Podcast appearances and mentions of robby mccullough

Co-Founders Robby, Billy, and Justin were running a successful web design agency when a client came to them with a very specific request for a website with a page builder tool. After discovering a market for this, the three founded Beaver Builder, a WordPress Page Builder Plugin in 2014. Robby McCullough joins Sanjay's of today's episode of Side Hustle to Small Business to discuss taking risks, finding your niche, and creating a work-life balance.

It looks like the days of automatically sharing WordPress.com content to Twitter are over. Automattic announced that customers will no longer be able to auto-publish to Twitter via the Jetpack Social plugin.You may recall that WordPress.com's access to the Twitter API was suddenly suspended in April. While it eventually came back online, changes to Twitter's policies have made the continued use too expensive.Automattic says that Twitter's price increase is “prohibitive for us to absorb without passing a significant price increase along to you, and we don't see that as an option.” Bye bye birdie.Links You Shouldn't MissThe Beaver Builder page builder plugin has been on the market for 9 years. The WordPress landscape has changed dramatically in that time. For instance, page builders are now seen as competitors to the native Block Editor. What does that mean for the future? Matt Medeiros spoke with Robby McCullough of Beaver Builder for an in-depth discussion of the topic.There's news to report regarding this summer's WordCamp US. The first round of ticket sales started on May 1 and quickly sold out. Another round of sales will be coming soon. Meanwhile, there will be a different approach to event programming. Organizers are targeting “experienced, seasoned, professional speakers at the top of their industries who are not currently active members of our unique community.” They've put out a survey for suggested speakers and topics. A traditional call for speakers will also be announced in the near future. The event will take place from August 24-26th in National Harbor, MD.WordPress community member Michelle Frechette has launched WP Speakers. It's a free resource that connects speakers and event organizers within the WordPress ecosystem. In a press release, Frechette notes that "As well-connected as I am in WordPress, I couldn't even imagine how much more difficult it might be for someone who didn't know a lot of speakers personally. So WP Speakers was born."WordPress agency Human Made has recently published articles detailing their experimentation with AI. Now they're hosting a virtual event to examine how this technology will impact the content management system (CMS). Word on the Future is a virtual event and will take place on May 25. ★ Support this podcast ★

Robby McCullough of Beaver Builder joins the podcast to chat about the future of page building in WordPress and at his company. Robby and his team have just celebrated 9 years running the Beaver Builder plugin, changing the page building landscape as WordPress users know it. He's excited to press forward into his next chapter of WordPress products with the Assistant plugin. Think of it as the glue to connecting your multiple WordPress websites across the cloud, sharing templates, blocks, and other data. https://twitter.com/RobbyMcCulloughhttps://twitter.com/BeaverBuilderhttps://assistant.pro/https://wordpress.org/plugins/assistant/https://thewpminute.com/support ★ Support this podcast ★

As a special treat for your patience this week, we are uploading two episodes today and will return to our normal biweekly schedule next week. Thank you again. Tonight we discuss Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult in Japan that eventually led to death and injury of multiple people. Follow us on Twitter - @WalkWeird Photo by Robby McCullough on Unsplash

At one time or another, we all have thought about working from home or maintaining a job while traveling. Remote working is prized as the workplace of the future, or alternatively a curse to those who need to separate work-life from home-life.Listen in to today's episode of WPMRR for some great advice from guests who are remote working champs!Listen to full episodes below: E51 - Princess Leia on powering remote culture for a team of 90+ (Leah Knobler, Help Scout) E2 - Working remotely is the new hotness. Should you even do it? E18 - Another Ewok on preparing for a year of digital nomadism (Robby McCullough, Beaver Builder) E64 - Digital nomading when you're an essential employee

Robby McCullough has been travelling and managing his business at the same time. This of course comes with challenges. James and Robby chat about the things they wished they knew before working remotely, managing a team while on the road and the gear they travel with. The end of the interview dives into building your […]

Robby McCullough has been travelling and managing his business at the same time. This of course comes with challenges. James and Robby chat about the things they wished they knew before working remotely, managing a team while on the road and the gear they travel with. The end of the interview dives into building your ... Read more

Meet Robby McCullough and get a behind the scenes look at Beaver Builder and how it may be the page builder you'd want to use for your next project! During this conversation, you will discover: How Gutenberg affects the page builder space The difference between Beaver Builder and Gutenberg in terms of who it is …

Robby McCullough, co-founder at Beaver Builder, talks about how they've built a product people love and encouraged word of mouth by observing new opportunities.

