Should you build that new WordPress plugin?

[00:00:00] Matt Cromwell: Hey everyone.

[00:00:24] Welcome, welcome. Leslie and Kim are here. I sent you both a quick co-host invite. Hopefully it's showing up.

[00:00:37] Kim Coleman: Let me know. Let me know if you can hear me.

[00:00:39] Matt Cromwell: I can hear you.

[00:00:40] Kim Coleman: Perfect.

[00:00:42] Leslie Sim: Can you hear me?

[00:00:43] Matt Cromwell: Leslie, are you there? Yes. Awesome.

[00:00:45] Leslie Sim: Okay, cool. Cool,

[00:00:47] Matt Cromwell: cool, cool. We will stall and say funny jokes until we see some more folks join in.

[00:00:56] Leslie Sim: I'm gonna google some like cheesy jokes right now.

[00:01:02] Matt Cromwell: Perfect. We all know Google is the best source of funny jokes.

[00:01:09] Leslie Sim: Google is the source for everything.

[00:01:12] Kim Coleman: Well, tomorrow's my birthday, so we could also just kick this off with a nice happy birthday my last year in my thirties.

[00:01:19] Matt Cromwell: Oh, nice.

[00:01:20] Leslie Sim: Oh, happy

[00:01:21] birthday.

[00:01:22] Kim Coleman: Thank you.

[00:01:24] Matt Cromwell: That's awesome.

[00:01:25] Leslie Sim: Are you doing anything to celebrate

[00:01:28] Matt Cromwell: Pizza.

[00:01:30] I'm getting pizza for dinner. I don't have to cook. And we're gonna eat a lot of pizza. That's, that's how everyone's birthday should be celebrated.

[00:01:37] Oh. Looks like Leslie, are you still there? Yeah. Okay. There we go. Looks like we missed her for,

[00:01:52] there we go. Leslie, we got you back.

[00:01:59] Hmm. I suddenly can't hear anybody.

[00:02:04] Kim Coleman: Can you still hear me? I, I was muted, but I wasn't speaking. Yep.

[00:02:07] Matt Cromwell: Leslie, you're muted right now.

[00:02:11] Leslie Sim: Okay, hold on. My, something is working. I'm gonna log off and then come back out.

[00:02:20] Matt Cromwell: Okay.

[00:02:31] In the meantime, um.

[00:02:38] I am excited because I tweeted earlier that I tried my first hand at my own pumpkin spice latte this morning. It was amazing.

[00:02:52] Kim Coleman: I know people say that internationally the, the variety of creamers are a lot harder, so I guess you're gonna have to do the, the homemade method.

[00:02:59] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, they definitely have some really good syrups and whatnot out here in Germany.

[00:03:08] but the pumpkin spice stuff is definitely very American, I think and I do enjoy it. But it was quite a process. I actually bought like a juicer just in order to juice my pumpkin.

[00:03:23] Kim Coleman: Oh

[00:03:24] my goodness.

[00:03:24] Matt Cromwell: And it was, I mean, it was definitely a process, but now I have like a big jar of, of pumpkin spice syrup, essentially.

[00:03:32] and it's amazing. So,

[00:03:35] Kim Coleman: oh, wow.

[00:03:36] Matt Cromwell: I'm excited. Cool. We are already four minutes in to this WP Product talk. thanks folks for being here. WP Product Talk is essentially a crazy idea that I had and invited Kim to co-host with me where we said. Honestly, we should use Twitter spaces to talk about WordPress product, business stuff and see if folks are interested in, in hearing about it.

[00:04:07] And so far I think the reception's been pretty great. Kim, did folks reach out to you and tell you what they thought of the episode and everything?

[00:04:15] Kim Coleman: mostly just through Twitter and, and messaging, but I think they found a lot of value in, in being able to listen to it back. So I'm glad that we're recording and making that available to people.

[00:04:24] Matt Cromwell: Yep, absolutely. shortly afterwards Matt Medeiros from The WP Minute reached out to me and said, Hey, would you mind if we redistributed the recording for you via The WP Minute? And I said, sure. Sounds great. So you can also catch the recording on Twitter, if you could find it through Kim or I's profiles.

[00:04:47] but you can also catch it on the WP Minute kind of permanently going forward. So that's a fun new feature of this Twitter space. Last week we talked about how to monetize free plugins or free products, and this week we're gonna talk about should you build that new product. And when Kim and I discussed that idea I was like.

[00:05:13] Actually, I think I know the perfect guest host for this

[00:05:16] subject. I

[00:05:18] don't know if Leslie feels like that's perfect or not, but she and I had talked about this. I do wanna welcome Leslie to w Poop Product Shop pro. I'm messing up our name. Thanks for being here.

[00:05:34] Leslie Sim: Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

[00:05:37] This is, this is a topic that's been haunting me for, for a while now.

[00:05:44] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I know. Yeah,

[00:05:49] Kim Coleman: your audio's coming through. Great for me. Okay, great.

