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For long-form interviews, news, and commentary about the WordPress ecosystem. This is the companion show to The WP Minute, your favorite 5-minutes of WordPress news every week.
Matt: Elizabeth, welcome to the WP Minute.
Laura: Thank you for having me.
Matt: I have to say, for all the
podcasters out there and for all of
the would be guests to podcast shows,
your, Email outreach was fantastic.
I thank you so much.
and, it is a school or it's a, it's a,
it's a masterclass in how folks should
just reach out like a human, without
demands, you know, like you sent out an
email, you said, Hey, here's my email.
Here's who I am.
Here's what I do.
I've listened to your show.
I think I could bring these three value
points to a podcast for somebody who's
been doing this for like 15 years I just
got to spend a few minutes saying thanks.
And, and appreciating your efforts.
So all of that said, who are you?
And what do you do in the
wonderful world of WordPress?
Laura: my name is Laura and I
am the founder of a WordPress
plugin called Client Portal.
it's exactly what it sounds like.
There's really no better way to describe
it other than it's a portal for clients.
So usually freelancers and agencies
use it, but we also have accountants,
law firms, and that kind of thing.
and it just keeps all the.
deliverables, invoices, all this
stuff that tends to get lost in
those big, long email threads,
just in one place, for your client.
but I've actually been in
WordPress for quite a long time.
So I started Client Portal in 2016
and then, shortly after I graduated
around 2012 during that time.
Horrible recession.
I started off building WordPress
websites for as a freelancer.
So yeah, I've been in WordPress
for quite a long time now.
Matt: All right, let's, we
have a particular topic.
We're gonna talk about how you
started in like the services side
of things and like building websites
and then moving to products.
my hand up.
I did the same thing in the horrible
financial crisis of 2007, 2008.
I was started an agency and when
I started an agency, I was like,
Hey, this Client stuff is fun,
but man, I'd rather do a product.
that was a whole different world.
We're going to talk about that in
a moment, but I want to talk about
maybe the temperature in the room,
marketplace wise, like how does
the economy feel to you these days?
we remember the 2007, 2008, 2012.
Well, how does it feel for you now that
you're squarely in the product space?
What, what does it feel like for you
selling products, competing people with
extra cash, are they consolidating?
What's it look like from your perspective?
Laura: Yeah, I think that's
a really good question.
I think.
In a way, it's kind of harder to answer
because I've been in it for so long.
It seems like a good time to be in it.
I know during COVID, for me, that
was really the best time for me.
a lot of people were going from
working in a, you know, regular
job to doing more freelance.
At home, so for Client Portal,
that was, you know, really good.
and then, you know, after COVID,
there was the cost of living
crisis that happened everywhere.
And I definitely felt that
and talking to a lot of other
plugin owners, they did too.
you know, people were just a bit
more hesitant on buying and, you
know, maybe like refund rates
would kind of go up a little bit.
but it feels like it's stabilizing now.
It feels like it's, it's
getting back to where.
It sort of feels like it's
just getting back to normal.
but I would imagine if it, there's
also probably a lot more competition
and this is where it's kind of hard
because I've been in it for so long.
you know, my story of starting might be
totally different from someone starting
out right now because I would imagine
a lot more competition these days.
Matt: Yeah.
one of the things, I mean, WordPress is in
the crosshairs these days, we're recording
this mid October, trying to steer
clear from like the, you know, hashtag
WP drama stuff, but there's a lot of,
uncertainty in the air, to put it mildly.
to under, to undersell it, we're not sure
where WordPress is headed and how it's
going to, how the dust is going to settle.
but I think we're both,
proponents of WordPress because.
Of our backstories, like you can take
open source WordPress, you can unpack
it literally, like you can look at
the code because it's open source.
You can learn from it.
You can say, Oh, this is,
this is how code works.
This is how I learned.
I mean, started pulling it apart,
building templates, making pages.
How does a database work?
Like all this stuff leads to
education, I think, in understanding
how to code and the greater web.
But then it also allows us to
sort of spin this services thing.
And we can, we can really
start to level up our game.
I look at WordPress.
This is not a direct question,
but I'm curious on your thoughts.
