SPECIAL EPISODE: Why Products Grow (Part 2)

[00:00:00] Matt Cromwell: Hey, everybody. Welcome again to WP Product Talk, the place where we talk every week-ish about, uh, products and how they grow, how they don't grow, what to do, what not to do. And we always say this is a show by WordPress product owners for WordPress product owners, and today we have them with us, and these are the folks, the only two folks in all of WordPress that are growing right now.

[00:00:28] I'm kidding. Uh, but that's our subject again. Last week we had a panel discussion on, uh, products that are growing in this crazy, unpredictable, uh, environment, um, and, uh, we have more folks this week that are growing as well, and we wanna continue having that conversation. Um, before we jump in and get started, I do wanna give a huge thanks to Freemius for being our exclusive growth partner all this time.

[00:00:57] Um, uh, the Freemius i- helps software makers to grow and monetize and succeed. Uh, it's a merchant of record platform. They handle everything around selling software, your checkout and your payments, and your subscriptions, licensing and updates, and they also do global tax compliance. Like, all the headache things they take care of for you, uh, freeing you up so you can focus more on building amazing products.

[00:01:22] Thank you, Freemius. Um, all right, let's jump in. Round two of products that are growing, why and why not? Uh, let's start with introducing yourselves. Uh, tell us who you are, what you do, and, um, a little bit about, uh, what's so great about your product. Uh, Aaron, you're up first.

[00:01:41] Aaron Edwards: Uh, yeah. I'm, uh, Aaron Edwards.

[00:01:43] I'm the founder of DocsBot, and, um, I've been in WordPress for a good while, like 15 something years, and before I was the CTO at WPMU Dev, building, hosting, plugins, products there, so. Uh, DocsBot isn't necessarily, uh, WordPress specific, but it allows you to train, uh, AI agents, AI support agents primarily, uh, from your docs, from your website, from your content, all that kind of thing, and then deploy them to your customers so they can function as, like, a tier one customer support, or they can be, uh, tied into, like, your ticketing system to help your staff respond to support tickets.

[00:02:20] So basically AI helping automate customer support.

[00:02:25] Matt Cromwell: Love it. I'm a big fan. Uh, Derek, you're up next

[00:02:30] Derek Ashauer: My name is Derek Ashauer. I have a couple different products, uh, that I've been working on throughout the years. My oldest is, uh, Sunshine Photo Cart, which is about 13 years old, which is a ecosystem plugin, uh, e-commerce plugin specifically for photographers.

[00:02:45] I then have a couple little niche ones like a confetti and an address auto-complete. Basically a couple utility plugins under my WP Sunshine brand. And then my biggest one that I'm trying to make my flagship is Conversion Bridge, which allows you to add a bunch of analytics and ad platforms and set up conversion tracking from 70 plus plugins into like analytics platforms and 10 ad platforms right now.

[00:03:09] So you can get all the analytics and conversion tracking set up in just a couple minutes. Any Google Tag Manager nightmares of that, uh So, yeah.

[00:03:21] Matt Cromwell: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you both for being here. Uh, we're gonna jump in and talk a little bit about what's growing and what's not, why and why not. Uh, all of this is grounded in a, uh, very informal survey, uh, that we did online, um, uh, a few weeks back, um, which, uh, we talked about a little bit last week.

[00:03:41] Um, but, uh, you know, the data right now is very, very small, but, uh, from the small sa- sampling that we got, um, you know, we see here the split on, uh, how many, how, how much growth some of these, uh, products are experiencing. You can see the largest segment of them are between one and 9%, which is not huge at all.

[00:04:02] Uh, but I always say growth is growth, um, so we're happy with that. Uh, the different types of, uh, products that we polled, uh, and then, uh, how many customers renew each year. Renewals is a huge aspect of growth, um, for a lot of folks. Um, and it was interesting to see, uh, more in this 50 or to 60% range than I expected.

[00:04:26] Uh, I really expected most to be in this 80 and higher. Uh, you definitely see, um, that there are folks here in the, in the 80 and higher for sure. Um, and then, uh, what is your most significant channel in terms of where your customers come from? Um, and you could see that, uh, search is actually going to be a really, uh, uh, controversial, uh, subject.

[00:04:50] We'll talk about some more today, but search.org, word of mouth, things like that. Um, and then what we wanna talk about right now together, um, is, uh, what didn't work, actually. You know, that's, uh, a big part of the subject, is that, um, the WordPress space, WordPress product space for so long really was experiencing exponential growth for a really long time.

[00:05:14] Um, and the market and the environment really changed radically over the last few years, uh, mostly because of two giant issues, and one is, uh, the end of, um, end of, um, attribution and, uh, dis- distribution or discovery run by, uh, search essentially, um- In what they call nowadays, uh, zero-click marketing, basically that, um, you are not going to get referrals from, uh, search engines as much as you did in the past.

[00:05:47] Uh, that one has been a very significant, um, factor, uh, for a lot of WordPress products. Um, and the second one is, of course, the onset of AI, uh, which enables, uh, our customer base to be able to, to, uh, solve their problems in their own ways, uh, a lot more effectively than they ever could in the past. Um, both of these things I don't necessarily see as n- negative things.

[00:06:11] They're just, uh, uh, changes in the ecosystem that we all have to adapt to one form or another, and it's just kind of been a little bit of a struggle to adapt to both of these things at the same time, I have to say. Um, so right now, what folks are saying is not working for them anymore is specifically search and wp.org really not pushing, uh, as much referrals as they used to.

[00:06:34] Um, we used to rely so much more on email, uh, and email promotions, and that has been less effective. Just pushing out new features all the time also doesn't seem to be the thing that makes a dent, um, for a lot of folks. Uh, although I feel like Aaron might disagree with that one. Um, uh, he's pushing out changes all the time it feels like.

[00:06:53] Um, video on YouTube, you know, that's another one I hear folks say all the time, you know, "Well, if you gotta grow, then you gotta get on YouTube." Well, I don't think everybody feels that way. It, it's such a costly endeavor to, and they could spend a lot of time and a lot of effort to produce serious video only to see the views and impressions not be very high and the clicks to be almost nothing.

