How To Build a Successful Niche Plugin Business In 2023
Are you looking to start a successful niche plugin business in 2023? With the right knowledge and tools, it’s totally possible. In this video, we will provide step-by-step instructions on how to get your business up and running quickly. From choosing the right platform, pricing models, customer acquisition strategies, and marketing tips, you’ll have all the information you need to launch your new venture confidently. We Interview Adeel Raza From eLearningevolve, who, over the past 3 years + has built a great WordPress plugin business,
This Week Show’s Sponsors
Zoho: Zoho.com
Sensei LMS: Sensei LMS
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
LaunchFlows: LaunchFlows
The Show’s Main Interview Topics
#1 – Hi Adeel, can you give some idea of what led you to get involved with WordPress and integrate it with the Zoom platform?
#2 – What are the benefits and drawbacks of your main plugin relying on a third-party platform like Zoom?
#3 – We faced some significant changes this month on how Zoom works with WordPress how are you responding to these changes?
#4 – You have a new plugin solution in the same area as your original, very popular Zoom plugin, but it works with BigBlueButton (BBB), which is an open-source platform can you tell us what you see as some of the benefits you see with this particular solution?
#5 – If you go back to a time machine at the beginning of your career, what key advice would you give yourself?
#6 – Are there any online recourses or books you like to recommend to the audience?
More Information About Our Guest Adeel
Adeel bio – Having a decade-long experience with web development, there came a significant turning point in my life that shifted all my attention toward progressive education models. I took a particular interest in creating eLearning tools.
Now, I express my ideas through the “language of code”: LearnDash Student Voice, Adaptive Learning with LearnDash, Virtual Classroom for WordPress, and Zoom WordPress Plugin are some of my plugins.
I help educators, coaches, teachers, and field experts combine technology with education to make it scalable, flexible, accessible to the masses & at par with 21st-century learning methodology.
Adeel recourse recommendations
1) Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? | TED Talk
2) Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education by Sir Ken Robinson
3) The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Sir Ken Robinson
4) Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? by Pasi Sahlberg – a Finnish education expert
Episode Full Interview Transcript
[00:00:00.200] – Introduction
Welcome to the WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress and SaaS podcast, where Jonathan Denwood interviews the leading experts in WordPress, eLearning, and online marketing.
[00:00:11.890] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back to WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress and SaaS. We’ve got a great special guest, got Adeel Raza From eLearningevolve. Hopefully, I haven’t butchered his Christian and surname, which I usually do. He looks reasonably happy, so I think I haven’t. In this episode, we will discuss how you build a niche and profitable niche-plugging business in WordPress on the back of a significant platform. That platform is Zoom. I think it’s going to be a fantastic discussion. So, Adil, quickly, would you like to give a 20, 20-30-second intro about yourself?
[00:01:00.110] – Adeel Raza
Sure. So my name is Adeel, as you would all know by now. I have been working on my own startup since 2019, and I started my career back in 2013 as a web developer. It’s been a long time. In 2019, I finally started my own company to provide my expertise myself. Since then, I have been providing these services, and I have a particular focus on WordPress. This started between 2019 and ’20 when I shifted all my attention towards WordPress and WordPress explicitly learning. This is what I do. I help people to make the eLearning platform as better as it can, especially on WordPress.
[00:01:55.360] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. And I’ve got my great co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to new listeners and viewers quickly?
[00:02:04.630] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sure. Jonathan, my name is Kurt von Ahnen. I run a company called Manyana no Mas. We consult with and help people with their learning and membership sites.
[00:02:13.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Before we go into the central part of this great podcast, we’ve got a couple of particular messages from our major sponsors that help support the show. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Are you looking for ways to make your content more engaging? Sensei LMS by Automatic is the original.
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[00:02:58.620] – Adeel Raza
Hi.
[00:02:58.880] – Jonathan Denwood
There, folks. It’s Jonathan Denwood here, and I want to tell you about one of our great sponsors, and that’s Zolo. Com. If you got a WordPress website, a membership website, and you’re looking to link it with a great financial management package, Zolo can provide this solution. So all your bookkeeping needs are done through Zolo. If you need new inbox email functionality and you don’t want to pay the high charges that Google will charge you, Zolo offers a great email inbox platform. They’ve got over 50 apps and services that all integrate fantastic with WordPress at great value levels, and they almost always offer a fully functioning free product as well. So it’s just amazing value. Also, if you’re a WordPress developer or agency owner, Zolo are looking for great partnerships in the WordPress space. To get all this information, all you have to do, folks, is just go over to Zolo. Com and they have the price of products that you’re looking for. Thank you so much, Zolo, for supporting WP Tonic and the Machine Membership Shows. It’s much appreciated. We’re coming back. I just want to point out we got some great special deals from the sponsors.
