Noel Tock, Ukraine, Enterprise and the Future of WordPress  ## Metadata - Author: [[KrautPress Podcast]] - Full Title: Noel Tock, Ukraine, Enterprise and the Future of WordPress - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c8571b88-20b8-4eed-8d1f-b1fb6245fd8b ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **WordPress As A Humanitarian Force** - Noel Tock frames WordPress as a humanitarian force multiplier that empowers people with limited resources. - He urges the community to remember open source's first principles as a foundation for future work. Transcript: Noel Tock So WordPress has been around for a while. And we've gotten used to a certain level of conversation, greetings, what we do in community, what we do in events, what we talk about. You know, there's probably a balance of what percent of conversations are developer related or presentations that are developer rated, even somewhere like here that kind of become The norm from year to year. We're known for WordPress and certain verticals of the industries and we're good at certain company sizes. There's just a lot of like, I don't want to say like stagnation is not the word, but like a maturity, right? We've kind of found our place in the world as WordPress. And sure, we always come out with new things and that's great. But some of that maturity is also how we consider the project. And for me, because I do humanitarian work in a place where everything is critical in one way or another, you get to see how important of a role different open source software plays. Be it WordPress, be it Signal, be it Tor, OpenStreetMaps, whatever that may be. There are open tools that empower people to do things even when they have nothing. And that I think is a very powerful frame that we as a community should be reminded of. I didn't go up there to remind people and say, do more, do this or do that. I actually went up there to essentially say thank you. Thank you to the community for building something that is so vital. ([Time 0:00:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fef8a603-4027-413a-abac-55a84441f737)) - **Contribute From Purpose, Not Pressure** - Encourage proactive contribution by following personal purpose rather than mandates from others. - Focus on niches that match your motivations and you'll likely persist until you've tried. Transcript: Simon Kraft How can we drive that forward in a meaningful way? Yeah, that's a good question. Noel Tock I think it's not a reactive thing. It's not us saying, hey, we need to drive this forward more. I think that feeling is why many of us are here in the first place, which was a proactive, hey, I kind of want to go check this out. Hey, I'll contribute. I know I'm not gonna get anything back. You know, Petya had a great talk where she spoke about WordPress in Bulgaria, the impact that has had. And she was someone who said, hey, I'm just going to translate WordPress to Bulgarian. That is a proactive, a feeling, a drive, a desire for purpose. I can't force anyone to have that. Many people just do it themselves because at least I believe that most of humanity wants to do well. So naturally, when we have a conference with 2,000 people, there's a lot of people that want to do good and create good things. And sure, communities can go up and down with different issues and whatever it may be, but that's a constant factor. But ultimately it comes down to the individual's drive. It's not something I can tell you, you should commit more, you should contribute more. That's, it brings nothing. When someone feels it inside of them to do something for something specific inside of a project like WordPress, be it contributing open data sets, open 3D designs, whatever it may be, Then they feel a niche that they have to scratch. ([Time 0:03:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9bfd3495-ec72-4e9f-a66c-bf48b7bb8f7e)) - **From Animal Shelters To Ukraine Rescue** - Noel describes his path from animal charity web help to frontline rescue work in Ukraine and how purpose drove him there. - A friend invited him to help with dog rescues and he left immediately after deciding "why not." Transcript: Simon Kraft Is that scratching an itch also what made you do the work you do today, like being in Ukraine, working in some, from what I see online, very, very risky looking rescue missions? Noel Tock Yeah, everything is purpose. I don't do anything in my life that I don't want to do. And for me, there's a beautiful connection from WordPress to frontline evacuations and humanitarian work I do to anything else that is deeply interconnected to this feels good, this Feels right. This is the right thing for me to do. I've been fortunate that I've had good jobs in the past and then was able to create my own little theme shop or whatever. And that gave me a lot of confidence, right? When those first like $99 came in on PayPal at 24 minutes past midnight, I thought, I