Episode 165 – A Chat With Lesley Sim  ## Metadata - Author: [[Hallway Chats]] - Full Title: Episode 165 – A Chat With Lesley Sim - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/331198b0-b54c-43ee-8adb-a6f5163f1cba ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **WordPress For Newsletters Advantage** - Using WordPress to publish newsletters integrates familiar publishing strategies like SEO and membership restrictions. - This method simplifies newsletter creation by making it similar to writing blog posts. Transcript: Speaker 1 Your newsletter archive on your site. So, you know, that means it benefits from SEO. If you have a membership site, you can restrict the newsletter content and so on and so forth. So basically all the publishing strategies that you're using for your articles, you can now apply to your newsletter. ([Time 0:04:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/487068eb-7234-4752-ac95-c8430e697c10)) - **Freediving Instructor Experience** - Lesley became a freediving instructor and loved teaching because it was rewarding to change students' lives. - She found the teaching aspect more rewarding than the freediving itself. Transcript: Speaker 1 Did a hard left and went and became a freediving instructor for a while. Speaker 2 Oh, wow. Cool. Speaker 1 Yeah. That was really, really fun. And like one of my favorite things about that was kind of was actually the teaching and less of the actual freediving because it was really cool because like you do these short three or Five day courses with students and blowing their mind every time. And so, yeah, like just getting to be a part of changing someone's life. ([Time 0:06:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1cd713d8-aa15-490d-8c64-812fabf8d7b1)) - **Pivoting From Membership to Newsletter** - Lesley and her co-founder started with a membership plugin but pivoted to a newsletter plugin after discovering a bigger market opportunity. - They learned from early mistakes by focusing more on marketing and customer research in their new approach. Transcript: Speaker 2 So we, we actually, so my co-founder and I. Speaker 1 Met on the India hackers job forum. He was looking for a co-founder. And at the time he had built membership plugin. Because his background. Was in membership plugin to us the lead developer and ultimate member and you know, having gone through all of that. He was like, okay, I'm going to come up by myself and try to build. A membership plugin that was better than what was out there. And then he quickly ran into all the typical developer found up. Excuse me. He typically, he ran, he quickly ran into all the typical developer founder problems, which is, you know, Oh crap, like developments only have the work. There's all this. And then he got to do and, you know, I didn't do any of the customer research at the start. I didn't build up any excitement around the launch, all that kind of stuff. And so that's where I came about. And I tried to do that. And we both did quickly realize that there's a lot more to marketing or a lot more to membership plugins than we expected. So the membership plugin. I guess like competition or areas already really saturated the lots of good plugins there and trying to convince somebody to move from a plugin there are that's already good and very Heavily featured to a new plugin that's, you know, not as stable. Fewer features was really difficult. Even if we tell them that like, oh yeah, it's a lot newer has like more modern features. It's still kind of not enough of a push to get them to even try it out. So it really stuck. And we were planning on closing the plugin down, but during the process of kind of building, building it out and marketing it, we built an add on a milkshame add on that sent that post as Newsletters. And I wasn't said about closing the membership plugin down because it never kind of got traction, but I was said about the add on because I was using the add on for my own newsletter. I realized like, you know, I was said about it because there wasn't an obvious substitute that I could use. In contrast, you know, there's so many obvious substitutes for membership plugins. And that kind of like that realization, you know, I thought like, okay, if I was set to lose the plugin or that add on, you know, there's probably lots of other people who are looking for Something exactly like that. And so we pivoted and we kind of made that add on into a full blown plugin. And we learned from our mistakes and we did everything different from the one so I built in public, you know, spent a lot of time on Twitter and Slack channels getting to know people. Building a community, all of that kind of stuff and like doing lots more customer research and interviews at the beginning to really get to know customers and what they wanted. And yeah, so like there was so much more traction from day one and it was much more fun and it wasn't a struggle. Trying to even get people to try the plugin. And that's beautiful. Yeah, the rest is history. And how long has it been? Speaker 2 We started in 2020. ([Time 0:07:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a891ad39-9280-4c0d-88f4-2684e9df43d4)) - **Twitter Growth Strategy** - To grow on Twitter, follow many WordPress people and engage actively in conversations. - Fill your feed with relevant users and reply to build connections and community. Transcript: Speaker 1 I didn't do any of that stuff. And then, you know, learn from my mistakes and starting to enjoy. So what I did basically was just put in WordPress into the search and then just follow everybody, like literally like hundreds of people and start into that. Yeah. I feel like for anyone starting with 50 or less followers on Twitter, like that's kind of the best way to get started because you want to fill your Twitter feed with WordPress people. And then you just start replying to them and making friends. ([Time 0:11:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fe004cf6-8bfb-42f5-a0c2-244a66b11a71)) - **Hidden Shellfish in Singapore Food** - Many Singaporean dishes use shrimp paste as a flavoring, which can cause hidden shellfish allergies. - Being aware of these hidden ingredients is important for visitors with allergies. Transcript: Speaker 1 As well. Yeah. If you went through those, I'll kind of point you in the direction and then ask you how it was asked. So I am crazy allergic to shellfish. How much trouble am I going to be in if I come visit? Speaker 2 I think it'd be okay. Speaker 1 I think it'd be similar to Bangkok, which we were all at. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 And I did all right in Bangkok, but somebody concernedly told me that they actually put shrimp paste in nearly everything. It's a flavoring. Oh. And I didn't know that and it didn't bother me. So I remember I had shrimp paste. I'm guessing it's more just actual shrimp that's going to get me. But it's those hidden things that now I'm starting to think about more. I used to think, well, just on a trip, but I'm fine. Well, now it's a secret that sneak it in on me. ([Time 0:20:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6f92f5cf-0543-451b-8ab7-c3ba241ce950)) - **WordCamp Asia Experience** - Lesley enjoyed WordCamp Asia, especially meeting online contacts in person and experiencing the organized event. - She appreciated the onsite and Slack support, and the variety and quality of food available. Transcript: Speaker 1 Oh, that I was I was so sad. But yes, I was there and it was fantastic. And that actually, yes, we did. We do. They actually is into one of our questions. What did you think of the first and first word camp Asia? Did you have like some top moments in just your thoughts in general? You were an organizer, right? Speaker 2 I had so much fun. No, I wasn't. I was an entity. Speaker 1 So they gave me like a staff badge and I was really worried people would ask me about like, you know, where things were. And I was like, don't ask me anything. Yeah. Speaker 2 So, yeah, I had such a good time. Speaker 1 One of the highlights for me was meeting people, you know, in person that I had only ever talked with online. And yeah, just like hanging out and, you know, for example, like, I got to meet James. I'm not sure how pronounce his last name. And we got to talk about K trauma as a whole, like, you're all James. Yes. Oh, well, I wish that you were in that conversation to an issue that you know, like three of us would have been able to geek out of that. Yeah. So, like, just like that was really, really fun. And the location was great. Like, I could say I was so nice and so big. And, you know, anytime you wanted a break from the conference itself, it was, you know, just walk around the mall and you can distract yourself with a hundred different things. Which is really fun. And that like, that food thing in the basement was awesome. Oh, so good. Yeah. I didn't get to eat there. I wanted to do so much. I ate enough for both of us. It was really cool. I don't like it. They got in there most of the time. ([Time 0:21:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4553c94e-1d64-493e-9b75-9930dbce09b0))