349 - Is WordPress for Old People? with Mark Szymanski

Because that is like when I think business , I know it's a technical question , but when I think business , that is like that the amount of like complexity that would be unnecessarily added to your whole business model . Because you're like changing page builders here and there and you're changing form plugins out here and there , or SEO plug or whatever .

It is like you need to have some semblance of a process there , because the process doesn't even need to be perfect .

That's exactly what we're going to dive into in this episode . We are going to address the elephant in the room question that's going on right now in web design , and that is is WordPress basically just for old people ? Is it kind of a dated platform that ? Yes , it's well over 40% of the internet .

I think it's nearing or past 44% , based off of stats I've seen recently . But there are a lot of other website platforms and builders that are , quite frankly , just a lot easier to get going with . There's a lot of drag and drop platforms like Framer , squarespace , showit , even though these are drag and drop like and self-hosted .

There are some more robust platforms like Wix , studio , webflow and Duda . It does seem like all roads kind of lead to WordPress because it is the most flexible and customizable and open source , but most young web designers , from my perspective , don't get into WordPress first .

However , there are exclusions to that and I'm so excited to bring one of those rare unicorns onto the podcast in this episode .

I've got a young whippersnapper web designer here with us today , mark Szymanski , who did start with WordPress and in this conversation very excited to share with you really what led him to WordPress over these other platforms and we really get into because he is kind of a thought leader and has a growing YouTube channel as a young WordPresser really get into what

made this the best choice for him and his agency , but also talking about some of the challenges that WordPress has with the competitors we just mentioned . However , I found this really interesting because we really do get into some of the opportunities for WordPress , but how they can market better to youngsters like Mark and others who are getting into web design .

Or even if you're not a youngster in age , you may be a youngster in your web design journey . So how can WordPress do this better ?

A lot of really good topics covered with Mark and then also as an agency owner , I really have to commend Mark on kind of hitting the important point of having a lean tool stack and I really don't want to glance over this because just heads up , if you start your web design journey and you use all the tools , it is going to get very complex and very

confusing very fast . So we're going to get into all that and a lot more in this conversation with Mark Szymanski . You can check him out at his YouTube channel .

We will have all of the links and resources mentioned , as well as all the places that you can connect with him Over at the show notes at this episode at joshhallco slash three , four , nine , so head there after this .

And important disclaimer and note before we dive in we recorded this conversation before their recent WordPress drama between WordPress and WP engine , so I would have loved to have talked about that with Mark , but we may have to do a round two for that one , so this was recorded before that .

So if you're hoping to hear thoughts on that , I've already shared my thoughts inside my WebDesigner Pro community , but maybe I will eventually hear on my YouTube channel or something more public , but that is not a topic that is covered in this one . So , but to be determined , all right , here's Mark .

Let's talk about WordPress and whether it's just for old people WordPress and whether it's just for old people , mark . Good to see you , man , on the podcast . You said before we hit record , it was an honor for you to come on , but it's an honor for me to have you on , man .

I really like what you're up to in the WordPress space in particular , and we were on a recent kind of like a well , I guess it was through Automatic , right it was through . It was like a WordPress YouTubers collective and I thought some of your insight was really cool about page builders in the industry today .

So that's kind of what I wanted to get your insight on today , man .

And yeah , I think that was Anne McCarthy put that on , and there's subsequent meetings to follow too .

But kind of just an idea of an initiative to get YouTubers together , specifically because I mean , we're all talking now about all these different topics and there's a lot of , there's a lot of things kind of like going on and a lot of different opinions and perspectives from you know , whether it's agency life , product life or whatever .

And I'm I'm happy that , uh , it seems like coming from more of the core of WordPress and automatic , we're opening more channels of dialogue and everything , cause I think that I think everybody wins if we just continue to talk like that . So super excited .

You know , I mean I've I started the YouTube channel and started like really diving into it much more , like like eight to 12 months ago , I guess at this point , and just kind of getting more involved in the WordPress community , because I had been building websites since like 2018 and , you know , following guys like yourself coming up trying to understand like

different , you know , like just you know evolving my stack , evolving my skills and everything . And I look , look at it now .

I look back to where I was at , look at how much the landscape has changed , how many more options there are now , and then I think of like just if I was coming into it now or if I was trying to get like involved , like where to even start , and it's difficult because there is just too many options inside WordPress and then also outside of it , you know

kind of creating this little external pressure thing of like , oh , should I use WordPress ? Is it like not cool anymore ? Like , like , because I mean , all these questions are in my mind like extremely like needed to be asked and it's uh , and you know us in here that we kind of like know it a little bit more and we're in it every day .

There's a valuable perspective there , I feel like . So I think we all just want to keep moving it forward too .

Um , so I feel , again from my personal experience , that I'm one of the youngest people that I talked to in this space of WordPress specifically , which isn't necessarily like a bad thing . I'm not just , I'm not saying like old presses , like WordPress is , like I say , old press .

I'm not saying WordPress is like old , necessarily it's being old and a mature product is awesome , like I mean , that's , that's , that's sick and that's something to be sought after .

That said , though , um , I do feel like when you're the first one to innovate , what happens is like you go so far and now , like everybody else , like saw everything good that you did and bad that you did . I'm not speaking about specifics , necessarily , we could get into that , but it doesn't matter , it's whatever . It's not just specific to WordPress .

They see all the good , they see all the bad and they just take all the good . You know what I mean . And they just , and they don't , they don't make the same mistakes that you made trying to come up and do all those different things . There's not as much legacy situation that they have to deal with and everything like that .

