The Agency Model Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving. ![rw-book-cover](https://img.youtube.com/vi/wFK5te6SUhY/maxresdefault.jpg) 🔗 **Source:** [The Agency Model Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [wordpress-agencies, ai-development, hosting-partnerships, care-plans, client-relationships] > author: "[MISSING]" > source: The WP Minute (YouTube) > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY > date created: 2026-09-07 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: The Agency Model Isn't Dead. It's Evolving. > ## 🧭 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]] > - [[#🔄 Refactor Appendix — The Agency Model Isn't Dead. It's Evolving.]] > ## 🔗 References > - Source: The WP Minute (YouTube channel), episode with host "Matt" and guest Corey Miller of hosting.com — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY > - Speaker names as stated in the transcript: the host is addressed only as "Matt" (surname not stated in captured content — this is the same show that publishes as The WP Minute, formerly Matt Report, hosted by Matt Medeiros, but that identification is not made explicitly inside the transcript, so author is left [MISSING] rather than inferred). The guest, Corey Miller, states he has "for the past 20 years or so...made his living from agencies and freelancers, building tools" and now works at hosting.com on its agency partnership program. > - Sponsor disclosure stated on air: hosting.com sponsors The WP Minute; the guest works for the sponsoring company. Flagged for Logical Validity below. > - No outbound links found via `paras2.py --links` — confirmed, not asserted; this is expected for a caption-derived transcript, which strips even the description-box links a video might carry. > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened:** Matt (host) and Corey Miller (hosting.com, formerly of Post Status by his own 20-years-in-agencies description) discuss whether AI threatens the WordPress agency/freelancer business model, using Matt's own experience building a civic app that a city government is now rebuilding in-house with AI as the framing story. They conclude the model shifts rather than dies — agencies retain value as trusted, accountable experts — then pivot to hosting.com's new Agency Success Network, a no-exclusivity referral program connecting its 700,000+ hosting customers to vetted agencies and freelancers. > - **Why it matters:** This is a first-person account of the exact anxiety AI raises for WordPress's services economy (care plans, custom builds, agency retainers), paired with a named hosting company's concrete response (a referral marketplace) — useful as both sentiment data and a specific program to evaluate. > - **Key stakeholders:** WordPress agencies, freelancers, and consultants; hosting.com and its customer base; the WP Minute audience; by extension any WordPress services business whose value proposition rests on technical execution rather than ongoing strategic partnership. > - **Risks and tradeoffs:** the entire second half of the conversation is an advertisement for the sponsor's own program, delivered by the sponsor's own employee, inside sponsored content — a structural conflict of interest the hosts never flag as such (see DARVO/Logical Validity below). > - **Bottom line:** both speakers land on the same reframe — technical build skill is commoditizing, so the durable agency value is expertise-as-accountability ("I want to buy the insurance that Matt knows what he's doing") and ongoing relationship (care plans), not one-time delivery. > ## 📖 Main Content > The episode opens with sponsor disclosure (hosting.com sponsors The WP Minute; Corey Miller works there) and personal catch-up before turning to the Automattic/WP Engine court case, which the host describes as delayed until October next year and as a distraction from WordPress's competitive position on AI. > **The DIY threat, told through a personal story.** Matt describes building a snow-plow tracking app for his local community, then a 311 civic-reporting system (potholes, downed trees, flooding), using AI-assisted development. The city's IT team has now told him they intend to build their own version using the same kind of AI tooling he used — the exact scenario he frames as the agency world's core AI fear: a client who once needed a builder no longer does, because the tool that built it for the agency now builds it for the client too. > **Corey's counter: expertise survives as accountability, not execution.** Corey argues do-it-yourselfers will always exist, but organizations still choose to "major in what they do best and hand off to the experts" because AI does not yet carry security judgment, best-practice knowledge, or accountability when something breaks. He frames this explicitly as buying insurance, not buying a build. > **A second, deeper fear from Matt.** Beyond losing client work, Matt names a generational loss: learning WordPress in the pre-AI era forced a builder to learn the whole stack — hosting, databases, plugins, IP addressing — and that forced curiosity is what built WordPress's community. AI answering instantly removes the "unpacking WordPress" process that produced that curiosity and, by extension, that community. > **Care plans as the existing proof-of-concept.** Corey traces "WordPress care plans" (recurring maintenance retainers) back to an earlier moment when agencies noticed clients needed ongoing care after launch and productized it — drawing an explicit parallel to extended warranties he sold at Circuit City. His claim: the need for ongoing care of a website "doesn't go away," and can extend to AI-related services the same way it extended to maintenance. > **The pitch: hosting.com's Agency Success Network.** Corey describes a no-exclusivity referral program launched by hosting.com's CEO ("Seb"), connecting the company's 700,000+ customers to vetted agencies via a short intake form (industry niche, up to three specialties, description of ideal client). Starting cohort: 50 founding partners, expected to grow. No minimum spend is currently required for referral eligibility. Sign-up: hosting.com/agency. > ## 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY?t=0) Cold open and sponsor disclosure > - hosting.com sponsors The WP Minute; Corey Miller (guest) works for hosting.com and is stated to be the only content-affecting party besides the show itself. > #### ⏱️ [02:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY?t=162) Automattic/WP Engine court case > - Host: the case won't reach a jury until "October next year." Frames the ongoing legal dispute as a distraction from WordPress's competitive AI position, hoping for a "quiet renaissance" announced at WordCamp US. > - Corey calls the timing "terrible" and says he has friends at both companies; wants resolution so the