a cease and desist letter from a company in the United Kingdom that claimed some sort of confusion with their Revolution software, and again, like I said, I had no business knowledge whatsoever, no legal nothing. I was just doing what I thought was right. I brought that to an intellectual property attorney, and he said, “You can probably fight this and maybe win. It would cost a lot of money, so it might just make sense to rebrand.” At that point, I thought it was suicide, brand suicide. I thought it was going to be the end of the world. I went ahead and looked up some domain names, and StudioPress was one that was available for purchase. I think it was BuyDomains.com or something like that, but I was like, “Eh, it’s got the press studio, kind of insinuates design.” Yes, I did Google StudioPress and make sure that there was no other conflict because the last thing I wanted to do was end up in the same boat. We rebranded as StudioPress, and there was a blog post announcing it, sort of alluding to the fact that it was a necessary change. One thing I learned is when you build a loyal audience, they’ll follow you no matter what. My concern that sales would tank and that the community wouldn’t understand quickly subsided once I rebranded, and StudioPress set itself off at that point. Lauren Mancke: I think at that time, right around then, is when I actually was starting to go full-time freelancing. What year was that? Brian Gardner: 2010-ish, 2009, ’10, ’11, ’12? Something around there. Lauren Mancke: I think maybe 2009. You were one of my clients. I had some steady clients. That was kind of the impetus for me to go out on my own and quit my full-time job. One of those first big jobs I had was with you, doing a few theme designs. Brian Gardner: I don’t know which of the times you are talking about because I think back then I tried to hire you three or four different times, but you were a prima donna. You were charging too much money, and I couldn’t afford you at the time. I think I at least three times you and I tried to figure out a way to work together on a full-time basis. I knew back then that you were a great designer and you still are. I knew that, as an opportunistic person who wants to take my business to the next level, you had to play a part. So yes, we went back and forth a number of times to figure out how you can get involved. It probably wasn’t until the merge with Copyblogger that we were in a position to finally make that happen. Lauren Mancke: You did ask me a few times. Brian Gardner: You know what, I kept feeling rejected — like I was asking the pretty girl to the dance, and she kept saying no for some reason or like that she had someone better. I’m like, “One of these times I’m just going to stop asking,” but here we are. Lauren Mancke: It worked out. The stars aligned, and the timing worked out. Brian Gardner: For sure. Lauren Mancke: A couple of those first projects we worked on, I remember helping with the brand of Genesis. Brian Gardner: Before the Copyblogger merge, I had this idea. I think at the time Thesis by Chris Pearson was sort of becoming the thorn in my side, competitor, impacting sales type of thing. I knew at that point I needed to do something that was a little bit different from where I was doing. StudioPress, we had a number of individual themes that we were producing. I think a couple maybe you designed or I outsourced. The problem became once we had a number of themes that shared some code base. This kind of gets into the history of Genesis itself, which was every time that we would need to update a function, I’d update every single theme. Around that time, Nathan Rice, who is currently lead developer at Rainmaker Digital, our company. He was working at iThemes with our friend Cory Miller. I think I told him at one point — I was outsourcing some kind of code work for him as well — I told him, I said, “Hey, look, if things ever don’t work out between you and iThemes, give me a call,” because I knew that there was this thing I wanted to build. I didn’t know really if it was possible or what it would be called or anything like that, but I had this idea. A few months later, he called back and said, “Hey, it looks like I’m going to no longer be working with iThemes, so here I am.” I pitched him the idea. I said, “Look, all of our themes share code base. Can we build something?” I don’t know even if I knew what a framework was or if it was called that back in the day, but I said, “Can we build something that basically shares the same code base, and then the design is just laid over the top?” I always like to use the idea of an iPhone, or even a car for that matter, where the paint job is the design, and the engine is always the same. You can change the way the car looks without having to change the engine. So I pitched him the idea. I said, “Let’s build something like that.” That was the initial conversation we had with Genesis. Once we built Genesis and introduced that idea and concept to the WordPress community, people bought into it. Obviously, we had a pretty good following through StudioPress and me personally. That sort of transitioned from standalone themes to what’s now Genesis the framework and the child theme system that comes along with it. Lauren Mancke: Then, taking that further, how was StudioPress then affected by the merger with the Copyblogger? The Biggest Business Decision Brian Ever Had to Make Brian Gardner: That’s a fun story. Chris Pearson and Brian Clark dissolved their relationship over at DIYThemes, and Brian reached out to me and said, “Hey, look. I’m looking to do something. I wanted to know if you want to partner together.” Of course I knew who Brian was from just Copyblogger and just the prominence he had in the blogging and marketing world. I knew that that was a huge opportunity to ultimately take StudioPress to the next level. There were lots of elements around StudioPress that I didn’t want to be doing — i.e., support, account management, and things like that. I knew that there was just a next step and that merging into Copyblogger would do it. Him and I and three of our other partners flew out to Denver and formed the company in practically 35, 40 minutes. We sat down and just knocked it all out and said, “This is what we want to do. This is what we want to build.” From there, we merged StudioPress into Copyblogger, formed that company, which ultimately meant that I was giving up full control of what I called my baby back in the day. A lot has happened over the last six years, much for the good, and StudioPress is still going strong. Finally got a chance to hire you. You’ve worked your way up through everything, and now you’re vice president of StudioPress. I like to call you my right-hand man, or if anything, you call me your right-hand man. You’re pretty much running the show now. Lauren Mancke: Over those six years, a lot’s happened. Have you any favorite parts on that whole journey? Brian’s Favorite Parts of the