WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:01:28.602 --> 00:01:29.812 Matt: Hey, Chris, welcome to the program, 00:01:31.122 --> 00:01:31.492 Chris: Thank you. 00:01:31.612 --> 00:01:31.982 Glad to be 00:01:32.062 --> 00:01:35.102 Matt: senior director, product management at blue host. 00:01:35.102 --> 00:01:37.272 I should also mention at the top of the show, blue host is a 00:01:37.272 --> 00:01:40.852 fantastic pillar sponsor of the WP minute without their support. 00:01:41.152 --> 00:01:43.652 The WP minute, couldn't happen quite frankly. 00:01:43.992 --> 00:01:47.672 So all of our pillar sponsors, thank you so much for supporting. 00:01:48.182 --> 00:01:52.292 The WP minute, we're going to take a look at the inside of what's happening 00:01:52.312 --> 00:01:56.612 at Bluehost for WordPress, their prop, their products, how it impacts WordPress, 00:01:56.612 --> 00:01:59.942 how it impacts WordPress customers, the usability of WordPress, etc. 00:02:00.252 --> 00:02:02.532 Bluehost cloud solution was just announced. 00:02:02.532 --> 00:02:04.582 So that's what Chris and I are going to talk about today. 00:02:04.582 --> 00:02:06.072 Senior director of product management. 00:02:06.072 --> 00:02:07.312 Chris, what does that mean? 00:02:07.312 --> 00:02:08.182 What's your day to day? 00:02:08.242 --> 00:02:09.662 How 00:02:10.552 --> 00:02:13.902 Chris: It's really working on hosting products, enhancing them, 00:02:13.922 --> 00:02:18.262 expanding them to meet our customer's needs, making sure the product that 00:02:18.262 --> 00:02:22.472 we deliver is what the customer needs and what the customer wants. 00:02:22.482 --> 00:02:25.352 And as customer's request comes in, we work to make sure we 00:02:25.352 --> 00:02:26.382 get the end of the product. 00:02:26.382 --> 00:02:32.592 Yeah. 00:02:32.862 --> 00:02:35.952 Matt: releasing any secret sauce that Bluehost has, with, 00:02:36.272 --> 00:02:37.382 with how you do your job. 00:02:38.102 --> 00:02:40.872 What are the fundamentals of gathering that feedback? 00:02:40.872 --> 00:02:42.402 Because I say it a lot. 00:02:42.542 --> 00:02:44.152 Hey, we're going to listen to customers. 00:02:44.222 --> 00:02:45.612 We want customer feedback. 00:02:45.612 --> 00:02:48.542 And then we want to bake that into our products because of course. 00:02:48.982 --> 00:02:49.542 We want. 00:02:50.227 --> 00:02:53.147 Our customers to be happy and we want what they're looking for to be in the 00:02:53.147 --> 00:02:55.877 product, but that's easier said than done. 00:02:56.017 --> 00:03:00.317 what does that look like in your world to absorb that and then actually relay it? 00:03:00.772 --> 00:03:03.452 To the engineering teams and marketing teams, 00:03:05.172 --> 00:03:07.292 Chris: It really comes from the customers. 00:03:07.302 --> 00:03:12.232 Our marketing team does a tremendous job of communicating 00:03:12.242 --> 00:03:14.242 with and from the customers. 00:03:14.402 --> 00:03:18.572 So, you know, we, we survey and we interview new customers. 00:03:18.852 --> 00:03:22.222 We also survey and interview former customers, right? 00:03:22.292 --> 00:03:23.182 Why did you leave? 00:03:23.342 --> 00:03:24.282 What did we do? 00:03:24.602 --> 00:03:25.862 Why did you pick us? 00:03:25.872 --> 00:03:27.092 What are we missing? 00:03:27.292 --> 00:03:30.182 So there's a lot of that going on for this product here. 00:03:30.182 --> 00:03:36.422 Since it's tiered, it's, Towards and for professionals, freelancers and agencies. 00:03:36.662 --> 00:03:41.532 Last year we actually went out and interviewed a lot of agencies and 00:03:41.532 --> 00:03:43.292 understood what is it that you need? 00:03:43.422 --> 00:03:47.652 You know, what, what does Bluehost not have today that you need? 00:03:47.832 --> 00:03:49.232 What do agencies demand? 00:03:49.232 --> 00:03:50.592 What do professionals demand? 00:03:50.972 --> 00:03:55.152 What is it that you do and do not like about your current hosting provider? 00:03:55.822 --> 00:03:59.732 So we did a lot of that to really design and lay out the, the path 00:03:59.732 --> 00:04:01.292 for the Bluehost cloud product. 00:04:01.572 --> 00:04:05.112 Matt: I'm hearing a lot of unscalable things, talking 00:04:05.112 --> 00:04:08.012 to people, scheduling time. 00:04:08.302 --> 00:04:11.662 I think a lot of us are stuck, you know, cause we're in tech 00:04:11.992 --> 00:04:15.512 and we automate everything and we zap this and we zap that. 00:04:15.512 --> 00:04:17.807 And we, Do integrations all the time. 00:04:17.807 --> 00:04:19.497 So we're like, Hey, customer feedback. 00:04:19.497 --> 00:04:21.937 I should be able to just get this perpetual funnel 00:04:21.937 --> 00:04:22.977 happening with this stuff. 00:04:22.977 --> 00:04:26.397 Just it just comes to us and it automatically goes into the product. 00:04:26.827 --> 00:04:27.777 You're talking to humans. 00:04:27.777 --> 00:04:30.397 I mean, you're setting up calendars. 00:04:30.527 --> 00:04:33.447 You're putting people in front of other people who actually use the product. 00:04:33.747 --> 00:04:36.167 it's probably unscalable, but it's worth it. 00:04:36.267 --> 00:04:37.367 I assume at the end of the day. 00:04:38.412 --> 00:04:42.032 Chris: It is, it's, it is a lot of work and parts of it aren't scalable. 