Matt: Hey Robert, welcome to the WP Minute.
Robert: you for having me.
Matt: I remember you many years ago.
I believe you started, which is still probably existing today, so
definitely, fill us in, color in the lines as I loosely draw them on
this canvas of Robert DeVore, you started a cannabis plugin, correct?
And, or a theme collection.
Take us down that road.
I think I want to frame this conversation around like where you started with that.
Fast forward to where you are today, doing all things AI, and then somewhere
in the middle, break down like, wow, what a difference 20 years makes.
Robert: Yeah.
So when I started in like 2015, I started saying, okay, I'm going to
do something on social media and like try to build a web presence.
And I came out and I said, okay, I got to start building things and
giving back and having something to share with the community.
And it was, that was the first thing I thought of.
It was nothing really out there at the time.
It was like 2015.
So there wasn't really nothing.
It wasn't the industry that it is today.
So I said, okay, I'm going to go ahead and do this.
And I built what is a very Cheap looking plugin compared to where it ended up,
but I built the first version of it and just got it out there and it took
off and there was a lot of companies that were using it and they liked it.
And then I got, well, for the nowadays terms, it's called
debanked, but I got debanked so I couldn't process payments anymore.
And that just, it killed all progress with it.
I've been having it on the back burner, still kind of doing little things
here and there to it and upgrading it, but it's just kind of sitting and
waiting now for federal legalization.
And then I got tired of.
Waiting for that and making that be the one thing I wanted to do.
So I started looking at other areas to focus on.
And over the years, I'm ending up in the AI world now and
doing a lot more with that.
So it's faster paced and there's no regulations like in the cannabis industry.
So it's a little bit easier to move and just build and create things that way.
Yeah.
Matt: lens, 2015, cannabis getting, I don't know all the terminology,
so you definitely feel it in here, but, like, I know I'm in the state of
Massachusetts, it's now legal here, there are dispensaries here, I'm sure
neighboring states as well, 2015, it was sort of, probably when, what I'll
call, maybe not commercial dispensaries, but, like, dispensaries for the
everyday person, to walk in and buy it recreationally, is probably the right
term, and from the business side, did you say, well, here's an opportunity,
Like, let me get in, let me get in early, but we're still waiting a decade
later for this federal, adoption of it.
take us down that entrepreneurial path, like what did you think?
Like, did you think, I can get in early and start building this and then lots
of shops will start using my plugin?
Take us
Robert: that was my plan.
It was, I want to do something.
I wanted it to be open source first.
So that way, because there was nothing out there and still, I think there's
still nothing really out there like that.
So I wanted to have that and do something different like
that and be able to give back.
You can use the products without having to pay me anything.
You can just go set them up.
That was a big thing for me in the beginning, but I knew that there was a
need for it and there was a lot of these.
Bigger, like everything was way more connected and you had to jump through
a lot of different hoops to be able to set everything up and use the
different point of sale services, which were not really web based, they
didn't have a web presence for you.
So you were trying to kind of blend that back into your website and
nothing was really working right.
So I wanted to have something different and I could see that
there was an opening for it.
So I went with it and it was working really well.
And if it wasn't for the debanking, I probably wouldn't be talking about
AI today, it would be something, you know, it'd still be the cannabis
industry because I would still be.
In it and focused on it, but yeah, it was just, it was a big opportunity.
I still think there's a lot of opportunity in it.
It's just a matter of waiting for the federal legal legalization.
And then if you're willing to jump through like a thousand different
hoops and just to get everything off the ground, then it's still viable,
but you got to have, from what I'm gathering, you're going to have more
money up front now to jump in and play.
It's not as open as it was 10 years ago.
Matt: Can we talk about this debanking thing really quick?
Is this, or is this a sore subject?
Robert: by me.
I'm an open book, so, yeah.
Matt: All right.
So, so we, so, you know, again, in, in my place, I know, there's like
four or five, dispensaries around me, how are they getting through it?
Or is it just because you're like a digital good?
You can't accept that like credit card online, or are they not allowed
to accept credit cards online?
debanking?
Robert: no credit card payment processing that you can do online.
I've seen some dispensaries now they have like a debit card, custom debit
cards you can use and pre populate it with money and then use that card.
So you're kind of bypassing it, but that's gray area.
And I don't really want to dance in that area.
So I went, okay, I'll stick to what I know.
And then they said, well, you know, I was using Stripe at the time
and Stripe said, we can't do this.
I said, well, it's just software.
I'm not touching the product.
There's nothing actually going on with the product.
Self, but they said, just because I'm a, connected business, that's helping
facilitate the sale or the pre sale of these products, that, that was enough
for them to say, we can't have you here.
And then it was just, you could find a place here and there that does like high
risk payment processing, but there's a lot more hoops and a lot more stuff
that you got to jump through for that.
So it became more of a headache than the fun, exciting project that
I was working on in the beginning.
So I kind of just, I've just been letting it sit there for that reason.
Matt: It's interesting.
it's a bout of bad luck, of course, right?
Because, you know, you are ahead of, ahead of the curve.
did the thought of ever just like, I don't know, you know, picking the
state that has like the most, locations or a collection of states with the
most locations and maybe trying to just work with those customers more
directly ever crossed your mind?