So I feel like those tools like Framer , webflow , you know , xyz or whatever , are kind of benefiting a lot from that and even though they're not really taking away numbers wise , seemingly like that heavily from WordPress , it is still like I just feel like as a , even though WordPress isn't really a product , you definitely still want it to continue to grow and

evolve and everything like that . And it's important to kind of like I feel like look at other tools and just see like , hey , what are they doing ? What's good , what's bad ? There Kind of just do a little reverse of what we just talked about there . Um , you know , and specifically at being old , uh , I think that it's .

I think that there there is a , from what I've seen , a lot of people that I've talked to in this space it's kind of felt like they saw it grow up . You know , they grew up with it . In a sense . They were like , oh , this is awesome and they've been here maybe for the whole , like you know , 20 or so years or whatever , and it's like there's this .

There's like almost like an emotional connection to it , which is cool that you have that to a tool , but at the same time it's it just creates like a different type of vibe , like with it and , um , it can be good and bad . Everybody wants to see it succeed .

But at the same time I've used the term rose-colored glasses before we can't just think that it's the best just because it's our favorite and we've used it for a long time .

We have to constantly be willing to hopefully continue to let it evolve , be honest about the things that we think , the critiques that we have , and I love having those conversations with people and there's people that have really good like perspectives on it and I I think that , uh , that's how you continue to make it evolve and continue to grow your point about

the , the almost , the almost um , the issues and challenges , with being the first like innovator divvy , which is still my preferred theme of choice .

I know you were on there for for a little bit on the finale and everything like that , like that that , uh , I've never personally used divvy . I've seen it in action , maybe tinkered with it once or twice , but like I was an elementor guy and it's the same exact thing , like Divi , I think , was first to the party , so to speak , in that , in that realm .

But you you can't , like you could . You can critique certainly Divi , beaver , builder , elementor , whatever , but they're kind of like in my mind , like kind of the first gen of page builders , incredible , like you have to respect that . That was so incredible what they did . They changed the whole landscape .

I came into WordPress and I was like fumbling around with like themes and I got in . I didn't really come from a strict dev background . Like I was like am I going to have to just like put this stuff ? Like where this picture goes ? Like I can't move anything , I can't use like a blank canvas or whatever .

I found Elementor I was the one that was just happened to be the one that I found literally in the repo and I was like , wow , like it's the same thing within WordPress .

It's like the bricks is you know , those types of builders like they're able to just see what the other ones stumbled on just because they were innovating , and now they're able to , you know , do different things and Divi . Huge kudos to them that I mean it seems like they're rewriting everything , or they're like you're changing the whole game here with divvy 5 .

It looks a lot like and functions a lot like bricks and some of the others , with just the way . It is not like an on-page element builder , but it is like a panel builder to , where you have all of your elements on the left , you have the canvas in the middle and then you have your modules on the right . That's kind of how it functions . Now .

It is a complete rewrite . It is is which . That's the thing about software development specifically for page builders , for wordpress . It's like for elegant themes who own divi .

You get to this point where a decade later , a decade after , you were like the hottest thing ever for web , for websites , especially for wordpress , now you're suddenly the old dog and you need to like , rewrite things and completely evolve . So look , I feel , for companies in that situation .

I know Divi takes a lot of heat and a lot of the Facebook groups I'm in , but I've always stuck with them because I trust elegant themes and Divi is what I built my six figure web design business on .

And yeah it's , it's clunky and slow in a lot of regards , but I held out over the past couple of years because I knew at some point we were going to come to this point where it's a rewrite . It's very , very different . Divi five is freaking slick and very fast , like crazy fast editor wise . So anyway , I can give you a if you want to check it out .

I'm curious to see how that's going to start to almost now compete back up and catch back up with break dance bricks and some of the other ones who are a lot more snappy and fast compared to Divi right now .

So I'm happy to see , like you know , divi rewriting . I know Elementor has made like a ton of you know , performance improvements and all that sort of stuff recently . You know , I just think that that's kind of the natural evolution of everything .

We're just in that weird spot right now where I kind of feel like we're in like Gen 2 , so to speak , and there's a lot of things that are kind of re-innovating on what was first innovated and it's uh , it's an exciting time .

It does just go to show you how fast this industry moves and evolves . I mean , when I got into web design , it was 2010 . And I was coming from Dreamweaver and WordPress was being talked about like some other platforms are now . There was like rumblings .

They were like actually , you could build like whole sites with WordPress and I was like , isn't that just for blogs ? But they're like no , it's gonna be huge . I remember one one guy was I was just at like a party we're playing beer pong and I just heard him talking about wordpress and I was like , oh , that's cool . And he was just like dude , he's like .

He was like just total frat guy . He's like dude , you gotta check out wordpress , man , he's gonna be that's amazing gonna be huge . That's amazing . It'd be huge dude and I was like whatever , he's probably drunk and he doesn't remember this . He was right , that dude was absolutely right .

Some of these other platforms are gaining in popularity , but WordPress is still the core . For what ? 44% of the internet . Like still a crazy large amount of websites are still using WordPress billions of websites , so .

I think we're safe for a while , but they definitely need to innovate to to make sure I think that the numbers don't drop too bad continue to continue to be like very honest with the situation .

You can't do that with wix , you can't do that with squarespace , so you can go in there and you can see , like on launch day , how everything's on . You can see , like , what people are doing , contributor wise and everything like that . One of the things is like one of the projects is data liberation .

I know that's like a really interesting thing where we can kind of go from the concept not built yet , but the concept would be to go from like a Wix to a WordPress or a WordPress to a Wix , or even like from an Elementor to a Divi or something like that .

So I love the concept of open source , I love the concept of the WordPress project and I just think that we always need to have . It's interesting because there's a lot of creators now that are seeing these things . They have the perspectives because they've been very successful on the platform , but they see where the hiccups can be .

