The Best Interviews, Plugin, and WordPress Stories of 2023
Dive into the world of WordPress and plugin development with our video showcasing the best interviews and stories of 2023.
From insightful conversations with industry leaders to inspiring success stories, this video comprehensively looks at the latest trends and innovations in the WordPress community. If you’re passionate about web development or simply curious about what’s trending in 2023, don’t miss out on watching this exclusive video.
This Week Show’s Sponsors
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LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Sensei LMS: Sensei LMS
BlogVault: BlogVault
Best Interviews
#761 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech: With Special Guest Mario Peshev, Founder of Devr iX
#761 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech:With Special Guest Mario Peshev Founder of Devr iX
#892 – WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS With Special Guest Graham Hoffman, Managing Director at BuddyBoss
#762 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech: With Special Guest Devin Walker From SolidWP
#762 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & Tech: With Special Guest Devin Walker From SolidWP
#745 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest David Valentine, CEO of Avadel
#745 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest David Valentine CEO of Avadel
#753 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest Jason Cohen, The Founder of WP-Engine
#753 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest Jason Cohen The Founder of WP-Engine
#880 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS With Special Guest Vikas Singhal, Founder of Instawp.com
#880 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS With Special Guest Vikas Singhal, Founder of Instawp.com
#747 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest Rob Walling
#747 WP-Tonic This Week in WordPress & SaaS: With Special Guest Rob Walling
Best WordPress Plugins or Services
Kadence WP – https://www.kadencewp.com/
InstaWP – https://instawp.com/
FluentBooking – https://fluentbooking.com/
FluentAuth – https://wordpress.org/plugins/fluent-security/
Ollie theme – https://olliewp.com/
WordPress and tech stories of the year
WordCamp 2023
Open AI
WPTavern
X, formally known as Twitter
WPwatercooler ( Sé Reed )
The Show Main Interview Notes & Links
[00:01:07.450] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan. My name is Kurt, Kurt von Ahnen. I own a company called Manana No Mas. I also do a podcast with the same name focused mainly on learning and membership websites. And before you cut me off and say that’s great, I just want to speak publicly, Jonathan, thank you for having me on the show. You have introduced me to a ton of really fantastic people, and it’s been a lot of fun.
[00:01:29.150] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for being so supportive. Kurt. Obviously, 222 was at the end of it. It was a challenging year, but I think the show, with your help, has found its feet again. It’s just been a pleasure working with you, and we all have our weaknesses. But hopefully, you would agree, Kurt, that your input is always listened to and considered. Would you agree with yeah, I would. So, before we go into the main meat and potato of the show, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments.
[00:02:21.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
Tired of hosting providers that can’t handle high traffic loads, convesio is here to help. Our platform can take any amount of traffic, all without slowing down or crashing. With immediate slack support, performance optimization, and a team that thrives on resolving technical challenges, your e-commerce business is in safe hands. Learn more about convesio@convesio.com are you looking for ways to make your content more engaging? Sensei LMS by Automatic is the original WordPress solution for creating and selling online courses. Sensei’s new interactive block can be added to any WordPress page or post. For example, interactive videos let you pause videos and display quizzes, lead generation forms, surveys, and more for a 20% discount for the tribe. Jess, use the code wptonic all one word when checking out and give Sensei a try today.
[00:03:25.250] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back, folks. I’d want to point out we’ve got some fab special offers from the major sponsors. I’ve got a created list from the major sponsors plus all the leading plugins that we utilize at wptonic and services—got some great discounts as well. What more could you ask? And you get all these goodies by going over to wponic.com deals, wponic.com deals and you’ll find all the goodies there. Goodies for Christmas, goodies for the new year. What more could you ask for from Santa? From the WordPress Santa. That’s what I’m going to call myself, listeners and viewers. The WordPress Santa in this episode. Can you imagine it? Probably not. Let’s go straight into it. So one that’s memorable is Myro Pesef probably butchered that as I slay a number of our guests. It’s become a comic. It’s become a meme, isn’t it?
[00:04:37.350] – Kurt von Ahnen
It is a meme. It is a meme.
[00:04:38.640] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s become a meme in the WordPress community. My ability to butcher my guest’s names, isn’t it? They take it well most of them, don’t they?
[00:04:48.270] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think they get insulted if you don’t mess it up now.
[00:04:51.120] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. I think it’s become so notorious, hasn’t it? Yeah.
[00:04:55.020] – Kurt von Ahnen
Mario was a great guest. I really enjoyed meeting Mario on your think.
[00:05:00.290] – Jonathan Denwood
The reason why I put it on is that I was impressed with his knowledge and how he placed himself in the WordPress community he’s built a fabulous business, European based, he’s eastern European based, but he’s managed to build up a fantastic WordPress agency, and he’s been done that for over 15 years. But I also think he’s seen as a leading influencer in the agency stroke professional developer market. I think he’s got a strong following, and he just struck me as somebody who was very down to earth but had a considerable intellect as well. What were your impressions?
[00:05:55.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
What stuck out to me about Mario Jonathan was that he fielded the question well from us because back at the beginning of the year we were still asking people, do you think Fullsite editing is a bridge too far? He took that question well, and then he got right back to focusing on it. And this is what I like about people that have established success somewhere. It was like these are the four quadrants or the four pillars or the four whatever, that my company has strengthened, and that’s where we focus. And then he kind of told us what those four pillars were, and that was pretty cool, because it’s just another instance where you interview someone that’s got some success behind them, and they’re like, this is my process. I follow this process. If you follow this process, you could have success, too. And I think that gets lost when people listen to a lot of podcasts. It makes a little bit of noise.
[00:06:47.090] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you’re totally spot on. And he really answered the questions, isn’t it? With direct, you could tell they were based on his experience and what he truly believed. So he kind of struck a note with me.
[00:07:06.250] – Kurt von Ahnen
He had the ability to be pleasant and direct at the same time.
[00:07:11.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Something which I can’t grasp, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s a struggle for all of us. I think I can be diplomatic when I want to be. It’s just that a lot of the time, I don’t want to be on to the next one. It was last week. Obviously, the most recent interviews do strike your mind. This came from you. This was our interview with the man, we must get the title. He said, if we don’t, you get into trouble. Graham Hoffman, managing director, buddy boss. What struck you about this conversation, Kurt?
