The Journey from 4 Employees to 110 Lessons Learned
We interviewed the founder of WPManageNinja Shahjahan Jewel, a WordPress enthusiast and entrepreneur.
#1 – Jewel, can you give the audience some background information on how and how you got into web design and development, including WordPress?
#2 – Bangladesh has recently faced some dramatic challenges. How have these difficulties affected your own business?
#3 – Can you give us insights on the internal planning process linked to building new products/plugins?
#4 – What is one of the biggest challenges that WPManageNinja faces now?
#5— What AI tools do you personally use to help you run your business?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of you?
This Week Show’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:35.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP-Tonic Show in WordPress and SaaS. This is episode 934. Unbelievable, I know. You’ve been listening to this podcast for quite a while. Please tell other people about the podcast. That would be appreciated. In this show, we’ve got a great friend of the show, a great WordPress entrepreneur, and a WordPress community member and supporter. We have Jules in the house. Jules is the founder of WP Manage Nija. They do fluent forms, fluent CRM, and a host of other fantastic WordPress plugins. In this podcast, we will discuss Jules’ journey, how he got into WordPress, and how he built his to over 100 people. Also, his business is primarily based in Bangladesh. I will be asking him about that and a host of other fantastic questions. Jules, would you like to do a quick intro to the listeners and viewers quickly?
[00:02:20.960] – Shahjahan Jewel
Hi, everyone. I am Jewel. Mainly, I’m a software developer. We have been building WordPress plugins for the last eight years, especially for small businesses. So, all of our products are meant to help small businesses. Currently, we are powering around one million websites with our plugins. Yeah, it’s a long journey, and I would like to share my experiences with you guys.
[00:02:56.290] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, it’s like I say, you’ve got a real work press entrepreneur here in the house, so I’m sure there will be some great insights, and it’d be well worth listening to this podcast. I’ve got my great co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:03:17.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Sure. Kurt von Ahnen, owner of MananaNoMas, primarily focuses on membership and learning websites. We also work directly with WP-Tonic and the great folks at Lifter LMS.
[00:03:28.780] – Jonathan Denwood
Kurt does a great great job with WP-Tonic. Before we went into this fantastic interview, we got a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I would also like to point out that we got some great special offers from our major sponsors, a curated list of the best WordPress plugins and services, and a lot more. You can get all these free goodies by going over to wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. And you’ll find several of Jules’ plugins on that list. So that’s good news for us and good news for Jules. So, let’s go straight into it. So, Jil, how did you get into web development? And specifically, what was your initial journey into WordPress? Maybe you can give us some insights there.
[00:04:48.790] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, definitely. So it’s a very long story. So, I started my web development back in 2009. So, I just started my undergraduate studies at university. And so then I learned about the programming and everything. And then I see that I love programming. I understand it very well. And then I thought, okay, we have many websites. I am browsing the Internet; how can I build a website for myself? And to be honest, I had no idea how those things work. And Then, I found a blog spot. Then, I built a website, but the problem was I could not customize it. I don’t know how these things work because you cannot customize those things. You cannot see that code, everything. So that was like a Google service. And then I discovered WordPress. I think after five, six months, once I started programming and everything, and they see that I can actually install on my computer, and then I can see the code, few things here and there, build website, theme and everything. So that was the first starting. In my third and fourth years of university, I was doing programming.
[00:06:20.850] – Shahjahan Jewel
And in the fourth year, I started my first company, and that company was actually an agency. And in that agency, that also got pretty big. We had 25 members in my first company. And we were working with different nonprofit organization, banks, health sector. And we were providing them all the development services from here. And that was really pretty good. And then I exit at, let’s say, 16 from that company. So I started with my friends there, and I exited that company and I started this new company. The goal was the new company was actually the service company that was really good. We were doing really great. The problem is actually the service company that was for me, it was really hard. I have to manage all multiple projects at a time. And then after one year or six months, I have to switch another project and the whole new thing. So I realized that, okay, I am doing all these projects, but ultimately, I’m not creating a value for long term. Then I thought, okay, so what about… I was working WordPress for the last six, seven year, and I really understand WordPress, and also I understand the market, I understand the people, what they need actually.
[00:07:55.290] – Shahjahan Jewel
So why not invest my time and resources to build the product? So then I started- Can I ask you, at that stage, how large was the company?
[00:08:10.130] – Jonathan Denwood
How many employees did you have?
[00:08:14.320] – Shahjahan Jewel
When you involved when you were looking at maybe a product, what stage were you at? So when I started, WMD, that was like we only have three people in the team. So me, one of my and another person who’s not technical, he was just managing things. We had an apartment, so he was just managing the apartment, shopping, grocery, and those type of thing. Those are three person. We started the company, and then we did not have mass… I did not have mass savings in that company, so I still had to work on a few client project to fund my product. Product, and then actually started developing products. After one and a half year, my first WordPress product, that was Ninja Table, so we released that product, and that was.
[00:09:12.930] – Jonathan Denwood
It was the time That’s a cable product that you- Yeah, that’s a table product.
