Mastermind.fm

In episode 89, Joe Casabona and I started a discussion on some of the alternative WordPress business out there, other than the usual plugin or theme development. In part 2 we continue that discussion, delving into the world of teaching WordPress and teaching others how to run a WordPress business. Our discussion ranges from our irritation with those who think building WordPress sites for clients is easy, to the importance of finding the right name for a business, and why we need to educate the WordPress community about all this and more. Joe is graciously offering all Mastermind.fm listeners with a 50% discount on his "Creating Online Courses" course. It teaches you how to build online courses and Joe shares his own experiences with you along the way. Just click here and follow the steps to get half off using the discount code MASTERMIND.   Show Notes Website: casabona.org Twitter: @jcasabona Creator Courses How I Built It WordPress Business Coaching

In today's episode, Jean and James discuss their retirement from Mastermind.fm and usher in a new era during which the show will be hosted by Mark Zahra. We discuss what's been going on in our lives and businesses over the past year and how we arrived to the decision to stop hosting the show. It's definitely been a great run however it is now time for someone else to take over, and we are convinced that Mark will be doing a great job. You've already heard Mark on some of the last few episodes, and one of the main reasons why we decided to keep the show going is because we both really enjoyed listening to these last few episodes. We talk about what's next for us in business and also discuss some of our recently discovered productivity hacks and books we read. Since there's lots of changes happening in our business lives lately, we also discuss the topic of change and evolving. It seems that as we age and also gain more and more experience in the business world, our desires change, and one thing we both feel

In this episode, Mark Zahra from WP Mayor, WP RSS Aggregator and EDD Bookings continues his foray into podcasting through a long discussion with Joe Casabona. Joe Casabona has been around WordPress for many years, starting off like many of us building small WordPress sites, to now coaching and teaching others about WordPress and how to run a business around it. Mark got in touch with Joe recently in the Post Status slack community and through their conversations, he learnt about how Joe transitioned from working for Crowd Favorite while working side-jobs as a freelancer to freelancing full-time in various, less-discussed areas of WordPress. The call lasted almost an hour and a half. That's why we have split the episode into two parts. In part one Mark and Joe discuss Joe's background, the struggles he faced and benefits he got in transitioning to freelance, as well as his popular podcast, How I Built It, and what he has learnt from the interviews. Given that the podcast has surpassed 67 episodes now, we h

Mark Zahra takes over for the first episode of 2018 to discuss a topic he has grown passionate for; customer service. Having been involved in support for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin for around 3 years, growing from a support engineer to head of support, and now being part of the team preparing the EDD Bookings plugin for its re-launch, Mark strives to improve the customer service their team provides. As part of his research, he came across a Facebook live video hosted by HelpScout CEO Nick Francis, in which Nick interviews Customer Service expert Shep Hyken. After getting in touch with the two, Mark reached out to Shep who agreed to be a part of this Mastermind.FM episode. Shep gives us a brief overview of his background and what led him to becoming a customer service and experience expert, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, as well as being inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Mark goes on to ask Shep

This week, our resident James Laws is joined by his Ninja Forms cofounder, Kevin Stover, and Phil Derksen, entrepreneur and founder of WP Simple Pay. Together they jump headlong in WordPress businesses, business models, and what it's like to sell a business. So, sit back and enjoy this post holiday episode of Mastermind.FM! Topics Include: Mr. Derksen's background. A brief on WP Simple Pay. Phil's main focus. The how and why of selling a business. Plugins, plugins, plugins. Underestimating the amount of work required in order to sell. Balancing split focuses. Supporting multiple customer bases. Metricizing potential. Arriving at a sales number [for a WordPress plugin]. SAAS and automatic renewals. Diversifying product and separating your businesses. Do businesses today get into plugin building just to 'flip' them? Quantifying a business or plugin's true value. Purchasing an external business: "Like stepping into a moving vehicle". Taking on support costs. Buyer's rem

This episode is hosted by Mark Zahra of WP RSS Aggregator and EDD Bookings, who talks with Marius Vetrivi of WPRiders. Marius is an entrepreneur who has worked his way from being a solo freelancer to running his own WordPress agency that currently has 6 full-time employees. The two discuss Marius' background as well as that of his business, WPRiders, before going on to discuss various aspects of running a business. The discussion starts off with how to transition from being a freelancer to running an agency and what Marius learnt from it. The two then go on to discuss hiring; knowing when is the right time to expand and in what areas, how to find the right person for the job and for your team, and making sure the company's culture is maintained throughout. Marius also shares some details about what WPRiders does and how it does it, from complete site development to smaller projects with plugin and theme customisations, among others. Lastly, Mark asks Marius what he does in his personal time to unwind and h