Or is that just like way too much work and like, Hey, I can't really scale
Robert: we have a lot in Michigan.
There's a ton of dispensaries here.
We're like, I think second or third to California or something,
somewhere right around there.
We're pushing, like trying to take over the number one spot,
but it's still, it's way too much.
There's a lot going on.
And then the dispensaries themselves have all their paperwork and legal
stuff they have to go through.
So they're not going to be able to just kind of skirt on the outsides of things.
And I don't want to push them into that direction and have them doing something
that they're not going to be happy with in the six months they're upset.
So it's just a lot of like, Sitting on your hands and just waiting now.
Matt: How much of that I've always said this, I don't want, I'm not going to,
I don't want to throw the label like failure on that, cause that's not, it's
cause it's not, but I've always said like the biggest lessons are from like
the failures or the roadblocks or the speed bumps, like whatever, however
you want to like paint that picture.
What lessons did you pull from that, that you then like sort of reinvested in these
next projects that you started to build?
Robert: From a technical standpoint, I learned a lot building that.
And just because I started with the custom post types and I realized
that wasn't the structure I needed.
I did a lot of things in the very beginning that if I was to go back
and restart now, I would never do it.
It's some, I'm on a whole different structure and setup.
So I learned a lot technically from that.
And then from like.
The business standpoint, it was a big lesson.
I said, okay, well, I might have a smart idea.
I might have something that I can dive in.
And I know in my heart that this is the right thing to do, but the industry
just said, no, you're not in the right place, not in the right time.
You're going to have to wait on that.
And while I look at it and I'm still going, you know,
There's nothing wrong with this.
This makes no sense to me.
I have to accept what's actually out there and I got to work within the constraints
of whatever industry that I'm in.
So now when I'm jumping into different spots and I'm looking around in different
industries, I'm more cautious of that.
I don't just jump in thinking my idea is good and I know it's good.
So I'm going to go ahead and run with it.
Now.
I know there's a little bit more pre planning and thought
process that goes into it.
Matt: over the last few weeks, or months, and this is why, well, not
the only reason why we connected.
I definitely have, you know, known you and we've, interacted
for, you know, many years.
but I've seen just like this rapid pace.
Of new Robert products every three days, every 72 hours.
there's something new coming out.
and I want to get to all that.
You can find all of Robert's work.
It'll be in the show notes, but it'll be robertdevore.
com.
You can check out all of the projects that we're going to get into, in a moment.
one of the ones that I saw that was just interesting to me that I saw
you, I think you took it over, but you explain it, or maybe you built it
from scratch is Boostbox, the pop up builder, for core editor in WordPress.
Again, it's on the site.
talk to me about Boostbox.
I, did you acquire that?
Was that from somebody
Robert: no, that was something I built.
Yeah.
I just.
Matt: And the backstory there was like you were trying, some popups
and popup builders and you're like, they're all terrible and you
just decided to do it your way.
Was that the first product?
Sorry.
And then also, was this the first product that like thrust you into
making a ton of other products?
Robert: I think I've always built stuff.
Like I built client stuff.
I built stuff for myself.
I've built, you know, just a little bit here and I'm always doing something.
I'm not content just sitting still.
So that wasn't the first one.
It was just, I looked and realized that there's a lot of stuff going on.
Everyone's talking about the core editor and you know,
how we should be adopting it.
So I went, okay, what else can we do with it?
That's, you know, different and pop ups just seem like a simple thing to.
To work with and okay, this makes sense because everybody needs pop ups and I
won't say every pop up builders, you know, terrible trash It's not that it's
just I thought there was a better way a new way a more modern way And if we're
all jumping into the core editor, this would be a cool way to do it And I wanted
to test my skills and see if I could do something like that While building, I
ran into a couple roadblocks with how to output the block content in the actual
pop up and learned a few things there.
So it was a learning process as well as just another fun thing to build.
That was one, I think I built that like a year and a half ago originally.
So it's been out there for a while and not really necessary, the catalyst that
jump started all the other products.
It was just another one of the many that I have out there.
Matt: WordPress for rapid development and building these products.
How have you approached, like, so I'm just looking at the velocity of stuff
that, that you're, shipping things, which is amazing, how are you sort of, what's
your litmus test for saying like, okay, people want this, cause you're, you are
shipping a lot, are you getting it into the hands of people and you're gathering
feedback, how has that all played out for you and like marketing these products?
I struggled enough with like, Podcast that I do like market them
and say, God, how do I grow this?
How do I grow the email list?
So take me down the path, like master plan for all the stuff.
How do you ship it?
Get it into the person's hands, get feedback and build the next.
Robert: originally like, okay, so in like it was November, I started
really rapidly pushing stuff out and I didn't really have a plan.
It just kind of happened.
I'd build one and I go, okay, that's good.
And then I'd spark another idea from that one.
And I'd start working on that and it would come together
quicker than the first one did.
And then next thing I'm okay.
Now I got like four or five of them.
And I had like six or seven at one time where I'm just sitting
there looking at him going, what am I going to do with all these?