[00:09:18.600] – Shahjahan Jewel
And then we are working really hard on that. People are using… I think in a couple of months, we got 5,000 active installations, and people are asking asking, I need this feature, I need this feature. And some people started email us, it’s really helpful. Can I donate money or something? As you don’t have any pro version or anything. So they were inspired, now it’s a very good thing. We can now build a pro premium version and offer that. So that was the first product. And then we started working working with people like what product we can build. And from the very first, we choose a very specific segment of the market, of our market, and that is we want to only solve the business problems. We will not go to the design thing or theming business or anything. We will just solve the business that’s a small business need. So that’s why we build Fluent CRM, Fluent Forms, and all the the Fluent ecosystem. So currently, what we are actually working, building an ecosystem. So you can say, with the Fluent ecosystem, you can run your online business. That’s our goal.
[00:10:45.010] – Jonathan Denwood
So you started off with the table, plugin, and you got traction. And then what was the second major product?
[00:10:58.500] – Shahjahan Jewel
Our second product was Yeah, Fluent Forms. So that was the second product.
[00:11:04.640] – Jonathan Denwood
So how long was it before Fluent Forms was pushed to market after tables?
[00:11:16.240] – Shahjahan Jewel
We worked like one and a half year on that project before. Yeah, it was a long journey. I was going to say that was quite short, not long.
[00:11:29.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
Are you aware that Gutenberg is a 10-year project?
[00:11:33.270] – Shahjahan Jewel
You must have read my mind, Kirk, but I’m getting enough flack for my comments as it is.
[00:11:45.270] – Jonathan Denwood
So now, how large… Was it still a rather small team when you were looking at Fluent Forms?
[00:11:57.790] – Shahjahan Jewel
Because- Yeah, so when we launched Fluent Forms, I think we had like 15 people in the team.
[00:12:06.360] – Jonathan Denwood
So you had grown quite a bit from 3 to 15 in less than two years. Is that correct? Yeah.
[00:12:14.530] – Shahjahan Jewel
So Yeah, in less than two years, we got like 15. And because the thing is actually the team agree a lot in the COVID So when we started work from home in the COVID, that time we had, I think, 25 to 30 people. I can’t remember exactly. And after one and a half year, after COVID, when you open our office, then I see that people are 60 now. And we hired all these people within this COVID time. I did not know many people. The first time I am meeting with them face-to-face. I understand that, but I thought, when did you launch Fluent Forms?
[00:13:13.370] – Jonathan Denwood
I thought it was a couple of years before COVID.
[00:13:18.470] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, so that was 2019. And that has a sad story, actually, with the Fluent Forms, because when you launched Fluent Forms, so we thought, Okay, we making a very good product, like one and a half year with all the engineering excellence, everything, all the modern technologies and everything. So I thought people will love it. And after religion- Can I Can I?
[00:13:46.380] – Jonathan Denwood
Because this is blowing me away. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry, Kurt. We’ll probably take up the whole first half of this. Are you okay with this, Kurt? Yeah, I’m fine. You can butt in anytime you like, Kurt. All right. I got my AG1.
[00:14:01.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m good.
[00:14:01.970] – Jonathan Denwood
Because I’m blown away. You’re blown my brains away, Gill. So fluid forms. In It’s a pretty competitive space. You’ve got the… You’ve got gravity forms, which most developers And then you had three or four. You had a form project from the Chocolate Factory, as I call them, and with, as I call him. You got some You got some major competition in this space, which is good because it shows there’s a market, but this is quite strong competition. Why did you… And I love fluent forms. I want to point out to the tribe, he hasn’t paid me. Jules has been very supportive to me, but he’s not paying me to say these nice things. I just love fluent forms. But why did you choose? What was the mindset that, well, we’ll build a full plugin, we’re built We’re build a full plugin. We’re entering a really competitive market because it was a huge success for you and your team. But I just want to know what led you to… This is a really hot market, isn’t it?
[00:15:48.500] – Shahjahan Jewel
Okay. Still, I think even five years or even six, seven, eight years, forms market is the most competitive market in WordPress. There has really great form builder in the market. If you search for a good form builder plugin, I’m sure you will get at least five to seven very good, well-built form plugin. And when we started the project, Fluent Forms, and then we saw that there has a gap in the market. All the form plugins are built seven, eight years ago. Like, Gravity Forms, it’s a very good It has a very huge ecosystem, and people use that. We have Contact Forms 7 and definitely other form plugin. I would say Content 7 is a great for me. I think the problem was actually in that market, people were not innovating in that market. A product that built in the last 10 years, 10 years ago, that still work the same way.
[00:16:59.620] – Jonathan Denwood
I just wanted to say something. I shouldn’t have said that about Content7 because I’m basing that on about 19 years ago when the original owner and developer, I think a German guy. I had a correspondence with him, and it was one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever had with another WordPress professional. I’ve had some It’s a really bizarre conversations, Jules, as you’ve probably had, but this guy was a real nutter. But I think it’s not under the regional ownership or anything. I really shouldn’t say that because I’m saying that. I just want to be fair, Jules. Sorry, I interrupted you.