Journey and Lessons He Learned Along the Way Brian Gardner: Yeah, I think what it comes down to is, I’ve always been kind of a gathering type. I love the idea of community and building something that appeals to a lot of people and where people can come together. The company itself has become that for us, where we started out as five partners and a handful of employees. Over the last six years, we’ve grown and evolved and have built new lines of business, and that’s necessitated hiring. Tony Clark, our COO, he’s a really smart guy, and he’s like a company builder. He sets up the infrastructure of the company and the processes. He really helped form the company into something special. Even just in April, we were all out in Denver together. Probably 50 to 60 of us, a lot of people coming from overseas, from south America. It’s crazy to then come together in one room. It feels like a true family. The standing joke kind of within our company is that we’re The Goonies and that we’re misfits creating meaningful work. That’s one part of the last years that I’ve really gotten to enjoy is just working with different people, caring for other people, and so on. The community itself that we’ve built around Genesis is just as awesome. The people who are building their own businesses around Genesis and selling services and products around that has been phenomenal to watch. I’ve met a lot of good people, many of which we’ve been able to meet in person. Some I call brothers and sisters. We’re that close. That to me is, and always has been, the most important part of all of it. It’s really what helps me get up in the morning and why I want to do work and talk to people and help identify where we can promote their work. We’ve done some things lately, like add third-party themes to StudioPress in our Pro Plus package, as well as even sharing their work on our Facebook page. We recently created a newsletter called StudioPress Notes where we talk about the latest things. It’s been just really fun to watch the community, from developers to designers to everybody in between, gather around this product. They kind of serve as what I call brand ambassadors. They are making money and putting food on their table because of something that we started, that they are building upon. Those two parts of all of this is really been my favorite part of it all. Lauren Mancke: I think also having a couple people on the show, too, will be a great idea about where we can take this podcast. Plans for the Future Brian Gardner: StudioPress FM, for me, is really going to be about that same sort of thing. We’re going to extend our platform in the spirit of trying to help other people’s platforms. In other words, yes, you and I are going to talk and riff about things that are happening and things we go through, work in our workday, and identifying design trends and what we should build and all of that. The other part of it, and what I think will be fascinating for our listeners, is to bring in people from the community so we can hear their story, so we can hear what they’re up to and what they think about what we’re doing, but also just what the industry as a whole is doing. There’s all kinds of people that I’ve already got in mind that I want to have on the show. We’ll go through a series probably, a four-part series where we’ll bring in maybe some designers, and then another series would be developers and so on. Industry people that can help bring some wisdom to the show. It’s going to be a fun deal. I’m really excited that we finally did this. I think it all hinged upon the fact that we landed on a great design for the podcast album cover. I think that was something we struggled with a little bit. Lauren Mancke: That did take a few drafts. Brian Gardner: The one thing we learned is that, in some sort of fashion, you and I are a little bit oil and water when it comes to taste. Typically, we resonate a lot, but there are some things and the podcast music itself was another instance where we just had to say, “We love each other, and we’re are going to have to find a way to meet in the middle.” Lauren Mancke: We had to compromise. Brian Gardner: Yeah, and that’s what the whole show is going to be about, where you can do your thing for a while, I’ll do my thing for a while. As long we are relatively on the same page, then things should work out. With that said and on that note, I think we’ll end the show. We’re going to keep our shows typically around 30 minutes, just in the spirit of giving enough information, but not too much to where it takes away from your day. We love you guys. We appreciate your listening. Next week, we’re going to hear Lauren’s story because it differs much from mine. It’ll be fun to hear her talk more and to hear what she went through, how she got here, and all of that. That’s a wrap. Lauren Mancke: So tune in. Brian Gardner: Next week, StudioPress FM.

Joined by Nathan Rice, lead developer for the Genesis Framework, and Sridhar Katakam, freelance developer and tutorial-writer for Genesis

At the very beginning of this episode there's a short interview with Toni Schneider, the CEO of Automattic, and Dharmesh Mehta, Director of Product Search. Only an hour before we recorded this interview they were on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt to announce that all the Microsoft Live / MSN Spaces users would be moved over to WordPress.com.We talked about what this meant for future work between Microsoft and Automattic / WordPress, and whether any of this would impact WordPress.org users.This interview is followed by another (much longer) interview with Brian Gardner and Nathan Rice of StudioPress and Genesis. In this interview we discuss how Genesis came to be over the last year, what it's benefits are over a normal theme and what the process of going from a set of themes to a framework was like.We discussed the SEO settings of Genesis, which has some of the more advanced SEO settings ever seen in themes, but also whether these kinds of settings should be in themes at all. I referenced a recent post of mine and we talked about a plugin Nathan developed, the SEO Data Transporter that allows you to transport your SEO meta data from a plugin to a theme, or from one theme to another etc.Another interesting point was the discussion of how to set up a community around a theme framework like this, and Brian showed us, for instance, dev.studiopress.com. We also talked about the Genesis Simple Sidebars plugin, a very cool way of allowing people to change sidebars for posts.Then there were two plugin picks:Nathan picked Simple URLs, a very cool new method of doing redirects using a custom post.Joost picked Press This reloaded, a "re done" version of the Press This bookmarklet that allows setting of SEO titles etc. from within the Press This screen too.It's really an information packed show, so go ahead and listen right now!PS sorry for my sore voice and coughing, I've got a quite heavy cold pestering me.