[00:07:18] Uh, it can feel like a, a channel that doesn't produce very well. Um, but that's what the, the survey is saying. I'd much rather hear from Aaron and Derek. Um, Derek, you first. What, uh, what, what do you think when you look at that data in terms of what's not working anymore? Do you resonate? Do you have other information?

[00:07:38] Uh, what's your thoughts?

[00:07:40] Derek Ashauer: Um, I, my first thought is that if you look at each one of those individually, I could agree with that. And I think the big change is now that you can't do one thing and only focus on one thing. Mm-hmm. Is that everything needs to be done. You gotta juggle all 10 plates. You can't just be really good at one of them.

[00:08:01] Mm-hmm. And that's, you know, you, search isn't the one thing that's gonna drive you. It's going to be one thing that sets the foundation for, you know, whether or not it can pick up and understand your presence online. Do you have, are you, uh, do you have good content on your site? Are you referenced by other sites?

[00:08:22] This classic SEO stuff is still important for then n- for people who are then finding you via AI. Um, so you still have to do that, and maybe, like you said, some of the attribution directly from that is gone, but you still need to be-

[00:08:38] Matt Cromwell: Yeah ...

[00:08:38] Derek Ashauer: involved in there. You still gotta produce that. You still gotta show that I understand what my topic is.

[00:08:44] I am really good at it.

[00:08:46] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:08:47] Derek Ashauer: And you, but you can't just write an SEO article. You also have to post on social media about it. You have to be on Reddit posting about it. You gotta be on every other platform posting about it.

[00:08:57] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:08:58] Derek Ashauer: And so that's what I think is the challenge. So to say that this one marketing channel isn't working is just simply the wrong way to look at it.

[00:09:06] Is that you have to have an overall comprehensive strategy. It's no longer being really good at just one single channel, like I think Katie was talking about last week, of being really good at content marketing

[00:09:19] Matt Cromwell: great,

[00:09:19] Derek Ashauer: you can, you can do that, but that's just simply not enough anymore.

[00:09:23] Matt Cromwell: Well-

[00:09:24] Derek Ashauer: And so that's kind of-

[00:09:24] Matt Cromwell: Make it brass tacks for us, Derek.

[00:09:26] How is that, how is that, what has your experience been with Conversion Bridge or, uh, PhotoCart? Um, how's, h- h- like, have you seen your tactics, your old tactics get less effective over time, and, and what have you been doing about it?

[00:09:40] Derek Ashauer: Well, I think I am, I think everyone's gonna say that they're in a unique position of what's going on.

[00:09:45] I have three separate buckets that I am working on all the time. WP Sunshine, which are utility plugins. Sunshine PhotoCart, which is a massive ecosystem plugin. It's like a WooCommerce, but specifically for photographers. It's a foundational thing, um, something that, uh, ag- again, another guest was talking about last week.

[00:10:06] Um, and then there's also Conversion Bridge, which is, I would cons- I like to, or I hope people like to consider it a stack plugin. You have your form plugin, your page builder, your, you know, your SEO, and then your analytics and tracking plugin. Um, and the utility plugins are down, like, 70%. Yeah. They're small, utility things, and those are the types of things that get vibe coded really quickly and easily.

[00:10:30] Um, and so they're not as necessary anymore. Platform plugin, Sunshine PhotoCart, I literally do no marketing for it. I haven't done anything. It is product-led growth, meaning I make new features, I email my customer, my existing customers, or whoever's on my email list. That is it. I don't do any content marketing.

[00:10:50] I don't do any social media posting really about it. Um, and yet it's seeing a 25% growth-

[00:10:56] Matt Cromwell: Yeah ...

[00:10:56] Derek Ashauer: over the year over year. Um, some of that is, you know, three years ago I raised pricing so that those renewals are now hitting, and so I think that's one of the reasons why. And then Conversion Bridge is not even three years old, so it's still new, and I think it still has that freshness factor, and that's why it's growing.

[00:11:16] Um, so that's where, like, I'm able to see, like, all these different types of plugins and how the market is affecting them all wildly different. So, yeah.

[00:11:32] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Um, cool, cool. Aaron, what about you? What are you thinking when you see that data and, um, and how do you relate to it from a DocsBot perspective?

[00:11:43] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:11:43] About what is not working. Well, I have some slides here. Um, we've seen growth this year, uh, but it's been modest. Um-

[00:11:51] Matt Cromwell: Oh, yeah.

[00:11:51] Aaron Edwards: Like, you can-

[00:11:52] Matt Cromwell: Just bring up

[00:11:53] Aaron Edwards: your slides. Yeah. I've got

[00:11:54] Matt Cromwell: my slide. You were

[00:11:55] Aaron Edwards: so prepared. Oh, geez. So prepared.

[00:11:57] Matt Cromwell: Look good.

[00:11:58] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Uh, but if you look, like, at our overall numbers since we founded, like, we have a pretty straight, like, growth line, and in the last, uh, year it's, it's flattened out a lot, um, for us.

[00:12:08] So that growth has definitely come down a lot, and it's, it's still growing, uh, modestly, and I'll talk about that later, kind of why. But I think the biggest challenge for us, it would be, um, acquisition. So-

[00:12:19] Matt Cromwell: Mm.

[00:12:19] Aaron Edwards: And this ties into, I mean, all our marketing efforts, and you can see, like, how much of a drop, 62% drop in new subscribers by count.

[00:12:28] Um-

[00:12:28] Matt Cromwell: Yeah ...

[00:12:29] Aaron Edwards: so massive impact, and most of that is, uh, SEO, 'cause before it was organic. Some word of mouth, but it was primarily organic. So we had a big drop, um, just looking at, like... Um, and we've been doing so much SEO work too, so content basically does not work. Uh, what has kind of worked for us is a lot of, um, programmatic SEO-

[00:12:53] Matt Cromwell: Yeah

[00:12:53] Aaron Edwards: um, experiments, uh, which increased our visitor counts. But overall, like, if we look at, um, uh, traffic to our main, like, landing pages, like, the ones that are, like, mostly important versus, you know, kind of gimmicks like free tools and, and kind of SEO strategy things, like, we're still down, you know?