“Yub nub!”   Another Ewok!? Robby McCullough talks about creating a life suited to travel, why living minimally is key, and how he believes experiences are much more valuable than material things. That’s why he’s had enough of the office life and is now preparing to gallivant the world as a bongo playing Ewok. Not really, but close! Acoustic guitars and WordPress will be involved.   Episode resources:   Beaver Builder Blog Follow Robby on Twitter

Matt Medeiros finishes Season 8 with this interview of Robby Mccullough, who is a co-founder of the Beaver Builder page builder and is from the Bay area. Matt and Robby discuss how the Gutenberg release in WordPress 5.0  may impact Beaver Builder,  whether Automattic could have looked at purchasing Beaver Builder, and how a small business owner deals with the ups and downs of running and growing a  remote business. Listen to the end of the episode to find out the original name consideration of the Beaver Builder theme. Listen to this episode: Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Beaver Builder in a Gutenberg world Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:56:05 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:56:05 What you will learn in this Episode: Future of WordPress with Gutenberg changes: Robby – Realizes that it is impossible to predict the future of WordPress. He supports the Gutenberg editor with the block approach to the editing experience. The Beaver Builder page builder was created because of the demand in the WordPress space where the need for faster and easier website building was not being met. There was a real concern of what would happen to Beaver Builder once Gutenberg launched. (1:46) Matt – Asks the question of whether Beaver Builder could have been bought by Automattic. (3:22) Robby – Explains that the discussion of the purchase of Beaver Builder by Automattic never came up. (3:40) The vision of the Gutenberg editor in the latest update of WordPress did not line up with how Robby sees Beaver Builder growing with the community. (6:00) Matt – The innovators of WordPress (people who have created and supported page builders) have come from third-party developers. (6:47) Robby – Beaver Builder has been in the problem-solving space. Big companies can absorb smaller companies but this was not to be with Automattic and a page builder. (9:15) Software creators with SaaS and WordPress: Matt – created a query builder called Conductor years ago. The direction will not be putting that product into a Gutenberg block to monetize it (as Jetpack). The Conductor widget solves a tiny problem for the client and can be considered a niche product. How will Beaver Builder continue to monetize the product? (10:56) Robby  – Beaver Builder started as a web development agency and built Beaver Builder as a product offering. As the growth took off, the web agency was closed. All the focus has been on the page builder but now we are looking into other products that can be viable outside of the Gutenberg audience. The Gutenberg editor does not seem like it will serve clients who need customized solutions or large customers that need an advanced feature set. (13:00) Forecasting the Future of Beaver Builder: Matt – Third party markets have expanded the Beaver Builder experience. These vendors drive a lot of traffic to Beaver Builder but it does not seem that these offerings have been incorporated into the core product. (16:35) Robby – Beaver Builder uses the WordPress model to build and support it like a platform. Beaver Builder supports third-party developers that have been building on Beaver Builder by allowing them to build and extend using the brand. The Beaver Builder community has been the judge of whether or not they want to use those third-party products. Beaver Builder is a bootstrapped team and still has the flexibility to make adjustments to monetize products they see as successful. (17:00) Matt – The concern with open source is that there are many opinionated ideas that may impact theme creators and plugin developers. Open source does not always adjust to everyone's request or concern. Matt Mullenweg with Automattic is in a unique position by remaining approachable and adjusting to requests from WordPress supporters.  This is the first experience for everyone with the Gutenberg editor coming into core. (19:54) Robby – Matt Mullenweg has been on many podcasts and YouTube channels speaking about the WordPress 5.0 release with Gutenberg in the core. He has been participating in groups such as WPTavern to address concerns and is making the attempt to communicate the changes and strategy of WordPress moving forward. (24:00) Marketing and Messaging of a Product: Robby  – Marketing and communications are difficult to continually do. Robby has done this in his role with Beaver Builder and sometimes go through waves of participating and communicating in social channels. It is important to keep getting information out there when you are feeling burned out. (25:11) Matt – There are ups and downs in every project. The ups and downs always occur so know they are coming. Create a contingency plan for the dips. Not everything will be a “hit”. Just do not stop working on it. (27:13) Beaver Builder as a SaaS or Standalone CMS: Robby – The idea of a SaaS actually came up during the early development space of Beaver Builder. The architecture and expertise to support it was the issue. There was not a partner that was really strong in the server and network side. (30:28) Hiring and expanding a team: Robby – You finally reach a point where you want to empower people to take over different or new roles as the business is growing. (33:50) Matt – As you are expanding the business how do you find talent to fill the positions you want to hand off? Is it an outreach through a service or do you start with a social media platform?  You need to address whether you can hire and afford a candidate. (34:12) Robby – It is difficult when growing and building a product. When creating a position, it is important to hire with a culture fit and diversity in mind. You want somebody who can broaden the Beaver Builder message and grow the community. (36:44) Matt – Small companies are able to offer a good product and people will buy it when they know what is being offered. It can be very difficult to hire a person who can perform in many areas. It is important to give new employees enough time to deliver in the WordPress space. A 90-day review may not be long enough to determine if a person is a good fit because the return of investment may take a while to measure. (37:26) Robby – When creating the Marketing job posting for his company, it was important to consider the changes that are needed for a small growing business. A person hired for content marketing must have some sales experience or perform in many areas. (40:21) The Beaver Builder Theme Matt – talks about the outlook for the Beaver Builder theme. It looks like the latest release of the Beaver Builder theme will be addressing design aesthetics. (44:11) Robby – discusses how the Beaver Builder Theme is intentionally not marketed as the shiny object. The Theme is offered as a solid framework that is consistent and is easy to use. Once you learn the theme, it can save you so much time on additional projects. Beaver Builder considered naming the theme Chameleon where the theme could change and adapt with a design aesthetic. (46:26) As Gutenberg grows it is interesting to see how WordPress supported themes will change. It looks like there are many changes coming into the front-end space with styles and design. (47:15) Resources: Morten Rand-Hendrikson WordCamp 2018  Beaver Builder Conductor plugin Gutenberg Jetpack WooCommerce Grado Silicon Valley Gilfoyle Gary Vaynerchuck Beaver Builder Theme Flexbox Pagely To Keep in Touch: Beaver Builder Robby on Twitter Beaver Builder Facebook group To Stay in Touch with Matt: Watch the panel discussion on Matt's YouTube channel. To stay connected with the Matt Report, head on over to mattreport.com/subscribe. We are looking to reach 200 reviews on iTunes, so please help us out. If you like the show, please leave a 5 Star review over on the Matt Report on iTunes. ★ Support this podcast ★