industry can refocus on AI opportunity. > #### ⏱️ [05:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY?t=330) What users actually want from AI + WordPress > - Corey: "I really think like the missing piece is how easy can we just make it to talk to WordPress and just do the thing we want to do." > - Names rocket.net's MCP WordPress integration as a concrete example of that bridge being built. > #### ⏱️ [08:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFK5te6SUhY?t=497) Matt's civic-app story and the DIY fear > - Built a snow-plow app, then a 311 reporting system for potholes/trees/flooding, using AI-assisted development. > - The city's new IT director's team is now building their own version — "the same tool that I used to build it" is enabling the client to route around the builder. > > [!quote] ID:rw_01m1y14r0q0a8ma6yxmg1g9kf7 > > "now staring down that barrel of, 'Oh, my customer, they're going to build it themselves now because of the same tool that I used to build it.' And now they are going, 'You know what? We're The WP Minute back with another special episode with my good friend Corey Miller. Corey Miller, welcome back. >> Hey, good to be back, Matt. >> Going to do all the things so I don't get arrested. hosting.com is a sponsor of the WP Minute. But none of this content is edited by them except for Corey who's on the call and he can always edit himself. I can't control that. AI bots can't control that. And we're talking about AI stuff today. But hosting.com has announced something for a new initiative for the age-old question, how can agencies partner with hosting companies? How can hosting company customers get in contact with these agencies so that all boats rise with this tide? And we're going to break down some of that stuff in a moment. Corey though, I got to ask as dad in WordPress land, are your kids back to school yet? >> Oh, thank god in like 2 days. They need school. Our kids need school and social interaction. So yes, in 2 days. >> Jacqueline who works for me here at the WP Minute, her kids went back to school like 2 weeks ago and I'm like, what? Like how do my kids don't go back until September 3rd, I think. So I am still I got weeks to go in the throws of things. >> Thoughts and prayers, bro. Thoughts and prayers. >> Speaking of heat and summer time, are you doing WordCamp US? >> WordCamp US, yes. And here in a couple days, flying into even hotter Phoenix. But I love Phoenix and of course getting to see friends and make new friends is always fun. So yep, coming up soon. >> Easy trip for you. >> Pretty quick trip. I like it. >> Yeah. Unlike me. And if Raquel's listening, she knows. >> Yes. Yes. But what a you know, it'll be interesting to see uh how this WordCamp US is this year. Um, but I'm excited about it. I hope it's amidst all the noise and different things we've got going on in our world in WordPress in the industry and on the web. Um, I'm excited to see who's come and coming and and um what they're working on really. I mean, that's the most interesting thing to me is the great people we have in WordPress and the things they're working on like I I'm not as smart as many of our friends that you and I know and the developers and different people out there, but I always love learning from them about how they're using things like Russell Arons three-person team, you know, he's got in GitHub and things like that. It's always cool. I get inspired and also learn a thing or two. >> Yeah. It's unfortunate obviously we've been talking this for years now. We just saw another article come out from the repository about the lawsuit. The lawsuit, I mean the excuse me, the court case I guess if or the court case the the jury case won't happen until October next year if it goes I guess that long. It's unfortunate that we're still in this lull of I was not the best phrase, but we're in this lull of this court case and what's going to happen because that's going to dictate a lot of I guess Automattic's future if at all. But, what I'm hoping for is that there is a quiet um or what I think is going to happen at WordCamp US is a quiet renaissance for WordPress on the AI front at least to say like here's what's going to happen. We've got smart people in place. Things are coming. Um, it's just unfortunate it sort of gets like noise cancellation. You put on noise cancellation on your headphones, you can't hear anything on the outside. Like that's what's happening I think with WordCamps and what what's happening with to WordPress. And that's not a good thing cuz I think lots people on the outside going, "What's up, man? Like where's WordPress in this competitive AI space? >> It's It's uh it's terrible timing, honestly. And and I know I've got friends on both at both companies uh as you do, too. And uh so, I think we're probably all ready for to be done, whatever the the thing is. One of my partners used to tell me that when you when it comes to legal things, it's everybody put your hand on a hot stove, and the first person to take it off is the one that loses. And that's that that's a reality of our our legal system and the way things work, but I'm glad we have those things so that these this conflict can be resolved, but I think all of us want to say, let's get it over. Let's get it done with. We've got really pressing matters right now to talk about. You mentioned it with AI, like WordPress is the dominant, largest CMS on the planet. It's how the web is powered for the most part, uh and open-source technology behind it, but we need to get back to these things because we have a real opportunity in WordPress with AI. And I'm not the technical expert that deep down, but I go, we need to take this emerging technology with this awesome existing large blueprint technology and see how we go far together in the future. And that's what I'm excited about. There's people like you that are prolific content producers. You know the value of a website, a podcast, and content, and all that stuff. WordPress makes all that happen. Now, how can WordPress or I'm sorry, AI be used to even propel this further, accelerate what we do with WordPress. And I am eager to get back to those conversations. That's the primary one. >> Yeah. I mean, I I think even for my own um my own, you know, workings with with AI and obviously deep into it uh these days uh even more so, uh but chatting with other folks like Mark Slemanski, who's a friend of the show and and does a lot of content. Um, and just wanting that ease of like it's weird. It's weird to like go through the the the reflect on like the months if not years now with consumer AI and building things with AI. At first it's like, "I'm never going to use this thing." Then it got a little bit better and I was like, "Well, I'll make some static websites with it." But then you've got like this muscle memory starts and you're like, "Damn, now