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The Pagely Podcast

The Pagely Podcast

By Pagely

We interview pillars of the Business of WordPress space, luminaries from peripherally-related technologies and accomplished domain experts who can help teach you powerful ideas to get ahead in business and in life.
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Ep 19: Andy Wibbels. On product positioning, marketing and winning a book deal from having his blog

The Pagely PodcastJan 04, 2020

00:00
46:06
Ep 23: Craig Martin. On tuning high-traffic WP sites, creating one of the first Travel podcasts & growing an all-remote consulting business

Ep 23: Craig Martin. On tuning high-traffic WP sites, creating one of the first Travel podcasts & growing an all-remote consulting business

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-23-craig-martin/

Craig Martin of Performance Foundry is one of the most long-standing partners of Pagely having helped to resolve performance bottlenecks and tune high-traffic WordPress sites. In this conversation Sean interviews Craig about what's involved in diagnosing performance issues and resolving performance scaling issues, Craig's long history of nomadic travel and how he's built his company to be location-independent, how he won the Lonely Planet award for Travel Podcasts and more. Enjoy! 

Feb 03, 202001:11:32
Ep 22: Katie Hess. Turning a passion into a thriving business and bringing flower power to the world

Ep 22: Katie Hess. Turning a passion into a thriving business and bringing flower power to the world

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-22-katie-hess/

Katie Hess converted her fascination with the healing power of flower essences into a robust business that employs an all-female team of ten women across three countries. They are bringing transformational experiences to the masses via in-person events, online educational programs and by selling physical flower essences products. In this interview Sean interviews Katie on her entrepreneurial journey having had no previous business experience prior to starting her company, stories of transformations she's enabled, the benefits of mindfulness training, the meaning of travel and where Katie is taking her business next. Enjoy!

Jan 27, 202054:21
Ep 21: Drew Olanoff. The miracle of stem cells, lethal flying scooters and 76ers fandom

Ep 21: Drew Olanoff. The miracle of stem cells, lethal flying scooters and 76ers fandom

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-21-drew-olanoff/

Drew Olanoff got his start in computers at a young age moderating BBS's. He was offered an internship for America Online and thus began a long and illustrious career working at companies like Yahoo!, TechCrunch, NextWeb and more. In this interview Joshua interviews Drew on his journey in tech, winning his bout with cancer through the miracle of stem cell technology, the barometer of the VC industry in Silicon Valley, a thought experiment on universal 20% time devoted to solving societal issues, bone marrow registries and more. Enjoy! 

Jan 20, 202001:00:50
Ep 20: Rahul Bansal. Optimizing your company's culture around Mission, Values and Vision

Ep 20: Rahul Bansal. Optimizing your company's culture around Mission, Values and Vision

For links, show notes, transcription, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-20-rahul-bansal

Rahul Bansal has built RTcamp from scratch to be a hugely successful WP dev agency. We were honored to have him speak this year at PressNomics 6 on the lessons learned from growing his organization. In this conversation Sean interviews Rahul about the pillars of a solid company culture, how to implement them in one's own company and Rahul's lessons from growing his dev agency. Enjoy!  

Jan 16, 202001:10:11
Ep 19: Andy Wibbels. On product positioning, marketing and winning a book deal from having his blog

Ep 19: Andy Wibbels. On product positioning, marketing and winning a book deal from having his blog

For video, links, transcript, show notes and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-19-andy-wibbels/  

Andy Wibbels was one of the first people to land a book deal from having a popular, early blog. He's been in tech marketing and product since the early dotcom days and has strong opinions on how compelling story telling should be conducted to drive consumer demand. In this conversation Joshua and Andy discuss some of Andy's key learnings in the realm of brand positioning, the evolution of San Francisco as a place to live and the political landscape in America today. Enjoy.

Jan 04, 202046:06
Ep 18: Francisco Dao. Crashing trucks in Peru and launching a caffeinated energy bar

Ep 18: Francisco Dao. Crashing trucks in Peru and launching a caffeinated energy bar

For links, show notes, transcript, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-18-francisco-dao/  Francisco Dao has served as a columnist for Inc.com, founded an exclusive adventure sports retreat company for entrepreneurs, served as COO for an AI-focused incubator and is currently bringing a caffeinated energy/nutrition bar to market. In this interview Joshua interviews Francisco on his entrepreneurial journey, the underbelly of the self-help market and his current challenge founding a consumer product goods company. They also talk about vehicular carnage in the deserts of Peru and sailing the British Virgin Islands. Enjoy this spicy episode.