This turbulent second half of the the Dumitru Brinzan interview revolves around his controversial blog post Inside WordPress.org Theme Review Team: Money, Abuse and Inconsistent Leadership. Donnacha and Dumitru discuss the series of events that led him to be the first member of the WordPress.org Theme Review Team to publicly call out the corruption that makes WordPress worse for users but, conveniently, hands a million dollar business advantage to leading volunteers. We talk about how Dumitru's background, growing up in Eastern Europe before the fall of communism, imprinted upon him the urgent importance of not allowing corruption to slide, especially in slow-moving, bureaucratic, cult-of-personality situations. For anyone involved in WordPress, this interview is worth listening to precisely because it is so rare to ever hear an insider talk openly about the very real problems that are festering behind the apparent blockbuster success of WordPress. Dumitru Brinzan: @dumitru https://www.Brinzan.com/ @he

Dumitru’s first coding job was in 2005, at a travel agency where he did some internal websites using PHP. Dumitru’s first WordPress job was in 2010 with WPZOOM, where he made themes. There he learnt that a lot of time goes into support. At heart, he considers himself a PHP developer first, WordPress developer second. Dumitru explains the difference between Romanians and Moldavians. Dumitru reveals why a country as small as Moldova has produced so many developers. Why Dumitru packed his bags in 2016 and moved his family to Dortmund, Germany. Donnacha antagonizes the entire population of Italy. Why Dumitru decided to start his own theme company in 2013, and why he thought WordPress would be a good match for independent hotels. How his decision to sell themes for $200, the most expensive price ever for WordPress themes at that time, sparked outrage. Typically, theme companies spend 95% of their time on support, and 5% on development. How his choice of Hermes as a brand name was mocked, all those years ag

In today's episode, we welcome back Mitchell McCallahan to the show. Jean previously discussed Bitcoin with Mitchell on episode 28 back in September last year, so do check that episode out especially if you're new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In today's episode, we discuss the evolution of Bitcoin over the past year, as well as some common questions and doubts that people have when they start looking at cryptocurrencies as an asset class. We talk about the two different types of blockchain forks - hard forks and soft forks. We touch on the forks we've had in Bitcoin this past year as well as the upcoming hard fork that has just been cancelled as I write up these shownotes (we didn't know that while recording). We also discuss whether one should pay attention to other cryptos apart from Bitcoin, and if so, why. Mitchell explains how whales can influence the price of cryptocurrencies with some tricks. This price manipulation is also done by the exchanges with fake orders. We also discuss why nations cre

In today’s episode Jean is joined by Daniel Dios, an entrepreneur in the sports field, specifically the fastest growing sport in the world: padel. Jean has been taking padel seriously during the past year, and this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about this sport if you haven’t yet heard about it. Beginning with a short introduction on when padel was founded, Daniel proceeds to outline the growth and spread of the sport from its beginnings in Mexico up to its incredible popularity nowadays in Spain and other countries in Europe. Jean and Daniel then discuss some of the things beginners typically struggle with, and Daniel gives a blueprint for attaining success in padel in the quickest way possible. As always a lot of hard work is involved to succeed, but the methodology employed in training is very important. Following this technical discussion, it's time to delve into the business side of padel. Being the world's fastest growing sport means that there are a lot of business opportunities developi

James Laws welcomes Dustin Stout as his co-host for the episode, kicking things off by measuring the size of their respective Twitter followings. Dustin won, and so he should, given that he is a social marketing consultant who now sells a successful social media product, Social Warfare. If we could combine James and Dustin, at a genetic level, into one man, he would be called Justin. Justin Lout. As a young adult, Dustin left small-town Pennsylvania and headed for the bright lights of Hollywood to become an actor but, after a few years, became disillusioned with how the industry actually works (no mention of whether he met Harvey Weinstein), so, he went to work as Youth Director for his church. Determined to connect with young people on their own terms, he learnt as much as he could about the newly emerging world of social media. Inspired by meeting some of the leading lights in the social media space, he started blogging about what he was learning. This encouraged others to approach him for advice on how t

In this episode, Mark takes over hosting duties from James and Jean to interview Ben Pines, the co-founder of the Elementor page builder plugin for WordPress; a plugin that is growing in popularity every week. Elementor has grown substantially in just over a year and currently has over 200,000 active installs and an 5-star average rating according to the WordPress.org stats. Given its sudden rise in popularity and the large community that is forming around it, Mark took the time to speak with Ben about its conception, how it works and why, as well as the plans for its future. Among the topics discussed in this episode are: What page builders are, why they should be used, and by who. Mark asks Ben to address some concerns around page builder plugins, such as their preference over just using a theme, the ability to customise the generated code, and the type of end-user that it is meant for. The story behind Elementor's team and the plugin's creation, from conception till today. Why the Elementor team