They see where the blind spots potentially are . They look at the other tooling because they have time to create content or like take a look at like a Wix studio or a Squarespace or whatever Webflow , and then there's also creators that are directly on those platforms .

So you look at all that stuff and you're like , hey , these guys are doing something that's like way different and way potentially a lot better than WordPress does , either in core or this plugin , that plugin . It's like we just want it to continue to be better and this is our perspective on how to make it better .

And it's um , I I just feel like there's a lot of conversations that are sometimes met with pushback there , but I but really I think I don't know of anybody that's like like critiquing WordPress in a way where they don't want it to get better . You know what I mean . Like it's just everybody .

I feel like you're using it every day , like your businesses rely on it .

It's like we don't want it to be worse , we want it to be better and we're just kind of voicing our things there and then we could go into like how you actually contribute a little bit of kind of what we're doing now with like the YouTuber kind of like program there and everything like that getting closer to , to people that actually maybe have influence on

the actual project and things , because that's a whole nother rabbit hole you can go into with how WordPress works . But I'm just a curious person so I just love learning all this and getting the nuts and bolts of everything , how it all goes and how we can make it better .

So then I was working at this real estate agency and the guys were literally coding like the web site and the whole web platform and like ASPnet . So they're sitting over there and , like you know , uh . Azure land and and whatever .

And like you know , uh , vs code or whatever at the time , and um , and I'm like , at one point I actually did try to do it like that I was like I can't do , like I'm not going to sit here and code this stuff all day , Like there's no way that I just want to build a website and to build a website . I knew there was better ways .

So then I think they turned me on to WordPress or something . They were like , hey , why don't you use WordPress ? I was like , oh , let me check it out . I started with that ASPNET situation . I came over to WordPress . I found the themes and I probably used like one of the just straight up themes out of the repository because again , that's another huge topic .

Like , how do you even start in WordPress ? You know what I mean . Like there's no onboarding , which there's , it's nuanced , but how do you ? You know how do you go about it . If you're brand new , if you're completely green to it , there's a ton of great content now , way more than there was then . There's still a lot then .

But I probably like literally watched one of your videos I can't remember and I just saw that like , hey , this is what WordPress is effectively . This is how you get started .

And then , once I found out that you didn't have to just straight up have a theme , because it was the beginning of the page builder era , I was like , wow , this is , this is pretty cool . So then I I went that route , but did I ever try anything else ? I tried Webflow a little bit throughout there somewhere , but I never .

I was already in the WordPress ecosystem and I feel like I do feel like WordPress is the end game , so to speak , for a lot of people .

I feel like once you go WordPress , you kind of can't go back , so to speak , because of what it is like the open source nature of it , the data liberation , so to speak , because of because of what it is like , the open source nature of it , the , the , the data liberate .

You know the data liberation , so to speak , side of where you can have like everything you own , your data . It is , it is the most versatile , obviously , like it's , it's , it's , it's just a lot of those types of things and um , but I do .

But I think the thing you know , the point that you bring up there is like , if somebody doesn't start with WordPress , I'm going to contradict myself slightly If you start with WordPress , you might be overwhelmed , but I do think it's ultimately end game . I think if you leave , you'd probably you'd probably end up coming back if you were too early .

But my point is that if you start with a web flow or something , you might not leave it . You know what I mean , because there's this real thing that we don't bring up enough , where it's like we only have so much time to look at our options .

So if you go into a Webflow land and you're really comfortable with it , at some point you're going to be like I can't move to WordPress because I already know Webflow so much , just as an example .

I do feel like there's an aspect of it to that Long-winded way to say that I've never really used to too much else , but that's what I've seen and experienced indirectly .

So I don't want to overwhelm folks with pressure to choose the right tool . But it is true Like you're very unlikely to start getting clients and build on WordPress and then , just you know , overnight switch over to Wix Studio or something . That's a tricky thing .

I almost think and I almost wonder if a lot of platforms are going to try to go towards influencers and folks who are teaching people how to start in web design to make sure they get them before they start using a different tool .

But , like , the stuff that you talk about in the community that you've built is extremely like practical , like , obviously , technical information technical tutorials are important as well but , like , if you want to build a business , there's this concept that I've thought about and I've , I've , I've stirred around in my head just kind of like doing some self-awareness

stuff and introspection , like , did you have a skill , like anyone did , huge in general have a skill and then start taking money for that skill ? Or did you want to build a business and then you like develop the skill or , more so , like found people that had that skill , and that's a very like big distinction in our industry .

Because I feel like what happens a lot is people like the progression is oh , I can build a website because there's all these tools out here , or whatever they want , or WordPress or whatever .

I know how to use this , I know how to build websites , so then I'm going to make , I'm going to , I'm going to make a business for myself out of being the technician , but like , really , the next step is like , how do you remove yourself from it ? How do you like scale , how do you delegate and do all that ? And I feel like that is a big piece .

That is you know and you're you're living proof of that .

Like there's a lot of people like looking for that type of information how to like either scale their businesses or how to make it more sustainable , build those processes in there , and and I that's just like a whole secondary conversation that not a lot of people have a ton of the time , because a lot of it does get .

There's too , like you can almost get caught in the minutia of the technical side of things and I love them both , but you know what I mean .

Like they have to kind of like yin and yang to a certain degree , cause if you cause , if you don't , then you're either going to be really technical and have a bad business or you're going to have , you're going to be really business savvy and your and your products , your actual deliverable , is going to suck . So it's like it's a weird thing .

And I think most in my case and in my experience , most web designers are like myself and we just kind of fumbled into it and we just kind of accidentally started getting into web design and the next thing you know , you got people wanting more websites , you get referred and you got a business . So you're totally right , that becomes kind of .