[00:07:52.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, there’s more than just a couple of things to strike me about having Graham on, and that was I had done a separate podcast with their manager of content a month prior, maybe. And I’ve learned that the people at Buddy Boss aren’t afraid to talk. You ask them a question and then sit back and listen for that answer, because they will go on for a bit.
[00:08:11.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Good communicators. Tom doesn’t want to go on anything, but that’s his choice. But he has a couple of good communicators to do the tour for him, so I give him credence.
[00:08:26.790] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, and part of what I like so much about just that openness and communication and how we were able to engage in conversation with Graham is, if we’re honest, it’s a cornerstone product for WP-Tonic. And so to know that we have that relationship with them and we can reach out to them if we need to, or we can give our customers the best social product at the best price, at the best service, and mean, it’s just a terrific deal. And it really stuck out to me how open they were to the communication, and it didn’t seem like things were as hidden as I once imagined them to be. There.
[00:09:00.270] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, buddy boss, I give Buddy boss a bit of slack. And the reason why I give them a bit of slack is that it’s a very ambitious company and I’ve got nothing against ambition and ambition commercially, but also commission ambition technically, because trying to build an app on top of WordPress to say and to build something that challenges a real strong and well financed SaaS competitor, which is mighty networks, is ambitious. And they have had their difficulties and people, like people have thrown a bit of mud at Adi boss. They threw a bit of mud towards them by falking, which I thought was unfair to say the least. But then they received a bit of mug because they had difficulties, technical and support difficulties, when they published their first beta of this app. But what I think people, the price point and also the technical difficulties that I’m not active developer, but I have some comprehension of what they were dealing with and the ambition, and they have pulled it off, it settled down. There’s a lot of people, there are a small minority that still have some technical problems, but there’s a lot of people using it now and I’d just give them credus for the ambition.
[00:10:53.910] – Jonathan Denwood
Is that making sense, Kurt?
[00:10:55.990] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, it does, because you’re right, it’s a big thing to bite off. It’s not a small. This isn’t like making some form plugin to get people to subscribe at the bottom of your footer. It’s a platform to itself. So I think they’ve done a pretty wonderful job at rolling that out. And honestly, getting the buy in from the public, we have a lot of traffic on that product. Yeah.
[00:11:22.430] – Jonathan Denwood
So I’ll give them top marks for that. Like I said, I give them a bit of slack for that. I think also, bay is a beast of a product. It’s in administrative people. I always say do it in baby steps. It’s not only the technical hurdles and the requirements in hosting and management of such a platform, it’s also the admin and the running of a community, which you have all these elements. I do not think it’s the right choice for somebody even published their first course yet. I just think it’s a little bit overkill if you don’t have a bit of experience in running a few courses and then deciding to move up to buddy boss when you’ve established yourself. Do you think I’m on the right path there?
[00:12:29.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, if I think about buddy boss from the community aspect, just from community, not attached to a learning management system, then I go to, what is your stickiness? I got that word from you, by the way. Stickiness. I took that from you way back when. Are you having weekly meetups? What brings these people together and glues this thing together for ongoing interaction? The reason it works so good with an LMS, with a learning management system is, to your point, multiple courses, students can talk to each other. It creates communication. They create their little tribes within a tribe, and it works really well for that. But if you’re not a course creator and you want to do a social site and try and yank people off of the Facebook environment, well, then you have to ask yourself, what is the offer? What’s the stickiness? What keeps people? It’s the. What’s in it for me? A lot of. A lot of creators fail to answer that question, and that’s why they struggle with this product.
[00:13:28.080] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you put that so well. Thanks for that. On to the next one. And that was David, Van, and Tyne. What struck you about that conversation, Kurt?
[00:13:45.500] – Kurt von Ahnen
I kind of picked.
[00:13:46.380] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, no, I’m sorry. I’ve done it out of order. I apologize. We need to talk. I apologize. The next one is actually David Walker.
[00:13:58.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
Of.
[00:14:00.990] – Jonathan Denwood
Walker of solid WP. The reason why I added him is he’s enormously experienced, and him and his partner built a really powerful plugin with give WP or WP give. I always get it the wrong way around. And then they joined liquid web, which is now. Well, that’s one of the problems, because it’s nothing to do with Devon, is that they’ve got free names, haven’t they? They got multiple names. Actually, I think they’ve got four different names that you could utilize, depending on which part of the company that you’re talking about, which I’m sure it makes sense to them, but I just find it totally confusing. But I’m a simple soul at heart, which, if you’ve been listening to this show for the few years, folks, you are well aware how simple I am. But what struck you about Devin, then?
[00:15:15.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, the thing that struck me about you picking this episode was the fact that I wasn’t on it. It’s probably why it’s one of your favorites. Devin, to me, is just one of those really cool people. I met him at word camp in San Diego.
[00:15:29.430] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s an extremely generous individual.
[00:15:31.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. And then I saw him again at another event, and he’s just a real personable, knows you by name, shakes your know, good looking fella, big smile.
[00:15:42.820] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s disgusting, isn’t it? I’m so jealous. He’s good looking, intelligent. The women must love him and he’s talented as well. It’s sickly, isn’t it?
[00:15:53.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Exactly. But he’s one of those guys that just makes you comfortable in your own skin. It’s a huge compliment to be able to say that people might be listening to this from other countries in different languages and wondering what I just said, but it’s a saying. It just means that he’s just really good at communication and relationship building. And when I listened to that podcast, because I wasn’t on it, he was talking about rebranding and stuff like that. And that’s a key thing to consider when you start building product in the space. And you got to figure out, if I sell this, how is this going to transfer over? How is this going to transition to new ownership or to expansion? And he seems to be really dialed in on that channel. He’s an expert there.