[00:05:53] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. let's do some quick introductions. if you don't know, my name is Matt Cromwell. I'm one of the co-founders of GiveWP which last year was acquired by LiquidWeb.

[00:06:05] And we are a part of the StellarWP family of brands. and I've been doing WordPress for a super long time, built a bunch of different products and Sunset, a bunch of different products, and didn't build a bunch of other products, and that's what we're talking about today. that's me. Kim, can you introduce yourself?

[00:06:24] Kim Coleman: Sure thing. I'm Kim Coleman. I'm co-founder of Paid Memberships Pro. We're a a hundred percent open source WordPress membership plugin. We've been developing that plugin for 12 years and now we're getting into the flash sales business with our newer plugin Sitewide Sales.

[00:06:39] Matt Cromwell: Awesome. And Leslie?

[00:06:42] Leslie Sim: yeah, I'm Leslie.

[00:06:44] I've, I guess, well, not just, I built a plugin called Newsletter Glue that you sent email newsletters from your WordPress editor. Been doing that for two years now, and before that I was running a digital marketing agency.

[00:07:03] Matt Cromwell: Excellent. So great to have you here. I think a lot of folks know Leslie from her Twitter account where she is building in public and sharing a lot of her insights.

[00:07:13] and that's definitely where I first learned about you and reached out. And since then we've been chatting and talking about all things business, and I just wanna let everyone know if you haven't chatted with Leslie about your own business, you should because she's got great. Instincts and insights and I love the way that she's learning as she goes.

[00:07:33] So thanks so much for being here. Cool. So the topic is should you build that new product, essentially work, especially in the workforce space. We're all entrepreneurs and we all like building stuff and we kind of have this itch to constantly build a new thing. and there's always an ongoing joke of like, why should I

[00:07:56] buy that new platform when I could just build it? Well maybe you could build it, but should you or you know, kind of also like the Jurassic Park thing. Just because you could, doesn't mean you should, should necessarily. so and I think we all have some of our own stories about navigating that.

[00:08:16] Um. That line. And that's kind of where I wanted to start, if possible, is just tell us a little bit about a time in which you were struggling with the idea of whether or not you should build something new and like especially if you decided not to, would love to hear a little bit of details about that.

[00:08:34] And I wanted to pass that over to Kim first, if, if you don't mind.

[00:08:38] Kim Coleman: Oh, for sure. I'm gonna go early on. When Jason and I were just getting into WordPress development, we actually built our own. You know, e-commerce products plugin and we never released it publicly. and this is before WooCommerce. I, Jason's on, he, you know, this might even be before like the jigo shop time or, or right around then.

[00:09:03] And I think we hesitated with that. releasing that was we were having children at the time. We were, you know, doing a lot of product of agency work and we didn't really understand the product space. So I think we didn't understand, you know, how we would ever monetize something like this. You know, the, the plugin repository existed, you know, in a very early form at that time.

[00:09:24] And you know, I think we just let it go. But looking back on it, you know, it could have been even an earlier step into serving the e-commerce, you know, WordPress space. and it's, it's interesting to think back on that and wonder what could have been if we had doubled down on that instead of kind of shying away.

[00:09:44] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, that's a tough one. That is a big fish. one way I pitched this question was like, tell us your, what's the big fish that got away stories? Like, we all have those products. It's like, oh, I kind of wish I would've built that back then. That's a, that being in e-commerce, that's a big one.

[00:10:00] Kim Coleman: Very, very much.

[00:10:01] Yeah. And it, it, I think paved the way to our understanding of gateways and, and what we've done for subscription and gateway integration. So for that, we're thankful for it, but at the same time, you're like, h you know.

[00:10:12] Yeah, maybe we've

[00:10:13] been a different landscape now having more competition for the WooCommerce plugin.

[00:10:16] If, if there were more early plugins that stayed the course.

[00:10:20] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah. I do constantly see new e-commerce platforms cropping up in the WordPress space. it seems, it still seems really difficult though for them for, for small plugins to really get into that space. Like there, there's. Several areas that were ripe for competition, like forms for a long time were kind of like mostly just gravity forms and contact form seven.

[00:10:44] And then a bunch of new forms came in and took over. And then in e-commerce, I feel like it's just been woo for a really long time. Or SEO is another one, like forever it was really just all in one and Yoast, but some new players have been getting in there. But on e-commerce it really seems like it's really challenging to get into that space against WooCommerce.

[00:11:06] So. yeah. Do you, do you ever, are, are you, do you like sometimes kick yourself for not doing it, or,

[00:11:13] Kim Coleman: I don't know. I don't know. I think that it, it would've been a different, um, business because broadly serving e-commerce, to me, it, it's too many, you know, types of products, virtual, downloadable, you know, customization, physical products I like that we're, you know, even though memberships is, is a huge space also, I like that it's more specific.