Because I can like, plan out like a big release for each.
And some of them are bigger plugins.
Some of them are more like utility.
You're going to get one use out of them or need them for like 10
minutes and then turn them off.
So I just, I knew, okay, I'll just start releasing them.
And if I'm going to use them for myself and I know other people could
probably get some use out of them.
There's going to be somebody that's going to like this plugin, someone
that's going to like that plugin.
And I'll just put them out there and see what happens.
And I didn't really have like a marketing channel.
I put them out on Twitter.
blog on my blog about them, put out release notes about each new one,
I'd go ahead and tweet about it.
And that was really like the general, the end of it.
I was just, I use Twitter a lot for that, just to push the stuff out
there and let people know that there was something new happening and
interacting with people on Twitter, because I feel like you could do a blog.
And if you're a developer, you could have a blog where people can comment
on, but there's like a disconnect a little bit because there's no
real time conversation happening.
So I try to keep Twitter as like the one space where I'm going to go ahead
and I'll be active and I used that and it worked out well because a lot
of people ask questions or someone would say, Hey, what if it did this?
And I'd go, yeah, that's a great idea.
And I'd put it in there real quick.
And then I'd move on to the next one.
And I didn't, again, I didn't really have a big plan.
There was no like structure at the beginning.
Like I'm going to release 26 plugins and these three are going to be the big ones.
And I'm learning now, actually, seeing which ones are catching the most
attention and which ones actually have the most value, like, long term.
So I'm starting to see, like, okay, these five will be the ones
I spend more time on than others.
But there was no real marketing in the beginning, other than just
putting it out there, getting the stuff out there to people.
Yeah.
Matt: for WordPress, which just seems like.
My head blows up, like how, you know, it's such a massive and
competitive space, number one, from like a business perspective.
And then just I think of like all the options and all the things of
like your, like a feature list that you might have to compete with.
you know, the, so I guess at the end of the day is, I, let me frame it this way.
I've always found it interesting.
People are like, well, how are you ever gonna like, 'cause this is actually just
near and dear to like, how I operate.
Like I, I think.
I'm crazy enough to think that I can monetize a WordPress podcast brand, right?
Like I, it's a tiny audience, right?
And I've said this a gazillion times.
I think there's 10, 000 English speaking people in the entire world
that care about this content that I have right for WordPress business.
but I have all these other little micro podcasts that I
create and I think collectively.
A media company can be built off of these tiny little sub brands, if you will.
Now, I think, for somebody like you, and especially with the introduction
of AI, which we're going to talk about more about, Plug and Pal, your
other product, with the introduction of AI, we can build things more
rapidly, and, you could have a dozen, two dozen products under your cover.
single person company, your single human brand.
And while one of them might not be like SEO for WordPress might
not take over Yoast SEO, but a collection of all the utilities that
you have, the sum of them all can prop up a healthy business for you.
That's how I see what you're doing is very similar to what I think I'm doing.
But is that how you see all this stuff playing out?
Robert: I've always done that though.
It's, and I think like you, it's always been, I'm not just going to
monetize one thing and say, there's people out there that do that.
They say, I have this plugin or this brand, and this is
the one thing I'm doing.
And I'm going all in on it.
My brain is not wired like that.
I can't do 24 hours straight of the same thing over and over.
So I've over the years learned I can do 12 different things
throughout the day, but it'll all.
Push forward by the end of the day, I look back and go, okay, I got a lot done today.
And that's just how i've approached this too.
I put out a bunch of stuff and you know Some stuff will catch fire some
stuff won't but when someone lands on my site now they see oh, there's
you know 50 plugins or 60 plugins that alone adds value to when you're
looking at my products because you're going oh He's done a lot.
It's not just One or two products of the same type.
And then you go, well, everything he's doing is kind of limited to this.
It lets you know, there's a lot that I can do.
So, and that also ties into freelancing.
So if I'm looking for clients and they come to my site, they go, there's nothing
he can't do because he's done all this.
So I know he'll, you know, I'll feel more comfortable writing him about
my project because there's a good chance that he can figure it out.
So I take all of that.
Every little bit all adds up.
Nothing is just one and done.
Matt: There's oftentimes like I'll get, it's not imposter syndrome.
Maybe it's just jealousy, but like you look at whatever, like other
YouTubers, or other podcasts and you're like, wow, if I just like.
sold myself out and didn't care about like the content, you know, or the audience.
And I just wanted to do like a tech review YouTube channel.
And it was like clickbait headlines, crazy looking thumbnails, like To me,
that's, and I know people that do that, and actually even in the WordPress
space too, I guess, to some degree.
but I think it's they start in WordPress and they start to reach for
like that bigger, more broad audience.
And it's just like, man, I don't, to me that's just work.
Like to do that and I just don't, number one, it just doesn't, I don't
feel satisfied with it and it just feels like work and I don't feel like
any of my content production is work.
It's, I like it.
I like talking to folks like you and I like publishing this content.
So does that resonate with how you create your products?
Robert: there'll be products.
I have a list right now, probably like 15 or 20 that I know I still want to do,
but I just haven't gotten the mojo to jump into them yet because they're just
not as, they don't call on me as much.
they don't feed that.
for it.