The next step is , once people are making money with websites , you want to continue to refine the craft and then build the business side of things .

But with this idea of the page builder and the tools that are right for you , I can't like understate or overstate how important this decision is , because if you have 50 clients using Divi , you're going to be very , very slow to want to pull your clients from Divi and then move to especially if it's even outside of WordPress .

You know , like that is a big decision .

So for all those reasons , I think that's honestly , one reason why Divi has continued to own a huge share of the page builder market is because there are just so many agencies that have built up over the last decade and Divi is the website builder , so it is a huge deal to move 50 or a hundred clients from Divi to Elementor , for example .

I mean because I've tried to do it .

Like you know , if going from elementor to bricks and it's it's a , it's a tough spot , you almost have to like I'm not speaking from personal experience , I'm just speaking from like theory here you would almost have to like bring somebody on in a way that knew , like if you lived in divvy world and you wanted to move to like elementary , you'd almost have to

bring somebody on and almost create like a , like a small team of , like your elementor team , and then they would service the new elementor sites and then your legacy team would service the divi sites . That's the only , because if you're small , if you're only like one person , it is very difficult .

Like I can't overstate similar what you're saying , like the , the concept of having a stack , and like a stack that is yours , like I actually get mind blown when I hear agencies saying like , oh yeah , we don't care , we don't care what form plugin we use , we don't care what page order we use , like you have to have something there .

Because that is like when I think business I know it's a technical question , but when I think business , that is like that the amount of like complexity that would be unnecessarily added to your whole business model . Because you're like changing page builders here and there and you're changing form plugins out here and there , or SEO plugin , whatever it is like .

You need to have some semblance of a process there , because what ? The process doesn't even need to be perfect , it just needs to be yours . And then when you have that process , at least you're moving in like a consistent and cohesive fashion and you can always tweak it . But the point is like you need to have , you need to always have your base there .

You can always have your blueprint site right that you can just at a moment's notice , you can clone and you're already like kind of set up , um and yeah , it's just a weird , it's tough , it's tough , it's tough to change and you obviously don't want to do it that much . Sometimes you do have to .

I mean , we have , we've had , you know , page builders like cease to exist , right , and it's .

It's unfortunate , but but yeah , I feel like if there's ever a time where you need to move , you would almost have to like really separate concerns to some degree , cause I don't know how I would manage like three , four to some degree , because I don't know how I would manage like three , four different page builder environments and I , and that's the reason that

I always try to like take ownership of the projects more so than just be like oh yeah , we'll just fix your website . Like I don't , I don't know what I'm doing in divvy , like I don't want to . Like I know what , I could probably figure it out , but like I don't , I don't want to mess this up for you more than it is .

I don't want to do whatever , so I don't know . There's a lot there .

Just like you said , you may have like a Divi legacy team or an Elementor team . Like you may have somebody who knows this tool pretty well and this one , or a developer who happens to luckily know a few , but that is really hard to stay sustainable and profitable . So definitely something to consider for everyone early on .

Like beware of having a huge tool stack because it's a nightmare to keep up with . It's also a nightmare to scale with .

When you're ready to hire , if you are somebody who's like okay , I'm ready to get help , I want to focus on the business and sales and I want to bring on a junior developer , then you're like by the way , we use WordPress , but you need to know Divi , elementor , bricks , breakdance and three , three other themes . It's like well , good luck , you know .

So you're naming your form plug in your page builder , your framework , whatever , and I feel like it's honestly that's just a better job description , it's a tighter job description you can actually see . And then if they don't know something , obviously they just need to learn one thing of that area of a website and then they can kind of go from there .

Um , and yeah , it just it's , it's uh , it's a tough spot , because then it all kind of goes into the whole conversation or the area of , well , how do I get more clients or how do I build my business more ?

I mean , maybe you talk about the actual niching part of it down to a specific industry and yeah , I just feel like there's there's a saying like like good business is boring business or something like that .

And I think a boring as in like you know it's , it's kind of standardized , it's kind of process driven and a lot of that and , um , the more you can kind of like start to refine that it just I just think you're going to be better off like as you're , as you're moving .

Um , because , like I said , I've seen some , I've seen and talked to some people that are just like , yeah , we just do everything , like we do anything with everything , and it's like if that's working for you , all right , but I feel like it could be working better .

Do you have , like I kind of have , you know , my rule of thumb , but I would love to hear from your perspective , mark , like when , when it comes to somebody choosing a tool , or even right now , have you , like we were talking about clean talk being a anti-spam plugin If you decide to look at anti-spam options , what's your metrics for choosing a tool and

sticking with it ?

But uh , when it comes to like choosing a theme or a page builder that all of your websites are going to be on , or like I'm wearing a Gravity Forms shirt right now , if you choose a form builder , that's a pretty big deal because all of your forms on all of your websites that you know , you know how to make sure the email gets delivered .

That's probably , if I could rank the decisions , it would be like first level is the platform . Are you choosing Webflow , wordpress , wix , studio , whatever ? Next would be the page builder what page builder , what block editor are you going to use ?

And then it would be the primary plugins , like Gravity Forms , like a few others that are , like you know , standard on every website . So yeah , I'm just kind of curious , especially those big ones , those important ones , how do you help decide what to choose ?

But like ultimately , if I was thinking about it right now , I would just be like , okay , well , does this platform like keep my data ? Like can I move easily if I need something ? You know like what's the ? Is there any support ? What's the community like ? How do features continue to get ? Like it's literally hard to answer this question .

The platform one , because , like when you're in WordPress , like I said , I really do feel like it's the end game . Like I've never once really thought about moving anywhere else , knowing what I know now .