[00:11:35] and I, I, I use that as a guidance for, for new ideas for products. Because I, I see plugins be successful when they're very specific. And, you know, we, Leslie, you can speak to this too, but pricing a WordPress product, there is a ceiling that people are willing to pay. And, you know, for our product at the price it is, there's products that do such a small fragment of functionality for, for your WordPress site and can be that same price just because it's, it's a ceiling that people are willing to pay.

[00:12:04] So, you know, when I think about new products, I think, you know, what is like a small low support low complexity product. And

[00:12:12] . And that's what I'd prefer. So I think I'm glad that I'm not serving e-commerce broadly.

[00:12:17] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, that makes sense. Leslie, what's the, your big fish story? What, what one got away? Or, or maybe you're in the middle of it right now?

[00:12:27] Leslie Sim: I think, I think I'm in the, the middle of it right now. I'm not really sure if there's anything that's like, I really felt that, like has gotten away. I think like. I'm sure I've had like lots of random ideas over the years, but like having not really, it, it doesn't really feel like there's any, you know, like opportunity cost there.

[00:12:52] Matt Cromwell: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well that, like right where you're at right now and on, right on the cusp of deciding to jump for into it or, or not. That's, I think we're going to dig, dig into that next for sure. and I'm excited to dig into that with you. Real quick, I'll say on, on my side of things, there's several that, that we were trying to balance of of whether or not we would build or not.

[00:13:15] one of them was a CRM or a a actually for the nonprofit space. We'd call it DRM donation, a donor relationship manager. We went back and forth on whether we should do that to pair nicely with GiveWP for a long time in the WordPress space, people were really saying. That, that kind of contact complexity.

[00:13:39] Just didn't belong in WordPress but there's been a big crop of, of good CRMs coming up over the last couple years. Groundhog comes to mind and fluent comes to mind. there's a couple others too. and I feel like they're, they're doing a good job and I, I sometimes kick myself. I sometimes wish we really just would've jumped in and done it because it pairs so nicely with with GiveWP, um.

[00:14:08] Yeah, and I, I think later we'll talk a little bit about why we said no and things like that.

[00:14:12] Kim Coleman: Yeah, I can see why people

[00:14:14] would kind of want that all in one place be, you know, and, and silly to think, you know, it shouldn't be long in WordPress because WordPress is capable of, you know, being that kind of admin interface to that huge database of information.

[00:14:25] So, you know, I, I'm a big fan of, you know, one true source of information not having separate databases and separate things connected. So.

[00:14:33] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, absolutely. Like there's a big part of me that thought I would love to offer it, offer it as almost like an extension of WordPress itself. Like it would be a self-hosted thing that was work built on WordPress, but it didn't look like WordPress.

[00:14:50] And you could like build it into like a subdomain of your site so that it's like offloading all that activity off of your main site. But I was like, as soon as we started thinking through those things, it just, the complexity really amplified. So and then building it straight into WordPress. I, I do think the way that Groundhog and Fluent have gone about it it seems to be working overall, but, um.

[00:15:13] It can get overwhelming in there too. So the other big one, honestly, is we talked a lot about jumping out of the WordPress space and building a full donation SaaS platform. And honestly we, we spent about a year actually working on it more than a year actually working on it. In the end decided not to launch it.

[00:15:35] And that was probably one of the hardest decisions we ever made as a brand was actually starting to build something and, and actually falling in love with it personally and then deciding not to launch it. That was rough. and we kind of decided not to launch it multiple times. It was like let's not do it now.

[00:15:56] And then we brought it up again and, and said, oh, maybe now's a good time to launch it. And we decided again, no, not gonna launch. So that, that's been really rough.

[00:16:07] Leslie Sim: I, I'd love to dig into that. Like what made you de decide to not launch it and then relaunch it and then like what, what were the decision making factors there?

[00:16:16] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one is just an acknowledgement that the SaaS space is just so radically different than the WordPress space. in terms of, especially in terms of marketing. Like how do you actually gain users in the WordPress space, we do have this built in marketplace of wordpress.org, especially with, for freemium products that really helps accelerate businesses really quickly.

[00:16:43] Overall, I would say. and in the SaaS space, you don't have that at all. you really have to essentially earn and, and buy every single customer in one form or another, whether it's with sponsorships or with content marketing or with, um. Paid advertising. Conferences. it's just a much, much, much higher marketing investment.

[00:17:08] and that was at the end of the day, that was the, the thing that we just felt like we could not do was pull off the big marketing investment in order to launch it effectively. so it, I it's a pretty cool product, honestly. and it's kind of sitting there. but, um. We, I don't know. It's a tough one.

[00:17:32] So. Cool. other questions there?

[00:17:39] No. Cool.

[00:17:40] Leslie Sim: Yeah, I, I, I have a question like, do you, so like, now, you know, it's probably been, I dunno, how, how many years since it's you started building that, like, do you feel like you've got the marketing firepower now if you wanted to launch it, especially now with like the whole StellarWP behind your back.