00:04:42.072 --> 00:04:43.602 You know, we, we have raw data. 00:04:43.602 --> 00:04:44.102 We have this. 00:04:44.527 --> 00:04:46.147 We call the voice of the customers. 00:04:46.147 --> 00:04:48.127 We track all kinds of data. 00:04:48.427 --> 00:04:52.987 You know, what kind of customers call in, how often, often do they call in? 00:04:53.137 --> 00:04:57.187 How quickly does a cu a new customer publish their first website? 00:04:57.647 --> 00:05:03.467 all this data, but the best input is talking to a customer. 00:05:04.017 --> 00:05:04.247 Right. 00:05:04.267 --> 00:05:08.597 And okay, you answered, you know, you picked C on a survey, 00:05:08.727 --> 00:05:09.787 but what did you really mean? 00:05:09.797 --> 00:05:12.537 Why did you pick C and elaborate more? 00:05:12.537 --> 00:05:14.077 So it's a lot of work. 00:05:14.347 --> 00:05:19.147 It's not highly scalable, but it is completely You know priceless 00:05:19.627 --> 00:05:23.447 Matt: I mean, I talked to so many WordPress product companies, people 00:05:23.447 --> 00:05:28.317 who are making WordPress plugins, themes and services, stuff like that. 00:05:28.677 --> 00:05:33.877 And yeah, they just have to be able to open up to their customers more. 00:05:34.227 --> 00:05:37.077 I know a lot of folks who, who started their product 00:05:37.077 --> 00:05:38.767 business in the agency world. 00:05:39.167 --> 00:05:39.737 And. 00:05:40.837 --> 00:05:42.387 I don't want to talk to customers anymore. 00:05:42.397 --> 00:05:45.247 I just want to do this product thing and sell stuff. 00:05:45.797 --> 00:05:47.437 I'm sorry, it ain't going to happen. 00:05:47.447 --> 00:05:51.757 You're still going to have to talk to people if you want the best, you know, 00:05:51.797 --> 00:05:54.107 outcome for, for your organization. 00:05:54.137 --> 00:05:57.167 Chris: yeah, there's just like this difficult wall that sits 00:05:57.167 --> 00:06:00.987 between the key people making the product and the customers. 00:06:00.987 --> 00:06:03.207 It's like, I want to talk to customers. 00:06:03.207 --> 00:06:04.337 How do I talk to the customers? 00:06:04.337 --> 00:06:07.907 But at the same time, I have a customer of like, man, I'd love to talk to the 00:06:07.917 --> 00:06:11.037 product manager for this one, because boy, would I have some feedback for them? 00:06:11.667 --> 00:06:15.917 And it's not always easy to get that connection made, but it is very important. 00:06:16.377 --> 00:06:19.717 Matt: Bluehost is having, Banner a year, a lot of products, a lot of 00:06:19.717 --> 00:06:21.587 new features, functions coming out. 00:06:22.047 --> 00:06:25.837 not only does blue host support and sponsor the WP 00:06:25.837 --> 00:06:27.577 minute, I'm also a customer. 00:06:27.837 --> 00:06:31.077 I signed up my son for a website. 00:06:31.117 --> 00:06:35.677 He's only seven and I tried to get him into starting to blog and 00:06:35.677 --> 00:06:36.757 he has a little digital camera. 00:06:36.757 --> 00:06:40.237 So I'm like teaching him the basics of here, take a photo, upload it to your 00:06:40.237 --> 00:06:42.097 WordPress website, write about it. 00:06:42.427 --> 00:06:46.107 So I'm starting to like stretch his muscle of, you know, the creator side, 00:06:46.107 --> 00:06:48.797 like we're all used to, but you guys have a lot of products coming out. 00:06:49.147 --> 00:06:53.397 this one in particular is, we chatted earlier, maybe like a partnership 00:06:53.397 --> 00:06:58.247 slash collaboration with the WP cloud solution, which is an automatic 00:06:58.247 --> 00:07:01.987 product, most notably through my friend, maybe Jesse Friedman, who 00:07:01.997 --> 00:07:03.417 you might've worked with before. 00:07:03.807 --> 00:07:07.817 How did, from what you can share, how did that relationship come about? 00:07:07.817 --> 00:07:10.377 And how did you start to think about baking it into Bluehost? 00:07:10.492 --> 00:07:10.812 Chris: Yeah. 00:07:11.792 --> 00:07:14.542 So the first thing was the product need, the customer need, 00:07:14.542 --> 00:07:15.462 what do we, what do we need? 00:07:15.762 --> 00:07:19.682 And we, we blow blue host, have a wide product selection today. 00:07:19.682 --> 00:07:24.962 We have shared hosting, you know, very inexpensive, great to get your, 00:07:25.212 --> 00:07:29.052 you know, your business business card out there on the online 00:07:29.052 --> 00:07:31.242 and to get your online presence. 00:07:31.242 --> 00:07:33.442 And you can scale up from there to VPS. 00:07:33.462 --> 00:07:40.232 And we have dedicated servers, but we've, we've not really, Targeted the agency, 00:07:40.332 --> 00:07:44.482 the professional freelance market, and we've wanted to get there for a long time. 00:07:45.242 --> 00:07:48.612 So we've, you know, thought about, well, you know, we go design our own, 00:07:48.872 --> 00:07:53.612 cloud platform, but automatic, as you all know, you know, one of the, 00:07:53.662 --> 00:07:56.242 you know, the founders of WordPress. 00:07:56.872 --> 00:07:58.002 Great partners with ours. 00:07:58.042 --> 00:08:00.192 They've got a product that would be cloud. 00:08:00.672 --> 00:08:04.672 It runs some of the largest WordPress websites in the world today. 00:08:05.362 --> 00:08:06.732 It's a proven product. 00:08:07.622 --> 00:08:10.882 It can't be beat and we could not beat it in performance. 