The Future of WordPress Themes in a World of Gutenberg Blocks

I’m Brian Gardner, a Chicago-based designer, WordPress expert, and the creator of Powder—a base WordPress block theme created for Full Site Editing. Build something cool, pair it with a child, or use it for a client project.

I believe that good design is about pushing boundaries and experimenting with new ideas. It’s about dreaming, thinking outside the box, and creating something unique.

Main Questions For Interview

#1 – Brain, can you give the listeners and viewers some insights connected to what you do on a day-to-day basis in the WP-Engine team and what it is like working with such a great group of people?

#2 – Brain, while are we with the Gutenberg project, and how does the traditional theme fit into the new world of Gutenberg and block libraries?

#3 – I see some fantastic opportunities with Gutenberg and block libraries; what is your and WP-Engine attitude connected to helping developers and designers in this new world of blocks?

#4 – Matt Mullenweg seems lately to be having problems with some of the major hosting providers; how can this situation be improved so everybody can, to some extent, have a win-win situation if this is possible?

#5 – If you go back to a time machine at the beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself?

#6 – Are there any books, websites, or online recourses that have helped you in your own business development that you like to share with the audience?

https://briangardner.com/about/

https://wpengine.com/builders/author/brian-gardner/

This Week Show’s Sponsors

Sensei LMS: Sensei LMS

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LifterLMS: LifterLMS

Episode Transcript

(00:00) Intro: Welcome to the WP-Tonic this week in WordPress and SaaS podcast,

where Jonathan Denwood interviews the leading experts in WordPress e-learning and

online marketing to help WordPress professionals launch their own SaaS.

(00:16) Jonathan Denwood: Welcome back folks to the WP-Tonic Show. This is episode 736. Got a returning guest, a friend of the show, somebody that to say that they’ve got a lot of history with WordPress would be a slight understatement. We’ve got Brian Gardner with us. He works with WP Engine, one of the best hosting providers in the WordPress space. So, Brian, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the tribe?

(00:46) Brian Gardner: Yes, certainly. For those who don’t know I am Brian Gardner. I am the founder of Studio Press, the co-creator of the Genesis Framework. I have been building WordPress things since 2006, and currently serve as a principal developer advocate at WP Engine. Though I need to correct you, it is not one of the best hosts. It is the best host, of course, my opinion.

(01:10) Jonathan Denwood: I gotta be, I’ve gotta be [Inaudible], haven’t I? I’ve got other–

(01:13) Brian Gardner: I don’t have to be.

(01:16) Jonathan Denwood: I know you don’t, but I do. It’s easy. Let be frank here, Brian, it’s–

(01:21) Brian Gardner: Dually noted.

(01:24) Jonathan Denwood: It’s pretty easy to upset people with the WordPress space, isn’t it?

(01:28) Brian Gardner: It is, and I’ve spent the better part of 15 years trying not to do that. So that being said, yes I am an advocate of not only WordPress, but full site editing, block-based building, WordPress theme development design as we talked very briefly earlier, Starbucks, and of course Taylor Swift.

(01:49) Jonathan Denwood: Oh god, I don’t know what to say to that. Thanks for that introduction, Brian. Before we go into the meat and potatoes of this great interview, which I’ll be looking forward to, Brian is always a great guest to interview. We’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We’ll be back in a few moments. Folks,

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(03:16) Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back. I just want to talk about one of our sponsors, Sensei Learning Management Systems. If you are building a learning management system, and you need integration with WooCommerce, this is a great solution. Ronnie and the team have really done some great things with Gutenberg into integration, and it works flawlessly with WooCommerce. So if you need that, they’re the main people to look at. So have a look at that, and I really appreciate their ongoing support. So Brian what is it like working with a real power team at WP Engine? To say you got some heavy hitters. I think when it comes to actual management, they’re some of the most impressive individuals in the WordPress space with their entrepreneurship, their knowledge. Just a top team, basically. So what it like working with some real heavy hitters?