[00:17:57] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, totally. I mean, it, it's a, it's an interesting question because we definitely have more resourcing available. but the truth is we did the second time around, we did make that decision not to launch together with StellarWP Leadership and so that was a joint decision the second time around.

[00:18:16] and it was really because we are just deciding that we wanna double down on the WordPress space as much as possible. And and at the end of the day also it, it is essentially another donation solution, which in many ways, I think you could say. Is a in or, or kind of a, a competitor itself to GiveWP. We did try to position it as something other than GiveWP like there's other reasons why you would choose the, the SaaS platform instead of the self-hosted plugin version,

[00:18:50] but at the end of the day, it felt like we probably would be like weaning from our own customer base in some ways. So.

[00:19:00] Kim Coleman: I can identify with that right now. We, we said yes to a new product that we're launching soon, and there are conversations like exactly what you said, Matt, that point toward it, cap, you know, cannibalizing some people that would use paid memberships pro, but we're gonna go forward with it and just see, I think for now, and it is another WordPress product kind of in the content restrictions slash subscriptions type space.

[00:19:24] I'm gonna get like red flags from my team for how much I talk about this, but

[00:19:29] Matt Cromwell: I was gonna say, let's talk about this some more. This sounds like a soft launch strategy right now.

[00:19:35] Kim Coleman: Yeah,

[00:19:35] it definitely is. It's gonna just, you know, put it out there and see how it's used kind of product, but it, I think it just got too much cut too far within our team and, and we saw too much opportunity there.

[00:19:46] I can, you know, very briefly, it is a more direct integration between a WordPress site restriction and your stripe merchant account. So offloading everything relating to account management, subscription management, pricing, taxes, checkout to the Stripe portals, because Stripe has come so far since paid memberships Pro started by offering front end user facing

[00:20:13] interfaces for profile management, for subscription management, for billing management. so I think we just kind of looked ahead and we thought, what would Stripe pursue doing in terms of WordPress integration and, and creating those connections between, you know, WordPress user accounts and their billing information in the Stripe customer portal.

[00:20:34] So it's called Restrict with Stripe. It's gonna come out in the dot org depository and, and just kind of have a standalone page. Like you said, we don't know what it's gonna mean and there's no direct upgrade path right now between this product and paid memberships pro. So it's interesting. I could be on this talk a year from now and, and crying.

[00:20:52] Yeah. Crying about my choices.

[00:20:55] Matt Cromwell: We'll see. Yeah. I mean, that's the best part is like so many lessons learned along the way.

[00:21:00] Kim Coleman: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:04] Matt Cromwell: Leslie, you had a question there.

[00:21:06] Leslie Sim: not really. I wanted to kind of, I guess since we, we've been like, jumping in a little bit. so in, in my notes I identified like three different ways that you could build a new product. And I wanted, and I thought it'd be like really cool to, to talk about the ways and then like talk about where like, you know, both like your and Kim's products fall into, into that to kind of like help people get an idea

[00:21:35] around how to think about these things. So the, the three, the three things, or the three ways in which I think people can think about building new products is so the three things are like, is it a new problem? Is it a new solution or is it a new audience? And you can only pick one. So for example, like you can choose a new solution to an existing problem and audience space, which I think Matt, yours falls into.

[00:22:02] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:22:02] Leslie Sim: Because it's, yeah, it's like same, same donation problem, but like, and same audience, but then the new solution is like SaaS instead of WordPress. And then the other one is new audience, but same problem and solution. So the example that I had there was. Yoast creating a Shopify app.

[00:22:26] So it's like the same, the same problem, right? It's like SEO websites need SEO and the same solution. It's still Yoast, but it's a new audience. 'Cause it's not WordPress anymore, it's on Shopify. and then the third one is new problem in the same solution and audience space. so the example I gave here was like, Canva making websites.

[00:22:48] Now they're like, they're pretty much just like using Canva as the foundation and then like. Instead of building graphics, you, you can build websites. and it's the same audience. It's like people who are no coders you know, like marketers who don't wanna bother their dev teams or like social media people,

[00:23:04] you know, that kind of audience, but it's like a completely new problem. So I'm like kind of curious, like, Kim, where, where this restrict stripe plugin.

[00:23:17] Kim Coleman: Right

[00:23:18] would, I would say this is for me, new problem in the same solution audience space. The problem being, the way that paid memberships pro works the way that most membership

[00:23:33] subscription products work. You set up the details about the membership and the price and all the things they can access across your site, kind of within WordPress, and then you tell Stripe about it when they do checkout. So this is this is sites that want Stripe to be the end all be all. Maybe they're already using Stripe

[00:23:52] for other billing information for their product. Maybe they set up, you know, stripe payment buttons or invoices, and they send people too, so they're not as into the management of it in the WordPress side. They don't want, you know, to use WordPress to be, to see all of their members. They're just so embedded and committed to what their tools are in Stripe

[00:24:11] and they don't have like another gateway need. so we're trying to give them a way to, you know, create. A direct link between restricted single page on the WordPress site, a single post, single category of content. but offload all of that to Stripe. just all the PCI happens on Stripe site, all the, you know, compliance and, and things happen over there.

