WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.086 --> 00:00:02.436 Matt: Mario Peshev, welcome to the WP 00:00:02.636 --> 00:00:04.206 Mario: Hey ma, thanks for having me. 00:00:04.216 --> 00:00:05.026 It's been a hot minute. 00:00:06.606 --> 00:00:08.786 Matt: I should have, yeah, you know, I say this all the time. 00:00:08.786 --> 00:00:12.676 If I was an experienced podcaster, I would have looked up our last episode 00:00:12.676 --> 00:00:15.476 together, which was on, the Matt Report. 00:00:15.786 --> 00:00:17.436 And, you know, I'm gonna, let me do that right now. 00:00:17.436 --> 00:00:18.206 So let me just go search. 00:00:18.216 --> 00:00:19.596 I haven't had any other Mario. 00:00:19.596 --> 00:00:20.686 So let me search Mario. 00:00:21.106 --> 00:00:24.666 the first, the last time we chatted was 2015. 00:00:24.886 --> 00:00:28.836 Mario: wait, I do have a 2017 thing from your blog, but it could be a blog mention. 00:00:28.976 --> 00:00:29.366 Yeah. 00:00:29.436 --> 00:00:29.746 Okay. 00:00:29.746 --> 00:00:33.476 So 2015 Yeah, just a decade What do you know? 00:00:33.951 --> 00:00:34.671 Matt: that's all. 00:00:35.096 --> 00:00:36.026 Mario: Holy moly 00:00:36.191 --> 00:00:41.571 Matt: So what have you been, what have you been up to with DevRicks and your agency 00:00:42.046 --> 00:00:42.446 Mario: Yeah. 00:00:42.466 --> 00:00:43.316 Living a life, man. 00:00:43.416 --> 00:00:44.036 Living a life. 00:00:44.096 --> 00:00:44.916 no, seriously though. 00:00:44.916 --> 00:00:46.566 I mean, we've been around for like, what is it? 00:00:46.596 --> 00:00:47.986 15 years now, give or take. 00:00:48.336 --> 00:00:51.686 I mean, we're still, most of the team, the vast majority of the team is on site. 00:00:51.716 --> 00:00:54.206 so we actually started back in the old days as a remote 00:00:54.206 --> 00:00:55.456 company before it was cool. 00:00:55.736 --> 00:01:00.576 Switched slowly to like hybrid 2016, 2017, then decided that it's about time to 00:01:00.576 --> 00:01:03.056 spark creativity and do some stuff on the. 00:01:03.486 --> 00:01:07.456 Kind of, whiteboarding, brainstorming type of front on site, then the 00:01:07.496 --> 00:01:11.226 pandemic hit and everyone went remote and said, look, we're, trendsetters. 00:01:11.236 --> 00:01:12.886 We actually decided to move in office. 00:01:12.886 --> 00:01:15.976 And right now there's the return to office and said, it only took six 00:01:15.976 --> 00:01:17.436 years for people to get back to office. 00:01:17.446 --> 00:01:18.606 So, so there's that. 00:01:18.726 --> 00:01:20.856 but, but seriously though, I mean, it's been, it's, it's 00:01:20.856 --> 00:01:21.766 definitely been a journey. 00:01:21.766 --> 00:01:25.901 WordPress has gone through like all sorts of transformations Decade, 00:01:25.901 --> 00:01:29.001 especially over the past year, I would say there's, there's been a lot going 00:01:29.001 --> 00:01:31.561 on, but, yeah, it's still, even though. 00:01:31.616 --> 00:01:34.846 we've definitely kind of transitioned over the past five, six, seven years 00:01:34.846 --> 00:01:39.996 into a consultancy model with lots of go to market kind of ITP research. 00:01:40.066 --> 00:01:43.306 We are also HubSpot partners, SEMrush partners, so lots on the kind of 00:01:43.346 --> 00:01:44.646 marketing consulting front as well. 00:01:44.996 --> 00:01:48.966 We still, WordPress is our go to tech stack and our largest platform, 00:01:48.966 --> 00:01:49.966 certainly on top of WordPress. 00:01:49.966 --> 00:01:54.176 So we still consider WordPress being our underlying framework. 00:01:54.296 --> 00:01:57.646 And I also, I believe that I'm also a contributor in the latest release, 00:01:57.646 --> 00:01:58.696 but I'm waiting for it to drop. 00:02:00.916 --> 00:02:01.306 Matt: Nice. 00:02:01.636 --> 00:02:05.026 I, you're definitely the guy I want to talk to you about the impact or the 00:02:05.026 --> 00:02:08.036 perceived impact of AI, in our space. 00:02:08.326 --> 00:02:10.596 sort of, tongue in cheek about the last time we talked, cause we 00:02:10.596 --> 00:02:13.666 did talk, when I worked at Pagely, which one is selling commercial 00:02:13.956 --> 00:02:15.486 or enterprise, WordPress hosting. 00:02:15.746 --> 00:02:17.336 Back then you were focused. 00:02:17.476 --> 00:02:20.686 your agency was focused on a lot of media partners, right? 00:02:20.686 --> 00:02:25.486 So, big publishers doing hundreds of thousands, millions of page views a month. 00:02:25.766 --> 00:02:29.216 Is that still the same sector you found yourself comfortable in or have 00:02:29.216 --> 00:02:30.706 you moved to a different niche in your 00:02:30.811 --> 00:02:34.951 Mario: Yeah, we, I'm probably going to do kind of a rundown of the past 15 years. 00:02:34.961 --> 00:02:40.261 So starting around 2010, it was everything that flies, everything that moves. 00:02:40.541 --> 00:02:42.581 We captured it because it's the beginning of the agency space. 00:02:43.251 --> 00:02:45.651 Everyone was just starting out, freelancers, young agencies, 00:02:45.651 --> 00:02:46.571 they know what I'm talking about. 00:02:46.571 --> 00:02:48.701 So it was like pretty much everything. 00:02:49.201 --> 00:02:50.421 Over, over time. 00:02:50.806 --> 00:02:54.676 We, we did a lot of consulting work with including banking and telecom in 00:02:54.676 --> 00:02:57.976 WordPress, just pretty tough project that required consulting and we were a 00:02:57.976 --> 00:03:04.496 small team of like three, four people then 2013, 2014, maybe we, we were lucky 00:03:04.496 --> 00:03:08.716 to work on some of the largest WordPress based software and service applications. 00:03:09.196 --> 00:03:13.766 And we kind of pivoted into a space of building WordPress based SaaS, including 00:03:13.816 --> 00:03:18.096 LMS and kind of, marketing SaaS platforms with subscriptions and lifetime value 00:03:18.096 --> 00:03:21.276 and top sales and down sales, like the, the fusion engines that you can 00:03:21.276 --> 00:03:25.366 now see on go high level or system or some of the modern recent tools, a 00:03:25.366 --> 00:03:30.996 decade later, then 2016 ish, which is around the time that we spoke probably. 00:03:31.806 --> 00:03:36.966 Is we landed a pretty strong strategic partnerships with, an art major 00:03:36.966 --> 00:03:40.686 and provider, it is called RTK at the time that it was acquired by. 00:03:41.441 --> 00:03:44.591 Rubicon, then Magnite, we're gathering around, but you know, went 00:03:44.591 --> 00:03:45.921 through a different acquisition. 00:03:45.931 --> 00:03:47.441 They had about 400 clients. 00:03:47.491 --> 00:03:50.301 we took a couple of them and they were happy with the work. 00:03:50.301 --> 00:03:52.411 So we just kept adding more and more and more. 00:03:52.411 --> 00:03:54.981 And that's how publishing became a thing in parallel. 00:03:55.021 --> 00:03:59.121 Our other channels are all around B2B SaaS due to the other SaaS transition 00:03:59.171 --> 00:04:00.311 that we had the expertise on that. 00:04:00.621 --> 00:04:03.071 So we kept working with those two segments for a while. 00:04:03.361 --> 00:04:05.921 and you had some other sprinkled here and there, like. 00:04:06.651 --> 00:04:09.011 Franchise networks and affiliate and some others. 00:04:09.021 --> 00:04:10.891 But these were two very strong viewers. 00:04:11.281 --> 00:04:18.951 Then what happened in, I'd say 2021 or so is like SEO started to pivot 00:04:19.031 --> 00:04:23.111 into different realms that was close to the time when open AI really. 00:04:23.611 --> 00:04:25.721 started to penetrate the space before chatGPT. 00:04:25.751 --> 00:04:28.221 We were actually integrating open AI, but lots of people already 00:04:28.221 --> 00:04:30.091 use Jasper for content creation. 00:04:30.341 --> 00:04:32.761 They start integrating programmatic APIs for creating 00:04:33.071 --> 00:04:34.531 mass programmatic SEO content. 00:04:34.531 --> 00:04:37.711 So SEO's volatility started to kind of, become a problem. 00:04:38.011 --> 00:04:41.971 And also B2B SaaS funding also started to become questionable and slightly volatile. 00:04:42.531 --> 00:04:48.126 So in 2020, vast Percentage of our clientele was hit pretty hard, you know, 00:04:48.136 --> 00:04:52.006 mass layoffs losing tons of revenue and all that so we are still working with 00:04:52.046 --> 00:04:57.656 probably half of them but in the meantime other Verticals and other trajectories 00:04:57.656 --> 00:05:01.676 and kind of categories started to pop up as well so now our portfolio is 00:05:01.826 --> 00:05:06.666 pretty diverse some of the Kind of old category of clients have been getting 00:05:06.676 --> 00:05:10.646 back to us over the past six months But it's definitely been a pretty dry 00:05:10.866 --> 00:05:17.296 late 2022 end of 2024 period that The core two categories that we counted on 00:05:19.046 --> 00:05:23.086 for the most part disappeared and we're in scarcity mode or shrinking down or 00:05:23.096 --> 00:05:24.586 trying to build into something else. 00:05:24.826 --> 00:05:28.336 Luckily, because of our marketing expertise, we've been a HubSpot partner 00:05:28.336 --> 00:05:31.366 since 2016 and SEMrush 2019 or so. 00:05:31.666 --> 00:05:35.386 we, we got a bunch of other contracts on the go to market space. 00:05:35.396 --> 00:05:38.226 Like, Hey, we are losing all of our channels, losing all of our money. 