(04:23) Brian Gardner: You know, it’s awesome. I’ll start there. When I joined WP Engine officially last September, I knew the company culture was great. I knew several people in, our T1 management level, obviously Heather Brunner, our CEO, Jason Cohen founder, and all of that. And of course, the Studio Press team was all still there relatively intact. Some had moved into different teams and departments in the company. There are several levels because WP Engine, not many people know this, or might be surprised by it, we’re well over a thousand people at the company, so, Wow. It’s a really big company. And so there are obviously different departments many of which I don’t interact with at all or very infrequently. And then, of course, there’s the developer relations team, which we’re on Slack all the time. We’re communicating via social media on Zoom calls and have team meetings and stuff like that. 

There are different facets of my involvement at WP Engine. It’s great to be supported by the leadership I mentioned even, the upper management, like everyone’s great to work with. Everyone is really, really good at their job. And so to answer specifically the question you asked though, its great people like Nick Dio, Sam Munos, of course, Nathan Rice, who I just mentioned this morning on Twitter. Just some really, really great people in the WordPress space, Jason Ball, Damon Cook. The list goes on and on. Just all the people that I get to work alongside. And it’s, and Mike McAllister I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Mike. Mike is somebody I followed for several years and then sort of helped bring him over into the company with the Atomic Blocks acquisition. And so nice to finally work alongside him too. So there are lots of talented folks here.

(06:12) Jonathan Denwood: It certainly is. And I honestly mean this, Brian. When it comes to professionalism and how to position yourself and how to deal with an open-source environment project as a commercial business, it’s all pretty tricky. And it’s so easy to upset people in WordPress. It really, really is. And WP Engine has grown a great business, and they kind of seem to manage the waters so effectively. Would you agree with that?

(06:49) Brian Gardner: Yes, I would agree with that. One of the reasons why I chose to work here, just because there’s really not a history if at all, around #WPDrama. Yes, because it’s a big company, there’s probably lots of envy in this space. And so it’s easy to take shots of people who are doing things better than you and things like that. So we probably see some of that maybe throughout social media. Not every company or product or service is perfect. So, you know, from here, every once in a while you’ll see a tweet saying, Oh, I wish support was better. And just things fall through the cracks. It’s just bound to happen, a company this size and all of that. But yeah, it was certainly half of the decision was relative to company culture and just– is this a company I would proudly wear on my sleeve, on my Twitter bio, in any context? Yes.

(07:41) Jonathan Denwood:  Well, I know, for a fact that you that your reputation and your records means a lot to you. I would imagine that financially you don’t have to do anything, and you do it because you agree with the company and you like working with them, basically.

(08:05) Brian Gardner: That is not true. The front half of what you said I do need to work because we all have kids in college and things of that nature. So yes, I mean, obviously I do it because I love it. I also do it because I want to do it and because I love WordPress and don’t want to do anything other than WordPress.

(08:26) Jonathan Denwood: It’s great. I thought it was great to hear that you were working with them because we’ve had a few top people like [Inaudible08:32 ] and it’s all for understandable reasons. Everything comes to end, doesn’t it? Our own lives, our own particular companies, everything moves on or ends, doesn’t it? It’s something that we struggle with. We don’t like it, do we? But that’s just the reality of being a human being, isn’t it? Everything ends. Doesn’t it? But it was great to see that you are going to be an active part of the WordPress community. So let’s move on to the next question. Only a small one. In the world of Gutenberg, you are seen rightfully as one of the granddaddies of developing the theme in the WordPress platform with your, [Inaudible09:21 ]

Where does Themes fit into the world, in your own mind, in the world of Gutenberg Blocks? Because we’ve always had this thing about frameworks. You were linked to Genesis. You work with Studio Press, we got like Cadence. We’ve got Spector that’s I’m very keen on, cause I’ve got links to that particular team and they’ve always produced top-notch stuff. So we got these Quasar frameworks that I think you got to utilize with Gutenberg to get what I would be happy with. So I don’t know where the individual theme fits in. it all kind of, seems to be up in the air a bit. Are you clarifying your own thoughts around all this?