[00:17:51.330] – Shahjahan Jewel
Then we thought, Okay, every website needs a form. If we can build a platform plugin that’s with all the modern technologies. And in that time, like Vue. Js, React, those are getting very popular. And so why not build a form plugin that’s used all this modern JavaScript-based technologies. So it was like an engineering decision rather than analysis the market and everything. Maybe if we were real business man, analyze all the market and everything, maybe we would not build that. But we build that just because it was an engineering challenge. Let’s try it if we can get succeed or not. And so that’s the background story of Fluent Forms. And then I think that Fluent Forms was our first product where we learned how to build a product, how to work with customer. Before that, we were building products for ourselves. And then I realized when we released Fluent Forms that we are not building products for ourselves. We are building products for the people who are really using it.
[00:19:17.780] – Jonathan Denwood
So you enter, obviously, the WordPress system. You enter You entered with the free form product, and then you built on top of that the premium version. Is that correct?
[00:19:37.400] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, exactly. So all of our products actually have a very good free version. I think most of the people even don’t need the premium version. And then if someone needs a very advanced feature, then we offer a pro-version. I think in the form market or in overall or press category, we are the very fast company. We don’t use… Pricing model is not very complex. If you see all the form market, if you buy a product, then you will see tier-based pricing. If you buy the highest price package, then you will get all the features. So we made that very simple. Everything is in the pro, a single Obviously, you’re based in Bangladesh.
[00:20:33.460] – Jonathan Denwood
I would imagine that one of the restraints is the lack of talent in America. Well, there isn’t a lack of talent, to put it, affordable talent. I get the impression in Bangladesh, you have, when it comes to engineering skills, and talent, you’ve got an enormous surplus of excellent people. Would that be correct, or is it still very hard to find really ?
[00:21:12.430] – Shahjahan Jewel
I think it was true maybe 10 years ago or seven, eight years ago, now it’s really competitive because we have lots of companies, great companies here, and also all the companies actually hire remotely. So all the SaaS companies, WordPress companies, even those companies actually hire from remotely. So it’s like we don’t have that advantage. And we live in a very small city in Bangladesh, actually. It’s a very green city, mountains, and everything.
[00:21:51.260] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re selling it to me.
[00:21:54.280] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So we have a few universities, so the city is very small. We are the largest software company here. So you can understand how small the city is actually. We actually work with the universities.
[00:22:14.960] – Jonathan Denwood
I do. All right. So you’re trying to get them when they’re in university or just leaving. That’s how you write. So you have this success with Fluent Forms. And then the next one, am I correct in saying it was Fluent CRM?
[00:22:40.760] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So next big project was Fluent CRM.
[00:22:46.260] – Jonathan Denwood
You’ve just got a success in a very competitive sector, and now you’re technically in marketing to try and build A WordPress CMS is technically one of the most difficult. I’ve known a few people tried to do it. The only other person that’s done a reasonable job of it is Groundhog. But I know a few other people that have attempted to do it. There’s one other company that’s based in Bangladesh that I’ve also done a good job of it. But to say it is not an easy task would be the understatement of the century. Most people would be backing off a little bit because to have a big success in the form space is a great achievement. But you decide to go for it. Before we go for our break, what was the business? What led you to decide to build Fluent CRM?
[00:24:11.940] – Shahjahan Jewel
Okay, so that was also a funny story, actually. Maybe I, personally, I love open source, self-hosted things. That’s what I love, and I love WordPress. And so email marketing is really tough, managing contact, everything, all the data and everything. And in that time when we started, the WordPress does not have a proper email marketing solution. So everyone still, I think, 90 % of the people actually use the SaaS services like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, MailerLite, everything. And these companies are really big and they charge, The pricing is really crazy. And then I thought, why there has no marketing solution in WordPress? And definitely, there was Groundhog CRM, there was zero bias CRM, and later, automatic purchase that, and it’s now, I think, ZPAX CRM. And then I saw that this plugin, even, does not get any market. In that time, I think I think Groundhog was like 2,000 active installation, and ZPAX CRM, that time, like 5,000 or 6,000. Then I started digging into those plugin because I To be fair to Groundhog, I don’t think the free element he ever…
[00:25:55.530] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m speaking for the founder, and I shouldn’t. I think he’s focused focus was more on the premier side because he came… My understanding, he came from Infusionsoft consultation area. So he came from a very different background to where you are coming from.
[00:26:18.770] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, I think exactly. So every product has a philosophy, I think, and Groundhog has their own philosophy to build a product. And then I started digging into it, and I see that no plugin actually giving your near experience of Mailchimp or active campaign or MailerLite. Then actually, we started build that. So the building process was really a bit complicated hour. So first we needed a.
[00:26:51.850] – Jonathan Denwood
How many people were in the company when you were building Fluent CRM?
[00:26:57.820] – Shahjahan Jewel
I think then we had like 35, 40 in that time.
