Matt Report

In this episode, I take a step back and reflect on what it means to support WordPress professionals in today’s fast-evolving landscape. We've seen the definition of a “WordPress professional” shift significantly since the Gutenberg days. Technology has moved forward, and many of us are finding our roles stretched across WordPress, AI, and other no-code and low-code platforms. The WP Minute is also shifting with that momentum—becoming a broader support network for freelancers, agencies, and builders trying to find their next step.

This episode unpacks one recurring pain point I’ve been hearing from folks in the tre...

In this conversation, Matt discusses the evolving landscape of content creation, particularly in the context of AI's growing influence. He emphasizes the importance of personal branding and building trust over time, while exploring how AI can both compete with and complement human content creators. The discussion delves into the quality of AI-generated content, the necessity for human interaction, and strategies for freelancers and agency owners to navigate the challenges posed by AI in the content space.

Takeaways

In this solo episode of the Matt Report, I explore a concept that’s as exciting as it is frustrating: innovation. I reflect on my experience with Podcasting 2.0—a grassroots, open source movement that parallels WordPress.org in spirit—and how it's slowly reshaping podcast RSS feeds with new, standardized tags. While the tech is minimal, the impact is massive. Apple's and Spotify’s recent adoption of the tag is proof that slow, open source innovation can lead to real change—eventually.

That momentum brings me to a pressing question for the WordPress community: where is our innovation...

In this off-the-cuff response episode, I react to a pointed comment left on a recent YouTube live stream I hosted with Mark Z. Mansky. The topic? AI and its role in the WordPress ecosystem—something I think about a lot both at Gravity Forms and through the work I do with The WP Minute. The commenter, frustrated by AI's use of "stolen" code and content, challenged the moral and ethical implications of using AI in development and creative work. So, I took a beat to respond—not as a definitive authority, but as someone also trying to navigate this shif...

In this episode, I'm addressing the ongoing discussion about AI's impact on jobs, businesses, and particularly, those of us deeply involved in web and content creation. It's easy to get swept up in the fear that AI will soon replace all of our roles—whether you're building websites, editing videos, or crafting copy. But I think it's crucial not to leap to extremes. AI isn't something that's going away quietly, but nor will it completely eliminate the human factor, at least not in the immediate future.

The heart of my advice revolves around human connection. Rather than pa...

In this solo episode, I ask a critical question for WordPress agency owners and freelancers: where do you stand with AI? Are you ignoring it, dabbling with it, or going all in and restructuring your agency around it? It’s time to figure out what kind of role this technology plays in your day-to-day work and how it might shape your future.

I compare today’s AI shift to the 2008 financial crisis that helped fuel the rise of WordPress agencies. Back then, budget-conscious clients and evolving CMS features gave WordPress a clear advantage. Today, the same kind of s...

In this episode, I’m laying out the foundation for a new initiative I’m calling The Thriving Project. It’s a simple, community-driven effort to refocus the conversation around why WordPress matters—especially in this era of AI hype and increasing web complexity. This isn't a top-down campaign. There’s no committee. It’s just us, the WordPress community, creating and sharing authentic content that answers a powerful question: Why WordPress?

Whether you’re a developer, marketer, agency owner, or solo creator, I’m encouraging you to take a moment over the next 90 days to write a blog...

In this episode, I unpack Joost de Valk’s recent post on ProgressPlanner.com, where he describes the “two faces of WordPress”: the community-driven contributors and the commercially-driven businesses. While I largely agree with his premise that there's a widening gap between the two, I think there’s more nuance that needs to be acknowledged—especially for those of us who’ve been working at the intersection of both worlds for over a decade.

The article calls for companies to support the WordPress community with not just money, but time, code, and visibility. And I’m all for that. But...

If you’ve ever said “I suck at marketing” or felt like you just don’t have what it takes to get your business out there, you’re definitely not alone. In this episode, I dig into why so many of us (myself included) feel overwhelmed by marketing and think we’re just not cut out for it. The truth is, marketing can feel like an endless checklist: blog posts, podcasts, newsletters, YouTube, webinars, speaking gigs—the list goes on. But here’s the thing: you don’t need to do it all at once, or even at all. The most important...