00:05:38.236 --> 00:05:40.036 And we are saying, okay, like we have. 00:05:40.266 --> 00:05:44.136 specific playbooks that work for email outreach, personalizing 00:05:44.136 --> 00:05:47.846 data, like identifying buyer level identity data, and lots of other 00:05:47.846 --> 00:05:52.276 playbooks that we can quickly launch inside landing pages, do A B testing 00:05:52.276 --> 00:05:55.616 effectively, and launch different campaigns pretty much twice a week. 00:05:56.036 --> 00:06:00.416 so this was kind of what kept us rolling 2022, 2024. 00:06:00.736 --> 00:06:05.216 and now there's a lot more return to where we were a while back, even though 00:06:05.256 --> 00:06:07.256 again, AI has definitely a pretty. 00:06:08.166 --> 00:06:11.006 You know, strong impact on what do customers expect today? 00:06:12.541 --> 00:06:16.461 Matt: Yeah, so it's safe to say that you're you're not doing like the mom 00:06:16.461 --> 00:06:21.801 and pop WordPress websites or even like the smaller to medium sized business 00:06:21.801 --> 00:06:26.861 that just has a lot of stuff going on Which is you know scoping out a project? 00:06:27.501 --> 00:06:32.091 custom post types content content migration You're operating at a different 00:06:32.091 --> 00:06:39.911 level and if I could I want to get your opinions on As someone who has seen a 00:06:39.911 --> 00:06:45.391 lot, who has done a lot in enterprise, therefore understands enterprise 00:06:45.391 --> 00:06:51.171 requirements, not just on the development side, but on the delivery side, on the 00:06:51.181 --> 00:06:57.041 management side of an enterprise customer, if I could, can you compare that to 00:06:57.041 --> 00:06:59.811 what I see in the page builder world? 00:07:00.471 --> 00:07:05.826 Where Folks who operate with even more, air quotes, professional page 00:07:05.826 --> 00:07:10.916 builder tools like Bricks, and even the longstanding Elementor, where do you 00:07:10.926 --> 00:07:17.576 stand with running an agency or offering agency services to the enterprise? 00:07:18.311 --> 00:07:19.781 leveraging tools like that. 00:07:20.101 --> 00:07:21.201 Is it possible? 00:07:21.531 --> 00:07:22.861 Is it the wrong choice? 00:07:23.291 --> 00:07:25.171 What is, what's your feeling around that? 00:07:25.171 --> 00:07:29.981 Because so many people swarm to different solutions as like, 00:07:30.011 --> 00:07:31.291 okay, Elementor doesn't have this. 00:07:31.351 --> 00:07:32.991 Let's go over here and move over to this one. 00:07:32.991 --> 00:07:33.871 Okay, Bricks has this. 00:07:33.891 --> 00:07:35.211 Now Bricks doesn't have this one. 00:07:35.251 --> 00:07:36.481 Let's move over to this one. 00:07:36.881 --> 00:07:41.191 that's the kind of thing that I see at early stage agencies, which I 00:07:41.211 --> 00:07:47.171 think is detrimental to their, at least, maybe short term success. 00:07:47.181 --> 00:07:49.811 Like, they have to understand, like, sustainability and 00:07:49.811 --> 00:07:50.861 scalability and all that stuff. 00:07:50.861 --> 00:07:56.201 So, if you could, it's a big loaded frame, but if you could share your thoughts 00:07:56.246 --> 00:08:00.296 Mario: Yeah, the only thing I'm afraid off is the Dalpy minute may turn into the WP 00:08:00.576 --> 00:08:03.466 week if I have to properly expand that. 00:08:03.766 --> 00:08:08.176 But you just need to take a look into that from different perspectives, right? 00:08:08.566 --> 00:08:13.936 So over the past year, maybe two years, we actually have More websites 00:08:13.936 --> 00:08:19.276 running on Elementor or, you know, Briggs or Oxygen or some other, 00:08:19.316 --> 00:08:20.616 you know, existing frameworks. 00:08:20.756 --> 00:08:24.906 We also have more websites, professional websites coming up that were built 00:08:24.906 --> 00:08:29.696 with Divi or Astra or some of the other kind of more generic, I 00:08:29.696 --> 00:08:31.066 would say, teams and team builders. 00:08:31.536 --> 00:08:34.686 I see that other agencies in the space and the kind of other top 10 00:08:34.686 --> 00:08:38.126 agencies, if I have to put it this way, are also using other teams, 00:08:38.186 --> 00:08:43.521 again, Astra or Olly from Mike McAllister, which is also pretty common. 00:08:43.601 --> 00:08:45.181 My own website is with Olly, by the way. 00:08:45.551 --> 00:08:49.421 so I see a lot more move into let's try to reuse what, what's there and 00:08:49.441 --> 00:08:50.591 kind of what exists in the market. 00:08:50.891 --> 00:08:56.261 So whether these make sense or not is contingent on several different factors. 00:08:56.291 --> 00:09:00.291 First, is the client willing to pay for a bespoke design nowadays? 00:09:00.841 --> 00:09:05.781 And for a custom theme back in the day when money was kind of broadly 00:09:05.781 --> 00:09:10.101 available, funding zero interest policy and all that, it was more common to 00:09:10.111 --> 00:09:14.441 have, Hey, it's totally fine to pen to pay, you know, another 10, 20, 30 00:09:14.441 --> 00:09:18.031 grand for bespoke design and the custom theme for like even small midsize site. 00:09:18.401 --> 00:09:19.031 It was common. 00:09:19.041 --> 00:09:21.481 Nowadays, it's more about, we need a feature set. 00:09:21.481 --> 00:09:22.671 We need a couple landing pages. 00:09:22.671 --> 00:09:24.211 We are actually fine doing that with. 00:09:24.826 --> 00:09:28.496 Unbounce, lead pages, any of the other tools, or we also have HubSpot. 00:09:28.496 --> 00:09:31.756 We're fine to use HubSpot pages, but we need something like strong underhood. 00:09:31.846 --> 00:09:32.176 Right? 00:09:32.486 --> 00:09:38.826 So it's, it's less about design bespokeness and more about, we need 00:09:38.826 --> 00:09:42.706 an underlying solution that's stable enough, not necessarily paying a 00:09:42.706 --> 00:09:44.366 small fortune to get it rolling. 00:09:44.366 --> 00:09:47.376 So we're just seeing a lot more of that coming up nowadays. 00:09:47.926 --> 00:09:51.006 Second thing is what is your agency trying to deliver? 00:09:51.036 --> 00:09:54.126 If you want to solve all problems in the universe, you're not going to 00:09:54.126 --> 00:09:58.981 be experienced enough to be a number one professional in Elementor, in 00:09:59.031 --> 00:10:03.741 Oxygen, in Astra, Cadence, Genesis, like whatever you're using, right? 00:10:03.781 --> 00:10:05.681 You can't really spread yourself too thin. 00:10:05.941 --> 00:10:09.361 So if you like a framework, if you like a specific solution, there's enough 00:10:09.361 --> 00:10:12.331 market for that, and you can be a professional, you can be an expert there. 00:10:12.601 --> 00:10:17.091 But if you try to spread yourself too thin, it won't be too different 00:10:17.091 --> 00:10:21.441 from building websites in PHP and in Ruby and in Python and 00:10:21.441 --> 00:10:22.911 in Java and in everything else. 00:10:23.241 --> 00:10:28.476 So, So if I'm, if I have to give, you know, specific piece of advice 00:10:28.666 --> 00:10:32.066 is once again, figure out what your clientele wants, whether they want 00:10:32.066 --> 00:10:34.286 a bespoke solution in the first place or whether they're fine with 00:10:34.286 --> 00:10:36.076 an existing theme and the builder. 00:10:36.386 --> 00:10:39.816 Second, what do you feel most comfortable with and most confident? 00:10:39.826 --> 00:10:40.916 Everything has pros and cons. 00:10:40.916 --> 00:10:42.186 There's no one unique solution. 00:10:42.206 --> 00:10:44.676 Otherwise the other ones wouldn't exist in the first place. 00:10:44.686 --> 00:10:47.006 So again, we just need to be aware of that. 00:10:47.006 --> 00:10:47.766 So just use. 00:10:48.031 --> 00:10:50.641 What you like and what you're comfortable with that you can provide 00:10:50.651 --> 00:10:52.191 and produce a proper solution with. 00:10:52.511 --> 00:10:56.371 And, and the third thing is try to figure out whether that's tapping into the type 00:10:56.371 --> 00:11:00.021 of market that you want to conquer, one or two or three or four or five years ago. 00:11:00.191 --> 00:11:03.811 Because some of these solutions are not necessarily acceptable in enterprise. 00:11:04.071 --> 00:11:04.951 Others are. 00:11:05.191 --> 00:11:09.331 There's also the type of enterprise that runs 17 different companies. 00:11:09.746 --> 00:11:14.146 And the top one is bringing, you know, half a trillion in revenue, but then 00:11:14.146 --> 00:11:16.656 there are several others that are doing, you know, two to five million, 00:11:16.856 --> 00:11:18.756 and they actually need your solution. 00:11:18.766 --> 00:11:20.876 And it's totally fine to just build something for the 00:11:20.876 --> 00:11:22.346 enterprise, for the side brands. 00:11:22.606 --> 00:11:23.586 There's no shame in that. 00:11:23.636 --> 00:11:24.716 There's enough work in that. 00:11:24.716 --> 00:11:27.376 And this is what kind of, you can serve that population. 00:11:27.386 --> 00:11:32.876 So that's the non 17 hour explanation of what you asked me to do here. 00:11:33.931 --> 00:11:34.951 Matt: Yeah, I appreciate that. 00:11:35.331 --> 00:11:36.741 no, that, that's great advice. 00:11:36.891 --> 00:11:41.251 And what I'm trying to do with this episode, while I, while I have you, cause 00:11:41.251 --> 00:11:44.091 you're, you are a wealth of knowledge and you've had this massive breadth 00:11:44.091 --> 00:11:46.431 of experience and you're a guy that. 00:11:46.626 --> 00:11:48.996 you know, obviously we don't, we just said, we really haven't talked in 00:11:48.996 --> 00:11:51.656 many years, but I always watch, you know, the stuff that you're doing. 