#125 – Davinder Singh Kainth on Content Creation and Business Strategy in WordPress

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how to build trust and foster relationships within the WordPress community.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and then you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.

So on the podcast today, we have Davinder Singh Kainth.

Davinder is a WordPress creative, an entrepreneur, and a sharer of knowledge. He’s been in the online ecosystem for over 20 years, and his journey from blogging to design, development and entrepreneurship is anchored in the WordPress world. He writes about WordPress every week at thewpweekly.com newsletter, and also has a sideline in website creation, coaching and consulting.

Today we get into a discussion that extends beyond traditional agency work. We talk about the opportunities available in plugin and theme development, SEO, hosting, and more.

Davinder offers his advice on trying to figure out the nuances of the WordPress ecosystem to promote your credibility and ensure longevity. We chat about the importance of having diversified revenue streams, the intricacies of targeting WordPress users with SaaS products, and the vital role that referrals play in agency success.

Davinder also discusses the need for adaptability persistence and carving out one’s unique path in the WordPress world.

We also touch upon the community spirit found at WordCamp events, and the significant impact of that engaging with the WordPress community can have on professional opportunities.

If you’re interested in practical advice on how the WordPress community can work with you, this episode is for you.

If you’d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

And so without further delay, I bring you Davinder Singh Kainth.

I am joined on the podcast today by Davinder Singh Kanith How are you doing Davinder?

[00:03:06] Davinder Singh Kainth: Hi, I am doing good. Thanks for inviting me.

[00:03:08] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. I was lucky enough to bump into Davinda, not that long ago in WordCamp Asia. It was very nice to meet you in person. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve had quite a lot of exchanges over the years. I think probably you and I got to know each other in the Beaver Builder community, I would imagine that’s where it all began for me and you.

[00:03:27] Davinder Singh Kainth: Absolutely. Beaver Builder, the awesome page builder that has spread the awesomeness in different fields, be it podcasting, or maybe newsletter.

[00:03:34] Nathan Wrigley: We’ve definitely had our moments, and I’m very thankful for Davinder talking to us today. And we’re going to talk about the WordPress community, and much more than that. How to be a good custodian in WordPress. How to sell your products into WordPress successfully. Loads of different things. But before we do that, Davinder, in case there’s anybody listening to this who hasn’t heard of you before, do you just want to give us your bio, tell us who you are, where you’re from, what it is you do.

[00:03:58] Davinder Singh Kainth: Okay, I am from India, place called Chandigarh. Which is like six hour drive from the capital New Delhi, North India. I’ve been into WordPress ever since WordPress existed. Started as a blogger, then went into usual design, development agency world. And now, plus the agency, I do mostly content creation, email marketing funnels, that’s like my interest area, so all things WordPress as the foundation.

[00:04:21] Nathan Wrigley: Do you still run a business building client websites, things like that? Or is it more the kind of content creation, the newsletters that you make for the community?

[00:04:32] Davinder Singh Kainth: You know, for the last two or three years, I did not have any new client, because I didn’t need one. Because the old clients kept me busy, and I love them because at this stage of my professional career, I only want people who don’t eat my brain.

[00:04:46] Nathan Wrigley: You’ve got various different endeavors. Maybe the one that most people have heard of is The WP Weekly. Anything that we mention in today’s podcast, where Davinder might have connection, I will make sure that goes into the show notes. But that’s certainly worth signing up for. If you want a weekly dose of WordPress news, that’s highly recommended. What day does it drop?

[00:05:05] Davinder Singh Kainth: Monday morning, India time.

[00:05:07] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so we’re going to get into the WordPress community, and how to sell yourself into that community, and how to be a good custodian. You suggested this topic, so I’m just going to throw it over to you and ask you, what was your intention here? What was it that you wanted to get across?

[00:05:20] Davinder Singh Kainth: Knowing WordPress is good, a lot of people know how to install WordPress and, you know, spin up a new website. But knowing the business of WordPress is very critical, if you want to stay in this ecosystem for a long time, financially, creatively and have the overall satisfaction. Now, I understand not everyone is made for working as an employee, and not everyone is made, or has the jobs, or interest of being an entrepreneur.

So, I think a lot of people join WordPress for the sake of, it’s a free open source platform, but they soon realise it’s not free. There’s a big money making hierarchy, where you spend money, and you make money, but you only discover it way down the line. And all this is coming from running WP Weekly, and getting new people approaching me and saying, oh, I’ve made this product, can you share it, because I’m literally lost in how to promote it, right? And how to get eyeballs to it.