I look at WordPress as the foundation
to, you know, somebody's next career.
Like this could, this is the thing,
like you don't need to go to school.
You need WordPress.
I know it sounds like a real lovey
dovey statement these days, but really
like somebody can unpack it, take
it, search for things on the web,
then buy, let's say your product.
To help power their services business.
But this is a springboard to
something that's a lot greater
than publishing pages on the web.
What's your thoughts on that?
Laura: Yeah, I completely agree because
the thing about WordPress is that you can,
like you said, the barrier to entry is.
It's so low, like anyone can use it.
It's completely open source.
but it's also so powerful because there's
so many things built on WordPress.
If you start out like I did as
a freelancer with really not
much experience, you're in the
position where you're telling
clients, Oh yeah, I can do that.
And then hoping you can figure it out.
With WordPress, you can, because
there's such a big community.
There's so many things that can
do what you need them to do.
If your client needs e
commerce, you can do that.
If your client needs a
booking tool, you can do that.
They're like, it's all available.
Whereas if you used different
platforms, you'd be a lot more
limited, and you might get stuck.
So, yeah, I agree.
I think WordPress is, you
know, I can't think of anything
that really compares to it.
Matt: That's, it's, I guess that's
also what makes the, the, the
marketing of WordPress so difficult.
That was another big topic
before a lot of this other stuff
started to, to hit the news wire.
what is WordPress?
Who's it for?
you know, there's a, a, a
strong vocal community of.
Of service providers out there, people
who are building WordPress websites,
and they're saying, give me the
tools that I need to build websites.
you know, but the essence of WordPress
was a blogging and publishing platform.
It was about the freedom of publishing
words onto the Internet, which is also a
very important thing in these days, right?
To be able to spin something
up and communicate into
into broadcast this stuff.
And then people use it for all
kinds of other things, right?
They start, you know,
turning it into an app.
They turn it into a community site.
There's so many different
layers, to WordPress.
Do you remember, or did you ever see that
and say, okay, this is an opportunity for
product, or did you stumble into product?
Cause you were like, Ooh, this
client stuff is starting to
weigh down on me a little bit.
Laura: So kind of a mixture of both.
So I knew that I didn't want
to do client work forever.
I've always been very big on freedom,
so, I didn't want a regular job because
I didn't want to be tied down working 40
hours a week, you know, for someone else.
you know, half that time is work.
Unproductive anyway, but I
still would have to sit there.
So I wanted to work for myself.
Services was kind of the first
step to freedom, but then I quickly
realized when doing services,
you're not really that free.
So I did the whole, when I was
younger, I did the whole digital
nomad thing for a short while.
It didn't last very long.
but it was really hard because clients
would actually expect me to basically
be like a nine to five employee
they'd expect to be able to reach me.
Anytime and, you know, I didn't feel
the freedom that I thought I was going
to feel so I knew I needed to get into
something else, where I originally went
was actually creating a design course for
developers, called design academy and.
Basically that came about because with
the companies I was working with, I tended
to work quite closely with developers.
for a bit of background,
I'm not a developer myself.
so I would work with developers.
I'd do the designs, they'd code it.
And, you know, I'd get to talking to them
and they'd all, all of them had a ton
of side projects that they were doing.
And they wanted to learn a bit about
design and how to make their side
projects look good enough to get by, but
not really turn them into a designer.
so they could start, you know, selling it.
So I saw this kind of gap there and I
thought, Oh, that's something I can do.
Cause I've experienced that.
I know what it's like to not, to
not want to be, I never wanted to
be an award winning designer, I
just wanted to make things that.
Worked well and looked decent.
so I thought that was a really good thing.
So I started building my audience around
that and creating a course around that.
But then client portal came about
sort of as an accident because it
was something that I originally made
for myself to use with my clients.
So I was using, I tried project management
tools and I was really too small for that.
Clients didn't wanna use it.
but I was getting frustrated
with the emails coming in.
Sometimes years later asking me for a
file that they'd sent, I'd sent them
before like a million times, like, can't
you just save it or like look yourself?
It would get really annoying.
So I was like, I just need a portal.
So I kind of hacked together this
portal and, used it with my clients.