In this episode of The Matt Report, I fire up the mic after years of dormancy to explore a timely rabbit hole: how AI platforms like ChatGPT are surfacing and ranking content—especially in response to queries like “best WordPress podcasts.” I noticed that The Matt Report still shows up in these AI-generated lists, despite not publishing new episodes for quite a while. It’s both flattering and puzzling, especially when my current work at The WP Minute doesn’t always get the same visibility.

This got me reflecting on the intersection of personal branding, content strategy...

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Been a while right?!

I’m back with an update to what’s going on with Matt Report, and a potential new direction I’ll be taking the content through the new year. While I love all of the deep conversations I’ve had about WordPress, the new home for that is The WP Minute.

That’s where I’ve been focusing all of my WP energy these days, with lots more fun stuff to come.

I also wanted to take an opportunity to share one of my favorite episodes ever, with Jose Ca...

Heading to a major WordCamp event can be an overwhelming experience for the brand new 'camper.

Having hundred if not thousands of WordPress-loving peers under one roof might have you stuck in your tracks, no pun intended. How do you meet new people? How do you get noticed? How do you recharge if you're an introvert?

Thanks to Gina, we'll learn about all of that and more! If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media, especially if you're headed to WordCamp US 2022 this week!

Important links

Web accessibility was something I was afraid to discuss with clients, when I ran my agency.

I didn't know much about it, where to begin, or how much time it would it take to implement the various practices. That fear steered me away from presenting it as part of a web design project.

I'm not in the agency space anymore, but I know there's some of you out there faced with the same dilemma. Lucky for us, folks like Anne Bovelett advocate for both sides of the cause.

Important links

I forget that some WordPress users, even freelancers, don't realize the sheer size of WordPress.

From billion dollar hosting companies, to boutique agencies, WordPress is quite vast. It took Yaw a few years to even realize that Automattic, the commercial entity behind WordPress, even existed!

We'll explore his story today, starting out as a freelancer and now working for VIP at Automattic.

Important links

Marc Benzakein shares a retrospective on running ServerPress for a decade in the WordPress space.

We unpack the history on discovering the beloved software development tool and partnering with Steve Carnam, alongside Gregg Franklin.

What makes this WordPress business so challenging from others? What held back some of the development and getting ahead of the market? The answer might surprise you!

Important links

Just because you're an introvert doesn't mean you can't build a business. It doesn't mean you're afraid to get on stage and talk about your success -- or failures.

Ken Elliott knows this role all too well. He's a self-described "networking introvert" that built a WordPress agency with his co-founder, will be emceeing WordCamp US next month, and appeared on this podcast!

We dove deep into how he built his agency, lessons learned from servicing clients, and what steps he's taking to grow the business through 2022.

If you enjoy today's show, please share...

What if you locked yourself in a room and threw away the key to work on your business?

Stop the Slacking, the doom scrolling, but forced to focus on the agenda of improving...everything.

That's exactly what Kim Coleman, co-founder Paid Memberships Pro & Sitewide Sales, did to re-focus the Sitewide Sales business. Running a business of 2 core products, 14+ employees, and with her husband...it was time to "get away."

If you enjoy today's episode, please share it on social media!

Links

Kim Coleman on Twitter

Paid Memberships...

Corey is no stranger to building product. In part one, we chatted about his legacy of products, and selling his WordPress plugin. Today, we'll be back chatting about what goes into making great products.

Important links

I'm chatting with Corey Maas, former owner of the Kanban for WordPress plugin.

After a few years back in the saddle of day jobbing, he's now running Social Link Pages plugin for WordPress. He also spent some time during the pandemic launching a new online game -- built on WordPress.

Come learn what it's like to sell your plugin business and venture back into a day job...and then back again.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider buying me a virtual coffee or joining the membership.

In today's episode, I want to chat about the current vibe in WordPress.

Compare and contrast the community vibe, to the business vibe. Porto looked like a ton of fun, sad I missed it! The WP Minute showed up in a big way, so I'm really thankful for that.

Plus! I couldn't hold off from ranting about the WordPress content space...again.

Say THANK YOU to InMotion hosting for sponsoring the podcast. Support the show by purchasing us a digital coffee or joining the annual membership!