Because creating is just a small part of the overall picture. People don’t realise that once they create it, and no one actually visits your website, or even interacts with your product.

So I think the journey should start from exploring various things in the WordPress world, and finding your sweet spot. Because, again, if you see everyone’s journey, like majority of people, even you included Nathan, like we all start with an agency, right? Sort of like fancy agency name. We look for clients and figure out how to service them. And guess what? Majority of us actually then jump from agency to something different, something that interests us, like you went to podcasting.

Now, obviously when you were running your agency, you would’ve never imagined like you would do a podcast like WP Builds. It all came out of your passion for talking to people. And I’m sure when you started WP Builds, you had a hundred percent idea that it’s not going to make you any money from it.

So that’s how it begins, right? You basically funnel your whole knowledge of running an agency into something you are more passionate about. And suddenly those light bulbs in your path lights up, and it financially becomes viable. Plus you get the creative satisfaction.

So I always tell to people like, yes, go into the ecosystem, explore things, but find a channel, find a thing that interests you, rather than copying someone.

It’s okay to take inspiration, like Nathan is doing good with WP Builds, I’ll start a new podcast called WPBuilding.com. Just take an inspiration. But, again, it’s not just the podcast, it’s a personality of a person, how you deliver it, how people interact with you. So find your sweet spot, and then focus on it. That’s my main foundational advice to anyone who comes to me. And I know it is a very vague thing, but that’s how it is. I’m sure even you also did your whole journey until now in the WordPress space like that.

[00:08:07] Nathan Wrigley: I think what’s really interesting is that the WordPress ecosystem is so much bigger than it would appear. And I would imagine that there’s actually very few people out there who truly have an understanding of all of the different pieces that make up whatever WordPress is. You know, the multi billions, possibly even trillions, I don’t know, that the WordPress ecosystem per year will generate, across the planet.

But you’re right. When I began, my intuition was that it was a piece of software used to create websites, and so I followed the playbook of, I must have a business which will make websites, and that was fine. So, you know, I started to follow people on YouTube, and look at that. And then after exploring the WordPress community, and in my case, it was exploring Facebook groups, which were popping up all over the place at that time. I discovered that there were people out there who were like me, but there were a load of other people who were not like me.

And so in my case, as you said, I began a podcast. You’ve obviously hived off into content creation in different ways. So that’s really fascinating. It’s big enough to not just think that the agency route is the only way to succeed. There’s probably thousands of different paths that you take, whether that’s being a plugin developer, a theme developer, an SEO person, into hosting in some way, content creation. Honestly, the list could go on. I could keep talking for ages, and I’ve talked to many of these people in the past.

But the size of the ecosystem is big enough to support all of that. But unless you start to explore and peel back the curtain a little bit, and try to figure out what this community looks like, you’ll never see it, right? You won’t know that that exists, and you’ll think agency, that’s what we do, that’s all WordPress is.

[00:09:53] Davinder Singh Kainth: Even if, when you’re running an agency, if you recall, your best clients actually came from referrals from your friends, rather than looking at your fancy website, or your Google ads, or Facebook ads during those times.

[00:10:05] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s true. There was still a connection to the real world back there.

Also, I think that there’s something kind of unique about this community. I’ve talked about it many times before, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but I think it’s connected to open source. I think there is something about a person who is willing to spend time in an open source community, that is a little bit different than somebody, not somebody, it’s more the thing, the open source thing than the person. But the nature of those communities are different.

As an example, if I show up to a WordPress event, so I recently met you at WordCamp Asia. It’s very open. You’ve got competitors openly talking to each other when the event has closed down for the evening. You know, you’ve got hosting companies all going out to have a drink and a meal together.

I think in other communities, let’s say it was, I don’t know, a Cisco networking event. I think we’re going to have a different flavour. The camaraderie might be a bit more superficial, and you wouldn’t be encouraged maybe to go and have a meal with your competitors. So, do you think there’s anything in that? Do you think the community, the open source nature of it, promotes a different ethos, a different relationship?

[00:11:16] Davinder Singh Kainth: Oh, a hundred percent, because WordPress is the only community where you will see competitors, not just sitting together, but sharing their challenges, sharing their wins, sharing their learnings, and sharing, hey, what am I going to do next?