was like, wow, I am a free man, you know? And at some point, you know, you build a business and you do other things and that gives you a lot of confidence to just act on the feelings you have about things and yeah at some point you Know when you're in a place like ukraine you also meet people who don't have as much freedom and you feel a responsibility towards these people because they're not just people anymore They may be your friends they may be your neighbors your community I don't really believe in it. I have no connection to Ukraine. But to me, I have a connection to people because borders don't necessarily define me. I feel much more connected on a global level than, you know, having to have a reason to go do something. How did you going to Ukraine came to be in the first place i'd say there's a couple early like building blocks of my life where let's go to the oldest one i've been working with animal charities Or humane societies for 17 years 18 years or so very very very extremely part-time helping with websites and things like that but just you know at least getting a feel for it. Then with 27, I'm 43 now. With 27, I said, I'm going to have my own business by the time I'm 30. And I'm going to work in NGOs or, you know, have like a big kind of contribution to NGOs when I'm 40. So it's a sense of urgency around life. Because I've come from humane societies, which are dog shelters or animal shelters. You realize there's a lot of crazy people, right? Like they're just nuts. They have no idea of fundraising, admin, or any of that stuff. And that's okay because they're incredible with animals. The passion is incredible. So dogs bleeding out on the side of the street, you know, they jump out of the car, they'll take their t-shirt off, cover the animal, you know, like try their best. And you always want passionate operational people like that. And I knew that at the same time, there's been a lot of good advice of, you know, first do some business, then get into charity work. And I'm happy I did that because I feel like I bring like a different facet to that. I'm able to compliment extremely passionate people or dog experts, right? So two of the people I work with, Pavel and Sveta, are both multiple national champions of hunting with dogs. So gun dogs, so, you know, shoot a bird or whatever, and then the dog gets it and all that kind of stuff, which is quite popular in East Ukraine. So I think Pavel's won 19 championships in Ukraine, which is probably more than everybody else combined. And Sveta has done show dogs and a bunch of other things. She's also trained search and rescue dogs. So you understand, like, they are, in some ways, they are crazy dog people. And I was, you know, hoping to bring that facet to it, which I think I did. You know, I brought a lot of stability around marketing and strategy and how do we set these things up? How do we do things? But at some point, you're driving through a place like Volchansk and explosions going off and you also realize you're the crazy person too. So it's been a long way around. To answer your question now very directly about how did I actually get into Ukraine as opposed to this sort of backbone to everything. A friend called me up and asked me if I could help. Did your friend call and be like, hey, could you be on the next train to Ukraine? And he's like, hey, I'm doing rescue of dogs in Ukraine. He said you should come. And I'm like, okay, I'll come as soon as my hip surgeries are done. I was supposed to have hip surgeries, then got new images. They said, actually, the muscles around your hips look good and I already had like an Airbnb booked and stuff which is really silly and I just I walked out of the doctor's office I was three Meters away from the doctor's office and I called him I said I'm coming where are you now you know I think a lot of life is people ask themselves too much the question why why should I do this Why that why that the point is I think the more important question with a lot of things is why not it's much easier to answer the question, why not? ([Time 0:05:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a2023c16-6913-4bf9-bcdc-4f3231783176)) - **First $99 Sale Fueled Bold Choices** - Noel recounts early wins like his first theme shop sale that gave him confidence to act on risky purpose-driven choices. - He also describes meeting passionate Ukrainian dog handlers and complementing their operational skills with his stability. Transcript: Noel Tock Then with 27, I'm 43 now. With 27, I said, I'm going to have my own business by the time I'm 30. And I'm going to work in NGOs or, you know, have like a big kind of contribution to NGOs when I'm 40. So it's a sense of urgency around life. Because I've come from humane societies, which are dog shelters or animal shelters. You realize there's a lot of crazy people, right? Like they're just nuts. They have no idea of fundraising, admin, or