Well, this episode was a real monster, containing plenty of chewy insights and nutritious facts on the realities of running a WordPress marketplace with add-ons by third-party developers. James returns and explains the sad reason for his mysterious two month hiatus, putting Donnacha’s gripes about relationship squabbles and man-flu into rather stark relief. James has a plan to get back into shape, because no-one who knows Jean is allowed to be out of shape. Donnacha agrees that having a friend like Jean, who possesses a perfect life, can be tough. James and Donnacha agree that a man who has no actual problems has no business being so wise. Fuck that guy. Donnacha compliments James’ studio design by calling him a twelve-year-old. The psychological impact of design upon performance. Spending obscene amounts of money on a microphone while children in Puerto Rico don’t even have lapel mics. Getting into the meat of the show, Donnacha refers back to last week’s episode in which he and Mark tore into the realities

Mark Zahra of RebelCode and Donnacha MacGloinn of RedPen take a break from battling the forces of darkness and discuss the best steps to take if you want to make a living as a coder in the WordPress world. The hidden benefits of managing a plugin project, including the level of seniority at which it is acceptable to shout and call the developers “code monkeys”. The advantages and disadvantages of selling plugins through a marketplace. Tectonic shifts in the world of WordPress marketplaces. How a platform owner can play nice when deciding to close down their third-party marketplace. Why acquisition feels a bit like pimping your own mother. Reactions to the massive WordPress switch from React. The best alternative Javascript frameworks, from the point of vue of Mark’s developers. Why it might be a good idea to have Mark Zuckerberg on your side when you’re mugged by patent trolls. Donnacha coerces Mark into making a big money bet with complicated terms. ThemeForest and CodeCanyon are crack cocaine for

Jean Galea and Donnacha MacGloinn, standing in for James Laws this week, go deep into the fascinating story of Akshat Choudhary, founder and CEO of blogvault.net, a WordPress backup service and the most successful WordPress-related business in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. Among the topics covered in this free-wheeling, wide-ranging discussion: How Akshat started off in WordPress, what he did before and his future plans. How, as a lone founder with no previous experience of WordPress, he grew BlogVault to a company of 13. How he managed to juggle a demanding day job with working on his WordPress startup every evening. What he doesn’t like about the name of his company. How it felt when a massive competitor launched a very similarly-named product just a week after his, but how it turned out to be a good thing. How to deal with the pressure of being a small fish in a rapidly-changing business environment. Why it is worth doubling down on the WordPress market. The quality of Internet

In this episode we have Nirav Mehta on board as a guest. We talk about his experience in Indian startups as well as business analytics and how he runs things over at Putler.com. Furthermore we find out what are the 4 most important metrics for a WordPress plugin/theme development business, how to apply a data-driven approach to life and how to deal with cultural differences in practice. Shownotes Putler.com

In the first part of our discussion with Andrew Farrugia, we discussed nutrition and emphasised the fact that being healthy and fit depends very much on what you eat. However, that's only part of the equation. You also need to be active and train. Training is divided into cardiovascular training (for example running or swimming) and resistance training (bodyweight exercies, weights). In this episode we tackle many typical questions that tend to arise when one starts training. Here are a few topics we get into: What are the typical body fat percentage ranges for a healthy man/woman. Should you eat more on training days? How much more? How to take body measurements and fat percentages. Training in a holistic manner across the three planes of motion. The importance of rest and sleep. Can you target fat loss in specific parts of the body? Macronutrients and the typical ways people under or overeat these macros. Good and bad carbs, good and bad fats. A man competing in fitness competitions will t

In this episode, Donnacha MacGloinn and Mark Zahra take over as guest hosts. Donnacha has been involved with WordPress since the early days while working on various projects, while Mark is the Project Manager for WP Mayor as well as the WP RSS Aggregator and EDD Bookings WordPress plugins. This week we delved into a current hot-topic in the WordPress community, the Gutenberg editor and what it means for WordPress. We look at what Gutenberg is, where it’s going, and what brought it about. The discussion then delves deeper into the macro idea behind such projects as Gutenberg, WooCommerce and many others that Automattic and Matt Mullenweg are under-taking. While the community seems to be happy with the new, modern approach being taken in WordPress, there is a lot of uncertainty about its future. Shownotes & Links Gutenberg Plugin Gutenberg on Github WordPress.com WordPress.com Plugins (for Business Plan) Automattic Matt Mullenweg

In today's episode we are joined by Andrew Farrugia from Mirror Friendly. Andrew is a former sprinter, and he is now a fitness athlete and personal trainer. He has helped countless people get back into shape, and has also helped other athletes who want to compete in their sport. Apart from being a fitness fanatic, Andrew has a demanding job as the CFO of a busy marina in Malta. We discuss work-life balance as we can all learn from Andrew on this topic. After a hard day's work as CFO, Andrew always manages to find the time to hit the gym for around 2 hours to complete his training and help others. In this episode, we discuss SMART goals, the importance of lifestyle and long-term changes rather than fads and diets. We talk about the importance of food when we embark on a transformative journey. We also get into measurement and tracking, and how important that is to check that we are making progress every week. Later in the episode we dig deeper into the question of food and its preparation. It turns out tha