And even though they have exactly similar products, right? And that is the best part of WordPress. Obviously we have conflicts here and there, but they are very minimal compared to the overall picture.

And WordCamp is an excellent example. Like, you see two hosting companies, you know, booths, sponsor booths, next to each other, and all the employees, all the founders, co-founders, they’re talking to each other like friends, right? And you may not be using that hosting, but you still would know the people behind it. Because, again, it is not about the end product or the service, it’s about the people. Because when you talk to people, you learn a lot. If you are a good listener, you can be a good creator down the line, that’s for sure. And WordCamps and other, you know, local WordCamp meetups, they give an excellent platform and opportunity to do that.

[00:12:16] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, there’s absolutely loads of WordPress events going on. It obviously took a bit of a hit after, well, during and after the pandemic, but we seem to be, in some parts of the world at least, getting out of that and getting back into the real world.

So there’s our first point really, it’s about exploring the multitude of different things that are out there. Don’t assume that WordPress is just an agency software. It may begin that way for you, but attend things even if that’s online. Get yourself in the community. Explore a little bit, and you may discover that there’s a whole different thing that you are capable of doing. Not just capable, it might be that your superpower is something that you never imagined. And you stumble across it, and it’s fascinating that I’ve ended up doing podcasting. Like you said, that was never, ever, the intention, and yet here we are.

But once you’ve got yourself into the community, another thing that you’ve written in our shared show notes is about the way that you may pitch yourself, or market yourself. And so I think a lot of people in the community, they’ll come in, and they’ll build something, and they’ll assume that the building of that thing might be the only thing that they need to do. So build a product, build a plugin, build a theme, build a whatever it is. Go to an event, and then just start talking about it, and assume that that’s going to be all that you need to do. But I feel you are saying there’s a little bit more, you need to be a little bit different, have a different approach.

[00:13:37] Davinder Singh Kainth: Hundred percent, because before building a product, build yourself. When I say build yourself, it’s your visibility, your name, your expertise, the value you bring to the ecosystem. And how do you do that? It’s just start connecting with people in the WordPress ecosystem. And you can do it at various platforms, at various ways, at various times. Because once you start sharing what you know, this initialises the cycle of value exchange. And you can do it at a lot of places.

Even if you don’t want to participate in a Facebook group, just go to official WordPress forums and start replying to questions. Some of them are really basic questions, and you can just reply it and you can build your visibility.

Obviously there’s LinkedIn, there’s Twitter, and there’s other online events, like you had Page Builder Summit. It’s such an amazing way to get introduced to new people who are doing the same thing in the ecosystem.

So start interacting, start communicating, because, again, there’s a school of thought. If I’m going to spend some time listening to a podcast, reading a blog post, or participating in a Facebook group, that’s like a waste of time. Why would I do that? I would just rather spend it on building my service or a product. But people forget, the time that you’re spending there interacting is basically you’re investing. You’re investing in building your portfolio in the whole ecosystem.

Because again, if I run an agency and someone comes to me with a specific requirement, say, I want to build an app that talks to WordPress. Now, if I already know a person who’s been doing that, I will gladly refer that person to that specific person, because I trust that person, and know that that person has a specific expertise in that specific thing.

Even in your case, if someone comes to you for, say, I want to build a website with Beaver Builder, you already know people who use Beaver Builder, or people who use Elementor, or any other specific page builder, right? Once you’re there in the ecosystem, you already know people doing what, what, what. So yeah, get into the ecosystem.

Again, it is a slow process, but slow process gives you returns down the line. So don’t expect immediate returns. Even your example, like people build, I’ve seen this in WordCamp also, in recent WordCamps that I’ve attended. People will build a product or a service, and they will sponsor a WordCamp and sit there, right?

Now, if you have initial money, yes, go for the sponsorship route. Because, again, this is also another way, another natural way of getting people introduced to yourself. Because once you have your booth on there, and you have people who are working for you, they start interacting with people who are visiting it. They are also fellow entrepreneurs or service. They might be your customer, but it’s just like introducing your brand, because once they know your brand, they won’t feel alien when some of their customers come and ask, hey, I saw this brand, is it good enough? And you will recall back, oh, I saw this brand, I talked to that person from that specific brand at the WordCamp, and yeah, why not? It’s legitimate, go for it.

