Micah Rowland isn’t your everyday builder. He doesn’t build homes, cabinets, or even software. As COO of Fountain, Micah builds people, teams, and processes. He offers a wealth of advice on building and scaling teams, and the importance of documentation. But what we talk about isn't just applicable to building teams - it's applicable to anyone building a business that will eventually scale. Show Notes Micah Rowland Fountain Episode 54: The GiveWP Team Sponsored by: Gusto | Ahoy! | Pantheon ———— ...
Oct 15, 2019•50 min•Season 1Ep. 142
Brian is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Due to his firm belief that data recovery shouldn't be a prohibitively expensive service, Brian founded Gillware, where he and his team specialize in cyber risk assessments, data recovery, and incident response. Today we spoke about his journey in business growth, as well as how to protect yourself from hackers, providing actionable tips that you can put into practice today! Show Notes Brian Gill Gillware 2FA | 2FA plugins for Word...
Oct 08, 2019•50 min•Season 1Ep. 141
I had the pleasure of speaking to Tim Campos, former CIO of Facebook and founder of Woven - a calendar that actually accounts for your life and your free time. We talk about his experience at Facebook and how it lead him to the idea of creating Woven, stats on how people spending their time and schedule meetings, and more. If you want some incredible insight into how people manage their time, this episode is for you. But first, a word from our sponsors. Show Notes Tim Campos email: tim@woven.com...
Oct 01, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 140
Recently Pat Flynn talked about the “new, hot marketing tool” that isn’t new but is often forgotten: email. Well today’s guest, Ajay Goel, has built a business around the fact that there are lots of people who haven’t forgotten it, and for the scores of people who are remembering its importance. Ajay buil GMass, a gmail extension that allows you to send marketing campaigns right in the interface we all know and love. We get to talk marketing, development, and much more, so stay tuned! Show Notes...
Sep 24, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 139
That was Josh Garofalo and let me tell you: I loved this conversation. He’s a marketer and research and we dig deep into the latter. He tells us how important it is to do your research when you’re writing copy for you website. You want to solve your customers problems, and there are a few ways Josh talks about to help us communicate that. Show Notes Josh Gorofalo Sway Copy Branding and Positioning for Store Builders Checklist Manifesto Hotjar Dealing with Problem Clients Tom's Planner Hubspot Re...
Sep 17, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 138
Adrian Tobey is a young, energetic entrepreneur who’s build a pretty cool WordPress plugin in Groundhogg - something to help with yout marketing automation. On top of creating the plugin we talk quite a bit about college and higher education. He talks fast and offers some great advice so be sure to pay close attention (or slow the episode down!) Adrian Tobey Groundhogg Infusionsoft Formlift WordPress plugin WooCommerce Subscriptions Easy Digital Downloads Elementor Sponsored by: Cloudways | Ahoy...
Sep 10, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 137
Tracy Rotton is a longtime friend of mine from the WordPress space - we met because we happened to be writing similar books around the same time! Well, Tracy has gone on to do some very cool things - one of which is leaning a WordPress development team for the Federal Government - specifically to completely redesign state.gov - the State Department's website. We talk about lots of stuff, from the actual development, to working for such a huge organization, and how to handle working with differen...
Sep 03, 2019•48 min•Season 1Ep. 136
Podcast Movement is a giant podcast conference and expo where 3,000 attendees come from all over the world to talk podcasting. It’s 4 days of events, talks, and networking opportunities. If you’re never, been, I recommend it. I had a few goals going into the conference, and as a result I had some pretty fantastic, and related takeaways. Let's get into my 5 biggest takeaways from Podcast Movement. Show Notes Podcast Liftoff Workbook Podcast Movement Patreon Patt Flynn (SPI) Superfans Bonjoro One ...
Aug 27, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 135
Gordon Stannis, like last week’s guest, Colin , helped create a smart lighting system. But where Colin wanted to improve our homes, Gordon wanted to improve our experience in parking garaging. This is a super interesting conversation where we cover both hardware and software, mesh networks, and much more. Show Notes Gordon Stannis Twisthink Lutron I want to tell you about a new resource I have for podcasters called Podcast Liftoff. I’m coming fresh off of Podcast Movement 2019 and lots of folks ...
Aug 20, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 134
Colin Billings has built something that I’m incredibly interested in generally: hardware that contributes to home automation. He built Orro, the first truly responsive lighting system, out of his own frustration with lighting’s adverse impact on his wellness and sleep. Now the Orro Switch adds the computational power of an iPhone XR inside the walls of a home. It detects your presence in a room and adjusts the lighting automatically to bring out the most natural light, reducing artificial light ...