Matt Medeiros finishes Season 8 with this interview of Robby Mccullough, who is a co-founder of the Beaver Builder page builder and is from the Bay area. Matt and Robby discuss how the Gutenberg release in WordPress 5.0  may impact Beaver Builder,  whether Automattic could have looked at purchasing Beaver Builder, and how a small business owner deals with the ups and downs of running and growing a  remote business. Listen to the end of the episode to find out the original name consideration of the Beaver Builder theme. (more…)

The WordPress community is obsessed with the new Gutenberg page building experience, but what about the existing suite of page builders like Beaver Builder? What role do they play in a Gutenberg world? In this episode, we interview Beaver Builder co-founder Robby McCullough and discuss how Beaver Builder is approaching the Gutenberg editor, what key areas he sees which differentiates Beaver Builder today, and how Beaver Builder will be delivering value to customers well into the future. If you're using Beaver Builder in your stack or if you've considered doing so, don't miss this episode of PressThis. Listen now!

The WordPress community is obsessed with the new Gutenberg page building experience, but what about the existing suite of page builders like Beaver Builder? What role do they play in a Gutenberg world? In this episode, we interview Beaver Builder co-founder Robby McCullough and discuss how Beaver Builder is approaching the Gutenberg editor, what key areas he sees which differentiates Beaver Builder today, and how Beaver Builder will be delivering value to customers well into the future. If you're using Beaver Builder in your stack or if you've considered doing so, don't miss this episode of PressThis. Listen now!