[00:27:03.520] – Jonathan Denwood
And how long did it take you to build the minimum viable product? Yeah.
[00:27:11.030] – Shahjahan Jewel
So it was like, that’s the story I would like to share. So we built the fast version in like on month and we were the very fast customer.
[00:27:23.040] – Jonathan Denwood
Did you say a month?
[00:27:25.650] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So the fast version does not have anything. It was like the fast version is actually like you have to upload a CSV file and then you will type the subject, body and hit send. That’s what it would do at the very first time. So that was like two, three weeks, we built that just for our users. So when we release an update, we export the customers, upload that. That was really time consuming. Export the CSV and So we just connected to our store. In the same database, we just pull those contact records from the user table and start sending data. And over time, we actually need this feature. In the support ticket, we need to know a customer, how many product they purchased, when they purchased, do they have any active license or anything. Then actually, we started building those things. And after six months, eight months, I think, then we thought, Okay, if now we could replace Mailchimp, can we build a product? Then we rewrote the whole thing. We got the idea, now we want to build that. So that took another seven, eight months.
[00:28:51.270] – Jonathan Denwood
And then we- So we’re talking in total before you had your product to launch to the public. We’re talking about 12 to 18 months, maybe.
[00:29:03.820] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, like 18 months.
[00:29:05.710] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s more reassuring because when you were talking about a month, I was losing my mind. All right, I think We’re going to go… I think Jules has just blown my mind away, basically. I feel a total failure. Thanks, Jules. I feel like a total has been failure. Just plod along, don’t I, Kurt? I’m going to let Kurt take over the whole the next half because he’s just been sitting here patiently listening to this, but I haven’t butted in too much, Kurt, have I?
[00:29:42.690] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, we’ll save that for the second half.
[00:29:45.070] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I’m just going to let you… I’m going to shut up. We’re going to go for our second half, and we got some other really interesting topics to discuss. I’ve been blown away by this first half. Hopefully you have listeners and views. It’s been a great conversation. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re Coming back, folks. Just want to point out, if you’re looking for a great WordPress partner for your larger projects, for your hosting of membership and community-focused websites, why don’t you look at becoming a partner with WP Tonic. We’ve got over eight years experience in the WordPress community and space. We’re totally trusted. You can find out more about becoming a partner by going over to WP-tonic. Com/partners, WP-tonic. Com/partners. We love to build something special with you. I’m getting better at that, Kirk, can’t I? I think it’s getting them… Actually, I’m just an extremely slow learner, but I was applauded the way, don’t I, Kirk? Over to you, Kirk.
[00:31:10.570] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I put a comment in, but I’m still trying to get over the… I made my first exit when I was 16. In America, 16-year-olds, I mean, are having a hard time just mowing a neighbor’s yard for $10, right? Let alone starting a company and having an exit. So that leads me to… Our second question was about Bangladesh and recent dramatic challenges. But I want to morph this question some. I feel like it’s a… I want to ask the culture dynamic between what we see in the States and what you experience There. For example, I just moved from California to Kansas, and I thought I was moving to a technical desert. I thought I was moving where nobody knew anything. It turns out I have the fastest Internet I’ve ever had in my life. Pippin Williamson is my neighbor, and I’m friends with a guy that makes custom software and travels back and forth to Bangladesh to run an office over there. I’m far from being in a technical desert, but I still know that it’s nothing compared to your environment. What’s the culturally, what’s it like there to work in this field? And then we’ll get to the challenges of Bangladesh, the dramatic challenges.
[00:32:23.870] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So in Bangladesh, actually, the IT sector actually evolved in last 12 to 15 years. And the good thing is actually in Bangladesh, we have lots of universities. And in those universities, there are lots of very talented people there. And we get like, thousand of engineers, software engineers every year from those universities. Many of them actually, they just go abroad, USA or Europe for higher study, PhD and everything. But many people actually stay And last one decade, we have this culture, actually, the building product or building a software company or a building a SaaS. It’s true a lot. And that’s why you will see that many of the WordPress companies are from our country. So that’s a very good thing. From the university and the university and the industry, they have a very good relationship in my city. We have four university in my city, and we closely work with them. So the faculty, they actually talk with us what things we should What is our students, or maybe they invite me to talk about what the student should focus. And that’s the thing, really, that overall environment, that really help. And in that age, people understood that like, okay, IT programming, there’s a really good thing, and that’s like it’s the future of the career.
[00:34:14.240] – Shahjahan Jewel
And It’s really easy if someone is very talented, then they can actually advance their career very quickly. I think that this is the fastest way to advance their career in all the industry and everything. So So that’s a very good thing. And many companies actually have like, internship program. They hire the fresh graduates, and they teach how to do those things, everything. When we hire like, fresh graduates, we have a space of three to six month program, like very good program, like Slabas, you have to do this things, then this. And within four, five months, you will be ready for as a software engineer here. So that’s also very helpful. So in my opinion, here, the dynamics and relationship between these institutes and this interest is very good.