And at the time I was
doing a lot of conference.
just for no other reason other than
really to build my audience, to
help with this getting me out of
services into, products or a course.
And some of the conferences I
spoke at were for freelancers.
I mentioned this portal.
And I would say, you know, you
could do something like this
if you've had this problem.
And the response was just crazy.
People loved it, like,
they wanted to buy it.
They were asking me, like, can you just
make this into a product so I can buy it?
and I undenied about it for some reason.
It should have been obvious I
should have just gone for it.
But, eventually enough
people convinced me to do it.
And that's kind of how I
got into the product world.
So it was intentional and not intentional
at the same time, if that makes sense.
Matt: I want to, the
website is client portal.
io.
We're going to talk about that
in more detail in a minute.
I want to touch back on the courses stuff.
I've always, I've always had like, you
know, again, I've done everything too.
I've gone from agency.
to attempting products to doing like
media, which I'm doing now and like,
Hey, Matt, you never did a course.
It just keeps ringing out in my head.
Should I steer clear from for that?
Is that wave over or is there
still some validity in launching
course stuff these days
Laura: I think there's
a lot of validity in it.
I think it's quite, yeah, I can't,
I can't see courses going anywhere.
I think it's, I sort of hate to say
it's, it's kind of an easy sell in a
way, because courses can be, courses
can be a bit of an impulse buy.
software, I think is a
bit more of a commitment.
If someone wants to buy
software, you know, you'll
tend to subscribe to software.
You don't buy it, whereas
you tend to buy a course.
It's like a one time thing usually.
so yeah, I definitely think
there's a huge market for it still.
I know so many people who are course
creators doing really, really well with
it, and people find it valuable because
people want to learn from, you know,
people they, you know, learn from.
Look up to and admire and just get a
bit of an inside scoop onto, you know,
your knowledge and stuff like that.
So yeah, I don't think
it's going anywhere.
Matt: when, so the, the, the rapper
question is to frame it is, are you
doing any agency work still today?
If not, when did you make that?
Complete shift into focusing
on just client portal.
Like, do you remember the, the,
the last client or the last project
where you're like, I'm done.
Like I'm just going all in on product.
So do you still do agency
work, dabbling it at all?
And if not, like, when
did you make that leap?
Laura: So I very
occasionally dabble in it.
I don't have a website for
the client work or anything.
I actually went full time on Client Portal
and Design Academy in 2017, which was
a year after I launched Client Portal.
but then I still have, there's still
some clients who have been really
long time clients who are really
lovely to work with, pretty much
I think just two, to be honest.
And it's very occasional, maybe
like once a year they might reach
out and I'll tend to do something.
With that, but yeah, no, typically
I don't advertise any client work.
And for the most part, I would
say, no, I don't do client work.
the, the problem with client
work is often the communication
aspects and dealing with clients.
So that can be quite hard, but
someone I've worked with before
who I know really well, I know
that's not going to be an issue.
So I don't mind doing some things and
it's, you know, nice to get a little bit
of extra, extra padding in the income.
Matt: Yeah.
And I'm sure client portal itself could.
Lend itself into client
services too, right?
Like somebody says, Hey, I want to buy
this and maybe I need to, to brand it
or maybe I need to integrate it into
WordPress and it doesn't do a thing.
Like, is there ever that
attraction at all to have like a
professional services installed?
Like so many other enterprise
software companies do.
Like I remember buying ClickUp.
At another company that I work for,
I don't know, like 20 or so seats and
click up and it was like, oh, it's great.
It's, it's so much cheaper than base camp.
It's like 400 bucks a month.
And then we signed on and we're like,
nobody knows how to use this thing.
And they, and then they swooped in
and said, don't worry for 10, 000.
We'll train you on how to
use it and how to set it up.
And I was like, where was
that in the pricing sheet?
Like, I didn't know this
was going to happen.
so does that level of services
ever call you for a client portal?
Laura: it has in the past, but the only,
the only way I've really done that is back
before I made it into a WordPress plugin,
it was basically a HTML template that was
kind of, it was kind of like a pre order.
and I would, you know, say, you
know, I'll, I'll brand this for you.