So many of you are now using a Page Builder, admit it! Honestly, why wouldn't you, they are such a great way to cut hours of time out of the development process of your WordPress web site. Well, I'm sure that you've heard of Beaver Builder, one of the Page Builders that you really ought to be using. I could go into all the reasons, but suffice to say that it's polished, reliable, and as stable as a thing which holds horses! Recently the guys over at Beaver Builder released version 2.0 into the wild and Robby McCullough is here to explain all about it.

So many of you are now using a Page Builder, admit it! Honestly, why wouldn't you, they are such a great way to cut hours of time out of the development process of your WordPress web site. Well, I'm sure that you've heard of Beaver Builder, one of the Page Builders that you really ought to be using. I could go into all the reasons, but suffice to say that it's polished, reliable, and as stable as a thing which holds horses! Recently the guys over at Beaver Builder released version 2.0 into the wild and Robby McCullough is here to explain all about it.

The Beaver Dojo Podcast welcomes one of the 'holy trinity' of Beaver Builder, Robby McCullough to be the very first guest on the podcast. As always Robby was a great guest and really poured his heart out about the beginnings of Beaver Builder in a way that many might find surprising. Enjoy.

In this week's episode, James is accompanied by the Robby McCullough, one of the primary gentleman behind the awesome Beaver Builder. So, join Mastermind.FM as James and Robby discuss business, marketing, and product strategies. Experience abounds! Topics Included: Details about & the history of Beaver Builder. Why use Beaver Builder? The makeup of the team as they celebrate 3 successful years together. Organizational structures and management styles. Defining what warrants a full-time employee versus a contractor. Knowing when to share a good idea, and when to act on them. Details on the new Beaver Themer. The power of the add-on model. How to increase value to your current customers. Marketing Strategies: Marketing back to the base. Getting the world to come to your site. "You can't be all things to all people." On working with a marketing agency. The practically impractical - physical goodies to accompany a digital launch. Tension in the product space. Determining how much to charge. The price to value ratio. "Who exactly is my customer?" Finding the 'no-brainer' price point. How reoccurring payments and discounts factor in. Figuring out the strategy for extensions of your existing product. On Woocommerce's recent changes. A brief on grandfathering. Thoughts on Gutenburg. Mentioned on the show: Beaver Builder Beaver Themer Gutenburg Robby McCullough on Twitter

The team at Beaver Builder have created something historic! Beaver Themer…. Best described as a theme building solution that reduces, if not removes the requirement for code. We find out how it came about and ask the tough questions. Find out more at: https://angledcrown.com/beaverbuilder Mentions: HubScout: ttps://www.helpscout.net/ Slack: https://slack.com WP Mayor Review: https://www.wpmayor.com/fastline-page-builder-review/ Beaver Builder: www.wpinnovator.com/beaverbuilder Free Version: https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com Connect with Robby: Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobbyMcCullough Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mybbor?ref=br_rs Website: https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com --- OUR EVENT: Do you want to make real change in your business? Join us at our in-person event Agency Transformation Live Meet Troy Dean; Lee Jackson, Chris Ducker, Kelly Baader, Amy Woods, Paul Lacey, Dave Foy and other legends in this fantastic conference focused on actionable steps that you can use to transform your agency. --- See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Beaver Themer was the initial reason I asked Robby to come back on the podcast (of course representing the Beaver Builder team). This was my second 'three-peat' guest on the podcast and I couldn't be happier that Robby McCullough joined me to represent Beaver Builder for the third time on the show. Needless to say, we talked about Beaver Themer, but we also talked about the amazing year and journey that the Beaver Builder team (and company) has gone through. I couldn't be happier for them, their success and the amazing community that has grown from one simple idea. The simple idea to streamline the site building process. Questions I Asked Robby Congratulations on the 3 Year Birthday of Beaver Builder! Super exciting! What's changed for you guys since the first interview we did? Can we talk a little bit about the partnership with GoDaddy? How did that come about? The Beaver Builder Community is pretty amazing, how does that make you guys feel to see such a strong community that has grown from your product? How many downloads have you guys had of both plugins (the free & premium)? Let's talk Beaver Themer. Can you explain to the listeners what Beaver Themer is? What are the best uses for Beaver Themer? How long was Beaver Themer in the making? Next is the new UI for Beaver Builder, when is that coming out? What You're Going to Learn Why the Beaver Builder team started with a premium product and then released a free version The changes they made to the plugin specifically to incorporate it into the GoDaddy on-boarding process How the Beaver Builder Facebook community was started (shout out to Dave Toomey) What the Beaver Builder team thinks about the third party ecosystem that has evolved from their product Who they've followed for inspiration to grow their support and ecosystem What Robby's thoughts are on pricing in the WordPress space How they've grown with the team What's coming with the Builder 2.0 Where to Connect with Beaver Builder Website | Facebook Group | Twitter Links from this episode Beaver Builder Beaver Themer Beaver Lodge PowerPack for Beaver Builder Ultimate Beaver Addons Beaver Builder Swag Store