[00:16:23] Nathan Wrigley: I have an intuition that it’s easy for people who are not in the WordPress community, haven’t been for any length of time, I think it’s easy to misunderstand what will sell effectively into the WordPress ecosystem. What I mean by that, and I’m not going to mention any names, either when I talk positively or maybe negatively. But I’ve definitely come across individuals who have gone from no presence in the WordPress space, to being able to schmooze with everybody, because they’ve really put in that effort.

And that effort that they’ve done, and schmooze is probably the wrong word because it has a fairly negative connotation, but they’ve come to the events, in some cases they may have sponsored the events, but they’ve been available, they’ve talked to people, they’ve made connections, they’ve joined groups, and they’ve collaborated with people. And the mere fact of doing that, and being a good custodian, means that now everybody knows them. If I want this kind of thing that they offer, I’m going to at least consider what they’ve got.

Now, on the other hand, I’ve also come across situations where the opposite has happened. As you said, people have built things, come into the WordPress space, and sort of misjudged a little bit about how that would work, and very much hard sell, and what have you. Again, I have an intuition that that doesn’t work out for the best. And you may have your own personal experiences about that, where people have approached you, and wish to be marketed by you in your newsletter, or whatever it may be, and it just didn’t feel right somehow. So there’s a lesson to be learned.

[00:17:56] Davinder Singh Kainth: Exactly. And this is very true for especially SaaS products, or SaaS services that are coming into WordPress ecosystem, targeting WordPress people. I had a interaction, just a normal interaction with someone who built a SaaS service, and they wanted to target WordPress users to come on board.

And the interaction started with like, they were telling me all the features, the fancy features and all that stuff. I’m saying, yeah, that’s good. And then I asked the very basic question like, if I’m a WordPress user, how am I going to integrate your service on my website, right? Oh, we provide a piece of code, and you just slap it there and it’s done.

And I said, WordPress people don’t work like that. You need to have an integration plugin. Oh, we never thought about it. And I said, no, that’s how WordPress ecosystem works. You’ve got to have an integration plugin, where a person installs a plugin and your site is connected to your service and it’s done.

And those people then went away for six months, without anything, then they came back after six months, emailed me, we got the plugin ready, now what’s next? And I said, yeah, that’s the first step actually to, you know, you need to be prepared for your entry into the WordPress ecosystem. You can’t expect WordPress people, obviously they are developers and all that, but average WordPress person would prefer to install an integration plugin to connect to a service, rather than getting a piece of code, and then look where to paste it, right? I won’t name that service, but they’ve been doing pretty good in the ecosystem now.

[00:19:20] Nathan Wrigley: I wonder how difficult it is nowadays to sell into the WordPress space. Because I imagine that if you had a fully functional plugin a decade ago, let’s say, I don’t know, 12, 13 years ago, the space was far less crowded. And you probably have been around for a while, so everybody knows you. You’ve become the incumbent, and what have you. You probably don’t need to do that work of being a part of the community, and showing up to events because you’ve already done it, and everybody knows who you are, and you are the incumbent.

But I do wonder how fiercely competitive it must be in the WordPress space. Let’s just pick an example. Let’s say that I came out with, oh I don’t know, just random thing, an SEO plugin. And we know that there’s a bunch of those already, and some of them enormously successful. But you’ve built the plugin, and it must be hard to then think, gosh, I spend all this time building the plugin. Do I really have to turn up to these things? Do I really have to go and sit through, I don’t know, watch through Slack channels, and turn up to podcast interviews, and go to events at different points in the world? Can’t I just sell it? Will somebody not just take it on and make it as success for me?

And I think maybe a decade ago that might have been much more the case. But now I think that piece of the puzzle, if you want to be a real success in the WordPress space, I think given the competition, you have to do a bit of that.

[00:20:38] Davinder Singh Kainth: Absolutely, because building a product is just 30%, rest 70% is marketing. And it’s not just marketing your product, it’s marketing yourself. You being a founder, co-founder, or a big team, doesn’t matter. Because if you look closely, be it a big product or a small product, most of the product has a face. Like we know, oh Yoast, I know this person from the Yoast. GoDaddy. I know this person from GoDaddy, right?

Marketing is very difficult, but if you do it in a natural way. If you’re looking for immediate sales, and you are completely new to the ecosystem, and you don’t have any existing product that can bring repetition to your new product, then it would be difficult.