(10:20) Brian Gardner: I am. So let’s start at the top with Gutenberg now being no longer the editor and now the experimental plugin for what’s coming in core. So let’s level set there for people who are listening. So when we talk about Gutenberg blocks, really what we’re talking about are the blocks that come with WordPress core now, Different from block libraries that existed in the past, like Co-blocks and I think Cadence and Generate Press has its own sort of block libraries, Atomic that I mentioned earlier. A lot of these block libraries formed because WordPress Core did not have the same functionality over the last year or so. Lots of blocks have now become part of WordPress core, the group block that cannibalizes a lot of what these libraries offer. So, I have never really used, oh, of course, Genesis Blocks, which is renamed Atomic Blocks.

I don’t use block libraries just because I’m such a purist when it comes to what I do. We’ve always been that way. Genesis was built that way. And so as WordPress became more comprehensive with its own library of blocks and core, I’m like, I just don’t have a need to go. I don’t know how to build blocks, first of all. So I can’t go build them. Anything I want to design now can be accommodated by WordPress Core Blocks. It’s easy. There’s no lock in all of that said. In terms of the framework and of course we’ve been asked ad nauseum about Genesis and what the future of Genesis and all of that is. I don’t think it’s any surprise to people that the framework, as it was is not – There’s no longer a path for future development Because WordPress has cannibalized much of what that value Genesis brought. 

 

We will continue to update it and do critical patches and stuff like that, but we’re now in a new season of WordPress building. WordPress has level set that with full site editing and block themes and stuff like that. As for me personally, I’ll just kind of fast forward to like my stance. I’m torn. I created Frost. And Frost is an experimental theme now that WP Engine owns. And inside of Frost are a lot of patterns because I love IDF patterns. The problem is a theme just doesn’t need every pattern. And so like, how do you do that? Do you make opinionated themes with some patterns in one theme, some patterns in another? I don’t know. What I’ve decided to do personally outside of my job, just for fun, is create another theme called Powder. And this is serving sort of as a base theme. And I think moving forward a lot of what I’ll do, just for fun and on the side and maybe for clients if I ever have any, would be to do sort of a child theme with a parent theme. I call it a base theme because I don’t like the parent-child nomenclature, but a base theme that’s basically really, really stripped down. And then anything I want to do just kind of comes out in the way of a child theme.

(13:12) Jonathan Denwood: Well, it is a little bit confusing for end users. Cause like with the Astra we are going to keep using Elementor we are going to offer it on my offering. Cause we are hosting now over 200 customers. And I’m totally independent financially from anybody attacking me. I don’t have to put up with their, bullshit because I’m, independently financially independent which is a nice space. Astra uses, because I’m looking to keep Elementor but I always want to go to Gutenberg. I just saw it as just what I wanted to do. So in the New Year, we’re probably going to use Specter going to offer Specter and we’re going to– they’ve got this thing called starter themes. So it’s all kind of all mixed up, isn’t it? But on to my next question, I see enormous opportunities with Gutenberg about offering different looks, different patterns. It’s just the terminology. I don’t think we clarified. Do you agree? Can you see all– I see the enormous possibilities with it, but it’s clarifying, it all seems still up in the air a bit, or is that just me?

(14:42) Brian Gardner: I think that’s been the general consensus that things are still in play. I think WordPress 6.1, which just shipped a few days ago, yesterday whenever it was really level sets a lot of where we’re at. And a lot of what we’ve been waiting for is now in WordPress core, not relying on the plugin to bring it to us. Which means everything is now in production or production capable ready? Yes, the nomenclature is there, that’s really mostly around the WordPress community and the people who are building with it. Like we are the ones talking about layouts and patterns and blocks and all of that stuff. Many end users or all end users they don’t need to know. They want the deliverability of the things. But using words to say things that really are our only us business people talking to each, other.