[00:04:36.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Plus, we’ve got a curated list of the best WordPress plugins for various categories, so you don’t have to spend loads of time as a client trying to build something on WordPress. You can get all these goodies by going over to WP Tonic deals, WP Tonic deals, and you find all the goodies there. So this goes straight into it. So you gave a quick outline before we went for our break, but what led you into WordPress? And then what led you into building this niche add on plugin solution for Zoom? Can you give us the outline of what led to WordPress and then to this specific plugin solution?
[00:05:23.440] – Adeel Raza
Sure. So I worked for Vue Ninters back in 2017. So vue Ninters specializes in WordPress development. So this is where I got the major exposure towards WordPress. I have been working on other technologies before that, like Node js and JavaScript and all the other HP frameworks like Code Igniter, and there are loads of them. So I had a lot of mixed experience before that. But after joining Vue Ninters, we were specializing in WordPress. And in doing so, we started some very specific projects in LearnDash. And that is where I started to build interest in WordPress because I thought that eLearning is an area which is quite exciting at this point of time. And if we could deliver that through WordPress, then it’s extraordinary because WordPress has so much potential in it. And given all the tools that are available on WordPress, especially tools like LearnDash, like LftR LMS, they made WordPress something very different from what we knew before that. So I think it was a major change in itself, and I was part of the type that was creating that change. So as far as the eLearning part of it and especially LearnDash, I personally have an interest in education and there has been a s been some major life changes which led me towards focusing on the education niche specifically.
[00:07:07.250] – Adeel Raza
So I thought that the best I could get to align my passion and my work was eLearning because I have been a developer so far. So if the only way I could enter education being a developer, I thought eLearning is the best place. So that’s where I would say my overlapping of my passion and my work began. And since then, I’ve been developing tools for the WordPress community. And I’m very pleased to interact with the community because there have been some very great people that I’ve been in touch with. And they make it more engaging. They make it more better, especially the community of LearnDash. That has been my stronghold in 2017 and 2019. So I have been actively contributing in that LearnDash group, which was very t was the most popular group I could know of, especially in WordPress. And that’s where the main thing happened.
[00:08:09.820] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, thanks for that. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:08:13.950] – Adeel Raza
Well.
[00:08:15.570] – Kurt von Ahnen
I work with the eLearning stuff quite a bit myself, and I have to agree with you that things change quite a bit once we could start putting the eLearning into the WordPress environment. And I love the idea that we can integrate Zoom into these platforms because having worked with Moodle or some Jumla examples or some other custom applications, you could do those live meetings, but then there was that absence in WordPress. What do you think are some of the benefits or the drawbacks of your main plugin? Like piggybacking the back end of a big platform like Zoom?
[00:08:52.860] – Adeel Raza
Is that a question for me?
[00:08:55.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think so. What are the benefits or the drawbacks of your plug in relying on a tool like Zoom to work?
[00:09:06.280] – Adeel Raza
I would say that I started with this Zoom integration because I did this integration before COVID happened. I was very fortunate to be able to develop such a thing pre COVID. At that point of time, I had no idea what’s going on and what’s coming ahead. As I mentioned, I was an active part of the Zoom LearnDash community. So, I saw a need there and people were asking about such an integration, such a possibility because at that time, nothing like this was available in the market. I’m talking about 2019. So at that point, I saw a need because I thought that eLearning is boring if we don’t add the live interaction in it. Because this is something that I noticed personally that if you just present people with a bunch of text, I don’t think so that it will be engaging to them because they want live interaction, they want the human touch to it. Because if you go to a classroom, you interact with the teacher, you interact with your fellow students, your colleagues. So that is something which makes it interesting, I believe. So in eLearning, I saw a big gap in that sense because everyone was relying on the text and the videos, but still it doesn’t give that human touch, I think.