Aug 13, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 133
Jessica Hall is the VP of product strategy and design at 3Pillar Global, and today we are going to talk about something that made a bunch of news a couple of months ago - the Accenture/Hertz case, where Hertz paid a bunch of money (like $32M) and got nothing. With some time since the story broke, we sit back and look at how this happened, and Jessica tells you how it can be avoided. Jessica Hall 3Pillar Global Accenture/Hertz Case How to Avoid a $32 Million Flop Agile Manifesto 101 Videos Landin...
Aug 06, 2019•51 min•Season 1Ep. 132
Alex McClafferty has a wealth of business experience to share with us this week. Not only did he build a successful business within the WordPress space - WP Curve - he ended up selling it to GoDaddy. That experience showed him that the number of resources for selling your business were scarce, and now he’s doing that - completely embracing the “teach what you know” mentality. Show Notes Alex McClafferty Productize.co WP Curve Flippa Disney buys Marvel Apple buys Lala Microsoft sunsets Sunrise Sp...
Jul 30, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 131
Over the last 2 weeks, we discussed mental and physical health as it relates to freelancing and self-employment. To round out this trilogy of overall happiness in your career, I’m talking to Kirsten Bunch, who is a reinvention coach. She helps those folks who are mid-career but need a change. She offers some fantastic advice on how to determine if you’re ready for a chance, and the steps you should talk in order to figure out what to do for your next career move. Show Notes Kirsten Bunch | Chang...
Jul 23, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 130
Michelle Schulp is a fantastic web designer in the WordPress space - you make have seen her work on the WP Hierarch chart. Recently she’s launched a new initiative talking about fitness and freelancing. Last week we touched a bit on mental health. This week we’re going to dive into physical health, especially when running your own business. Show Notes Michelle Schulp Marktime Media Fitness & Freelance Wholly Obsessed: Whole30, 80 Day Obsession, Progress, and Perfection 10 practical habits to...
Jul 16, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 129
Allie Nimmons is a freelance web designer with an unique perspective to my own. She made the transition to freelancing after losing her job, but still needing to make money. We talk about what that’s like, as well as how she’s be able to hone her offerings based on what her target customers need. We also talk about mental health, and what it’s like to be black, and female, in a white male-dominated space. Since recording this, Allie has been hired to work at GiveWP , providing tech support to us...
Jul 09, 2019•58 min•Season 1Ep. 128
We got lots of great advice over the course of Season 6. Over the course of about 10 minutes, we're going to distill all of that advice into 3 overarching themes. Take a listen to find out what they are. Here are the best trade secrets of 2019. Show Notes Sponsor the Show Subscribe to How I Built It! Nathalie Lussier and AccessAlly Mike McDerment and FreshBooks Andre Gagnon and ProjectHuddle Laura Elizabeth and Design Academy Brennan Dunn and RightMessage Brad Touesnard and SpinupWP ———— Streaml...
Jun 24, 2019•9 min
It takes the right combination of bioscience knowledge, marketing intelligence, lead generation strategies, operational insight, product R&D expertise, and personal drive to fuel the business development of any life science firm. For almost 2 decades, Susan Goebel has been leveraging these core trails to deliver multi-million-dollar revenue generating initiatives with global reach. Now Susan has turned her focus to supporting others in their ventures into bioscience businesses. From helping ...
Jun 11, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Patrick Campbell was curious about how people price products, and how pricing affects conversion - so he built ProfitWell. We discussed pricing, estimating time, tech stack, and so much more. His insights into how to price are fantastic. Show Notes Patrick Campbell | Twitter ProfitWell | ProfitWell Report Django Atticus Sponsored by: Castos | Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamlined Solopreneur is the podcast for solopreneurs who want to automate their business and take time off worry-free. Each week, ...
Jun 04, 2019•45 min•Season 1Ep. 126
Jan Löffler is the CTO of Plesk, which is fantastic server management software. They're rapidly growing set of sophisticated tools is inspiring., In this episode we'll talk all about the history of Plesk, as well as what it's like to manage software that powers hundreds of thousands of websites. Show Notes Jan Löffler Plesk Interview videos Cloudfest Hackathon Hover DNS Course Sponsored by: Weglot | Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamlined Solopreneur is the podcast for solopreneurs who want to automat...
May 28, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Jay Gibb is the founder and CEO of CloudSponge - a B2B SaaS company that sells an address book widget. We talked about growing an audience, research good opportunities for building a product, and Jay gives some fantastic advice for cold outreach. Show Notes Jay Gibb CloudSponge BuddyPress Invite Anyone Quora Sponsored by: Castos | Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamlined Solopreneur is the podcast for solopreneurs who want to automate their business and take time off worry-free. Each week, Joe Casabona...