[00:16:40.320] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I think him and his partner and the team done a really excellent. And I know a few of the team of the plugin solid WP groups there. Stella, you got Stellar, which is their kind of WordPress holding company. And then Liquid web is a traditional hosting that has strong linkage in the WP world. So Stellar is their overarching company that kind of deals with the plugins and the hosting side connected to WordPress, where solid is the themes plugins that they bought. I might have got it wrong, but this is how I see it. And I think Devin and his team did a really excellent job with the rebranding of grouping these various plugins under the solid WP new branding umbrella. I thought they did a really excellent job and he’s been one of the drivers. He struck me very similar to Mario, is that he really does have a strong understanding of the business where he wants to take things. He seems to have a clear roadmap and understanding of where he’s taking stuff. Would you agree with?
[00:18:13.210] – Kurt von Ahnen
Do I do? Yeah. And like I said, I’ve had the benefit of spending one on one time with him at these different word camps, and he’s just a real genuine, easy person to be on to.
[00:18:24.310] – Jonathan Denwood
The next one, which I got out of she was David Valentine. What did you get from this particular conversation?
[00:18:34.610] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, David’s one of those people that you introduced me to, Jonathan. And we know maybe I shouldn’t call him a friend, but I’ll certainly call him an acquaintance. We stayed connected after the show. I think he’s a very dynamic, super cool person. And what I really liked about the episode that we did on the WP Tonic was it wasn’t strictly down this WordPress developer plugin timeline. We gave the listeners something a little different in that, you know, David was really transparent on the show. He talked about his first entrepreneurial things that he was doing at like the age of four, selling stuff to family know and then a very personal story about stress and his success and how they were clashing with one another. And he basically had to do a whole life kind of redesign to figure out, well, how am I going to be an entrepreneur and not put myself in an early grave? And he redesigned that whole entrepreneur’s journey to the point that he lives in the woods in Washington now with his family and is a super chill dude, but owns like eight companies, all in the seven figure range.
[00:19:41.610] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s a really cool success story about how somebody can put their act together.
[00:19:45.930] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s amazing. I try and mix it up, folks. It has WordPress focus, but I try and bring people from the agency, from the marketing and from the SaaS world and combine it because there’s only so many people I can interview from the WordPress world. I’m sorry, I know it’s disgusting, but I just like mix it up. Hopefully you will give us more feedback about the type of subjects and guests. You’re very silent audience. I’m looking for comments.
[00:20:21.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m not seeing any yet.
[00:20:23.750] – Jonathan Denwood
You don’t join us live, you hardly make a comment. You could say I need to make it, but you can comment on the video. These videos, these shows are all on the WP tonic and you can make your comments there and you can make your views clear.
[00:20:46.110] – Kurt von Ahnen
Now I think in order to do that show justice, if we’re going to talk about it as a roundup, is the hook the way that we got him on the show and what we told people we were going to talk about was how to book 100 sales calls in a month or something like that. One of his companies is a lead generation company and it’s all about generating leads with cold contact and stuff like that. So that was the hook. But the story behind the hook I just thought was really good.
[00:21:14.470] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s great. Oh, we got jewel joining us. We are going to say good things about you, Jill. Don’t worry, I’m going to show his comment. He’s another great, he’s another great individual in the WordPress world. On to the next one. Somebody that I’ve been following for years and years and years and then developed one of the largest presence in the WordPress space. Somebody, I think he’d be okay to say he’s a personal friend. It’s Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine. I just think as entrepreneur and intellectual, he’s somebody. He can talk. He likes to talk. I can talk. I can ramble. But I want to. To say I can ramble is understatement, isn’t it, Kurt? At least I’m aware of it. But he’s just like two steps ahead of most people, isn’t he? You can see why he’s been so successful. What did you get? We’ve interviewed him and he’s been on my roundtable show a few times. Hopefully he will join us next year. Obviously, he’s a very busy individual, so for him to agree on the show, I am always very appreciative. But he’s always got clear insight. And he’s such a down to earth individual, even though he’s so successful, isn’t he?
[00:23:11.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. The interaction with Mr. Cohen was actually a little surprising for me because I was fairly new to your show. The first time I met him through the, you know, you had prepped me and said, he’s one of the smartest people in WordPress, that you know. And then to back that up, Spencer said, this is one of the smartest human beings I know. And I was like, well, he never.
[00:23:33.810] – Jonathan Denwood
Uses those words for me. He doesn’t say, does he? Those two words would never come out of his mouth.
[00:23:40.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
So I was a little on guard and a little less apt to jump in on that call. And what he did, that was so cool. After the show, Jonathan was. He knew I was on LinkedIn. He reached out on LinkedIn, made the know, liked the post, put in a nice comment connected to me on, I mean, like, he doesn’t have to do that. He runs WP engine, for crying out loud.
[00:24:05.960] – Jonathan Denwood
He doesn’t have to do nothing.
[00:24:07.630] – Kurt von Ahnen
And that just showed me that, again, I go back to genuine people. If we can continue to connect to leaders in the industry that exhibit themselves as genuine people, we’re going to continue to strive forward and get ahead.
[00:24:23.010] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s what they call a class act, isn’t he? Class act. He’s no pushover. He’s tough as they come. You have to be to get the success that he has. But he does it in a class way. Other people, the struggle for success is like climbing a mountain. It’s extremely difficult to get any traction in anything, but. Sorry to interrupt, but they use that struggle, that enormous struggle, unless you’re born into wealth and power, they use its excuse to be horrible to people. Jason doesn’t do so sorry, I interrupted you. What was you going to say?
[00:25:15.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
I was in the middle of interrupting you. I thought I’d give it a try for a change. It didn’t answer me.
[00:25:26.950] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s getting spicy there. At the beginning, he’s getting spicy there.
[00:25:32.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
I was just going to say, if this was like three decades ago, Jason’s one of those guys where you would describe him as a man’s man. Like, this is a guy that stands up right, has his wits about him, has self confidence, but doesn’t have that weird paranoid self protectedness that we see in today’s culture. He’s just a solid, solid guy.
[00:25:55.390] – Jonathan Denwood
Say any word, price. That’s for sure.
[00:25:57.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. So I’m super impressed with him and I’m glad to be connected to him.
[00:26:03.350] – Jonathan Denwood
On to the next one. Going to butch it. Next one. I just don’t want to. Vegas.