[00:10:30.470] – Adeel Raza
I would say that even the live video conferencing is not at par with the human touch that I’m talking about, but it’s the best we could get so far. So that was my mind back in 2019, and I verified this from the need in the market, in the community. I just created something like I was doing an experiment, I was doing a side project. I had no clue where it’s going to lead me. I just created a free integration just to see how people respond to it. I published it in the learned edge community. And to my surprise, I got an extraordinary and overwhelming response. I was shocked with the magnitude of response because probably it was something like that was not available at that time. It was very new. I got a lot of queries and a lot of questions, many downloads at that point. That’s where my theory become it was confirmed by the users that indeed there’s a need to make eLearning more engaging. And what I think the best we could do is through live video conferencing right now. That’s where my attention towards Zoom integration developed. And the user feedback made the most impact on that because obviously, if you’re developing, we develop everything for users.
[00:11:59.760] – Adeel Raza
If they do not respond to it, they do not like it, then there’s no point of it because it could be a very good plug in, but if the users are not happy with it, they’re not using it, it’s pretty useless. That’s where I get the motivation to focus on that. From then on, I’ve been totally focused on this area because it’s continuously expanding.
[00:12:29.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. What was the draw to Zoom to make the connection and not some other meeting streaming tool?
[00:12:38.250] – Adeel Raza
At that point, Zoom was most popular even before preCOVID. Zoom was a popular tool. Initially, I looked for some existing projects that were happening in the WordPress community, and I saw there was one project and it was using the Zoom integration, but it was very basic and it was not integrating it with WordPress. It was just redirecting users to the Zoom application. It was just simply a plug in which displays a Zoom link and it would redirect the people to Zoom app, which is something that a person could easily do without a plug in as well. They can simply add that link to their post or page or any other place on WordPress and it will redirect them to the Zoom app. The plug in was a very good plug in. I built upon that plug in and I tried to enhance it and make it something more tightly integrated with WordPress. The back end part of the plug in was really good. It allowed the users to create meetings and stuff, but the front end was the missing part. There I saw the major area of work, which I thought that if we could get Zoom into WordPress in a way that people don’t have to leave their WordPress sites and they could conduct meetings on their side, then it could be a game changer.
[00:14:00.040] – Adeel Raza
This was my perception at that time and it was confirmed through the user output. The reason for selecting Zoom 1 was there was already a thing so I did not have to start from very scratch and make special end six months or air on such a side project. I would say the smart thing to do, especially in open source, that if there’s already a thing, you build upon that, you make it better. This is how our trust works. So this was one of the reason. And the second was that Zoom was the most popular, still the most popular Zoom out there, and the most reliable one as well.
[00:14:38.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
Cool. Thanks, Adil. Jonathan, back to you.
[00:14:42.140] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, sure. Obviously, there’s some big changes coming in the way that Zoom offer access to their API. It starts today, basically. It’s very appropriate that we’re having this conversation today, actually. It wasn’t planned because my understanding is that Zoom are going to a OAuth application model and setting up Zoom, you’re going to have to set up an app account with Zoom. So it just seems a lot more hurdles. What’s your view on… Have you got some insight that you can share with the users? Why has Zoom done this? And how are you responding to it? Because a lot of your business is reliant on Zoom, isn’t it?
[00:15:48.000] – Adeel Raza
That’s true. Actually, it’s a bit of a sad story. This is not the first time that Zoom has introduced some breaking changes that would require a significant user action. This has been going on for quite some time. They used to do these things in a way that the users were not impacted this much, the developers were. I think I find it very normal because this has been going on since I believe from the start. Initially, there was no official way to integrate Zoom on web. There was no Web SDK for Zoom. At that point, I’m referring to 2019, at that point, the only way was to use an iframe and integrate it in that way. Because there was no official way, we had to resort to this way in order to make Zoom work within WordPress. That was the only possible way at that time. They released their Zoom Web SDK and they completely… There was no backward compatibility. All the people who were using it in that way, like in the iframe, they completely stopped it. Nothing was working. So within a span of a very short time, you have to switch to the Zoom Web SDK and you have to rewrite all your code in order for it to work.
[00:17:18.510] – Adeel Raza
So this has been, I think, going on since the very start. Another thing that happened was initially they were providing support for embedding the recording on your WordPress site. If you wanted to embed Zoom recording on your WordPress site, that was possible initially. But after that, they did the same thing to that. They completely abolished it. They made it to the point that it was not even possible to integrate the Zoom recording directly on your website, on the web. This is not something new for me. What I think is that there are constant changes and we have to adapt to it constantly. I’ve been doing that since the beginning, so it’s nothing new for me. But yeah, the recent change has been, I would say, it has made it more complex for a non technical user to set it up because initially Zoom, like the app thing which you mentioned, it was there before as well. The difference is that Zoom provided an option to create a JWT app on the marketplace. From that, they provided their API key and API secret key which the users had to enter on their WordPress settings and their plug in settings.