May 21, 2019•54 min•Season 1Ep. 124
If you've ever wondered what goes into creating a fantastic affiliate program, Lindsey Miller from Liquid Web has the answers for you, starting with one simple rule: your affiliates are partners. We talk about lots of stuff like content creation and working with your partners to help them help you. We also discuss how to come up with rates. Don't miss this episode! Show Notes Lindsey Miller | Twitter Liquid Web's Managed WooCommerce Hosting Episode 4: Cory Miller and iThemes iThemes This is Mark...
May 14, 2019•53 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Brad Touesnard is a well known developer in the WordPress community, and CEO and Founder of Delicious Brains, a company that makes fantastic WordPress products. You might know them best from WP Migrate DB Pro, but they do lots more! Brad tells us all about their new product, SpinupWP, why they decided to solve this problem, and lots of other great advice for both business and development. Show Notes Brad Touesnard Delicious Brains SpinupWP Kim Gjerstad and MailPoet Connected Curtis McHale's iOS ...
May 07, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 122
Mihran Papazian is the CEO of Brushette, a company that plans to revolutionize...toothbrushes! In a rare episode, we cover what it's like creating a physical product, from the deep research they did, to visiting over 1,000 factories in China to find the right manufacturing partner. Mihran's experience and deep knowledge means there's lots of great takeaways here - no matter what you plan to make. Mihran Papazian Brushette Prodental Brad Dowdy and Nock Co. Check out my podcasting course Sponsored...
Apr 30, 2019•42 min•Season 1Ep. 121
James Kemp is the founder and lead developer of Iconic, a popular WooCommerce extension shop. James has managed to do well in an increasingly saturated space. His approach to solving problems and determining if there's a market for his new ideas is an interesting one. He offers lots of great advice on everything from research to development, and launching. James Kemp Iconic Freemius Vova Feldman and Freemius The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained (CGP Grey...
Apr 23, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Stephanie Scapa is the Co-Founder and CEO of WEYV, a platform that aims to compete with Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon. They have a unique business model to help them do it! We discuss running a large-scale project, what deep product research looks like, and how they came up with the pricing plan. Stephanie Scapa WEYV Altair Amplitude Joe's Podcast Course Sponsored by: Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamlined Solopreneur is the podcast for solopreneurs who want to automate their business and take tim...
Apr 16, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 119
Yuriy Popov is the Customer Success Manager at KeepSolid, where they make a suite of apps. The most popular is VPN Unlimited. We dive deep into how KeepSolid pivoted to focus on where they saw the industry going, from the Snowden revelations to the continued support for better online privacy. We also talk about the importance of listening to your customers, a recurring theme on this show! Yuriy Popov KeepSolid Check out my podcasting course Sponsored by: Castos | Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamline...
Apr 09, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Before Sam Brodie founded OffSprout, he successfully sold a niched business that focused on websites for lawyers. Sam generously shares his advice and experience with us, from niching down to how to properly keep your books. There's tons of great advice in this episode, so make sure to listen to the whole thing! Sam Brodie OffSprout JurisPage CaboPress WP Influencer Project Sara Dunn and Niching Down Sam's Udemy Course Check out my podcast course Sponsored by: Plesk | Pantheon ———— Streamlined S...
Apr 02, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Andre Gagnon has SaaS/Subscription fatigue and decided to do something about it. He helped create and launch ProjectHuddle, a WordPress/plugin-based competitor to the likes of InVision. At least, when it comes to getting design feedback. The tech in this episode is super interesting, and we get philosophical about owning your products and data! Show Notes Andre Gagnon ProjectHuddle Medium Adds a Paywall Video: Syncing Medium with WordPress Wes Bos' React Course Backbone JS Levenshtein Distance S...
Mar 26, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 116
Jan Thielemann is a plugin developer who got his start as a digital nomad who wanted to make enough money to fund his adventures. So he started a small side business selling plugins for Divi, where he found a good niche. He offers great advice about starting on your own, and the difference between truly passive and "half-passive" income. Show Notes Jan Thielemann Divi Sensei Freemius Jan's Travel Blog Divi Elegant Marketplace ( Jan's page ) Vova Feldman and Freemius Sponsored by: Plesk | Pantheo...
Mar 19, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Every so often on this show, I will have somebody who knows lots of something I know very little about, and Amanda is one of those people. She is a live captioner. We talk all about what it's like being a live captioner, her the stenographic keyboard, and more. I like her journey and all of the information that she gives us in this episode. Amanda Lundberg ( email ) White Coat Captioning WordCamp Central GutenReady for the Gutenpocalypse Photo of a Stenographic Keyboard Open Steno Project Sponso...
Mar 12, 2019•44 min•Season 1Ep. 114