00:08:11.482 --> 00:08:14.992 and so let's say, well, rather than spending several years building 00:08:15.012 --> 00:08:19.232 our own product, let's take theirs, merge it with the experience of 00:08:19.242 --> 00:08:22.232 Bluehost, our support, our brand. 00:08:22.682 --> 00:08:27.112 And offer that and allow us to go upscale into these professional 00:08:27.122 --> 00:08:28.552 freelancers and agencies. 00:08:29.002 --> 00:08:29.712 And so that's what we've done. 00:08:29.967 --> 00:08:31.147 Matt: How's the cloud solution? 00:08:31.177 --> 00:08:32.997 How do you define cloud solution? 00:08:32.997 --> 00:08:36.497 I used to sell, this is a little, I'm going to show my age. 00:08:36.497 --> 00:08:41.117 I used to sell a web hosting for a company called Pagely acquired by GoDaddy. 00:08:41.447 --> 00:08:46.187 Back to, at that time we were selling EC2 instances from Amazon, right? 00:08:46.217 --> 00:08:50.307 And it was always this big thing about elastic cloud computing, where the 00:08:50.307 --> 00:08:55.167 thing would just scale and we bring on more virtual CPUs and shrink it down. 00:08:55.167 --> 00:08:56.107 And everyone was just in awe. 00:08:56.127 --> 00:08:58.577 kind of technology. 00:08:58.987 --> 00:08:59.997 Is that the essence of this? 00:08:59.997 --> 00:09:03.157 It can scale up and down infinitely at one price. 00:09:03.167 --> 00:09:03.977 How do you define it? 00:09:05.207 --> 00:09:08.747 Chris: it, you know, it's, you could talk to 10 marketers about the finding 00:09:08.807 --> 00:09:11.617 cloud and you get 20 different responses. 00:09:11.877 --> 00:09:14.617 you know, and we had a lot of discussions internally about what really, you 00:09:14.617 --> 00:09:16.387 know, what do we want to call this? 00:09:16.397 --> 00:09:17.327 And it is a cloud. 00:09:17.327 --> 00:09:21.517 So we decided, yeah, we'll call it, Bluehost cloud, but it does, it allows 00:09:21.517 --> 00:09:26.607 that flexibility to first off, very high performance, you know, you mentioned, 00:09:26.687 --> 00:09:31.267 you know, another vendor, a lot of these, competitors are built on the public cloud. 00:09:31.572 --> 00:09:35.332 Right where you go out and get these resources, but those resources 00:09:35.342 --> 00:09:37.382 aren't optimized for anything, right? 00:09:37.382 --> 00:09:39.342 They're available for everything. 00:09:39.342 --> 00:09:42.142 You want a warehouse, public cloud, we got that, right? 00:09:42.452 --> 00:09:44.492 You, you want a, an iOS app. 00:09:44.562 --> 00:09:44.952 Sure. 00:09:45.252 --> 00:09:49.352 You know, they've got that, you know, and it's, it's, you know, you can do 00:09:49.352 --> 00:09:53.982 anything with it, but it's not really optimized where with Bluehost cloud 00:09:53.982 --> 00:09:56.962 and with the automatic WP cloud, it is. 00:09:57.997 --> 00:10:02.637 From the ground up, every component is strictly for WordPress, right? 00:10:03.087 --> 00:10:05.747 And so there's been a lot of performance tests done on it and it's really 00:10:05.747 --> 00:10:08.997 hard to beat An environment that is built strictly for WordPress. 00:10:09.447 --> 00:10:14.902 So not just from a performance perspective But also the cloud 00:10:14.902 --> 00:10:16.622 piece, it is scalable, right? 00:10:17.052 --> 00:10:20.062 You want two virtual CPUs or two PHP workers? 00:10:20.292 --> 00:10:20.652 Fine. 00:10:20.722 --> 00:10:21.672 You want to scale to 10? 00:10:21.772 --> 00:10:22.162 Fine. 00:10:22.442 --> 00:10:23.332 You want more storage? 00:10:23.372 --> 00:10:24.582 Pure, add more storage. 00:10:24.592 --> 00:10:27.252 So that's really the cloud scalability of it. 00:10:27.702 --> 00:10:29.052 But it's also global, right? 00:10:29.052 --> 00:10:34.062 We've got the global CDN, so we can cache your content closer to your 00:10:34.062 --> 00:10:35.562 customers wherever they are in the world. 00:10:35.992 --> 00:10:39.892 Data center selection, which we have four origin data centers. 00:10:39.912 --> 00:10:42.232 Which data center do you want your primary location? 00:10:42.302 --> 00:10:46.342 And then automatic failover to another data center, right? 00:10:46.342 --> 00:10:52.982 So all of the pros of a public cloud, all that availability, all the scalability, 00:10:53.722 --> 00:10:56.282 but also the optimized for WordPress. 00:10:57.097 --> 00:10:59.297 Matt: I'm just looking at the landing page right now bluehost. 00:10:59.297 --> 00:11:03.427 com slash hosting slash cloud or go to the top of the primary navigation of Bluehost. 00:11:03.437 --> 00:11:07.287 Go under WordPress and there's a new cloud offering special early 00:11:07.287 --> 00:11:10.797 access pricing at the time of this recording in late March 2024. 00:11:11.767 --> 00:11:14.467 The promotional price starts at 30 a month, but then it will adjust 00:11:14.467 --> 00:11:19.997 to 80 a month for one website 109 a month for 10 web websites and beyond. 00:11:20.057 --> 00:11:20.727 Obviously. 00:11:21.547 --> 00:11:24.007 The value here, the way that I see it, if, if. 00:11:24.567 --> 00:11:29.417 If I'm a, agency or even a small freelancer and I have a handful of 00:11:29.417 --> 00:11:33.487 customers, I'm just starting out, you know, obviously the cloud for 10 sites 00:11:33.497 --> 00:11:37.157 is the one that makes the most sense, you know, to me, 10 websites, 125 gigs 00:11:37.157 --> 00:11:40.037 of storage, 20 virtual CPU compute power. 