00:11:51.686 --> 00:11:55.946 I use you as one of my, barometers for like where the market is going. 00:11:56.106 --> 00:11:58.616 I won't call you a canary in the coal mine, because I certainly 00:11:58.616 --> 00:11:59.666 don't want to see you pass out. 00:11:59.826 --> 00:12:03.486 But, you're the guy that I watch to see like, okay, like 00:12:03.496 --> 00:12:04.946 what, what is Mario doing? 00:12:04.946 --> 00:12:06.926 Like what, what is him and his team doing? 00:12:06.926 --> 00:12:10.556 Because you're always sort of at that, that leading edge, in my opinion. 00:12:11.306 --> 00:12:15.276 where that takes me is you mentioned a few times being a HubSpot partner. 00:12:16.166 --> 00:12:19.406 for the folks listening who are like, man, I'm struggling to get clients. 00:12:19.406 --> 00:12:20.496 Where do I get my next client? 00:12:20.496 --> 00:12:23.626 Where I landed my, you know, luckily I got a referral to this 00:12:23.636 --> 00:12:27.906 big 30, 000 contract and how do I get more of these types of clients? 00:12:28.666 --> 00:12:32.556 The importance of multiple channels for your agency, right? 00:12:32.576 --> 00:12:36.106 Referrals obviously marketing inbound outbound channel 00:12:36.106 --> 00:12:38.356 partners with like HubSpot. 00:12:38.356 --> 00:12:43.356 How, if you could, if you can remember, Paint the picture of how you got involved 00:12:43.356 --> 00:12:47.076 with HubSpot and how one should think about partnering with these, what 00:12:47.076 --> 00:12:49.336 I'll call like, elevated solutions. 00:12:49.336 --> 00:12:53.206 Like, you know people using HubSpot have money, you know, versus like, 00:12:53.416 --> 00:12:54.646 I don't know, maybe MailChimp. 00:12:54.646 --> 00:12:57.606 I mean, I'm sure there's people that do a lot of revenue using MailChimp, but 00:12:57.786 --> 00:13:01.146 the average user on MailChimp is probably a mom and pop shop versus a HubSpot. 00:13:01.326 --> 00:13:05.236 How did you make that, that connection and how does that help serve the business? 00:13:05.381 --> 00:13:07.641 Mario: Look, that's, this is a great question. 00:13:07.641 --> 00:13:10.341 And we signed with HubSpot again back in 2016. 00:13:10.441 --> 00:13:14.891 And at the time inbound marketing was one of our strongest lead generation channels. 00:13:15.161 --> 00:13:16.711 But I also want to stress on that. 00:13:16.711 --> 00:13:20.551 I would live and die by the idea of SEO, but SEO has not been 00:13:20.551 --> 00:13:22.331 the same since September 2023. 00:13:22.361 --> 00:13:25.541 So I'm, it's no longer a priority channel for us, even 00:13:25.541 --> 00:13:27.161 though we do have SEO contracts. 00:13:27.161 --> 00:13:30.981 It's, it's, it's the whim of the SEO algorithm gods. 00:13:31.441 --> 00:13:33.641 And something that changes overnight with a click of a 00:13:33.641 --> 00:13:34.871 button and an algorithm change. 00:13:34.871 --> 00:13:37.821 So it's, I would hardly call it something sustainable. 00:13:38.231 --> 00:13:42.001 But to the point of HubSpot and also Salesforce and Pipedrive and some of 00:13:42.001 --> 00:13:43.491 the other professional CRMs out there. 00:13:43.931 --> 00:13:47.881 over time, what we found out, especially working with, you know, different 00:13:47.881 --> 00:13:52.441 clients, is that larger cohorts of businesses in different categories, 00:13:52.866 --> 00:13:55.506 Rely on certain tools and systems. 00:13:55.556 --> 00:14:00.196 And if you get to know and understand these systems better, you can become 00:14:00.246 --> 00:14:02.006 a niche expert in a given field. 00:14:02.506 --> 00:14:06.856 What I just said, like, 10 minutes ago or so is we went through different phases 00:14:06.856 --> 00:14:09.666 of we were the the WordPress SaaS gurus. 00:14:09.666 --> 00:14:14.706 Then we went into what is it publishing and then B2B SaaS and then go to 00:14:14.706 --> 00:14:17.736 market consulting for not just WordPress and going international. 00:14:17.736 --> 00:14:20.936 We have several of these verticals actually have a whiteboard out there, 00:14:20.936 --> 00:14:22.696 which is experimentation as a service. 00:14:22.706 --> 00:14:26.486 It's one of our also key packages that we have right now, just iterating and 00:14:26.486 --> 00:14:27.956 testing new offers every single week. 00:14:27.956 --> 00:14:33.951 So niching down and kind of turning yourself into a core expert in a In a 00:14:34.011 --> 00:14:39.271 market, in a skill set, in a specific vertical, like over 100 million pages per 00:14:39.271 --> 00:14:45.631 month or e commerce doing over 50, 000 products per show, or, again, a tool like 00:14:45.631 --> 00:14:50.671 HubSpot, like NetSuite, like Salesforce and PowerDot, a bunch of different tools. 00:14:50.781 --> 00:14:54.701 Try to, try to discover and uncover some of these and figure out 00:14:54.701 --> 00:14:55.831 whether you can deliver that better. 00:14:55.851 --> 00:14:58.721 I wouldn't, I wouldn't give a blanket advice of you need 00:14:58.721 --> 00:14:59.981 to specialize in HubSpot. 00:15:00.081 --> 00:15:00.511 Why? 00:15:00.981 --> 00:15:02.811 On Thursday, I had a call with a partner agency. 00:15:02.811 --> 00:15:06.801 They said, we take all of our contracts from LinkedIn partnerships. 00:15:06.801 --> 00:15:08.231 So you can be a LinkedIn partner. 00:15:08.541 --> 00:15:11.891 Monday, we met another friend who's also taking HubSpot partnerships. 00:15:11.901 --> 00:15:12.821 It's kind of the core channel. 00:15:13.041 --> 00:15:16.601 Yesterday I had a call with a friend from Meta who said, Hey, we have 00:15:16.661 --> 00:15:18.301 tech solution partners from Meta. 00:15:18.481 --> 00:15:20.801 There's, there's budget to be allocated and so forth. 00:15:21.241 --> 00:15:23.721 Two weeks ago, I had a call with Google and they said Google's 00:15:23.811 --> 00:15:25.651 allocating 500, what, what was it? 00:15:25.661 --> 00:15:28.351 50 million in funding, different startups in like. 00:15:28.631 --> 00:15:30.661 Google cloud and big query and data packages. 00:15:30.671 --> 00:15:34.831 So the truth is there are budgets also again, a couple of weeks ago, AWS 00:15:34.841 --> 00:15:39.811 partner saying we've been funding like AWS is funding Ukraine for like three 00:15:39.811 --> 00:15:43.801 years of like free credits and stuff, but they're paying service partners. 00:15:43.811 --> 00:15:47.141 So if you're a service partner, you're getting paid, your client isn't paying 00:15:47.151 --> 00:15:48.831 and essentially it's a win win situation. 00:15:49.111 --> 00:15:52.121 So there are a lot of these buckets, but it really depends on. 00:15:52.361 --> 00:15:55.521 Your target audience, who are you serving and whether they're 00:15:55.531 --> 00:15:56.591 using whatever you're using. 00:15:56.791 --> 00:16:00.501 We have a couple of large clients using, Oracle's NetSuite. 00:16:00.681 --> 00:16:01.791 So we specialize there. 00:16:01.791 --> 00:16:05.291 We have several HubSpot, clients and we are serving HubSpot there. 00:16:05.531 --> 00:16:09.951 We have, again, many integrations with, WhatsApp and, you know, lots of Facebook 00:16:09.951 --> 00:16:11.461 and, you know, tons of Instagram as well. 00:16:11.681 --> 00:16:13.271 So we're also delivering services there. 00:16:13.291 --> 00:16:17.461 So if you, if you establish a specific bucket of like several clients 00:16:17.461 --> 00:16:20.786 within the same niche, it could be Publishing, specific between SAS, 00:16:20.796 --> 00:16:25.946 healthcare, FinTech, you know, large e commerce, wholesale, franchising. 00:16:25.946 --> 00:16:27.246 There, there are some of these buckets. 00:16:27.246 --> 00:16:29.946 If you have three of these clients, chances are at least two 00:16:29.946 --> 00:16:31.546 are using one specific tool set. 00:16:31.756 --> 00:16:35.516 Focus on building integrations and features and extensions and, and 00:16:35.526 --> 00:16:38.346 learning the APIs and the endpoints and the core features that are needed. 00:16:38.586 --> 00:16:42.801 And once you get to know them, Take it a step further and try to become an 00:16:42.801 --> 00:16:45.741 integration partner, because this is probably going to open up more work. 00:16:46.071 --> 00:16:49.071 We probably have 30 different tools and systems that are very 00:16:49.071 --> 00:16:51.691 important and integral, but they're all market dependent. 00:16:51.751 --> 00:16:54.911 Unless you're able to, unless you already have kind of a case study of 00:16:54.911 --> 00:16:57.981 two or three clients that you've done that, it's really hard to push forward. 00:16:58.201 --> 00:17:01.961 But if you've done the work successfully for two or three that you managed to land 00:17:01.971 --> 00:17:05.711 somehow, then it's easier to just use them as a trampoline for the other ones. 00:17:07.146 --> 00:17:07.446 Matt: Yeah. 00:17:08.386 --> 00:17:10.756 I, I'm gonna ask you a broad question. 00:17:10.856 --> 00:17:14.841 and, and, you know, hopefully, folks listening to this get, get a real, some 00:17:14.841 --> 00:17:17.661 real value out of this one, because I think this is one of the most important. 