Today we welcome back Robby and Justin from Beaver Builder. The last time they joined us was for our Christmas special. This time it just feels like Christmas. If you didn't know already the Beaver Builder team have just released their Beaver Themer extension.

Today we welcome back Robby and Justin from Beaver Builder. The last time they joined us was for our Christmas special. This time it just feels like Christmas. If you didn't know already the Beaver Builder team have just released their Beaver Themer extension.

Two of the founders of Beaver Builder: Justin Busa and Robby McCullough, share the history of the company and their future plans. There is a lot to learn about launching product in this great conversation. Beaver Builder: https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/   Episode 147 Table of Contents 0:00 Podcast Intros 1:43 The origin story of Beaver Builder and how the founders met. 3:32 What were the challenges moving from client services to a product company? 5:32 How do you know when you're at the tipping point with your product? How scary is it to pull the trigger and go all in? 8:20 Was Beaver Builder being targeted at agencies from the start? How did you market Beaver Builder in the early days? 10:21 What did you do to get the product in front of people at first? 13:35 Were you surprised when you saw third-party developers building products for Beaver Builder? 15:18 Are you in close communication with third-party developers? How do you plan your roadmap for the product? 17:01 What are the challenges of building a consistent community around a product? 20:16 When it comes to the moderators in your Facebook group, do you have certain people that you rely on to help you out with the community? 22:17 Were there any web technologies that came out that allowed you to build Beaver Builder? What conditions created the perfect storm that allowed you to create Beaver Builder at the time you did? 25:49 When did you realize your target audience wasn't who you thought it was at first? 29:15 How does product support look as compared to client support? How did you grow your support structure as time went on? 33:31 When planning a new release of Beaver Builder, how much testing do you do against popular plugins? What does your testing process look like? 37:21 As WordPress expands its market share, will more people use page builders? Will the purist developer push back against page builders remain or diffuse over time? 43:51 Podcast outros ======================   Links mentioned during the show: Beaver Builder Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/wpbeaverbuilder/ Upwork https://www.upwork.com/   ======================   Find bonus content for this episode on the WP-Tonic website: https://www.wp-tonic.com/podcast/147-wp-tonic-justin-busa-and-robby-mccullough-of-beaver-builder/   ======================   Be sure to leave a detailed review for WP-Tonic on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wp-tonic-wordpress-podcast/id893083124?mt=2   ===================   WP-Tonic is the publisher of a twice weekly WordPress podcast where we talk with some of the most successful people in WordPress development, business, and online marketing.