[00:13:13] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:13:14] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:13:15] So that's a big impact.

[00:13:16] Matt Cromwell: You actually just reminded me how, uh, actually you two, both of you, are some of the best examples in the space right now for programmatic SEO, actually. Um- Hmm ... uh, I don't know if you knew that about Derek, Aaron, but, uh-

[00:13:30] Aaron Edwards: No ...

[00:13:31] Matt Cromwell: uh, I think you both have come up on this show a couple times for that tactic.

[00:13:36] Um, but that's really interesting to, for you to say specifically that like, um, I like that headline essentially that, uh, it said something like traffic doesn't equal demand. Um-

[00:13:46] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:13:47] Matt Cromwell: You wanna dig into that a little bit? What do, what do you mean when you say-

[00:13:49] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. So some of the experiments, so for example, I created a, a prompt library, uh, 'cause essentially like our product is AI agents, you know.

[00:13:59] So I thought, hey, that could attract maybe like our ideal kind of business user customer who's looking for like a prompt to do some specific task. And so it's kinda generated on demand. So u- it's like a free tool where users like enter, okay, I want a prompt for this. Um, and then it will run it, you know, through a powerful model and turn it into like a full featured kinda like prompt.

[00:14:19] And then we classify that whether we think it's like a good like business use case or not, and then we choose whether or not to just show it to them or to actually like make that like a landing page itself to where Google can index it. And having that kind of flywheel of users creating the content that they wanna see, you know, that works effect- uh, super effective.

[00:14:41] Uh, the problem is that the things users want is not necessarily the kind of users that we want. So we've had- Uh, a nightmare, like moderating that. Um- Mm ... no matter how much classifiers, you know, we end up with things about undressing tools or-

[00:14:58] Matt Cromwell: Hmm ...

[00:14:59] Aaron Edwards: massive, massive libraries around Bollywood actors and-

[00:15:02] Matt Cromwell: Hmm

[00:15:03] Aaron Edwards: and things like that, you know. Like, like topic clusters that are completely unrelated and suddenly you get like 100,000 views in the month from India or something like that for some Bollywood actor, and it's like that's not my ideal customer. So that kind of ties into... And we have another free tools that are kinda like AI-centric, like trying to target our ICP.

[00:15:24] Um, but the conversion like rates from that is like super small. There is some, so we like continue to do it. Um, but overall that's not making up for, you know, like the drop in overall like SEO to our important like landing pages and things like that.

[00:15:40] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Derek, I wanna hear from you too on this one, but it, it, it kind of, um, reminds me a lot of folks, especially very recently again, um, are saying that really good SEO is GEO.

[00:15:57] That's what they keep saying. Uh, that if you're doing SEO really, really well, um, that will benefit you showing up in, uh, all the AI assisted tools and things like that as well. Um, but um, you know, the, what really good SEO means today is different than what it used to mean, you know? Um, and uh, you know, creating user-generated content like what you're talking about, Aaron, is a- Mm-hmm

[00:16:21] tactic a lot of folks really swear by. Uh, or also the programmatic things. Uh, you told me about, um, an example you had was you got a client from a funeral home because you had some programmatic pages, uh, about- Yeah ... like best, uh, chatbot for funeral homes. Um-

[00:16:38] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Exactly, like how to make AI agents for every industry- Yeah

[00:16:42] that we could think of, you know, like 700 different industries.

[00:16:45] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, yeah. Um, but some of that is driving traffic, but you're saying not necessarily demand though. Um-

[00:16:53] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Yeah. And still not enough to make up for like the overall drop, I think, in, in organic- Yeah ... it, it, from what we had before.

[00:17:01] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Derek, what's your thoughts on all that?

[00:17:03] 'Cause I know you do a lot of, uh, essentially programmatic SEO as well.

[00:17:08] Derek Ashauer: Conversion Bridge, uh, it lends itself perfectly to programmatic SEO because of the integrations. So, um, there's a combination of, say, Give WP into Meta Ads. Mm-hmm. That's a combination. Um, and so I have a landing page for every single possible combination of plugin integration that it has to analytics.

[00:17:27] So 70 plus plugin integrations to 20 plus analytics. It's a lot of individual pages for each one of those. Um, and while... And they are long tail searches, so this is like someone specifically looking for something. You know, they have a very specific problem they're looking for. They're like, "I need my donations to be tracked in Meta Ads."

[00:17:49] That's very specific. It's not just, "How do I track..." You know, "How do I track my ads?" Stuff like... Or, "My donations," and stuff like that. Yeah. It's they understand their specific use case and what they want. Um, so no, it's not getting thousands of visitors a month from a single article. It's getting 5 to 10, but it's very targeted to someone who knows their exact problem.

[00:18:14] Yeah. And I'm able to create a page that talks about their exact problem- Yeah ... and how Conversion Bridge can solve it. Um, it's not, it... I think it- When I was looking the other day, it's like 20 to 25%. 20, I think, percent of my sales come from those kind of landing pages right now. Not massive, but it's still a good chunk.

[00:18:33] It's a significant amount and worthwhile doing for me.

[00:18:37] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:18:37] Derek Ashauer: Um, granted, as I mentioned before, Conversion Bridge is still new. A small amount of sales can change those numbers very quickly.

[00:18:45] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. '

[00:18:45] Derek Ashauer: Cause I'm not making $50,000 a month. Um, you know, so it... A few extra sales does in- change those percentages, um, you know, signi- statistically significantly.

[00:18:57] Yeah. Um, but, but those kind of things are, were, are worthwhile and that's why, you know, I think, Aaron, when you're talking about doing some of those, you know, tools and other things, maybe someone then links to it. And then it, it's just the same old strategies from ages ago. Right. It, it's a little bit different.

[00:19:14] You know, I started my agency back in 2007 in the... You know, when SEO wasn't even really a thing. I accidentally ranked for San Diego web design, and I ranked number one for that, and literally overnight was getting flooded with calls and emails because suddenly Google just put me number one. I was nobody.