So I get started on it and I'm kind of bummed out by like a half an hour in and
I'm looking for something else to do.
So I try to just take that and I'm learning from that because
I used to just force myself into that and stay there because this
is what you're supposed to do.
And I realize now it's probably not, you find what works best for you.
And like, just like you, you're not going to jump in there and do the weird, yeah.
You know, thumbnails and clickbait headlines just to get an extra 50 views
because it's not right in your heart.
You're looking at it and going, I'm just going to do what's true to me.
So that's basically how I'm doing this too, with the plugins.
It's whatever feels right or something I've needed myself personally, or
something I've seen someone else need.
And I'm like, I could probably put that together.
That's how I like.
A good handful of them started, I'd see a tweet and I'd go, that
sounds like a really good idea.
I wonder if I could do that.
And then, you know, a little bit later I'd have the plugin built and I just
release it because it felt good to give back, you know, I've said since
day one, open source saved my life because if it wasn't for building with.
WordPress and learning, you know, website customization and all this,
I would be doing so I'd be in a very bad place knowing where I
came from as a teenager till now.
So I'm happy and thankful for it.
So every chance I get, I'm going to give back because someone
else might be out there going through the same types of things.
And if they find something that I put out, they go, Hey, this is cool.
And that could spark a change in them.
that's good enough for me.
I'm not worried about becoming a multimillionaire, you know, famous
person from all this, I'm just happy knowing that I'm doing something cool
that I like to do and I'm giving back.
Matt: One of the things that I've been doing with AI, I want to transition
into talking a little bit about AI.
once again, I'll just tease the site again.
It's pluginpal.
app.
AI plugin generator for WordPress professionals.
I've been on this journey of trying to understand what else is happening
in the world outside of WordPress.
And, again, folks who are hearing this now, but like, Oh God, Matt's going to
talk about the apps that he made again.
Yes, I am.
It's my show.
I'm going to talk about it again, but it's the frame in the sense of trying
to get your, Your predictions if you can even predict I can't even predict
that there was a conversation I was having in the WP minute Minutes before
we jumped on this call about trying to predict like where AI is going with
content generation I'm like, listen, I can only think about it like two years
out Like other than that, I just freaking no idea like where it's going to go.
whatever, I, the point is I've built these two like utility apps, PulseWP, which
helps me aggregate my WordPress news, Podcast Downloader, which helps me search
for podcasts and download them, right?
Very simple things that just didn't exist or they just didn't
exist the way that I needed them.
So I think what we're trending to is a direction where I can build a utility
app We'll call it a utility app.
That's the best name that I have for it, to have it do something the way
the, that the end user wants, Oh, you don't have a to do app that does, you
can't find a to do app that does it, you know, a little sound plays every
time you click done, build it, right?
you don't have a WordPress news aggregator that, you know, categorizes or
summarizes content like, like you want.
No, build it.
Like I did with pulse WP.
I think we're going to move in that direction.
So, with all of that said, where do you see the average user being able to log
into WordPress one day and go I just need this plugin that does this thing.
I can't find it.
Let me just click a few buttons and a few prompts and then
just have it there for me.
Is that a world you think we're trending to or is that still very
distant from where you sit today?
Robert: say more distant right now still, because.
For the everyday user that doesn't know code or doesn't understand code and
they're literally just logging into their site to write content I don't think
they're gonna have the same understanding of how to build the utility apps and
things like that Like how we will you've been in code for long enough.
You've been around the WordPress space long enough You can get in there and kind
of mix it up because you know Some of the terminology the average person's not gonna
know what class names to call or what?
Referenced version number of like gravity forms.
We need You know, 2.
8 plus for this, they're not going to know that.
So it's going to give them something a little harder to work with.
They're not going to be able to get done as fast, but long term I could see it.
It's just, there's going to be a lot of work like plugin pal.
I wanted to set it up to where if you wanted to create a plugin,
you could, but it's going to.
Generate the code in a clean format.
It's going to add proper doc blocks.
It's going to put everything structured the way you want.
It's using the modern functionality.
I have it structured to where it's going to use the more modern versions
of WooCommerce and things like that.
So when you're asking it certain questions, it's
automatically pulling from a.
A more knowledge based data set.
So I think tools like that will become more prominent because it's like a
bridge work between the super devs.
And then just the everyday users, it'll be like a nice little bridge between the
two, but I don't see it overthrowing, like you're going to log into WordPress
and go, okay, I need this plugin.
And on the plugins page, you can type a sentence and get your own custom plugin.
Someone might build that, but I don't see that being.
Necessity for WordPress.
I don't see that being a thing that would actually drive it fully forward.
Like having certain AI integrations would be nice for like generating content or
maybe writing your meta descriptions for SEO, but having it just totally everything
AI, I don't feel like that's WordPress.
WordPress gives you the ability to put those things in there, but
I feel like it's still its own little core thing outside of that.
So I think AI will still be separate from it as well.
Matt: Yeah, I was listening to, I'm also trying to consume a bunch of, AI podcasts,
YouTube channels and stuff like that.