Debating WordPress Page Builders is like your crazy uncle talking politics at the holiday dinner with the family. But let's do it anyway? Full disclosure, I sell a plugin called Conductor, that often gets confused as a page builder. There's a lot of noise in this space, and lots of strong opinions. For good reason. A page builder changes the way someone experiences WordPress – for better or worse. It's how, when you're using it across your website, you create your content, generate sales pages, or sell products. It removes the need to learn coding, placing that power into the hands of someone who can navigate a drag-and-drop interface. Hopefully. And that's the problem. Purists are outraged that a site owner would choose to overlay all of this technical debt to WordPress, when whipping out SublimeText and crafting a template.php from scratch is so much more “right.” FFS do it the right way Which is the secondary argument to all of this, are page builders “doing it the right way?” WordPress isn't easy, and builder plugins can help ease some of that pain. But the right way, would be to to code it from scratch, or at least that's what some will lead you to believe. Less code is used when you create it from scratch, naturally. Builders add more complexity to a theme, as to say, a theme dictates how pages are created — then you inject a builder's layout logic. Your competing against the WordPress experience. WordPress is moving to page building, you heard it here first. Purists also feel burned (heck, frightened) about builder plugins. Here's a story about how I saved $300 by NOT calling a professional I own a home with a steam furnace. I don't fully know how it all works, but I do know it fills with water, the water is set to boil, creating steam that is pushed to radiators throughout the house. Winter is coming; it's getting cold. The first night we turned the heat on, the furnace didn't “boot up.” Did I call an HVAC professional, on a Sunday? Last time I did that, it cost $300, so I took to YouTube. I researched all the possible issues with my furnace: The thermocouple might be bad. The water basin is too full, or not full enough. The vent to the chimney isn't open.   I found out that the venting system was stuck, and replaced the part — myself. A small business HVAC person never received my call. I saved over $300. Software is getting easier, education is everywhere — now what? Page builders usher in a new kind of DIY'er to WordPress. Clients no longer need to call us for emergency coding work before a big sale weekend, and inexperienced consultants can portray themselves as having more coding experience than they actually do. Heck, maybe I could do house-calls now to fix furnances that don't startup — for a limited-time only $97. It's seen as a threat to our revenue, our livliehood. So what do we do about it? Embrace the change, and find new ways to enhance your value. I'm not saying this is happening at a rapid pace, and that page buidlers are to blame — ALL of the plugins and services being created in our industry are getting easier, empowering a larger group of users. As they should. I have some thoughts on the topic, which I'll save for another time, but I'd love to hear from you in the comments.  I hope you enjoy this episode with Robby from Beaver Builder. The episode Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners S4 E2: Robby McCullough of Beaver Builder Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window The links Robby McCullough Beaver Builder A (semi) critical review of Page Builders from Pippin Williamson ★ Support this podcast ★

Debating WordPress Page Builders is like your crazy uncle talking politics at the holiday dinner with the family. But let’s do it anyway? (more…)

Robby McCullough is a California native and a co-founder of Beaver Builder, a drag-and-drop website builder for WordPress. Robby enjoys fishing, hiking, and a good cup of coffee. You can find him in person on the mountain bike trails or virtually on Twitter. We spoke with Robby about page builders, their benefits, how photographers can […]

This is a replay of the live broadcast with Jason Tucker, Robby McCullough of Beaver Builder, Verious B. Smith III of Philoveracity, Bridget Willard, and Leon HenryNotes and LinksTickets | WordCamp US 2015Best Times to Visit Philadelphia | U.S. News Travelwww.meetup.comWPSessions.com – WordPress Video TutorialsWordPress Page Builder Plugin | Beaver BuilderIf I change my Facebook avatar, update my Twitter avatar as well by nrturner – IFTTTJason Tucker, Whittier, CA – Gravatar Profileverioussmith, Corona, California – Gravatar ProfileBridget Willard, Dana Point, CA – Gravatar Profilebridgetwillard.comWPblab – WPwatercoolerDivi Builder Plugin | Just another WordPress siteRecommendations – WordPress plugins, services, software, & hostingEP98 – Everything you need to know to start & run a successful WordPress meetup – WPwatercooler – YouTubetlk.ioWordPress XML & CSV Importer Plugin – WP All ImportThe post EP007 – #WordPress #WordCamps #PageBuilders – #WPblab appeared first on WPwatercooler. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Our guest for this episode is Robby McCullough, one of the co-founders of the Beaver Builder plugin and the FastLine Media agency. Beaver Builder is a great drag and drop page builder, which we've used ourselves.