[00:18:36.080] – Adeel Raza
It was like two things. It was easy to manage. But now they have completely abandoned that. They have set up a new app type which is called the server to server app. In that, there are more than three to four parameters just to set up the basic integration. Then it is more complex now. They have added scopes to it. So if you do not select the appropriate scopes for your app, the integration won’t work on your WordPress site. Then there is event subscription, which is syncing off your Zoom account to your WordPress side. So if you want to automatically implement the changes which you do on your Zoom account, you have to set up something called event subscription as well. So it’s all on top of it and they have made it complex. I would agree with that. The users are facing difficulty with that. I recently released a major upgrade of my plug in. It was exactly because of this issue because all the previous apps are now not supported and every user has to migrate.
[00:19:42.730] – Jonathan Denwood
I just want to make clear, I am correct that if you’ve set up previously, you have a year. Don’t you have a year to change or do or am I incorrect? These changes do apply if you’re trying to set it up from the first of June. Is that correct?
[00:20:05.230] – Adeel Raza
There are two things. If you are a new user, you cannot create a JWT app in the Zoom marketplace. It’s not possible right now. So they do send notices and they do inform P riorly to shift to this mode of app. So they have an abbreviated Zoom JWT app. They’re showing the notice that it is deprecated and we will stop JWB app from first Zoom. So this is something they informed P riorly. So it’s something that we have been working on as a developer. But there are two things. The users who already set up the Zoom plugin, they can use the same JWT app, but there are a number of challenges in that because Zoom releases its version updates of the Zoom Web SDK. They released a version update that was using the new method. So if I released the plugin update, which is using the latest Zoom Web SDK, then nothing would work for the previous users. And if I don’t release the Zoom Web SDK update, then users will not have access to the new features that they’re adding and the fixes they have been doing. So it was like something like all of them have to shift if they want to use the plugin going forward.
[00:21:26.110] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. I think we go for our break. It’s been a fascinating discussion. We’re going to be discussing how the benefits and drawbacks of working with a platform like Zoom. I think we already covered that to some degree. We’ll be back in a few moments.
[00:21:47.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
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[00:22:45.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Com and save 20 % at checkout with coupon code podcast 20. That’s podcast 20. Enjoy the rest of your show. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a great discussion with you. I just want to point out, if you’re looking for a great hosting partner and a WordPress support partner, why don’t you have a look at WP Tonic? We really have real depth knowledge in eLearning, Buddy Boss, LearnDash, Lifter LMS. And if you’ve got a project and you’re looking for great hosting that doesn’t really become a pain for you and your clients, plus great ongoing support, why don’t you go over to WP Tonic partners? Wp Tonic partners. And we got some great packages to help you financially. It’s just a great package in total. So go over there. So over to you, Kurt.
[00:23:52.940] – Adeel Raza
Hey, I.
[00:23:54.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
Think the next question, really, a deal as we move forward in our conversation is you have a new plug in solution that’s coming, correct? Is it based off a big blue button or something like that? Excellent. Can you give us a little bit of information about that particular solution?
[00:24:12.390] – Adeel Raza
Sure. I think you would have had a hint that there are a lot of challenges developing with Zoom because based on their frequent breaking updates and things like this, make it very tough for developers to be a part of Zoom updates and at the same time facilitate your users and not cause them a lot of trouble. I have been looking to alternatives to Zoom because there have been some issues and some challenges within the Zoom Web SDK which were not solvable at a plug in level because it is something coming directly from Zoom and I have no control over it. Even if I want to, I cannot fix those issues for my users and that caused me I ended up in a dead end. I thought that there could be other better solutions out there which would fix those issues or which would allow me to have that level of customization or level of changes that I could make on the software where I could provide solutions to the user. So I have been researching on multiple video conferencing solutions which are supported on web. And I ended up looking for Big Blue Button, which is a virtual classroom software, and it’s specifically built for teachers.