Dec 14, 201901:06:48
Ep 17: Carl Alexander. Self-publishing a book that made $11k in its first week and becoming a public speaker

Ep 17: Carl Alexander. Self-publishing a book that made $11k in its first week and becoming a public speaker

For links, show notes, transcript, video and more visit: pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-17-carl-alexander/
Carl Alexander found himself in a quarter-life crisis bouncing between software jobs unfulfilled and not sure how he would sustain his career for another forty years through to retirement. He transitioned into a freelance career and self-published a book to teach the basics of object oriented programming for WordPress and had over $11k in sales in his first week. He's since become a public speaker and is focusing on honing a craft which he could have never foreseen enjoying. Hear about his journey and the lessons he's learned along the way.
Dec 03, 201959:10
Ep 16: Dave Amirault. From humble beginnings to developing an award-winning ad campaign for a major ski resort

Ep 16: Dave Amirault. From humble beginnings to developing an award-winning ad campaign for a major ski resort

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-16-dave-amirault/

From humble beginnings on the east coast riding back mountains & tinkering with perl scripts to winning an Adweek award for his ingenious "one-star" ad campaign, Digidave Amirault is a marketing wizard. In this interview Joshua talks to Dave about his humble beginnings hand-coding HTML sites, to making a marketing a name for himself at multiple ski resorts, the development and success of his famous "one star" ad campaign, what it's like hob-nobbing with celebrities and a look to the future. Enjoy! 

Nov 25, 201954:32
Ep 15: Morten Rand-Hendriksen. On ethics in design & technology and the case for WordPress governance

Ep 15: Morten Rand-Hendriksen. On ethics in design & technology and the case for WordPress governance

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-15-morten-rand-hendriksen/

Morten Rand-Hendriksen has made it his mission to help people understand and get the most out of the web, and contribute to the debates about ownership and democratization of information, design philosophy, and the open web. His 60+ published courses on WordPress, front end web design and development, and web standards on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of viewers from all over the world. 

In this conversation Sean interviews Morten on the ethics of Open Source, our responsibility to the greater tech design community for having a seat at the table for conversations in government which have implications for WordPress and Open Source in general. Also covered: Morten shares a swing dancing catastrophic dance move, what he's advocating for in the WordPress community and beyond and some of his favorite musical and literary influences. Enjoy! 

Nov 16, 201901:24:50
Ep 14: Gregg Scoresby. On building the #1 fastest growing software company in Arizona

Ep 14: Gregg Scoresby. On building the #1 fastest growing software company in Arizona

For links, show notes, transcript, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-14-gregg-scoresby/

CampusLogic's mission is to help schools change lives by driving increased access, informed borrowing and improved completion of student loans. Gregg has helmed the CampusLogic ship to becoming Arizona's fastest growing software company with quadruple-digit annual percentage growth. In this interview Joshua talks to Gregg about their track record for abnormally high diversity in their workplace, the journey of building Arizona's fastest-growing software company, the sensibility of taking a loan for a college degree, challenges around raising capital, scaling operations and more. Enjoy! 

Nov 11, 201952:54
Ep 13: Jon Bickerton. Ten years of corporate tax expertise distilled into one hour

Ep 13: Jon Bickerton. Ten years of corporate tax expertise distilled into one hour

For links, show notes, transcript, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-13-jon-bickerton/

Jon Bickerton is a proactive CPA specializing in corporate tax, research & development tax credit studies and cost segregation studies. His talk for PressNomics 6 covers the the major traps to avoid and opportunities on which to capitalize in corporate tax matters. In this episode we discuss strategies to avoid getting audited, common mis-steps that lead to audits, what you need to know in the event you are audited, capitalizing on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, R&D tax credits, cost segregation studies for accelerating depreciation and other strategies for wealth preservation. 

Nov 04, 201955:39
Ep 12: Gregarious Narain. Customer empathy, fatherhood and prioritizing work/life balance

Ep 12: Gregarious Narain. Customer empathy, fatherhood and prioritizing work/life balance

For transcript, show notes, links, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-12-gregarious-narain/

Gregarious Narain has been involved in fourteen different startups over the course of his career. He was the VP of Product at Klout and his last one "Chute" was a YCombinator company and recently was acquired. In this interview Josh and and Greg talk about how entrepreneurs can better strike that balance of focused work life and family life, what entrepreneurs can do to emphasize fitness, how to achieve better customer empathy but also realize you're not the customer, Gregarious' current hustle "Founder Craft" and his next venture in the works: "Fanabulous." Enjoy! 