It is super challenging because it's like the gold rush moment right now.
Like WordPress was when I started my podcast like 15, 18 years ago.
When like everyone's talking about it, everyone's covering it.
And you're just like, talk about clickbait.
I mean, Jesus is everywhere with this stuff.
Right.
And you just see these people like how to make 10, 000 a month with your AI app.
I'm
Robert: yeah.
Matt: it's just not going to work.
Okay.
Like, you know, it's just not going to work.
but anyway, I was consuming one recently.
The guy was interviewing somebody who was building directory websites and the,
the guy that he was interviewing is a younger kid and he was like, Oh yeah,
he's like, I, for this one over here, I use WordPress and, you know, I was, you
know, I know, I feel, I forget what he said, I'm going to paraphrase it, but he
was just like, this was a mistake, right?
To use, you know, WordPress for this directory site.
And in my back of my head, knowing what I know about WordPress, I'm like,
no, that's actually the right way.
Right?
that's what you, that's what you kids are forgetting because you go into AI, you
ask it to do something, it gives you it, and it's awesome, but then it's just all
there living in that ecosystem, and if you don't know the functional components of
like the, like if you don't know React, like I don't know React, I was building
React apps, I don't know what I'm doing.
Right?
And that's scary to me.
at WordPress, you can break it apart.
Right?
You can understand the database.
You can move the hosting when your business starts to grow.
You can move all of these very important, I'll say weak links or these very, you
know, pivotal pieces of technology.
Database, front end hosting, WordPress itself.
Like you can optimize these three core components.
Whereas if you just slap it all out there with AI, you're just stuck to
whatever environment that you're in.
And if you don't know that environment, now you're handcuffed.
and that's a particular challenge.
How does WordPress compete against that?
Do you think WordPress survives in this world of attention and quick
app development that we're seeing?
Robert: long, long term WordPress will be even better for The developers for
that reason, because right now you're seeing nothing but surface level,
everything, surface level, everyone.
So, you know, cat with a laser, every little shiny thing they
see, they're looking at, no, one's really diving in deep.
No, one's really seeing where the limitations are on certain things.
They go, Oh, this.
Builds a wallpaper generator, or this builds this and they're happy with
it because they see these things.
It's exciting and new, but no one's really diving in.
That's why someone can say WordPress isn't the right thing for this type of
a setup, but it technically is because it has all the stuff you need for it.
You just didn't realize it because you're still at the surface level of all of it.
You're not understanding the deeper dive in it.
And when people start to do that again, WordPress will still be the same.
Like I think.
Recently, I was talking on Twitter.
I said, I likened it to like Cisco, like we're in that phase now where
it's going to be a steady product.
You're going to see it everywhere.
It's not going anywhere.
Everyone thought with the drama, it was going to just disappear and WordPress was
dead, like blogging's dead or SEO is dead.
It's.
The same thing you're going to see it, you know, we go through cycles,
people want their fast and fun, and then they'll get over that and realize
not everyone's making 10, 000 a month from some simple app they generated.
So then they go back to the real work and the real work involves
things like WordPress, where you're going to dive in and actually build
something and not just play around.
Matt: Yeah, I mean, the user management system alone, right, is such something
that you would take for granted.
I mean, you've been around here for a while.
You remember these debates of like, is WordPress an app framework?
You know, because you had that, right?
You had basically this, you had a user login management system, you
had, you know, custom post types, you can tie it up to a database,
you can do all these things.
And now, like, the stuff that I've been working with, it's just like,
man, if you don't ask it to do good user management, like, you don't get
a forgot my password link, right?
You get no password, you know, management or, best practices and things like that.
Like, if you're not at, I mean, yes, these things are going to get better.
Like, I understand that.
But as of right now, It's if you're not asking for it and you don't know
about it, you're not getting it.
And that's like the biggest issue, the biggest gap right now.
And it actually makes me appreciate WordPress more for that.
and I hope that raises the appreciation for everyone
across the board for WordPress.
Robert: when I built PluginPal, that was one of the things, the forgot password
and all the different user functionality.
I built that from scratch and it was, that was a headache.
There was lots of, this isn't even here like it's supposed to be.
And if I'm asking the AI for user management and it's missing out
on specific things like the forgot password or sending an email
when they're, Account is created.
It's leaving out some of the basics.
So for someone that didn't know that was something that was needed and
has to go back now and re request it, they're just skipping that.
So the apps that are being built, aren't going to be as functional.
You'll see a lot of people now they're building apps where you
can log in and authenticate with WordPress and post your content.
But then there's no code to review.
There's no actual downloads for it.
You're just, you're trusting that whoever built this AI tool now
has done a good enough job to keep everything secure for you.
So you're going to, you're going to see a lot of that where people are going to
start questioning that more and going back to WordPress and going back to the
basics and the things that have been around for a while and are sound and true.
And we can see that like WordPress is now, you know.
People are putting AI into WordPress, but people aren't putting WordPress into AI.
it's a different setup.
So
it's not the other way around.
So I feel like we're going to see more of that.
Like people are going to get tired of all the 15 year olds and 17 year olds
that are building these things and then saying, Hey, look at me, I'm super
smart, but then you tear apart the code.