[00:19:31] But what I had was, I had created PHP BB themes And I put a f- link in the footer of each one of those themes, and I was on like 10,000 different websites all, you know, that had links back to mine. And when Google updated how they did their algorithm that literally just counted links, it was all of a sudden like, "Oh, these guys are awesome."

[00:19:49] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:19:50] Derek Ashauer: You know, obviously those strategies are, you know, are changed. But the, I think the general concept of getting links to your website from reputable sites, you know, you couldn't just get, you know, from a cat forum doesn't matter anymore. But, um, but building useful tools and all those kind of things are small elements of all the little pieces that are necessary to do.

[00:20:10] It's not one thing that you can just do and say, "This is all we're gonna do." It's all the little pieces

[00:20:18] Matt Cromwell: Yep. I

[00:20:18] Derek Ashauer: love it Yeah, so that's, that's kinda what I still think it's stuff like that is still worthwhile to capture that long tail traffic. Yeah. But I still need to create some other, you know, things to get the traffic that is the thousand searches a month instead of the- Mm-hmm

[00:20:32] 10 searches a month.

[00:20:33] Matt Cromwell: For sure. I, uh- Yeah ... what I really like about this, we, we started talking about, like, what's not working for us in general, but we're kind of also focusing on, like, well, like, it can still work. Like you said originally, Derek, um, uh, anything related to organic traffic in one way or another, it can still work, but the rules have changed, and y- the- Mm-hmm

[00:20:53] tactics have to change a- as well with it. And I really like the way in which your focus, Derek, kinda really is what, what Aaron is saying too, that, um, you know, there are lots of tactics that can allow us to just generate traffic. That's not what necessarily what we want. We wanna generate demand. And- Yeah

[00:21:13] um, the way that you are like, "I, I'm gonna write pages about this really niche problem that people actually have, but not a lot of people have," um, and then ideally, those, those users that come because of that, that specific problem, they're really high-intent users. Um, uh, ideally, hopefully. Um, and that matches also, Aaron, what you were saying about, uh, your industry-oriented pages that ideally w- when folks are like, "Well, I'm a funeral home and I really need a chatbot," um, uh- Yeah

[00:21:43] then they're specifically searching for a solution, and then their intent is much higher than somebody who just- Right ... wants to, like, spend your tokens spinning up Bollywood stuff.

[00:21:52] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:21:54] Matt Cromwell: That's awesome. Um, cool, cool. Well, let's jump into more of, like, what is actually working for you guys instead. Um, not, not what's not working, but what is working.

[00:22:04] Um, Aaron, I'm gonna bring up your, uh, your slides again. They are super cool.

[00:22:08] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:22:09] Matt Cromwell: Um-

[00:22:10] Aaron Edwards: Well, before we do that, I did wanna bring up, um, kind of like the... 'cause m- a lot of people might be impacted th- by this is, like, people like vibe coding an alternative, you know? Mm.

[00:22:19] Matt Cromwell: Where

[00:22:20] Aaron Edwards: essentially, like, it being easier than ever for people to, like, create a replacement.

[00:22:24] Maybe it's not full-featured, you know, but a lot of times they could make something that can get by, um, and maybe cancel because of that. So I kinda looked at all of our, our churn data, um- Mm ... for the last two years to kinda see, like, where are people mentioning, "Oh, I made my own alter- alternative," or something.

[00:22:42] You know, maybe they mention AI or just saying that they made a custom solution. So we definitely have seen a massive increase in that, um- Mm-hmm ... in the last two, from, like, 1.6% to up to, like, 13% of our churn now is tied- Mm ... to that reason from what we can tell. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that is pretty big. Um, in our case, overall our churn is actually, uh, down.

[00:23:09] Um, so, like, if I look- Uh, here I can see our churn has actually dropped a lot, but that's more to do with, um, the people who vibe code their own, their own alternative. Like, we've come to realize that really they're just not a good customer for us.

[00:23:23] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:25] Aaron Edwards: Because, um, honestly, their needs are simple, they're basic.

[00:23:29] They don't care about security. They don't care about, like, ongoing maintenance, you know. It's usually just, like, maybe a single person versus, like, a team that needs all those kind of team-based controls and reports and dashboards and things like that. Um, so it's been okay, and they tend to be the l- the lower priced plans as well, so that kind of coincides.

[00:23:48] Um, so it hasn't been that bad of a reason for us. Um, but it definitely is, like, a new objection that we have to kind of address, um, in our, like, cancellation process, in, um, in all the different, like, kind of flows, onboarding and even marketing and things like that. Like, why we're better than, like, creating your own alternative with y- yourself, you know, with AI.

[00:24:11] Matt Cromwell: That's a really good point, for sure. I mean, I think that's something that everyone should be thinking about as well, is that if somebody can vibe code, uh, your solution, they're most likely vibe coding a very thin version of the solution, and maybe they weren't really your ideal customer in the first place.

[00:24:29] Yeah. Um, I, I do think that that's probably an exception is, like, the really ultra utility-oriented plugins- Yeah ... um, that, that really can be kind of, like, one shot vibe coded and be- Yeah ... just as feature complete, you know. Um, uh, you got away with charging 50 bucks a year for something like that in the past, but it's not gonna work anymore.

[00:24:53] Um, I-

[00:24:54] Aaron Edwards: Yeah, and I think if you're, if you're building a product, like from what I've seen, like, where it succeeds in this world of AI is, like, integrations. Um- Hmm ... so a lot of things like Facebook API or things like that, um, is a nightmare to, like, get all the approvals and the OAuth permissions and get your app approved and set everything up.

[00:25:15] Like, I hate doing that more than anything, you know? Um, and that's really hard for someone to do even if AI could write all the code, um, to do that kind of complicated integration part, uh, with other, like, services and APIs. And so in those cases, it might be better, even if it's a utility like SaaS or plugin, to just, uh, purchase that because, um, they handle all that mess, um, for you.

[00:25:40] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, that's real- that's really good. I, I, I've been really surprised more and more there, definitely there are more folks saying that, that their products are seeing, uh, refunds or churn because of vibe coding things. Um, but I, I... ideally they'll, they'll start doing exactly what you're saying, is that they'll focus even harder on what their ideal customer is, uh, not cater to the folks, um, who are leaving because they, it could be vibe coded.