Beaver Builder is a page builder solution developed by the three guys (Robby McCullough, Billy Young and Justin Boozer). The boys discovered the internet as a career early on in life and came together five years ago to form their first company FastLine Media, from which followed Beaver Builder. This is a fun interview with the 3 guys, discussing the ups and downs of creating a successfull business – that came about simply from a need to “scratch their own itch”!Win Prizes The boys are giving away 2 x Pro Memberships at Beaver Builder valued at $199 each! Juat comment below telling us the number one thing you would fix about WordPress if you could wave a magic wand. Robby will come by in a couple of weeks and award the prizes. This episode of the WP Elevation Podcast is sponsored by Video User Manuals The only way to teach your clients how to use WordPress. Get it for just $1 for the first month!Hit me! Hit me! Hit me! Show Notes FASTLINE MEDIA STORY Robby says he found Justin and Billy through Craigslist while looking for a job to leave his customer service job. “I was their first interviewee, and they were my first company.” FastLine Media was a client-based web development service. Since Robby worked with FastLine, the two worked with Joomla, Drupal and other platforms. Later, they redeveloped their corporate website on WordPress and then stuck with the platform. The three say they don’t think clients care what platform they’re using, and find that most of them listen to them for advice on platform recommendations. All three have strengths in development, and typically serve clients from start to finish, and, at times, will pass work on to their partners. Each partner have specializations, Billy serves as operations manager, Justin will work on development-heavy tasks and Robby focuses on design. Robby says the differentiator for FastLine Media has been Beaver Builder — their page builder solution that allows customers an easy way to build webpages and websites using their online system without a great deal of technical experience. He says their great customer service is also a great differentiator. The fact that the team is a partnership also differentiates them from other contract-based designers. Because they treat their work as a partnership, they are able to serve clients with a steady customer service platform which has gained them a lot of sub-contract work for other larger developers as well. MANAGING SCHEDULE Troy Dean, host of WP Elevation, asks how they handle the schedule management for all of their tasks. The three say while they don’t use any type of software to manageme their workload, “we kind of play it by ear,” says Robby. “If one of our plates are particularly full, or there’s some kind of emergency, there’s someone else in to jump in to help.” However, with the development of Beaver Builder, job requirements keep growing, but, he says, they’re still getting things done. Billy jokes the thing that is keeping him up at night, is “maybe drinking too much coffee during the day?” Then, he responds, “We’re always trying to think of ways to enhance Beaver Builder. Because it’s new and it’s our baby, and I’m really excited about it too.” GETTING AWAY FROM WORK The three enjoy mountain biking. Robby says they will sometimes head out to a nearby joint for a beer and some good food, while Billy has twin boys that keep him balanced and focused. Robby plays guitar as well. Robby and Troy mention how they’d like to play guitar in an online jam session, but they’d need to figure out how to deal with the latency issue. Troy jokes they just need to move to South Korea for the internet speed. He also talks about the things that keep him up at night include some of the business issues, such as health insurance and other financial stressors, while Justin says he still enjoys the benefit of not having a set time to clock in as long as he gets the work done. Billy agrees with the lack of time constraints, but he also loves having his own office to work in all his own. We’re selling tools to developers that are building websites for other people… there’s a lot less competition in that space. - @beaverbuilder THE BEAVER BUILDER STORY Troy mentions Kim Doyal (WPChick) who introduced Beaver Builder to him. He asks the guys why weren’t they using the visual composer like everyone else. Recognizing the “stigma surrounding page builders” among developers, Robby says a few of their clients were requesting a website they could edit — one specifically requesting Visual Composer. “They wanted us to build it, then they wanted to be able to take it and make it theirs and not have to come back to us to make changes.” says Robby. The projects opened the team’s eyes to the benefits of using a page builder tool. “On the agency side of our work a lot of time is spent in email back and forth with past clients about small changes and edits. We went on a really exhaustive search and didn’t find [a solution] that fit all of our needs.” Justin then started developing their own tool to solve the problems they were having. “It started off as a backend page builder, then we decided we wanted it on the front end… it was one of those ‘scratch your own itch’ cases.” The three then decided they would try to sell the product, so they launched it as the FastLine Media Page Builder. WP Elevation host Troy Dean asks how they knew there was room for their solution and that people would buy it. Billy says he was confident that they had found problems with existing page builders and their ability to solve the problems. “We’re definitely seeing results,” says BIlly. Their tool has been able to overcome some of the stigma held by developers because of the care the three put into the development of the software. Troy notes that Beaver Builder is a great product. “This took me a while to realize.. .the biggest distinction is that it doesn’t dump a crap-load of shortcodes into the content editor, so if you switch themes, your content is preserved.” This is different from most page builders, Troy points out,because the use of shortcodes forces the user to basically re-write the content from scratch. “Is that the main point of difference between Beaver Builder and the other solutions on the market?” he asks. A few of the distinctions raised by the team include the User Interface, as well as some features they’ve intentionally not included, such as columns in columns. “From a user interface experience perspective the interface for that is a nightmare,” Billy mentioned. REBRANDING BEAVER BUILDER Orignailly released as the FastLine Media Page Builder, one of their clients was a marketing genius who was helping with software development, and making the suggestion to change the name. “He didn’t think it was memorable and stuck well.” The team spent multiple weeks writing down names, trying to get a name that was also available as a .com. The name was suggested as a joke, “but then it just stuck in our heads… it took a good week of us not being able to forget it” before they decided to give it a go. FINDING FIRST CUSTOMERS The three joke that the way they found their first customers was through “commenting on blogs.” Robby noted that they never really kept their finger on the pulse of the community, but with Beaver Builder, they’ve started reaching out to the community, providing evaluation copies for writers to review. The growth has been slower then they envisioned. But, they’re learning more about how to market their product. “Marketing a product, we were all clueless,” says Billy. He notes that Robby is learning about how best to market their product. Robby says he’s been reading a lot, reaching out to others, asking for help. RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIS LEMA “We got lucky,” says Robby about their relationship with Chris Lema who is featured on the Beaver Builder website. “He wrote an article about the best page builders out there. We were one of his clear favorites.” Robby says he had reached out to see if Chris would write about their product, but, never heard from them. Then, Chris bought the product and wrote an amazing article about the software. Robby then emailed Lema asking for permission to use a quote on the site as a testimonial for their product. Other testimonials on the site were obtained organically through twitter, email and support forums. A GoogleDoc helped document the praise given by clients and customers to keep track of the praise given by such influencers in the WordPress development market. KEEPING UP WITH METRICS One of the things the guys from BeaverBuilder want to improve is their ability to keep up with analytics and metric tracking. Currently the team has only been tracking traffic numbers and orders. Robby says he’s learning from KISSMetrics about how to follow the metrics to see how they’re converting traffic topurchase. Growing in their ability to track conversions, the team is using Google Analytics to track sources of traffic to conversions. FUTURE PLANS FOR FASTLINE MEDIA Future plans for the three include cutting back on client work they are taking in to continue growth of Beaver Builder, Robby notes that they still like serving their clients. “It’s almost like a dream that we could be able to do software sales, but I don’t think that’s going to be a reality. We want to keep [our client business] viable,” he says. Troy now asks if they are nervous building on a platform that belongs to someone else. Justin says he’s not too worried about losing the ability to sell their product using WordPress. But, he says, “we’ve built things on other stacks, and then had that become obsolete. We just learned our lessons and, like Robby said, not put all our eggs in one basket.” ELEVATION ROUND Q: What’s the number one thing any freelancer or consultant needs to know? A: Be very organized and have the right tools in their tool belt (Billy) Q: What’s the number one thing any freelancer or consultant needs to know? A: Do good work, good support. I can’t tell you how many referrals we’ve had over the years. Some of them have been our biggest clients.(Justin) Q:How do you stop competing on price? A: Make sure your pricing provides value to your customers and is also sustainable, then you don’t’ have to compete (Robby) Q: Any tips on writing better proposals? A: Make them detailed. Make sure they contain everything the customer would want to be notified of in a proposal. (Justin) Q: Favorite tool for CRM? A:We recently started using Harvest. We had been using Sugar, then we split it up between Sugar anda couple of other tools. We switched over to Harvest and kind of hacked it to be our go-to solution for time tracking, customer management and project management as well to some degree. (Robby) Q: What’s the best way to keep a project and a client on track? A: Some times you just can’t, says Justin. But, to afford scope-creep, he suggests a well written proposal and good conversations with the client. (Justin)Reach Out You can reach out and thank Beaver Builder Team on their twitter @beaverbuilder or at their website at www.wpbeaverbuilder.comSuggested Guest Beaver Builder Team suggested I interview Matt Mullenweg of WordPress. Matt, keep your eyes on your inbox.Competition Hint Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below and tell us the number one thing you would fix about WordPress if you could wave a wand.Links VideoUserManuals.com BeaverBuilder Demo wpelevation.com/subscribe