[00:25:38.120] – Adeel Raza
So I would discuss other features as well. But this one thing that it was built for teachers, it caught my attention because I have been developing my plugins specifically for eLearning, and I really wanted to facilitate teachers and make them make the most of their elements. So I thought that it’s a perfect combination for me because it’s exactly what I was looking for. And as I looked into it more, I found that it’s an open source software, so anyone can host it on their server. And you can have your own media conferencing set up. And it’s not very difficult. It does need some technical knowledge, but it is doable. And the benefits of it are tremendous because you are controlling your own system now. You are not dependent on any other revent, any other solution. You can make the changes, you can scale it as you wish. So I thought it’s a very powerful tool. And everyone here knows the power of an open source software because at the being an open source software, you have contributors from the whole world. And Big Blue button has been constantly maintained. It’s releasing its updates, I would say, much quicker than how Zoom is doing it because Zoom has a very big that specific team of developers that are assigned to the web SDK, and their development has been very slow, I would say that, from the very start of it.
[00:27:10.450] – Adeel Raza
So I searched another tool. I looked into Big Blue button, and I thought of how I could do the same thing that I’ve done with Zoom, and I could enable people to use Big Blue button as a World Search Classroom solution within their WordPress sites. And I was able to successfully do that integration. I have published it already on my website as an alternative to people who are fed up with Zoom or are facing a lot of challenges with Zoom. So it is, I would say, a good solution, especially for teachers.
[00:27:50.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
Excellent. As a follow up to that, I would ask, when you say that the meeting platform is specifically for teachers, what about it makes it so teacher oriented as compared to just a meeting?
[00:28:03.270] – Adeel Raza
Sure. T here are multiple things. The first one, I think the most important one for a teacher is a whiteboard. I think it’s very unfortunate that Zoom does not have this feature in their web version till this date. Big Blue has this feature from the very start of their software. They have this feature from as far as I could estimate from 2016 or ’17. I was shocked because I thought that if they have this feature built into their software from such an old time and Zoom hasn’t been able to do this till now. So that was a shock for me. When I explored more features, I found that you can upload your presentations within the virtual classroom. So it’s very convenient for a teacher to upload a presentation, have the access to whiteboard within a video conferencing solution. So I think these are just two of it. And another thing I would add is that they do have support for HD video quality, which is unfortunately Zoom does not have it right now in their web version. So these are a few pointers that made me think that it’s a much better solution than Zoom.
[00:29:17.320] – Adeel Raza
And given the fact that it’s open source, it can host it on your server. I think it’s a game changer.
[00:29:24.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. As I listen to you talk, I can see where it would be a really good option for speakers, authors, and coaches that have online courses and stuff, too, that do seminars and webinars.
[00:29:36.340] – Adeel Raza
Jonathan, over to you.
[00:29:39.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, about big blue button. Do I need to Is it solely that you have to host it yourself, or do they offer hosted solution as well? Do they offer a combination or is it totally self? Is it a similar situation as Discord, or is it totally self hosted solution?
[00:30:04.530] – Adeel Raza
Here’s the good thing that there are multiple options to use the blue button. The first one is that you can set up it on your server, which is technical. I don’t recommend my clients to do that, except for the technical ones who could do it comfortably. They are technically sound and they can handle all the complexities of video conferencing solution because a normal server which handles a website is very different from a server which would handle a video conferencing solution because there are many complexities, many layers of tools that go into a server that is designed for hosting a video conferencing tool. So if the clients have those capabilities, then surely it’s a very good option for them because it reduces the costs a lot. You don’t have to pay any third party solution, any third party company for hosting your instance. So this was the first one. The second one is that there are many companies out there which are providing this hosted solution. Just like a managed WordPress hosting, we have hosting solution specifically for Big Blue button. There are multiple companies that are providing that. The company that created Big Blue button, LineSight Network, they also provide the solution.
[00:31:19.370] – Adeel Raza
They do have a separate commercial hosting set up which you can available and they can set up it for you. They have created this plug in this software. Definitely, they would be the first option for anyone who wants to get access to that Manage Hosting thing. There is one more thing. Recently, I have been in a partnership with a company called Big Blue Button Node Host. They have introduced a solution which is… It is also a managed solution, but the difference is that they are charging the customers based on hourly rates. So if your usage of the classroom is very limited, it’s like once a week and you just use the classroom for five to six hours a month, then you don’t have to opt for a monthly package or an early package. It’s very suitable for you to opt for an hourly model of pricing so that you’re only charged whenever you use it. And if you’re not using it, you won’t be charged for it. So it becomes very cost effective because the monthly packages are very expensive, I would say, as compared to the server cost of a normal website. This company has been providing this platform which enables you to create your virtual platform and available the R d pricing offer.