But if you were just getting into it , it would be a little bit more abstract because you don't understand the benefits of like it being so versatile and it being open source and you being able to like host anywhere and like make your hosting faster or you know slower , you know slower with , like a shared hosting .

So , like you don't have any of that control at a web flow . So I think that that's maybe one . The platform one is . We talk about that one a lot . I feel like it's harder to answer from within and I haven't made that decision . Obviously , I made that decision a long time ago .

Very recent decision , though that I made was moving from Elementor primarily to a Bricks , and that one came in multiple ways . I talked about this on my stream earlier today .

The like early in my career I had a situation where I couldn't make like a custom loop element , so I like how to find like a third party thing to do that element or now has that , but I couldn't do that at first . Then I had a situation where , like , I couldn't do nested loops , so like a query within a query , so to speak .

And then I got like crocoBlock , jetengine , that suite of plugins , because that allowed me to bolt on that functionality to Elementor .

And then , even more recently , I had like a website that had like LearnDash , woocommerce , buddyboss , like all sorts of stuff on it , and built with Elementor and I'm like , okay , now we're getting to the point where this is almost like a web app . There's a lot of software in here .

That is a little it's bogging it down , not because of anything independently , but there's a lot going on . Is there a way for me to kind of streamline this a little bit more ? Maybe cleaner code X , y , z , whatever in the future ? And then I started looking into things and I found break dance . I found bricks .

Uh , I think at the time maybe I was looking at like oxygen as well or whatever , and I ended up going with bricks . So the metric to find that was it was a little bit of feel , but it was also more just like . When I stepped into the bricks environment I felt way closer . I'm not .

I know HTML , css , I knew Java , like in college , but I'm not like a developer .

But it made me feel more like a like , closer to the code , so to speak , because I could understand it and I was more like I just like more logical in that way , rather than just like dropping elements in , like I like the idea that when I throw in a section , that's what's going to get rendered on the backend , even though I'm not typing in it .

I literally feel like it's a way to create HTML with a GUI , with like a GUI in a sense . So that's been great and that was one of the metrics that kind of moved me that way . Plus , there was a growing community . It was , it is , it is and was popular obviously at the time as well .

And then there's a lot of like tools like ACSS and frames , that kind of like put together , like really make a nice piece there . So I would say , in the page builder realm , you know , like you could look at like maybe Kevin Geary or somebody else like give you like specific reasons why they're like picking page builders .

But like that for me was was some of the main main pieces . The forms plugin If we just hit on that real quick is a similar vibe to that . But it was like what can I do ? What can't I do ? And I think with forms it's with other things too , but specifically with forms , like you never know what somebody is going to ask you to do with a form .

Like it could be a simple contact form or it could be like hey , can we like add things to like a WooCommerce product where they can like put their uh , they can pick like a shirt , keller , and they can do all this like extra stuff and all this stuff . I actually use W , I use WS form .

Now , that's what I ended up on and I used it in a project and I didn't even know about it at the time and and I used it and it was like it was so good , like on one random client project . And then I was like I found it again recently and I was like there is just , this thing is just so powerful . And again , I haven't .

I haven't used gravity forms extensively , I haven't used a ninja forms I know it was a big one Like I haven't used every single one , but like when I found something . This goes back to what I was saying earlier . I am somebody that could probably look at more tools , but a lot of agency owners cannot .

So they rely on guys like us to to like give a little bit of the perspective and maybe they can watch like five videos on five different builders and that are builders or forms or whatever and then go from there . But the tough part is there's just no real like answer . You know what I mean . All these plugins and products have a lot of pros .

Maybe they have some cons , but a lot of it is like super personal , to like what your business is .

I mean , they've still come a long way and continue to innovate , but I think , like with WS Form , they're probably very similar to Bricks and others , where they kind of see what are the most important things and they're able to cut out the fluff and the legacy problems that , like Gravity Form forums can't just blow up the plugin and start new necessarily .

Um , so again , that's like that's the hidden line item for anyone who wants to be in the in the SAS world .

If you're going to build some software , you just have to know it's going to continue to get bloated and more complex and eventually you're just going to have to either innovate continuously or , like completely , change things up or , yeah , do something to stay fresh and and to stay relevant .

I don't think you either need to like constantly be refactoring , which is probably not the way to go , or like just kind of plan for that , that like at some point you're going to need almost like do kind of like a feature freeze , so to speak , and then kind of redo some stuff .

The other thing that just came to mind is , obviously you want to consider the maturity of the product . We're actually talking like specific metrics . You want to consider the maturity of the product and the other big thing that I don't necessarily it is important , but it's like it's kind of .

It's definitely abstract is like the team behind it , the company behind it , because generally this community , like there's so many good people . You want to work with good people . Right and and and and most , most , if not everyone , is good . But like the , the , the plugin situation is very interesting and there's no one one way that people are doing it .

Sometimes people will have like a Facebook group for support , sometimes we'll just get like email , sometimes maybe you'll get like a live chat or whatever . So all of those things , that's where it's .

That's where it's almost like preferential in a way , like like what your preferences are to to dealing with that , like if you hate discord and their support communities in discord , like you might , you might not want to use that . You know what .

Um , I , I honestly rarely use support a lot of times , unless there's something that I've pretty much exhausted all of my options . I'm like I really don't think I can do this . Can you , can you confirm that I can't do this ? And then , if I can't do this , can you maybe like add it you know what I mean .

First that too because , like there's probably that's the thing is like it's a , it's a weird situation like I don't like there's I'm in so many wordpress facebook groups now because , like all different products or groups or whatever , and it's like , yeah , a lot of times you'll get those repeating questions , which is I understand it , but at the same time it's like

it's not really the best . It's a group . It's not really the best . It's a group . It wasn't really .