00:11:40.297 --> 00:11:43.637 Is that all isolated for that customer? 00:11:43.947 --> 00:11:44.087 you 00:11:44.142 --> 00:11:45.282 Chris: It is dedicated. 00:11:45.632 --> 00:11:50.002 It's dedicated to that customer, but the customer does the allocation, right? 00:11:50.242 --> 00:11:53.842 Again, talking to her, you know, about some work in competition, the 00:11:53.852 --> 00:11:55.342 way they do their infrastructure. 00:11:55.342 --> 00:11:55.892 Sure. 00:11:55.892 --> 00:11:56.792 You get 10 sites. 00:11:57.372 --> 00:12:01.142 And here's 10 CPUs and they're shared, right? 00:12:01.372 --> 00:12:05.622 So by the way, you know, if customer A, client A has a big sale this 00:12:05.622 --> 00:12:08.632 weekend, a big social media, explosion. 00:12:09.312 --> 00:12:12.542 On Monday morning, you got to explain to customer B why they were slow 00:12:12.772 --> 00:12:15.092 because customer A was successful here. 00:12:15.132 --> 00:12:16.362 They're dedicated, right? 00:12:16.362 --> 00:12:17.322 You have 10 sites. 00:12:17.732 --> 00:12:23.102 Take those 20 CPUs and dedicate them how you want to do those to those 10 sites. 00:12:23.552 --> 00:12:26.769 And if you give one customer five sites, those are his CPUs. 00:12:26.769 --> 00:12:28.412 Those are his PHP workers. 00:12:28.982 --> 00:12:34.652 So it's it is assigned that you assign that pull out each of your sites. 00:12:35.152 --> 00:12:36.642 If you want 10 sites, great. 00:12:36.682 --> 00:12:39.002 Or if you want to put all the resources into one or two 00:12:39.002 --> 00:12:40.212 sites, you can do that as well. 00:12:40.477 --> 00:12:44.337 Matt: We used to do a thing, called, I'm actually forgetting the phrase of it. 00:12:44.337 --> 00:12:45.257 I think it was like burst. 00:12:45.947 --> 00:12:48.587 Burst compute or something like that was probably just a marketing term 00:12:48.597 --> 00:12:51.817 back when I was selling this stuff where we would ramp up customers. 00:12:52.487 --> 00:12:55.377 Perfect example would be a black Friday's coming. 00:12:55.377 --> 00:12:57.847 We have e commerce customers obviously using WooCommerce. 00:12:58.482 --> 00:13:00.402 Hey, you got that big sale coming. 00:13:00.412 --> 00:13:04.532 You can allocate that stuff ahead of time and you're kind of giving that 00:13:04.532 --> 00:13:08.882 power back because you know, a lot of freelancers who get into this game, they 00:13:08.902 --> 00:13:12.152 don't, the game of selling websites, they don't realize that, you know, 00:13:12.162 --> 00:13:16.582 the technology, the reliability, and it's not just a one size fits all. 00:13:16.872 --> 00:13:21.122 And I do like that approach because you could isolate your e commerce 00:13:21.122 --> 00:13:24.467 customers know, we're really going to hit the system hard. 00:13:24.857 --> 00:13:29.517 cause even a baseline e commerce site is using much more resources, 00:13:29.527 --> 00:13:34.587 memory, and CPU, power than, I don't know, your small business accountant. 00:13:34.947 --> 00:13:37.607 You know, you built her a five page portfolio site. 00:13:38.037 --> 00:13:41.297 It's not really doing much once it's cash, it's cash unless she changes something, 00:13:41.607 --> 00:13:45.347 but an e commerce store transactions going into the car, adding stuff that's not 00:13:45.347 --> 00:13:47.807 cashable, or, you know, from the front 00:13:47.982 --> 00:13:48.532 Chris: Just logging 00:13:48.577 --> 00:13:48.797 Matt: Yeah. 00:13:48.797 --> 00:13:49.927 Just logging in, right? 00:13:50.757 --> 00:13:53.767 7, 000 messages coming up from all the plugins you've added. 00:13:54.117 --> 00:13:57.197 yeah, it's very smart to isolate those types of stores and good 00:13:57.197 --> 00:13:58.677 practice for an agency owner. 00:13:59.062 --> 00:13:59.352 Chris: Yep. 00:14:00.122 --> 00:14:00.362 Yeah. 00:14:00.582 --> 00:14:01.782 You know, and you mentioned bursting. 00:14:01.782 --> 00:14:03.352 We do have, we do offer bursting. 00:14:03.382 --> 00:14:08.177 So it's, it's not marked in front of site, but if you assign 10 sites 10 CPUs to a 00:14:08.187 --> 00:14:13.497 site We give you burst of capabilities, which is basically take advantage of 00:14:13.507 --> 00:14:18.627 all the unallocated CPUs that machine Alright, so we we under provision every 00:14:18.627 --> 00:14:22.687 server And if you need the burst, you know, if you have a big surge and you 00:14:22.687 --> 00:14:26.102 got 10 there We'll give you what you need That's available on that server. 00:14:26.202 --> 00:14:28.362 So you can actually handle a very large load. 00:14:28.412 --> 00:14:31.912 Well, the 10 CPUs are, you know, there's a, these are very high 00:14:31.912 --> 00:14:33.752 frequency, you know, top line CPUs. 00:14:33.782 --> 00:14:37.582 They'll handle a lot of work, but we'll also allow bursting to take advantage 00:14:37.582 --> 00:14:39.212 of even more capacity that's available. 00:14:39.522 --> 00:14:42.792 Matt: Is that, does that go into like a different pricing structure? 00:14:42.892 --> 00:14:43.982 no, no pricing structure. 00:14:44.062 --> 00:14:45.202 Chris: nope, nope, nope, nope. 00:14:45.222 --> 00:14:49.072 It's, it's, if you get the 10 CPUs in that site and they're available, it's there for 00:14:49.232 --> 00:14:49.552 Matt: Could you 00:14:49.882 --> 00:14:50.972 Chris: And that's the other big thing. 