[00:35:14.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
Is there a challenge or an obstacle in getting these recent graduates to stay in your area? I used to live in the San Jose area, and there were a bunch of migrants. I guess that’s what we call them, like They came in for jobs in San Jose. And then there’s tech centers in Germany and Israel and all these. Are your universities farming all of these out? Is it hard to keep them with you?
[00:35:42.270] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. I think it’s like in the whole world, there has people are moving in different cities. Someone is, say, in Europe or USA, they are moving to, say, Dubai. Okay? Maybe for tax purpose and anything. Some people from Asia, they are moving to Europe or Canada or Australia. So definitely. So we have that here, too. And I think we have more than usual. And I think after COVID, many people actually moving around more frequently.
[00:36:23.990] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah.
[00:36:24.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
Excellent. Well, I want to move on to question two, and then maybe we can bring Jonathan back into the conversation. But I know this firsthand because one of our team members at Lifter LMS is in Bangladesh. And she said, Hey, there’s a bunch of uprisings going on. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to work. Then all of a sudden, the internet was gone, and there was actual concern. Like, What’s going on? Is she okay? What are those distractions like over there?
[00:36:57.470] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it’s up to Joe. I personally wouldn’t use the word uprising. But maybe we got to ask Jules that, how do you see what happened? Do you see it as an uprising or do you see it? Or I’m not even sure. Do you feel totally free to say whatever you want to say, Jules?
[00:37:24.820] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, definitely.
[00:37:25.950] – Jonathan Denwood
Or are we just presuming that you have that freedom?
[00:37:28.480] – Shahjahan Jewel
No. So So our previous government, actually, they were in the power for a long time, around 16 years.
[00:37:39.860] – Jonathan Denwood
Can I… I just think… Because I know you live here, but my understanding is obviously, Bangladesh had a war of Independence over in the ’70s. It was one of the most brutal wars seen in that part of the world. I think I’m correct in saying that between 2 and three million people died in that war. And Bangladesh is dominated religiously by Islam. But actually, the conflict was with each with Pakistan and the country got its independence with the support of India. Would I, Mirachili, because I think The Pakistan army was actually defeated by the struggle of the Bangladesh people, but also the Indian army. And the founder founder, one of the key founders, he became President, but he was assassinated by the Bangladesh army with most of his family. And One of the daughter’s survivors who lived in Germany, she became the president, she became the head of Bangladesh. In some ways, it’s a bit of a sorry story that somebody who’s related to the founder of the state seems to have had to run to India in a helicopter Am I getting the basics right or am I making a fool of myself, Joel?
[00:39:53.300] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think my question was more innocuous.
[00:39:55.900] – Shahjahan Jewel
That’s from outside observation or the country. The history is actually after the Second World War. Before the Second World War, we were with UK, the whole India. That was one country. When UK leave, then we had two countries, India and Pakistan.
[00:40:19.910] – Jonathan Denwood
I just want to point out that Britain really bugged up the whole of India. But it’s nothing to do with me. I’m English, but I’m not making any excuses. I’m not making any excuses for imperialism.
[00:40:36.990] – Shahjahan Jewel
It’s best. Anyway, the problem was actually last 16 years, we had one party government, so all the other parties, they could not actually… We were a democratic country. We were a secular country. But the problem is actually there is no other party. So the previous government actually killed most of the people or push them into the jail and everything. So 16 years, those people actually running the country on their own laundered billions of dollars to other countries. Then actually, the students basically started the protest, and And then actually, they got for it, and they flew to India. Most of the politicians, all the politicians, many politicians actually left before it happened, actually. And that’s the thing. But now, it’s really in a very… The government, the new government, they’re really good. Our head of state is a Nobel Prize winner. And I think it can be better. He’s the best person to run the country. Country, and he is trying hard to shape the country. Now people can freely talk, freely do anything they want. So now it’s better than any previous time.
[00:42:20.670] – Jonathan Denwood
All right.
[00:42:22.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m going to go with the next question. Yeah.
[00:42:27.580] – Jonathan Denwood
I think Bangladesh It’s one of those countries, I think, Vietnam and Cambodia and Rwanda and Bangladesh. There’s like half a dozen countries, Kurt, that really need a break, that deserve a decent future. And Bangladesh is one of those countries because people don’t realize the enormous suffering the Bangladesh people went through for their independence. It really was a massacre of epic appultions, Kirk. The Pakistan army just went wild, and they butchered men, women, children, anybody. They came across, they came across. They would go into a village and just butcher everybody, Kurt. A level butchery that is mind-blowing, Kurt. Sorry, that was a good debate. Sorry about it.
[00:43:33.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
Okay. I’m going to try and recover this a little bit and say that I think we covered question number three in the first part of the show, but I want to get to the challenges. What’s one of the biggest challenges outside of the drama in August? What’s one of the biggest challenges that WP Manage Ninja faces now?