[00:26:11] Um, but um, it's the, also it's a little bit of a moving target, I have to say, because what can be one-shot vibe coded today- Mm-hmm ... definitely could not have been one-shot vibe coded a year ago. Yeah. Um, I'm a little concerned about what can be one-shot vibe coded a year from now, you know? Um, so yeah.

[00:26:31] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Um, I mean, you can see that kind of in the stats, just how that is increasing.

[00:26:36] Like really it is the last year since like Claude Code and things like that have become popular and kind of in the hands of normal people, you know?

[00:26:44] Matt Cromwell: Yep. 100%. Derek, are you also seeing, um, churn because of vibe coding stuff?

[00:26:53] Derek Ashauer: Uh, like I said, on my utility ones, absolutely, 'cause confetti thing, it's, you know, that's always just- Yeah

[00:26:58] a fun thing anyway, and address automatically. Like, those little things, of course, those are, those are minor. They're not that big of a deal. Um, you know, a- and I think it, it goes back to just what your product is and what level of hassle it solves, and also who the audience is. Um, one thing I was thinking about yesterday before I came on here today was I realized that for like, for example, Sunshine Photo Cart serves photographers.

[00:27:24] Traditionally not a very coding- Tech ... tech. You know, I mean, they are b- because they have cameras, and so they have to, you know, understand a computer, h- you know, espec- you know, um, these days with digital photography for the last, you know, 10, 15 years, whatever, um, you know, they have had to become more technically savvy, but that's kind of where they draw the line for a lot of them.

[00:27:43] Um, and o- one interesting thing I noticed is that, for example, on Conversion Bridge, I would get maybe... This is gonna be me coming off the top of my head. Maybe half of my support tickets for Conversion Bridge are AI written messages. For Sunshine Photo Cart, it's maybe, like, 5%. So what that tells me is the level of interest of who is willing to dive into AI to help solve their problems.

[00:28:09] For the type of people who are using Conversion Bridge, they are going to be more technically savvy. They're probab- they're usually marketers who understand that they need to do tracking and all s- all this kind of stuff, who are, who understand AI because they're having to make websites with AI these days.

[00:28:26] Like I said, a photographer is like, "I just don't wanna deal with any of it. I just want something that's done for me," and why that has still kind of grown even despite me not lit- literally doing no marketing for it and it still seeing some growth is because, um, and definitely not a decline, because it's, I'm not worried about vibe, people vibe coding that.

[00:28:45] That being said, I have seen one person vibe coding a solution, but like you said, it was a thin sliver of what- Yeah ... they wanted, and actually not even the original use case of what I built Sunshine Photo Cart for.

[00:28:57] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:28:58] Derek Ashauer: So I was like, "Great. Sounds great. Go off and do that." Yeah. It was a stock photographer, someone who puts, like, 50 photos and is selling stock photography.

[00:29:05] Sunshine Photo Cart was meant for, like, wedding, families, people who are churning out hundreds of galleries, uh, you know, a year, not someone who just uploads 100 photos every year. Yeah. So they had- Yeah ... very different use case. And so that, I was like, "Great. Go for it," and, and all this kind of stuff. So it, it, it, your type of product, um, and your audience is going to dictate- If someone, if it's going to get replaced with Vibe coding.

[00:29:31] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:29:31] Derek Ashauer: Yeah. Um, and, and like Aaron said, doing integrations with plugins and testing because plugins are constantly changing. Does this, does this from Gravity Forms to Meta API with server side tracking still work- ... after this new version of Gravity Forms? Yeah. Am I gonna go to every, all 50 of my client sites that have this set up on it and run the test of this?

[00:29:52] Or can I just pay Derek 100 bucks and say, "He's handled that, and I don't wanna think or deal with it." Yeah. If you can handle a stressful problem for someone of saying, "You no longer have to deal with Google Tag Manager." "Wait, what? I don't? Thank God." And you solve a stressful problem for someone, then they're gonna be like, "Yeah.

[00:30:11] Here's my money. Take it. You, you deal with that-" Yeah ... "so I don't have to." 100%. Um, you know, if you're creating solutions that really solve people's true pain points and just saying like, "I don't wanna deal with this anymore. Can something else do with it?" Then I, I don't wanna think about it. I don't worry about it.

[00:30:27] Like, for example, my accountant is my best money spent because I do not want to think about my taxes in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. I just say, "Here's all my documents. You sort it out. Tell me how much it costs. I pay you in 20 seconds 'cause I just don't want to think about it."

[00:30:44] Matt Cromwell: Yeah,

[00:30:45] Derek Ashauer: yeah. Yeah. And if you can offer a solution like that, that's software, then you're not worried about it.

[00:30:50] Yeah. Then you're not, you're less worried about some- Like, maybe I could Vibe code my, something to deal with my taxes. I just don't wanna think about it. I don't want anything to do with it. And so that's why I'm still happy to pay someone to do it, even if it is just entering in QuickBooks and doing a couple clicks.

[00:31:03] Yeah. Maybe that's all they're doing. I just don't wanna think about it. Yeah. And so if you can have a solution that handles a problem like that, then I think you also have a good, uh-

[00:31:14] Matt Cromwell: Yep. It's good stuff. I totally agree. I mean, I, I can imagine it happens in a lot of different ways, even with Conversion Bridge, that maybe somebody's using it at the beginning just to connect, like, uh, Gravity Forms to, uh, to, um, Google Analytics or something only.

[00:31:32] You know, that's just like a one-way connection. But the power and, and the promise of Conversion Bridge is like, you know, connecting multiple different things and being able to trigger lots of different events. More of a power user- Yeah ... who needs that kind of functionality. Yeah. But the one-off snippets of, uh, just this one integration, I can imagine, uh- Yeah

[00:31:50] folks would do something else, but, um-

[00:31:53] Derek Ashauer: Yeah, and that's why, that's why I created it, was because, you know, five years ago you would have to go buy, you know, the, the one integration from one plugin to one analytics platform. Then you'd have to go buy another person who made another one for $50 for a different ad platform, or from a- maybe a different client, use a different form plugin.