00:17:17.661 --> 00:17:20.661 I've, I've been talking to a, a friend of mine who's, you know, running an 00:17:20.661 --> 00:17:24.351 agency and stuff like that and really trying to like, and it's just a solo age. 00:17:24.351 --> 00:17:24.652 It's just him. 00:17:25.501 --> 00:17:28.801 It's just him, you know, trying to get this thing off the ground and I'm trying 00:17:28.801 --> 00:17:32.381 to tell him like, you have to think at, you know, depending on what his 00:17:32.381 --> 00:17:36.161 goals are, his goals are to, you know, grow it and become an agency operator, 00:17:36.161 --> 00:17:39.251 let's say, which is very different than somebody who loves the craft. 00:17:39.291 --> 00:17:40.331 You know who I'm talking about. 00:17:40.331 --> 00:17:43.651 Like the two or three person shop, the owner just loves to design or loves to 00:17:43.651 --> 00:17:46.631 develop or loves to do marketing and that's all they're thinking about, but 00:17:46.631 --> 00:17:48.331 they're not thinking about how do I. 00:17:48.626 --> 00:17:49.596 How do I operate this thing? 00:17:49.596 --> 00:17:53.116 How do I get out of the work and become the operator of this business? 00:17:54.226 --> 00:17:59.146 What's your best advice for getting somebody to, to think in that way, if 00:17:59.146 --> 00:18:00.496 that's the direction they want to go? 00:18:00.516 --> 00:18:03.286 Like, no longer will you be developing, no longer will you be 00:18:03.286 --> 00:18:05.556 designing, you'll take a step back. 00:18:06.126 --> 00:18:09.866 And grow different channels, explore new opportunities. 00:18:10.256 --> 00:18:13.776 How did you get yourself out of that mindset of like, I'm done 00:18:13.826 --> 00:18:18.026 optimizing my databases, and now I'm building the business? 00:18:18.306 --> 00:18:20.876 Do you remember that point, or do you have a piece of advice for 00:18:21.126 --> 00:18:25.816 Mario: my, my follow up question or rather my, my contradiction towards what 00:18:25.816 --> 00:18:30.636 you're saying is, is it really worth going through that hassle or rather 00:18:30.676 --> 00:18:35.106 some people are just great consultants and individual contributors and maybe, 00:18:35.456 --> 00:18:39.956 you know, indisplaceable assets in even large organizations and they can be 00:18:39.956 --> 00:18:41.756 just fine doing whatever they're doing. 00:18:42.146 --> 00:18:43.126 so I've. 00:18:43.601 --> 00:18:46.311 You know, I've spoken a lot about entrepreneurship and founding companies. 00:18:46.331 --> 00:18:50.371 I believe there's a lot of value in that, but I also feel it's, it's, oversaturated 00:18:50.401 --> 00:18:54.271 in the sense of everyone and their mom are building WordPress websites right now. 00:18:54.631 --> 00:18:58.981 So getting into a vastly competitive space, it's, there's a popular book, 00:18:58.991 --> 00:19:02.271 you know, Blue Ocean, which is comparing the blue ocean and the red, red ocean. 00:19:02.271 --> 00:19:02.881 It's pretty common. 00:19:03.281 --> 00:19:03.661 but. 00:19:04.721 --> 00:19:08.691 certain spaces are oversaturated and you turning into that operator 00:19:08.691 --> 00:19:11.491 means that you're doing completely different things on a day to day, right? 00:19:11.861 --> 00:19:13.661 I had six hours of meetings today. 00:19:13.711 --> 00:19:17.431 You know, I had interviews, I had feedback sessions, I had brainstorming 00:19:17.431 --> 00:19:20.441 and roadmap sessions, and, and they have more coming up, right? 00:19:20.441 --> 00:19:24.431 Like sales goals and like prepping proposals and, you know, assessments 00:19:24.431 --> 00:19:25.891 and lots of other things that are not. 00:19:26.411 --> 00:19:28.981 I'm going to design the most beautiful website in the world, right? 00:19:29.151 --> 00:19:30.401 It's a different craft. 00:19:30.401 --> 00:19:31.301 It's a different skill. 00:19:31.311 --> 00:19:35.951 So my personal passion is, so I care about entrepreneurship, 00:19:35.961 --> 00:19:37.231 but I care about education. 00:19:37.531 --> 00:19:40.171 I care about giving back in order to educate. 00:19:40.171 --> 00:19:44.731 I need the resources and the know how to be able to educate with the types of tips 00:19:44.751 --> 00:19:46.181 that I'm sharing here on that podcast. 00:19:46.491 --> 00:19:49.781 In order to give back, I need the resource of the entire company to 00:19:49.781 --> 00:19:53.311 allocate portion of the profit and fund more causes and all of that. 00:19:53.311 --> 00:19:54.441 So my. 00:19:54.791 --> 00:19:59.071 My intrinsic motivation, my core values require capital, so I'm 00:19:59.071 --> 00:20:02.321 willing to sacrifice what I want to do, like write articles all 00:20:02.321 --> 00:20:05.231 day and, you know, philosophize. 00:20:05.261 --> 00:20:08.241 Yeah, for example, so I'm willing to sacrifice that for 00:20:08.241 --> 00:20:12.341 the greater good in a sense that requires different type of work. 00:20:12.601 --> 00:20:15.651 But I know a lot of people, you know, especially the 95 people who 00:20:15.661 --> 00:20:19.051 want their, you know, pay time off or working from home or not really 00:20:19.051 --> 00:20:21.021 dealing with payroll or chasing. 00:20:21.606 --> 00:20:24.946 You know, overdue invoices and all that stuff, people like that, for the most 00:20:24.946 --> 00:20:28.476 part, they shouldn't be entrepreneurs and they may look for a kind of small 00:20:28.476 --> 00:20:32.166 acquisition or maybe calling, you know, say yet or some of the other companies 00:20:32.166 --> 00:20:35.686 that are buying companies left and right and just getting assumed and making 00:20:35.686 --> 00:20:38.366 sure that payroll is guaranteed so they can focus on kind of what they do. 00:20:38.606 --> 00:20:40.156 So I just want to delineate it. 00:20:40.156 --> 00:20:43.796 So if you, if, if craft, if you want to design for the next 20 years, 00:20:44.226 --> 00:20:46.336 don't focus on elevating as operator. 00:20:46.366 --> 00:20:47.796 If you want to operate, Okay. 00:20:48.541 --> 00:20:51.611 There are completely different skills related to sales, negotiations, 00:20:51.611 --> 00:20:56.191 finance, OPEX, you know, adopting something like EOS or at least OKRs, 00:20:56.461 --> 00:21:00.271 managing teams, reviews, scorecards, one on ones, lots of other things 00:21:00.281 --> 00:21:02.291 that are almost 100 percent major. 00:21:02.911 --> 00:21:07.181 I think it was Paul Graham who had that essay for maker versus, 00:21:07.211 --> 00:21:08.581 what was it, maker versus manager. 00:21:09.151 --> 00:21:11.561 These are two different roles as an operator. 00:21:11.571 --> 00:21:13.191 You're going to be a major full stop. 00:21:13.211 --> 00:21:16.351 There's going to be very little making happening on your own unless you're 00:21:16.351 --> 00:21:19.241 spending nights and weekends, which is, by the way, what I'm doing to 00:21:19.241 --> 00:21:22.111 make to, to engage in that initiative. 00:21:22.121 --> 00:21:28.341 But your core value, your, your, the highest KPIs, the highest return on your 00:21:28.481 --> 00:21:33.241 own investment is managing, educating, coaching, selling, negotiating, coming 00:21:33.241 --> 00:21:37.856 up and visualizing processes that you can repeat and, you know, increase 00:21:37.856 --> 00:21:41.306 better yields and do PR and lots of other things that are not making. 00:21:41.596 --> 00:21:45.166 So essentially decide on whether that's for you or not. 00:21:45.386 --> 00:21:49.426 And if it is just step into the executive functions and roles 00:21:49.426 --> 00:21:50.696 that you need to be working on. 00:21:51.026 --> 00:21:53.946 and, and you definitely have to shift from making in the first place. 00:21:53.946 --> 00:21:56.753 Yeah. 00:21:56.801 --> 00:22:00.361 Matt: answer because it definitely frames, well, to simply put 00:22:00.361 --> 00:22:03.091 it like the grass isn't always greener on the, on the other side. 00:22:03.091 --> 00:22:03.331 Right. 00:22:03.631 --> 00:22:07.431 And, that's a lot of decision making that, that, that folks have to make. 00:22:07.721 --> 00:22:09.041 And, yeah, I'm right there. 00:22:09.071 --> 00:22:11.481 I'm right there with you on, on that kind of critical thinking. 00:22:11.841 --> 00:22:16.841 I want on the last, third of our episode here, I want to turn to the interior of 00:22:16.861 --> 00:22:21.041 WordPress and talk about the challenges, of course, AI, and we'll get to that. 00:22:21.041 --> 00:22:21.111 Yeah. 00:22:21.501 --> 00:22:24.731 But also, the current temperature in the room, right? 00:22:24.961 --> 00:22:27.931 automatic in Mullenweg versus, WP Engine. 00:22:28.451 --> 00:22:33.651 Lots of folks, at least on my Twitter feed, are saying it's the end of days. 00:22:33.941 --> 00:22:36.351 you know, I, you know, listen, I'm also concerned. 00:22:36.391 --> 00:22:40.831 There's a rumor that we might only do two major releases up until 2027, 00:22:40.831 --> 00:22:42.191 until this court thing is done. 00:22:42.681 --> 00:22:44.831 whatever that means for open source WordPress. 00:22:44.911 --> 00:22:50.031 My particular opinion is Even if so, if that's a direction that we go, that 00:22:50.031 --> 00:22:52.941 means that maybe automatic, especially now that automatic is clawed back 00:22:52.941 --> 00:22:54.461 there, open source contributions. 