[00:24:32] So, I don't know. I, I would say it's new problem.

[00:24:36] Matt Cromwell: I for one, I love this separation. The, or these three ways that you frame the, the, the question there, Leslie. I think that makes tons of sense. There might be other additional ways too, but these, these three fit really, really nicely overall. new solution in an existing problem and audience base, new audience in the same problem and solution, and a new problem in the same solution

[00:25:02] and audience base. We're gonna need to tweet that out or something. Real, real quick though. Actually, one thing I forgot to do, like best practice with Twitter space stuff. If you have questions or whatnot, folks who are listening in, definitely feel free to reply to one of the tweets or, or do a retweet or anything.

[00:25:19] The best way though is if you could use the hashtag WP product Talk. Then that I'm watching that there's absolutely zero activity there right now. So we, we get to own that space if we want. So hashtag WP product talk and I'll pay attention. Matt Pritchett does have a good question. I'm, I'm gonna get to that in just a little bit.

[00:25:38] But one thing I love Leslie we, we did make one decision to make to, to build a new product that you might not have even heard about. We do have this free plugin called, um. Donation block for, for Stripe which essentially is a donation form just like GiveWP, but it's only Stripe and it's a, and it's a single block.

[00:26:01] And essentially that would fit in your new problem in the same solution and audience space. So we're still in WordPress. We're still targeting nonprofits. We're still doing donations, but we're tackling it in a different way with the with the donation block and we did that because of the the block library.

[00:26:24] It, it's kind of a new market. It's, I mean, it's kind of the same market, but it's also a new entry point that people discovery point that folks can find you with. We wanted to build a one block plugin that does donations only with Stripe. and it kind of, at the end of the day, serves also as a little bit of a soft upsell to GiveWP because the donation block can't do all the big awesome things that GiveWP does. So.

[00:26:52] Kim Coleman: Yeah, I can, I'll go over this quick. If anyone listening isn't aware when you're in the block editor, you know, click that plus button. You can bring up the browse all. If you search for a block by keyword or term that might not already exist in your, in your specific WordPress sites library, it actually proposes some plugins that are single block plugins like Matt's talking about, correct me if I'm wrong,

[00:27:14] that you can then install and instantly insert into your posts so it behind the scenes then I think installs the plugin. I think Lifter LMS has one also like this and it is kind of a cool for people that use the block, their block library are searching for certain keywords. I think there's a cool pricing table block that even shows up.

[00:27:32] So like exactly what you said, Matt, it's like a, a lead in if someone discovers that blocked and like, oh, well who are the people behind this?

[00:27:39] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we all know how powerful it is that folks can just do ad plugin and they'll find you in their word, in their WordPress website. This is the same idea.

[00:27:49] They're in Gutenberg and they're like, you know, building out their page and they think, oh, I wanna add a donation plugin here, so I'll just like search for donation and it pops up there. We don't know for sure how many folks are really discovering things that way, but it, it, it's been out for about a year and I think the last I saw we're at 400 active installs of that plugin.

[00:28:13] So I'm gonna look it up, but cool.

[00:28:19] Leslie Sim: Nice. I I kind of argue that that's like product or like dev as marketing, though I wouldn't really say that it's a separate product. Because like the, the kind of like goal of that is to feed into, GiveWP, right?

[00:28:35] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. I mean, in some ways also just in terms of like product by itself, it's also, I would say probably like the absolute quickest way to get a donation form on your website.

[00:28:47] Like in, in like less than five minutes, you, you literally. Install the block and connect to Stripe and hit publish. It's super, super quick. So there are real product reasons for it too. It almost might be considered like a, a GiveWP light in many ways. But, but yes. a little bit of product as marketing and also just kind of like,

[00:29:14] we wanted to know more about the block library and, and whether or not it has a lot of potential or not. So we're still figuring that out.

[00:29:25] Leslie Sim: Nice.

[00:29:27] Matt Cromwell: So I think it's definitely time for us to dig in on Leslie's pain point. Leslie, walk us through, should

[00:29:35] Leslie Sim: we, should we talk about Matt's? Should we answer Matt's question first?

[00:29:39] Matt Cromwell: How and why to say no to new products?

[00:29:42] Leslie Sim: Oh no. sorry. Matt Pritchett has a, had a question.

[00:29:46] Matt Cromwell: Oh, Matt Pritchett. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

[00:29:49] Leslie Sim: because that was pertaining to, yeah.