00:14:52.682 --> 00:14:53.202 Not now. 00:14:53.202 --> 00:14:55.822 It's, it's, you know, we may do some more work down the road again. 00:14:55.822 --> 00:14:57.112 We're talking to customers. 00:14:57.112 --> 00:14:58.452 What do they, you know, what do they need? 00:14:58.852 --> 00:15:02.482 is this a feature we want to be able to, you know, buy it, right? 00:15:02.512 --> 00:15:05.162 Give me, give me bursting for 48 hours, right? 00:15:05.242 --> 00:15:07.992 Or, you know, this is going to be a big month for this particular client. 00:15:08.292 --> 00:15:12.392 Let's give them bursting for a month, 24 seven, those, those types of things. 00:15:13.342 --> 00:15:17.107 But that's, you know, One of the, one of the approaches we had here when 00:15:17.107 --> 00:15:21.377 we mentioned earlier, talking with agencies was the, was the pricing, right? 00:15:21.707 --> 00:15:26.047 A lot of times it's, well, add on for this, add on for that, add on for that. 00:15:26.787 --> 00:15:28.617 This is one price, all inclusive. 00:15:29.557 --> 00:15:35.147 SSL certificates, backups, real time backups, fail over, the, malware 00:15:35.147 --> 00:15:36.897 scanning, all of it's included. 00:15:36.917 --> 00:15:40.037 You're not going to get all this, you know, ad here, ad there. 00:15:40.277 --> 00:15:43.007 And the price you see on the screen at bluehills. 00:15:43.007 --> 00:15:44.867 com is the price you're going to pay. 00:15:45.337 --> 00:15:47.647 It's not going to be, Oh, by the way, at the end of the month, you exceeded your 00:15:47.657 --> 00:15:49.877 bandwidth or you exceeded your visitors. 00:15:50.647 --> 00:15:54.227 There is no extra charge for extra, you know, exceeding the 00:15:54.227 --> 00:15:55.847 bandwidth visitor limitation. 00:15:55.987 --> 00:16:00.657 Matt: I mean, age as a, again, as a recovering 10 year agency owner, being 00:16:00.657 --> 00:16:06.227 able to predict your, obviously your, your monthly hosting bill is very important 00:16:06.647 --> 00:16:12.607 and I can't only imagine what it's like to run a Agency these days, I think, I 00:16:12.617 --> 00:16:17.187 think hosting, you know, for agencies is a smart thing, or at least being 00:16:17.187 --> 00:16:21.497 the point person, as long as you're being transparent with your customers. 00:16:21.877 --> 00:16:24.867 I remember in the early days, I was just like, Oh yeah, we're hosting 00:16:24.867 --> 00:16:26.677 it, you know, and every, okay, fine. 00:16:26.677 --> 00:16:27.227 Here's the money. 00:16:28.087 --> 00:16:28.957 I wasn't hosting it. 00:16:29.197 --> 00:16:32.087 I, you know, I was reselling it or I was probably back then I was using, 00:16:32.097 --> 00:16:33.637 you know, Linode or digital ocean. 00:16:33.637 --> 00:16:36.557 I can't remember when, when I first started the thing, but. 00:16:37.272 --> 00:16:40.322 As soon as I started getting more customers, I was like, you know what? 00:16:40.322 --> 00:16:41.712 I'm not going to tell that lie anymore. 00:16:41.952 --> 00:16:45.822 I'm just going to be transparent with everybody that here's my hosting partner, 00:16:45.832 --> 00:16:50.082 whatever I, you know, verbiage I came up with, you're paying me, you're 00:16:50.082 --> 00:16:54.422 paying me the monthly hosting plus the service because you're not, they're 00:16:54.422 --> 00:16:57.037 never going to contact the vendor. 00:16:57.447 --> 00:16:59.937 you're going to pay the premium to have me, you know, deal 00:16:59.937 --> 00:17:01.007 with the hosting essentially. 00:17:01.007 --> 00:17:03.387 And I think it's still smart that, that agencies do that. 00:17:04.047 --> 00:17:09.387 Have you all built in like a white label invoicing or pricing to allow 00:17:09.437 --> 00:17:10.877 agencies to do something like that? 00:17:11.847 --> 00:17:12.877 Chris: we have not. 00:17:12.927 --> 00:17:16.547 we do have the what we call the cloud one plant, which is a single site. 00:17:17.297 --> 00:17:21.547 And so what, you know, if if an agency doesn't want to manage a 00:17:21.547 --> 00:17:25.497 customer's building and site and they want to, the customer do 00:17:25.497 --> 00:17:28.217 it themselves, the cloud through themselves, there is ability to do that. 00:17:28.467 --> 00:17:32.907 spin them off onto the cloud one plan and allow them to have their own billing. 00:17:33.027 --> 00:17:36.987 You'd still have access to WP admin and manage the account, but 00:17:36.987 --> 00:17:40.587 then gives you your customer, the client, the ability to do their own, 00:17:41.347 --> 00:17:43.687 Matt: And they, they'd have like access to it, like a sub 00:17:43.687 --> 00:17:44.837 account or something like that. 00:17:45.337 --> 00:17:45.817 Chris: right? 00:17:46.517 --> 00:17:47.107 Matt: That makes sense. 00:17:47.737 --> 00:17:48.227 I like that. 00:17:48.987 --> 00:17:51.557 You mentioned backups and malware scanning. 00:17:51.577 --> 00:17:54.587 Is that powered by Jetpack or is that Bluehost's own? 00:17:54.997 --> 00:17:55.237 Cool. 00:17:55.677 --> 00:17:56.297 Chris: No, it's Jet. 00:17:56.377 --> 00:17:57.017 It is Jet Pack. 00:17:57.107 --> 00:18:00.877 Matt: Does the end user also have to sign up for a Jetpack billable 00:18:00.877 --> 00:18:02.417 account or that's all encompassing? 