Tag: Business

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Heading Into 2016

Happy New Year everyone! I wish you a prosperous 2016, health (both physical and mental) on top of your priorities list, spending more time achieving great results while familiarizing yourself better with your inner "you". [caption id="attachment_11943" align="aligncenter" width="620"] "A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work."[/caption] I've been fairly busy over the past couple of months with my trip to NYC and WordCamp US, meeting a good number of incredible people in the WordPress world, discussing code, community, translations, business management, team growth, server scalability, team happiness and all sorts of essential day-to-day… Continue Reading
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My WordPress Advice and Tips for Business Owners at Mr Marketology

I spent some time with Jeff from The Marketology Group for his podcast Mr Marketology discussing the WordPress world and best practices. Don't mind the small "P" in WordPress, other than that it was a great chat and it reminded me again how many basic bits from the WordPress ecosystem aren't obvious to people outside of our community. I've been spending a lot of time with marketers over the past couple of years and that taught me a lot, which is why I was more than happy to share my overview on the WordPress market and the large ecosystem of business owners running WordPress… Continue Reading
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Your WordPress Business is Not There Yet

Given the large number of WordPress-based discussions on pricing, costs, consultant's fees and product licenses, it's no wonder why some people get frustrated about the Community and the understanding of Open Source. Other than the mentality and the usual incompetent statements such as: "But WordPress is free!" or "There should be a free plugin to do that!', there's another reason why some business owners can't grasp the cost of building a WordPress solution. [Tweet "Your WordPress Business is Not There Yet"] Commodities or Needs? There are usually two types of things that you need to do, build, use or have on… Continue Reading
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Why “WordPress Expert” is Not a Real Title?

While discussing the WordPress industry and the rest of the business world, my friend Ajay reminded me of why "WordPress Expert" is not a real title. His comment made me think about the misconception of "expertism" that seems to be getting popularity around the WordPress experts who offer their services: The issue with the WordPress industry is that anyone can be an expert because more often than not, they are dealing with those who aren’t experts or regular users wanting a blog. Let's take a step back and think about WordPress. What is WordPress? WordPress started as a blogging platform… Continue Reading
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The WordPress Industry Is Just As Every Other Field

After I shared my thoughts on WordPress job titles and skills and wrote about various problems with various WordPress estimates, I keep reading comments about our industry and other fields - different IT specialties, automobile mechanics, doctors and more. In general, whilst WordPress is a fairly unique and great platform with a powerful community behind it, it's no different - business-wise - from any other field. This is one of the reasons why we don't have to educate our customers on things that are common sense and applicable for each industry out there. Asking For Discounts One of my favorite stories is when a… Continue Reading
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An Estimate Is Not a Deadline

I had a few meetings over the last few weeks that were focused on tight deadlines. Two of the clients were burned by other agencies who didn't deliver so they were already behind schedule and wanted the projects done ASAP. Or even - much faster than ASAP. The Estimate Factor I've shared my thoughts on the risks of estimating a project before and I'm quite careful when I do the initial discovery meetings and R&D. Especially for larger projects or migrating existing custom platforms built many years ago with tons of features and integrations with various services. Doing the right estimation is… Continue Reading
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Envato Or Why Race To the Bottom Is Dangerous?

I have a few friends who are pretty good with WordPress development, have a few decent plugins out there and love the community. They started small and began with playing with some themes and plugins, and then learned development by building their own solutions in the evening and over the weekend. For some of them that adventure happened some 6-7 years ago. They still love WordPress, and they also like the community. They maintain their free plugins and such. But they have to do other 9-to-5 jobs in order to make a living. They've tried to sell their services and products, but within… Continue Reading
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Code Quality And Free Plugins

Update Apr 29, 2015: My friend Emil from ThemeReview.co announced their Plugin Review service which I highly recommend for all plugin authors, business owners and clients - high quality means higher security, better performance and compatibility for your project. We have these regular discussions on Open Source, the future of WordPress and such. I've been discussing the global community aspect and the challenges with the self-made development titles, so let's take a closer look at the community. Growing WordPress As I've said before, I'm all in when it comes to having an Open Source platform for everyone to use and play it. It's… Continue Reading
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On WordPress Talent Shortage

Last week Andy Adams posted a great post - The WordPress Talent Shortage Might Be a Pricing Problem. I hadn't met Andy before, noticed the post through Brian and Jeffro, but I read it three times and I do agree with a lots of his thoughts and conclusions. I’d like to propose that the shortage of developers might actually be a pricing problem. Specifically, WordPress salaries and rates are not high enough to draw talent. What is the level of our experts? WordPress Development Experts If we ignore the Job Title discussion or the issues with the community experts for a bit, the developer community… Continue Reading
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Clarity Calls – The Ultimate Consulting Solution

I value my time a lot, and I would rarely spend it on boring stuff. I don't browse YouTube at all, nor do I watch animated gifs all over the Internet, since I'm quite passionate about the WordPress community and building successful businesses. I found Matt and Chris on Clarity through their social media accounts and blogs, and I find the service to be incredible. I joined Matt's mentoring program last year, I do consulting through this blog and DevriX, and I teach classes on different subjects, so coaching is a specialty I'm passionate about. One of the people behind… Continue Reading