[00:29:52] Matt Cromwell: How did y'all deal with any dip into employee morale after working on something for a year only to watch it be shelved? Yeah, I mean it definitely was a tough one. for sure and actually Jason Adams is listening in right now and he might be even best to talk through it because it was really the development team that had put the most work into the product

[00:30:15] and the development team that loved it and was highly interested in it. I, I think overall the biggest thing that helped us was truthfully, I wanna say that, that everyone loved working for us regardless and enjoyed our products, both in terms of the SaaS we were building and the WordPress plugin as well.

[00:30:39] like I think we had a really good foundation of general, um, high satisfaction in terms of being on the team and, and being involved. I think that really set the tone. And then at the end of the day, I think the only thing worse than not launching a product that you love is launching a product that you love and seeing it fail.

[00:31:04] I think that is actually. Way worse than, than not launching. So, and I, we just, the way that we talked through it a bit was really that we felt like we didn't really have enough of the long-term, um. Marketing support to, to really make it succeed. and that made a lot of sense to the development team.

[00:31:28] They, the last thing they wanted was to build something awesome and incredible and, and just see it not actually survive in the long run. So that's kind of my short answer. Pritchett, if you're, if you're there, still would love to hear your response on your tweet. I don't know, Kim, Leslie, how's that sound?

[00:31:51] Kim Coleman: It sounds pretty authentic and, and true to what what any team should have is if we all have like the respect for one another and the trust for the decision making, you know? We can take what we learned from the project, from developing it and you know, it's not to say in two years there isn't an opportunity that presents itself that you're on board for it.

[00:32:11] We kind of have done the same thing a lot. We use the shape up method for cycle work and there's a lot that's come out of cycle work that is sitting waiting for someone to, to give it the attention it needs to push it over the finish line and, um. I think the devs just keep moving forward and, you know, products like that, like they need a champion from all sides of the business to, you know, move something forward.

[00:32:35] So even if, you know, you planned on releasing it in the future and you just were waiting for someone in marketing to pick up that and start running with it, you know, that happens within our team as well. And I think the respect and that foundation the feelings don't get too hurt.

[00:32:52] Matt Cromwell: I'm gonna bring in Jason super quick since he is here

[00:32:55] and he's gonna speak to the, the, the way he managed the, the dev team. So he requested, there we go. Jason, you should see the ability to speak now. There you are.

[00:33:12] Nope. Looks like he accepted. There you go. You're muted. Jason.

[00:33:18] Jason Adams: Okay. Can you hear me?

[00:33:20] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, now we hear you. Thanks for being here, man.

[00:33:23] Jason Adams: Yeah, of course. I had no idea. I just saw this and was like, oh, I'll join. Um so I really liked the question honestly, as, as the person who was managing the devs at the time, like it was something I thought a lot about is how's everybody gonna feel?

[00:33:42] And I think like the, the real answer to the question is to not act as if it's not a problem. you know, if you, if you just like, you know, move, quote your resources on, you're like, Hey, so you've been working on that project for two years, and guess what? Now you're not. But don't worry, you know, like. If you just moved them with no explanation,

[00:34:08] um, that's really demoralizing to people to just feel like, yeah, they're shiftable like that versus, you know, we did, we were really transparent with them. We really tried to explain like the, the business decision you know, bring them in on why it wasn't being launched and then also to like to share with them, you know, 'cause they were being shifted over to GiveWP and I really tried to share with them why I was really excited to have them on GiveWP.

[00:34:46] I was like, so you've been working on this over here using Laravel and you've, you have brought concepts that we don't have in Give and I would love to have your personal input and effect on this product over here. So to first just acknowledge like, yep, it's probably not happening. Here's why. We're sorry.

[00:35:10] And we're totally get it if you're really bummed, we want to give you space to be bummed, but also we're really excited to have you move over to GiveWP for these specific reasons.

[00:35:21] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. I would say that since then, the work that's been done on GiveWP has been amazing. So I think in retrospect, we definitely made the right decision because the benefit of all those devs working on GiveWP has been immense.

[00:35:34] So we, we only got five more minutes. So Jason, I'm gonna kick you off. Thanks so much for, for your perspective. That was super valuable and insightful.

[00:35:44] Jason Adams: You bet.

[00:35:45] Matt Cromwell: And of course, of course. Thanks for your leadership too and Leslie we really only have like four more minutes. we ended up talking about my stuff way too much.

[00:35:56] This is terrible. Leslie, bring us in. Tell us what you're going through right now, how you're balancing this problem of should I launch, should I not launch? Is it shiny new object syndrome or are you able to really answer your, this in the context of your three options? Like is it a new solution or a new audience or a new problem?

[00:36:18] Tell us about it.

[00:36:21] Leslie Sim: yeah, the time went super quickly. I didn't realize we've already gone 37 minutes in. So yeah, we are, we're, we're currently thinking about launching a new product and it's something that pretty much from, I would say like, maybe not like day one, but like, I dunno, day 10 or something people were either asking for it or like I'd be talking to other founders and they'd be like, Hey, shouldn't you just, you know, do this other thing instead?