00:18:02.597 --> 00:18:04.717 And that's one of the values of WP Cloud, I think, right? 00:18:05.377 --> 00:18:06.157 Chris: Right, right. 00:18:06.177 --> 00:18:08.047 So that's what we packaged. 00:18:08.047 --> 00:18:12.817 It is, you know, just, you know, it was really targeting at the agency. 00:18:13.087 --> 00:18:16.437 We don't want to worry about, did we get backups automatically there? 00:18:16.447 --> 00:18:18.217 It's on jetpack backup. 00:18:18.217 --> 00:18:19.767 You've always got real time backups. 00:18:20.007 --> 00:18:21.147 You know, you want to go back an hour. 00:18:21.147 --> 00:18:22.617 You go back three days. 00:18:22.727 --> 00:18:24.047 It's it's there. 00:18:24.047 --> 00:18:25.407 It's included malware. 00:18:25.467 --> 00:18:26.437 They're included. 00:18:26.897 --> 00:18:31.227 You know, it's all, you know, don't have to worry about, you know, Go 00:18:31.227 --> 00:18:33.197 back and add something else later on. 00:18:33.467 --> 00:18:34.367 And it is jetpack. 00:18:34.447 --> 00:18:38.397 So the security piece, the backup piece, it's just native 00:18:38.747 --> 00:18:40.167 within that cloud platform. 00:18:40.527 --> 00:18:43.667 Matt: Alright, so now let me, let me drill in just a little bit here. 00:18:43.737 --> 00:18:49.337 There's a magical Number you have on the landing page that I'm sure everyone in the 00:18:49.337 --> 00:18:51.657 room was like should we really say this? 00:18:52.717 --> 00:18:57.212 100 percent guaranteed Network uptime, correct? 00:18:57.392 --> 00:19:02.842 Infrastructure, the servers, the probably the, the CDNs around the globe, right? 00:19:02.852 --> 00:19:05.842 Failover, all of this stuff doesn't necessarily mean if somebody 00:19:05.852 --> 00:19:09.992 nukes their own WordPress website that that is accounted for. 00:19:10.192 --> 00:19:15.742 But the 100 percent is I had, I didn't see that in any other, Bluehost offerings 00:19:15.832 --> 00:19:17.882 is specific to this cloud product. 00:19:19.777 --> 00:19:20.237 Chris: It is. 00:19:20.687 --> 00:19:24.067 And there was a lot of discussion about that, you know, and the legal 00:19:24.067 --> 00:19:26.257 team was, it was very involved, you 00:19:26.297 --> 00:19:27.977 Matt: of red lines on that contract. 00:19:29.537 --> 00:19:32.657 Chris: back and forth and back and forth, but we want to stand behind it if you 00:19:32.657 --> 00:19:36.677 wanted it It was like this this is you know, we have the multiple data centers. 00:19:36.677 --> 00:19:41.147 We've got the automatic failover We believe in this right so it's there 00:19:41.207 --> 00:19:46.007 and we're backing it up So if you experience the downtime you contact 00:19:46.007 --> 00:19:48.677 us and we will give you that refund 00:19:48.687 --> 00:19:48.947 Matt: Yeah. 00:19:49.907 --> 00:19:50.107 Yeah. 00:19:50.107 --> 00:19:51.347 I mean, peace of mind. 00:19:51.447 --> 00:19:56.557 you know, the, the, agency, again, like that, when you're, you're picking a 00:19:56.557 --> 00:20:00.237 solution like this from an agency, I mean, let's pretend that you're interviewing me 00:20:00.237 --> 00:20:04.197 as the agency owner, because I get a lot of ideas for hosting for, for agencies. 00:20:04.447 --> 00:20:06.437 You don't want to, you don't want. 00:20:06.962 --> 00:20:11.872 The call on a Saturday afternoon, you know, you're at your kid's soccer 00:20:11.872 --> 00:20:15.092 game and your customer calls up and they're yelling at you because 00:20:15.092 --> 00:20:16.762 their WordPress website is down. 00:20:17.142 --> 00:20:21.272 when I started my agency before I had kids, I was out late the night before. 00:20:21.382 --> 00:20:26.172 I don't want to be woken up early in, in the morning, having a customer yelling 00:20:26.172 --> 00:20:27.662 at me that their website is down. 00:20:27.662 --> 00:20:27.952 So. 00:20:28.432 --> 00:20:33.872 These are choice features or values that, you know, an agency owner should 00:20:33.882 --> 00:20:37.212 be looking for, you know, when they're, you know, when they're making the right, 00:20:37.322 --> 00:20:38.892 the right pick for their hosting company. 00:20:39.977 --> 00:20:40.207 Chris: Yep. 00:20:40.437 --> 00:20:44.177 You know, if I pay, you know, three bucks, five bucks a month for shared hosting, 00:20:44.477 --> 00:20:51.637 you know, maybe I don't expect it to be up, you know, 24, seven, 365, 100%. 00:20:51.637 --> 00:20:51.967 Right. 00:20:52.347 --> 00:20:56.997 And you should maybe expect that your noisy neighbor is going to cause your 00:20:56.997 --> 00:21:00.777 performance issues for your shared hosting, you know, basic website. 00:21:01.507 --> 00:21:04.407 But when I move into this professional realm, your clients 00:21:04.467 --> 00:21:07.607 expect not only fast performance. 00:21:08.492 --> 00:21:12.962 You know, they want the high rankings, everything else, but we don't want to 00:21:12.962 --> 00:21:14.722 see an error that sites not available. 00:21:15.062 --> 00:21:16.332 You want it to always be available. 00:21:16.752 --> 00:21:18.242 And that's our promise here. 00:21:18.572 --> 00:21:19.752 Matt: Let's just talk about staging sites. 00:21:19.752 --> 00:21:21.102 That's always a thing that comes up. 00:21:21.202 --> 00:21:25.722 How does staging work with the cloud and does a staging site also take 00:21:25.732 --> 00:21:28.462 up a seat in somebody's account? 