[00:32:11] All of a sudden you're stacking up, you know, a thousand dollars in just this tracking add-ons. You know, it was, it was absurd. So being able to offer something that does a lot of... than just one narrow thing, uh, again, is that- Yeah. It's gonna make the difference. 100%.

[00:32:29] Matt Cromwell: Cool, cool. Well, let's jump into things that really have worked for, well for you all.

[00:32:33] Um, Aaron, when you and I talked about this a little bit, uh, you were saying the pricing changes were really significant for you. I'd love to-

[00:32:40] Aaron Edwards: Yeah ...

[00:32:41] Matt Cromwell: to dig into that a little bit. I think that's actually, um, it feels a little bit like a cheat code, but I think it's actually really, really important for folks to understand, uh, the significance of this one.

[00:32:51] So jump into it.

[00:32:52] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Well, um, like I mentioned before, like our MRR is up kind of lightly, and it's been kind of flat. Um, but like if you look at like our overall chart for the year, you can kind of see a big spike, and that was really when we changed pricing. So, uh, we kind of announced that and did it for like new signups, um, going back I guess been a little more than a year now.

[00:33:15] Um, but it was finally in March, uh, where we actually like kind of like force pushed everyone to the, the new price. Um, and that was kind of a scary thing 'cause like how many are gonna churn, how many are gonna cancel, et cetera. Um, but it had a pretty decent, uh, impact on, on our MRR, on our revenue and, um, that's kind of been ongoing.

[00:33:38] But really that's kind of been a saving grace, and that is one strategy I think for growth. Um, some people maybe have never done that and they're way behind like in pricing, um, compared to competitors and things like that. It may be possible, but honestly like I'm so glad that we did that, uh, last year because now I f- H- honestly, like with AI and stuff like that, unless you, like, are in a very specific, like, certain niche, like a price increase right now is, could be like a, I think a, a death nail um, to try to pull that off now.

[00:34:13] It's, it's tough environment for that.

[00:34:15] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. But I think it pairs really nicely actually with exactly what we're talking about, that in some ways, um, you need to position your product for more of the power users anyway, um, and not be chasing- Yeah ... the bottom. Um- And, uh, raising your pricing is a good way to do that.

[00:34:33] Um-

[00:34:33] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:34:35] Derek Ashauer: I was gonna say

[00:34:35] Aaron Edwards: that same thing. Yeah. And really, it was kind of more of an overall strategy of, that we've really pushed really hard in the last year in trying to target the right kind of customer. Um, so before we just relied kind of purely on organic. We're still figuring out the product, still figuring out what it's gonna do, who it's gonna serve.

[00:34:54] You know, we had no idea what our ICP was. Uh, but now after a few years of data and experience there, we've really been able to kind of nail down and, like, uh, focus the features, uh, refocus our marketing, our landing pages, emails, everything to target kind of that ideal customer. And, and adjusting, like, some of our pricing was a big part of that.

[00:35:13] Um, and you can kind of see that in the results. Like, our average revenue per user is up 20% in the last year. Um, so that's pretty big. That's the monthly amount the average, uh, customer pays us, and our lifetime value is up 67%. So, um, that means that it actually had a beneficial effect on churn. Um, churn being, uh, users who are canceling, you know, um, each month.

[00:35:38] And so we've actually seen, like, a big decrease in churn even despite, uh, increasing prices, even in spite, um, of, uh, of, um, all the, the different things that have been going on with AI, vibe coding and things like that. Uh, churn has improved. Um, and then I kind of looked at just, like, the, the churn reasons to, like, figure out what is going on.

[00:35:59] And, um, I think the biggest things that we found after we increased prices, after we retargeted things, is, uh, the vast majority of people who canceled, um, they either weren't using it enough, um, which means that they're a bad fit customer, right? They don't have enough support tickets, et cetera. Um, or it's too expensive definitely did go up.

[00:36:20] Like, it went up from, like, 18% to 27%. Uh, a decent jump, but not huge, um-

[00:36:26] Matt Cromwell: Yeah ...

[00:36:27] Aaron Edwards: for, uh, even after making a, a pretty drastic price increase that affected a, a good chunk of our users.

[00:36:34] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. But then again, that's probably, you know, the ones who are saying it's too expensive are the ones who probably coincide a lot with the ones who didn't put in a lot of support, and probably only had a very thin use case in the first place.

[00:36:48] Aaron Edwards: Exactly. Um,

[00:36:49] Matt Cromwell: so they, uh... I, I love that my daughter is making an appearance today. Um, she thinks she's sneaky, but, um-

[00:36:59] Yeah. So I, I think it makes a lot of sense. Um, and, uh, ideally it just makes for a healthier business, um, truthfully. Yeah. Um, so I, I really like that approach overall. You're, you're, you're targeting the, the folks who, who say, "This product is really valuable to me," and I'm pro- and they're probably willing to pay even more, not that you should raise prices.

[00:37:22] Um- Yeah ... but that, uh, they're, they, they have a lot of appetite to, to keep paying you because it's important, a lot like what Derek was saying about his accountant and things like that.

[00:37:31] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. And, and another benefit of that is when your, like, average lifetime value increases, that means your customer acquisition costs can increase.

[00:37:39] So we're about to put, put a very heavy budget into paid. We've never done paid acquisition before, you know, ads and such. Um, we're about to, like, invest very heavily in that because we can afford to pay a whole lot more, you know, to acquire a customer now that we're getting- 100% ... the right kind of customer.

[00:37:58] Matt Cromwell: Well, let me bring that up super quick, 'cause, um, the other thing that, uh, our survey did say did work was ads. Uh- Yeah ... there was quite a few folks in the, in the test case that, uh, said that, um, that their growth can be attributed pretty clearly to ads or some sort of paid spend, like paid partnerships, paid af- affiliates, of course.