I don't know if it was really designed for like to be like the support thing , but yeah , you always have to like just a note to anybody in any of those groups like always search , cause if you probably find somebody else that has asked the same question and um , but yeah , I mean the .

The level of those groups like definitely does vary Cause , like you know , you'll get like an elementor group where it was like I don't know thousands , hundreds of thousands of people in there and there's a lot of different conversations going on and things like that .

And then you'll get like a WS forum group where it's like smaller , more intimate , um , the like the level of , uh , you know , team owner support , like direct support through those things can vary , um , but yeah , there's just uh , those are things to consider . Unfortunately , you're kind of in the weeds at that point when you're considering those things .

So , and again , you're always like , if you're an agency owner and you're still doing the work , you're always like watching the clock , like how long am I dealing with X , y , z before I , before I get back to John Doe over here , the client and I need to build their website , um , you know .

But again I will counteract that this is where the process , like every single time you do something , you should probably be like documenting , like this is how I did this , and then you know kind of continue to go from there with like building that out and so , just so you're not wasting as much time , cause I mean , so much is repeatable .

Like a lot of my community members have said that they found me and they're like , honestly , there's so many options . Just tell me what to use , and unless I find something that I absolutely want to do , I'm just going to trust you and use what you use . So to that end , like you mentioned , you know Kevin , with Kevin Geary stuff .

I'm a big fan of Dave Foy too .

He's a Bricks guy and there's a bunch of other folks who are Divi folks , elementor folks , like I kind of feel like influencers have so much say and leverage now with these tools , because people are going to start to , when it comes to finding the community , they're going to kind of gravitate towards the tribe , like your vibe attracts your tribe .

So they're going to gravitate towards people who are using a tool that they like and if they learn from them , they're gonna be like okay , yeah , I'll stick with Divi if that's what Josh uses , or Bricks if that's what Mark uses . So how do you feel about that , with the role of you know , now that we're both influencers , how do you feel about the pressure ?

How do you feel about the weight of that on your shoulders , mark ?

The the origin for me specifically and I know a lot of other people have came to this , I didn't like come up with this , I actually observed it and I just did it is that in a world I've said this , I've said this line many times , but like in a world that's becoming like more artificial and more kind of like bland in certain ways , and like there's just

so much noise , you have to really be like as authentic as possible , and the only way that I know how to be authentic is to literally be myself and , by extension , that means like literally use my name , so to speak , for my , my , like my , the brand of my influencing right , if we want to call it that right Like , like personal branding .

I just love that . You don't have to think of a name that you're going to regret . Like it's your name , you have it , you know , just as long as you keep your integrity high and you're always authentic , then it's one of the best ways to go .

I was considering like doing like a brand name for some of my stuff , like that when I was starting more WordPress style YouTube , like coming up with X , y , z , whatever or something .

And I didn't think that was the way to go , because I saw other people that were just transitioning just like , hey , I'm Mark , uh , this is what I use , this is what I do , and you know , just come here , you know , chat , hang out on live streams , whatever . And if you really , if it resonates with you , great . If it doesn't , then no problem .

And I think what you have to do is you have to have like the expectation that , like one of my mottos is just learn , try and share everything I do . So I'm learning , and then I'm going to go play around with some stuff , see what works , see what doesn't , and I'm just going to share the results .

Like I'm not trying to tell you , like , when I say that like I use bricks or use WS form , I'm not trying to tell you that you have to use it . I don't want to try to like sell you on it necessarily . I am literally just saying that like I use it , it works for me . I have not tried everything else .

Uh , if you want to give it a shot , okay , you know , I mean , and that has , that has worked for me , to keep like the pressure off , so to speak , or anything like that because I don't feel like like with great power , so to speak , comes with great responsibility , but like I don't .

I don't feel like I'm like trying to like mislead anybody or or do anything like that . I'm literally just like an incredibly curious person and I like to try these different tools , see , and kind of like in my mind , like okay , I've used three other page builders or whatever . Like how does this one rank up to it ? Like , what's like the pros and cons ?

I did this recently on live streams with like e-commerce plugins , right , so everybody knows about WooCommerce . Some people have used SureCart , some people have used NorthCommerce . I did two live streams where I was talking about I went through a sure card experience , I went through a North commerce experience and they're nothing like super crazy special .

I'm just playing around and I'm actively talking about like if I try to do this that I've done in WooCommerce , cause I'm pretty like that's the one that I've used the most If I can I do this , can I not do this ?

And it's just like a very I feel like it's a very genuine and authentic way to just see like really honestly could save people time from like going and doing all of it and like playing around with themselves .

It's like , oh , I would have never thought like you can't do X , y , z in here , or you can do here and you can't do it there , and I , that's the way that I approach it . I don't know if it's the best approach or not , but I feel like it's . It's .

It's always for me just trying to be as authentic and not , like you know , shill out anything or whatever or like like lose my integrity Cause I mean again like that's that's kind of the way that I , that I think about it , so I hope that comes through with the content .

I don't nearly ever do any sort of sponsorship , so like , look , the reality is there has been a mass migration from Elementor over the last year in particular . I've seen this like in droves . Even I just mentioned Dave Foray , who's who's one of the lead creators for Bricks . Now he's a Bricks course and , um , he went from Elementor to Divi . So did you ?

So let's start with like and I don't want this to be Elementor bash fest , because I know some people with Elementor and they're awesome Like it's just one of those tools similar to Divi . That was an early to the market thing , but now it has seen a lot of people drift towards different builders .