any of that stuff. And that's okay because they're incredible with animals. The passion is incredible. So dogs bleeding out on the side of the street, you know, they jump out of the car, they'll take their t-shirt off, cover the animal, you know, like try their best. And you always want passionate operational people like that. And I knew that at the same time, there's been a lot of good advice of, you know, first do some business, then get into charity work. And I'm happy I did that because I feel like I bring like a different facet to that. I'm able to compliment extremely passionate people or dog experts, right? So two of the people I work with, Pavel and Sveta, are both multiple national champions of hunting with dogs. So gun dogs, so, you know, shoot a bird or whatever, and then the dog gets it and all that kind of stuff, which is quite popular in East Ukraine. So I think Pavel's won 19 championships in Ukraine, which is probably more than everybody else combined. And Sveta has done show dogs and a bunch of other things. She's also trained search and rescue dogs. So you understand, like, they are, in some ways, they are crazy dog people. And I was, you know, hoping to bring that facet to it, which I think I did. You know, I brought a lot of stability around marketing and strategy and how do we set these things up? How do we do things? But at some point, you're driving through a place like Volchansk and explosions going off and you also realize you're the crazy person too. So it's been a long way around. ([Time 0:07:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/000da29d-26bc-42f0-bb5f-5abee4b4a769)) - **Ping-Pong Between Enterprise And Purpose** - Noel balances enterprise WordPress work with humanitarian projects and sees that interplay as a source of new ideas. - He treats WordPress as both a scalable enterprise tool and a playful, purpose-driven platform. Transcript: Noel Tock And so WordPress, I started off in a different place with WordPress, you know, like being, you know, the person who created the first meetup group in Switzerland, becoming a co-founder Of WordCamp Europe. I've led two of the Swiss WordCamps, a lot of community stuff of just like, hey, let's bring people together. Now I feel like I'm trying to transition more into the purpose of WordPress for what it means for people who don't know WordPress or not part of WordPress, but they are part of trying to Solve real problems in the world. And it's great that I can balance that with having an agency whereby we do enterprise WordPress, we run things at scale, we have big ideas, we're ambitious about things. And it means that we have a bit of a ping pong between, you know, enterprise, and then the sort of open source contribution, humanitarian side of WordPress, and being able to be playful Like that, between these different areas of WordPress always keeps things vibrant, interesting. New ideas always come to be. ([Time 0:10:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c337b9d0-c571-401f-9ec0-7b6370737216)) - **Peak Interest, Not Peak Share** - WordPress's peak public interest passed when competing website builders emerged and product marketing lagged. - Large market share is a lagging indicator and doesn't guarantee future growth without reinvention. Transcript: Noel Tock Thank you. And that's changed a lot. And that's obviously led to the sort of stagnation of WordPress growth. But at the same time, we are 43% of domains on the open web. Let's go... Yes, the lyrics on that is a big one. It's a big one. Like to me, that number is a lagging indicator anyway. It's not representative of any kind of future success, but it is a very large number. And you have to ask at some point, like where does saturation kind of occur? And I think I predicted peak WordPress had already passed when I did Belgrade. And that was true because I think 15, 16 was our peak in terms of consumer interest. Simon Kraft Not necessarily market share, but that was... Noel Tock Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was a market share. No, no, no, no. But it was peak WordPress in terms of just the interest. That growth curve and a gradient wasn't there. Wouldn't you have loved to be wrong on that prediction? I mean, that would have been crazy. I don't know what that would have meant for us. It feels like the software would have had to be fundamentally different. ([Time 0:12:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eabeec10-dcd1-458c-999b-1fc0343bc770)) - **Invest In Professional Marketing** - Professionalize WordPress marketing with dedicated teams, budgets, and KPIs to regain consistent messaging. - Coordinate enterprise agencies to present a unified product marketing story for enterprise customers. Transcript: Noel Tock Not being there really so the foundation or automatic or whatever doesn't have a professionalized marketing team that has a annual budget has kpis to deliver against