WP Agency Summit, a virtual event for WordPress agencies, will kick off December 6, 2019, and last through December 16. The event will feature daily sessions by over 30 WordPress professionals that are designed to help agencies grow their business. Each session will be free to view, but there will be a price tag attached after the event closes.
Jan Koch, owner WP Mastery, is running the event. WP Agency Summit is for profit, but Koch expressed a desire to give something back to the community that has helped him over the years. “I want this event to deliver value to the WP community, because I myself have received free support countless times from Facebook groups, forums, etc.,” he said. “That’s why the event is free to watch online while it’s running.”
The event is primarily aimed at WordPress agencies, but others may find value in it. “This event is also interesting for WordPress freelancers and digital agencies who occasionally use WordPress,” said Koch. “However, being a WordPress agency owner myself, I wanted to ensure that business owners like myself and those in similar situations get the most value from the event.”
Video sessions will be available to view for 48 hours at no cost. For those who sign up for a free pass, they can upgrade to lifetime access for $127. That lifetime access will go up to $197 during the event and $497 afterward.
Potential buyers may want to opt for the free option before deciding whether future access to the sessions and bonus materials are worth plunking down the cash. For an agency, the cost is minimal either way. However, for a solo freelancer, the $497 price is high enough to warrant caution. Most will want to check out the material first.
Each of the video sessions is prerecorded and edited rather than shot live. Koch is using Vimeo Pro to host the videos. There will be a live hangout to begin the event. Attendees and speakers will also get a Facebook group invite for asking questions and engaging with each other.
Cloudways, Siteground, and MainWP are sponsoring the event, which helps cover some of the up-front costs. Outside of that, Koch is handling the remainder of those costs out of his pocket but is hopeful for a positive return through the sale of lifetime access to the materials.
Koch first ran a virtual summit called “The WP Summit” in 2015, which was a more broad event based on various WordPress topics. That event had over 2,000 registrations. “As you can imagine, just talking about topics related to WP resulted in a very wide-spread speaker lineup, so there weren’t any clear takeaways,” said Koch.
The idea for WP Agency Summit has been in Koch’s mind since 2018. It wasn’t until some conversations with others at WordCamp Europe (WCEU) in 2019 that it started coming together. “After WCEU, I invested in a virtual training for summits and hired a mentor to properly set up the WP Agency Summit,” he said. “My goal is to run 4 events like this in 2020, so this summit is serving as ‘crash test dummy’ and foundation at the same time.”
The Speaker Lineup
There are over 30 speakers signed on for the event. Kim Doyal, a content marketer formerly known as “The WordPress Chick,” will teach agencies how to write copy that attracts higher-paying clients. Ahmad Awais, core WordPress contributor, will teach how to save time writing code in the VS Code editor.
Most sessions will focus on how agencies can grow their business with topics related to recurring revenue, marketing, and working with clients. Each day of the event will feature three or four sessions.
WP Agency Summit is hosting a diverse male lineup of over 20 speakers from Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the US. However, there are only four sessions lead by women within the industry. “I recognize this as a problem with my event,” said Koch. “The reason I have so much more male than female speakers is quite simple, the current speaker line-up is purely based on connections I had when I started planning for the event. It was a relatively short amount of time for me, so I wasn’t able to build relationships with more female WP experts beforehand.”
Koch assures that he will have a more balanced ratio for upcoming summits in 2020 and beyond. “Even in this prelaunch phase, I already got in touch with many outstanding women in the WP community which would make perfect speakers for the next events,” he said.
Jan Koch is a great guy and he perfectly knows his whereabout when it comes to WordPress. I’ve followed him for over two years now and I don’t have any doubt this sumbit will bring the best experience for attendees.