00:21:29.567 --> 00:21:29.797 Chris: Yeah. 00:21:30.257 --> 00:21:33.347 So we have the cloning capabilities and we have staging. 00:21:33.957 --> 00:21:35.667 Staging does not count against you. 00:21:36.027 --> 00:21:39.167 So for each production site, you get one staging site. 00:21:39.447 --> 00:21:43.587 So a cloud 10, you get 10 production sites and 10 staging sites. 00:21:44.232 --> 00:21:45.072 Matt: That's fantastic. 00:21:45.152 --> 00:21:50.592 And I assume it has all of the same sort of like deployment mechanism. 00:21:50.602 --> 00:21:56.222 You can copy over a live site to a staging and then just push the whole site back. 00:21:57.477 --> 00:21:57.767 Chris: Yes. 00:21:58.167 --> 00:21:58.427 Yeah. 00:21:58.487 --> 00:22:01.867 Today it's a, it's a simple cloning process, but we're also, 00:22:02.047 --> 00:22:05.107 you know, as part of the pipeline as we're adding more features is, 00:22:05.377 --> 00:22:08.237 creating that full development life cycle that's on the roadmap. 00:22:08.522 --> 00:22:09.082 Matt: that's very cool. 00:22:09.792 --> 00:22:14.232 All the AI onboarding features, is that all baked into each individual site? 00:22:14.502 --> 00:22:17.312 The wonder suite that Bluehost has, is that all part of this as well? 00:22:17.312 --> 00:22:19.602 When somebody spins up a site on the cloud hosting? 00:22:20.262 --> 00:22:21.922 Chris: so as an onboarding, no. 00:22:22.497 --> 00:22:22.807 Right. 00:22:22.817 --> 00:22:25.417 So, you know, this is professionals agencies, right? 00:22:25.417 --> 00:22:30.037 They typically, again, talking to them, they don't want their handheld as if 00:22:30.047 --> 00:22:32.067 they're a brand new person or a brand new. 00:22:32.317 --> 00:22:36.117 So we give them the base WP admin functionality, but all 00:22:36.117 --> 00:22:39.667 the AI, wonder blocks, wonder suite, all that functionality is 00:22:39.812 --> 00:22:40.332 Matt: Oh, that's cool. 00:22:40.592 --> 00:22:40.792 Yeah. 00:22:40.792 --> 00:22:41.362 That makes sense. 00:22:41.712 --> 00:22:41.882 Yeah. 00:22:41.882 --> 00:22:47.162 There's a, I don't know how much you've, you publish in, WordPress in general, but 00:22:47.452 --> 00:22:51.242 I publish a lot and there's a, there's a default setting, at least in the 2024 00:22:51.242 --> 00:22:55.642 theme where every time you create a new page, it always brings up the pattern. 00:22:56.657 --> 00:22:58.047 Selection every single time. 00:22:58.047 --> 00:23:00.757 It's like, man, I don't need that. 00:23:01.047 --> 00:23:01.467 I don't. 00:23:01.787 --> 00:23:02.837 Chris: We're that expert option. 00:23:02.857 --> 00:23:03.107 Yeah. 00:23:03.137 --> 00:23:03.767 Get out of 00:23:03.867 --> 00:23:05.807 Matt: me just dismiss this forever. 00:23:05.897 --> 00:23:06.967 Once it's fine. 00:23:07.277 --> 00:23:07.777 Okay. 00:23:07.777 --> 00:23:09.107 And then I can just opt out of it. 00:23:09.107 --> 00:23:11.997 But man, every single time a lot of people say, Oh, it's the big deal. 00:23:11.997 --> 00:23:14.577 It's because like, when you're, when you do this a lot, like you're just 00:23:14.587 --> 00:23:17.377 whipping around the backend of WordPress, like I just need to add this page. 00:23:17.387 --> 00:23:19.617 Cause I'm going to do something else and you're moving on to another thing. 00:23:19.617 --> 00:23:21.147 And it's like, Oh wait, wait for these patterns to load. 00:23:21.147 --> 00:23:22.247 So, yeah, that cool. 00:23:22.257 --> 00:23:22.587 That's cool. 00:23:22.587 --> 00:23:23.547 That, that makes sense. 00:23:24.037 --> 00:23:27.517 Do you work with sort of, you know, uncovering a little bit more 00:23:27.517 --> 00:23:29.427 of the internal Bluehost process? 00:23:29.737 --> 00:23:32.417 Do you guys work with the cloud products specifically? 00:23:32.997 --> 00:23:38.317 With the core contributor team that Bluehost sponsors to see how they can sort 00:23:38.317 --> 00:23:41.527 of maybe optimize this solution a little bit more, or are they kind of like, Oh, 00:23:41.547 --> 00:23:44.117 you know, we don't really need to see this because we're backed by automatic. 00:23:45.162 --> 00:23:47.572 Chris: no, we're actually, we actually use, interact with them a 00:23:47.572 --> 00:23:49.542 lot and we take their input a lot. 00:23:49.842 --> 00:23:53.862 In fact, you meant you mentioned staging in the promotion capabilities. 00:23:54.172 --> 00:23:56.232 you know, we're taking a lot of their feedback as well because, you know, 00:23:56.392 --> 00:23:59.472 all their time they spend development, they work with agencies a lot. 00:23:59.472 --> 00:24:01.512 They work with a lot of the other contributors a lot. 00:24:01.902 --> 00:24:04.772 And so we really, take a lot of their feedback and how does 00:24:04.822 --> 00:24:09.582 this, life cycle, how do we, you know, automate this life cycle. 00:24:10.197 --> 00:24:13.297 And so yes, we've had a lot of involvement with them, with that team. 00:24:13.337 --> 00:24:14.007 Matt: fantastic. 00:24:14.267 --> 00:24:20.157 You'll be hosting a webinar with Devin Sears, community point of contact 00:24:20.197 --> 00:24:23.287 for me here at the WP Minute and for a lot of folks in the community. 00:24:23.507 --> 00:24:26.957 This episode will air after that, but I assume folks will be able to 00:24:26.957 --> 00:24:28.727 get a recording of that webinar. 