00:22:54.971 --> 00:22:59.631 They'll take that, those resources and point that towards either dot com or WP, 00:22:59.701 --> 00:23:02.491 cloud solution, whatever it is, they're just basically at the end of the day, 00:23:02.491 --> 00:23:06.811 make automatic products better, which by the way, I have no problem with at all. 00:23:07.541 --> 00:23:10.411 like I think that should have been happening for quite some time, so 00:23:10.421 --> 00:23:14.551 that, the mothership could have been competing with the Squarespace's 00:23:14.551 --> 00:23:15.651 Wix web flows of the world. 00:23:15.651 --> 00:23:18.791 And we could have been doing this open source thing, air quotes on our own. 00:23:19.321 --> 00:23:21.881 So two particular challenges to, to boil this down. 00:23:22.136 --> 00:23:23.366 The temperature of WordPress. 00:23:23.396 --> 00:23:28.026 Are you seeing your clients saying, Oh, that Matt Mullenweg thing. 00:23:28.166 --> 00:23:28.926 We don't like that. 00:23:28.936 --> 00:23:30.296 We don't want to use WordPress. 00:23:30.486 --> 00:23:31.646 And then we'll talk about AI. 00:23:31.826 --> 00:23:33.116 But temperature in the room. 00:23:33.166 --> 00:23:34.266 Are your clients affected by 00:23:34.496 --> 00:23:38.086 Mario: Look, so in, in Q4 in particular, there was definitely turbulence. 00:23:38.456 --> 00:23:43.926 I remember several times, last minute calls, emergency Sunday night call 00:23:43.936 --> 00:23:47.776 by actual private equity saying, you know, we're in the process of acquiring 00:23:47.786 --> 00:23:51.376 a business and, and we don't know whether we should do that or not. 00:23:52.156 --> 00:23:54.996 And it's like an hour and a half conversation on GPL, like, don't 00:23:55.026 --> 00:23:59.686 worry, you're not going to violate GPL, or like, you're not like, there 00:23:59.686 --> 00:24:00.896 had been a lot of fear in that. 00:24:00.906 --> 00:24:06.086 We had prospects that pulled back and said, we're either going to pose that 00:24:06.096 --> 00:24:09.406 for the time being, or we're just going to pick Webflow or something 00:24:09.406 --> 00:24:11.846 else in the meantime, just because we don't want to deal with the drama. 00:24:12.226 --> 00:24:16.986 So saying that it didn't have effect in the space would be, would be false. 00:24:17.796 --> 00:24:18.666 Whether it was. 00:24:19.476 --> 00:24:21.016 a dramatic shift. 00:24:21.066 --> 00:24:26.846 I wouldn't say so just because most, most of our clients and kind of 00:24:26.876 --> 00:24:30.736 most of the ecosystem that at least kind of my broader circle isn't 00:24:30.756 --> 00:24:32.416 paying too much attention on that. 00:24:32.496 --> 00:24:36.236 Of course, when it's something that bubbles up on ink magazine or tech crunch 00:24:36.236 --> 00:24:38.566 or show it reaches us, there's some. 00:24:39.296 --> 00:24:41.206 There's some disturbance in the force, right? 00:24:41.566 --> 00:24:44.926 and, and there's that fear of is, is WordPress imploding? 00:24:44.936 --> 00:24:48.236 Like whether we should dig into that, you know, but, but it, 00:24:48.296 --> 00:24:49.466 it hasn't been too fragile. 00:24:50.146 --> 00:24:55.396 And right now in Q1 at least, we haven't seen, we, we've almost seen no 00:24:55.396 --> 00:24:57.066 indications of people being bothered. 00:24:57.076 --> 00:25:00.256 They see it as if they heard something, it was some drama 00:25:00.266 --> 00:25:01.996 happening in September and October. 00:25:02.346 --> 00:25:05.176 It's, you know, that doesn't set out and it's not really a problem 00:25:05.176 --> 00:25:09.006 per se, but for the most part, of course, different organizations, 00:25:09.006 --> 00:25:11.656 they have tech teams and they're kind of advocating internally, like. 00:25:11.991 --> 00:25:15.141 Hey guys, you know, there's some stuff happening with WordPress. 00:25:15.291 --> 00:25:18.341 Maybe we shouldn't spend the next six months building a WordPress build. 00:25:18.351 --> 00:25:19.961 We don't know what's exactly going to happen. 00:25:20.251 --> 00:25:24.111 Let's consider keeping it static website or let's just, again, 00:25:24.121 --> 00:25:26.941 use Webflow for another year and see what happens and all of that. 00:25:26.951 --> 00:25:29.571 So, there's still impact out there. 00:25:29.851 --> 00:25:33.631 I, I definitely don't think it's, it was wise for the community. 00:25:33.801 --> 00:25:37.231 I can understand where Milawaki is coming from, even though I completely 00:25:37.231 --> 00:25:41.211 disagree with like tanking and dooming the entire freaking community, because 00:25:41.221 --> 00:25:45.181 when you're, what's the saying, post economic, well then, then you can't 00:25:45.191 --> 00:25:48.781 really relate to how people are making a living with WordPress, like losing a. 00:25:49.376 --> 00:25:52.176 If you live somewhere and you lose your monthly website, essentially 00:25:52.186 --> 00:25:54.356 you're out of work for that month, which isn't cool at all. 00:25:54.746 --> 00:25:58.596 so yeah, this, this drama seems to be having less of a reflection 00:25:58.606 --> 00:26:02.336 right now, but, but it's definitely not fully out of the woods yet. 00:26:02.586 --> 00:26:06.206 As to the updates to WordPress, honestly, I wouldn't care if WordPress 00:26:06.206 --> 00:26:07.616 isn't getting a bit for five years. 00:26:08.141 --> 00:26:13.241 It's a stable framework with APIs and hooks and, you know, a pretty resilient, 00:26:13.301 --> 00:26:17.201 even if it gets detached as backpress or whatever it was called back in 00:26:17.201 --> 00:26:19.231 the day, there's the core product. 00:26:19.511 --> 00:26:21.631 There are 50, 000 extensions. 00:26:21.671 --> 00:26:24.021 There are several core teams that you can use and you can build. 00:26:24.551 --> 00:26:28.251 insanely powerful and stable products without having to deal 00:26:28.251 --> 00:26:29.211 with like a core development. 00:26:29.311 --> 00:26:34.881 And that's with all my due respect to the core contributors working on rest API and 00:26:34.891 --> 00:26:36.201 like everything else they're working on. 00:26:36.441 --> 00:26:37.071 It's great. 00:26:37.091 --> 00:26:37.861 It's really helpful. 00:26:37.871 --> 00:26:38.681 Thank you for that. 00:26:38.931 --> 00:26:43.211 But the core product has been stable for like six to eight to 10 years. 00:26:44.041 --> 00:26:45.701 It, it hasn't, it. 00:26:46.226 --> 00:26:49.706 There are very few gradual improvements out there if you don't account for 00:26:49.706 --> 00:26:52.866 Gutenberg, which I still believe is in its infancy, honestly. 00:26:53.476 --> 00:26:57.646 And all of that could have been built as a plugin just as it is right now. 00:26:57.776 --> 00:26:58.476 So, yeah. 00:26:58.476 --> 00:27:04.071 Yeah. 00:27:04.171 --> 00:27:06.191 Matt: this as concise and on point as possible. 00:27:06.351 --> 00:27:09.071 There's obviously a lot of noise, like, there are people who don't want 00:27:09.071 --> 00:27:10.681 you to use WordPress at all anymore. 00:27:10.891 --> 00:27:14.081 there are people who don't want any kind of like, you know, I don't 00:27:14.081 --> 00:27:16.801 know, good, good vibes is the only phrase I can come up with right now. 00:27:16.801 --> 00:27:18.801 Like, people don't want you to be nice to automaticians, 00:27:18.821 --> 00:27:19.911 which I think is ridiculous. 00:27:20.301 --> 00:27:24.191 People are talking about forks of WordPress, which, fine, that's great, 00:27:24.221 --> 00:27:28.591 but You know, show it to me like when you have it, you know, and I'll 00:27:28.591 --> 00:27:33.341 take a look at it, but it's, it's so hard to stop the machine that is open 00:27:33.341 --> 00:27:37.461 source WordPress being distributed by hundreds, if not thousands of web 00:27:37.461 --> 00:27:41.141 hosting companies across the world with so many people already invested in it. 00:27:41.936 --> 00:27:46.226 I've been saying that if we're sticking around, a vote for WordPress is a 00:27:46.226 --> 00:27:48.566 vote for Mullenweg at the same time. 00:27:48.656 --> 00:27:50.596 And that's just what we have to deal with. 00:27:50.906 --> 00:27:55.436 I've been trying to look at this as, listen, we need to take a step 00:27:55.446 --> 00:27:59.886 back from under, like, feeling like we ever had control over this. 00:27:59.886 --> 00:28:01.706 By the way, I never felt I had control over this. 00:28:02.006 --> 00:28:03.506 But I never had control over this. 00:28:03.746 --> 00:28:06.916 And you can still make a living with WordPress. 00:28:07.606 --> 00:28:10.356 You know, until he pulls like, you know, this is no longer 00:28:10.356 --> 00:28:11.716 GPL, no longer open source. 00:28:11.876 --> 00:28:14.026 Okay, we might have to scramble and figure things out. 00:28:14.286 --> 00:28:18.156 But in the meantime, even if you're not happy with the direction that it's 00:28:18.166 --> 00:28:23.356 going, you can still run a profitable agency or side hustle or freelance 00:28:23.356 --> 00:28:25.326 business leveraging this software. 00:28:25.526 --> 00:28:27.966 You just have to care less, I guess, about the direction. 00:28:28.206 --> 00:28:31.916 I don't know if that's just too crude of me to think in that, in that fashion. 00:28:32.126 --> 00:28:35.696 But I say, listen, if we have Matt, Matt is WordPress. 