[00:38:21] Um- Mm-hmm ... and then, uh, your, uh, item with pricing came up. You're not the only one who saw pricing as, as a good lever, uh, in the way that things, uh, improved for them overall. Um, I did, I did think it was really interesting how, uh, you compare a couple of these things here. If we go up to what didn't work, you see a lot of folks here saying that more features didn't work.

[00:38:44] Uh, but we do have quite a few folks that say that one key feature really did work. Um, so- Interesting ... you know, jamming in a whole bunch of small work is maybe not the way, but, like, adding that one feature that, that customers have been demanding for years and years, that probably is really important for a lot of folks.

[00:39:03] Derek Ashauer: Mm. Wondering if that is... When you do one big key feature, one of the things that you often do is you do a big announcement and release cycle around it. You market it better. Yeah. You mar- you s- actually spend time and energy marketing. You send out emails, repeated emails, not just one like, "Oh, hey, we...

[00:39:21] Here's the thing. Here's our change log, what updated in our, you know, 4.23- ... you know, version." But you're like, "Oh, my God, we got this big old thing." You're pushing it. You're posting to social media. You're talking to... Maybe you're going to forums, and you're doing all the different things that you should be doing on a big feature.

[00:39:38] So it's not necessarily the feature itself, it's what you are doing as a result of that feature.

[00:39:44] Matt Cromwell: Yeah.

[00:39:44] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:39:44] Derek Ashauer: You know,

[00:39:45] Matt Cromwell: so I, I think that's- Derrick, you, you and I have talked about this a lot. Um, but just, just sometimes the decision to market your own shit is, is sometimes- It- ... a whole entire differentiator.

[00:39:59] Derek Ashauer: Yeah.

[00:40:00] Matt Cromwell: Um, I don't know. D- I don't wanna speak for you, but I've heard you say- No, no ... essentially that.

[00:40:05] Derek Ashauer: Um. Yeah, I mean, it, it's, uh, you, you have, you know, helped- you know, reframe and, and, uh, and AI also has made things possible. Um, it's m- allowed me to get over that initial hurdle of, you know, me, me being a solo developer, marketer, you know, solo business, um, you know, of, oh my God, there's so many different things.

[00:40:26] I don't know what to do. AI at least can get the, the foundation started for me, and then I can go, okay, great. Now, and now I've got some momentum, and I'm learning it's not as scary or as hard as I thought it was going to be. So that's, you know, one point of it. But another thing, uh, you that... But randomly, I had a, a call, I don't know, maybe even like a year ago, um, with Anne Bovelett, I believe is her name.

[00:40:51] Um, and one thing that stood out that I still remember to this day from that call was, "If you're not gonna say something, who's going to? You need to keep talking about your product." I mean, it's just something that I've actually internalized and been like, I think like, uh Last week, I forgot who it was, that said just like, "I'm just bad at talking to people about my product.

[00:41:12] I don't really say anything on social media." Um, and so I'm like, no, I, now I'm just like, I don't care. Yeah. I'm unabashedly happy to talk to anyone and just keep saying everything about it. Being on podcasts, going everywhere, just as much as I possibly can. And that results in- Yeah ... in things like me randomly getting mentioned by James Kemp on the Do The Woo podcast, and then Katie Keefe telling me about it in, uh, in a comment on X and saying, "Hey, just know you were mentioned on this."

[00:41:41] And then I use that, I pull that clip out and I use it as a marketing promotion for myself, 'cause it was a great use case for why people should be us. And if I wasn't constantly telling about this, a person like James who I've only known on social media never would've mentioned my product. It, and, and you know, it's, it's not a massive thing.

[00:41:59] It's not all of a sudden like Elon Musk himself posted about it. But all those little things add up, and it's again, part of just doing that, being present, being part of the community. Yeah. Still in Wor- and being part of the WordPress community is still something I think is very much worthwhile of doing.

[00:42:14] Yeah. Attending events, being in, you know, on s- you know, Slacks and social media and stuff like that. Yeah. That people are aware of you. You just, you have to be everywhere, so you can't be afraid to talk about your product anymore and hope that someone discovers it through a random Google search anymore.

[00:42:30] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Aaron, you might relate to this a bit too. Uh, I don't know. Uh, I know that this past year you went from an, uh, a team of one to a team of two. Um, and, uh, despite basically probably doubling your, uh, your staff costs, um, you're, you're still growing, um, incrementally. Um, but um, uh, tell, tell us a little bit about that.

[00:42:53] I, I, I feel like, uh- Yeah ... that's Josh's main thing is to be out in the space and promoting what

[00:42:59] Aaron Edwards: you

[00:42:59] Matt Cromwell: want, right? Yeah.

[00:43:00] Aaron Edwards: Yeah. I hired a chief growth officer, so Josh, a good friend, um, from the past and we worked together well before. Uh, so he's been with us a- almost a year now. Um, so yeah, that's definitely a big investment.

[00:43:12] Like, I wish I could say we grew as much as his salary is, you know, but it's been good just having, um, that on board with us, you know, having a partner, not being alone, you know. Um, and I do have my son working with us too full-time as well, um, on the marketing side. So we definitely invest and spend a lot like in the marketing side, content, things like that.

[00:43:34] Matt Cromwell: Yeah. Yeah. A- and I mean, I'm try- I'm just filling in the blanks a little bit, but, like, you feel like if you weren't doing all of that, growth would not be what it is.

[00:43:45] Aaron Edwards: I think so, yeah. For sure, yeah. Um, and it's something that, I mean, me being, like, more of the builder side, the technical founder, you know, I like building, and I wish that creating new features brought new customers, um, 'Cause I can pump 'em out now with AI, you know.

[00:44:03] Um, but it really, uh, goes to, like, the strategic side of things, like choosing what to build to match, like, your ICP and remembering that you have, like, maintenance and costs and kind of those legacy costs of keeping those features running, um, if it's something that's not very useful. Um, I thought that was interesting, your survey where people talked about, like, one key feature, uh, still was something working.

[00:44:26] Something that we've found and noticed, like, as part of, like, our sales process, like AI enables us, especially if we're going after a big customer, like we'll be in a demo or something, and they say, "Oh, we needed this integration or this connection to this help desk," or something like that, and now we can just pump that out, you know, within an hour or two, and it's, like, there for them, and they have no excuse, you know.