00:24:28.727 --> 00:24:32.757 If you want to learn more, I'll also link that, webinar in the show notes 00:24:32.757 --> 00:24:36.367 because I'm sure there'll be like a Q and a section, in that webinar. 00:24:36.407 --> 00:24:40.007 And, if you want to listen to, Chris and Devin talk about 00:24:40.007 --> 00:24:41.167 that stuff a little bit more. 00:24:41.407 --> 00:24:42.987 I'll link that in the show notes. 00:24:42.987 --> 00:24:44.227 Chris, it's been fantastic. 00:24:44.277 --> 00:24:46.837 learning a little bit more about what blue host has been 00:24:46.837 --> 00:24:48.287 up to with this cloud solution. 00:24:48.577 --> 00:24:52.397 really interesting to see it all come together with the WP cloud solution. 00:24:52.767 --> 00:24:55.997 I'll also link up my interview with Jesse Friedman in the show notes below. 00:24:56.327 --> 00:24:59.227 Chris, where do you want folks to go to say thanks to learn more about you 00:24:59.227 --> 00:25:00.947 or learn more about the cloud solution? 00:25:02.187 --> 00:25:06.037 Chris: Well, you can find me on Twitter, TallKidsDad with a Z. 00:25:06.897 --> 00:25:08.537 so feel free to reach out to me there. 00:25:08.957 --> 00:25:12.137 and, yeah, we would love to, have some interaction and, see you there. 00:25:12.507 --> 00:25:12.827 Matt: Awesome. 00:25:13.147 --> 00:25:15.407 Chris: One, one other thing I didn't mention, you know, one of their, 00:25:15.797 --> 00:25:20.317 hallmarks of the blue house code, Bluehost cloud product is support. 00:25:21.027 --> 00:25:25.567 You know, there's, one thing that brings Bluehost front and center with a lot 00:25:25.567 --> 00:25:29.677 of people, people with WordPress is the experience we've been with, automatic. 00:25:29.917 --> 00:25:32.557 We've been hosting WordPress for a very long time. 00:25:32.827 --> 00:25:36.037 When we rolled out this Bluehost cloud product, we wanted to be different. 00:25:36.347 --> 00:25:38.357 We wanted to be head and shoulders above the rest. 00:25:38.667 --> 00:25:42.997 And so we built a dedicated support team specifically for this product. 00:25:43.557 --> 00:25:43.757 Right? 00:25:43.757 --> 00:25:48.097 So if you using Bluehost cloud, you have a question, you call that number 00:25:48.207 --> 00:25:53.157 or you chat, you'll go directly to a WordPress expert team rather than 00:25:53.157 --> 00:25:55.737 the typical tier one support team. 00:25:56.477 --> 00:25:59.587 So that's really sets it apart from all the others that are out there 00:25:59.677 --> 00:26:03.037 and it's not, you know, well, you don't have to, you know, pay extra 00:26:03.037 --> 00:26:04.887 for it or only have like a top tier. 00:26:05.207 --> 00:26:07.957 If you're a blue house cloud customer, you get direct access 00:26:07.957 --> 00:26:09.577 to this WordPress expert team. 00:26:10.132 --> 00:26:11.372 Matt: Would this be considered this? 00:26:11.382 --> 00:26:12.952 Actually, that unlocks another question again. 00:26:12.952 --> 00:26:16.302 Thinking back to my days in the hosting industry, would this 00:26:16.302 --> 00:26:20.772 be considered Bluehost like an enterprise solution for customers 00:26:20.772 --> 00:26:22.282 who are requiring a higher level? 00:26:22.282 --> 00:26:25.592 Or is there even another step above this that many of us 00:26:25.967 --> 00:26:29.007 Chris: So we're, we're going to great question. 00:26:29.057 --> 00:26:30.537 We're going up market right now. 00:26:30.547 --> 00:26:33.567 Right now we are not targeting enterprises, right? 00:26:33.807 --> 00:26:38.007 We are targeting, you know, the, the agencies and the professional freelancers. 00:26:38.687 --> 00:26:40.287 we expect to get there, right? 00:26:40.537 --> 00:26:44.377 We will offer a, a la carte package. 00:26:44.692 --> 00:26:45.002 Right. 00:26:45.502 --> 00:26:46.802 You know, I'm a large agency. 00:26:46.802 --> 00:26:47.892 I want 300 sites. 00:26:47.892 --> 00:26:51.332 I want 200 CPU or 600 CPUs. 00:26:51.562 --> 00:26:52.642 We will offer that. 00:26:52.982 --> 00:26:56.032 But right now we're starting here at the agencies and working 00:26:56.032 --> 00:26:58.862 our way up and listening to the customers and what they want 00:26:58.902 --> 00:26:59.212 Matt: Yeah. 00:26:59.642 --> 00:27:01.092 It's like choosing a data center. 00:27:01.092 --> 00:27:01.772 Still a thing. 00:27:01.772 --> 00:27:03.382 Or would this solution is just everywhere. 00:27:03.382 --> 00:27:03.892 Okay, cool. 00:27:04.482 --> 00:27:06.512 Chris: No, you choose your primary data center. 00:27:06.772 --> 00:27:07.432 There's four of them. 00:27:08.022 --> 00:27:08.532 Three in the U. 00:27:08.532 --> 00:27:12.842 S., one in Europe, and then you're, you'll have automatic failover to another 00:27:12.842 --> 00:27:15.292 data center in the event of a failure. 00:27:15.727 --> 00:27:16.577 Matt: Fantastic stuff. 00:27:17.227 --> 00:27:18.137 All right, Chris, thanks a lot. 00:27:18.137 --> 00:27:20.857 Thanks for hanging out today and, letting us explore a little bit 00:27:20.857 --> 00:27:25.097 more about Bluehost cloud solution, everybody else's, the WP minute. 00:27:25.097 --> 00:27:26.147 com the WP minute. 00:27:26.367 --> 00:27:27.327 com slash subscribes. 00:27:27.327 --> 00:27:29.527 The number one way to stay connected.