00:28:36.026 --> 00:28:36.636 As of now. 00:28:36.906 --> 00:28:37.596 And that's the vote. 00:28:37.606 --> 00:28:39.396 If we're sticking around, that's who we're sticking with. 00:28:39.906 --> 00:28:42.486 In other words, I'm done complaining about it. 00:28:42.616 --> 00:28:43.876 And I'm just gonna ignore it. 00:28:44.456 --> 00:28:45.056 I guess. 00:28:45.266 --> 00:28:46.366 I don't know if that's the right thinking. 00:28:46.366 --> 00:28:47.016 That's how I think. 00:28:47.016 --> 00:28:47.486 What do you think? 00:28:48.161 --> 00:28:50.391 Mario: if I have to simplify it, like if something happens to 00:28:50.391 --> 00:28:53.371 WordPress, then there's the entire rest of the ecosystem that has to 00:28:53.371 --> 00:28:54.701 decide what happens afterwards. 00:28:54.951 --> 00:28:58.501 You said the hosts, they have been the biggest, you know, advocate of WordPress. 00:28:58.521 --> 00:29:01.751 You go to a host, there's a one clicks of Taculous or Fantastic or whatever 00:29:01.751 --> 00:29:02.951 it is installed WordPress, right? 00:29:03.331 --> 00:29:05.151 So it gets you a WordPress. 00:29:05.151 --> 00:29:08.681 org version that you download and you still go to the admin and you 00:29:08.681 --> 00:29:10.211 can like add and install plugins. 00:29:10.251 --> 00:29:12.501 If you don't want, you know, you can download them from the repl. 00:29:12.511 --> 00:29:15.366 So if WordPress isn't GPO anymore, it's going to get fixed. 00:29:15.366 --> 00:29:19.266 For if the WordPress repository stops working, I don't think 00:29:19.266 --> 00:29:20.626 that even automatic, would. 00:29:21.636 --> 00:29:23.076 from that one way or another. 00:29:23.316 --> 00:29:28.286 But if that happens, the way I see that is if I have a client coming up and ask you 00:29:28.286 --> 00:29:32.686 for WordPress, I'm going to say, we have a better flavor for WordPress under hood. 00:29:32.746 --> 00:29:33.466 100%. 00:29:33.716 --> 00:29:36.296 All of your WordPress plugins are going to work with that system. 00:29:36.306 --> 00:29:37.116 A hundred percent. 00:29:37.436 --> 00:29:41.236 We can still use whatever team you like on the planet, 100%, and we can 00:29:41.236 --> 00:29:42.726 still develop it for the next decade. 00:29:42.786 --> 00:29:43.156 Right? 00:29:43.466 --> 00:29:47.186 So what I would say is eight out of 10 times, this is going to be sufficient 00:29:47.186 --> 00:29:48.516 and they won't ask for your questions. 00:29:48.896 --> 00:29:49.416 So. 00:29:49.621 --> 00:29:54.401 even though they will still come for WordPress because of 21 years of branding 00:29:54.461 --> 00:29:58.951 and tutorials and all that, even though they still want open source and like 00:29:59.081 --> 00:30:02.651 knowing that Yoast is going to work or like any of the other popular plugins 00:30:02.851 --> 00:30:06.651 like Gravity Forms or whatever they are using, they, as long as they get 00:30:06.681 --> 00:30:10.551 all of that, they're still going to be content if I tell them we have a 00:30:10.551 --> 00:30:14.941 flavor of WordPress that's just faster or is like more stable in our hosting. 00:30:15.541 --> 00:30:18.091 and, and I want to stress on that because it's, I think it's, it's 00:30:18.091 --> 00:30:20.081 not really talked about quite a lot. 00:30:20.491 --> 00:30:23.491 like, you know, even small business coming from a WordPress website, essentially 00:30:23.491 --> 00:30:27.581 they want, they may have seen Elementor, their nephew has showed them Elementor 00:30:27.581 --> 00:30:31.291 and they want to see that they have Elementor or whatever working or Bricks 00:30:31.321 --> 00:30:33.031 or Oxygen or any of the other builders. 00:30:33.041 --> 00:30:35.721 So if you can provide them with the previous version of WordPress that 00:30:35.721 --> 00:30:37.391 was stable, they'd be fine with that. 00:30:37.421 --> 00:30:40.071 Do you think they're going to care about updates over the next three years? 00:30:40.301 --> 00:30:41.971 They want to make sure they don't get hacked. 00:30:42.306 --> 00:30:46.766 As soon as you provide that by other means, which is not ongoing 00:30:46.816 --> 00:30:49.086 updates, then you're totally safe. 00:30:49.086 --> 00:30:50.956 So it's a little bit more cynical. 00:30:50.986 --> 00:30:53.576 I definitely hope that there's going to be a resolution for that. 00:30:53.576 --> 00:30:55.776 But I think the lawsuit is in like 2026. 00:30:56.256 --> 00:30:59.486 so definitely nothing coming in the next like 18 months or something. 00:31:00.816 --> 00:31:01.106 Matt: Yeah. 00:31:02.041 --> 00:31:02.311 Okay. 00:31:02.311 --> 00:31:05.221 Let's talk about the other thing that's gonna end the world, ai, 00:31:05.561 --> 00:31:07.151 and like where you stand on that. 00:31:07.151 --> 00:31:08.891 I'm really interested to get your opinions on that. 00:31:09.071 --> 00:31:12.221 I wanna start with the marketing side first before we start, before 00:31:12.221 --> 00:31:16.351 we talk about the development and, how it might impact WordPress as 00:31:16.351 --> 00:31:18.661 a, as a CMS in, in the, in whole. 00:31:18.961 --> 00:31:21.881 I was talking to another agency owner, the, the other day, respect him a lot. 00:31:22.171 --> 00:31:25.921 and he was saying like, man, this AI stuff, I can. 00:31:26.286 --> 00:31:30.416 Like I can replace an entire marketing team, with what I'm seeing and I'm kind 00:31:30.416 --> 00:31:36.896 of like worried, but excited also for, for the future inherently as a marketing 00:31:36.896 --> 00:31:40.596 person myself, who's always put my face and my voice out into the world. 00:31:40.596 --> 00:31:42.366 Like I have some bias against that. 00:31:42.366 --> 00:31:45.466 Like I think humans will want to interact with other humans. 00:31:45.816 --> 00:31:49.656 Maybe some base level blogging stuff gets replaced, but how do you get. 00:31:50.001 --> 00:31:53.661 How do you extract the human out of like human connections and emotions? 00:31:54.201 --> 00:31:55.441 I'm not too sure about that. 00:31:55.441 --> 00:31:59.081 So starting with marketing first and particularly maybe for like your agency 00:31:59.081 --> 00:32:03.981 or maybe for your clients Where do you see AI impacting that over the next year? 00:32:04.001 --> 00:32:07.591 I'm not even asking you to predict five years Go ahead if you'd 00:32:07.776 --> 00:32:12.976 Mario: so first up, the, I do have like a, an open role for account 00:32:12.986 --> 00:32:16.376 management here, but I have probably three open marketing roles here. 00:32:17.166 --> 00:32:18.966 so I just want to stay that pretty clear. 00:32:19.016 --> 00:32:20.066 we use AI. 00:32:20.926 --> 00:32:21.846 Intensely. 00:32:22.026 --> 00:32:24.036 And we've been doing that for a while now. 00:32:24.326 --> 00:32:27.506 by the way, you know, AI is a buzzword when we are talking about the effort. 00:32:27.516 --> 00:32:30.886 Most part of people mean wrappers around chat GPT or cloud or Gemini. 00:32:31.306 --> 00:32:35.176 first on that front, we've been integrating open AI for ever since 00:32:35.176 --> 00:32:38.726 2020 for product descriptions, for e commerce and lots of other things. 00:32:38.736 --> 00:32:42.676 Before that chat GPT was out there, we've been building machine learning since 2013. 00:32:43.436 --> 00:32:44.016 So we've done. 00:32:44.071 --> 00:32:47.031 so we've been around the block for a while and I'm actually looking 00:32:47.031 --> 00:32:48.251 for more marketing people right now. 00:32:48.381 --> 00:32:51.021 So marketing is far from that. 00:32:51.071 --> 00:32:52.551 and again, want to stress on that. 00:32:52.931 --> 00:32:56.231 the, the second thing is, and I talk about that. 00:32:56.336 --> 00:33:00.046 pretty much every week in my, newsletter, by the way, cause this is kind of one of 00:33:00.046 --> 00:33:03.426 the topics of the day, you know, Chinese AI models and digital transformation 00:33:03.426 --> 00:33:07.156 and go to market channels and like it's inbound dying, like all that, because 00:33:07.156 --> 00:33:09.796 it's pretty volatile and that's what happens to be the topic of the day, but 00:33:10.066 --> 00:33:13.806 literally, one of my common questions, questions I'm discussing, but, to kind 00:33:13.806 --> 00:33:21.756 of sum it up the problem with AI and marketing is that the marketing is. 00:33:22.171 --> 00:33:27.451 Spread across multiple channels, which is again, SEO, paid ads, you know, video 00:33:27.451 --> 00:33:30.591 content, like a few other channels, you know, depending on what you use, 00:33:30.591 --> 00:33:35.331 like Reddit or whatever it is, and it's very, very easy to oversaturate these 00:33:35.331 --> 00:33:38.801 channels, meaning that whenever you discover a video that's doing an AI 00:33:38.841 --> 00:33:44.271 avatar, or whenever you discover a channel that's building viral LinkedIn copy 00:33:44.271 --> 00:33:49.371 or X copy, it means that in two weeks, 50, 000 people are going to use that. 00:33:50.451 --> 00:33:53.511 two months, Half a million people are going to use that. 00:33:53.581 --> 00:33:57.031 So your entire feed is going to be quittered with that, and it's 00:33:57.031 --> 00:33:58.311 no longer going to be effective. 00:33:59.031 --> 00:34:03.751 And I can understand the use of AI for operational efficiency internally, right? 00:34:03.961 --> 00:34:09.431 Every company can upgrade its operational efficiency, use more tools for research, 00:34:09.431 --> 00:34:13.181 for building business plans, for wrapping up proposals, for summarizing emails. 