And in five minutes, you're finding vulnerabilities or you're finding
things that you're going, okay, this isn't as good as it could be.
And I'm going to go look for somebody or some company or someplace that's actually
doing something a little better than this.
So like you said, the gold rush, it's the gold rush of it.
And before long, it'll go back to normal AI companies.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
Matt: yeah.
So is PluginPal a, let's walk through some of the features of PluginPal
for those who are interested.
Once again, PluginPal.
app, check it out.
are you, so I, in the green room before we hit record, I said, I
promise no curveball questions.
I got a curveball question.
Robert: You got it.
Matt: are you building all your plugins with PluginPal these days?
Robert: I would say about 50 50, some of the smaller ones, I start with this
and I will customize it after the fact.
And that's, I'm not saying that this thing is going to be the exact plugin.
You're going to build every single plugin.
And as soon as it gives you the zip file, everything's perfect.
It's not there yet.
The AI itself is just not there yet, but.
Every plugin I'm building now, I start with this, and I'll get a good base start
with it, and then I just go from there.
So it saves me like, I'd say 30 minutes to an hour each time just
having to go in and clean up base code and put the basic structure
pieces in place that every plugin has.
So it's definitely a time saver, and I'm using it sparingly right now, but
I'm picking it up more and trying to get more hands on use out of it so
I can put better functions into it for everyone else that's using it.
Matt: pricing page as of, late February 2025, starter advanced elite 2040, 100
a month generate up to 100, 250 or 1000 plugins respectively across the board.
I noticed one important bullet point here is you have design
for individual developers.
So teams, agencies, probably not because this is probably what I'll
call like a one to one relationship.
I'm asking it to build something.
It's giving it to me.
I can't collaborate with my team on that.
I mean, I could afterwards, I could upload it to get hub.
Maybe you actually deploy to get hub, in the future through this, plugin pal.
But as of right now, best suited for those who are like, look, I want to build some.
Cool plugins that I desire to make for my own purposes.
Plugin pal probably fits that mold pretty well.
Robert: Yeah.
And I didn't want to, the agency level, if I'm going to go ahead and
use multiple user management that became more complicated to set up.
So I went, okay, I'll just start it out with this.
I'm really targeting the person, like, like you said, the one that wants to
just tinker with an idea or has an idea they want to build and they don't want
to structure it from the very beginning.
Scratch themselves, this gives them a good head start or for like a developer who's,
you know, freelancing and they're like, Hey, I got clients to ask for questions.
You ask this plug in pal a couple of times, you know what you want
and you get what you want out of it.
And it gives you maybe an idea of something you didn't even think of
in the beginning, or it gives you at least the structure to go ahead
and do the work for the client.
And you know, the client's getting well structured and clean and
secure code because it's already baked into the beginnings of it.
Matt: So is this a SAS based app?
Somebody logs in, they have their own account.
It's all driven through the web or is it something they're
downloading and installing it to like
Robert: Yeah, it's SAS and it's, payments through Stripe.
So the Stripe handles all the customers, the payment management and the
monthly recurring fees and all that.
So, yeah, so it's all structured right through the website.
There's no downloads to be able to use it like on your desktop
yet or anything like that.
It's possible.
Matt: Have, yeah.
Have you used something like Bolt, before on the web?
Robert: I've used Chad GPT.
That's pretty much the extent of the AI I've used.
I like it.
I got used to it and I'm trying not to jump to too many.
And I tried what I tried a couple different, like little code
editors, like, Curb before cursor came out, I tried a code editor
and I was like, I don't like it.
I don't want to use the AI in my actual code.
I like the separation to be able to look at the AI and then pull it into my code.
And cause I'll change it and update it every time I'm copying it.
I'm not just copying and pasting or just pressing a button and hoping for the best.
So I don't like that being right there.
It just, it got too complicated for me.
So I separate all that and just use chat GPT.
Matt: Alright, so you're not using cursor as your daily driver.
Robert: no.
Matt: Yeah.
Interesting.
I do envy folks who are developers first who have these tools because you can
just go a million miles an hour with this stuff and like, I'm looking at
it just like dabbling like, wow, this is, it's like when I first discovered,
you know, well, WordPress or Drupal with Drupal had CCK and views built in.
I'm like, I'm building queries in the web, like in a web interface
and it's displaying this content.
For me.
Right.
Or when I first discovered gravity forms 12 years ago, and I was like,
Oh my God, I can do this stuff.
This is amazing.
you know, and that's how I feel about this stuff today, but I can
only imagine like folks like you can just level up or produce so much.
and, you know, I guess your collection of products and
plugins are a testament to that.
So, congratulations for being able to do that stuff.
that's great.
I want to end off talking about the state of WordPress as much as
you want to chat about it, but I didn't want to let that quote go.
You say open source saved my life.
I think one of the most amazing things about WordPress is how it, even to this
day, even in the face of AI and other coding frameworks, it can help empower
somebody, to do many things, right?
You can.
Crack open WordPress, learn how to be a web designer or developer.
You can become a publisher.
You can learn how to manage content and this can translate into a
totally different career path, right?