And so I understand philosophically all of how it comes together end users don’t need to. So it’s my responsibility to just say, just build a product, I think in a way is the best way to do it, to deliver to a client so they could do something with it. And I think the real important thing here is that people realize, builders, realize there’s a lot of different ways to do the same thing right now. Whether its style variations, whether it’s through patterns, whether it’s through parent-child themes, whether it’s through just like a parent. Like there’s just a lot of different ways and there’s– depending on who you ask, I’m generally a, not a right or wrong way to do it. It’s just personal preference. Are you building a wall or garden? Do you want to do it this way? Like, what do you want to call things? 

I’ve identified what I’m planning on doing sort of as a sort of a personal opinion because it works best for me. Again, back to why we built Genesis was because I didn’t want to continually update the same subset of code across 10 different themes, 10 different. Like, it was just like, just change it once and have it sort of work itself through that way. And so I’ve built themes very similarly, FSE themes. I’m like, I just, you know, everything’s like 95% of the version before it. So why have to update something in every single theme?

(16:55) Jonathan Denwood: Just to wrap things up before we go to our middle break, Brian, one of the things I see so attractive about the future was what was supposedly offered with WordPress. But when you got to the nitty gritty, it never really worked out unless you were utilizing something like Genesis. And that was that you could change your theme, but the reality, you had themes that use a lot of shortcodes another fact, a lot of inbuilt functionality that was reliant on the theme. The reality is a lot of end users got bit on the backside because changing a theme, they literally had to just rebuild the website, had to hire somebody, and rebuild it. Do you see in the world of Gutenberg and blocks the possibility of being able to change a fundamental look of a website without having to totally rebuild it?

(17:52) Brian Gardner: Yeah, I do. And it’s also why I’ve embraced sort of the base and child theme system because things are copy and pastable between, like, you could activate a new theme and if it’s all using the same, color classes and font sizing and things like that, then there’s really no need to have to completely reinvent the wheel. So I’m very bullish in, at least within the theme system that I’m working through that you’ll be able to kind of just copy and paste and pick and choose and do things in a way that’s a lot easier than it used to be.

(18:28) Jonathan Denwood: Because I think one of the consequences, and I’m not blaming everything, it is what it is. What Gutenberg seemed to offer was it was going to simplify things. But for various factors, I’m just thinking for the end user, I’m not talking about the professional. I’m not talking part of the studio press, which is always been more focused to my mind, the power user, the professional WordPress, but I’m talking about the general user. This is just my opinion. And I think because of Gutenberg and various factors, the situation have actually got more confusing for the end user. Would you agree with that?

(19:10) Brian Gardner: I could see that being true. What I could also see being true is that because of that and where WordPress is going on some level, the end-to-end user is less the customer of WordPress than it used to be. Other platforms like Squarespace and so on, that’s targeted much more for the DIY very early, into building a website type of person. And so I feel like what the Gutenberg editor back when it was called that and where we’re at now is really more for people who build websites for other people because it really can expedite development time and make things easier to build.

(19:48) Jonathan Denwood: That’s great. We’re going to go for our break. We’ll be back in a few moments. I’ve got Brian Gardner, the grandfather of themes as I call him. He doesn’t like that, but it’s true though. You’re one of the founders of the whole. And we owe you a debt for that obviously you did it to help yourself, but we still owe you a debt for that I feel. We’ll be back in a few moments, folks.

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(20:50) Jonathan Denwood: We’re coming back. We’ve got Brian Garner, one of the more deeper thinkers in the word press space. Somebody that also has the ability not to piss people off, unlike me.

(21:05) Brian Gardner: No comments. 