[00:26:12.310] – Kurt von Ahnen
Just say Vegas.
[00:26:13.470] – Jonathan Denwood
Vegas. Vegas. Sorry. Vegas. Vegas. Insta WP. I kind of compare it to Buddy boss. This is a really interesting product, and technically, I understand how difficult it’s been to achieve not only the technical side, but explain precisely what it is, which he’s managed to get a really fanatical following in the WordPress space, and they’re finding it really useful. But I also have some grasp of the technical hurdles involved. So that’s why I thought. I didn’t think it was one of our strongest interviews, to be quite truthful, this year. But I’ve added it just to give him some publicity. And I’m also going to mention it in the second half of the show. But he does strike you somebody. He struck me as somebody very focused and extremely determined. Very determined and focused individual.
[00:27:35.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
What’s your thoughts thinking back to the day that we made the show? It was through the interview process that I actually started to understand the real potential of the product. Because, as you said at the beginning, while you were introducing it, sometimes you can be on the outside looking in at Insta WP and not really understand what’s happening. Because it was in this show that he started to talk about hosting packages and stuff, and we were like, what are you talking about? These things only last for seven days. And so it was interesting to see the kind of. The offshoot is not the right word, but there’s an option, right? So it’s like you can build it and test it, or you can build it and keep it, or you can build it, keep it for a while and migrate it, or you can do all kinds of things here. And I was really shocked during the show to realize that he already, at that time, I don’t know what it is now, but at that time, had almost a half a million websites created for that product already.
[00:28:38.630] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s the thing that really, just really gobsmacks me, is plugins you never even heard of, and they can have hundreds of thousands of installs. And I don’t follow, unlike some podcasts, I don’t follow every new plugin or review plugins on a regular. We were talking about how we might move the show a little bit, jazz it up a little bit in the new year, and we might do a little bit more reviews, but still keep the fundamental structure of the show, mostly interviews, because I always think, always want to try, and because it can become a bit. I’m struggling for the right words here. What’s the right word where it becomes monotonous?
[00:29:33.050] – Kurt von Ahnen
Boat anchor.
[00:29:34.220] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. Yeah. Let’s talk about the last one before we go for our break. Another person, which I think he would be okay to say, he’s a personal friend, and that somebody is very like Jason, somebody I really admire. I’ve been following his content, listening to his podcasts for years and years and years. Usually him and his wife are real. I’ve met them a couple of times. They are extremely friendly, open people, but they are extremely ambitious. But they do it openly. But they are extremely open as well, and generous. It’s nauseated, really. These people. They’re such high achievers, and I’ve achieved so little. But that’s Rob Rowling, joint founder Drip, joint founder of half a dozen companies that have been highly successful, and the founder of Tiny Seed, a slightly overachiever. So we’ve had a couple of discussions with Rob. What you feeling is around Rob Ronan? Our last discussion, which was around his book, which is a very good book, actually.
[00:31:04.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
It was a very good book. And to be clear, he was solid enough to send each of us a copy of it, which I thought was. That was a class act, too.
[00:31:13.700] – Jonathan Denwood
It was a bit like, Jason, you’re doing your class, aren’t you?
[00:31:17.990] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. So I read the book. I really enjoyed the book. I thought it was great. The danger of doing this podcast and meeting some of the people that we meet is you run into the danger of possibly becoming a fanboy of a guest. And that’s. Yeah, that’s what happened to me with Rob walling. So there’s the SAS playbook that he sent us copies to. There were other books that I got in the audible that I downloaded and listened to the audiobooks, and then I saw that his wife had some published books as well. And so I was reading the Entrepreneur’s guide to keeping your shit together.
[00:32:01.670] – Jonathan Denwood
I haven’t read that. Do you think I need to read that, then?
[00:32:04.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
You might be past some of it already, but for me, it was cool to look back on stuff.
[00:32:09.050] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, Rob has said to me that he thinks I’m totally bonkers, but I’m a generous, bonkers individual.
[00:32:16.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
You’re generous.
[00:32:16.850] – Jonathan Denwood
Rob is brutally frank. The people think I’m brutally frank. I think one of the comments. Refreshingly brutal. Thank you for that. That’s a two way compliment, isn’t it?
[00:32:34.910] – Kurt von Ahnen
What logic is the, Miller?
[00:32:36.810] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m nothing compared to Rob, and Rob has said that. Yeah. You do realize you are a bit bonker and I am a bit bonkers. I think it’s quite understandable. I’ve been in WordPress for 15 years. That would be enough to make anybody bonkers.
[00:33:00.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
If we talk about the episodes in particular, what I really liked about Rob Cumming was he talked about AI and the disruption, and then we did talk about the book a little bit. So it was a really great interview. But I think what dwarfs the interview is if you take the time to go through the show notes and you connect to rob on some of those other channels, it starts to open up your view, your perception. Know, this little business world that’s around all of us. And between him and his wife, I think they’ve done a wonderful job on content branding and content development. And there’s a lot to learn from a guy that is, to your point, very direct, but also very generous and compassionate at the same time.
[00:33:46.630] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, he’s very pushover, like I say, he was brutally said, you know, I won’t go in the answer, but he said, you do realize that you can be a handful, Jonathan, and I can be. And I can be impatient and I can say the wrong thing. But I think hopefully, sometimes I’ve been a little occasionally rough with you, but I’ve always come back to you and I’ve apologized about it, on reflection, and I’m just a human being and I can be wrong about things, and I’ll make mistakes, but I’m not into cruelty just for the sake of cruelty.
[00:34:24.950] – Kurt von Ahnen
No. But you know what? From the other side of the coin, it was until probably my late 30s, Jonathan, before I realized that you never know what somebody else’s day has been like. You just don’t know. And so you extend grace, you extend a little patience, and you give people a chance to come back and correct their communication.
[00:34:46.890] – Jonathan Denwood
There’s that. But then you come across other people that actually get delight in making everybody and everything around them a pain in the ass, don’t they? They never back off. They consistently are criticizing and they also like domination. It’s not the OD because they’re under a lot. They are consistently like that, aren’t they?
[00:35:12.450] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I used to be in the car business. I know all about these people.