[00:32:42.060] – Adeel Raza
There are other companies which are doing this as well, but this is the one which we have partnered with and our plugin integrates with that. So the users have the option to host their virtual classrooms based on R d pricing model.
[00:32:57.170] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. How do you get I’m going to throw it over to you again, Kurt.
[00:33:03.290] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I guess we’re up to the question where we ask folks, if you could put yourself in a time machine, a deal, if you could go back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself just starting out with what you know now?
[00:33:20.530] – Adeel Raza
I would tell myself that I would focus on the areas where I’m weak, where the areas that are not my strength because I struggle a lot in the marketing area because I have been a developer since the very first day. And starting my own company was a big challenge for me because I don’t have a prior exposure to marketing and all the stuff that is other than development. Development is just a part of the process. There are so many things that goes into creating a successful business. Initially, I would say if I got the chance, I would focus more on those areas so I know how to execute a successful… Even if I create a plugin and I’m not able to sell it, then it’s of no use. I would focus on my weaknesses more and try to convert them into strength. If not in strength, at least at some point that it’s not something that I struggle a lot with. This is the first thing I would add something more. I would add more people with me starting this journey because it’s very tough to be doing things alone. And if you have people who support you in the process, especially in the beginning, it’s a big help.
[00:34:38.190] – Adeel Raza
So I would focus on creating those bonds and having those people with me that could compliment me in a way that my weaknesses are their strengths. So if I would be in the start of my career, I’d focus on that more.
[00:34:58.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
Excellent. It’s a great retty insightful. Jonathan?
[00:35:02.190] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, a quick follow through question. In specifically your WordPress journey, do you still feel hitching your… Because you’ve got a lot of exposure in the WordPress community world because of this integration with Zoom. Obviously, it wasn’t planned, but because of COVID, it became much more necessary to have that integration. So you got a lot of exposure because of that decision. But would you still go down that route or would you have changed that route a bit? Because you’ve discussed the technical problems of being so linked with Zoom, but there’s also been a lot of benefits as well as being part of that. So have you thought that out? Have you come to any conclusion on the scale of benefits against non benefits?
[00:36:06.760] – Adeel Raza
I would say if I were to change something, I would do this much earlier. I would say I would do this plug in in the start of my career. It would be perfect if I had this integration back then because it would have been so much better right now. I think the decision was perfect. It was very timely. I am very fortunate to be at the right place at the right time. I think I’ve mentioned some drawbacks of Zoom, but there are certainly some points which make it such a popular solution. The first thing is that it was a leader in video conferencing world back in 2019. It was the best solution out there. Webex was not good and it was bent to fix those issues that were present at that time in video conferencing. Back then, it was the leader and the best solution out there. Definitely, it was the best choice at that point. Right now, I would say things have changed a lot because there have been many major updates in the video conferencing world. Zoom, I would say, has not kept the pace that it should have. I really wished it should have kept that pace.
[00:37:30.650] – Adeel Raza
The new updates that have been there in the video conferencing world, they are very fast and Zoom has been lagging behind. They were a leader at that point, but I wouldn’t say that right now. I think there are many tools or many solutions that are doing far more better than Zoom, given that they are just startups, but they are doing an extraordinary job. I think if Zoom doesn’t keep up that pace, it would lose its popularity in some time. This is what I think.
[00:38:01.510] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, maybe you can discuss that a little bit in our bonus content. I think one of the things, though, just to comment before I throw it back over to Kurt again, is I think in the totality, it’s like their webinar product. It works really well, but it’s only a minor part of an enormous company. And I think you referred to this in the interview that the web based team at Zoom is only a very small team in the bigger Zoom ego world of the internal world of Zoom, the company. So these, like the webinar product, the web based product, these are very small parts of a very large company. So their focus, obviously their focus… I’m only summarizing this, I might be totally wrong, but their focus are on things that really move the profitability of the company. And these little silos are maybe not the things that they feel are going to really move the profitability. Do you think there’s any thinking what I’ve just said, or do you think I’m off track there?