[00:43:55.290] – Shahjahan Jewel
We have a now many product. And so last week I had a meeting with my CMO, and he was telling, Jules, how many products we have now. And I could not answer correctly. The problem is actually we have commercial product as well as pre-open source product. We were using internally. We just released that to know what’s it, but our marketing team and the people are also managing thing. I think the biggest… When a company got big, now we have 1 million users who are using our product. And previously, when you are small, you can really get an update anytime you want because you don’t have any users. But now when we want to release a product, we cannot beg anything because if we break anything, if something goes wrong, there is like hundreds of thousands of websites will be affected. So now our whole process needs changed. These are the process that we have to follow. And another thing, most of the products are actually our product are a bit complicated, not straightforward product. It’s really super critical, super complicated product. The challenge is actually now, Keep it simple. So building things is easy, a complex way.
[00:45:35.640] – Shahjahan Jewel
I think it’s really easy. But maintaining those and keeping it simple, that’s really complicated. And that’s most of the time we spend lots of R&D. We do lots of R&D, like how we can keep things simple, how we can make our code base maintainable. We never abandon any product. So the code we wrote back to the 16, 17, we have to manage those things. Those are the current challenge we are working on, how we keep this efficient. Even after five years, we think what will happen after two years, three years, what the product we want to see in this product after two years, where I want to see that product. So that’s the things. We We did many things. We shaped the company in a very good way. When I go to a holidays, say, I’m going, say, last June, I was in full month, I was in Europe. I did not had to check my email. I did not had to call my office. They were managing things because we structured that whole company like that. So it’s like we have many great leaders. We build those leaders over the years. So we did that part.
[00:47:05.950] – Shahjahan Jewel
Now we are focusing on how we are to increase the efficiency, how we want to do this small things where we will not break things. So that’s things we are really working on. And I hope soon we’ll be more efficient. So, yeah, that’s the thing.
[00:47:27.710] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. I’m trying to think of all the tools that I actually use. So I use the form, the CRM. We use fluent support, fluent booking. I’m looking forward to trying Fluent Community. So I ramble off these words. And then the first part where you were talking to Jonathan and your timeline’s to develop, both of us are just in shock. Do you foresee, and maybe you can’t answer this publicly, but do you see a roadmap where you continue to make, like knock it out of the park products, or do you see more of a maintain and stay stable and stick to these core products?
[00:48:05.420] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So we actually… So here the WMD job, our structure is a bit different than other companies. So when we build a product, we make sure that we have a team. So like, say, Flament firms. So Flament firms, they have a dedicated team. Those people only work on Flament firms. So we have a team for Flient CRM. So they have a separate people from support, marketing, developer, everyone. So you can say WMD manager, we are building multiple startups inside here. So we treat our each product as a startup. So even for FRIEM CRM or our big products, we actually mention our finance and book everything differently. We want to know how much this product cost and how was the growth and everything. So this product, this team actually managing things. So we have, now, I think we have 120 people more or less. I am not sure the exact number, but 120. And so those people actually, they are distributed in different teams, and when they work in that team, so they are the startup. And that’s why we could manage all this product. And so to answer your question, when we will actually build a new product, we make sure that we have a team for that.
[00:49:52.930] – Shahjahan Jewel
So that’s how it works. And definitely, I look forward to release a few exciting products this year. Community, one of them. We are also doing some R&D and development, another on-to product. Yeah, definitely. Our portfolio will definitely, it will end up.
[00:50:17.560] – Kurt von Ahnen
Cool. Thank you for that. Jonathan, over to you.
[00:50:20.570] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I want to… And it’s not a downer, Jules, because I can see there’s a couple of your plugins, like the table plugin, that’s at the start of your journey. And then you have a social media plugin, I think. But the rest of them, I follow the logic. I follow the form. The form leads into a CRM. The scheduling links, having a booking and scheduling, it’s Unitarian plugins. It’s not the real flashy stuff, but it’s the stuff that a lot of small businesses really need. And when it comes to the community plugin, I’m not sure that really It gets into the mode, if you understand what I mean. I’m not having a go at it in any way, but can you understand where I’m coming from? I’m not too sure. Because the others, they’re… You If you need a form for your website, if the form works with your CRM, that’s great. Most businesses need a calendar scheduling to work with their CRM and their forms. In my mind, it all links. I’m not sure about a community, even though it’s a great thing, there’s definitely a need for it. Can you understand where I’m coming from?
[00:51:58.310] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, I understand. So So we have actually many tools, internal tools that we have. Even we have our Acer tool that we build that we use in our company. We have accounting software that we built a few years back that we use. But these plugins, we never really use that. And the community plugin is actually all of our internal tool that we are using for last one year. And so basically, how we work, that product was needed for us. So all our communication, actually meeting notes and everything, we basically use the community plugin. So we call it lounge, our office lounge. So all the people actually go there. So all their HR history and everything there, what they’re working on. And all the meeting notes, we track in that community. So So when I actually go to our lounge, then I can see everything that what is going on in the office and everything. So we were using one year. And then in that Then our internal team actually developing and everything. Then we thought, okay, can we make a product? So there are two things. If we make a product, we can improve it over time, and we will be one of the biggest customer, definitely.
[00:53:34.350] – Shahjahan Jewel
And because when we will have this feature, our internal lounge will be improved, our workflow will be improved. And then in WordPress, if you see that there has no good community plugin. So I search that, like say, circle. That’s a great solution for SaaS solution. But the tools we use in our office, most of them are actually either open source or WordPress plugin. We thought, Okay, we already have that solution that we are using. Maybe we can try to build a product. Actually, we installed that six, seven months ago when we launched Fluent Boards. So that’s also a project management tool we launched, and I think now, 2000 businesses using that product. And so when we wanted to launch Fluent Boards, we had a better community, and we installed the Fluent Community Plugin in a subdomain of our site and invited some beta users, and they started using it, and they asked, What plugin is this? I want this. I want this. Something like that.
[00:54:55.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, one of your plugins that we’ve adapted, I just want to give a quick story. Well, maybe I’ll do it after because Kirek has got to go. So, Kirek, I’m batting in, but you got to go in five minutes. I do. I’ve got a really nice story to tell the community I’m going to be at one of Jules’ products. But do you want to move on? Sorry, I bat you down, didn’t I?
[00:55:25.010] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, I’m going to take off and go run the call with Lifter and have a great day.
[00:55:30.040] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, then. I just wanted to… We are using your support plugin at WP Tonic. I was using Freshdesk, and I was using the free and I was using And then I was looking at using the free, the paid product, and the main reason I had to go to the paid product was it enabled you add a custom field, because With the free product, we couldn’t take people’s ULRs, basically. It was a pain in the heart. But the paid version was okay, but I had more people come on the team. And then if you got more than two or three people, it gets really expensive, really quick. And then you offered support to me, and you were very gracious on the terms. And it’s just a fantastic product, and it does the job, and it works really well. Because these SaaS products, they tend to be okay price-wise when you got one person, but it’s when you get four, five, six people, they get really expensive really quickly, don’t they?
[00:56:57.640] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, definitely. My philosophy is actually, especially for the WordPress users, you are managing everything in your WordPress. You are running your shop in your WordPress. You’re running your blog or membership or your coaching program. So your data is actually in WordPress. If you have everything in WordPress, for your support, for marketing, your forms, everything, Then you can manage everything in the single place. You don’t have to switch different tabs. You can manage everything from a single point of view. And another thing actually really helped us to build this product. That is We are one of the biggest customers of our own product. I think for the support, we are one of the biggest users for the support because we handle hundreds of tickets every day. So we understand why we have to optimize it because think about it, if I optimize a few seconds per ticket or per response, end of the month, we will save hundreds of hours from that seconds. So we optimize all those products, something like that. For CRM, same. We manage 100,000 subscribers in France CRM. So we know why we have to optimize. We know which features we need, and we can push those features.
[00:58:40.970] – Shahjahan Jewel
And so that’s also a very good way to build products. If you are one of the user of your product, then it’s easier to build these features, easier to optimize these things for the community.
[00:58:57.610] – Jonathan Denwood
So let’s move. Have you got another 10 minutes or do you need to be off? Sure.
[00:59:02.480] – Shahjahan Jewel
It’s okay. Yeah.
[00:59:03.430] – Jonathan Denwood
So let’s go through the last couple of questions. Ai, everything’s AI, isn’t it? Are there any particular AI tools that you or your team utilize that you really like?
[00:59:19.740] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah, definitely. We experiment, use lots of AI products, actually. I personally We use GitHub Copilot. That’s a very good tool for coding, reviewing, and everything. So definitely use that. We also use a self-hosted client. So who is actually connected with OpenAI, Google, Gemini, and Anthropic Cloudy. So all those model. And we give access to all of our employees. So So anyone can actually log into our portal. So I call it like we have a lounge, so they can go to the lounge and they can interact with the AI with anything. So we encourage our employees to try it, to see where this can actually help us. In our support system, we implemented the AI and see where they can actually help We are doing some R&D, giving the information about our plugin, documentation, article, and everything, and see how that perform, if that can help us with our support and everything. Yeah, definitely, it’s a new technology, and we want to understand that. Do you think, in general, I think WordPress is…
[01:00:59.240] – Jonathan Denwood
Obviously, there’s some of the work that the Cadence team, Ben and his team are doing, which we are great supporters of Cadence and Ben and his team. He’s a delightful individual like yourself. Like me, I can rub up a few people, but you and Ben, you seem to have the ability of being liked by most people. I’m okay, am I? I’m a toothless tiger. So get back to it, Jonathan. They’re doing some interesting things with AI, but in general, it’s not been that active, in my opinion, in WordPress. But I’m not sure because there’s been some utilization of AI in some SEO plugins. Do you think Do you think it’s just… Is there something about the plugin WordPress that makes it easier for SaaS companies to integrate it? Or do you think a lot of these SaaS companies, when you actually look at what they’re doing with AI, a lot of it is just smoke and mirrors, when you really… It’s not that impressive what they’re doing. I don’t know, because there’s a core a lot of products that I’m using that made a big difference to me. But I also see a lot of SaaS companies saying, We’ve added this AI functionality.