But again, WordPress ecosystem is very welcoming for new people who are ready to mingle, and interact, and share their knowledge.

There are a lot of examples, like you mentioned about SEO plugin. There’s so many forms plugin. Now, you see WS form. Where did it come up from? Like last few years, it’s everywhere, right? Why? Because the founder is proactive, and he’s proactive about sharing stuff, rather than promoting his plugin. Because once you know a person, you always dig out and see, what’s the end deal here, right? So, I know it sounds very easy. Go and interact in the community, but mind you, it works.

[00:21:50] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, okay. That’s interesting. Where is the community now though? Because I feel there’s maybe 10 different places that I could mention, where you might find an aspect of the community. I’ll just rattle a few off. So, WordCamps, WordPress meetups, Facebook groups, Slack channels. You know, if you’re looking into Trac, you might find something in there. If you’re into GitHub, you might find something there. There’s probably all sorts of people on Twitter that you can follow. I’m on seven and I’ll stop, because I could keep going. But you get the idea.

Do you have any intuition these days, in the year 2024, June 2024? Where would you think a good proportion of that time should go? Is there a plan that you would advise people to follow, or is it just use what you’re already using, and the things that you’re already good with?

[00:22:36] Davinder Singh Kainth: You know, in my initial years, Facebook group was the big thing. Like I was in so many Facebook group. And not just I learned and made connections in Facebook group, even my agency business got like 99.99% of referrals and clients from those Facebook groups. And those were amazing. I’m still part of few Facebook groups, and they are still amazing, and I love them.

But again, I personally have stopped investing my time, or I should say bulk of my time interacting, because I’m already in various other systems now. Last one or two years, I’ve been enjoying Twitter and LinkedIn more, in connecting with new people. Because if you see, person you will find on LinkedIn would not be there on Facebook. That person may or may not be on Twitter. So the thing is, now there’s so much fragmentation of platforms, and there’s one person who would love to be on one platform, one person would love to be on another platform. So you need to be, just to cater to that needs.

Like I have a Facebook page for the WP Weekly on Facebook, right? But there’s always someone who said, I can’t tag you on LinkedIn. What’s the idea? So I had to launch a page for WP Weekly on LinkedIn, even though it’s an extra work for me. But again, if you want to spread your impact, spread your whole ecosystem, then you have to be on different platforms. Again, this is a time consuming thing, but whether you want to look at it as a time consuming thing, or investment, that’s how the whole perspective of thing goes.

So if you are starting new in 2024, Facebook groups is still one of the best place to start interacting. But again, you have to be little careful. It’s not like, oh hello, I’m this, this is my product, go buy it. That’s not how you introduce yourself in Facebook group. That still holds true even in 2024.

Follow people on Twitter, which is X now. Twitter has been amazing in the last two or three years for me. Like I’ve learned so many things. I’ve interacted with a lot of people there. Yes, the issue is that it’s a real time, you know, learning and communication. You can’t dig into archives and all that.

But yeah, the only thing that I’ve dropped off on my radar is Slack channels, various Slack. Because again, I personally found it too difficult because it’s a real time thing. People pings in, and you leave everything, and then attend it.

I’m only in part of two Slack channel, one is the Make WordPress Slack official, if someone tags and all that. And the other one is like a private slack of just five people. Five WordPress people who share things other than WordPress, because you need that fun element also in your online life.

[00:25:07] Nathan Wrigley: It’s kind of interesting, your path is quite similar to mine, in that I’ve ebbed and flowed. And things that I was really into for a period of time, I’ve become more disinterested in. Coincidentally, Facebook is one of them. But I’ve also found that I’m much more active in the Slack channels, than I ever was.

And I forgot to mention that. That is, if you can cope with the UI of Slack, and the linear nature of everything in one thread, which is, it can be quite hard if you blink, or go away for a week and come back, can be a challenge to catch up.

But essentially there’s no right answer. But what was kind of curious about what you said there was, there is an etiquette sometimes. There is a way of behaving, especially at the beginning. Where, if you show up to, let’s say one of the Facebook groups, and you join and you get accepted and all that, and you immediately start hitting that Facebook group with obvious sales and promotional content, it’s kind of interesting the reaction that you can have.