Links mentioned

https...

Rachel Winchester is challenging us to think about WordPress as a canvas for art.

WordPress as a paint brush, not an NFT.

In this episode we uncover how she found WordPress and bringing those skills to her day job at DigitalCube. As a loyal Elementor builder, what does Rachel think about Gutenberg and FSE? Tune in to find out!

Find Rachel on Twitter https://twitter.com/VisualWebmaster

Rachel's Website https://www.visualwebmaster.com/

DigitalCube https://en.digitalcube.jp/

Subscribe https://mattreport.com/subscribe

Buy me...

The most common piece of advice I think WordPress freelancers receive first is to "find your niche."

Easier said than done. Niches are still hard to find. Crowded markets together with figuring out what you're best at providing to customers can be a challenge.

What if that niche involves web sustainability? That's not a crowded space -- right now.

You, a developer, literally saving the planet by coding efficient web applications and optimizing WordPress?! Sounds like a great opportunity to me!

That is just a slice of what Hannah Smith does...

Today's guest, Ines van Dijk, is helping WordPress product owners get better at customer support.

With over a decade of experience in the WordPress customer support space with WooCommerce and Automattic, Ines knows what it takes to run a successful support team.

You can hire her team to help build you a complete plan for supporting users or download some ready-made templates for responding to customers.

If you enjoy today's episode please share it on social media and consider supporting the show by buying us a digital coffee.

There's an entire industry built on selling you the Holy Grail of raising your rates.

Courses, memberships, ebooks, videos all assuring you that $10,000 projects are just a click away. Why wouldn't you believe them? They're on the gram throwing hundred dollar bills off a boat or speeding away in a Lambo.

To be fair, I haven't seen a Lambo video in some time, but the one that gets me the most now is holding up an iPhone in selfie mode with AirPods and a cleverly placed whiteboard in the background.

How about grit...

There's a new cohort of WordPress celebrity hitting the spotlight these days and I'm here for it.

When we look back in the Gutenberg history books we'll be able to show that blocks, patterns, and javascript not only rocked the code of the project, but the community as well.

Some immediately dropped out, other stayed, and new stars appeared. Born out of the ashes of WordPress old, rising like a Phoenix came our new celebrity (hero?): Aurooba Ahmed!

Okay, okay, I know I'm going really heavy with that one.

She doesn't...

What does the word entrepreneur mean anymore? To you?

I think there’s that slightly jaded view of the TechCrunch Disrupt vision of days gone by. Building a unicorn. Changing the world. Buying that Porsche you always wanted. It’s about the endgame we so cleverly convince ourselves of.

However, some of the best business builders are doing it because they are naive. Wait. Naive? Hold that thought: not in a bad way, but in the way I am guilty of and maybe even you are too.

We set out not knowing that the...

From Expression Engine to WordPress, Rob Howard has built his WordPress agency as a flagship for larger agencies to source work to.

Unqualified customers are the biggest threat to the early days of building a business. Also known as bad product fit, when we're offering something to the wrong customer, the whole relationship is setting off on the wrong foot.

When you're offering your WordPress work to a customer that already gets it, in this case, other agencies, so much more can go right rather than wrong.

We'll explore building an agency, hiring...

What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly?

We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg

What's the side effect from WordPress changing so rapidly?

We're dragging blocks, inserting patterns, and visually building our themes these days. There's been great discussion spurred around themes, where Matt Mullenweg wants 5,000 new themes in the directory while WP Minute Producers like Daniel Schutzsmith and Spencer Forman say we only need one.

Even if we split the difference and built 2,500...

When you hear the phrase high performance WordPress websites, what examples come to mind?

This is a phrase that I see a lot of companies using in their marketing, which includes Malcare, today’s guest and sponsor of this show.

Products and services targeting the type of buyer that might be managing a high traffic site like a Buzzfeed or a large WooCommerce store, like, well I can’t think of one right now. High traffic or highly functional equals high performance?

My vote goes to high value.

I know it’s not...

Hey listener, before we get started, if you’d like to support WordPress community member Andrey Savchenko or anyone else currently in the Ukraine, please donate here or here. (read his original tweet https://twitter.com/Rarst/status/1497516263597387782)

I can comfortably admit that I didn’t see Artificial Intelligence as the next big thing for WordPress in 2022.