If you're changing careers by just understanding how WordPress works or
how to get a website online, you're not just learning the WordPress side of
it, you're learning like the internet.
Side of it.
You're learning domain name, hosting, how servers communicate to each other.
Eventually probably learning how to email stuff and how like DNS works and all
this stuff like this is a collection of understanding It might be old, boring tech
for many of us listening to this, but it's because we've been doing it for 20 years
for somebody brand new into this space.
This can unlock a whole new opportunity, of helping others,
or getting a job, right?
Because of your knowledge of WordPress for so many areas.
That is why WordPress is so important to me.
It's not even like.
The blogging and the publishing and the democratization of publishing and all
this stuff, and nevermind like the agency layer of it or freelance layer, it's just
because it can enable somebody in so many different paths, which is why I think it's
so important, you know, that WordPress does live on and that we shouldn't just,
you know, root for the bad guy in the room And just want it to just disappear because
then what, you know, what do we have left, you know, if we're not keeping this
thing going, whether you like leadership or not, you should care that this box
of software continues to move forward.
I'm not saying I have all the answers, but it should continue and push forward.
So now I hand the mic over to you because obviously this is important to you.
how did it save your life and why do you want this to continue forward?
Robert: Like, when I was a teenager, I was doing a lot of
stuff I shouldn't have been doing.
I was involved with some people I shouldn't have been
involved with, you know?
And I know, realistically, if I look back now and say, okay, two more
years of me doing that versus Finding WordPress and learning, Oh, I can
make money through the internet.
Like that was brand new to me at the time.
So when I seen that, I went, I'm going to go this way instead.
If I didn't, I'd be in prison or dead right now.
And I'm like guaranteed.
So I'm happy that I was able to find something that gave me a new focus
and a new ability to see life outside of whatever I was in at that moment.
And then I just look at it and go, okay, if it saved me and it gave me
the ability, now I'm older and I have a, you know, I have a family, I have a
son, so I'm providing for him with it.
And it's grown from just a fun thing to do, to take me away
from what I was doing to, oh, and I'm able to make money from it.
I freelanced for over a dozen years.
I haven't had, like, I've had a day job doing agency work, but I haven't
had a day job outside of the house and probably close to 20 years now.
So I wouldn't have had that.
You know, capability, if it wasn't for WordPress and finding WordPress.
So for me, if it's done that for me, and I know it's done that for other people,
I want to at least give back enough to where I feel like at the end of it, if
I walk away from it all and I'm done with the internet and I'm never online
again, I've done enough to say, okay, it saved me and gave me a life, but
I've given back and I've done hopefully enough to repay that, pay it forward.
You know, however you want to look at it.
I just feel like it's the right thing to do, like morally.
I, if I'm getting so much out of this, it's, I'm not going to just take and
then walk away from it and go, this is just for me, this is all for me.
That's just, that's not, I don't do that in real life outside of the internet.
So I don't want to do that here.
I try to bring the way I look at life in general into business, because I
feel like a lot of people separate it.
They go, I'm just doing business now.
And they do the clickbait headlines and the stuff that they just can't.
Morally feel like is normal to them because they equate it as it's just
business But for me, there's a gray line in between where the business is the
person So I try to put more of myself into it and that's where giving back
and constantly giving back Is what i'm trying to do I could have sold a lot of
the stuff and been like i'm gonna put a price tag on all these things because
i'm building them and Their quality, and I'm going to give them back, but
I'm going to want something in return.
I didn't want to do that.
That's not what the goal was.
The goal was just to show that as one person, I can do this and give back.
And, you know, everybody can do the little things that they can
do in their own unique ways.
And I'm not saying everybody's going to sit down and develop 50 plugins
in a month or whatever, but you know, if you're writing content or you're
going back and showcasing maybe some of the basics of WordPress, like.
The, how you can work through WordPress with DNS management or how you're going
to be able to do caching properly and things like that, if we can get back
to some of the basics, then maybe some of the younger kids that are building
with all these cool tools, we'll see, Oh, I can do all this stuff here too.
And then you're showcasing that it's more robust and it's, you
know, it's solid and there's an actual framework here beyond just.
The basics of whatever the AI gives you so trying to tie all that in trying
to give back and be a part of that And just make sure that I'm leaving
everything a little bit nicer than when I showed up if I can do that.
I'm happy
Matt: Yeah.
One of the things that I've been wrestling with, like a lot of us,
especially the current temperature of WordPress and the community, and what's
going on in sort of legal battles with, Automatic and Matt and WP Engine.
it's like, how do you keep like, obviously a positive mindset about this
stuff and like, want to want WordPress to, you know, continue and to thrive,
you know, the biggest challenge for me is understanding, you know, look,
there's a lot of things that have happened that no one's happy about.
and the way that I see it is there is no removing Matt as.
Controlling leader of WordPress proper.
How do we, is it okay to accept that?
How do we continue to move forward with it?
Because the positive is, it enables a lot of us to have a career.
A livelihood, right?
to teach and train others and onboard others into this open source ecosystem.
And I think until Matt actually challenges the open source, component of WordPress,
which I don't think he'll do, but let's say like, that is the tipping point.