I want to be able to do that with WordPress. I just wanted it to be as easy to manage my WordPress site as it has been with these other projects." And I honestly think that this is where what this is what most people that feeling is what most people want out of WordPress. It's not even like "Give me another feature or do this thing." Like obviously those are those are still there and the features that people want for website building are still going to be there. But I really think like the missing piece is how easy can we just make it to talk to WordPress and just do the thing we want to do? Cuz I think as soon as that bridge gets built, people are going to come back. Like all those people from like 6 months to a year ago who were just like, "Nah, like you're never going to catch up. Like WordPress is is done for. Like static sites all the way and Astro and all this other stuff." Like I think as soon as we bridge that gap, which is like getting smaller and smaller every passing day, like we're just going to have people come back and be like, "Oh yeah, I'm just going to come back to WordPress now because now I can talk to it and I've got the value of community and open source with it, which a lot of people were just like, 'Yeah, screw that open source and community thing. I just want to go for this easy thing that I can just chat with.'" I think the tables are going to turn uh sooner rather than later. >> Gosh, yes. That's it right there, the vision. How do we leverage two incredible technologies for what we're trying to do? To make it easier. You know, rocket.net has an MCP WordPress integration. I love that. I want to hear from the agencies using that to make their workloads lighter, easier, faster, better, so they can do other stuff. You know, our dear friend that we share, Justin Synton, Um he's got the agency of one. And that has opened up possibility and opportunity in his life, which I think is awesome. Now, let's apply that to our clients who need direction. I think people are aware of AI, but I mean we're in technology, so we're right there with it every day. But the large amount of people, I think there's some adoption happening. And and agencies, freelancers, WordPress people are the leaders to help uh others get into that use that leverage that those technologies just like we've done for couple of dec- decades now on the open web with WordPress. >> Yeah. So, I started to eat the uh the the dog food of like AI taking away jobs. And I'll try to frame this as quickly as possible. Uh but you know, I I built that snow plow app for my local community, won all kinds of awards, got all these things from like local politicians, which you know, was a lot of grants money on their part, but whatever. I was like televising the mayorals uh state of the union speech, all this stuff. And um you know, as the entrepreneur in me is like, well, let's not stop there. Let's see what I can do next. One, to serve my community. And and two, like let's exercise that entrepreneur brain uh part of my brain. So, [clears throat] we you know, I I transferred it over to a uh 311 reporting system, right? Potholes, down trees, flooding, uh illegal dumping, like all this stuff. And really started to try to work this in to the local government. Like, hey, hey guys, you all know who I am now. You saw me build this thing. You awarded me this thing. And uh I've now built this, which we don't have for the city, and people want. They want to report the potholes. They want to report damages throughout the city. And [snorts] um that's quickly got me to learn how slow local government moves. Um but that's not the end of the tail. The end of the tail is I've been going back and forth with the new DCM director and he messaged me the other day and he's like, "Hey Matt." He's like, "The IT team wants to build their own." And they're building their own now. They're building their own app. And this is through, of course, AI. Much like I am using AI to assist me to build this software. I mean, having a background of software, of course, and understanding what consumers need from a product. But now staring down that barrel of, "Oh, my customer, they're going to build it themselves now because of the same tool that I used to build it." And now they are going, "You know what? We're savvy enough now to do this." And that's uh that's that's something I always knew was coming with AI and it sort of deflated a little bit. But I'm curious like as you talk to agencies, have you had them sort of state the same thing where they were going to go sell a WordPress website to somebody and that client said, "You know what? I'm just going to do it myself." And we can unpack what the challenge really is moving forward, but I'm just curious like have you heard like boots on the ground agencies go, "Hey man, we're afraid of AI. It's it's we're losing jobs because of it." Have you started to hear anything like that? >> Not so far and I think because of one thing we both know really well, which is you need that expertise. Uh you and I have product expertise. We built and shipped products. We built and shipped communities. We've done those types of things and I think there are always going to be the do-it-yourselfers and that's awesome. But I think at the end of the day they want to major in what they do best and hand off to the experts. At least for this season of time that I think is is bigger. Because as we both know, uh we can have AI do all these things, but there's certain things that you You need some you You to know what to say, put in some security, you know, redo this through security protocols, best practices that we have like in WordPress and on the internet and different things that I I don't think and and also at the end of the day it's like this will help this technology will help me get there faster and maybe cheaper, but I still need someone to hold my hand right now. Now, the technology is going to evolve on all that, but I think we still need guides. We need people that know what they're doing to help us even with the proposition [clears throat] we can save time and money doing these type of things. So, like the team you're talking about with city government, you know, I'd put most WordPress agency teams against virtually any of those, especially the smaller governments and things, but they can do things, they know things, they have a wider area to operate in, but they're embedded in the thing that they're doing, not a team tacked on to a bigger company that really or government or whatever that doesn't really know what the ins and outs are and I think that's where the opportunity comes for our agencies or freelancers or consultants to be those guys. I mean, if you really based on what we do, we're technologists. We understand how to use technology. We're the ones bleeding edge, testing, breaking, using things and I think there's going to be a place, is a place, going to be a place for those experts to come alongside and help guide. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I could sit here and grandstand all day that the IT team in local city government should not be building the app. You know, [laughter] there's plenty of other things that they have to maintain and at and at what point do they stop, right? And I don't know, it's it's interesting. I I'm not heartbroken over it or anything like that. The deal The deal isn't done yet anyway, but it was sort of nice to exercise like, oh, you know, the place that I live, I can use that as a case study. But at like what point does it stop for internal IT teams? Uh cuz this is actually interesting like to think like put aside local government and tax spending and stuff like that. Should they be doing this should they not? But just like where does the IT team stop? With them going, "Oh, we have a vendor to build an app. We'll do it. Uh oh, we have a vendor for an email server. We'll make our own email server." Like at what point does an IT team armed with AI go, "Yeah, there's going to be clear division here. Like I can We can't be building an app. We can't be building a web server. We can't be building the website because we just have so much What about our other duties >> [laughter] >> in the company that we have to maintain? Uh so >> Exactly. >> That is so it's just a it's an interesting point and I think it's an exercise to see how AI how people balance AI, I guess, as as time moves on. I think if the agency's afraid of losing the business because of AI, on the other side, AI augments their own team to do more. So it's like where does that balance come in? And And we don't know until we live through it over the next five years. >> [laughter] >> Let's see how all this stuff settles. >> What occurs to me in your example that you're sharing is two things is one is um capability. You know, do I have capability to do these things? And that second is insurance. So I wouldn't want my team at a local government, for instance, to just build their own. I'd want to go "I'm going to buy the insurance that Matt knows what he's doing." Like emphasis majors on this every single day that knows since it's getting ahead. And for those that, you know, perhaps are seeing that work go off from their agency onto somebody else, I'd say wait 6 months and you might get a knock at the door because things change. Software change I mean has vulnerabilities. The systems that we use all get updated and things like that. And those are the classic things our agencies know. My thing is to say remind you that we're technologists. This is our work to do this every day. We don't go pretend to be doctors or lawyers. You know. >> Yeah. >> And >> Yeah. >> but I would say in those instances where you see work being shipped is is keep that relationship because it's going to come back around. I mean, I was just reading an article about Waymo. I've ridden in Waymos. You and I might have had a Waymo together in Phoenix for Press Camp. But but uh it's got glitches. So, you know, if I'm not in that technology every single day, I'm going to have to find solutions for that. And I and I think that's the the gift and the burden of technology is things are going to change, things will break, there's going to be vulnerabilities out there, and I want experts at the gate managing it that I can talk to. Where an in-house person like that, I'm not diminishing their expertise, but then become the in-house expert to manage the vendor, the software, the things like that in order to get it done. And we all know they'll get spread so thin. So. >> Yeah. I mean, I bring it I bring up the story because I I I think it relates um to the agency owner who might be selling an e-commerce store or a large WordPress site to um you know, if you're in that if you're in that mid-tier, it's a large-tier agency, you're selling into bigger organizations that do have the capabilities, like they have the technical chops, but just like my local government example, they have other responsibilities in that business to either build the technology or maintain the technology, you know, that that they have. And I think where we shift with agencies, and I and I'm curious to hear how maybe uh hosting.com's partnership network helps cuz I know you have community and I know you connect with the customers at a deeper level. Um but like I told the the the uh my local contact when he told me like I think they're going to build it and he's kind of on my side at least he that's what he's telling me. But I said, "Hey Chris, I not only have I already built it, but I've proven it because it went through a major blizzard and it got millions of page views and database calls while that week was going. So I mean I proved that that that the technology and it didn't crash at all. So yeah, we could all say that Vibe coded it, but I understood what I was doing going into it. I understood which pieces of the technology I needed to get this thing running at a high critical time, which was like no user login, no like crazy database searches cuz I knew what the implications were if I had all that stuff leading into it. It needs to be as fast and as nimble as possible in that emergent time in order for people to put reports in. So that's so just like a a WordPress agency is going to have to go now to a customer. So the so the job gets a little bit harder on the sales side in my opinion. I'm curious your thoughts is now you have to walk into the as your as your agency sales call instead of being like, you know, the bar being we do WordPress, it's we do WordPress and I can prove to you that we can do it at a high at a either high capacity or for your particular market, for your particular industry. We do high volume e-commerce sales. Like now the agency owner has to say I do this and I can prove it, which has always been the case a little bit, but now that microscope is on top of that agency owner to perform in the sales call. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that. >> Things are big time changing. I mean we're going through some huge transformations. And uh just like, you know, when I look back on my career in WordPress, you know, when I started free themes, you downloaded a zip then you uploaded it to WordPress and all that and activated it. Um but it we're going through this different change. So, we have mastered, I think, what has happened in the last 20 years and you saw things come out of it and it took a it took a couple years for things to kind of mature out but then you had the advent of WordPress care plans because we recognized we saw it with clients and then we innovated on that, iterated on that and became this whole other part of our industry, care and maintenance. Um the simply the the software managed WP, for instance, was the category definer of I can update all my sites from one one panel. But our role has shifted a a little bit, I think, with the new technology and it's up to us to get out there and innovate with it, use it, learn the technology in and out for ourselves like you do in the 311 service. You just broadened your knowledge and expertise of that. So, now that's you're the person I'm going to ask for that. How'd you go about doing it? That's good stuff. That's how we became experts as WordPress people and now it's just WordPress with another piece of technology. But I'm seeing and I think there's an opportunity here to even differentiate. Keep the WordPress, keep everything you're doing there but there's this opportunity to do those type of things you've done for clients and maybe save them money. So, I think our role as experts just shifts a tad to a different perspective and it's going to be upon us to figure out, oh, they need this but I think the templates and frameworks are there. You know, to look at it and go, it's it's still consulting. They don't have expertise, they have a problem and they need an expert and we're the on the other side to do that. So, that's why we got to be carving out significant part of our time, breaking stuff, testing stuff, uh keeping an ear open to the new things that are coming out and trying to use those for our own use cases because a guide I think is a couple steps in front of the person needing help. We got to do that or else we are going to get, you know, ran over and overtaken and forgotten because we're not doing what we should as technologies which is learn technology in order to help other people leverage it. >> Yeah. I want I want to unpack that care plan stuff. I know this is big in the agency space and I'm sick of hearing myself say it. I don't run an agency anymore but I talk to a lot of people who do and I see that phrase get bumped around a lot and what's funny to me is like [clears throat] I don't know. It was probably within the last few months I saw somebody say something like care plans are dead. Like don't call it care plans or something like that. You know, but yeah, I grew up in the car industry where I sold undercoatings. >> [laughter] >> Right? Like I sold extended warranties. And then when I when I told my dad like I'm done with the family business at the age of 18 and I said I'm going to get a I'm going to get a real job and then I worked at Circuit City. And then what did I do there? I sold extended warranties to customers and they would come in with I think the extended warranty on a DVD player back then was like you could come in for two free cleanings a year or something like that across the across the extended warranty. So it's just like I'm all like I'm so used to saying here's the sale but then to make more money to stay in business, it's the care plan. It's the extended warranty. It's the accessories sold after the fact. It's the follow-up call to say like how's your website doing like a year later? Do you need something else to go along with your website? Has your business grown? What else can my agency do? So I'm curious from your point of view and like when you talk to agencies, does the care plan change moving forward in this AI world? Do people continue to need maintenance from the customers or do we have to sort of land and expand ourselves as agency owners and say like now we do more in order to, you know, keep the retainer bag. >> I think the need for care of a website doesn't go away. Um I I think it can also be extended to these other things that we're talking about with AI development. Um but the thing I always the reference point I have is I've been WordPress since 2006 or so with starting my own blog and all that. Joomla was still out there. And there is still market share all these years later, no matter if WordPress and other things have gotten better and all that kind of stuff. There's still a significant It's It's smaller, but not in terms of the web, there's still a significant um base running Joomla. Like that's one of the things is like, you know, it costs money to change a website, to go from Joomla to WordPress, WordPress to whatever that is. And so, you still see these sites out there with a percentage of market share, and I just go Joomla. You know, um so I I don't have a crystal ball and I can't predict it, but I just go from a realistic, practical manner, you know, organizations spend thousands and tens of thousands perhaps of dollars to um launch their websites. And then turn around and go, wait, can I can I be just overnight? No, often not. And so, um maybe the technology get out gets out there, and it probably will at some point in the future, but I go there's this interim time that people are still going to need that, and it's going to be take a long time for 40 plus percent or whatever we're at today of the internet to switch to something different. And I've used and I'm I would say I'm a general WordPress user, you know, that's my capability. Uh I could copy and paste, you know, PHP like the best of them back in the day, but I've used Cloud and other tools to create pages and you go, it still needs review, it still needs quality check, it still needs tweaking that I might have to break open some of those skills. And I think um that that's that's where we're at today, at least for my perspective, where someone goes you know redo a whole website on an AI model to be updated and everything and I still go, you got to have things like I mean, I would suspect database and and and different things like you were saying with your project. Like all those different nuances that you still need to have, it's just not a uh a magic potion just yet. And so, that's still the opportunity where we're going to take care of you now, your clients now, and then help you walk into it. But I still think about the adaptive technology part of this, you know, the early adopters are all there. The technology's getting better and better every day. However, um there's still a big, huge, ginormous part of our population that doesn't use it to the extent that I do. And I would say I use it every day, all day 60% for personal, you know, uh and and 40% for professional. Um mostly to get clarity, but I go, that's that's someone who works in technology. Like my job is part of that. And there's still things I learn from you and others that I haven't used just yet, you know, and I'm I want to, but I I feel like I'm ahead of those the normal people out there just going to their 9:00 to 5:00 jobs, coming home, and and haven't used it yet. So, but I also think it's we can be scared by it, you know, it feels like a tsunami. I feel that, I see that. The tsunami of like jobs and different things coming in into our societies and workforces and everything. And what