[00:36:49] Like, that makes so much more sense and, and I was always kind of like intimidated by it and like, no, we need to, you know, not get distracted and not you know, do a hundred different things while we're still trying to launch the first thing, um. But like now, it's kind of feeling like the right time.

[00:37:10] And so I'm kind of in the same position as Kim, where like, I'm like, I don't really wanna talk about it in public yet, but like um. Yeah, so I, I, I, I'm gonna be like a little bit mysterious about the thing that we're talking about, but it does have to do with email newsletters in the WordPress space.

[00:37:30] so I would say like in my case, it would be new solution to an existing problem and audience space. Um yeah, kind of like, kind of like you Matt like. Building, you know, the SaaS version of GiveWP, I think like that's kind of what we are thinking about and where we're looking at kind of like SaaS, but within the WordPress space, I think like that's been really interesting.

[00:38:03] People like, I know that it's like skipping my head right now, but like, they're a bunch of, I guess even like Jetpack is kind of moving towards that that kind of like, you know, it's like it Saas, but then it's a WordPress plugin. Yeah. I think like that's really attractive. And so like the, the three, you know, problem, solution, target audience pick

[00:38:31] one thing that I came up with is just kind of how I've looked at building, you know, like whether yeah, like building, building new stuff. 'cause I feel like you have to leverage, like if you spend time on a problem or on building a solution and talking to an audience you have that and you should leverage it.

[00:38:54] And like if you, you know, if I were to go into, I dunno, AI or something right now. You know, I, I think I would have to spend a whole bunch of time starting from scratch and you know, if, unless, and I think like that would be really, really hard unless you wanted to get rid of the current thing that you're working on and just like go start something completely new.

[00:39:16] But if you wanna do both of them, then I think there has to be like quite a lot of overlap and like, you know, people don't like this word, but like, synergy, just to maintain your sanity and, you know, help like that, the two kind of like push each other forward, I think.

[00:39:37] Kim Coleman: Can you say whether this product is kind of an evolution of Newsletter Glue or if it would operate in, you know, tandem or alongside, um.

[00:39:48] Leslie Sim: I think it's an evolution.

[00:39:50] Kim Coleman: An evolution. Cool.

[00:39:52] Leslie Sim: Yeah.

[00:39:52] Kim Coleman: And then I think when built, when deciding on new, new or new product, should you do this or not, is this something that you kind of have to hire and contract out? Or is it something that the skills within your existing team can support developing, marketing, maintaining, or do you have to like grow the team or do you have to hire, you know, some contractors to complete some of the work?

[00:40:16] Leslie Sim: Yeah, so we, we hired a country so that, that was actually one of the reasons why I kind of dragged my feet on it for so long. it's just like, you know, we don't have the, the resources to do it. We don't have the bandwidth and then I realized like, you know, that's, that's the complete opposite of MVP Lean Startup thinking.

[00:40:36] Like, I should really just be. Building something and like seeing how that goes and like launching those beta and you're like doing all that stuff. And that's way less intimidating than sorry, Matt, but like spending Yeah. Building something secretly.

[00:40:55] Matt Cromwell: I get it.

[00:40:56] Leslie Sim: And so like, yeah, so I guess like right now we are not really committing, um. Anything really, like we, we don't have to commit marketing. I, I have like a separate developer working on it. and that's about it. And then, you know, like I can, I can help like get it off the ground myself and if it, if it works like great you know, then, then we have the resources that we'll have like, you know, hopefully some money coming in and they'll have the resources and then we also have the justification to really put some marketing power behind it.

[00:41:34] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Awesome.

[00:41:37] Kim Coleman: I am excited to watch. I hope that the timeline isn't super long and that we'll get to know more about what you've kind of teased here a little bit. That's cool.

[00:41:47] Leslie Sim: Yeah, I hope so. Fingers crossed.

[00:41:50] Matt Cromwell: Nice.

[00:41:51] Leslie Sim: One, one other thing that I also wanted to talk about was like, so for us or for me at least, like in the time that I had this idea and like kind of like,

[00:42:05] kept thinking about it, thinking about it. Like, one of the reasons why I didn't do it was like, you know, because there were so many unknowns you know, like, whatever it works or if it doesn't work, I'm already committed to this other like, Newsletter Glue thing. and then I realized like, again, like that was such a dumb perspective.

[00:42:24] 'Cause like the only way to, I guess, like, uh, figure out the unknowns is to dive in and like start executing on it and like finding answers, right? I can't like sit there with like the a hundred question marks and just be like, oh look, too many question marks. Guess I'm not doing it. And so like one, like I think like that was one of the light bulb moments in my head, like once it occurred to me that I was being kind of silly, you know, sitting there with all my question marks.

[00:42:57] And then what I should actually be doing is just like tackling the question marks one at a time. that kind of like, once I realized that, then I was like, okay. Yeah. Being like, let's just do it. And, you know, similar to you, like if it fails then you know, it failed at like question mark one. Right.