Like as much of the stuff that we've already gone through and we're like,
man, we're not happy with that.
The way that I see it, these are not your words, these are my words.
I see it as, until he challenges that, I have to say using WordPress means a
vote for WordPress is a vote for Matt.
That's how I've distilled it.
And until he's disrupting the open source nature of it, then I
have to be okay with it because of everything that WordPress offers us.
It's not the most Articulate way of framing it, but that's
where I'm stuck right now.
Right?
I use the word stuck because that's where I'm just like, I don't know any
other way forward with what we have.
You know, I see people feuding on Twitter and Blue Sky and all over
the social media and people are gonna like, oh, we're gonna fork this, we're
gonna move in this direction, we're gonna get new leadership over there.
Okay, great, go ahead and do it, but it's so Small, you know, and
it's just, I mean, it's fantastic.
That is the essence of all of this stuff, I just don't see it making a
huge impact where everybody goes, okay, I'm going to go in that direction now.
I don't know.
There's no direct question there for
Robert: I
Matt: It's just a soapbox moment and hoping to get your ideas.
Robert: I feel like that's how all of us think there's no real answers.
There's no real direction.
It's just, it's Matt made it very clear.
It's his party and you're either going to hang out in his house and eat his
chips and, you know, be okay with that.
And whatever music he plays, you can't be mad because it's his house.
So you're there and now what are you going to do?
You're going to.
It's like standing on his couch and yell, are you going to like leave?
You know, what's the plan?
I think that's where everyone has to make these decisions.
Now it's, you got to either be accepting of it.
And I've been the biggest anti Matt vocalist, I think that I can find, and I
still don't have a huge problem with work.
Like it's not a WordPress problem.
It's not a, I'm leaving WordPress and I'm going to, you know, Drupal or I'm going to
stat what all these places are, you know?
Yeah.
I'm not going to none of these other ones.
Like.
I'm not jumping ship immediately.
I, if anything, I stayed and I built more products in this time and was
helping the community itself because it's more about the community than it
is about just the one guy up there.
Sure.
He runs it all, but his input on the.
The overall aspect of WordPress beyond WordPress is open source
or WordPress is not open source beyond that it's open source.
You use it for what you want to use it for.
You can not be happy that he's the guy running it.
You know, most of us, if we dug deep into the products we used outside of
the internet and went, who owns this, you're not going to like the guys you're
finding up there at the top either, but it's the products you're using.
So you're going to choose to use it or you're not.
And you can find ways outside of WordPress.
There's tons of avenues you can do that.
But for people that have been in it 20 years, like, you know,
we've been here for a while.
It's hard to just go, okay, I'm out.
And then I'm going to start something completely fresh over here and not
have no foothold in this space.
And, you know, that's scary.
And then now you're like, okay, now I'm dealing with like my family's involved.
So there's a lot of decisions beyond just, oh, I don't like that guy.
You know.
I can say I don't like that guy, but it doesn't change the fact
that I'm still here using these products I'm building in this market.
And, you know, you just gotta be okay with that.
And you can be okay, you can be okay doing that while voicing your displeasure
for things and then still doing.
Matt: Yeah,
Robert: It's, I don't want to ever go too far deep.
Like I see some people that go down the deep end where they're
like, that's all they do now is they rant and rave every day.
And what are you excusing?
What change are you coping with other than just, it feels like to me, you're
looking for views and clicks and you want the likes and you like getting retweeted.
So you're going to do more of that.
And if I was going to do that, I went the three months at the end of the year,
I made over a million impressions on Twitter for like the first time ever.
If I was.
Like amped up on that, I'd be at two million now because I just go, I'm going
to do this just solely this, but it's, it gets tiring after a while you say what
you feel and you got to, at some point you got to move on and just live your life.
it's bigger than this.
You shut the computer off and the world is out there and I think we,
we get wrapped up in this so much.
We forget that a little bit.
Yep.
Matt: I love what you said.
you know, you doubled or tripled down.
You started producing more.
you know, and I think that's, that is the opportunity right now with
everyone who will quickly turn their backs on WordPress or step
away, you know, Hey, rightfully so.
if that's how you feel and that's how you're going to vote, That's totally
fine, but you know, for those that want WordPress to, you know, to continue
for all the reasons why, you know, what, why we just said, then I think,
you know, doubling down, producing more, educating more, creating more,
you know, and, Give and take, right?
Giving back to WordPress and taking from WordPress.
Like, it helps you make money at the same time and you can go and
sell stuff and build a business.
So, fantastic stuff, Robert.
you can find robert@robertdevore.com.
Robert, anywhere else you want folks to go to say thanks or follow you?
Robert: Robert DeVore.
com, Twitter, Devio, Robert.
This is my Twitter handle on there because someone stole robertdevore.
com like 10 years ago and won't give me it back.
Matt: Fantastic stuff.
Also, check out PluginPal.
app.
That's PluginPal.
app.
Link will be in the show notes, but that's an easy domain to remember.
PluginPal.
app.
That's the WP Minute, everybody.
Thanks for listening today to WPMinute.
com slash subscribe.