Podcasts about wordcamp chicago

In season 2 of Automate, Delegate, Eliminate we are paying homage to all those SaaS out there that make those 3 things possible! Our first guest is David Smith of Gravity Forms! David Smith is the Community Lead at RocketGenius and was the company’s first hire. David has been a Gravity Forms developer for over 10 years and has published hundreds of Gravity Forms resources on his blog, GravityWiz.com. He enjoys short walks, preferably NOT on beaches. For those who haven’t heard of Gravity Forms, tell us a bit about it, what does it do? Gravity Forms is the premier Wordpress form builder available for Wordpress It can build pretty much any online form that you need for Wordpress, from payment collection forms to data forms for automation via a service like Zapier. It helps with data collection, data management, and data usage. Who were the founders of Gravity Forms? Carl, Alex, and Kevin. Aka The Brains, The  Brawn, and The Beauty. Each founder has a unique personality and ability that they bring to the business. The name of the company, RocketGenius, came from a slip of the tongue from one of the founders. What gave them the idea to start their company? All 3 founders were working for another company, all 3 were entrepreneurs. Carl (the Brains), had the idea to start a travel site together, Tiki Go. They couldn’t get the site to fully take off and decided they needed to leave their full-time jobs to make their new business a reality. When they decided to abandon Tiki Go and quit their day jobs they didn’t actually have a plan for what would come next.  What led them to create a form builder? Kevin was already doing freelance web development at the time, using Wordpress a lot, and one of the consistent pain points he ran into was forms. At the time getting the data from the site to its ultimate endpoint didn’t have a good solution.  Alex had just built 2 form builders, and all 3 founders had built a form builder at their previous job.  This was their Aha! Moment as to what RocketGenius needed to make.  One of the legends of Gravity Forms was that the founders gave Alex a task to learn PHP, and he came back the next day and broke ground on Gravity Forms.  What did they do to prepare for the launch? They attended the biggest Worpress conference of the time, WordCamp Chicago. Carl and Kevin throw Alex, the shy guy, into a t-shirt that says “Ask Me about Gravity Forms”.  They did a lot of networking with the Wordpress community. What sets Gravity Forms apart from competitors? Ease of use, the drag and drop abilities.  They were one of the first premium plug-ins. User support. What was the growth of the company like? The revenue grew much faster than the employee base. They wanted to keep the culture of the smaller company for as long as possible.  They are currently at 25 employees, with a few contractors as well. They have over 2 million active installs. Up to 56 first-party add-ons Over 300 third party add-ons What would you have done differently? They would not have resisted hiring more employees What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs? Never be afraid to lose your company culture through growth, embrace the growth of the company. Learn how to properly delegate. Stay focused on your key project, even if another seems more interesting at the time. Commit to quality Resources: Websites:  Gravity Forms Data Automation Books mentioned:  The Lean Startup Leadership and Self Deception The Anatomy of Peace Suggest a SaaS founder for the Automate, Delegate, Eliminate show at: podcast@dataautomation.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris is back from WordCamp Chicago, so it’s time to record a new podcast. Things haven’t changed a whole lot for Chris or Joel since last episode, but they do dig into some real talk about hiring. Are you ready to be a manager? Quotes Talking Points 2Bobs podcast The Family Knife blog Gear Picks […]

Rebecca Gill has a well-rounded business background and over fifteen years of experience in sales and online marketing. Her love for WordPress website design and her strong belief in the user experience is equally matched by a fascination with search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, and social media marketing. As an early adopter of blogging, her online marketing efforts have been highlighted by media outlets such as Wired Magazine, Ziff Davis, and IT Toolbox. Her writing has been featured in a variety of publications that range from technology outlets such as Backbone Magazine, Social Media Today, Sphinn.com, and Search Engine Roundtable to industry specific magazines such as Contract Manufacturing & Packaging, Food Manufacturing, and Progressive Distributor. Rebecca has appeared on Detroit2020, spoken at WordCamp Miami, DFWSEM Meetup, WordCamp Toronto, Higher Ed Web, WordCamp San Diego, WordCamp Las Vegas, WordCamp Ann Arbor, WordCamp Chicago, and Girls Are IT Conference. She is also a WordCamp organizer. Rebecca has been a guest speaker on a variety of WordPress podcast series and has also guest lectured and presented at the Grand Valley State University, and Michigan State University and the University of Toledo.