[01:02:44.710] – Jonathan Denwood
When you really look at it, you just go, Can you understand where I’m coming from? What’s your reaction to what I’ve just outlined?
[01:02:57.630] – Shahjahan Jewel
I mean, so So when AI, this wave started, my team asked me, Should we integrate AI?
[01:03:10.570] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m sorry to interrupt again, because the reason I’m asking this question, because Especially with your Fluent CRM and your support plugin, and a couple of your key plugins, you can actually see where AI would be really useful, I would Definitely. So I think you’ve probably been looking at this quite seriously. So that’s why I’m asking you the question.
[01:03:38.670] – Shahjahan Jewel
Yeah. So exactly. So, my team members asked me if we should integrate AI with our product. Then my question was, do we need a feature where AI can help? So many companies are implementing AI just because they want to tag it like it’s AI-powered. So, in Frame Support, we had a use case. We want to generate the answer to a question. With that context, someone who writes something wants to improve their writing in that support system. So we implement that. That’s because it was needed. So even if when we will see a use case that, okay, in that feature, we can improve the overall quality of that feature or save time of that user, then we will use that. So, support was a great use case for the AI. So we implement that, we use that, we are optimizing in every cycle, something like that. If we see, say, for fluency RM, AI can help with a feature, and it will save time. We’ll implement that. So, my mind is open to AI, and I think companies should also do that. Say you talked about Kedence AI builder.
[01:05:16.000] – Shahjahan Jewel
I think it’s a good feature. You can prompt with the prompt. You can build something. You are creating a section. It’s saving time—a good thing. So, when I make a product or build a feature, two things I have in mind are whether it saves time for the people. If I can save time with a product or a feature, it’s a good thing we should go for that. The second thing is, does it save or make money for our customers? So this So it’s the two parameters. I think every product works in that way. Does it save time or make money? So those are the two things we focus on when we build products. And there is another category I’m not talking about: something like it can be entertainment, that art, something that does not actually fill up in those two categories. So yeah. Something like I am open about AI. Every day, I encourage my team members to explore those things and where we can use them. It’s not like I don’t encourage them to tag a product with the empowerment to integrate that.
[01:06:47.960] – Shahjahan Jewel
That should not be like that. It should be like solving a real problem.
[01:06:53.820] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Thanks for that. So the last question is whether you had your machine, H-E-wells, or Doctor Who. I don’t know if they have Doctor Who, Bangladesh. I don’t imagine you watching it. You could go back and maybe give yourself a… I’m not sure what advice, because I think you’ve done quite well for yourself. I don’t know what advice you would give to yourself. Is there anything that comes to mind that you wish he had learned at the beginning of your career? Don’t come on this podcast.
[01:07:34.540] – Shahjahan Jewel
No, no, no. So I think whatever happens, I guess it happens for a good reason. And even I think I’m thrilled with my life, even in my bad and good times. And so what I realized, from 2010 to 2020, is that I was a workaholic. I was working too much. I still work too much. I still work hard. But I did not give myself enough time for other things, such as someplace for family, travel, and everything. So now I try to do that. Sometimes, I could do this: traveling, social work, giving time to my family, and everything. I could have done more in the previous time. But overall, I’m happy with my life, and what we do inspires me. It is not about the money, the business making. I enjoy what I do. I love those times when I see a good moment about our product, when I get a good review, or when I talk with the customers at different events, in work camps, and everything.
[01:09:13.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I think you’ve got you and your company, you’ve got an excellent reputation. You can’t please everybody.
[01:09:18.910] – Shahjahan Jewel
It’s impossible. Yeah, definitely. So that I know. It’s impossible.
[01:09:21.410] – Jonathan Denwood
But I think you’ve done, you and your team have done the best you can, and they’re good products. You’ve been generous, and I’ve tried to show it back. You and your company are good examples of success and entrepreneurial experience in WordPress. I wish you and your company the best. What’s the best way for people to learn more about you and what you’re up to, Joel?
[01:09:55.850] – Shahjahan Jewel
So the best way to do this is to visit our website, Wmanage. You can search for Wmanage Ninja. You will find all of our products. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. I am very active on Facebook, especially in our and other groups. So, I love to talk with people learn from them how they think about the product and the business.
[01:10:25.700] – Jonathan Denwood
You do make yourself accessible. I don’t know how, but you make yourself well. It’s a sign of a well-run business because you can do that, which I think is fantastic. Hopefully, you’ll return to the show sometime in the new year.
[01:10:43.340] – Shahjahan Jewel
Definitely.
[01:10:44.490] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve enjoyed the discussion. I think we’ve covered some exciting stuff in this chat. We’re going to close the show down now. We will be back next week with another. We’ve got some fantastic guests coming on the show in October, folks, and November. We have a special show tomorrow with Spencer Former and maybe some other special guests. I don’t know. We will be back next week, folks. We’ll see you soon. Bye. Bye.
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