[00:43:14] And then we can always throw it away then, or like, oh wait, you know, question mark one, not to be, you know, great. And then let's move on and like, let's tackle question mark two. And like at any point, you know, we can still throw it away, but like. The only way we'll know is by like sorting through and executing on each of those unknowns and like figuring out like, is this viable?

[00:43:38] Oh, yes, it's viable except for this, then like, you know, go solve that. And then is it viable now? And like, yes, it's more, it's closer to viability, but then this, and then, you know, and so on and so forth.

[00:43:51] Matt Cromwell: I like that because you know, we kind of have been pitching this as a yes or no question, but you're saying it doesn't have to be so polar.

[00:44:01] It could be, yes. But does it have to be the whole big thing? No, you could also pare it down and I also, Derek is on and he's giving some energy about like just make the product, ship it. and I, I, I love that entrepreneurial spirit. and there is a, a sense in which sometimes like. Maybe the answer isn't just a simple yes or no.

[00:44:24] Maybe it's like, well, let's take a stab in the right direction first. Let's, let's maybe pare it down to the bare minimum and, and learn something like start to answer some of those question marks with a smaller launch. essentially,

[00:44:39] Kim Coleman: and you definitely learn a lot as you begin building and you begin trying to craft messaging for something.

[00:44:46] the pitfall I think is all of our teams. We represent such a broad skill range. So it, it's, it's not something we have to hire out. Like we actually have someone on our team that like, oh yeah, you can, I can build that. Oh yeah, I can design a logo for that. Oh yeah, I can write a description of that. So I think it's easy to roll down that path pretty quickly because, you know, we are problem solvers, we are capable and we have, you know, all these skills represented on our teams, but

[00:45:13] Matt Cromwell: absolutely. Well folks, we have hit the 46 minute mark. it's a record. I mean, it's only our second episode, but I had a feeling like talking with Leslie. I was like, we're gonna be able to talk about this for a long time, potentially but I feel like we do need to wrap it up. Kim, Leslie, any last thoughts?

[00:45:36] Any last suggestions?

[00:45:40] Kim Coleman: I would say oh, go. You go,

[00:45:43] Leslie Sim: you go. Okay. I guess I'm going yeah, just like the, the last thought on, on this, like unpacking the unknowns and moving forward one step at a time. It's like I think especially if you already have a successful product, then you've got like the, a whole team in place that can mentioned it can be tempting to

[00:46:04] build like way more than you need to in order to validate something or to answer a question. And I think like making sure you're putting in the time to craft the, the question correctly so that you come up with like small enough experiments. Just to answer that specific question, I think is really important.

[00:46:25] And that's just like, you know, to avoid overbuilding. Yeah, and so like I, I'm, I'm seeing this like as someone who always falls into that trap, and so this is as much a reminder as it is advice to anyone listening.

[00:46:40] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Good one, Kim.

[00:46:42] Kim Coleman: I was just gonna say, give yourself a timeframe. Let yourself, you know, explore it.

[00:46:47] Because if anything else, like it'll renew your the creativity in your mind. It'll renew your interest in your own product that is succeeding and, and going smoothly for you. So I think if you can set, kind of build a fence around what you're going to do, like Leslie said, like, you know, make sure you're answering the right question, pursue it for a little bit, and then reflect.

[00:47:08] Matt Cromwell: Absolutely.

[00:47:09] I think my biggest advice would be just ship it. I, I don't, I, I'm still very much in the, like, I think it's better to, to, to send it out and see what happens and, and, and fail and try it again. there, there, there's definitely reasons why we said no to certain things. but I think it's. It's, I think overall, if I had a recommendation for everybody listening in, listening in, I would say ship it, figure it out later

[00:47:39] and and learn as you go. That's, that's better than, than not shipping at the end of the day but but there's always reasons both sides. Everyone. Thanks so much. So great talking as always. Kim's always bringing the great insight and expertise. Leslie, thanks so much for being here. Everybody

[00:47:58] if you could do us a favor, just send out a tweet of the, of the talk today saying what you learned, what you liked, what you didn't like what you loved any of that and make sure to tune in next week. Kim, who do we have next week?

[00:48:11] Kim Coleman: Next week we have Nathalie Lussier here from AccessAlly, and we're gonna be talking about

[00:48:17] kind of ownership of your product roadmap within your team. So you have all these operating units within your team, developers, marketing, and you look to your customers for feedback. You have your C-Suite and your owners who owns your product roadmap, and how do you collaborate on that.

[00:48:32] Matt Cromwell: Awesome.

[00:48:33] I'm excited. I haven't met Natalie myself, so I'll, this is gonna be exciting and awesome. Thanks everybody. See you next week. We'll be there 6:00 PM Eastern Time next week. Thanks so much.

[00:48:45] Leslie Sim: Thank you.

[00:48:47] Matt Cromwell: Bye.