This week I talk about Business R&D: 5 Ways to Make Your Business Standout Upcoming Events WordCamp Kansas City – April 28-29 WordCamp Chicago – April 29-30 WordCamp Bratslava – April 29 Segment 1: In the News WordPress 4.7.4 Maintenance Release New Podcast: hallwaychats.com Segment 2:  Business R&D: 5 Ways to Make Your Business Standout Segment…

This week I talk about Business R&D: 5 Ways to Make Your Business Standout Upcoming Events WordCamp Kansas City – April 28-29 WordCamp Chicago – April 29-30 WordCamp Bratslava – April 29 Segment 1: In the News WordPress 4.7.4 Maintenance Release New Podcast: hallwaychats.com Segment 2:  Business R&D: 5 Ways to Make Your Business Standout Segment…

Whatcha wearing/drinking Kyle: special edition WordCamp Chicago 2016 Hoodie. Media Temple shirt. Adam: WC Ann Arbor 2014 Pullover & WooCommerce Ninja shirt. What we are working on. Kyle: New plugins in development. Adam: Delivered 2 client sites – 1 on spec! Questions: What shifts have you seen in the community and the conversations surrounding WordPress…

  Justin began his career selling learning management systems to Fortune 500 companies. Then he fell in love with WordPress. The natural progression that was to build a learning management system for WordPress. Hence the birth of LearnDash. We use it here at WP Elevation and we love it. I met Justin at WordCamp Chicago in 2013 and I'm now thrilled to have him on the podcast. The post Episode #66 Justin Ferriman from LearnDash appeared first on WP Elevation.

Every now and again you come across an individual who is just knocking it out of the park with awesome stuff. Recently for me, it's Chris Lema an author, speaker, coach, VP and WordPress blogger. If you don't already subscribe to his blog or follow him on Twitter — you should make a point to do so. Chris joins us today to talk about becoming great at our craft and offers actionable advice for those of us looking to stop trading dollars for hours. Even if you're a long time follower of Mr. Lema, he never ceases to amaze us. Carry on to the show! Interview with Chris Lema of ChrisLema.com Watch on YouTube Listen to the audio version Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners Episode 41: Become a great WordPress freelancer with Chris Lema 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 Start talking business and stop talking technology How do we deal with the $500 client? You know, the mechanic that just wants to get his coupons online. No social media, no inbound marketing and certainly not publishing a YouTube series. Just get the coupons online. If we're stuck talking about all this technology and marketing lingo then the chances are we're not talking about their business. The value of getting these coupons online and driving real customers into the mechanic's shop. Let's break down that conversation: “Hey can you get me a site with coupons that my customer's can download?” “Sure can!” you respond. Upselling from the $500 What's the value of this to the client? If 50 coupons were downloaded a month, what's the overall gross? Let's say 50 x 24.95 for an oil change? So we're already roughly $1,200 in gross sales. So Mr. Customer are you willing to invest $500 to make $1,200? Sure that's easy. But what if that's 50 coupons a month for 12 months? Now we're talking nearly $15k in yearly revenue. Now their initial budget of $500 is something like a 3% investment with that kind of annual intake. Well sure that sounds great for the business owner — but what about you? Sweeten the pot. Mr Customer, I think we can generate you $15k a year with these coupons but it's going to take at least a 10% investment to make that kind of money. Now the wheels are turning. But what about supporting and scaling this, how can we add even more value? Mr Customer, if we add lead capturing to these coupons we can do some direct marketing and sell packages like maintenance and other higher price tag items. If we landed ten $1,000 maintenance jobs per year through this list, that's another $10k in potential revenue. Now we're at $25k in potential income — do you think this is all possible on a $500 budget? You see where I'm going with this. Sell on value, not the technology. It also dosen't have to be monetarily based — the value could be your process, your knowledge or support. Capitalize on the value proposition of your engagement. What Chris taught me Chris and I are alike. We both talk about the business end of WordPress and we're both trying to leave an impact on the community and this world. I'm sure I have a lot more to learn from Chris, but the first lesson he's taught me is the importance of connecting others. It's always been on the back of my mind with Matt Report — to find people doing awesome things with WordPress and expose them to an audience that otherwise might not have found them anywhere else. In my recent trip to WordCamp Chicago (a great time by the way) I was able to meet Chris in person. He was constantly making sure I met other folks he knew I should be meeting. I know these relationships are going to beneficial moving forward for everyone and I appreciate all that Chris has done for me and the community this far. Expect great things to come! Like this show? How about subscribing the the newsletter or leaving me a review on iTunes! ★ Support this podcast ★