Oct 28, 201941:41
Ep 11: Brad Williams. Hiring for cultural fit and growing a 40-person web agency

Ep 11: Brad Williams. Hiring for cultural fit and growing a 40-person web agency

For show notes, transcript, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-11-brad-williams/

Brad Williams is founder and CEO of one of the more respected WordPress agencies, WebDev Studios. They work with clients like Microsoft, Viacom, Campbell Soup Company, Starbucks and the NBA. In this interview Matt and Brad talk about their ten-year journey growing a 40-person company, how they retain the in-person feel as a fully remote, distributed company, trends Brad has seen in the evolving WordPress space, the reception of Gutenberg amongst his clients and more. Enjoy! 

Oct 21, 201938:48
Ep 10: Devin Walker. Finding a market niche and creating a powerful donation platform for WordPress

Ep 10: Devin Walker. Finding a market niche and creating a powerful donation platform for WordPress

For links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-10-devin-walker/

Devin Walker is the creator of several highly-rated and award-winning software products with his company Impress.org. Their flagship product, GiveWP, is in it's fifth year and has secured its position in the nonprofit sector as a powerful WordPress-based platform for handling donations. 

In this interview Josh and Devin talk through his journey creating his company, challenges they overcame in the early days, pricing strategies, handling issues that arise from having employees based in many different States, balancing product stickiness with vendor lock-in, eating humble pie and crushing it on the golf course. If you have a question for Devin leave a comment below. Enjoy!

Oct 14, 201955:06
Ep 9: Mike Roberts. Bootstrapping an idea from scratch into a multi-million dollar per year company and sculpting the landscape of search marketing

Ep 9: Mike Roberts. Bootstrapping an idea from scratch into a multi-million dollar per year company and sculpting the landscape of search marketing

For transcript, links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-9-mike-roberts

Mike Roberts started SpyFu back in 2005 and has managed to grow it to become a healthy, profitable, entirely-bootstrapped company having never taken investment. This has given him a lot of freedom in terms of how he runs things and latitude to maintain a course with the business that closely aligns with his values. In this interview (of which Mike’s side is conducted from his beach house in Oceanside, California) we discuss points from Mike’s talk at PressNomics 6 on what staying bootstrapped affords you, advice for early-stage companies intending to not raise capital, some gangster veteran tips about how to handle your ISP when your internet goes down and the finer points of Segway jousting (pun intended). Enjoy!

Oct 10, 201901:11:45
Ep 8: Chris Brogan. Personalization, automation & branding: retrofitting humans for the modern digital world

Ep 8: Chris Brogan. Personalization, automation & branding: retrofitting humans for the modern digital world

For transcript, links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-8-chris-brogan/

Chris Brogan has spoken for or consulted with the biggest brands you know including Disney, Coke, Google, GM, Microsoft, Coldwell Banker, Titleist, Scotts, Humana Health, Cisco, Sony USA, and many more. He’s appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, interviewed Richard Branson for a cover story for Success magazine, and once even presented to a Princess. 

In this interview Matt Medeiros interviews Chris on the changing landscape of running a business in this modern age and what the average person can do to adapt, stake out their niche and remain relevant. This interview covers topics of personalization, automation, branding, email list segmentation, podcasting, chatbots, experimentation mindset, video games and more. 

Oct 06, 201947:01
Ep 7: Brooke Siem. Challenging the pharmaceutical complex on long-term antidepressant prescriptions

Ep 7: Brooke Siem. Challenging the pharmaceutical complex on long-term antidepressant prescriptions

For links, transcript, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-7-brooke-siem

After a traumatic event in childhood Brooke Siem spent the next half of her life on antidepressants. Upon turning thirty she committed to weaning herself off the medication and began a long climb out of the fog back to a world she describes of "complexity & intensity with all its details and noise.

In this interview we dig into Brooke's journey getting off antidepressants, the pharma industrial complex, her time on Remote Year and her experience winning the show "Chopped" on national TV. If you have a question for Brooke leave a comment below. 

Oct 03, 201901:02:50
Ep 6: Brian Dean. SEO legend explains the basics and how he went from zero to $10k MRR in four months

Ep 6: Brian Dean. SEO legend explains the basics and how he went from zero to $10k MRR in four months

For transcript, links, video, show notes and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-6-brian-dean/

Brian Dean is one of the foremost experts on Search Engine Optimization.  His site Backlinko.com gets over 200k monthly unique visitors and he's been dubbed by Entreprneur.com as "an SEO genius." In today's episode Brian shares his process for analyzing a site, what he knows about the Google Rankbrain algorithm, featured snippets, FAQ schema, content pruning, his advanced "ghost post" technique and a boatload of tools for dialing in your SEO. Visit the link above if you have a question for Brian. 

