WPWeekly Episode 272 – Interview With James Farmer, Co-Founder and CEO of Incsub

On this episode of WordPress Weekly, I’m joined by James Farmer, co-founder and CEO of Incsub. Farmer has been involved in the WordPress community for 11 years and in that time, he and I have butted heads, mildly speaking.

Last year, Farmer looked back at the last 10 years of being a WordPress entrepreneur. In that post, he shares emails and conversations he has had in the WordPress community that are cringe-worthy. Because of the extremely poor interactions I’ve had with Farmer in the past, I’ve kept away from his work and the projects he is associated with.

In the past few months, I’ve read interviews with Farmer where he appears to have turned over a new leaf. In an interview on Torquemag congratulating him on WPMU Dev’s Smush Image Compression plugin winning the Plugin Madness competition, Farmer is asked what advice he would give to aspiring plugin developers?

“Make the free version as brilliant as you possibly can. Give back to the community as much as you can and it’ll come back to you in spades,” Farmer said. “Contribute to the wordpress.org support forums and community, commit code if you can, speak at WordCamps, and be as helpful and useful as possible, it’ll ALL be worth it, I promise.”

When asked what’s the most important lesson he’s learned as CEO and co-founder of WPMU Dev, he responded:

That is a very good question, and one I think I’m actually probably not able to answer as there are basically so so many important things.

I think though if I had to pick one, it goes along the same lines as my last answer: the more you give out, the more you give of yourself and the more, kinda, selfless that you are… the more you get back. And, sadly (and from painful experience), the opposite is also true.

Because of the way he answered these questions and my curiosity for his career in WordPress, I invited him on WordPress Weekly. We talked about his entrepreneurial career and some of the failures along the way. He explains the genesis behind the Smush Image Optimization Plugin and shares what it’s like to be part of the WordPress community in Australia.

My favorite part of the interview is when Farmer describes his experience at WordCamp Europe a few years ago that fundamentally changed his perception of the WordPress community.

After this interview, I can confidently say that the past between us is water under the bridge. I look forward to future conversations with Farmer and taking a closer look at his company’s products.

Stories Discussed:

bbPress 2.6 Beta 3 Likely as Team Focuses on Solid Data Migration Path
VersionPress 4.0 Tentatively Scheduled to Ship in September
WordPress 4.8 Release Targeted for June 8
WPHugs: A Community Devoted to Educating, Discussing, and Raising Awareness of Mental Health

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Wednesday, May 17th 3:00 P.M. Eastern

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Listen To Episode #272:
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