Whereas if you posted that exact same post two years after you’ve been in that community, and you’ve been really helpful, and you’ve obviously been a good citizen, and you are kind of now owed by the group, if you like. That’s the wrong way of describing it, but you know what I mean. You’ve put so much in, that maybe it’s time to get something back. That sort of stuff seems to be a little bit different. So, you do have to learn the rules of the road for each of these communities.

I feel like Twitter’s more broadcast. It’s more, hit a button and just say what you want to say, and if you wish to reply, so be it. But the Facebook groups and things like that, there is much more commentary, and things going on, so that’s interesting.

[00:26:39] Davinder Singh Kainth: That’s why I tell people, make friends. If the owner of Facebook group is your friend, you can get away with a lot of things.

[00:26:45] Nathan Wrigley: That’s interesting, yeah. So not everybody’s going to succeed, right? You may have a product to service, and you build it, and despite all of that, despite all of the efforts that you make, you show up to events, you participate, it just somehow never finds its way. That product was never destined to be a success, and it wasn’t.

What do you say about this? Do you think that it’s okay in WordPress to pivot, if you’ve been doing something for a long time? Is there anything in that? Just keep trying. It’s a worthwhile community. So instead of saying, okay, that plugin didn’t work, I’m going to abandon WordPress, and I’m going to go and build something for Shopify, or just build a SaaS app. Do you think that WordPress is a place where you can have a number of goes, even if the first few are failures?

[00:27:25] Davinder Singh Kainth: You know, if you dig the history of founders, or co-founders of very popular plugins in the current times, you will be surprised to know that plugin is, or was, not their first plugin. They had so many failures, so-called failures. I don’t call it as a failure, I call it as a learning step, learning process. Every failure, or everything that didn’t work is a learning, there’s a learning in there.

If I have to give my example, besides running an agency, I ran a theme shop that worked for me, and that really did wonders. I used to sell custom Genesis themes. It worked really well. Obviously Genesis ecosystem has gone in 10 years now, so that is not a relevant project. But I’ve done so many, so many projects that did not work.

But there’s a difference between me at that time and now. Like, earlier I used to cling to my projects. No, it’s going to work. I’m going to stick with it for three, four years.

But now I have a strict timeline. If that thing does not work, or I’m not interested in that thing for one year, I’m going to put it in a snooze mode, and get onto something that I might be interested in doing something else, right? So if you launch 10 different things, don’t expect even two of them working, it would be mostly one or zero. That’s how real life works, even in WordPress ecosystem.

So if you’re launching a plugin expecting, oh, I’m going to make triple, or four or five figures in one year, don’t even have the target. First step is launch a plugin for free, the free version. Because, again, if you see the WordPress ecosystem, the free model to the pro model, that’s the golden journey of even a customer, and even for you as an entrepreneur of a product. Obviously there are plugins which are pro only, and still work. But if you notice, those are mostly plugins that are like five or 10 years old, when the ecosystem was pretty much different.

[00:29:17] Nathan Wrigley: So, one curious thing that came out of that was that, you’ve had things that were successful. You just described things where it was a failure, and so you move on because you can’t keep sustaining a failing idea, or a failing product forever. But also, you said that you’d had things which were successful, and you mentioned themes and Genesis.

And if you’ve been in the WordPress space for any length of time, you’ll know that Genesis was all the rage. There was this theme called Genesis, and there were loads of things built on top of it. It almost became like a default for a significant amount of the community. And then, fast forward 5, 10 years, it had gone away. Other things had come along, usurped its place in the marketplace. We were talking about other themes and things.

So that’s interesting as well. Your success might not always be a success, and you have to be open to that as well. You know, just because you once were doing gangbuster sales, doesn’t mean that you always will. So be prepared to let go of an idea which worked, but maybe isn’t working.

[00:30:13] Davinder Singh Kainth: Yeah, move with the times. Because if you see the WordPress ecosystem, it changes every two, three years. The popular themes, the popular plugins, they all change within two, three years. That’s like mostly the shelf life. When I say change, it’s just them being in the popularity bracket, and then being removed from popularity bracket, and tagged as legacy, or the old school kind of products.

So yeah, move with the times. Because, again, even if you see the page builder stuff, that’s like the most hotly contested topic, there’s a new page builder who are all the rage. People use it, but not everyone uses it. There are people who still use the old page builders, and it works for them. But there’s a section of audience who loves to jump on new products. But then there’s a section of old people like me, maybe you also, who stick to the old products.