What was it about Elementor that made you feel like you just couldn't stick with them , like you couldn't wait it out till they innovate .

I didn't want to be the one that just churns and burns like thousand dollar websites or anything , Cause I just again , I'm very curious . I like to do e-commerce stuff . I like to do group membership . When I found out you could do that in WordPress , I was like this is amazing .

So when I started doing that with Elementor and , like I said , there was probably other reasons too , but it wasn't like I was trying to do of the other variables so when I was trying , like on solid cloud hosting , to do like learn dash and all these other things , like like a , like an e-commerce full setup and everything like that , and it was , it was

Elementor at the core of it and I was just trying to extend so much from the page builder thing and then layering on those other features , it just literally got like there was .

There was a time where I'm not blaming this specifically on Elementor , but with the , the , the um , the combination of tools I had there , it was just rough , like even on pages that didn't have all of that stuff going on and things like that .

So I would just say that , looking at that and then you bust into the code , you know , inspect , inspect , element , you know the , the . You look at the code there and you're like there's a lot of stuff going on here that it doesn't look like I would have like wrote this .

Obviously I can't necessarily write it per se as well as like an actual dev could , but like I'm looking at , like you know , you get these terms like div , section , where there's a ton . You put one thing in and there's a ton of things in it . I totally understand how that happened . They innovated to make that happen .

But now when there's other alternatives that don't do that and you can drop in like a section , a container and a heading and that's all , you get three lines rather than you know all these things .

The bigger you get , the more problematic that becomes , because instead of having three items , maybe you have , if you have three items on a page , or three elements on a page , maybe you have like nine . If that's the case right With the , with the , with the div situation .

But if you are building websites with a lot of custom stuff and a lot of like querying going on , all that sort of stuff , then I feel like you're just going to continue . That's going to continue to get more and more Like . It's not going to go linear , it's going to kind of go like like magnitudes , just what I saw .

That was my personal experience , so I didn't know what was next . Also , you're taking me back to my , to my Elementor days . There was literally a period of time where I felt for a year to two years , elementor like just did not do much . Like there was I don't know the exact timeframe I want to say it was maybe like 21 to 23 or 20 to 22 or whatever .

I just didn't feel like I heard any , heard much from Elementor . I didn't feel like there was a lot of new stuff coming out . I knew there was a lot of features and things that , like I was interested in and other people were interested in , and I just felt like they went through a little bit of a lull there .

Now they've since came back , which is great , but that was by the time where I was like already , like I was having these issues and I didn't really know where we're going from there . So I don't know , I mean I'm you know , that's just my personal like flow through that , but I think that that was .

Those were some of the big things that I was like you know what ?

And honestly , I'm not gonna lie , it was probably a perfect storm too , with like like bricks and other ones being on the come up me finding guys like Kevin Geary , dave Foy , and just looking at these new things and , like you know , when you're in Elementor land and you hear somebody that has moved from Elementor to bricks , you're like , well , this guy knows

exactly what I'm talking about . So like , let me at least , let me at least hear them out , you know what I mean . And then , if it makes sense , then okay , then , then I'll consider it . And and I just had a lot of those experiences Um , and then even moving forward , fast forwarding .

Now they have seemingly cleaned up a lot of that stuff and it's still a great product , but there's there's there's pieces to it now where , like you know , with the AI boom over the last 12 months or whatever you know , I see a lot of videos like that where they're trying to get a lot of that in there , and I just don't know , like that , where they're

trying to get a lot of that in there , and I just don't know . You know , I still have sites on elementor and I'm just like I don't . It's just a different experience , you know .

I feel like , from what I've seen , at least a lot of users that I know seem to be much less curious , development minded and they're much more like design . Just give me the basics and then that's fine .

So , like that , we set it up and then they just like add a blog post and it just shows up magically to them , right , or they add a job listing and same thing , uh .

But yeah , I mean , I've seen west mcdowell , like I've watched some of his his videos like , and that's that is an amazing , uh , like a business model , and it's amazing like case study to see like , oh well , people can actually use this tool , like there's a lot of really good value there , um , and I would just say that I feel like most of the time , uh ,

those diy business owners are running their business and diying a website . So they're probably going to just do it's great for them if it works .

So they're probably going to just do it's great for them if it works , because they're just going to get like the website that they need and then they're going to go back to running their business , maybe tinker with it here and there . But when you have like an agency mindset or you're building websites for somebody .

Depending on how big those clients get , you may need to do more things , you may need to do more dynamic things , or you may need to do more custom things , and obviously it's literally the biggest problem we have in WordPress is , every time somebody's talking , they're talking from their specific perspective and there's just not enough time or would get really annoying

if they would preface their whole life story before they talk and their their experience , because I've picked up on this so many times . It's like I know to think about it like this now .

But anytime you say , oh , you should , you should use element for everything , or you should use bricks for everything , or you shouldn't let your clients in their website , or you shouldn't whatever .

There is too many variables to make blanket statements like that , because there's there's mom and pop segment of clients , there's DIY wires , there's a mid-market businesses that like are going to have a marketing team that they don't want you to .

They don't like maybe they'll pay you for certain things or whatever , but they probably I know , I know big agencies they like deploy the thing onto like servers that the big company owns and they just needed them to build out the website and do all that sort of stuff , but they have a full marketing team , like they don't even need you after they build it .

And then there's some people that do that for small , small businesses , too . It's just like everything needs to be like there's just too many nuances . You know , which is great ? Uh , because it it it leaves for a lot of discussion , a lot of really interesting stuff that that I personally love talking about .

But in that search for like a one way to do it , there is none . Like there's no one way . There's too many . There's too many options .

