Episode 23 Steve Burge - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

Episode 23: Steve Burge ![rw-book-cover](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qssG1LUYuMc/maxresdefault.jpg) 🔗 **Source:** [Episode 23: Steve Burge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssG1LUYuMc) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: #publishing #wordpress #drupal #open-source #cms #agency-work #government #enterprise #content-management #small-publishers #journalism > author: Steve Burge > source: Community and Code Podcast > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssG1LUYuMc > date created: 2024-12-19 10:30 > > # 🏷️ Title: Episode 23: Steve Burge - From Teaching to Publishing WordPress Tools >  ## 🧰 Action Inbox - [H1] Investigate PublishPress plugins for content expiry and revision management — fills WordPress core gaps #wordpress #publishing - [H2] Consider iterative product development based on customer support feedback — alternative to roadmap-driven approach #product-management - [H3] Research small publisher market opportunities in WordPress ecosystem — underserved 5-person newsroom segment #business-strategy ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [[#📝 Summary]] - [[#📖 Main Content]] - [[#🗒️ Notes]] - [[#📚 References]] - [[#🗣️ Paraphrase]] - [[#📰 Newsletter]] - [[#✅ Action Items]] - [[#🧪 Hypotheses]] - [[#📊 Methodology]] - [[#❓ Questions]] - [[#🔮 Future Research]] - [[#💡 Implications]] - [[#🧠 Learning Styles Assessment]] - [[#📊 Accessibility Assessment]] - [[#🌍 DEIB Assessment]] - [[#✅ Logical Validity]] - [[#🛡️ DARVO Analysis]] - [[#🎯 Conclusion]] ### 🔗 References - [PublishPress](https://publishpress.com) - [Steve Burge on LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/steveburge) ## 📝 Summary - Steve Burge's journey from $27,000/year English teacher to WordPress plugin company founder - How Drupal 7's backwards compatibility break created an exodus to WordPress - PublishPress serves enterprise customers but finds inspiration in 5-person local newsrooms - WordPress dominates new publishing market with 98% share among startup newspapers - Iterative development driven by reading every support ticket vs. grand roadmap vision ## 📖 Main Content Steve Burge's path to founding PublishPress demonstrates how career pivots can lead to unexpected opportunities in open source. Starting as an underpaid teacher in rural Georgia where Deliverance was filmed, Burge discovered his evening web design work quickly outpaced his teaching salary. This led to a training business focused on Drupal and Joomla, capitalizing on the perception that complex CMSs required professional instruction. The transition to WordPress came through market forces rather than strategic planning. Drupal 7's backwards compatibility break created an exodus, with many Drupal 6 sites migrating to WordPress rather than upgrading. This pattern repeated with Drupal 8, forcing agencies and developers to reconsider platform choices. PublishPress emerged from applying enterprise lessons learned in Drupal to WordPress's publishing ecosystem. While serving universities and large organizations, Burge finds the most inspiration in small publishers—five-person newsrooms replacing shuttered legacy newspapers in their communities. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=0) — [H3] Introduction to Steve Burge and PublishPress - Key idea: PublishPress serves WordPress publishers with suite of tools - Evidence: "PublishPress is a suite of WordPress plugins for publishers, content teams, and newsrooms" #### ⏱️ [02:15](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=135) — [H2] Teaching background and salary reality - Key idea: Teacher salary forced career pivot to web development - Evidence: "Starting pay for a teacher was something like 27 $28,000 a year" #### ⏱️ [04:30](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=270) — [H1] Evening business exceeded day job quickly - Key idea: Web design work outpaced teaching income within months - Evidence: "Took probably three or four months before the evening job was making more money than my day job" #### ⏱️ [06:45](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=405) — [H2] Training market for Drupal vs WordPress - Key idea: Drupal's complexity created training demand that WordPress lacked - Evidence: "We could sell Drupal training all day long but we can never sell WordPress. People were like, 'Oh, WordPress is too easy'" #### ⏱️ [09:20](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=560) — [H2] Enterprise transformation of Drupal community - Key idea: Drupal evolved from developer community to enterprise sales focus - Evidence: "There were salespeople like slick suits. One of the guys said he'd just moved from Adobe didn't know anything about Drupal but he was here to sell Drupal" #### ⏱️ [12:10](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=730) — [H1] Drupal 7 as major transition point - Key idea: Backwards compatibility break drove users to WordPress - Evidence: "More Drupal 6 sites ended up on WordPress than on Drupal 7" #### ⏱️ [15:45](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=945) — [H3] Government RFP decision-making challenges - Key idea: Technology choices often made without adequate knowledge - Evidence: "Often it would just come down to a lack of knowledge... whoever is signing off on the RFP is really just not that well informed" #### ⏱️ [18:30](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1110) — [H2] Pantheon's impact on government adoption - Key idea: Professional development tools made agencies more comfortable - Evidence: "The development tools that were provided made the government agencies quite a lot more comfortable" #### ⏱️ [22:15](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1335) — [H2] Training market decline and pivot - Key idea: Online training platforms matured and consolidated - Evidence: "Linda got sold and it's kind of like a little tile in the corner of LinkedIn now" #### ⏱️ [25:40](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1540) — [H1] WordPress ecosystem requires complete relearning - Key idea: Previous CMS knowledge doesn't transfer to WordPress - Evidence: "None of the lessons we learned in those other platforms were worth a damn moving to WordPress" #### ⏱️ [28:20](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1700) — [H2] Enterprise vs small publisher inspiration - Key idea: Small newsrooms provide more inspiration than large customers - Evidence: "Those smaller customers that are maybe 20 25% of our business have really been the most interesting to me" #### ⏱️ [31:55](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1915) — [H1] WordPress dominance in new publishing - Key idea: WordPress has near-total market share among startup publishers - Evidence: "WordPress has a 98% market share with these companies" #### ⏱️ [35:10](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=2110) — [H3] Block editor adoption by publishers - Key idea: Real publishers adapted to Gutenberg without major complaints - Evidence: "Our publishers who are getting there they have maybe two or three big stories to write each week they get on with the block editor" #### ⏱️ [38:45](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=2325) — [H2] Digital-first approach of new publishers - Key idea: Former print journalists go digital-only with focused social presence - Evidence: "They would go digital only. They would not even consider a print edition" #### ⏱️ [42:20](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=2540) — [H1] Support ticket-driven development approach - Key idea: Reading every support ticket drives product decisions - Evidence: "I read every single customer support ticket that comes in... through osmosis, you kind of understand what your customers want" ## 📚 References - [PublishPress Website](https://publishpress.com) - [Steve Burge LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/steveburge) - [Community and Code Podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qssG1LUYuMc) - [Pantheon Platform](https://pantheon.io) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Career transitions from stable professions to tech can be driven by economic necessity rather than passion for technology - Major CMS platform changes create migration opportunities for competing systems, as seen with Drupal's backwards compatibility breaks - Small publishers represent an underserved but passionate market segment that values affordable, accessible publishing tools ## 📰 Newsletter Steve Burge's journey from underpaid teacher to successful WordPress entrepreneur highlights how platform migrations create opportunities. His PublishPress suite fills critical gaps in WordPress's publishing capabilities—like content expiry dates and better revision management—that core development hasn't prioritized. The most compelling insight: while PublishPress serves enterprise clients, Burge finds inspiration in five-person newsrooms replacing shuttered local papers. These digital-first publishers choose WordPress for its accessibility and cost-effectiveness, creating a 98% market share among new publishing ventures. His development philosophy—reading every support ticket rather than following a grand roadmap—offers a customer-centric alternative to traditional product management approaches. Resources: [Learn WordPress](https://learn.wordpress.org/), [Developer Docs](https://developer.wordpress.org/), [WP-CLI](https://wp-cli.org/) ## ✅ Action Items #### WordPress - Core: Evaluate content expiry functionality gap that third-party plugins fill - Community: Support small publisher use cases in feature discussions - Documentation: Create resources specifically for newsroom workflows - Accessibility: Ensure publishing tools meet journalism accessibility standards #### OSPO - Community Engagement: Study how backwards compatibility breaks affect ecosystem health - Strategic Alignment: Document lessons from CMS platform migration patterns #### Community - Contributors: Encourage participation from publishing industry professionals - Ecosystem: Foster relationships between WordPress and journalism communities ## 🧪 Hypotheses - Small publishers prefer iterative product development over feature-heavy solutions - Backwards compatibility breaks in dominant platforms create migration windows - Customer support feedback provides more actionable product direction than market research - WordPress's ease of use creates barriers to premium training markets ### 📊 Methodology - Survey small publishers about their WordPress pain points and feature requests - Analyze support ticket patterns across publishing-focused plugins - Compare migration patterns between CMS platforms during major version changes ### ❓ Questions - How can WordPress core better serve publishing workflows without bloating the platform? - What role should backwards compatibility play in open source platform evolution? - Can customer support-driven development scale beyond small teams? ### 🔮 Future Research - Impact of AI tools on small publisher workflows and WordPress plugin needs - Sustainability models for local journalism in the digital publishing ecosystem - Cross-platform migration patterns and their effects on open source adoption ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Support ticket analysis can drive more relevant product development than traditional roadmaps - Policy: Backwards compatibility decisions have ecosystem-wide competitive implications - Education: Different CMS platforms require complete relearning of business and technical practices - Funding: Small publisher market represents underserved opportunity for WordPress-focused products ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Reading level estimate: Grade 9-10 (accessible to general business audience) #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Minimal visual elements in podcast format - Improve: Create infographics showing CMS migration patterns, publishing workflow diagrams #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Full podcast audio with clear narration - Improve: Chapter markers for key topics, audio transcript with timestamps #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Clear definitions of technical terms, real-world analogies - Improve: Glossary of CMS terminology, comparison charts between platforms #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Discussion of hands-on development work - Improve: Step-by-step guides for publisher workflows, plugin installation tutorials #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Clear cause-and-effect relationships in market analysis - Improve: Decision trees for CMS selection, timeline of platform evolution #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Community aspects and customer relationships discussed - Improve: Forum for publisher discussions, case studies of community-driven development #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Individual journey and business development story - Improve: Self-assessment tools for publishers, independent learning paths #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Ecosystem thinking about CMS platforms and markets - Improve: Analogies to natural systems, sustainability discussions ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Clear podcast structure with speaker identification - Improve: Detailed show notes with section headers, transcript formatting #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard podcast player controls - Improve: Skip links in transcript, keyboard shortcuts for navigation #### Contrast and readability - Present: Standard podcast interface - Improve: High contrast transcript options, adjustable text sizing #### Media and captions - Present: Full transcript available - Improve: Video captions if visual version exists, downloadable transcript ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Discussion of diverse geographic markets (Georgia, Utah, Florida) - Improve: Include international publishing perspectives, multi-language considerations #### Inclusive language - Present: Professional, accessible terminology - Improve: Avoid assumptions about technical background, define industry jargon #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Clear structure with consistent pacing - Improve: Content warnings for business stress discussions, summary bullets #### Representation - Present: Focus on individual journey and small business perspective - Improve: Include diverse publisher voices, various newsroom sizes ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Causal reasoning: Clear connection between teacher salary and career pivot - Inductive strength: Pattern recognition in CMS migration trends - Analogical strength: Comparison between different platform ecosystems #### Fallacies - Survivorship bias: Focus on successful migration to WordPress without discussing failures - Hasty generalization: 98% market share claim needs broader data support #### Tone of voice - Conversational and authentic, sharing personal struggles and business lessons honestly ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - No concerning patterns detected - Discussion maintains professional focus on business and technology decisions - Honest acknowledgment of challenges and limitations ## 🎯 Conclusion Steve Burge's journey illustrates how economic necessity can drive successful pivots into open source ecosystems. His customer-centric approach to product development—reading every support ticket rather than following predetermined roadmaps—offers valuable insights for WordPress plugin developers and small software companies. The most significant takeaway is WordPress's dominance in the emerging local journalism market, where five-person newsrooms are replacing shuttered legacy papers. These publishers choose WordPress for its accessibility and cost-effectiveness, creating opportunities for specialized tools that fill core platform gaps. For the WordPress community, this highlights the importance of considering diverse use cases beyond typical business websites, and the value of iterative development driven by real user feedback rather than abstract feature planning. ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix ### 📚 Literature Split Pad ### [H1] Customer support drives better product decisions than roadmaps > [!quote] Episode 23: Steve Burge by Community and Code Podcast. Published 2024. Accessed 2024-12-19. > "I read every single customer support ticket that comes in... through osmosis, you kind of understand what your customers want." Alternative to traditional product management for small software companies. [view highlight](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=2540) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_support_driven_development ### [H2] WordPress dominates new publisher market segment > [!quote] Episode 23: Steve Burge > "WordPress has a 98% market share with these companies." Refers to startup newspapers and local journalism ventures. [view highlight](https://youtu.be/qssG1LUYuMc?t=1915) #xref ID:rw_wordpress_publisher_dominance --- ### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel --- ## Full Transcript [00:18] If you're one of the roughly 10,000 [00:20] users of Publish Press, you'll recognize [00:22] my guest this week, if for no other [00:24] reason than because it's his name that [00:27] shows up in your inbox periodically [00:29] talking about what new stuff his company [00:31] is putting out. Publish Press is a suite [00:33] of WordPress plugins for publishers, [00:35] content teams, and newsrooms. But I [00:38] didn't anticipate that the journey that [00:39] got Steve to where he is started as an [00:41] English teacher in the part of rural [00:43] Georgia where Deliverance was filmed on [00:46] a $27,000 a year salary with a wife, a [00:49] mortgage, and a quiet side hustle in web [00:51] design that started outpacing his day [00:53] job within a few months. Unlike some of [00:56] my previous guests, Steve is not the [00:58] person who grew up taking apart [00:59] computers at age 10. He came to all of [01:02] this sideways, and that accidental path [01:04] gave him a unique perspective on [01:06] open-source, on customers, on how [01:08] software actually gets built in the real [01:10] world. [01:12] We talked about Drupal 7 and the [01:13] backwards compatibility break that [01:15] became an off-ramp for an entire [01:17] generation of CMS users, about what it [01:19] means to build for publishers, not just [01:21] the enterprise ones, but also the five [01:23] person local newsrooms trying to fill [01:25] the hole left by a shuttered legacy [01:28] paper. And we talked about Steve's [01:30] method for building software. No road [01:32] map, no grand vision, just reading every [01:35] single support ticket that comes in. [01:39] Without further ado, Steve Burge. [01:46] Welcome to Community and Code, uh, the [01:48] podcast where we talk to the human [01:50] beings behind the commits. And today I [01:52] am here with founder of Publish Press, [01:55] Steve Burge. Publish Press is a, I [01:58] believe, a WordPress publishing suite of [02:01] tools uh, for publishing stuff on [02:05] WordPress sites. Uh, and WordPress likes [02:08] to say that it's it democratizes [02:10] publishing and there's a lot of [02:11] publishers that use it. So, I think that [02:13] that's kind of a pretty cool thing to [02:15] do. Uh, welcome to the show, Steve. Tell [02:17] us about yourself. [02:19] >> Oh, thanks, Chris. Um, I live in [02:21] Florida. Um, as you can tell from my [02:24] accent, I was born and bred on the um on [02:28] the southeast corner of Florida. Um, [02:32] well, I I came from England originally [02:34] and now just in a few months ago, I've [02:37] ended up living in the United States [02:39] longer than [02:41] I lived in England. So, I'm more [02:44] American, I guess, than anything else. [02:45] And actually, um, became an American uh, [02:49] about a couple months ago, took the [02:52] citizenship test. I know like uh who the [02:56] first president was, who the second [02:57] president was. Um how many people sit in [03:00] the House of Representatives? I had to [03:03] study for all that stuff. [03:04] >> Wow. I don't know that I don't know that [03:06] many Americans have had to study for [03:09] most of those things uh in many many [03:12] years. Uh yeah, I I recently had a [03:15] similar tipping point where I believe [03:16] I've lived uh I live in Salt Lake City, [03:18] Utah. Um, but I'm originally from the [03:20] San Francisco Bay area and I believe [03:22] that that uh I don't know last year or [03:26] the year before or something. I I [03:27] crossed the border over to I've lived in [03:29] Utah longer than I've lived in [03:30] California. [03:32] >> You make you auton. [03:39] >> Um and um I I've been in maybe live [03:44] lived a somewhat similar life to you. I [03:46] think we um we got started in the open [03:48] source world did a lot of Drupal and [03:51] just because of the way the market has [03:53] been over the last 10 years or so have [03:55] ended up more in the WordPress space but [03:57] the the throughine connecting connecting [04:00] it all has been open source. [04:02] >> Awesome. Yeah. So yeah let's let's let's [04:05] just dive into that like what uh what [04:08] first got you involved in in being [04:11] interested in open source in general? [04:14] Oh, well, I'm not one of those people [04:17] who you hear those stories of a someone [04:20] who at like 10 years old had like a an [04:23] Atari on their living room floor [04:26] >> and was taking the computer apart, [04:29] rebuilding it, writing their first [04:31] program at the age of eight. None of [04:35] that. Um, [04:36] >> I think I've had some of those guests. [04:38] >> Yes. I mean, you've ended up in the [04:40] right profession. It's it's naturally [04:43] for you my path was more accidental. Um [04:46] I was a teacher for a good number of [04:48] years, middle school, high school until [04:51] I arrived in the United States and got a [04:54] wife and kids and also realized how much [04:58] they pay teachers in the United States. [05:01] >> At that point, I needed to do something [05:03] else because um having a wife and kids [05:05] in a mortgage was more than I could [05:07] afford on my teacher salary. [05:10] Yeah, it's it's I mean I think that says [05:13] more about uh how the United States [05:16] values or undervalues teaching than uh [05:20] than it says about your particular path [05:22] because I don't think that your [05:23] particular path is is unique necessarily [05:26] in seeing that seeing that stark like [05:30] having that stark realization and and [05:32] being like yeah no I actually got bills [05:33] to pay. [05:35] Yeah, we we ended up in a fairly good [05:38] industry for that. The you work in [05:41] software, you work in hosting United [05:43] States, you're going to have a fairly [05:46] good living. But um [05:49] in I was in uh in Georgia in the north [05:52] part of Georgia in the United States, [05:55] north of Atlanta, uh up in the [05:58] Appalachian Hills. Um, if you've ever [06:01] seen the movie Deliverance, [06:04] um, basically we were where the movie [06:07] Deliverance was shot and I believe back [06:11] then, this was like 2004, 2005, the [06:15] starting pay for a teacher was something [06:17] like 27 $28,000 a year. [06:19] >> Wow. [06:21] >> Yeah. And I I came in with several years [06:24] of teaching experience and [06:27] I took one year of teaching in the [06:29] states and basically started a a web [06:32] design business in the evening. And it [06:35] took probably three or four months [06:37] before the evening job of running a [06:41] small web design agency was making more [06:43] money than my day job as a teacher. [06:46] >> Yeah. I mean, I I I I definitely believe [06:49] it, especially if you're able to to get [06:51] a regular a regular stream of of of [06:54] clients. Um, so in those early days of [06:56] of like doing your freelancing work of [06:59] of starting a a web design company, um, [07:02] I imagine you were looking at [07:04] open-source uh CMSs and tools like that [07:08] to to provide uh value to to make your [07:11] work easier as as a developer. Um, what [07:14] sorts of things were you were you [07:15] gravitating toward and what sorts of [07:17] sites were you building? [07:20] >> We started with some Jumla sites and [07:22] some Drupal sites for people. Um, and [07:27] I was fairly good as a designer but [07:30] didn't quite have the strong background [07:32] of some of the people we were working [07:33] alongside. So I ended up basically [07:37] taking my teaching background and [07:40] applying it to open source and trying to [07:44] teach people how to use it. [07:45] >> Um we did videos, we did books, we did [07:48] in-person classes. Um, and [07:53] it's it's hard to think back now to [07:56] before [07:58] even things like linda.com before things [08:01] like that. But there was a huge market [08:03] for getting on an airplane and flying to [08:07] >> some part of the country, standing in [08:10] front of a classroom and teaching people [08:12] how to use Drupal and yes, [08:14] >> how to use open source. [08:16] >> Yeah. Uh there back in be long before my [08:20] time at Pantheon um that was a thing [08:22] that that Devril and other teams were [08:25] were doing was like shipping folks off [08:28] uh to have on-site with clients. Um one [08:31] of my uh one of my early gigs as as a [08:35] WordPress developer um I was uh [08:39] approached by somebody from uh [08:40] Pluralsight which was an online is an [08:43] online developer training platform. um [08:46] very early days of Pluralsight um where [08:49] they were kind of like uh just trying to [08:52] build out their their video library and [08:54] like branch out beyond like Microsoft [08:56] specific stack technologies and and so [08:59] they they saw me speak at a word camp. [09:01] Um, but their history too, like they [09:04] started out as a company doing on-site [09:06] training for like .NET and like other [09:08] sort of like ASP and like Microsoft [09:10] specific things. And then they're like, [09:12] "Hey, we could like record these things [09:15] and then distribute them and then not [09:17] have to fly people places." And that's [09:19] how like the the web platform got built. [09:22] So yeah, there definitely like right [09:24] about that that time is is I could yeah [09:27] I' been around long enough to have seen [09:30] that that path. [09:32] >> Yeah, the the demand was there [09:35] particularly um [09:38] this is not a knock on Drupal but this [09:40] is maybe a knock on how Drupal was seen [09:43] in the marketplace was that we could [09:45] sell Drupal training all day long. [09:47] >> Yeah, [09:47] >> but we can never sell WordPress. People [09:50] were like, "Oh, WordPress is too easy. [09:52] our staff will get it. We don't need to [09:54] really teach our staff WordPress. It's [09:56] all self-explanatory. [09:57] But Drupal, oh, come up here, 5 days, [10:01] teach our team. It's really complicated. [10:04] Um, we could sell Drupal training. [10:08] Uh, week after week of it for years um [10:12] because it had that reputation in the [10:15] marketplace that it was intimidating and [10:16] needed to be explained clearly to [10:18] people. [10:19] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's something [10:20] to be said too of of of that perception [10:22] that Drupal had and also still has in in [10:25] many cases of um like it's a toolkit. [10:29] It's complex. It can handle and as such [10:31] it can handle more complexity in your [10:34] site build. Um so like the the budgets [10:37] that you expect for a Drupal site versus [10:39] a WordPress site for a long time. Maybe [10:42] maybe that's that's a little bit [10:43] different now as as like WordPress has [10:46] kind of become more dominant. Um, but [10:49] for a long time like you would expect a [10:52] significantly higher dollar value [10:54] associated with a Drupal build for a [10:57] site than than a WordPress build. I mean [10:59] I remember you know early days of [11:01] freelancing like hey can you build this [11:04] WordPress site for 500 bucks? Well no [11:06] I'm not going to build you a site for [11:07] 500 bucks. [11:09] and also they [11:12] uh maybe Aquia and specifically and some [11:14] of the agencies around them did a good [11:16] job of selling into the enterprise. [11:18] >> Yeah. [11:18] >> Um I have a a clear memory of going to [11:22] one Drupal con [11:24] I want to say maybe [11:27] 2013 or so [11:30] that I'd always gone to Drupalcon's and [11:32] it had been people look like me or you [11:35] like you've got a flannel shirt on. I've [11:38] I've got a t-shirt on. Um people that [11:41] look like traditional developers and I [11:43] suddenly remember walking into a Drupal [11:44] Con and there were salespeople [11:48] >> like slick suits. One of the guys said [11:51] he'd just moved from Adobe didn't know [11:53] anything about Drupal but he was here to [11:55] sell Drupal for Aquia. Um there was a [11:58] sudden transformation where [12:01] some of the Drupal companies um were [12:04] staffing up with real salespeople ready [12:06] to sell real enterprise projects. And so [12:11] uh they were able to get those the big [12:14] government customers the the big [12:15] enterprise um and projects like [12:19] WordPress were behind at that time. [12:22] >> They did they didn't have the [12:23] infrastructure. they didn't have the big [12:24] companies to uh to complete the big [12:28] RFPs. [12:30] >> So what facilitated your uh transition [12:33] away from from Jumla and Drupal into [12:36] into WordPress? Was it uh was it ease of [12:39] use or was it something else? [12:41] >> Drupal 7. [12:43] >> Drupal 7. Yes. [12:44] >> There we go. [12:46] That's it. Um, for people that may not [12:48] know, it was an enormous back basically [12:52] a 100% back backwards compatibility [12:54] break. Um, and really [12:59] um, compelled a lot of the companies we [13:02] were working with to take a look outside [13:04] of Drupal. Um, a lot of them were [13:07] saying, "Well, if we're going to rebuild [13:09] our entire platform, [13:12] this gives us an off-ramp [13:14] to look at something else outside of [13:16] Drupal." And a lot of them exited. I [13:18] think um [13:21] >> uh I talked with um Josh uh one of the [13:25] founders of Pantheon. Yep. and he I [13:27] think he'd done some some research at [13:30] some point that [13:32] more Drupal 6 sites [13:35] ended up on WordPress than on Drupal 7. [13:39] >> Um it was just an enormous exit point [13:43] because of the costs of moving to Drupal [13:45] 7. Mhm. [13:46] >> Um [13:47] >> and and then they kind of did the same [13:49] thing between Drupal 7 and 8 when like [13:51] Drupal 8 was was another major refactor, [13:54] another major uh shift in in how Drupal [13:57] was built and it would required another [13:59] sort of rebuild and again like you're [14:02] when you're facing that choice of do I [14:04] rebuild my site again or do I move to [14:06] something where I never have to worry [14:08] about it. A lot of people had jumped [14:10] ship and went to WordPress. Yeah. [14:12] >> Oh, that's true. Yeah. Drupal 8 was [14:13] perhaps an even bigger backwards [14:15] compatibility break. Um [14:17] >> it's where they introduced composer as [14:18] as a fundamental part of of Drupal core. [14:21] Yep. [14:22] >> Yeah. And those two back to back um and [14:27] so yeah that was a a big change for us. [14:30] We and it basically also um [14:35] made a huge caused a huge uh business [14:38] pivot for us because a lot of our um [14:42] Drupal customers were like government [14:44] departments who had no problem flying us [14:47] up to Washington DC for training but [14:49] that didn't exist in the WordPress space [14:51] really. So we pivoted hard to doing [14:55] books and videos instead. [14:57] >> Yeah. Yeah. [14:59] >> Yeah. Do you like from and and we'll get [15:03] into like what you're working on now, [15:05] but like I'm I'm interested in this this [15:07] idea uh that we've hit on a couple times [15:10] that the basic the the theory that you [15:14] know WordPress isn't or wasn't uh ready [15:17] for enterprise or this this perception [15:19] that uh that it wasn't and like this [15:22] sort of kind of coral uh uh aligns with [15:26] like when I started doing like getting [15:28] into agency WordPress press development. [15:30] Um, and like that was back in like I [15:33] don't know 20 probably 2014ish I guess [15:38] for me. Um, where my first agency gig [15:41] was at WebDev Studios and they do a lot [15:43] of enterprise stuff and like like there [15:45] is definitely it felt like you know the [15:48] the default assumption for an enterprise [15:51] company was not I want to use WordPress. [15:54] we had to like sell them on. [15:56] You're paying a lot of money for like [15:58] Adobe Experience Manager. You can do [16:01] those things in WordPress for cheaper, [16:03] you know, or like you can or you you [16:06] want to pay us, great. We'll build, you [16:08] know, bespoke things for you. Like, but [16:11] there had to be like there was like you [16:13] had to go into that conversation with [16:16] like a defense prepared, you know, like [16:20] a pitch to sell the software before you [16:22] could even have the conversation about [16:24] what the agency is going to do. [16:27] >> The sales process was always more [16:28] difficult. [16:29] >> Yeah. Yeah. [16:32] And that's something I is that something [16:33] you also uh saw at the time? [16:38] Yeah, we um [16:40] we ran into quite a few sort of [16:42] government agencies and large companies. [16:45] They were having trouble with Drupal. [16:48] They were having trouble with their [16:49] rollouts. And quite often I'd sit down [16:53] with them and say, "Hey, what was the [16:54] decision process? Why did you choose [16:55] Drupal as opposed to Adobe or [16:57] WordPress?" [16:58] >> And [17:00] often it would just come down to a lack [17:02] of knowledge. often um they'd say things [17:05] like, "Oh, WordPress doesn't have the [17:07] ability to do RO management, for [17:08] example." Oh, so you can get this [17:12] plug-in over here. And that that's [17:14] really an easy problem. Um, I I guess it [17:17] led me to realize just how many of these [17:19] RFPs are just um one on almost a random [17:24] basis that it just whoever is signing [17:27] off on the RF RFP or making a decision [17:30] often is really just not that well [17:34] informed on the decision and um might [17:37] just make a decision on which platform [17:38] to use based on a hunch. [17:40] >> Yeah, for sure. And I I I I read a book [17:42] recently um recoding America that [17:46] specifically talked about um like uh [17:49] digital services in the US uh like the [17:52] formation of the digital services [17:54] department which I don't think exists [17:55] anymore um or has been absorbed into [17:57] Doge um but used to exist um for a while [18:01] but like also like the like what existed [18:04] before and the way the RFPs were were [18:07] written before within government [18:09] specifically like federal government. [18:11] Um, and like the legacy systems and like [18:15] the level like the requirements and they [18:16] had to get approval from all of these [18:18] different people, but like the the [18:19] different departments or the different [18:21] people signing off on things didn't [18:22] necessarily like have the conversations [18:26] with everybody involved. So like there'd [18:28] be requirements in there that didn't [18:29] make sense or like required a whole [18:31] bunch of extra stuff. Like there was a [18:32] story in there that was talking about um [18:35] uh GPS and like they were going to roll [18:38] out a a big massive update to to the GPS [18:42] uh software that gets put on satellites, [18:44] right? Um but because of some old uh [18:49] loophole or some old requirement in some [18:52] previous doc the only communication [18:54] method that was allowed for the RFP was [18:58] like XML RPC for communicating with the [19:01] satellites. um which is I mean you're [19:04] laughing you know like it's old it's [19:06] slow and like the new stuff was better [19:09] and faster and would facilitate you know [19:12] more accurate GPS coordinate coordinates [19:14] and it like because of delays because of [19:18] that particular requirement the new [19:20] stuff never rolled out and we never got [19:21] the the GPS update and like that went [19:24] out when when the project was actually [19:25] signed off on and it was still like XML [19:28] RPC uh or not XML RPC but it was um No, [19:32] it was SOAP. It was SOAP API, I believe. [19:34] Um, [19:35] >> so they needed a root and branch reform [19:38] essentially of the way things were done [19:40] from the technology stack to the way the [19:43] software was purchased to the way it was [19:45] the RFPs were written. There [19:48] a deep deep transformation was needed. [19:50] >> Exactly. Exactly. And there and there's [19:52] there's like all sorts of stories about [19:54] like you know so many systems within the [19:57] US government are built on these old co [20:00] legacy cobalt uh systems which run [20:03] really really well and efficiently [20:04] because cobalt was super efficient and [20:06] it had to be because it was back in the [20:08] day when you didn't have as much memory [20:09] and whatever. Um, but now there's like [20:13] all this impetus to like do a a refresh [20:16] or an update, but nobody knows how to [20:17] actually fundamentally edit the Cobalt [20:20] systems. And also the Cobalt systems [20:21] aren't broken. So there's just layer [20:24] upon layer of new UI on top of these old [20:27] systems. So, like when you whenever you [20:29] encounter