does that mean? That scares me. Then look at the other side and go, "Whoa, so much opportunity for uh enhancement of life that where where personal, whatever that is. And so we're we're juggling those two. We're holding those two at the same time. But I I think it's like anything we can either stall and freeze and fear or walk into it with open eyes and innovate and see opportunities and go for those and those are the ones I'd bet on that are looking at it going let's push it to the edge and see what it can do, work on projects that help me understand it. It's how I got into WordPress. I wanted to just build my web my website. I didn't go looking for WordPress. I found it and it made it easier. So I I I think I I understand the fear. I'm there, too. But I also go I can sit there and be frozen by it or walk into it and try to blaze my own trail with it. >> Yeah. >> And that's what I hope so many of us in WordPress do because that's who we are. >> Yeah. Yeah. That I mean that's one of the Well, I had a discussion with somebody else and we I talked about that. Like the the the real fear that I have for AI in WordPress Um and then I do want to talk about the partnership stuff agency partnership stuff. Um but one of the real fears that I have with with AI is I got into WordPress and learned WordPress and not only learned WordPress, but learned how the web worked and how publishing worked and how to find clients because I had this level of curiosity to figure that all out. And because, you know, this is again 20 years ago, you're sitting there going, all right, I got this WordPress thing. I got to put it on a hosting server. I got a database. What does that mean? All right, like why are these up? And now I install a plugin. What does that do? And there's like your you know, you're building the model car. You're building the the Lego pieces. How whatever, you know, phrase you want to use. but it was like that level of curiosity to figure out how this stuff works, which gave you a fundamental understanding of the internet. Like it wasn't just, oh, WordPress, you had to learn the server, domain registration, how IP addresses work, how network traffic flowed, uh, you know, what does it mean when your database gets too slow, what does that mean when you're dealing with a client, okay, customer service, I have to be have to pay attention to all this stuff. And it was like you had to figure it all out. Um, and maybe those are the golden the golden years. And now AI is just like, here's the answer, I did it for you. It's like, wait a minute, how did how did you do that? Like what what did you do? And that's the thing that I'm scared of because now there's no more unpacking WordPress and like leaning over and like asking you when I first met you, like, how did you grow that business? You know, how did you get to be one of the first million dollar year WordPress businesses, right? And like that general curiosity that brought the community uh, together. So, that is a fear of of mine with WordPress. >> It hasn't replaced human experience, for sure. There's things that I think maybe it gets there someday, um, but it's still very very very very advanced machine learning, you know, on >> Yeah. >> pattern recognition. And uh, that's why I like the work like podcast podcast and audio work cuz I go, I hope that's being fed into that. Um, but you know what this makes me think of is the I think I'm pronouncing this right or Aurora Boris, it's a snake eating itself in all this. But there's a um, an evolving quality to that, too, if you think about it, like we're fear, tsunami over here, and then oh my gosh, this is panacea, it's helping me. You know, at 50 years old today, it's helping me big time. Like I don't have the energy I had when I was 25 and started my career and all that kind of stuff. But it's it we're we're kind of eating ourselves in that sense, you know, the world Boris is around, just like the up-to-date screen, but I think there's a principle there. We know as technology is, it's like life updates. We evolve and we need to keep with it, or else we will, you know, be left behind. Um, and I I I didn't get to your actual question or thought there, I think, but >> something that's made me think about this is like, you mentioned government, for instance, being slow. There is a part, one part of that, I go, thank I'm thankful for that. That there are mechanisms that will slow some of this down to make it as least disruptive to human experience as possible. Uh, there's many things I don't like about it, but at the same time I go, there's a slow process that, you know, laws, uh, the legal things we talked about earlier, cuz you're in rush to judgment, mistakes can happen. And I think there's a balancing act that happens to that, that I'm hopeful for. For us humans, for sure. >> All right, put you on the hot seat now. I want to talk about this agency partnership, and I've been lucky enough, I think that's the I don't know if that's the right phrase, but I've been lucky enough to be on both sides of the fence, having run an agency and knocked on the doors of hosting companies like, please God, give me business. Like, I've been I've been giving you business, give me business. And then I've been on the other side, uh, when I worked at Pagely as an account executive, and having the agencies come at me and go, please God, give us business. Like, who do you have? We've got a big client that we want to shop with you, but you haven't given me a big client in a while, and then there's like that little tug-of-war in action. So, maybe how how is a hosting.com addressing your, uh, agency partnership program? What does that look like? And as somebody who's also lived, I guess, both sides of the fence like me, like, how are you helping shape that? >> So, as someone who for the past 20 years or so has made his living from agencies and freelancers, building tools and things like that, my heart is there. They're entrepreneurs like you and I, Matt. Um business owners doing good work in our world and everything. So, my heart's there. I themes and then to post house tried to get these things off the ground. Now, hosting.com our CEO Seb came to me and like we just want to blow this up and do something good for the ecosystem that we have. We have 700,000 uh plus customers today. And there's a part where our work ends and then the agency freelancer consultant needs to take over and help clients and there's a bunch of those here. So, we know that happens. We want them as a hosting company to keep renewing their services and their products and things like that and be successful at it. And then we look at the most hosting programs and it's what are you doing for us, the hosting company? And we wanted to blow that up and I finally get the chance to do that and that's our agency success network. So, no exclusive