For an extra, it was only an extra
like few hundred dollars or something.
So I've done that.
I've thought about, you know, can I,
can I offer the service of setting
up someone's portal for them?
but I haven't done it because
I think I would have to charge
quite a lot of money for it.
There'd be quite a lot of discovery
trying to figure out, you know, what
they would need in a portal, how it's all
set up and it doesn't, it just doesn't
sound like something that I want to do.
so I probably won't go down that.
root, but it, it, it's definitely a good
idea and it could, you know, like you say,
it could lend it to itself really well.
So,
Matt: As I mentioned earlier, the
URL is client hyphen portal dot IO.
who are the, the big SAS enterprise
companies that you would compete with?
Is it something like a click up or a
base camp, or is there some enterprise
type company that people go, Oh,
thank God I don't have to spend
thousands of dollars here anymore.
I can go buy a one site license,
you know, from you for 199 a year.
Who's the, who are the, the big,
800 pound gorillas in the room?
Laura: so this is both my favorite
question and my least favorite question.
I don't really have an answer.
There's, from what I can
tell, there's really.
There's a couple of small competitors
ish, but there's no real direct
competitors and I've looked quite hard.
you know, it doesn't compete with
project management tools because Client
Portal actually works quite nicely
alongside project management tools.
so the difference is if you have a project
management tool, I tend to recommend
a lot of people are better off using
it internally with their team rather
than bringing their clients into it.
Because clients don't use it,
they don't want to learn it.
It's kind of a mess.
but team wise, if you've got like
an agency and you've got a team,
I think they're really useful.
Client portal is kind of an add on to
that, that just gives the client just
one separate area that they can see,
they can see just their deliverables.
So it's, it's a really simple product
in every single competitor, I would
say that aren't really competitors,
do a lot more than that and are
more in the project management.
Space, I would say, but Client
Portal is not intended for that.
It's like, but that's also
what people love about it.
you know, they don't want a big project
management tool that does everything.
They already use, you know, Google
Docs and all the, all the software
stack that they already have.
They, they like that.
They just want somewhere
to keep it all together.
So there's just not links and
files flying around, everywhere.
So
Matt: And it's not just agencies,
not just freelancers on the who
we help tab on your website.
It's a great website, by the way,
agencies, schools, law firms, accountants,
coaches could get you feeling like
you're getting pulled in, in maybe
many directions with feature requests.
you mentioned earlier that
you're not a developer.
Or we can talk about that in
a moment, like how this whole.
product part came to, came to life.
But how do you balance maybe the requests
from, Oh my God, law firms, I can only
imagine what they're asking for versus
a school who, you know, it's about
maybe helping children and getting
the information in front of, parents.
So how do you balance the, the feature
requests from these different markets?
Laura: yeah, it's actually not as
difficult as it sounds because, you
know, Because I have a very clear idea of
what Client Portal is and what it isn't.
there's, there's really no features that
I would do that need to be, that are
very specific to one particular industry.
If I was going to go all in, for
example, on accountants, I might add
some new features that would be more
applicable to them, but really it's for
anyone who needs to start a business.
Who needs a place for clients or
customers or people to see links to
things, you know, just URLs, files,
need to be able to upload files and
see information, you know, just in
pages, just in one simple portal.
And, you know, simplicity can
actually translate to any industry.
You can, there's, there's so, we
have a crazy amount of industries
that, Use client portal.
We've got like marine biologists and
like furniture, shops, and like just
the craziest kind of stuff, which from
a marketing perspective does make it
a little bit difficult because when
you're, when so many people use it.
It's, hard to speak to everybody at
the same time, but the biggest group
by far is definitely freelancers and
agencies and, you know, consultants
and that kind of thing still.
Matt: When you started putting the concept
together, you were exiting services.
You're like, okay, this is the
thing I'm going to focus on it.
You started to build it and people saw it.
How did you start to really polish up like
the code and the development part of it?
Did you hire somebody from
a freelance contractor?
Did you outsource to another agency?
How did you start building the
actual tech part of this solution?
Laura: Yeah.
So this was tricky for me because
as I said, I'm not a developer, and.
So what I needed to do was I
needed to raise money to hire a
developer to make it into a plugin.
So, what happened was I was
speaking at one conference in
particular and the response was
really good for this client portal.
They went round at the end and
said, you know, what was the biggest
takeaway from this conference?
And more than 50 percent of the people
who answered said, Laura's client
portal idea, it's, it's really good.
So the organizer, I guess, saw something
there and said, you know, if you want
If you want to make this into a product,
I'd be happy to promote it for you.
and so I decided to do some pre sales.
So I say, okay, you can, you know, you
went to the conference, you saw this.
and if you want to buy it, then you
can have the HTML template, the CSS,
that where, how it is at the minute
and a little PDF tutorial on, you
know, how to put it on your website.
but the idea is that I am doing this.
in order to invest in a developer
to turn it into a WordPress plugin.
And it wasn't necessarily going to be
a WordPress plugin at the start, but I
asked people what they would prefer and
everyone just said WordPress plugin.
so I knew I, I'd sort of went around
into some other groups that I was in
looking for a developer to just get a
quote, cause I wanted to see how much
I'd need to make from the pre sells
in order to do it, it's kind of like
a Kickstarter in that, like, if I.
I'd either have to put my own
money into it or refund them,
which I didn't want to do.
and I found a developer who had already
heard of the client portal idea.
And, similar to what you were saying
with the outreach email, actually,
like everyone replied with the
most kind of generic response.
Sometimes it would just be a number.
But this one actually just replied
with something a bit more personal
saying, Oh, she'd been following me
for a while and she'd heard about
it and all this kind of stuff.
So I thought, okay, she sounds great.
so she quoted me, I
think, I can't remember.
It was probably about three
or 4, 000 or something.
And then I did the pre order and
it made, I think it made about 10,
000, which was more than I needed
to, to put the plugin into action.
So, you know, I hired her, got it
made into a plugin and then kind of
went from there and she's actually
still works on client portal.
to this day.
not full time, she's still a
contractor, but she's worked on it
since 20, since the first version
in 2016 to right now, which is 2024.
So yeah.
Matt: Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
It's really not that hard, right?
To just be like a human and
ask like, Hey, like your stuff.
Like, Hey man.
And I don't know if it's just the
lesson, definitely not the WordPress
world because I, I, I grew up
in, in sales and stuff like that.
But certainly in the WordPress
world, it's just like a lot of,
here's my thing, go promote it.
And, you know, wouldn't it be
great if you got a 20, 5 percent
affiliate commission on that.
See you later.
Bye.
That's just like, where's the, where's
the human in this stuff, right?
It's bad enough.
We got AI knocking on our door.
Can't you people be just a
little bit nicer these days?
Laura: Yeah.
Well, AO has kind of made it worse
because now it's getting somewhat
personal, but you can still tell it's not.
It's like the copy and paste what
you've written in your bio in a DM.
And you're kind of like, ah, it's closer,
but no, it's just, and it's not, it's
not that hard, it is time consuming,
but it's not that time consuming.
And yeah, it's just surprising.
Matt: Speaking of AI,
how do you evolve this?
this software, do you have integrations?
Are you thinking about
something like integrating AI?
Like so many other people are like,
how do you think about maybe instead
of competing or not really finding
that competitor that we were talking
about earlier, but maybe integrating
into other platforms, pulling in data.
Do you do that now?
How do you think about that
evolution of the software?
Laura: You know, interestingly, I
haven't thought about AI and how it
could be used in the product at all.
it's probably worth thinking
about, to be honest.
I have quite a clear roadmap in my
head of where I want the product to go.
so the big thing is.
you know, I'd really love a Zapier
integration so I can, you know, pull in
lots of, an indefinite amount of software
and tools that can work with, client
portal, but we've been really focused
on, we redid client portal from the
ground up, took, did it take two years?
It took a really long time, but
we did it with the block editor.
So it's now completely
used as the block editor.
And it was such a big help.
Big project, and it is still
ongoing because the block
editor changes all the time.
I don't think we were expecting it
to be as big a project as it was, but
it's really nice now because, before
it was like your typical WordPress
plugin, where it's just kind of a
bunch of fields and nothing looks
like how it looks on the front end.
And now, when you're editing
a portal, you're editing it.
Exactly how it's going to look to
the client, which is just super nice.
So I'm really happy with it.
But I think we've been so focused honestly
on that, that I haven't even thought about
how AI could benefit client portal at
all, but I'm sure it could in some way.
Matt: It's funny.
I saw, I didn't spend any time on it.
I bookmarked it cause I do want to
go back to it, but I saw a bunch of
creators yesterday and I could tell this
was like a campaign, like a marketing
campaign and nothing against it.
I just happened to as somebody who's
in marketing, realizing that it's a
campaign that's happening in front
of my eyes or a bunch of creators
started talking about this new like
AI accounting tool, you know, and I
went to it, I went to the website.
And I started looking at it and it's
like, Oh yeah, you just sync up your,
you know, inbox and your payment stuff.
And AI goes and figures out all like
your business receipts and trains
it and figures out your expenses.
And even if you're using your
personal card, it'll switch it over.
Like I'm reading, I'm like, like, first
of all, there's no way, like I can't even
get Claude or chat GPT to properly edit.
Like a WordPress blog post, cause it
doesn't know the industry like I know.
So I can't even really reliably
use that tool for writing.
I don't, this is not going to work
and I don't trust it because what's it
doing with all of my financial data.
And I just like laughed it off, but I
see all these people talking about it.
it's just, it's just wild AI, not a
question, but just like my observations
of like, and my distrust for like.
Early AI onset tools, is
Laura: Yeah.
Well, the accounting
example is, is good because.
I, like, I do think it would be nice.
There's so much with accounting
that is just tedious that I
feel like could be done with AI.
but I'm like, I find myself
thinking now, you know, are the
accountants that I'm using, like,
are they going to start using AI?
Like, am I going to know?
do I need to be more proactive
in checking things over?
Because the thing I hate about accounting,
I'm sure you do too, is that You know,
all this stuff happens behind the scenes.
You're not a tax expert, but at the end
of the day, you have to put your signature
at the end of it and sign it all off.
And it's just terrifying.
cause you really don't know, like
you can't look at everything.
so I'm just kind of wondering
like, are they doing that?
Are they going to do that?
Is it going to screw everything
up or is it going to be great?
Or I don't know.
Matt: yeah.
in terms and just one other note to about
like software development, especially in
the WordPress world, you mentioned how
you are evolving the product to use, you
know, blocks and like the site editor
kind of experience and how fast that
rapidly changes, which is another like,
contention in the WordPress space is that
you have so many people to work with.
That are like end users who are saying,
God, you know, where's the next feature?
Why is this so slow to
iterate what's happening?
But for us developers in the backend
who are trying to keep a product,
you know, on parody with that
stuff, it is changing rapidly in the
backend and how it's all working.
So it's hard to push like front end
features when you're, when there's
still so much uncertainty on the
backend compatibility of this stuff.
my day job is at.
At gravity forms, and we get a ton of
requests from folks who are like, Hey,
you know, why can't I build this form
in the, in the block editor, move fields
around like, like the blocks and stuff
in the block editor using Gutenberg,
it's just like, Whoa, whoa, whoa,
we've been in business for 15 years.
There's so many people in use
cases that use this product.
Product.
We can't just say, okay, we'll just
take the latest Gutenberg version
and slap it into gravity forms.
And it's just going to work
fine for, you know, millions
of WordPress sites out there.
a lot of folks just don't realize
like this underpinning stuff is
moving kind of quickly, with a lot of
uncertainty in the backend of WordPress.
The front end, maybe not so
much, but the backend, certainly
there's some turbulence.
Laura: Yeah, I definitely feel that.
And it's, it's like you say, like, I
feel like we haven't pushed as many
new features as before, but we're not
working any less, because you know,
Gutenberg and everything, every feature
that we already have in client portal.
It works now slightly differently.
So, you know, we have kind of, we
spent a long time testing it all.
but as you know, with WordPress,
everyone has different setups.
So we found issues if you're, if you
have a non block editor theme, or,
you know, all these different things
that kind of cropped up that we
thought were When we had the classic
editor, we'd sort of ironed out.