[00:35:16.790] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, we’ve all met them. I think it’s time for us to go for our break. I think it’s been a great discussion. I’ve enjoyed it so far. We’re going to go for our break. We will be back in a few moments, folks.
[00:35:30.970] – Kurt von Ahnen
This podcast episode is brought to you.
[00:35:33.950] – Jonathan Denwood
By Lifter LMS, the leading learning management system solution for WordPress. If you or your client are creating.
[00:35:42.330] – Kurt von Ahnen
Any kind of online course, training based membership website, or any type of elearning project, Lifter LMS is the most secure, stable, well supported solution on the market. Go to lifterlms.com and save 20% at checkout with coupon code podcast 20. That’s podcast 20. Enjoy the rest of your show.
[00:36:08.550] – Jonathan Denwood
We’re coming back. We’ve had a feast about our shows in 2023. I can’t believe where it’s gone. It’s gone in a flash as well. Oh my godfathers been a great show in the second half. We’re going to be talking about some of the best plugins and story WordPress and tech stories. Should be a great continuance of this show. But before we go into that, I just want to point out if you’re looking for a great WordPress hosting partner that specializes in community, buddy boss, lifter LMS, Learndash, tutor LMS, any kind of high traffic in the learning community space. Why don’t you look at becoming a partner with wptonic? You can find more and it really supports wptonic and the show as well. You can find the information by going to wponic.com partners. Wponic.com partners. And I love a chat with you. If you got the one or two websites that kind of meet our speciality, I think you love the experience. On we go, right? Let’s talk about plugins. I think we also interviewed think, did you miss that one? I think you missed that one. My interview with Ben from Cadence WP.
[00:37:52.930] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think you did that on that.
[00:38:00.470] – Jonathan Denwood
You know, you got elementor that we provide. You’ve got bricks, which is another outside of the Gutenberg experience. You got generate blocks, you got spectra, the reason why. I just think cadence, I bought into it, we provide it at WP, but I believe in Ben and I just think that they’ve built something. It’s not perfect. I think different products, different plugins are aimed at different buckets, different groups of people. I think the type of person that would be looking at utilizing bricks isn’t maybe. But I think Cadence does a great job of covering the beginner to the intermediate, to the power user. And I think especially its query blocks and what it’s done lately, I think it’s getting close to you could build really great professional looking websites on Cadence WP. So I put it on the list. What do you think?
[00:39:20.770] – Kurt von Ahnen
Cadence, to me personally, does a really good job of expanding the standard Gutenberg environment. When you start doing cadence, cadence blocks, Cadence Pro, and you start adding these features, it’s a step below and it’s not as heavy on your site as elementor. So you get some of the cool design features without having to have that big monolith on the site. Just to give you a real life experience. I sold a client on a package based on a starter template and all the normal things that an agency does to here’s the cheap package, and you could have a more expensive package if you want. Well, sure enough, as we developed the template, she was less and less happy. And I was like, finally I was just like, you know, have. Even if it’s out of her budget, I can’t have someone be this unhappy with the design. And the starter template was nice, so she was just very particular. Well, with the cadence package, Jonathan, I was able to go in and just duplicate the home page, strip out all the stuff I didn’t want, add the rows and the columns that she did want, and she ended up with exactly what she wanted.
[00:40:29.480] – Kurt von Ahnen
And it took me literally 45 minutes to make. It’s a really good product. It’s easy to use, it’s intuitive, and I think somebody with mediocre implementation skills could make really good product with it.
[00:40:42.990] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s really different. This has been on how do you keep the flexibility of WordPress and allowing new entrepreneurs and new plugins, but you stabilize the situation to some degree. Maybe it isn’t possible, but maybe that’s what WP is trying to do, is provide really great hosting to our target audience, but also provide a suite, plugins and solutions and give advice. We don’t insist that our clients utilize and we only advise, but we’re trying to be a gatekeeper maybe that this kind of format and I’m not saying that I planned it all out. I just think WP’s dropped in and what it’s trying to do in a kind of business way is some extent unique. I sense other people are starting to copy what we’re doing at WB. That’s understandable. And I get quite right. I’m going to change the order a little bit. Let’s talk about what I think is one of the biggest powerhouse houses in 2023 is just godspacking and I am a bit of a supporter but it’s the fluid team. It’s Jewel. He’s here as well. Jewel folks, for joining us and it’s WP managed Nigeria. They are on fire.
[00:42:33.810] – Jonathan Denwood
I don’t know what they drink at the headquarters but they are know, fluent forms, fluent CRM. I’ve really bought into that. It’s made the offering at WP tonic more complete. We bought into a lot of their products but then they brought something that was really missing with the solution that I was trying to offer to clients at W was a really good booking plugin. We offer one that’s really good as well but it’s much more complicated and powerful and it has its place. But I was looking for more for the beginning that does for coaches, for those that build in a community and that also connects with Google in a reasonably easy way. And then they brought out fluent booking and they’ve continued. They got fluent off also and they got a couple other baiters out there. They just seem on bloody fire.
[00:43:47.130] – Kurt von Ahnen
What do you reckon together? It’s a really awesome combination of tools and we do a lot with buddy boss and with lifter LMS and learndash and stuff, but in the sites that I’ve used the fluent CRM tool with lifter, that integration is automatic. There’s nothing to download or open or connect or API keys or anything. You download the plugin, you activate it and it works. And that’s the really cool thing about the fluent suite. So whether we’re talking about fluent CRM, fluent form or in this case fluent booking, everything of theirs, it just works. You don’t have to fumble around with. What about this? What about that? Did I miss this? Did I not tick this box? They’re very intuitive and their instructions are straightforward.
[00:44:41.170] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. And the founder, Jewel, what I like about you, Jewel, is he’s on their Facebook support group, know, and he listens to people and also he’s extremely generous. You can send the check to me, Jill, later on actually. But no, he’s been extremely generous towards me and he seems a very open person. It’s like a quality act, like some of the other people we’ve talked about. But I got a bit cynical about WordPress because some of the grief, some of it justified, but a lot of it unjustified. But there’s some really great people in the WordPress space, really quality people. And in the SaaS technology space in general, there are some losers, actually. They make a lot of noise, but they don’t actually do much. They just make a lot of noise, if you know what I mean. But there is a small minority. I consider them losers because they just don’t actually do much. But no, they just seem on fire, don’t they? Onto another one. Ollie. Ollie just blew me away. I haven’t had the time to get into it, but it’s just we interviewed one of the founders and I think they’re based in Portugal and I haven’t played around with it, but it’s still on my radar.