The march to Gutenberg and FSE adoption across the product landscape is sure to reveal new opportunities to be introduced to our favorite low-code software. AI, however, wasn’t even close to what I was expecting to be the ne...

If you found your way to this episode from my newsletter, thanks for taking part in one of the areas I lack most in: emailing my list.

If you’re like me, stuck in a proverbial hamster wheel of self-doubt & content creation, today’s episode is for you. In fact, if it weren’t for today’s guests, I would have never got back into pressing send in MailerLite. (A recent switch from MailChimp, because I have a bad feeling about the Inuit acquisition.)

If you need a boost of confidence or a programmatic way to warm...

The house that WordPress built…or will build.

It can be challenging for new WordPress freelancers to get started in this industry. You have to find the right tools, the right customers, get paid and…actually build the websites! Is there a right path to take?

Meet Terry Carter, Manager at Newfold Digital WordPress Live & Blue Sky teams. Terry is also a WordPress freelancer who kick started his side hustle after winning a web design contest at a previous company.

Terry joins us to share his experience with supporting WordPress & WooCommerce users at his...

I’ve known today’s guest before I even ventured into the professional WordPress industry.

In fact, it wasn’t his themes that revolutionized my thinking, it was the checkout process. Brian Gardner launched a theme company using a payment portal and delivery tool called e-junkie.

I just checked, they still exist, they were the Gumroad before Web 3.0 was even a thought in Web 2.0’s mind. I couldn’t believe it. Someone could zip up WordPress code, put it on a website, set a price, and someone could buy it?!

I wanted to do the sam...

Welcome back to the Matt Report, where we continue our special 2-part series with Josepha Haden Chomposy.

If you haven’t listened to the previous episode, I suggest you go back and learn what the WordPress Executive Director does on a day to to day basis.

Today, we’ll be exploring some meatier topics that come up in the community like contributor compensation and Five for the Future. If you didn’t already know, Josepha leads a podcast of her own. We’ll find out why Matt Mullenweg nudged her into that journey.

Thanks t...

If you’re like me, you know Josepha Haden Chomposy is the Director for WordPress the open source project in title, but you probably don’t know what she does on a day to day basis.

Or that she’s part of the Open Source Group Division inside of Automattic. Something I always knew, but once framed that way in discussion, was more interesting to hear.

I was lucky enough to chat with Josepha for nearly an hour, so I’m breaking up the conversation in two parts. Today, part 1, we’ll cover the logistics of her rol...

WordPress news is hard. I mean, it’s hard to turn it into a real business.

I get away with covering WordPress here on the Matt Report because our guests share lessons on how they built their business or spend time telling us how they navigated the community, until they found their way.

But news? Well, that’s why The WP Tavern has been the only name in town for a while, loaded with two critical components: A dedicated staff and they are funded.

If you want to make it, you do things diff...

I typically open up my monologue with setting some tension or to attempt to provoke how a grand idea might come together in the upcoming audio.

I don’t have that today.

What I have is a young entrepreneur that impressed me with his story, branding, and how he’s approaching the business of…college movers. I know you normally tune in for the SaaS powered wins or the WordPress unicorns, but trust me when I tell you, Sam Chason, founder of Storage Scholars, is bringing the heat.

I’ll admit, his story was so g...

A tricky part about all of this stuff we do in business and online is to not let the work consume you.

I know people say that your work is not your worth, and I get it, but it’s really hard for me to disconnect from that. To show the world what you’ve built and put it into the hands of your super fans. To punch up as the underdog and prove to the Goliath that you can win in this arena too.

It’s addictive, it’s fulfilling, it’s enriching for us and hop...

“Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in” a famous line from Godfather Part III and a recurring theme I’ve noticed for those of who have used WordPress for a while.

No matter how much we might moan about the shortcomings of WordPress, it’s still pretty darn powerful. The core of WordPress is getting better, read: Gutenberg and Full Site Editing. Some sharp edges, yes, but software is software — it will iterate into something great.

Maybe you left WordPress a few years ago because of Gutenberg, but I bet you second g...