anything in like a government [20:32] system that feels inefficient or does a [20:35] weird thing, it's probably because [20:37] there's like three layers deep of like [20:39] UI that has been placed on top of this [20:41] ancient Cobalt system that wasn't [20:43] designed to do the thing that you want [20:44] to do like natively and nobody knows how [20:46] to actually make the cobalt system do [20:48] that thing. [20:50] I I got to say we with our government [20:52] work and we did probably at one point it [20:54] was like 90% plus government work. We [20:57] noticed a real change when Pantheon came [21:00] along and had started to get its um its [21:03] fingers into some of the government [21:04] business that um [21:07] the development tools that were provided [21:10] made the government agencies quite a lot [21:12] more comfortable. Um we did a lot [21:27] Oh, sorry. The whole thing went blank [21:28] there. Um, I I'll start again. Um, we [21:33] did a lot of work with the government of [21:35] Arizona. They moved Lock, Stock, and [21:37] Barrel, hundreds and hundreds and [21:39] hundreds of sites over to the Pantheon [21:41] platform. and you guys had a a slick [21:46] development workflow [21:48] and a standard workflow that made them [21:51] comfortable to basically commit the [21:53] entire future of the Arizona government [21:55] online to being on Drupal and being on [21:58] on Pantheon. [22:00] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that like [22:02] I mean that's obviously like that's the [22:04] that's the sales pitch that Pantheon is [22:06] going to is going to give, right? is [22:07] like that we we build the tools that [22:10] make your development teams uh happier [22:12] and work faster and all all that sort of [22:13] stuff. I mean um I remember again even [22:16] before I was I was working here using uh [22:19] using Pantheon as a developer and just [22:23] just the fact that like again when I [22:25] first started uh in agency work uh was a [22:28] long time ago. Um and at the time [22:31] Pantheon I believe was pretty much the [22:33] only one that already had like a native [22:34] Git integration. Um so just just that [22:38] just that you know as opposed to other [22:40] other providers that we were using like [22:43] that was made it super easy and then [22:46] like um you know having multi-devs the [22:48] ability to like have a a whole uh [22:51] environment spun off off of a branch was [22:54] like revolutionary like made my life so [22:56] much and so I would like I was like why [22:58] can't why can't we just put all of our [23:01] uh all of our projects on this? Well, we [23:02] already have a a contract with so and [23:04] so, so we can't do that, but I agree. [23:06] You know, like um and you know, uh [23:09] there's that that's there's no shouldn't [23:12] be terribly surprising that I am [23:14] currently a Pantheon employee because of [23:16] that experience, because that as as a [23:17] developer. Um but moving on to like um [23:21] you know, obviously you did some agency [23:23] stuff and and you're doing some [23:25] government stuff. Um what was the but [23:27] you are the founder of this thing called [23:29] Publish Press. What is the sort of uh [23:31] origin story of that? [23:33] >> Oh, well that came out of a out of a [23:36] pivot from our training work which was [23:39] which is getting quieter. Um [23:42] you you seen most of the big training [23:44] companies now have kind of gone away. [23:47] >> Um like Linda got sold and it's kind of [23:51] like a little tile in the corner of [23:53] LinkedIn now. [23:54] >> Um [23:55] >> I was going to say LinkedIn just [23:56] swallowed everything. [23:58] >> It did. Um, there was Udommy, which long [24:02] past its heyday now. It feels like it's [24:05] going to become one of those bending [24:06] spoon um, acquisitions and kind of left [24:11] for dead. Um, and the whole training [24:14] market [24:15] um, got a lot quieter. So, we were [24:19] looking for what was next and we were [24:21] doing some software development at the [24:23] time. started to look at WordPress as an [24:25] opportunity and really started to s see [24:28] a lot of gaps in the publishing [24:31] space in WordPress but [24:35] that took a a lot of trial and error. Um [24:38] we we were very familiar with the uh the [24:41] Jumla world [24:43] >> and the Drupal world and even the [24:45] Magento world as well but less familiar [24:49] with WordPress. And I got to tell you, [24:52] none of the lessons we learned in those [24:53] other platforms were worth a damn. And [24:57] moving to uh moving to WordPress, um I [25:03] was chatting with someone the other day [25:04] who's moving from WordPress or Woo [25:06] Commerce particularly to Shopify [25:08] >> and they're like it's like starting from [25:10] zero or less than zero. Like, yeah, if [25:13] um if you move to a a new ecosystem like [25:16] that, [25:18] it might als be helpful not to have any [25:20] of your previous knowledge because it [25:21] ain't going to apply in the new world. [25:24] >> Yeah. Do you think that that is [25:25] fundamentally like uh a symptom of [25:29] replatforming or do you think that [25:30] there's something that is distinct about [25:34] WordPress that that makes that reset [25:36] more felt? [25:39] Um [25:41] the [25:44] exception might be if you're getting in [25:45] very early. Uh for example, if you were [25:49] moving to WordPress in 20 [25:53] 2008 maybe uh when something like [25:56] Gravity Forms was just launching [25:58] >> or if you're moving to Shopify 10 years [26:01] ago to become a Shopify app developer. [26:04] >> But those markets are mature now. So you [26:07] got to play within their rules. You have [26:09] to uh learn the network of people, how [26:14] they move, how they interact with each [26:15] other. And [26:18] just in particularly with WordPress, [26:20] incredibly major differences like you're [26:22] coming from a Drupal ecosystem where no [26:23] one sells any software. [26:26] In fact, it's objectively [26:29] uh looked down upon to sell code to [26:34] WordPress where that's the entire [26:36] business. [26:36] >> Yeah. Well, I mean, and that is that is [26:38] changing the Drupal space. I mean, [26:40] they're trying to Dre wants to Drece [26:42] wants to start uh a a marketplace, an [26:45] official Drupal marketplace. Uh, one of [26:47] my uh mo one of my recent guests was uh [26:50] is Mike Hershel in the Drupal community [26:52] who is a theme developer who created [26:54] basically a theme uh a theme shop uh for [26:57] Drupal themes. Um so, uh for premium [27:00] Drupal themes. So like that that that is [27:03] shifting. But it's interesting having [27:04] those conversations with people like [27:06] Mike uh because it's it's they're having [27:10] to figure out how to do from scratch in [27:14] Drew. It's it's the same thing you just [27:16] said. It's like it's it's that same sort [27:18] of like replatforming thing. You have to [27:19] learn everything from scratch because [27:20] they're having to learn from scratch how [27:22] do we do business with code for Drupal [27:28] when there wasn't like there it's it's [27:30] wild west, right? Right. So, they're [27:31] trying to like like he had to learn read [27:33] up on licenses like and we've been [27:36] dealing with licenses like I mean we've [27:38] been having the licensing conversation [27:39] since Chris Pearson and uh and thesis [27:42] like [27:44] 15 years ago or something like we've [27:47] we've this is well tread territory for [27:49] for us in the WordPress ecosystem. Um, [27:52] and they're having to figure that out [27:53] from from scratch. And they're having to [27:55] figure out like, you know, like, yeah, [27:57] he had to make the decision of of like, [28:00] you know, do I do like how do how do I [28:02] license things? How do I sell things? [28:03] How do I distribute things? And all of [28:05] that stuff basically has been a solved [28:08] problem in in in WordPress for for a a [28:10] long time now. Yeah. Oh, that's [28:12] interesting because I remember seeing [28:15] last week maybe that Dree had wrote a [28:18] blog post basically saying Mia Kulpa on [28:21] backwards compatibility [28:24] which was fair play to him. He said I [28:26] was wrong. Um backwards compatibility is [28:29] more important than I thought it was. [28:31] >> And it sounds like they've done the same [28:33] thing with [28:34] >> allowing people to sell access to [28:36] modules too. [28:38] Ma, not modules. Not modules. I I what I [28:42] have heard from the conversations that [28:44] I've had with people in the Drupal [28:45] community is that probably modules won't [28:48] have that same sort of like marketplace [28:50] ecosystem. Okay. [28:51] >> But uh but themes, yes. And what what [28:54] the the official uh Drupal marketplace [28:57] is going to be focused around is the [28:59] idea of site templates. um which is [29:02] basically like uh almost like like if [29:06] you think about like a a Linux [29:08] distribution, right? Like here's here's [29:10] the whole thing and then within that you [29:12] can customize stuff like here is a [29:14] distribution of Drupal for a real estate [29:17] site that has everything that you need [29:18] for that real estate site including a [29:20] theme and like some like recipes for [29:23] like these modules are going to be [29:24] installing for this type of content or [29:26] whatever. Um, but so it's it's basically [29:30] like the what I think the Drupal [29:32] association is trying to get at is is um [29:37] lowering the barrier to entry because [29:39] they realize there's this history of [29:42] Drupal sites are expensive and that's [29:43] actually like for a lot of agencies and [29:47] a lot of people that were doing business [29:48] in that space that was a good thing. We [29:50] want our stuff to be expensive because [29:52] we are skilled engineers and we want to [29:54] get paid. Um but for users and [29:58] especially with the decline of of the [30:00] the Drupal bar graph of usage of [30:02] installs um they're they want to lower [30:06] the barrier to entry to make it easier [30:08] to as an to get an entry point into [30:10] Drupal and the theory is that by [30:13] creating these uh making it easy for me [30:16] to get started by saying I want this [30:18] type of a site uh then uh [30:22] then I you know having a marketplace to [30:24] buy a thing, a package that's like, [30:26] okay, here's how you you'll get started [30:27] in like five minutes, and then you can [30:29] just customize the content. Um, the idea [30:31] is that that'll make it uh maybe help [30:34] help with that uh with that bar graph [30:37] and and make number go up. [30:43] >> Steve is now considering building [30:44] publish press for Drupal now. [30:47] >> Well, if they're not allowed to sell [30:49] modules, [30:50] >> that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. My my initial [30:53] feeling of that what you've described [30:55] there is it's a little bit of [30:57] skepticism. [30:58] >> I mean [31:00] it's it's an in like I I [31:03] will I'm keeping an open mind, right? [31:05] Like I think that I think that like I [31:08] see the good intention. I see the value. [31:11] Um I don't know how it's going to play [31:13] out. Like honestly like I'm I'm [31:15] >> I've used I've used the new Drupal CMS. [31:18] Um I've used their new uh their new [31:20] editor thing. I've seen demos of um [31:23] things. I've used AI. They've got like a [31:25] whole AI project um that has been funded [31:28] by the by the Drupal Association um and [31:31] seen that and how that works inside like [31:34] natively. Like you can you can basically [31:36] have a chatbot that you talk to and it [31:38] will do stuff for you. Like I want a [31:40] content type that for an event and it [31:42] will build that thing for you. And [31:43] that's that's pretty cool. So like [31:45] there's a lot of really cool stuff [31:46] happening. Um the question that I always [31:49] ask is is this enough? Is this the [31:51] thing? Is, you know, how are, you know, [31:53] how are you going to get over that hump? [31:55] Um, and I guess that, you know, that [31:56] remains to be seen, but like competition [31:58] is never a bad thing. Um, and like I [32:03] don't know, maybe WordPress needs to be [32:05] knocked down a peg, like you know, like [32:07] maybe we've gotten a little complacent. [32:09] Um [32:11] uh talk about talk about uh what uh yeah [32:15] so how you built uh published press and [32:17] and what like led to the decision that [32:21] um like publishing specifically was was [32:24] uh an area that you felt was maybe [32:26] underrepresented or something that that [32:28] had growth potential. [32:31] A lot of what we [32:34] a lot of the sort of first principles we [32:36] took into our WordPress work came from [32:38] Drupal customers. They were saying these [32:41] are the things that are important to us [32:42] at the enterprise level. Uh we need good [32:45] role management. We need good permission [32:47] systems and that was a reason for them [32:49] to choose Drupal. And we looked at [32:51] WordPress and said hey if these big [32:53] customers value this they're going to [32:55] value this in WordPress too. Yep. [32:58] >> So we took a lot of those lessons on [33:00] what enterprise companies want and tried [33:03] to build those systems in and it has [33:07] worked. We get a lot of enterprise [33:09] customers, a lot of um universities [33:12] um uh lot of sort of high-profile names [33:17] to put on our banner. But the a lot of [33:22] small publishers are founders as well, [33:23] newspapers, startups and [33:28] uh no offense to universities and no [33:30] offense to enterprise customers, [33:33] but it's perhaps those smaller customers [33:35] maybe pay a little bit less that are [33:38] maybe say maybe 20 25% of our business [33:42] that have really been the most [33:44] interesting to me. you see like a little [33:47] fivep person shop in Atlanta or Tampa [33:52] starting a newspaper for their area and [33:55] really trying to dig in and replace all [33:58] the legacy newspapers that have [34:00] collapsed in their town. And [34:04] it's inspiring. Um it reminds me a [34:07] little bit of some of the startup [34:08] companies in the WordPress space. like, [34:10] "Hey, we know we're not going to make [34:13] $10 million, but we're going to make a [34:16] living and we're going to try and do [34:17] something good and helpful to people." [34:19] Um, I I think there's a real uh kind of [34:23] similar sense of purpose and got to know [34:26] some of these publishers over the years [34:28] working with them and seen their [34:30] success. Um, and [34:34] they're all on WordPress. um you're in [34:38] you're in Utah. [34:40] >> If there's any um trying to think if we [34:43] come across any um any like new [34:47] newspapers or magazines starting up in [34:50] in Utah or in Tampa near us or wherever [34:53] it might be, they're on WordPress. [34:56] WordPress has a 98% [34:59] market share with these companies. Um, [35:03] and a lot of the old newspapers [35:07] have their own legacy CMS's, but [35:09] WordPress is really dominating in the [35:10] space. Um, and it's a good thing. It's [35:14] cheap. Um, these these journalists are [35:18] paying themselves 30 $40,000 a year, [35:22] just enough to pay rent and eat some [35:24] ramen. Um, so WordPress is a a good fit [35:28] for them. [35:30] And and do you think that it's it's [35:32] really that that sort of low cost and [35:34] lower barrier to entry that that has [35:36] made WordPress distinct within sort of [35:40] the publishing space? [35:42] >> It is easy. Uh the UI is good. I rarely [35:46] hear any of these customers complain [35:48] about the UI. They can log in, they're [35:52] in the block editor, they can start [35:53] writing. They get it. It's [35:57] they're people who are who are used to [35:59] writing on platforms that are similar. [36:01] It maybe a lot of these people may have [36:04] worked at say USA Today or maybe a a [36:09] bigger more brand name newspaper. They [36:11] they're used to working in a content [36:13] management system. They move they move [36:15] to WordPress. They're good to go. It it [36:18] makes sense to them. [36:20] >> Yeah. Did you see like one of one of uh [36:25] a lesson that I learned uh sort of in [36:27] real time as I was presenting uh at uh [36:30] Word Camp Long Beach uh a number of [36:32] years ago. I was um at the time I was [36:35] working at humanmade. Humanade was a [36:37] very early adopter of building uh [36:40] Gutenberg based uh like functionality. [36:44] We were using Gutenberg and implementing [36:46] Gutenberg before it was merged into [36:48] core. Um, and so we were very Gutenberg [36:52] yay and and and Guten and early [36:55] adopters. Um, and so obviously my talk [36:58] uh that got approved and I was speaking [37:00] at at at Word Camp Long Beach um was uh [37:04] was about like how the block editor is [37:08] going to make everything easier, is [37:09] going to revolutionize uh content [37:11] editing. And what I realized as I was [37:14] giving this talk, especially during the [37:15] Q&A section at the end, was that there [37:19] was a lot of people there were a lot of [37:21] people who um were not just like [37:28] skeptical of the block editor, but [37:31] really like [37:33] fundamentally [37:35] it was it was going to increase the [37:38] amount of work because they had to learn [37:40] a new thing because the classic editor [37:41] edtor was fine um because they were used [37:45] to it. Um like even though like even at [37:48] the time I believe there's like there is [37:49] like data about like the the [37:54] you know the the bell graph for for [37:56] learning the learning curve for um for [37:58] Gutenberg was was smaller. It was easier [38:01] to learn Gutenberg than it was to learn [38:03] do things or similar things in the [38:05] classic editor. Um it was really like [38:08] the people who had been used to the [38:12] thing that was in WordPress and now [38:14] they're having to be they're being [38:15] forced to you know learn a new thing [38:18] like there's a lot of resistance and a [38:21] lot of like I didn't ask for this. Did [38:23] you also feel that uh as you're you know [38:26] building this this plugin that's or this [38:29] suite of plugins that are ostensibly for [38:32] publishers uh in in this sort of space [38:35] the same sort of uh resistance to to the [38:37] block editor? [38:39] >> No, we get I hear them if if I go on [38:43] social media I hear them in real life in [38:46] our work. I don't hear them. um to say [38:50] something controversial. I think um I [38:53] think those people are like the uh the [38:55] cobalt [38:57] users of the WordPress space. Hey, you [39:00] want to go and keep on using technology [39:03] that's that old? Great. It runs it. Like [39:06] you say, the government, half the [39:08] government still runs on it. Um, we we [39:13] still have a Jumla business that has [39:19] well over a thousand customers still [39:22] people even though Jumla's kind of been [39:25] sidelined from the mainstream of open [39:28] source still people there that love it. [39:30] If people want to stick on the classic [39:32] editor, they can be our cobalt users and [39:35] um let the rest of us um keep moving [39:39] ahead, but they can stick with the [39:41] classic editor if they want. um the real [39:45] normal people using WordPress [39:48] um that at least in my experience I I'm [39:52] sure uh perhaps people doing more [39:55] complicated things with the editor may [39:57] have bigger complaints about it but our [40:00] publishers who are getting there they [40:03] have maybe two or three big stories to [40:05] write each week [40:08] they get on with the the block editor [40:10] and they like it and use it and not had [40:13] any complaints [40:14] >> since since you work with a lot of uh [40:17] publishers and specifically like uh [40:21] like specifically newspapers and things [40:22] of that nature. I I wonder if if you [40:25] have seen uh effects of like how how the [40:31] decline of print media has affected uh [40:34] maybe the adoption of of WordPress or [40:36] the adoption of digital tools or like [40:38] just what what sorts of things you you [40:41] maybe have picked up from just being in [40:43] this space. [40:45] >> Oh, you for sure. Um the the vast [40:48] majority of these journalists have had [40:51] prior careers. they've worked at a big [40:54] brand name newspaper. Um or maybe the [40:58] original, say you're in Orlando, there [41:01] was the Orlando Senate, Sentinel, um [41:05] Tampa, Tampa Bay Times, whichever city [41:08] you're in, there was a leading [41:09] newspaper, often two or three. And as [41:12] those newspapers went away, these [41:14] journalists went and often started [41:16] something for themselves. And they would [41:18] go digital only. they would not even [41:22] consider a print edition. Um, and they [41:26] would often they pick one or two social [41:28] channels. Um, [41:31] the teams are not big enough perhaps to [41:34] carry across five or six different [41:36] platforms, but they will pick YouTube. [41:40] Um, [41:42] there's one big new publisher in [41:44] Mississippi. [41:46] um Mississippi today that does a lot of [41:49] YouTube work. We've worked with some um [41:54] uh some publishers in Texas that use [41:56] WhatsApp a lot because they have a big [41:59] Hispanic audience and uh WhatsApp use is [42:03] massive there. So, they have a WhatsApp [42:04] channel. um uh a couple on Instagram [42:10] um they will use it these digital tools [42:12] to move more quickly than some of the [42:16] big legacy newspapers [42:18] but the heart of it where their original [42:22] stories and their original reporting [42:23] lives is WordPress. [42:26] Do you see like I I see a lot of [42:28] particularly like you know individual [42:31] journalists or individual sort of [42:32] content creators that maybe have been [42:35] orphaned by the closure or the [42:37] downsizing of a a larger paper or a [42:40] publication. Um moving to platforms like [42:44] you know at one point it was Medium. I [42:46] think a lot of people were moving to [42:47] Substack. Um, do you see uh like like [42:52] and and in a lot of ways this [42:54] fundamentally gets into the argument of [42:56] like owning your own content, right? [42:57] Because like if you're using a tool like [42:59] that like Substack which is very popular [43:00] and you can you know build in [43:02] subscriptions and stuff like that where [43:04] you get paid for your work. Um the the [43:07] downside of that is obviously your [43:09] content lives on Substack. Substack [43:10] could go to out of business. They could [43:12] sell your content. They could do [43:13] whatever. Um you don't necessarily own [43:15] that. Do you see that sort of tension or [43:17] or that sort of like competition um with [43:21] with publishing on something that you [43:23] own like an open source tool like [43:24] WordPress? [43:26] >> Yeah, the the people that go to Substack [43:29] tend to be the oneperson teams. [43:32] Maybe they they start that way and they [43:35] add a couple of support people. Um but [43:38] it does tend to be the um [43:42] the personalities, [43:44] the bloggers who go to um who go to [43:49] Substack. We see quite a few newspapers [43:53] using Ghost um another open source [43:56] platform. [43:58] >> Um [44:00] people who lean more on the newsletter [44:02] side [44:03] um often go to Beehive. [44:06] So, there's definitely some alternatives [44:08] out there. Um, but when it comes to [44:12] actually building a brand where you have [44:15] four, five, six, seven, and hopefully in [44:18] a couple years 10 or 20 people on staff, [44:21] then WordPress is the place people go. [44:25] >> Yeah. Um [44:27] I as I see we're getting we're we're [44:29] getting towards the end. I want to I [44:31] want to at least give some opportunity [44:32] for you to like talk about the thing [44:35] that um you know publish press is that [44:39] like what it's there for what people uh [44:42] would want to use it for. I mean, I I [44:45] feel like it would it would be a [44:47] disservice if I did not give you an [44:50] opportunity to like at least talk a [44:52] little bit about the thing that that [44:53] that you that you built. [44:57] >> Oh, well, we [44:59] I I guess [45:01] let me let me take ownership of this and [45:03] say I as the the person that got this [45:07] started [45:08] have never really had a [45:11] a big road map. um never never sat down [45:16] and said publish press is going to be [45:18] this. [45:19] >> We started with one plug-in and just [45:22] listened [45:24] to our customers like crazy and that's [45:29] probably led to slightly haphazard [45:33] development. Um, I know some people have [45:36] the ability to sit down and visualize [45:41] the awesome product they want to build [45:44] and then just go ahead and start [45:45] building it. [45:47] I don't have that ability. Um, we we [45:50] have 10 plugins now and I sent a [45:54] newsletter recently saying we're going [45:56] to be about 15 plugins by the end of [45:59] 2026. [46:01] And it's always been build feature X, [46:04] talk to the customers. The customers [46:07] say, "That's great. What we need is now [46:09] feature Y." [46:11] And we build feature Y. Um customers [46:15] come back to us, that's pretty good, but [46:18] Y, I wish Y worked like this. And maybe [46:20] how about feature Z? It's always been [46:23] iterative. And the focus has been on [46:26] makes making WordPress a really good [46:28] publishing platform. So a lot of it is [46:30] just filling in the gaps uh with what's [46:33] missing like um both of us come from [46:36] Jumla and Drupal backgrounds. Um both of [46:40] those content management systems by [46:42] default have a expiry date [46:47] for content. [46:49] >> WordPress is the best publishing [46:51] platform in the world but it doesn't [46:53] have an expiry date. [46:54] >> Yeah. Um, so one of our plugins got [46:57] started that way by just providing an [46:59] expiry date. Um or [47:03] um WordPress has a revisions feature [47:06] which allows you to see all of the [47:10] changes that have been made to a [47:12] particular post you're writing, but [47:15] it's kind of tucked away in a very small [47:18] corner of the screen [47:20] >> and [47:21] um really hard to navigate and actually [47:24] browse through all those changes. So we [47:25] have a plugin that makes it easier. Um, [47:28] so we try and work with the WordPress [47:30] core and basically fill in gaps as our [47:34] customers find them and tell us where [47:36] they are. Um, so WordPress is [47:40] WordPress's aim is to democratize [47:42] publishing. We kind of try and piggyback [47:46] on that and um, the core can't do [47:49] everything. We try and fill in all the [47:52] important gaps that the core is missing [47:54] to help publishers. [47:56] Yeah, I I definitely like one of the or [48:00] the most rewarding times for me as a [48:03] developer have been when I was building [48:08] a specific thing. Um, could call it a [48:11] product, but like a particular plugin or [48:14] whatever. Um, and really being able to [48:18] take the feedback of the people that [48:20] were using it and use that feedback to [48:22] iterate on the thing that I was [48:24] building. So it may feel haphazard. It [48:27] may look haphazard, but like I like I I [48:30] really like that that feels like a good [48:34] approach even if it's not the approach [48:35] that like a product manager would [48:39] approve of of like having the whole [48:40] thing because a lot of times like the [48:43] grand plan like is like what if what if [48:46] one thing on that road map is not [48:49] something like you didn't you to for [48:51] that road map to be appropriate you need [48:53] to user research all of those points, [48:55] right? Um, and by the time you do all [48:58] the user research and then you build all [49:00] those features in and then you release [49:01] the thing, [49:03] it's entirely possible that your users [49:05] have moved on to something else. Uh, so [49:08] I I I believe that the the iterative [49:10] approach is is um like I I I think [49:14] that's a really good approach. So so [49:16] don't don't like downplay that. I think [49:19] that that's a really valuable part of [49:20] the of the process. [49:22] Yeah, there are um there's a guy uh [49:25] Kevin Giri who [49:28] >> is a a character on WordPress social [49:31] media [49:32] >> and [49:34] he has that ability. I think that um he [49:37] basically fund fundraised like maybe a [49:40] million bucks or so, some enormous [49:42] amount of money to build his Etch [49:48] site builder platform. He basically laid [49:50] it out. this is what we're going to [49:52] build. [49:52] >> Mh. [49:53] >> I do not have that ability at all. It's [49:56] always been um [49:59] step by step and um some days it feels [50:03] exhausting because I I read every single [50:06] customer support ticket that comes in [50:09] which is exhausting. [50:11] >> Yeah. [50:11] >> Um but I think by the time I mean it's [50:15] if we scaled up to Pantheon's size um [50:19] that's not going to happen. it's going [50:20] to break at some point. Uh, but we're at [50:23] about a dozen staff members and say [50:26] 10,000 customers total. So, it's still [50:29] feasible. Um, and you read every [50:33] customer support ticket, you kind of um [50:38] through osmosis, you kind of [50:41] understand what your customers want. [50:44] >> Yeah. You pick up on the patterns. Yep. [50:46] Yeah. But you would never read that in a [50:49] project management book. Um, project [50:51] management for dummies. Um, they'd say [50:55] that's a terrible way to work. [50:57] >> Yeah, they probably would. But at the [50:59] same time, I know project man I know [51:01] product managers that like feel like [51:03] they don't talk to customers enough and [51:05] like want to have more of that. So like [51:07] there's like Yeah, at either end of the [51:09] spectrum, I think you can't win. [51:12] >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean once you get to [51:13] something maybe perhaps a pantheon size [51:16] then talking to the customers is much [51:17] more of a a formal exercise often like [51:20] hey do you have 20 minutes on your [51:22] calendar where you can sit down and give [51:23] me formal feedback. Um a lot of the [51:27] feedback you're listening to in customer [51:29] support is oh beep this isn't working [51:32] >> right [51:32] >> or like much more visceral. [51:36] >> Yep. Yeah. [51:37] >> Yeah. [51:38] >> Yeah. [51:39] >> Well thank you so much Steve for coming [51:40] on. Uh before we go, I'd like to give [51:42] you an opportunity to to let people know [51:44] where they could find you on the [51:45] internet uh and what things you're [51:47] working on and and any links that you [51:49] might want to share for for our our [51:51] audio listeners or video viewers or [51:53] whatever. [51:55] >> I would say these days that I'm mostly [51:57] on LinkedIn, it's uh the most high value [52:00] platform. You can find me as Steve Burge [52:02] on LinkedIn. [52:04] >> Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you again [52:07] uh Steve for coming uh on the show. Uh [52:10] Steve is again available on LinkedIn and [52:13] uh publish press is publishpress.com [52:16] uh I believe uh and uh yeah go check [52:21] >> go ahead [52:21] >> there there is a funny story there. [52:23] >> Oh [52:24] >> oh that um some enormous YouTube social [52:28] um [52:30] uh social influencers [52:33] also um decided to call their company uh [52:37] Publish Press. [52:38] >> Oh cool. And [52:39] >> they getting a lot of free traffic. [52:41] >> Well, entirely the wrong free tra [52:43] traffic and they I get lots of their [52:46] emails now. [52:47] >> Um [52:49] like I get like NDAs contracts offers to [52:53] do things. Um and um uh recently they [52:59] opened a the YouTube word is merch, [53:02] right? Merch. Selling merch. They opened [53:05] a merch store and put publishpress.com [53:08] instead of their different um tld on the [53:13] all the emails. So I got all the [53:14] customer all this merch store complaints [53:17] coming through as well. [53:19] >> Well, see [53:22] we are publish.com the YouTube guys are [53:25] publish press and some other tldd. [53:28] >> Well uh you are the you are the real [53:31] publish press uh in my in my mind. uh [53:34] not those other published presses. Um [53:36] thank you again for joining. Uh thank [53:38] everyone else who's uh watching or [53:41] listening to this in the future. Uh and [53:43] we will see you on the internet. [53:45] >> Thanks Chris.  📄 **Full text:** ![[Full Document Contents/Articles/Episode 23 Steve Burge|Episode 23: Steve Burge, YouTube]] ## Highlights - that that path. >> Yeah, the the demand was there particularly um this is not a knock on Drupal but this is maybe a knock on how Drupal was seen in the marketplace was that we could sell Drupal training all day long. >> Yeah, >> but we can never sell WordPress. People were like, "Oh, WordPress is too easy. our staff will get it. We don't need to really teach our staff WordPress. It's all self-explanatory. But Drupal, oh, come up here, 5 days, ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0ya7dz8ya2xs43z14h9g)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - were working with to take a look outside of Drupal. Um, a lot of them were saying, "Well, if we're going to rebuild our entire platform, this gives us an off-ramp to look at something else outside of Drupal." And a lot of them exited. I think um >> uh I talked with um Josh uh one of the founders of Pantheon. Yep. and he I think he'd done some some research at ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0ybcxbvcbd6sw9cthrm8)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - We and it basically also um made a huge caused a huge uh business pivot for us because a lot of our um Drupal customers were like government departments who had no problem flying us up to Washington DC for training but that didn't exist in the WordPress space really. So we pivoted hard to doing books and videos instead. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Do you like from and and we'll get ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0ycafkkybweps3581whf)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - those things in WordPress for cheaper, you know, or like you can or you you want to pay us, great. We'll build, you know, bespoke things for you. Like, but there had to be like there was like you had to go into that conversation with like a defense prepared, you know, like a pitch to sell the software before you could even have the conversation about what the agency is going to do. >> The sales process was always more difficult. >> Yeah. Yeah. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0yenh4s1etbhnb063hmj)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - And that's something I is that something you also uh saw at the time? Yeah, we um we ran into quite a few sort of government agencies and large companies. They were having trouble with Drupal. They were having trouble with their rollouts. And quite often I'd sit down with them and say, "Hey, what was the decision process? Why did you choose Drupal as opposed to Adobe or WordPress?" >> And ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0yfq22c9h8akpcm0kp39)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - uh all of our projects on this? Well, we already have a a contract with so and so, so we can't do that, but I agree. You know, like um and you know, uh there's that that's there's no shouldn't be terribly surprising that I am currently a Pantheon employee because of that experience, because that as as a developer. Um but moving on to like um you know, obviously you did some agency stuff and and you're doing some government stuff. Um what was the but you are the founder of this thing called Publish Press. What is the sort of uh ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0yjfa39cxc70z248fakx)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - past its heyday now. It feels like it's going to become one of those bending spoon um, acquisitions and kind of left for dead. Um, and the whole training market um, got a lot quieter. So, we were looking for what was next and we were doing some software development at the time. started to look at WordPress as an opportunity and really started to s see a lot of gaps in the publishing ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0ymtz0gz62e81dbgjhw1)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - WordPress where that's the entire business. >> Yeah. Well, I mean, and that is that is changing the Drupal space. I mean, they're trying to Dre wants to Drece wants to start uh a a marketplace, an official Drupal marketplace. Uh, one of my uh mo one of my recent guests was uh is Mike Hershel in the Drupal community who is a theme developer who created basically a theme uh a theme shop uh for Drupal themes. Um so, uh for premium ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0yprz8g58v102yahe8yr)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted - It maybe a lot of these people may have worked at say USA Today or maybe a a bigger more brand name newspaper. They they're used to working in a content management system. They move they move to WordPress. They're good to go. It it makes sense to them. >> Yeah. Did you see like one of one of uh a lesson that I learned uh sort of in real time as I was presenting uh at uh ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01knwy0yt2yfsyab0acye068nh)) - Tags: 👻 ai highlighted