[00:46:20.640] – Jonathan Denwood
I think you’ve looked at it a little bit more, haven’t you? And it’s kind of blown you away, isn’t it?
[00:46:27.950] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it’s a yes and no. I’m going to take this one back to if you’re a beginner in the WordPress space, the startup feature, the wizard, if you will, puts things into place really quickly. So here’s some templated pages. What pages do you want us to create for you? Click the ones you want, push a button and it adds the pages and puts the initial format in. That is super cool. Almost like a starter site, the way that you and I would think about starter sites with another provider. But I’ll be honest, man on the back end of it, to actually make the design changes and play with different things. There’s a lot of opportunities to upgrade to pro. So it’s one of those plugins that I think on the free version is a really big tease and then you almost need to go pro to get the real functionality out of it and unlock the real design features that that product is holding.
[00:47:26.440] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, because actually I don’t aim that because I think it’s aimed at the more power implementer, one person, small agency bucket. This is one of the problem and it isn’t a problem. There’s people that say, well, why don’t you use animator or you use bricks? Hater.
[00:47:51.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
No.
[00:47:55.210] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, that’s the thing with Divi. The founder of Divi and the team at Divi, they’re fantastic people. And the founder when it comes to business, Ackerman. And knowing your audience and building a great business. He’s an mean. That’s a London term, folks. That means somebody that you admire. So I’m not utilizing it as a disparaging comet. He’s just animal. I’ve met him a couple of times. He doesn’t do interviews or he won’t come on this. On this show. I can’t blame him, really, but he doesn’t do many interviews anyway because he’s very down to earth. All the people I’ve met at Divi, they’re always nice, but I just don’t like the products. I just don’t like Divi. But you can’t please everybody. Doesn’t mean it isn’t any good. I just don’t like it. Folks never have liked it. But different things for different people. If we all like the same things, be a boring world, wouldn’t it? And I don’t think it bothers him. He’s too busy counting the money. You don’t care what a prick like me thinks. Yeah. So, Ollie. Yeah. Because I think. I’ve not really done much with bricks, but I listened to WP Tut.
[00:49:41.290] – Jonathan Denwood
Paul’s a great guy, even though he’s Welsh. I won’t hold that against sheep Shagger, as I say, but I won’t hold it against him. But he loves bricks and he looks a really good platform. But I think it’s aimed at the power user, the agency type of people that building websites for people. It’s not aimed at the DIY. That’s what I like about the fluent. That’s the other thing, the fluent. I think their plugins have to kind of. They’ve got a broader. The necessity they’re going to be utilized by people that are just not power users, but they also got to have the power so agencies or implementers can do the work that they need. So it’s a difficult thing that fluent is dealing with and they’ve got to deal with that in the UX and that, to be fair with Oli, I think they’re just aimed at the power users. I don’t think a Di person is going to use my. What do you think?
[00:50:58.050] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think they might. I just got into a client’s website yesterday that’s using some new page builder called nice pages.
[00:51:06.790] – Jonathan Denwood
Never heard of it.
[00:51:08.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
These people find stuff, Jonathan, they do into the repository and they find something and they activate it and then they come running to the agency after the damage is done. Hey, can you save this?
[00:51:22.170] – Jonathan Denwood
And I sang it.
[00:51:23.290] – Kurt von Ahnen
I was like, what is this? Where did this come from?
[00:51:27.050] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. I had Insta WP on the list, but I think we said some good things in the first half about them. So let’s move on to stories. Well, I think wordcamp. I put Wordcamp 223. I didn’t attend. It’s always a regret that I didn’t, but I still think it was the right. I’m not going to go in. Why? I decided not to. I think you had a blast. I think in general, people had a great time there. I went to the 2022 word camp and that was an odd affair. I still enjoyed it. I did a load of interviews. I did almost 16 interviews at the event. And I went to a few of the parties, but not a lot. I kept a low profile, but I drove down and I had a new car, new sports car, and I enjoyed the drive and I managed to avoid the californian police. So I think I did quite well. But there didn’t seem to be as many out as in Nevada. There’s so many. You do not want to speed in northern Nevada, folks, because they’re everywhere. But it was a strange affair because of COVID and the restrictions.
[00:52:49.530] – Jonathan Denwood
But I think you and I’ve got the same from a few other people. I think you had a blast at 2023, didn’t you?
[00:52:58.470] – Kurt von Ahnen
At both 22 and 23.
[00:53:00.810] – Jonathan Denwood
You were 22 as well. Yeah. You were when you. Yeah, it was a strange thing. Would you agree? It was a strange event, 2022.
[00:53:10.650] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m just going to say it. And I realize in this audience I might get some hate mail. Jonathan, maybe it’s my turn to get some hate mail. But the hypocrisy during the whole Covid extravaganza was. It was a bit much for me to stomach because everybody’s outside hugging and having drinks, dancing on a boat and going to some bar and having a blast. And then you walk into the facility and people were literally putting on masks and jumping back and going. And it’s like, dude, I was dancing with you last night. So the COVID thing really did take a lot of the shine off of what that show could have been. But it was my first word, camp. It was my first exposure to the community at that level. And I know you went to a couple of parties, but I went to a lot of parties.
[00:53:58.870] – Jonathan Denwood
You partied like an 18 year old, did you?
[00:54:02.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
I felt young again and it was local to me at the time. So I went bicycling and invited other people from the show to go bicycling. And San Diego was just a beautiful venue. It was an amazing first exposure to that level of event, I really enjoyed it.
[00:54:20.770] – Jonathan Denwood
And I think the 23, I think a lot of people enjoyed it, and it was much a bigger event, blah, blah, blah. And I think some people said where it was being held. It was a bit isolated where the actual hotel, where 22 was held, I thought the hotel, it was interesting hotel. And it was more where everything was, wasn’t it?