(21:08 ) Jonathan Denwood: My ability to do that Brian is legendary, but I don’t do it out of malice. I do it for the right reasons I feel. I’m not a malice-filled individual. I don’t think you would be on this show if you felt that way, would you? You don’t have to come on here. You say so, but hopefully, you agree with that. Before I go onto the next question, folks, if you’re looking for some great offers, the best recommendations for WordPress plugins, we got some special offers from our sponsors that are exclusive to WP-Tonic. How you get all these goodies? Just go over to WP-Tonic offers and they’re all available there. Plus you’d be able to sign up for the WP-Tonic newsletter where I do an editorial, I link all the best Word Press stories of the week and tech stories. We have a, it’s a bit different to all the other newsletters. You can get all that by going over to WP Tonic/offers. 

So Brian onto the next question. So Matt Mullenweg interesting individual. Like all brilliant men there are the good points and there are the bad points. And it’s tricky, He’s had a few spats on Twitter and I’ve got such mixed feelings about Twitter in general. I love it and I hate it at the same time. And he seems to love Twitter, especially late. And this is English humour, Brian. Some people don’t get hopefully you do. He seems to like Twitter late at night when he’s had a few Whiskeys not the greatest combination, but he seems to be okay with it. So he’s had a few spats with hosting providers and has been a lot of pointing and name callings. WP Engines seems to have avoided his wrath. Is this an ongoing conversation in WP Engine? What their relationship with Automaticc, with Matt Mullenweg with WordPress open source project and about, you know, WP Engines a business, it’s there to make money. So it’s all a bit tricky. Got any insights about this and how it should be? Cause we don’t run a really load of drama here. Everybody’s got their objectives and they need to make money and they need to move forward. So it should attempt to be a win-win situation rather than just a load of drama really, doesn’t it?

(24:00) Brian Gardner: Yeah, I, again, as we talked about earlier, I’ve always erred on the side of just sort of kumbaya in the community maybe to a fault. And that’s just, the way I do business.  It’s always been that way. It is easy when you’re–

(24:14) Jonathan Denwood: I need, I need you as a coach, Brian.

(24:18) Brian Gardner: Do as I say, not as I do. When, you talk about hundreds of millions of dollars that companies like WP Engine or GoDaddy or whomever make, I mean, I’m sure GoDaddy is probably more than that, but Automaticc themselves. I mean there’s investors, there’s money, there’s stress, there’s, you know, just a lot of people cooks in the kitchen, things like that. It’s bound to sort of create an element of someone’s never going to be completely happy. Small businesses, get afraid when they see Automaticc doing something because they’re like, Oh, they’re going to take away our opportunity to do something. And the reality is, Automaticc needs to make money too, because they’re well over a thousand strong. So even though WordPress is open source and there’s a really, really great and strong community, there’s still an element of like, Hey, we’re all business people and in it to make money.

No one’s really, with maybe a few exceptions doing this solely as a.org thing. That being said Matt and I have always, as far as I’m concerned, always been on good terms back when Revolution was not embracing the GPL. And that was more out of ignorance than anything. I remember flying out to San Francisco so we could sit down and talk about it. Revolution then went Open Source became Studio Press. And so like, there’s always been an element to that. I don’t know. I assume that has no impact on what he thinks of WP Engine because I’ve only been here just over a year. But the reality is, we just don’t do things that piss people off, right?

(25:51) Jonathan Denwood: It’s quite simple really, isn’t it?

(25:56) Brian Gardner: It’s the no train wreck rule. We just stay away from the tracks. What Matt does whether it’s ambient or ambient or whatever it’s called, or his whiskeys or– Matts is, he’s smart, he’s got a lot of money. He knows what he’s doing, He knows what he can get away with. I sometimes have to laugh and celebrate these spats that are back and forth just because they’re funny to some degree. I think a lot of people get upset over smaller things and don’t over bigger things. It is what it is. We’re all adults. Everybody handles themselves the way they choose. Oh,

(26:33) Jonathan Denwood: Well some people think they are. I do wonder about–t my position is I can’t be a total hypocrite. I don’t like it where I get when I become a target, but I’ve handed out a bit of punishment over the years a little bit. So, I’ve gotta man up and take a bit of it myself. I could be a total hypocrite about it, Brian, but you just gotta accept it. You are much more on the diplomatic side I can be a bit [Inaudible27:07 ], but there we go. A more serious part of this it  is a bit tricky for some something like WP Engine and you got great management, but it’s also, you’re dealing with open source environment, aren’t you? It’s a bit of an unusual concoction, isn’t it?