deals. You don't need to move your clients to hosting.com, but we know there's a win-win here or a win-win-win as Michael Scott would say in The Office. And that is our customers have a need. Now, not all of them, but some have a need to have professionals build their presences, help with their programs, and all that kind of thing. Then, our work with agency success community over the past year and plus with A2 Hosting now hosting.com has been providing all the resources we can, tools, training, things like that to agencies. And we've asked little or nothing from them other than give us your email and get into the program, you know, get in, get live streams from Nathan Ingram, and things like that. This is the plus 100 um for us and there's a lot here that needs to happen, but the emphasis is this group needs what this group does. Let's put them together and this is all MVP. This is all starting out for us. So, we'll we'll we'll gauge how it goes along the way, but you know, like me, if I a HVAC, which I did a couple weeks ago, you know, you go to your community and you ask. So, we did that on Facebook for our neighborhood and found a great HVAC service provider. Same thing's there. So, for those that don't have a referral or a good person they can contact to help them build, maintain, launch their web work. Um, we're vetting uh, initially some of those and we want WordPress people to be the first to be there. Um, we know so you and I know so many agencies out there. I just we we want to do what I finally wanted to do is just build that ecosystem where they can win together. And we're just in the we're just there. We're their provider, right? So, the they fill out a quick form, we scan through those, just make sure everything's good to go. Sometimes we want to have questions for that for that, but it's really just to say when they have a need, our team can go, here's our partner directory, and they can see that. We've got um, significant presence in Kenya, India, uh, >> [clears throat] >> US, Europe. We've got customers all over the globe. So, we're trying to find those so they can get connected to each other and it's just a simple referral. We're not trying to replace it like Clutch. You know, Clutch or anything. We're trying to say like, let's put people together, at least give them a little bit of a head start to find something someone good. And for me, selfishly, honestly, it's promoting awesome agency owners. Finally. >> Yeah. >> With no no real strings attached. It's just There's one string, deliver. Do the great job you know you can for the client customer cuz we want them to build and grow. And so, that's the equation we put together. It's very simple fix. No exclusivity, no having to move stuff and all that. And yeah, if they want to join our, uh, affiliate program, things like that, I want you to continue to get rewarded, but it's really that simple premise I tried to do over and over at Post Ast, which was really build our agency community. And now it's just the triple win. >> I know it again, like you said, it's still early days and it's still a little bit of a an MVP or moving target as you build it out, but are you thinking in the early days that the hosting customer must have like a minimum, like you must want to minimally spend $500 and then we connect you with somebody, or are you thinking like, "Hey, if somebody's just asking us to build out a landing page, maybe we hand it over to one of these agencies." >> See, that's a good thought and that's what helps kind of create this. I'm not creating it. We're co-creating it with all the people involved. But no, my thought was no. I mean, there's freelancers or solopreneurs that just want to do a maintenance program or have a whatever they do for their starter basic site, and I think there's customers on this side that have those needs. So, we haven't done that at We haven't done that, but we're we're all open ears to see how that does. I think eventually we're starting with 50 founding partners at least. And so, I'm personally recruiting people as as best I can and then sharing it with our customer base and our social channels and here to get the word out, but um that's going to likely grow. That 50, it's going to be more. And so, then that's a good problem to have for me. Cuz how do we help connect that customer to the right thing they actually need? So, I've thought about, "Okay, here's the basic packages you might offer to kind of slim down that, you know, they don't want to call 10 10 people." You know, they want to get a couple that they go, "Okay, I feel good. I'm going to go with this one because I like that personality, whatever they do, their process and stuff like that." That's our thoughts, but we're open to ears, you know, we're open ears here um about how best to do it. The first one is just connecting people together and then refining that algorithm over time as best we can to match not match, shouldn't say match. Refer and showcase really great providers. And knowing the needs of our customers, that's another part we need to do. We we know some of those things they might want just an launch website type thing to start and roll out their business or their idea. But I think it's going to be all over the map cuz we've got customers all over the map, too. >> Yeah. Yeah, and this may be go back to what I was saying earlier like the if you're an agency walking in the door now like you're going to have to really show the customer that you know their particular market and you can solve you know their problem. So like your HVAC example if somebody has an HVAC website and they're saying you know the site's outdated we need to update it who do you have? You're going to want to pair them up with somebody who's done HVAC websites before, right? I mean somebody might have a dentist website and the dentist websites look great. But they're not going to know the needs and requirements of of somebody who's running an HVAC business per se so >> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> I've done a lot of work with mental health treatment centers and there's nuance to that language just like there is in every industry. So on the form we actually ask like what industry is in all of like let's be honest let's pick three not everybody, right? So let's pick three because some of I think every industry has its own unique needs and jargon and things like that and pairing those with the right agencies that understand that. So we ask about ideal clients and who they serve best what they do best and being honest about that like we're trying to push down like be really honest. If you're a freelancer and you do care plans like none other then just stay there and we can then we can share with their client base. I think by the way you mentioned care plans earlier I think there's a tremendous opportunity there. You know not just maintaining technology but strategy in growing their business looking at themselves like partners which I have throughout my career you know increasingly every year it's just like no I'm in partnership and it's lower case P partners. But I think those agencies and service providers that think of themselves as a partner are the ones that are going to win long term in my humble opinion. >> Yeah. I mean yeah, it's you know, like you and the other thing that you were mentioning too that goes right alongside those care plans is like do is it the fight or flight of of the AI stuff? Like do I lean into this or or do I you know, I steer away from it? And my God, there are I've talked to I have a good contractor who built a shed new shed for me. I just had a new fence put in. Um and like there's so much that that these guys could be doing with AI in terms of like just streamlining the process. Like I asked him about like the measurements and the layouts and like what's the cost and all this stuff and it's like oh yeah, I'll get it to you. I'll get it to you. I was like weeks go by. And I'm just like what is the cost? Where are you putting this stuff? Do you need to come back for the measurements? And I just think to myself, my God, if you guys just leverage a single project in chat GPT and just had the stuff there that simply reminded you to follow up with me and intake like my measurements and like the layout of like where they were plotting the stuff out. Uh you'd be making so much more money and I and there are those folks who will always just be um technology adverse because they are busy running the business which I totally understand. But at some point you get to a size of a business where it's not just you digging the stakes for the fence anymore, building the shed like the two contractors that I hired. You're showing up in a nice brand new Silverado. You don't run the business anymore. I mean you're not you're not building the stuff anymore. You've got people who do the stuff for you. It's time to take advantage of this technology. And um that's where I think we go as as the technologists. Uh you know, we sold websites, but now if you want to lean into it, you can lean into the technology of AI for your customers. WordPress website and intelligence, you know, on the side. Like let me bring that intelligence to you. It could be CRM, it could be a mail platform, but it could be all run by an agent that you curate for them. Um cuz they are never going to touch that, not in the next decade. Uh they'll go down fighting without it for sure, I think. >> I just interviewed a couple weeks ago Brandy Lawson and Fire Effects and she was talking about like old like interior designers. And the high-end luxury ones and basically helped them do one simple thing we've probably been using using for a while now, which is recording meetings. So you have a transcript, summary and everything. But it was important to them in the process for their clients cuz expectations get out of whack and things like that. I mean, that's a very simple way for us to share benefits, help, be the guide, be the experts to your clients. And there's probably a hundred more in that, but like yeah, recording meetings. We do that internally here because we're on different time zones or team spread throughout the world and it's a way to catch up, but also have historical understanding of what's going on in the business. I mean, why not? Those tools are very cheap. And like the HVAC and the different people you're talking about, there's a lot of room for innovation there. Um check out like, you know, with my HVAC quote for instance, for me as a consumer, I can throw those quotes in the chat and ask for thoughts um and things like that. But from a business owner side, yes, like your data's there, your financial data. What are the opportunities? What are the missing points? What am I spending money on that might not just ask those questions, see what comes back. Then it's up to our human discernment to see if that's right or wrong. But yeah, I mean there's everything in few and far between, but I would say for any agency owner or freelancer consultant out there that think of the ways that you use it and it could probably be applied and used and you'd be, you know, lifted up as the hero to just impart some of that knowledge back. Like care plans for instance, Matt. I'm like, why did why do HVAC not have some kind of quarterly care plan? There's something to do, I think. But it's like, I forget to change my filters. I forget to wash out my, you know, air conditioning appliance things, whatever they are outside. You know, I'd rather pay someone and then I know if something breaks and they're checking things. Like there's an opportunity right there for an agency owner to talk to those traditional service companies about ideas. >> Yes. It's accountab- accountability, as like as I like to tell my wife. Uh because [laughter] like, you know, I always hire somebody to do something. I don't do it myself because if it breaks if I did it, then I'm accountable and I don't want to have that conversation. I would rather just pay somebody that I know has has done it right and if it does break, I get to go to them and say, "This is broken, come fix it." >> [laughter] >> And there's that sort of level of accountability. So, uh awesome stuff. Where where can folks go to if they're I know I know it's a pilot program right now. You've you're inviting people, but where can they go to apply if they're an agency or freelancer to the partnership? Love for WP Minute community to go to hosting.com/agency. There's a form right there. hosting.com/agency Take 3 to 5 minutes. Be honest. Be in-depth if you could. Really, you know, what you do best, who you do it for. And that's it. Then it goes into our team and when I say by team, I mean Katie and I reviewing those. We may ask some questions. Um for a lot of people that we know, it's going to be a fast and easy one and we want to promote you and put you in front of our customers. And I want to say at the beginning I didn't get to said, "Say, you said sponsor hosting.com." Proud sponsor. I'm I'm very proud that we're sponsoring the WP Minute cuz you and I go way back and we talk about this. We got to support the media, the communities out there like WP Minute being a standard-bearer for us. And so, I'm proud that we finally got that done. >> [laughter] >> Yes, they I am a I am a happy recipient of that sponsorship and hosting.com is a proud sponsor. So, Corey, thanks for hanging out today. hosting.com/agency, hosting.com/agency, fill it out. Freelancer agency and then you'll hear back from the team. Corey, thanks for hanging out today. >> Thanks, Matt., The Agency Model Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving., [MISSING], 01m1y14r0q0a8ma6yxmg1g9kf7.