[00:54:46.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
Both were kind of like that. So the hotel in San Diego, I felt was more like an open air hotel, right? It was like campus, whereas the facility in Maryland is more enclosed, which speaks to their climate also. But that whole. Do you call it a peninsula? I don’t know what you call that. But the hotel was at the end and then it was like water all the way around. Right. But it wasn’t really a peninsula. It was just kind of like a semicircle. But inside that semicircle was a ton of shops and bars and restaurants, and everybody just kind of hung out within that four or five block radius. And all the parties were amazing. The people were amazing. There were so many more people. My one on one conversations at that particular show were really productive. Sometimes you meet at shows and you never talk to people again. Other times you meet at shows and you walk.
[00:55:40.750] – Jonathan Denwood
I know if that happens to me regularly, there you go. On to the next one. WP Tavern. Oh, God. The tavern is in a sorry state. Hopefully the master will be interviewing. He got to make Spence of the. I’ll pay for that. I’ll pay 1000 in the kitty. Just have him. It’d be worth just to watch. It’d be delicious. I’m not sure it’d be great for WordPress, but yeah. Tavern Sarah’s gone. They’ve got nobody writing there. The great leader is supposed to be interviewing it. He’s supposed to be coming on the show, but he hasn’t come back to me. But maybe have a chat with him in the new year. That should be interesting. Have a chat with the great master. But the great leader, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But the problem with the tavern, I’m not even sure. Coming into 2024, I’m not even sure that I could understand why the great leader would actually just let it die a death, really. I’m not sure you can do honest interest in journalism in the WordPress space anymore. I’m not even sure if it’s possible. What do you reckon?
[00:57:12.730] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m on the fence about it, Jonathan, because even though I’ve been in WordPress for 19 years, I don’t have that community tie in for the 19 years. I don’t think I have a really good overall view of the tavern and its value.
[00:57:29.260] – Jonathan Denwood
It was always a strange beast because it seemed to attack. I’ll give you his due. A lot of people don’t like the great leader. I try and be bellivolent and fair. I’ve been a bit critical of Gutenberg, but I tried not. But I still have him in high esteem because of what he managed to build, which you know and I know isn’t easy. But he was always a strange creature, the tavern, because some people say he’s very much a control freak, but other people know. We’ve had the editor, Jeff, on the show a few times, and he said the great leader just left him to it, left him to it too much. And Sarah seemed to be able to do whatever she, to some extent, do what she ever wanted. So you ended up with a fin run by the great leader that seemed to attack regularly some of his major projects. It was a strange set up, wasn’t it?
[00:58:36.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
But it’s healthy. Like, there’s one magazine in the power sports field that is self funded and not supported by all the ads from Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Harley Davidson. Right? And so all these magazines say, oh, this new model from Suzuki is amazing. It’s the best one ever. And then they write an article that know, hey, we took this thing out on the trail. It’s a pile of dog dirt. And you go, well, that’s because those marketing dollars are driving that commentary. It’s like what they say about big pharma with mainstream media. We’re never going to get the straight answer on that stuff because it’s where the funding comes from. So the idea that the great leader would own or have that kind of power with the tavern, and we assume that someone’s going to run it independently and write whatever they want. I think that’s a pipe dream.
[00:59:26.630] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, well, I want to. Next one. Twitter, a constant source of stories. Its owner, who is as bonkers as a bag of frogs. I mean, absolute bonker. He’s becoming a carriage out of a bong film. That’s my personal opinion. But it’s been good. He has supplied endless source of stories for my roundtable show, categorizing the utter turmoil. But I still use it and I paid for my green because I wanted to upload videos to it and I just go with the flow. But to say it’s been the consistent, bigger tech story, the ride of the year, isn’t it Twitter?
[01:00:28.380] – Kurt von Ahnen
Isn’t it you and I are one of those. We’re the OD couple on this one, we agree to disagree. Think I was about to dive off of. I found Twitter horribly pessimistic before. Disagree know, because you got to remember, everyone aggregates their newsfeed differently, right? It’s AI to a certain extent. And so my algorithm gave me a more positive feed after his purchase. And then, to be fair, I wasn’t super connected to WordPress people on Twitter before, but after I went to Wordcamp, I connected with a lot of folks. So now it’s kind of become this lifeline for me inside the WordPress field. So between that and post stack.
[01:01:15.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Yes. Can I just interrupt? I think as a platform, I think it’s still powerful and has a lot of use. I’m just talking about the know. It’s all the drama, all this extra truth. He never wanted to buy anyway. He was forced in the end by the Delaware business court into buying it in the end. I’m not even sure he ever wanted to take it on in the end, did he?
[01:01:46.930] – Kurt von Ahnen
I don’t know if he’s the most Bonkers CEO executive on the planet or if he just gets the most press for it, because in my corporate experiences, I have run into one Looney tune after another.
[01:02:02.120] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, yeah. I’ll give you that. Off bet and off bet. You just wonder, how did they manage to get into the position, get the paycheck? They are. You just wonder. Don’t know.
[01:02:13.950] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I would like to think that I wouldn’t change too much, but, man, what would I be like if I had a couple of billion dollars in the bank?
[01:02:21.730] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, it would. Bonkers.
[01:02:22.830] – Kurt von Ahnen
Anybody probably wouldn’t care what Jonathan thought either.
[01:02:25.570] – Jonathan Denwood
Nobody does anyway. Well, I’m surprised there’s a few people that really. I was naive there because I didn’t think anybody would be interested. What I’ve got to say, right on to the last one. WP Walter Cooler and Sari Reed. It was just the water cooler. Wish it well, they’ve never been that friendly towards me, but they haven’t been unfriendly. I met once a couple of times. Last time was a few years ago at the Los Angeles word camp. She kind of ran away from me. I think she recognized me. And she had a picture of gross disdain on her face when she recognized me. I’m not sure of that, but she just went on a rant for two episodes, didn’t she? And just went off the Big Dipper. I thought I could rant. I tend to do it in private. And I could understand the frustration and I could understand this kind of frustration and I kind of really disbaned it a lot. But then you mentioned about a couple of other people, I won’t mention their names, that really believe in open source software and really contribute a lot. And you pointed it out to me that they really, and they’re not idiots.