(27:32) Brian Gardner: Yeah. Yeah there are elements of sharecropping because of that, but also because it’s open source. We as a company get to contribute and Nick Diego’s done a phenomenal job since he joined us just over a year ago in really bringing to the table our presence as it pertains to contributing back to WordPress. Time spent building into the project developing relationships with those at Automaticc, They have a developer relations team Ann McCarthy, Daisy Olsen. I mean, there are all kinds of people over there who are doing great work, who were working sort of alongside with doing presentations with. So it’s been really fun to build that element of the relationship back between WP Engine and Automaticc really for the spirit of just trying to move WordPress, the platform forward, and into the future. Because we all have vested interest in making sure it succeeds, right? Nobody wants to see it go stale. Nobody wants to see it go off the rails because there’s a lot of money at stake and a lot of people’s websites are built on it, and we just all want to see that continue. Yeah.

(28:32) Jonathan Denwood: The one thing about Matt is that at least he’s not a robot. this is only my opinion, I don’t expect you to comment on this, but you get a lot of these top CEO obviously, I’m English and American, I’m a joint citizen, but for most of my adult life I was in England, so I see myself as British. You get a lot of these corporate CEO types. They’re so bland, they’re so, like, unless you don’t get that with Matt, he’s obviously still just a human being and he has his ways. The only bit about this whole thing, just to wrap it up, that I didn’t like, it’s, they seemed a bit of finger-pointing and attempt to shame people into contributing. And I just don’t see that entirely constructive because if the project is really great and beneficial to people, they will just want to contribute out of self. I’m looking for the right word, Brian. Can you see where I’m coming from or do you think?

(29:44) Brian Gardner: I do, but I also,– the nobility of giving back certainly is there, but at the end of every day everyone needs to make money. And so like the time that it gets squeezed out of some companies or most people’s day is just sort of the not-for-profit time given back. So I understand why he continues to sort of encourage and ask and sort of call people out how he does it. That’s up to him how he chooses to, sort of communicate that, that’s up to him and on him. But I understand, I mean, WordPress is huge and there’s like, the core contributor team is very small relative to the amount of people who use it. So like there are elements of like, you know, it really takes a village to just continue to like build that up. And I’m, so thankful that Nick has joined that table. He’s part of the core contributor team. He’s part of the, the release leads and he’s going to be leading the 14.5 or 14.6 Gutenberg. And so we get to help sort of steer some things. I mean, that’s exciting, but it, it’s by effort, it’s by, you know, proving our ability to do so. So it’s not just hand it to us. Like there’s just a lot at stake for WordPress right now, especially in light of the recession and all of the competition that’s kind of brewing.

(31:05) Jonathan Denwood: I think you’re being very insightful there. Let’s go on. So if you had a time machine, all of us wish we had a time machine. Well, most of us if you had a time machine at the beginning of your career, let’s say at the early days of building up Studio Press is there one or two things you wish you could tell yourself?

(31:36) Brian Gardner: Recurring revenue would be the first one. It’s something we never did at Studio Press. We had discussed a lot internally as, as our partner team whether we should shift genesis and themes to recurring kind of was going– we started ahead of when that became a thing, it became a thing and we still chose not to after it became a thing. Everyone else sort of gravitated towards that. We chose not to just because we had other lines of business a copy blog  that was, that was generating money on a recurring basis. And so we were like, this is more of like the entryway in. So that’s probably the biggest thing. Maybe it affected the valuation and all of that. I don’t know. 