which this project Should probably have given its size. So, you know, in some ways, that's why on the enterprise side, we created the scale consortium. And that's a handful of WordPress enterprise agencies trying to come together to tell a more consistent and succinct enterprise WordPress message. So we're trying to bring our product marketing together to have a bit of an enterprise product marketing facet, whatever you want to call it. ([Time 0:14:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/847a7591-c055-4934-954f-8ab5f5a96700)) - **Niche Competition Demands Specialization** - Every vertical now has specialized competitors with tight positioning, making broad WordPress messaging ineffective. - Success requires niche specialization by vertical and geography rather than one-size-fits-all claims. Transcript: Noel Tock And that makes it very hard for people like us in enterprise where your brand and the perception you have in the industry is very important. That's also the same place where we got the statements or quotes such as, no one ever got fired for hiring IBM. Right? And that's a big enterprise kind of thing. So perception is important. That's true. What's the biggest competitor for WordPress in the enterprise segment? I feel like we've seen some splitting. There was probably a time when it was AEM, Adobe Experience Manager. And obviously, Adobe Experience Manager is now part of a larger suite, which is Adobe Experience Cloud. So you have the personalization, advertising, media assets, it creates quite a comprehensive suite. And the products that took that all-in suite approach were known as DXPs, digital experience platforms. And that was a thing, you know, five, six years ago and never really took off because at some point, also because of the drive of COVID and the increase of just so many online tools, funding And everything, we started getting lots of small good products and being able to put together your constellation of small good products became more of a composable stack as opposed To the all-in suite. ([Time 0:15:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d677875b-0007-4b7f-a0d1-077f3854d3e6)) - **DXPs Give Way To Composable Stacks** - The DXP all-in-suite model faded as composable stacks and many focused products gained traction. - Open source and many small tools (e.g., Next.js) now power custom sites, including many Ukrainian charities. Transcript: Noel Tock So we see fragmentation in many ways where people could have a large CMS or they make it like a large CMS could be like.CMS or WordPress or Sitecore or something like that. And then a small CMS could be more like a headless one like Sanity, which is beloved by developers, but still, you know, a bit of a challenge to be at that enterprise kind of scale because It lacks some of the features, let's say WordPress has. So there's a fragmented landscape, but ultimately it will come down to Adobe Acquia, which is in front of Drupal, Sitecore to a certain extent, and then Optimizely, which was previously The A-B testing software, but acquired EpiServer, which was an old CMS, which was quite popular in the Nordics and the European region. So yeah, it's a diverse landscape that again, you know, back to my other comment, like which vertical are you in? Which geography are you in? That has a larger impact. You know, what was WordPress's biggest competitor in the US in 2007? Do you know? No idea. I would probably say Joomla. Simon Kraft Was Joomla big in the US? Noel Tock At the time, I think so. What was the biggest competitor of WordPress at the same time in Switzerland? I don't know. If Switzerland is anything like Germany, it was probably something like Type 3. Exactly. Completely different geographies. And I mean, that was a time when there was like three CMSs in the world. So we already had, you already saw the break, just the diversification at this point and you can just multiply that by a thousand today dxps never really took off yeah you still believe In altus though we don't call it a dxp i mean not anymore no no no we did we think that the needs behind a dxp are valid in terms of what people are trying to achieve and yeah we try to go down That route of that all-in suite, but like a light version, like DXP light, I guess, you know, the WordPress version, because we also have personalization, A-B testing and things like That. And also wanted to create a larger ecosystem around CDPs and integrating with CDPs or CRMs. Yeah, it came quickly, left quicker. I think that's probably the way to look at it, again, because of how I described the composable sort of push and the amount of innovation that was happening there. And open source is a big part of that. When we look at Next.js and everything, we're talking about thousands of open source tools, which is fascinating. ([Time 0:16:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f724dd61-50c2-4a2d-ab63-4882d91d2677))