Sep 28, 201901:01:17
Ep 5: Chris Lema. Pricing strategies, parenting and pushing entrepreneurs out of their comfort zone

Ep 5: Chris Lema. Pricing strategies, parenting and pushing entrepreneurs out of their comfort zone

For transcript, links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-5-chris-lema/

When it comes to B2B SaaS companies Chris has been around the block more than a few times. He's performed various roles ranging from product development, strategy & software engineering for Liquid Web, Crowd Favorite, Emphasys, AutoTradeCenter, Integranova, QuantumShift, ICE Wireless, Pagoda and Berkeley Lab. In today's episode Josh and Chris talk about pricing strategies, dark patterns in pricing presentation, parenting advice when it comes to digital devices, lessons from coaching entrepreneurs at various startup stages, the role of timing in the success of startups, overcoming impostor syndrome and more. Enjoy!  

Sep 22, 201954:06
Ep 4: Hiten Shah. Building FYI, Crazy Egg, Kiss Metrics and advising 120+ startups

Ep 4: Hiten Shah. Building FYI, Crazy Egg, Kiss Metrics and advising 120+ startups

For transcript, links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-4-hiten-shah/

Hiten Shah is a pillar of the startup ecosystem having founded and run a handful of successful companies himself and having advised over 120 different startups. Hiten is incredibly generous with his time teaching valuable lessons to help startup founders advance their respective causes. I had the opportunity to sit down with Hiten for a full hour and talk through: 

- His latest Remote Work Report
- His process for advising startups
- Lessons from his own past startups
- Product-market fit
- His approach to KPI's and analytics
- His Product Tradeoffs series
- What he's up to now with FYI

Enjoy! 

Sep 15, 201901:00:04
Ep 3: Tessa Kriesel. Teaching under-represented minorities to code

Ep 3: Tessa Kriesel. Teaching under-represented minorities to code

For transcript, links, show notes, video and more visit: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-3-tessa-kriesel/

Tessa Kriesel is the Community Manager for CircleCI and founder of Outspoken Women and Coders of TMRW. She wears many hats but the consistent theme of her work is empowering under-represented minorities to learn to code and transition into rewarding & high-paying careers. 

In this interview Tessa shares her public speaking experience, how she copes with impostor syndrome, a beautiful "where are they now" story of a former student now gainfully employed as a React Developer, her experience chairing the speaking selection committee for WCUS, the criteria they used to balance diversity with content and more. Enjoy! 

Sep 10, 201950:02
Ep 2: Brian Krogsgard. Building the leading WordPress news & community site while raising 2 kids

Ep 2: Brian Krogsgard. Building the leading WordPress news & community site while raising 2 kids

Find video, transcripts, links, show notes and more here: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-2-brian-krogsgard/

Today Josh Strebel interviews Brian Krogsgard, founder of Post Status. Post Status provides top tier industry analysis, an excellent community chat for WordPress professionals, a high quality WordPress job board, exclusive deals for subscribers, and more. Their goal is to cater to people that know and love WordPress so they can do what they do better and more informed.

In today's episode Josh and Brian discuss the state of the WordPress space, trends they're seeing developing into the coming years, the role of peripherally related tools and frameworks like Gatsby and Laravel, how things will change if the economy goes into recession and what Brian sees as being the major opportunity for how people can capitalize on domain expertise in the realm of WordPress. 

Sep 09, 201955:26
Ep 1: Jake Goldman and Zach Brown of 10up. How to manage remote employees and serve major brands like ESPN, Microsoft, TechCrunch & Google

Ep 1: Jake Goldman and Zach Brown of 10up. How to manage remote employees and serve major brands like ESPN, Microsoft, TechCrunch & Google

Find transcript, show notes, links, video and more for this episode here: https://pagely.com/podcast/episodes/ep-1-jake-goldman-and-zach-brown-of-10up/

Today we have Jake Goldman and Zach Brown of 10up.  Jake is President, owner and founder of 10up and Zach is their Director of Systems Engineering.  10up is a company that makes the Internet better with consultative creative & engineering services, innovative tools, and dependable products that take the pain out of content creation and management. Founded in February 2011, 10up has grown to more than 180 full time employees, with an impressive roster of clients such as ESPN, Microsoft, TechCrunch, Google, New York Times, Walmart, Time inc ,and Conde Nast. 

In this episode we discuss the origin story of 10up, how they've attracted the upper echelon of brands as clients, the process of launching their first products, the role of AI & machine learning in the WordPress space and their vision of where WordPress is headed. Enjoy! 

Aug 30, 201901:01:53