I’m trying to think. I mean, things I wouldn’t do differently. I mean, relationship building, I mean the relationships I have today are as strong as they’ve been in a long time and they’re ones that go back 15 years. And WordPress community is huge, but it’s also very small. And so as we know at Word camps and just through things like this relationships matter and how you conduct yourself in front of people matters. And I mean no major regrets. In terms of,

(32:50) Jonathan Denwood: Well you’re so right there because it takes a lot for me to hold a real grudge takes a lot. It really is a good part of my personality. I don’t hold grudges against people, even though they’ve been a bit shitty towards me. But a lot of other people, they hold grudges. They hold it against you big way for a long time. So you gotta understand that. Oh, the other thing I thought you were going to say that you wished you had bought a coffee machine cause you would’ve saved a lot of money in Starbucks, wouldn’t you?

(33:24) Brian Gardner: So that’s a misconception. I actually only go to Starbucks to buy coffee at a store once or maybe once or twice a week now. I actually have a Starbucks verismo machine, so I brew my coffee every day at home twice a day. And I save a lot of money because of it. So still a champion for the brand, still use the product through the verismo- or the espresso machine. Excuse me. That’s the new machine that is being used. So I still support it. I just, I’m not a– Covid also affected that. They just stop going to the stores. A lot of them actually have become pass-through stores. Like the one right down this street from me took out all the tables they renovated. It’s more about like mobile orders and drive-through stuff. So I like my office at home, so I’m here a lot.

 

(34:12) Jonathan Denwood: Yeah, that’s true. All right, so just to finish off, are there any kind of books, websites, online resources or people that you follow that you think that other people should follow that they would get some value from?

(34:28) Brian Gardner: Great question. 

(34:31) Jonathan Denwood: I’m getting better with my questions, aren’t I?

(34:38) Brian Gardner: Yes. For the people who are building with WordPress, fullsiteediting.com, Carol, and E Mark fantastic resources that we link to often and talk about on social media, she’s wonderful. Her resource is fantastic. So there’s that sort of, from like a granular level I hate to say this and it’s going to sound weird and cliché, but I still follow what Brian Clark does. He was my partner, at copy blogger from a business side of things and like a marketing side of things. He’s still doing great things. I follow all of his new ventures. And so there’s just a lot there outside of just WordPress and product building. Like I learned a lot from my experience being a part of the company then. So it brings like an element, an intangible sort of education that I would not have gotten otherwise.

(35:19) Jonathan Denwood: Well, he’s a great guy and he is a great thinker. Do you think, do you think it come on the show again? I think indeed him, but it was like four, five years ago last time.

(35:28) Brian Gardner: I don’t know. He’s been traveling a lot and I know he’s really not, he’s not out of WordPress. He never really was in Word. 

(35:35) Jonathan Denwood: Well, you never escape entirely, do you?

(35:38) Brian Gardner: Yeah. No. So I feel free to reach out. I just don’t know, where his interest is in this kind of thing right now. But still a great person.

(35:48) Jonathan Denwood: Oh, he is. I follow him. He’s always got some insightful stuff. Brian, it’s been a pleasure having a chat again. Hopefully you’ll return later in, in the year. I do appreciate you coming on the show.

(35:59) Brian Gardner: My pleasure.

(36:00) Jonathan Denwood: I think it’s been an interesting discussion. We covered a lot as diplomatic as normal, but we’ll be back next week. I’ve got some fabulous guests like Brian, I’m booked up to the New Year. I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed my past few discussions over the past few interviews. And actually think I’ve improved Brian actually just shows you even an old dog like me can improve. We will be back next week. Fights. We’ll see you soon. Bye.

(36:32) Brian Gardner: Take care.

(36:35) Jonathan Denwood: Hey, thanks for listening. We really do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group and also to keep up with the latest news? Click WP-tonic.com/newsletter. We’ll see you next time.

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