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  • Reflecting on CloudFest

    Jonathan Wold avatar
    Jonathan Wold
    Reflecting on CloudFest

    Last month was my second time at CloudFest and, outside of WordCamps, attending CloudFest has become my go-to recommendation for product companies wanting to grow in the WordPress ecosystem. In reflecting on my experience at CloudFest and the value for product companies, a few observations stand out.

    The Growing Presence of WordPress

    Last year at CloudFest I gave a keynote on WordPress and there was a growing sense of WordPress’ presence throughout the event, including references in talks and panels. This year, WordPress’ presence grew significantly.

    CloudFest started with a hackathon on Sunday, which highlighted WordPress related projects. On Monday, we kicked off the main event with “WordPress Day”, a packed 4+ hours of keynotes, interviews, and panels. I started with an overview of the WordPress ecosystem (a huge thanks to Tammie Lister for her work on the slides!) and later had a “fireside chat” with Ben Gabler of Rocket.net, followed by a panel on WordPress security. CloudFest was also a great opportunity to talk publicly about the past year of work leading up to our launch of Guildenberg.

    Jonathan Wold speaking at CloudFest
    Yours truly, talking about WordPress. Credit CloudFest.

    WordPress as a topic then continued on throughout the event with panels and talks, including an interview with Josepha Haden Chomphosy on the relationship between Automattic and WordPress.

    CloudFest USA is coming up next in May and the theme for the entire event is “Taking WordPress to Scale”. WordPress’ presence is growing well.

    Opportunities for Product Companies

    Working closely with hosting providers as distribution partners is one of the best opportunities available for product companies wanting to grow in the WordPress ecosystem. CloudFest is the best place to meet hosting providers and for the many product founders I had the chance to connect with throughout the event they affirmed the same.

    Three particularly types of opportunities stand out to me:

    1. Perspective – I’ve been involved in the hosting industry at various levels for a long time. Walking the floor at CloudFest last year, though, gave me a whole new perspective on the size and scale of the industry and its interdependence. I got to meet companies I’d never heard of that I now see as key parts of the Open Web that we love. For a product company investing in WordPress and building on the Open Web, attending and connecting at CloudFest offers invaluable perspective on a world much wider than you probably realize.
    2. Presence – WordPress is a vast, decentralized ecosystem in an even larger Open Web and it’s easy to remain unhelpfully unknown. Being at CloudFest offers you a unique, business-oriented opportunity to introduce yourself to others and begin cultivating your own sense of presence within the ecosystem. WordCamps are an essential way to do the same, it’s just a very different type of experience. CloudFest is a great place to be present.
    3. Partnerships – I’ve been happy to see more and more product companies forming partnerships with hosting providers and CloudFest is proving to be a great place to support making that happen. I observed and helped facilitate conversations throughout the event focused on identifying opportunities with mutual wins for all involved and figuring out how to work together. While successful partnerships often take significant time to start and grow, CloudFest presents an opportunity to accelerate progress and I’ve been happy to see product companies making the most of it.

    The Future of WordPress Events

    Fresh from WordCamp Asia and now CloudFest, I’ve been thinking more about the future of WordPress events. WordCamps are an essential part of the community and broader ecosystem of WordPress and I’m excited about the work Angela Jin has been doing to lead the evolution of the Global Sponsorship Program, which reflects the growth we’re seeing in community-lead events.

    We’re also seeing a need for more business-oriented events in the WordPress space and while I expect to see CloudFest cement itself as a key event in our ecosystem, there remains opportunity to focus on the needs of the tens of thousands of product companies that focus on WordPress.

    My hope is that WordCamps themselves evolve to meet more of the needs of our ecosystem and I’m confident in the direction that Josepha, Angela, and the rest of the .org team are leading. I’d also love to see more experimentation with events in the space and more collaboration broadly. Josh and Sally Strebel’s periodic forays with Pressnomics were great and the gap left since the last event in 2019 remains unfilled.

    Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to CloudFest USA in May and then WordCamp Europe in June. If those events aren’t already on your radar, make it happen and let’s connect in person. Until then!

    ,

  • Founder Interview Series

    Jonathan Wold avatar
    Jonathan Wold
    Founder Interview Series

    One of the highlights of the past year has been the many conversations we’ve had the privilege of having with product founders across the WordPress ecosystem. While common threads often emerged from one story to the next, each story was unique and I found myself wanting to know more.

    Another highlight have been the opportunities we’ve had to connect founders with each other to share their stories and open the doors to collaborating.

    Starting in Q2, we’re going to be recording and publishing a series of interviews, sharing the stories of product founders across the ecosystem.

    We have a great backlog of founders ready to go and we’re looking for more! Interested in sharing your story or know someone you’d like us to interview? Reach out and let us know.

  • Hello, WordPress!

    Jonathan Wold avatar
    Jonathan Wold
    Hello, WordPress!

    It’s been quite a year, and years in the making. Matt Fields, Anna Maria Radu, and I began meeting regularly just over a year ago to explore what we could do to support product founders in the WordPress ecosystem.

    Our conversations picked up pace and expanded to include hundreds of product founders, partners, and investors as we explored, expanded, refined, clarified, and tested strategies for growing WordPress-focused product companies.

    Coming out of WordCamp Europe last year, we’d explored enough to have confidence we were heading the right direction. In conversation after conversation with product founders, three challenges kept showing up:

    1. Misaligned Monetization – Founders struggle with monetizing businesses in the WordPress ecosystem. From pricing to business models, many are copying others and misaligning incentives with their customers and potential partners.
    2. Inexperienced Leadership – Many product founders started out as engineers and struggle with the wide range of skills and experience needed to grow a successful product company.
    3. Limited Distribution – We came across product after product that we consider unnecessarily well-hidden gems, solving problems for their audiences the majority of whom unfortunately just don’t know the product exists.

    The first two challenges are solvable on an individual level. We worked closely with founders, assessing their businesses, creating strategies, and offering guidance focused on helping them grow.

    The distribution problem, though, kept us asking questions and exploring. How could we help product founders find and connect with their audiences? How could we help them do so in a way that aligned their interests with other product founders and with the hosting providers that serve their audience?

    It was going to take more than conversations.

    Going into WordCamp US 2022, we’d made our decision. We’d take the sum of our conversations, our thinking, our learning, our shared desire for impact, and consolidate our efforts with our product founders, partners, investors, advisors, and growing team into a new organization: Guildenberg.

    Like most things meaningful and particularly in the WordPress ecosystem, it’s taken a lot of time to get here and a lot of effort. It’s flowed, though. We’re not coming up with something new here and the problems are well accepted. The challenge, thus far, has been gathering a group of people with aligned interests to do something about it.

    With WordCamp Asia 2023 now behind us and CloudFest coming next week it’s time to expand our efforts further and step into this year’s work and our first offering: the Guildenberg Accelerator.

    Starting in Q2, Guildenberg will open its doors to a community of product founders to work together, along with our growing list of distribution partners, to connect with and create value for their audiences across the WordPress ecosystem.

    Interested in being a part of the Accelerator? Apply today. Want to join us as a team member, advisor, or investor? Talk to us.