00:34:13.511 --> 00:34:14.741 This one is here to stay. 00:34:14.771 --> 00:34:19.521 But when it comes to marketing, using role marketing right now out 00:34:19.521 --> 00:34:23.011 there, it's more likely going to embarrass you than serve you good. 00:34:23.451 --> 00:34:28.541 If not, that's probably a problem for your existing team being not skilled 00:34:28.541 --> 00:34:32.511 enough, underpaid, outsourced to, you know, areas that don't really speak 00:34:32.511 --> 00:34:35.471 English well, that don't understand marketing, that don't understand your ICP. 00:34:36.041 --> 00:34:40.541 And if AI is doing better, then there's probably a down 00:34:40.541 --> 00:34:42.581 skilled problem with your team. 00:34:42.851 --> 00:34:44.331 But AI is not the solution. 00:34:44.341 --> 00:34:45.701 It's not solving your problems. 00:34:45.721 --> 00:34:48.151 It's something that gets sunset pretty quickly. 00:34:48.151 --> 00:34:52.191 It's something that gets recognized a mile away and is very far away 00:34:52.191 --> 00:34:55.801 from the quality that you want to have to actually do something. 00:34:56.011 --> 00:34:59.041 I can't use raw AI to write content. 00:34:59.391 --> 00:35:02.591 Build landing pages, write my social posts or anything like that. 00:35:02.621 --> 00:35:07.301 Nothing that doesn't take a lot of editing or just patching things together. 00:35:07.481 --> 00:35:10.781 Even if I feed an agent with my own thoughts and my book and my 00:35:10.781 --> 00:35:14.331 blog, it requires a lot of work to actually make it work properly. 00:35:14.331 --> 00:35:15.191 Like, I kid you not. 00:35:15.511 --> 00:35:17.821 so this one is vastly kind of overrated. 00:35:18.081 --> 00:35:21.381 And on the technical, on the technical front, it's definitely a problem. 00:35:21.751 --> 00:35:26.511 simply because the prototyping part is shortened quite a lot. 00:35:27.206 --> 00:35:32.696 So, a while back we, we discussed HubSpot as people with HubSpot have 00:35:32.696 --> 00:35:35.756 money and people with WordPress are more likely looking for something 00:35:35.756 --> 00:35:36.876 that's low in budget, right? 00:35:37.306 --> 00:35:41.226 So the reason is when you get 90 percent of your feature set with WordPress for 00:35:41.226 --> 00:35:45.256 free, getting the other 10 percent is really hard to justify as prioritize. 00:35:45.696 --> 00:35:49.776 Really, really, really hard when you pay 10 grand a year for HubSpot and then 00:35:49.856 --> 00:35:53.906 adding some bells and whistles It makes more sense to pay for custom development 00:35:53.906 --> 00:35:57.376 and spend another 20 30 grand on other things But WordPress this is kind of the 00:35:57.376 --> 00:36:02.686 gap and right now what we have is Someone building a prototype with bold or cursor 00:36:02.686 --> 00:36:07.526 or v0 or something else and they say look what I did in like five hours So you 00:36:07.526 --> 00:36:09.846 just put it in the WordPress And build 00:36:09.981 --> 00:36:12.551 Matt: talking about me, ladies and gentlemen, he's talking about me, but 00:36:13.596 --> 00:36:16.196 Mario: Yeah, but, but, to give you an example, like, I actually have a 00:36:16.196 --> 00:36:20.136 video in my channel from, like, last March or so, and I said, here's an 00:36:20.136 --> 00:36:24.526 ICP kind of proof of concept tool that I built here in an hour, right? 00:36:24.526 --> 00:36:27.326 So I'm breaking down how you do that with Cursor or, or something. 00:36:27.366 --> 00:36:30.336 And, and, there's a prototype, there's like a stupid one 00:36:30.336 --> 00:36:31.566 pager that I can use myself. 00:36:31.881 --> 00:36:34.401 Then I assigned it to my team and we started building that and it 00:36:34.401 --> 00:36:36.511 took like five months building that into an actual product. 00:36:36.911 --> 00:36:38.221 And it's not a skill issue. 00:36:38.261 --> 00:36:40.351 It's look, we need proper login management. 00:36:40.351 --> 00:36:42.631 We need a proper database to store these. 00:36:42.801 --> 00:36:45.271 We need a cron job to pull the data every single week. 00:36:45.581 --> 00:36:46.981 We need to enrich with this. 00:36:46.981 --> 00:36:48.031 We need to scrape LinkedIn. 00:36:48.031 --> 00:36:48.971 We need to do this. 00:36:49.191 --> 00:36:52.261 And the actual product has nothing to do with the prototype. 00:36:52.591 --> 00:36:53.911 It looks similar. 00:36:54.286 --> 00:36:56.226 But it's a properly fully fledged product. 00:36:56.276 --> 00:36:59.706 So the problem with AI is clients are building something and they say, look, 00:36:59.706 --> 00:37:01.126 how easy it is to build it myself. 00:37:01.326 --> 00:37:05.106 And then it's the gap to pay for an actual product that gets 00:37:05.106 --> 00:37:06.546 lots of discussions nowadays. 00:37:06.556 --> 00:37:09.466 So this is a bridge we need to start crossing. 00:37:09.466 --> 00:37:13.036 And this year is going to be about that setting expectations of this is 00:37:13.046 --> 00:37:17.436 what you get with cursor, but it's not a product you can launch out there. 00:37:17.661 --> 00:37:20.591 It's not a SaaS that you can release out there in the public. 00:37:20.591 --> 00:37:22.081 It's just going to be a GPT wrapper. 00:37:22.301 --> 00:37:23.401 You need a lot more value. 00:37:23.421 --> 00:37:24.721 You need a data mode. 00:37:24.721 --> 00:37:25.571 You need research. 00:37:25.571 --> 00:37:26.781 You need, that's the one thing. 00:37:26.791 --> 00:37:31.291 And the second thing is due to that, there are over a hundred SaaS apps 00:37:31.291 --> 00:37:33.211 launched on Product Hunt every single day. 00:37:33.891 --> 00:37:37.281 So go to market is just becoming 10x more expensive. 00:37:37.291 --> 00:37:41.011 So even if you build it, your marketing is going to be 10x more expensive 00:37:41.131 --> 00:37:42.651 and AI is not going to cut that. 00:37:44.121 --> 00:37:48.641 Matt: Yeah, on the technical, I've seen this argument, where people say, well, 00:37:48.641 --> 00:37:51.641 look, and I had a good conversation with my brother who's like deeply in 00:37:51.641 --> 00:37:56.351 the stuff, but more on the finance side where the argument was, well, now we're 00:37:56.351 --> 00:38:01.911 going to see just many more individual like million dollar SAS businesses. 00:38:02.301 --> 00:38:05.291 because of this stuff, like individual million dollar SaaS businesses. 00:38:05.681 --> 00:38:08.711 I, I have a problem wrapping my arms around that because if you're saying it's 00:38:08.711 --> 00:38:12.961 so easy for, for somebody to spin up a million dollar SaaS business, then it's 00:38:12.961 --> 00:38:16.091 gonna be so easy to spin up a million dollar SaaS business for everyone, 00:38:16.091 --> 00:38:17.531 not just a lucky few that can do it. 00:38:17.781 --> 00:38:21.061 So I have a hard problem wrapping my, my hands around that because I just feel like 00:38:21.061 --> 00:38:25.041 it's either just gonna go from a million for the first year and then 500, 000 00:38:25.041 --> 00:38:29.021 the next year, then 250 the third year, because everyone's gonna be doing it. 00:38:29.416 --> 00:38:35.766 Or, these big businesses, like Chad GPT, Gemini, Claude, Facebook, Microsoft, 00:38:35.766 --> 00:38:39.426 like, they're gonna just build the tool, they're gonna build a solution that 00:38:39.426 --> 00:38:44.036 does whatever these little stagnant million dollar SaaS businesses are doing, 00:38:44.036 --> 00:38:46.096 like, in my opinion, through native AI. 00:38:46.946 --> 00:38:50.126 not a direct question, but just like a thread of thought that I saw through, 00:38:50.356 --> 00:38:51.776 like, through Twitter feedback. 00:38:51.981 --> 00:38:54.371 Mario: I have a few of these people in my circle. 00:38:54.371 --> 00:38:58.711 I'm also part of 30 different communities, some of them by very 00:38:58.721 --> 00:39:02.981 highly esteemed, you know, gurus in soberneurship and AI and all that stuff. 00:39:03.041 --> 00:39:06.711 so I've been reading all that, you know, breaking news, many AI, seven 00:39:06.711 --> 00:39:07.551 figure businesses and all that. 00:39:07.941 --> 00:39:10.361 So on the two schools of thought. 00:39:11.506 --> 00:39:12.806 Yes, it is possible. 00:39:13.036 --> 00:39:15.536 and the reason it's possible is not because you're going 00:39:15.536 --> 00:39:16.596 to build the next cursor. 00:39:17.096 --> 00:39:20.646 It's because there's still lots of untapped niches that 00:39:20.666 --> 00:39:22.556 you can now tap into yourself. 00:39:22.556 --> 00:39:27.776 And I'm talking about, I'm talking about, Dali and, and 00:39:27.916 --> 00:39:29.016 that's a very morbid example. 00:39:29.016 --> 00:39:29.606 I'm sorry about that. 00:39:29.616 --> 00:39:36.426 But like, Dali integrated AI SaaS to, for, for funeral homes. 00:39:36.961 --> 00:39:37.411 Right. 00:39:37.771 --> 00:39:39.211 It's a pretty nasty space. 00:39:39.211 --> 00:39:42.521 Nobody wants to touch that, but like, imagine providing a tool for them 00:39:42.521 --> 00:39:46.781 to set up and like, do like the, the casket type of thing with this, right? 00:39:46.811 --> 00:39:47.851 Horrible example, right? 00:39:48.181 --> 00:39:51.331 Not a niche that most people, not a niche that most people want to get 00:39:51.331 --> 00:39:54.131 into, but like, if you go there, probably it wouldn't be too tempting 00:39:54.131 --> 00:39:55.706 for others to just disrupt you. 00:39:55.706 --> 00:39:56.031 Right. 