Because my school of thought is like, if the product that you’re using is working on foundational level, there’s no reason to change it immediately. Because if you change a product, it’s not just changing a product, it’s changing the whole learning process around it. And then, you know, if you’re serving client website, you’re rebuilding the whole thing. So be smart there. It’s good to follow the buzz in the ecosystem, but don’t get carried away with it.

[00:31:21] Nathan Wrigley: I do think that’s really interesting because, I mean, obviously if you have a really successful product in the WordPress space, then it does make sense to just invest all of your time and efforts into that one thing, because clearly that’s working. And we know that there are companies out there who, for decades or more have focused on one thing, and it’s been really successful.

But, interesting that in the back of your mind, is always the thought of, what’s the next thing? What could I be doing next, just in case? So you’ve, kind of got this insurance policy idea really that, you know, I’ve got a kernel of an idea, and it’s just sitting in the back there, and if I notice that this thing declines, then I’ll start to operate on that. And I think that’s a very sensible approach to take. So that’s interesting.

[00:31:59] Davinder Singh Kainth: You know, having multiple streams of revenue in this time, or any time in the WordPress space, is very critical. Because, if you have two or three different places that is bringing or generating revenue for you, they will always fluctuate. But when you have multiple, they will all compensate with each other. And then you end up making the same amount of revenue.

For example, a person working in a WordPress product company as an employee wants to launch a new plugin, or new product of their own. By default, hunch of a human nature is, I’m going to leave the job, and I’m start working on a product, and I’m going to sell it. That sounds very interesting. That sounds very, very attractive. But in real life, that can be a disaster for you.

So the best idea is, yes, work on a product while you’re working on a job. Find a free time, and run it in parallel, and validate it, whether it’s going to work or not. Because you don’t want to come from a hundred to zero. Come from a hundred to 70, and then try to experiment things.

[00:32:54] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s really nice advice. Fascinating conversation. So the WordPress community is big, broad, there’s lots of success. There’s probably a fair amount of failure as well. But I think the lasting message from here is keep trying, keep pivoting, be a good member of the community, explore the different ways that the community operates. Figure out what the rules of the road are, and hopefully you’ll have some success.

Davinder, where do we connect with you? I mean, I know you mentioned the platform specifically. I think Twitter and LinkedIn are your favorites at the moment. But I know that you’ve got a newsletter. We mentioned it at the beginning. So, anywhere that you want to tell people to go to find you?

[00:33:27] Davinder Singh Kainth: My username is, I, I as an iPhone, followed by Davinder, D-A-V-I-N-D-E-R. I’m iDavinder on every platform, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. And also I have a website called iDavinder.com, which is a legacy, old, vintage looking website, which needs a makeover, you know? Own websites never get loved, but I plan to redo it someday. So yeah, iDavinder, I’m happy, say hi, happy to connect with, I love connecting with new people.

[00:33:52] Nathan Wrigley: Perfect. So we will put all of that into the show notes, along with the links to the WP Weekly as well. And it just remains for me to say, Davinder Singh Kainth, thank you very much for chatting to me today. That was really interesting.

[00:34:04] Davinder Singh Kainth: Thank you. Always nice talking to you, and yeah, thanks for inviting me.

On the podcast today we have Davinder Singh Kainth.

Davinder is a WordPress creative, an entrepreneur, and a sharer of knowledge. He’s been in the online ecosystem for over 20 years, and his journey from blogging to design, development, and entrepreneurship is anchored in the WordPress world. He writes about WordPress every week at The wpweekly.com newsletter, and also has a sideline in website creation, coaching, and consulting.

Today we get into a discussion that extends beyond traditional agency work. We talk about the opportunities available in plugin and theme development, SEO, hosting and more. Davinder offers his advice on trying to figure out the nuances of the WordPress ecosystem to promote your credibility and ensure longevity.

We chat about the importance of having diversified revenue streams, the intricacies of targeting WordPress users with SaaS products, and the vital role that referrals play in agency success. Davinder also discusses the need for adaptability, persistence, and carving out one’s unique path in the WordPress world.

We also touch upon the community spirit found at WordCamp events, and the significant impact that engaging with the WordPress community can have on professional opportunities.

If you’re interested in practical advice on how the WordPress community can work with you, this episode is for you.

Useful links

The WP Weekly

WordCamp Asia

Davinder on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

Davinder’s legacy website