It's kind of like now we're
ironing them out again.
And then for every single feature
we've got, we've got like a
WooCommerce integration and then
WooCommerce recently changed.
and it kind of broke everything.
So we're like, okay, now
we've got to fix this.
And it's just like, it feels
like it's not gonna end.
but if you look at like our
changelog and stuff and I, you
know, write like a quarterly email.
With, you know, things that
have happened, we've done a lot.
It just, it's not very marketing
worthy things that we're doing, but
they're needed, they're necessary.
Like we can't, I couldn't in good
conscience ship a new feature without
having these basic things sorted.
So it's, it's difficult for now.
Matt: Once again, the
URL is client portal.
io.
Starts at 1.
99 for a single site, 3.
99 for a unlimited site license
to use across multiple sites.
What's the biggest advantage?
If somebody is out there and
they're a freelancer, they've got
a dozen plus customers, things
are getting a little bit unruly.
They purchase client portal.
What's, what do you think the immediate
win is for that freelancer out there doing
a bunch of things with their clients?
They're sending them to click up.
They're sending them a Google doc.
They're sending them a
e signature platform.
What's the big win for client
portal for that use case?
Laura: Yeah.
So one thing that I hear constantly
as the big win is that they just look
and feel a lot more professional.
they like how Client
Portal makes them look.
What's really nice about the fact that
it's a WordPress plugin and not a Sass,
is that it's completely on your website.
It's pretty easy to brand, so it can
look like, you know, it can, it doesn't
look like Client Portal, it can look
like an extension of your website.
and just having something where,
that you can give clients when you
first onboard them, seems to give
people quite a lot of confidence.
in their process, because they
can also, they can buy portals.
So if they use, WooCommerce, what
you can do, if you're a freelancer,
you can have your deposit or
something go through WooCommerce.
This is great if you have
like product tie services.
and then when they pay.
Their portal is already set up for them
with all their onboarding documents, the
intake questionnaires already loaded in.
it's like private for them.
and it's just like a
really nice experience.
but yeah, I think that's like the number
one thing we hear is that it's made them
feel a lot more confident and feel a lot
more professional with their clients.
Matt: Is that, sorry, one
other technical question.
Is that like an integration that
happens with, let's say WooCommerce, the
purchase happens and that unlocks the
membership account for them or the, or
the client dashboard account for them?
Is that how that works?
Or is there some other
like trigger happening?
Laura: Yeah, it's pretty much
just straight with WooCommerce.
We only have WooCommerce at the
minute, but we'd love to integrate.
You know, directly with like
Stripe or something like that.
so yeah, when you, when you buy,
you can either get added to a pub,
you can either get added to a portal
with lots of other people in, so, you
know, you can technically, it's not
courseware, but you can use it as a
very lightweight courseware platform.
I don't really market it as courseware
to be honest, because, you know,
it doesn't have like learner
management and things like that.
But, you know, if you had, you know, a
educational guide, for example, that you
wanted to sell as like an add on to your
clients, they could all be added to that
same portal when they buy in WooCommerce.
If they get refunded, they'll lose access
to it, or you can choose to, for them
to have their own individual portal set
up that's completely private for them.
So it's got, you know, just the
onboarding documents and the, the rest
of the project that isn't filled in.
It still shows in the portal, but it's
kind of grayed out so that the client
knows that this is what's coming.
They just can't, you know, access
it yet because it's not in there.
so it's, yeah, it's pretty flexible
and it's, it's, pretty nice.
Matt: Awesome.
Awesome stuff.
Everyone listening, client portal.
io, Laura Elizabeth, thanks for
hanging out with us today and
letting us know who you are and
what you do, in the WordPress space.
Anywhere else you want folks to go
to learn a little bit more about you?
Laura: pretty much the only place I'm
remotely active on is Twitter or X.
So you can find me on
there at Laura Liz Dunn.
So E L I Z, it's half my
middle name, Dunn, D U N N.
yeah, that's pretty much it.
Client portal and, X.
Matt: Awesome stuff.
Everybody else, the wpminute.
com, the wpminute.
com slash subscribe.
Thanks for listening and we'll
see you in the next episode.