But W is interesting is now because wix has moved from the diy solution to the agency solution with wix studio . Like they're really really pushing wix studio . I've actually heard really good things from folks who have kind of dipped their toes into that world . But it is interesting . I wanted to bring that up because I'm curious from your perspective .

Like where would a diy go now if wix is more agency route now with Wix Studio ? Like where do the DIYers go ?

So , um , that's the that's . The thing is like I don't . I mean , I feel like if I was going to tell somebody . My conscience tells me that if , knowing everything that I know , if a DIY wanted to build something , I would like potentially send them to like wordpresscom , so they're at least in the realm .

Obviously , wordpresscom is way different than org , but like at least they're like in like kind of a siloed environment that is WordPress , that they could move if they scale . The trouble is , truthfully and it's hard to predict this and it's hard to be really honest with yourself is what you're doing like ?

Do you think it's going to scale into something that WordPress is only going to be the contender for , or a custom solution or something like that ? Because if the answer is no , then I would still argue you want to have your data , you'd want to have control of all your stuff , you'd want to be in an open source environment .

But I'm telling you , man , the funny part about this is this is where it goes back to the people that have been in here for a long time .

I feel like there is a very real situation going on right now where , like , people are just very , very comfortable and have just seemingly gone with the flow of like , not caring about their data , not caring about like , like , literally like . Look at our phones and everything like that . Like Apple , google , like it's just , it's very Like , literally . Like .

Look at our phones and everything like that . Like Apple , google , like it's just , it's very , it's very like . Like everything is on like a cloud storage drive . Everything is like in the cloud , so to speak , that you don't have access to . I'm guilty of this .

I'm just saying like this is different than how it was before , and the idea of WordPress and so it's like the , the open source nature where you can see all those types of things , is really , really important to the people in the WordPress community who have been here for a long time .

But then you tell somebody in the in the Webflow community you're getting into Webflow and they're like nah , man , I just want to pay these guys $70 a month . Man , that's the . You know that . That's like . It's just way more convenient for me . I don't have to worry about hosting . I don't come here like having answers like specifically . You know what I mean .

I'm just like I'm going through all these progressions in my mind and I'm not sure where to go back to . I'm not sure where I would send a DIY or exactly like it really depends on the level of , maybe the level of skill , I guess . I mean , I guess they could still use like a Wix without Wix Studio .

I think they probably try to steer them in that direction now , but I don't know what that actually entails .

Plus , the last last point on that is like there's cost concerns too , cause like there's some like free ones out there that people just get you know , literally directed to I don't know like a card or I'm not sure what framer costs , but there's just so many , there's so many ways to build a website Now it's actually unbelievable .

I have a few that come to mind in my community web designer pro who serve very , very niche markets of , of , like customer demographic , and they just have like the template for for that type of person and they can change out colors , imagery , a little bit of copy and stuff like , but they really help the business owner focus on the business .

And then here's the website , at least if it's more productized and they could go custom if they wanted to , which , as you've rightly said multiple times here , inevitably all roads are going to lead to WordPress if you really want to get into absolute control of everything . So we are in interesting times , man , mark . This has been fun .

Dude , it's been really cool kind of hearing your perspective on some of this stuff based off of our chat with WordPress .

I agree , I think WordPress is in a tricky spot in some ways , but the good news for WordPress I think I said this on that chat too is like whether it's bricks , divi , elementor , breakdance , whatever , blockbuilder , generatepress , whatever all these different tribes of WordPress , the foundation is WordPress .

So as long as they do their due diligence to make sure all of these little pockets of communities excel , then awesome , like you said earlier , as long as WordPress itself , as the core , gets better . That's all we want . So that's my closing thought . Do you have any closing thoughts on that ?

I would love us just continue to have open and honest conversations about like what we're seeing critique wise or , or you know , positive or negative , like whatever and then also just always be moving forward and kind of I don't know , like treating it as more of a , like understanding that it does impact a lot of people , and like we , all we and and give the

give the respect that's due to all of the people that are in there you know whether they're DIY or cause I know there's a lot or whether there's agency owners that are dealing with a lot of different websites on the platform .

Um , I would just love to continue to uh , to see , see it continue to grow , and I am , like I said , I'm I'm very , I'm very bullish on it , man . So this has been uh , this has been fantastic . Josh , I cannot thank you enough for uh , for having this , uh inviting me to this conversation . I've had a lot of fun here .

What you said earlier is like the best advice I could give , which is just be you like , be curious , experiment . It's going to be very , very obvious and clear what you're interested in and what type of work you enjoy doing . So , as long as you continue to just be completely real and honest , you're going to continue to see this thing blow up , dude .

So I'm pumped for you , mark , really to see what you're excited , to see what you're up to man , and I know this is just the start .

If you're already started again , you may see this from a different lens , but if you are just getting started and you kind of wondered what is right for you , I really hope this helped give you some concrete ideas on what to move forward with , what , what to expect , but , most importantly , to keep your tool stack lean and mean and , even more importantly , to

use the tools that work for you . There really is no right or wrong tool . So I hope this has helped . I would love to hear your thoughts and takeaways from this one . I know Mark would as well Go to the show notes for this episode of joshhallco slash 349 .

And again , mark has a growing YouTube channel and is very active on all the socials , so all of his links will be over at the show notes at joshhallco slash 349 . Thank you for joining . Make sure you're subscribed . A lot of good ones coming along the road here .

So get ready because we're going to have a very , very fun fall and early winter on the Web Design Business Podcast . I'm pumped to have you along for the ride . So thank you , friends . Whether you're a WordPresser , a framer , a Squarespace-er , a show-it-er , a web studio-er , a web blower , a do-to-er , I don't care . The Web Design Business Podcast is for you .

Cheers .