[00:39:18.280] – Adeel Raza
I think you’re summarizing pretty well. This is actually very true. They have been focused on their app much more than they are on web because app was the thing that Sky Rocket did in COVID, and that’s what people mostly used. They have their major focus on the desktop apps, on the mobile apps, because obviously, as you said, that is where the quantity of users were at that time. I think that’s why it became their focus. Web is not something that was popular at that time, but it is catching up very quickly as compared to the apps because more and more people are looking for ways to tightly integrate Zoom into their systems. Obviously, most of those are web based platforms and they want a solution in a way that people don’t get confused. They have this tight and solid integration within their platforms. This is something which has been a follow up of the popularity of Zoom. This trend was not present back then. I think that’s why they are it’s difficult for them to catch up because they have so much on their plate, they have expanded so much, and they have so many products and solutions out there that focusing on this particular niche, I think it is difficult for them to focus so much on that and they are not very focused on it.
[00:40:46.930] – Adeel Raza
But other companies and other startups who are specifically focusing on this area are excelling at a very rapid rate as compared to Zoom. So yeah, you’re right.
[00:40:57.830] – Jonathan Denwood
Thanks for that. Over to you, Gartner.
[00:41:01.570] – Kurt von Ahnen
The more he talks, the more I’m looking forward to the bonus content. Are there any business resources or books or things that you’d like to recommend to the audience, especially folks that might want to get up to speed on the subject?
[00:41:14.870] – Adeel Raza
I don’t have any particular books on the subject, but.
[00:41:19.140] – Jonathan Denwood
As I think… No, I think we meant more business that influenced you on business.
[00:41:27.370] – Adeel Raza
I would say that it’s not it does not seem directly related to my business, but there have been definitely some books that have shaped my entire focus. I would say that the moment I focused completely on eLearning, it’s based on some major changes in my thinking patterns in my life that I experienced. And I would say those have made the biggest impact on me and on my career. So it doesn’t seem directly related, but it’s very much related to what I’m doing right now. right now. The first book is Do School Skill… Sorry, it’s the Creative Schools by Sir Ken Robinson, who has been my inspiration in this change of thought because he was leading a revolution back then in education and transforming it and making it better. His thoughts and his ideas were extraordinary and they impacted me a lot. I got a chance to study in-depth of what he wanted to say. There was this very popular talk that he gave which had the title, those school skill creativity. This was a very big question and it made the question in my mind. After that talk, I have been reading his books and I got to know a lot about the type of education that we are delivering in this era.
[00:42:57.740] – Adeel Raza
I felt that we are doing something very wrong and he identified it and he explained it in a way that I think no one else has explained. Creative school is one of the books which I would say it is his Marvel. There’s other, it’s called The Element. It is by Sir Ken Robinson as well. There is one more book I would say I would just want to add that as well, which is titled as finish lessons 2.0, which is written by a and he is the expert in education of the finish education system. So I think these three books can change your mind enormously. It has done it. It did it to me. So I can confirm that. And these had a major impact in my life.
[00:43:56.940] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. Thank you for supplying those. I haven’t heard of those authors, actually. If you can email those authors and links, I’ll make sure they’re all in the show notes, and I have a look at them myself. Thank you for giving that. That was really very insightful. So if people want to find out more about you and your company and what you’re up to, what’s the best way for people to do that, Ali?
[00:44:23.240] – Adeel Raza
The best way will be to visit my website, which is elearningevolve. Com. People can find everything related to my products and my services there. They can also connect with me through WhatsApp. We have this WhatsApp number on the website. They can connect with me by email as well. It is info@ the rt learning involved. Com. So if they visit the website, they can see all that I’ve been doing so far and all my plugins and my services. So I think that’s the best way to reach me.
[00:44:52.080] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. And Kurt, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?
[00:44:59.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
Jonathan, I am the only Kurt von Neumann on LinkedIn.
[00:45:04.440] – Jonathan Denwood
You love to say that.
[00:45:08.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn almost every day. So if you’d reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn, chances are we’ll have a conversation and see how we can connect.
[00:45:15.880] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. We’re going to have some bonus content. We will discuss some of the other players in the video conferencing area and anything else you want to discuss. You can watch this bonus content by going over to the WP-Tonic YouTube channel. Please subscribe to the channel. Please share the show on any social media, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere that you want to share it because it does then promote the show and gets a bigger audience. Our figures are rising. It’s been excellent that Kurt has joined me. I think we’re really gelling now, and he’s a great co-host. And I did heal. Thank you so much for coming to the show. It’s been very insightful, and you’ve been a great guest. We’re going to wrap it up now. Remember to join us for the bonus content. We’ll see you next week, folks. Bye. 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.
[00:46:26.800] – Jonathan Denwood
We’ll see you next time.
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