00:39:56.271 --> 00:40:00.411 It's not large enough to make a hundred million dollars and it's not funny 00:40:00.411 --> 00:40:02.381 enough to be worth disrupting you. 00:40:02.381 --> 00:40:02.721 Right. 00:40:02.991 --> 00:40:05.451 And there are lots of, especially for traditional work, like. 00:40:06.371 --> 00:40:08.241 plumbers, roofing services. 00:40:08.251 --> 00:40:13.411 A lot of those traditional services may get small micro AI tools that 00:40:13.421 --> 00:40:17.291 help and get a thousand clients paying a hundred bucks a month. 00:40:17.291 --> 00:40:19.341 And there you have it, a seven figure business. 00:40:19.601 --> 00:40:23.131 this one is possible and we're probably going to see more of 00:40:23.131 --> 00:40:25.061 these niches tapped out there. 00:40:25.321 --> 00:40:27.311 However, any niche that's. 00:40:27.871 --> 00:40:32.051 that's cool and is trending and is surprising and has like a vivid active 00:40:32.051 --> 00:40:35.011 community, especially a community that's online and just tracking the news 00:40:35.281 --> 00:40:36.751 is going to be very easy to disrupt. 00:40:36.751 --> 00:40:38.231 And we're going to see the race to the bottom. 00:40:38.551 --> 00:40:43.331 Everyone like a 13 years old teenager is going to set something up and make 00:40:43.331 --> 00:40:47.561 it a freemium with donations and going to completely wipe out the space or. 00:40:47.886 --> 00:40:51.366 You know, a solopreneur with an exit of like 10 million dollars is just 00:40:51.396 --> 00:40:54.466 going to do it for fun and then going to sell the data in a different way. 00:40:54.466 --> 00:40:56.516 So it's, it's going to be a different kind of premium model. 00:40:56.536 --> 00:41:00.136 So a lot of that disruption is going to go because product is no longer remote. 00:41:00.726 --> 00:41:04.746 Back in the day, it was because you need money and capital to hire expensive 00:41:04.746 --> 00:41:06.276 engineers to build something complex. 00:41:06.296 --> 00:41:11.286 And it's a mode when product is not a mode, there are different skills and 00:41:11.286 --> 00:41:15.376 different ways to distribute your budget to go there, contacts, relationships, 00:41:15.406 --> 00:41:19.206 going to events, field sales, and a lot of the other buckets that most 00:41:19.206 --> 00:41:20.366 people are not really caring for. 00:41:20.666 --> 00:41:22.256 AI. 00:41:22.386 --> 00:41:27.776 Everyone is fighting for a very tiny slice of the pie, which is. 00:41:28.321 --> 00:41:31.941 Mostly, by the way, geeks like you and I, who spend a lot of time 00:41:31.941 --> 00:41:33.671 on social and read these news. 00:41:34.241 --> 00:41:38.071 but the vast majority of the people, yeah, real estate agents, or like just 00:41:38.251 --> 00:41:42.501 traditional services, hunters, gatherers, and like all the other people who are 00:41:42.501 --> 00:41:45.391 not even online, they don't care about that, they don't follow the news, 00:41:45.391 --> 00:41:48.571 they don't go on product hunt, and you need to actually do the footwork to, 00:41:48.571 --> 00:41:49.991 door to door sales to make it happen. 00:41:51.441 --> 00:41:55.341 Matt: yeah, yeah, I'm actually holding, an in person, AI workshop next week here in 00:41:55.341 --> 00:41:57.511 my co working space for small businesses. 00:41:57.561 --> 00:42:01.831 And it is literally like, I, I have no agenda, I'm not trying to 00:42:01.841 --> 00:42:05.331 sell them anything, I don't have an agency anymore, I just want to talk. 00:42:05.496 --> 00:42:10.466 to, to small businesses and just see and hear have you heard about this 00:42:10.466 --> 00:42:14.726 stuff or am I just living in this, this bubble on my Twitter sphere? 00:42:14.966 --> 00:42:16.606 Like, is it really impacting you? 00:42:16.636 --> 00:42:18.016 Are you really thinking about it? 00:42:18.026 --> 00:42:19.356 Have you seen what it can do? 00:42:19.586 --> 00:42:22.586 You know, show off some examples and stuff, but I, you know, I'm just only six 00:42:22.586 --> 00:42:26.556 months ahead of anybody who just needs to sink their teeth into it and just learn 00:42:26.556 --> 00:42:28.056 like I'm doing and just start using it. 00:42:28.306 --> 00:42:29.206 so I think it's very important. 00:42:29.466 --> 00:42:32.246 You know, keep our ears and boots on the ground for this kind of stuff. 00:42:32.256 --> 00:42:34.986 Because yeah, I think sometimes we're just living in this, algo and it's 00:42:34.986 --> 00:42:38.416 just telling us, you know, what, what we want to hear half the time. 00:42:39.206 --> 00:42:40.226 Mario, this is fair. 00:42:40.256 --> 00:42:40.506 Go ahead. 00:42:40.571 --> 00:42:43.431 Mario: there's, all I was going to say is there's a lot 00:42:43.431 --> 00:42:45.341 of the brand value is rising. 00:42:45.741 --> 00:42:48.531 And a lot of the free content and free resources we are seeing 00:42:48.541 --> 00:42:52.471 that are high quality are going behind walled gardens right now. 00:42:52.541 --> 00:42:53.761 I want to make it crystal clear. 00:42:54.061 --> 00:42:58.571 Almost all of my executive friends who are public online are pretty pissed with chat 00:42:58.571 --> 00:43:02.271 GPT scraping their stuff or other people launching AI avatars with their content. 00:43:02.521 --> 00:43:06.371 So they move to sub stacks to pay it's like communities to other places. 00:43:06.611 --> 00:43:07.491 I myself am. 00:43:07.711 --> 00:43:10.871 Kind of partially doing the same, and we're going to see that the high 00:43:10.871 --> 00:43:14.131 quality content is not no longer going to be open and available. 00:43:14.371 --> 00:43:18.491 And you'll see that a lot of the secret sauce of great SaaS is going to be 00:43:18.491 --> 00:43:22.751 paid, maybe even expensive or invite only, just because of that, rapid 00:43:22.751 --> 00:43:25.751 acceleration of everyone can launch something and the space is crowded 00:43:25.751 --> 00:43:29.321 and you need a verification batch in what works and what's available now. 00:43:30.921 --> 00:43:33.541 Matt: Yeah, that's actually a quick bonus round. 00:43:33.551 --> 00:43:35.791 Like, I think that was, I've been thinking about that too. 00:43:35.791 --> 00:43:39.821 Like, WordPress is a great platform to house all of your content, but 00:43:40.221 --> 00:43:41.481 we need to shut it off, right? 00:43:41.491 --> 00:43:47.061 At, you know, Google stole from us, AI stole from Google, so like we, 00:43:47.161 --> 00:43:48.431 we just keep getting stolen from. 00:43:48.601 --> 00:43:51.691 And I just want to say like, you know, let's put our content in 00:43:51.691 --> 00:43:55.841 something like WordPress and that's why I still have this, Desire to 00:43:55.841 --> 00:43:59.361 see WordPress succeed regardless of what's happening at leadership level. 00:43:59.391 --> 00:44:04.171 And I still think it's a great open source publishing platform and I want 00:44:04.171 --> 00:44:06.111 to see that continue to have like. 00:44:06.806 --> 00:44:07.456 A database. 00:44:07.496 --> 00:44:11.756 It's a database of our content, and it, you know, we can grant access in and out. 00:44:11.756 --> 00:44:14.796 So anyway, Mario has been fantastic. 00:44:14.796 --> 00:44:18.496 I want to have you back at the end of the year so we can see, what 00:44:18.496 --> 00:44:20.296 we're doing because, I always love. 00:44:20.351 --> 00:44:22.311 Talking to you, derick.com. 00:44:22.311 --> 00:44:26.001 DEVI, D-E-V-R-I x.com. 00:44:26.001 --> 00:44:26.991 dericks.com. 00:44:27.201 --> 00:44:28.491 You have a team picture there. 00:44:28.491 --> 00:44:31.281 The team is about 10 times larger than the last time. 00:44:31.591 --> 00:44:33.361 we interviewed each, or I interviewed you. 00:44:33.701 --> 00:44:34.151 check it out. 00:44:34.151 --> 00:44:34.901 dericks.com. 00:44:35.021 --> 00:44:36.521 Where else do you want folks to go? 00:44:36.571 --> 00:44:37.621 you have YouTube channel. 00:44:37.621 --> 00:44:38.821 I know you have your book. 00:44:38.821 --> 00:44:39.541 Where else can go? 00:44:39.611 --> 00:44:40.346 folks go to say, thanks. 00:44:40.741 --> 00:44:43.311 Mario: well, I know my website is mariopeshev. 00:44:43.351 --> 00:44:43.691 com. 00:44:43.711 --> 00:44:44.911 It's pretty trivial. 00:44:44.941 --> 00:44:46.141 My, first name, last name. 00:44:46.281 --> 00:44:46.601 com. 00:44:46.851 --> 00:44:48.671 and I'm hosting all my others still there. 00:44:48.701 --> 00:44:51.911 I do, my newsletter is where I spend the most time nowadays. 00:44:51.911 --> 00:44:53.021 Honestly, it's weekly. 00:44:53.061 --> 00:44:55.631 and you can subscribe there from insidergrocer. 00:44:55.661 --> 00:44:56.001 com. 00:44:56.371 --> 00:44:59.581 But, yeah, it, it happens to be the place where I can gather a lot of data 00:44:59.581 --> 00:45:01.491 and not rely on SEO distributing it. 00:45:01.961 --> 00:45:05.801 Or LinkedIn showing it up because of our great like if you sign up you get 00:45:05.801 --> 00:45:08.881 it every single week and i'm talking about Most of what we discuss here, 00:45:08.991 --> 00:45:12.441 AI stuff digital transformation go to market channels Whether there's 00:45:12.451 --> 00:45:14.081 money in the b2b economy and all that. 00:45:14.081 --> 00:45:16.051 So this is probably the best place to go to today