[01:04:11.770] – Jonathan Denwood
A couple of people that you mentioned to me, they’re really smart people and I just feel they’ve really bought in to this thing. And some of it, I just think it’s the wizard ofoz. I think it’s a great leader, got a lot of people to contribute, a lot of time and effort. And I think a lot of people, I woke up about three, four years ago about the realities of the situation, but I didn’t realize. I think a lot of other people still bought into it. This is the madness of WordPress because I don’t even think all this smoke and mirror stuff is even necessary. I really think the great leader and automatic can do their thing and they could do it in ecommerce. There’s loads of potential there and they could work much more easier with WordPress.org and the open source traditions. But nobody wants to do anything. Maybe because I just don’t have the information. It’s normally because there’s a load of money involved and they can’t. That’s normally the reason. But I could understand her frustration, but it just went on and on and on and on, didn’t it?
[01:05:45.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Oh boy. This is the episode where I get my hate mail for sure. Outsider looking in, just, I’ve been slighted, I’ve been shorted, I’ve been stolen from, I’ve been all those things. And I know it sucks.
[01:05:59.580] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s hard to pull office billy.
[01:06:01.160] – Kurt von Ahnen
I know it sucks. I know it hurts. I get it. But at some point, sometimes you don’t even state your case. You just move on to the next thing. But if you feel that you have to state your case, state your case and then go on to the next thing. But the episodes that we watched in preparation for the roundtable show, it was a struggle to get through the episodes. I was like, oh my goodness, there’s a lot of emotion and drama here when it could have been an opportunity to share something of more value. That’s all.
[01:06:32.370] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s very diplomatic. Yeah, it just dropped me. It just went on and on too much, to be fair. I could understand the frustration because I think a lot of this is totally unnecessary. And it’s the strange culture of WordPress in the last couple of years. It’s a most strange concoction. Witches brew of frustration and different people. The abundance of blocking people on Twitter, accusing them of things, it’s quite like, what was the witch.
[01:07:20.430] – Kurt von Ahnen
Trials.
[01:07:21.130] – Jonathan Denwood
Pardon?
[01:07:21.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
The Salem witch trials.
[01:07:23.000] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s got that kind of taste to it, right? It’s just really bonkers from beginning to end.
[01:07:33.840] – Kurt von Ahnen
In this new era, people have lost the idea that you can disagree and still be friendly. There’s this assumption that if I don’t agree with you, or if I don’t raise your banner high and celebrate with you, I hate you or wish harm on you, and that’s not the case. I am not taking the time to celebrate your opinion now. And I’m direct like that. But in any case, if they’ve got their audience and they’re experiencing success with that, I don’t wish them to not.
[01:08:08.350] – Jonathan Denwood
It was two episodes of utter frustration and emotional courage, but it’s their show, and it’s those been. All right, so I will take all the heat mold. But I think we’ve been reasonably fair in this show.
[01:08:25.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, she was very public about what happened, and I’m not going to say I don’t understand or have empathy. I’ve been there. I’ve been driven from a part of the industry that I loved over what some people would call a personality dispute. I say it’s an ethics dispute, but I won’t build my identity away from that situation by being the guy screaming the loudest about how unfairly I was treated. I need to redirect my positive energies toward growth in that new lane that I’m in.
[01:08:57.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, the only defense I would put, I want to be totally fair towards her, is that I thought, what? You’re being very naive here, but you pointed out a couple of other people who are not innocent at all. They’ve made a lot more money than me, and they run big WordPress plugins, and they really buy into this and they’ve donated a load of time and money into it. You pointed that out to me, and I listened to what you said, and it gave me a slightly different perspective because these individuals aren’t fools. And I thought you’ve just been foolish, lady. I’ve known. But they do buy into this. And it’s the only thing I really blame the great leader on. I don’t really understand why he even has to be that way. I don’t even know why you have to have this feeling and treat people and that smoke and mirrors and intrigue. I just concluded as part of him that actually likes it. He actually likes it all now he likes it to be a bit. So I’ve got mixed feelings about it. So I’ll try to be fair.
[01:10:28.510] – Jonathan Denwood
I think it’s time to wind this show-up. We’re having a break for Christmas. We will be back in the new year. So, Kirk, what’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to?
[01:10:42.910] – Kurt von Ahnen
My business stuff is onomas.com manyananomas, and then all my social stuff is MananaNoMas, and our podcast is Manyana nomas. So there’s a theme there. And then, if you want to get a hold of me personally, make a connection, which would be on LinkedIn. I’m Kurt von Onen on LinkedIn, and I’m the only Kurt von Ahnen there, so I’m easy to find.
[01:11:02.950] – Jonathan Denwood
As we said, we love some feedback. Do I have plans for the new year? I’ve got to say, folks, I was thinking of maybe removing the roundtable show. I love it, though. I love the conversation, and I love the panel and having guests. But I do wonder, next year, I think, is it possible to have an honest discussion in the WordPress space or the tech space? I think it probably isn’t, but I’m still thinking about it. If you have any thoughts about it, listeners and viewers, send them my way. If you want us to continue the monthly show, I haven’t got the bandwidth to make it a weekly show. Also, I don’t want to do that because having a monthly show around the table means that I can choose the best stories, and I’m not under so much pressure. So I love your thoughts on that. But we’ve got some great guests coming on the show in January. We’re going to have some great discussions. And with Kurt, I want to say, Kurt, it’s been a real blessing that you’ve become part of the show. It’s made a big difference, and I’m very grateful for your contribution.
[01:12:20.510] – Kurt von Ahnen
Kurt, I appreciate that. Jonathan, thank you. Fun working with you.
[01:12:24.520] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, thanks. We will be back after the Christmas and New Year break, folks. See you soon. Bye. Hey, thanks for listening. We really do appreciate it. Why not visit the Mastermind Facebook group? Also, to keep up with the latest news, click wp tonic.com and forward Slash newsletter. We’ll see you next time.
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