[00:44:51] And it, and it also is, like, a good selling point 'cause they're, "Oh, yeah, these people, like, they're on top of it. They love me, you know, they're gonna support me," you know. And now you can't do that to every, like, $20 a month user or something like that, but, um, the higher ticket is, um... It kind of unlocks kind of that new capability.

[00:45:08] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, 100%. Nice. Well, this has been great, guys. Um, we wrap up every single episode, uh, with our best advice for our audience, so, um, this is the time. Um, uh, what is your best advice for folks who are not growing right now but need to grow? What's, uh, what do they need to do? Elevator pitch. Um, Derek, you're up first.

[00:45:34] I

[00:45:35] Derek Ashauer: think you just have to be out there in all the different spaces. I just... There's no way to do one thing and only focus on one. Um, you just have to do a little bit of everything. Um, I think doing a little bit of everything is going to be better than just doing one single thing really deeply. So, um-

[00:45:56] Matt Cromwell: Yeah, I agree with that 100%.

[00:45:58] Um, I... Folks on the, uh, who listen to this show regularly have probably heard me say it before, I call it success by a thousand cuts, um, instead of death by a thousand cuts. Um, it's, it's, it's the only way to do it. Um, it's too risky to just d- go in on one big thing, 'cause if that one big thing doesn't work out, then you're, you spent all that sunk cost, um, uh, and, and time, um, on that kind of thing.

[00:46:23] And especially in this world nowadays where attribution is so difficult or, or impossible, um, it's sometimes hard to know exactly what is the thing that moved the needle the most. Um, and usually, um, it's really, like, the collective of all the things is what moved the needle at the end of the day, so.

[00:46:43] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:46:43] Matt Cromwell: Great advice, Derek. Uh, Aaron, what about you?

[00:46:47] Aaron Edwards: Um, yeah, I think, um, the, it's good to realize, like, the days where you could just create a- product or whatever, stick it on the, um, repo, and maybe do, uh, some blog posts, and suddenly you can rely on the repo and SEO to have a business. You know, I think that's done.

[00:47:03] Like, you can't really compete on features anymore, 'cause the ability to build things, it's just anyone can do it now so quickly. Um, so it really has to do with people. Um, unfortunately, um, you have to reach the people, um, that have a problem and figure out how to solve that. So you can use AI to get something useful in front of them quickly.

[00:47:23] Um, find out what they're willing to pay, what will make them come back, you know, what will make them recommend it, and then put all your effort into reaching, like, those 10, uh, potential or new customers, um, than you do in 10 new features, 'cause that's really what's important. Just talk to the customers, get on calls, um, talk to them on social media, whatever it is.

[00:47:44] Um, and just like Derek said, like, you have to be making a lot of noise. Like, you have to be putting 90% of your effort into marketing than 10% into the actual product, I think.

[00:47:56] Matt Cromwell: Love it. Love it, love it. Uh, I promise, folks, I don't only bring people on here that agree with everything I say, I promise. But those are the stuff that I'm telling folks all the time.

[00:48:07] So my best advice is listen to Aaron, listen to Derek. Um, uh, these guys are growing. They know what they're doing. Um, I'll, I'll say a little bit more. Like, I, I think my best advice is, is, is also similar to what Aaron is saying. Um, you, you are not your own customer. Um, the only way you know, um, how to grow is by listening to your customer.

[00:48:29] I say this a million times all the time, but I cannot tell you how I keep talking to a lot of different, uh, product shops, a lot of different companies, uh, large and small. I've- I, I'm working with hosting companies who don't know how to listen to customers very well, um, and, uh, and don't know how to figure out what the next problem is.

[00:48:47] They don't see growth, and they're like, "I don't know how to figure out what to do next." And I'm like, "Well, your customers are telling you every single day." Um, you just have to kind of create a system for not just, like, logging feedback, but knowing how to process feedback and turn it into action. Um, that to me is one of the biggest things.

[00:49:05] And- Mm-hmm. Yeah ... uh, do the logging, do the listening, do the processing, and then turn it into product insights. Um, and then, like Derek said, then get loud about those product, uh, changes that you did. Um, that, that to me is the, the secret sauce, and nothing about AI or organic search has changed any of that stuff.

[00:49:26] It just kind of has augmented the way that we do it, um, in different ways, so.

[00:49:32] Aaron Edwards: Yeah.

[00:49:34] Matt Cromwell: Nice, folks. Well, real quick, tell the world where, uh, folks can find you and follow you online. Uh, Derek, where can, where can we find you online?

[00:49:44] Derek Ashauer: They can go to derekashauer.com, or I'm mostly on X, unfortunately. I spend too much time on X, so you can find me @derekashauer on there as well.

[00:49:51] And then wpsunshine.com for all.

[00:49:54] Matt Cromwell: Awesome. Aaron, what about you?

[00:49:56] Aaron Edwards: Uh, yeah, you can find me on X. It's @uglyrobot, and I'm always talking about what I'm doing, what I'm learning there, kind of building in public a little bit. And our main product is DocsBot, so if you have, like, a team or maybe just you and you're answering too many of the same support questions over and over again, uh, check out DocsBot.

[00:50:14] We can turn your content into answers for your customers.

[00:50:18] Matt Cromwell: Excellent. Thanks again to Freemius for being our growth sponsor. If, folks, if you are enjoying these shows, we do benefit a lot if you follow us, if you subscribe to us, if you like us. If you, like, print out a card of our faces and mail it to your mom and they start liking us and following us, that's actually good, too.

[00:50:37] Like, I'll deal with snail mail, whatever. Um, but any way that you can, uh, support us and help us would be great. Next week, we're having a conversation with somebody from Automattic who I met at WordCamp Europe for the first time. Her name is Brit Salada. She actually runs influencer marketing at Automattic.

[00:50:55] Uh, it's a big subject that a lot of shops wanna get into all the time, and she's one of the first people I've seen that actually did this at scale. Uh, and I think it's gonna have a lot of, uh, really good insights for you all. So tune in next week, and we will see you next time. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye.