The Agency Advantage: Lessons from Shopify for WordPress Product Makers

00:00:04 [Speaker 1]
If you follow me online, you'll probably know that for the last six months or so, I've been working on a project to expand beyond WordPress and into selling Shopify apps.
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And as part of that journey, I've immersed myself in the Shopify community and met some fantastic people who run successful app businesses.
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But one thing that struck me is how far ahead a lot of Shopify app founders are in terms of selling their products through agency partnerships.
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So today, we're going to look at what we can learn from the Shopify community and how to apply it to WordPress.

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This is WP Product Talk, a place where every week we bring you insights, product marketing, business management and growth, customer experience, product development, and more.
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It's your go to podcast for WordPress product owners by WordPress product owners.
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And now enjoy the show.

00:01:08 [Speaker 1]
Hi.
00:01:09 [Speaker 1]
I'm Katie from Barn two.

00:01:11 [Speaker 2]
And I'm Matt Cromwell from Stellar WP.

00:01:15 [Speaker 1]
Today, we're talking about what we can learn from the Shopify ecosystem about partnering with agencies to sell our products.

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And that's why today we have invited Prakar Shiravasta today to join us from, the Shopify community.
00:01:30 [Speaker 2]
Prakar, welcome to the show.

00:01:32 [Speaker 3]
Hey.
00:01:32 [Speaker 3]
Thank you for having me.
00:01:33 [Speaker 3]
Hi, Katie.
00:01:34 [Speaker 3]
Hi, Matt.
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How's it going?

00:01:36 [Speaker 2]
Good.
00:01:36 [Speaker 2]
Good.
00:01:36 [Speaker 2]
Hey.
00:01:37 [Speaker 2]
We would love for you to introduce yourself to our audience and tell them a little bit about who you are, what you do, and, you know, why you even wanna talk with us crazy WordPress people.

00:01:48 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:01:49 [Speaker 3]
Of course.
00:01:49 [Speaker 3]
Of course.
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So a little bit of background about myself.
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I'm the cofounder of Foxtel Bundles Plus.

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It's a Shopify app catering to, enterprise bundling solution, mostly helping brands and agencies build custom bundling solutions and complex problems, around bundling and AOVs.
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We've partnered up with about 40 agencies, and we're working closely with them to create, like, a very customized storefront experiences.
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Yeah.
00:02:19 [Speaker 3]
And regarding, like, talking to you, I think a lot of, we can learn a lot from the WordPress folks, about a lot of things in Shopify ecosystem.

00:02:28 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:02:28 [Speaker 2]
And to absolutely vice versa for sure.

00:02:32 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:02:32 [Speaker 1]
And that's what, struck me when I met you in, Toronto at an, Shopify, a lunch for product people a month or so ago.
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So and then we had a call after that, didn't we?
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And it amazed me.
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The things you were saying, I have never heard anybody say in WordPress.

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And it's obvious stuff about partnering with agencies, using them to sell your products, mutual benefit.
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And I thought, oh, this is a big gap in WordPress.
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Press.
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I know there are partnership people in Word Press.
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I've met lots.

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There's some great people.
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But some of the things you were saying, I haven't come across.
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So I thought this is a great opportunity to, share some of that information across the community.
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So, first of all, could we talk about why you think agency partnerships are a good way to sell software products?
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Because that's not something I've done in my business, really, for example.

00:03:29 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:03:30 [Speaker 3]
So let me first start off by, telling you about, like, the category that we are in and based on that, how we decided to take this approach.
00:03:39 [Speaker 3]
So first of all, we are in a bundling space, and that is one of the most crowded markets.
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Right?
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So it's very difficult to just build a product and then start your acquisition directly from the App Store because there's so many apps on Shopify App Store, which is the primary distribution channel for most of the apps who are on the Shopify App Store and building for Shopify.

00:04:02 [Speaker 3]
So it's very difficult to target that particular keyword.
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So what we decided was the kind of solution that we are building, deciding the target audience, who we are building for, and what are the problem being faced by the brands right now.
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So what we came up with was that the major problem is that we as a app devs, we don't know a lot about the brands.
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And brands, big brands especially, have very complex use cases and complicated designs.
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So how can we, give them the ability to control the storefront experiences?

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And in Shopify, I'm not sure how the ecosystem in WordPress is around this.
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But in Shopify, very big brands and very enterprise brands, you usually are working with agencies.
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So their agent they hire either a full service agency, design and development agency, CRO agency, different kinds of agencies.
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And those are the people who are handling the storefront experiences and different kind of experiences for those brands.
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So, essentially, what we thought, how about if we can give the tools to build, like, highly complex, bundling use cases for these brands and how what if we talk to these agencies and make their job easier.

00:05:20 [Speaker 3]
So we need to need to understand, like, what is, intriguing for agencies and why would they partner up with an app.
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So that's how we came about this idea and, how we thought of partnering with agencies as opposed to just targeting the app store as an acquisition channel.

00:05:39 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:05:40 [Speaker 1]
That's really interesting because it's about going into a competitive space, and we've done episodes of this show in the past about how to enter a competitive marketplace.
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And we tended to focus on things like, being a big part of the community.
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For example, there's a guy called Mark Westgard from WS Form who has entered a very competitive, online forms market and carved out a space for himself really by being known and respected in the community as well as having the best products, of course.
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So I really like that as a different angle.

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But in my experience, like, I do WooCommerce products as you know, and they tend to be quite niche.
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So agencies don't often have the same requirement.
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Is it that a lot of a big proportion of agencies are actually using bundling apps?
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Therefore, maybe they would want to use the same one for every project?

00:06:35 [Speaker 3]
So not exactly, like, same thing for every project, but it's more like, essentially, in the ecommerce world, let's say, what's working for one brand in the same category are is more likely to work for another band in the same category.
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Right?
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So for example, a lot of the app ideas actually come from how Amazon works or how any ecommerce marketplace works.
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Like, a lot of small tools that you can see there and a lot of inspirations are drawn from there.
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So thing is, like, with agencies, what they do is they either they create a playbook or, with certain set of brands.

00:07:12 [Speaker 3]
Or some of our agency partner, what they have done is they have target targeted one agency, created, like, a really high converting bundle builder or bundle solution for them, and then targeted the same industry, same cosmetic in the same region, and basically started using bundle builder as an acquisition channel.
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So they say, okay.
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This is a case study with the brand that we have done for cosmetic, let's say, and, we can do the same for you.
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And once they start liking the work for that agency, they hire them on a retailer.
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So it becomes an acquisition channel for an agency as well.

00:07:48 [Speaker 3]
It's just that need to understand how does agency make more money.
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It's not just about, like, it's not just about giving them a solution, but also, like, what are the things that, agency can use out of this solution.
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Right?
00:08:02 [Speaker 3]
I was telling Katie also that there are three ways is what I think there are three ways that agency, really values when they are partnering with up with an app.
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So one is, like, your product should be really good.

00:08:15 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, when, they are the an agency is suggesting a product to a brand, they are telling they are not suggesting them, but they are telling them that we have to use it.
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So they it's it's their credibility on the line.
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So your product has to be insanely good that agency can trust you.
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So it could be very scalable, very reliable, very performant, all those kind of things.
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And second is your support should be really good.

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So, essentially, for agencies, they are not your customer, but consider them as part of your extended team.
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So, do whatever you can do to support them.
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Do priority supports, do onboarding, do training, those kind of things.
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Because when something breaks, the merchant is not going to come to your app.
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They're going to come to the agency, and then agency needs to have a POC, in your product.

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Right?
00:09:03 [Speaker 3]
And third is since agents is also a business.
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Right?
00:09:06 [Speaker 3]
How do they make more money?
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A lot of apps, what they try to do is they think, I can do revenue share with the agency and that they should that should make agency really happy.

00:09:18 [Speaker 3]
But if you think about it, like, app plays the volume game where more the more brands install us, the more money we make.
00:09:25 [Speaker 3]
So even if our higher plan is, let's say, $200 per month.
00:09:29 [Speaker 3]
So $200 per month, then if we are giving 20% to that of that to an agency, that's $40 for them for every month, which is an agency you're talking about is charging, like, $5,000 per month a retailer.
00:09:40 [Speaker 3]
For them, $40 is literally nothing.
00:09:43 [Speaker 3]
So how does agency make more money?

00:09:45 [Speaker 3]
So according to me, I think agency makes more money by servicing more clients or templatizing their work or reducing their work.
00:09:54 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, if they did it once, put a lot of effort by doing something once.
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But the second time, the third time, the fourth time, it should be at least one fourth or one fifth the effort it took for them to in doing it like the for the first time.
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So that way, they are able to save a lot of time.
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And for them, time is literally money.

00:10:12 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:10:13 [Speaker 3]
So if you can have a way for the agencies to do these things, that would really benefit agencies.
00:10:20 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:10:20 [Speaker 3]
Then that's a win win for you and for the agencies.

00:10:23 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:10:24 [Speaker 2]
Do you actually white label your products so that the agency like, the customer the the the agency's client, they're gonna see that the agency is using your product.
00:10:34 [Speaker 2]
Is that right?

00:10:35 [Speaker 3]
No.
00:10:35 [Speaker 3]
No.
00:10:35 [Speaker 3]
No.
00:10:35 [Speaker 3]
So it's, like, very transparent.
00:10:37 [Speaker 3]
Agency tell them that we are going to be using this app, and

00:10:41 [Speaker 2]
it's a

00:10:42 [Speaker 3]
public app.
00:10:43 [Speaker 3]
So you're going to be paying monthly for this particular app, but it's going to benefit us a lot in the long run.
00:10:50 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:10:51 [Speaker 3]
So a lot of the things in terms of maintaining maintaining the APIs, maintaining the Shopify changes that goes on every, six months or so and those kind of things.
00:11:00 [Speaker 3]
Agency does not have to manage that.

00:11:02 [Speaker 3]
They can focus more on what's actually converting.
00:11:06 [Speaker 3]
They're focusing they can focus more on strategy.
00:11:09 [Speaker 3]
I'm just kidding.
00:11:10 [Speaker 3]
They can focus more on strategy and those kind of things, and that's where they can make actual money.
00:11:15 [Speaker 3]
So Yeah.

00:11:16 [Speaker 3]
They are very upfront about the upfront with the merchant that you are going to be paying monthly for this particular app and something like that.

00:11:23 [Speaker 2]
Interesting.
00:11:23 [Speaker 2]
I wanna I wanna, if you don't mind, I wanna try to level set a little bit, kinda get a little bit more apples to apples between the Shopify agency and and client experience and the WordPress agency and client experience a little bit.
00:11:37 [Speaker 2]
So, there's a lot of different, kind of pain points in that, environment for the WordPress side, and I wanna see if they match up with you.
00:11:45 [Speaker 2]
So, essentially, if you're trying to think through that you wanna make sure that you're serving the client's needs because that's what the agency wants as well.
00:11:57 [Speaker 2]
And then, so in in general, Fox sell, and your bundles, you're trying to make sure that on your website and in your product, it serves the client needs as much as possible.

00:12:09 [Speaker 2]
Then the agency comes and they see that you are solving their client's problem.
00:12:14 [Speaker 2]
So they the agency is gonna reach out to you directly, and then they're gonna say, I want to be able to use your product for my client's purposes.
00:12:22 [Speaker 2]
And at the end of the day, are is the client is the agency buying your bundle in order to serve their client, or are they recommending that the client buy your bundle and then they are helping their client with your product.
00:12:38 [Speaker 2]
Do you see what I'm saying?

00:12:39 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:12:39 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:12:40 [Speaker 3]
Absolutely.
00:12:40 [Speaker 3]
So it's the latter one where client actually pays for the app and not the agency.
00:12:45 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.

00:12:46 [Speaker 2]
Got it.

00:12:46 [Speaker 3]
Because it's like a very common practice in Shopify where agencies recommend, like, for this particular functionality, if we are to build it, we'll charge this much.
00:12:54 [Speaker 3]
But if you were to use an app, this is how much you're gonna pay, which makes sense because Yep.
00:12:59 [Speaker 3]
The this is going to be easy, easy to maintain.
00:13:03 [Speaker 3]
They are going to be launching new features.
00:13:05 [Speaker 3]
So it's, like, more easy for you to set this up.

00:13:09 [Speaker 3]
While if you build it from scratch, it's going to take us a long time.

00:13:12 [Speaker 2]
Yep.

00:13:12 [Speaker 3]
And we're gonna charge you more for it.
00:13:14 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:13:15 [Speaker 3]
So, that's that's the trade off that they present the client.
00:13:19 [Speaker 3]
And if client, of course, like, chooses to use the app, then they use the app.
00:13:23 [Speaker 3]
If client says, okay.

00:13:24 [Speaker 3]
I'm not gonna use the app, then, of course, like, that's

00:13:27 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.

00:13:27 [Speaker 3]
Their decision and the agency decision.
00:13:28 [Speaker 3]
But this is how, usually things are pretty common in the Shopify ecosystem where agency presents solutions with a few apps.
00:13:36 [Speaker 3]
It's build versus buy.
00:13:37 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:13:38 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.

00:13:38 [Speaker 3]
Very very common practice in general, I feel.

00:13:41 [Speaker 2]
Nice.
00:13:41 [Speaker 2]
So then you're basically giving the agency kind of like an, an affiliate cut more or less when they refer the the customer to you.
00:13:51 [Speaker 2]
Is that right?

00:13:53 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:13:53 [Speaker 3]
So we do that, but I don't think agency care about that.

00:13:56 [Speaker 2]
That's what I

00:13:57 [Speaker 3]
was telling you.
00:13:58 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:13:58 [Speaker 3]
So we also offer one way where instead of them receiving the cut, they can offer that cut as a discount to the brand.
00:14:08 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:14:08 [Speaker 3]
So that makes it, like, more exclusive.

00:14:10 [Speaker 3]
So they are like, okay.
00:14:11 [Speaker 3]
If you go out and use this app, this is the payment.
00:14:15 [Speaker 3]
This is the price.
00:14:16 [Speaker 3]
But if you use it with us, we'll give you 20% off.

00:14:18 [Speaker 2]
You get it cheaper.
00:14:19 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:14:20 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.

00:14:20 [Speaker 3]
Exactly.
00:14:21 [Speaker 3]
So that that's exclusively also there.
00:14:23 [Speaker 3]
So that is also something that we do offer.
00:14:25 [Speaker 3]
But to be honest, like, agency, especially the bigger agency, they don't care about, the revenue cut as much as if they are able to if we are actually able to help them, make more money or save their time by by a lot.
00:14:41 [Speaker 3]
That's that's their priority.

00:14:42 [Speaker 2]
Yep.
00:14:43 [Speaker 2]
Makes sense.

00:14:45 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:14:45 [Speaker 1]
We've got some comments from Ian Misner from Kestrel, which is a WooCommerce plug in company.
00:14:53 [Speaker 1]
One of them is the unit economics of WordPress might make this tougher here because 200 a year is a premium product in WordPress, not 200 a month.
00:15:03 [Speaker 1]
An equivalent in Shopify is 50 to hun 100 a month.
00:15:07 [Speaker 1]
Well, my research would suggest there's is a wider spread of prices in Shopify, and Fox sell and you told me this is a higher higher end, like, 200 a month, whatever, because of your method of selling through agencies.

00:15:22 [Speaker 1]
Whereas I'm seeing that the Shopify apps, which tend to rely on other methods such as App Store visibility, are often cheaper.
00:15:31 [Speaker 1]
Do you think that fits?

00:15:34 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:15:34 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:15:34 [Speaker 3]
I think that that is, absolutely correct.
00:15:37 [Speaker 3]
And, there are, like, different reasons why an app is, cheaper or I won't say cheaper, but it's, like, more cost efficient as compared to, like, the other apps, the kind of, of features that they offer.
00:15:51 [Speaker 3]
For me, prime for us, primarily, the reason was, to not have a free plan initially, was that when you have a free plan and you get a lot of traffic from the App Store, you have to have, like, a really, active support team because the smaller the brands, the more help they require.

00:16:13 [Speaker 3]
So that way, you need to understand, how to handle your support process.
00:16:19 [Speaker 3]
And to be honest, we were a very small team when we started out, and we didn't have the bandwidth to support anyone and everyone there.
00:16:25 [Speaker 3]
We started out thinking about that, but then it became too much.
00:16:29 [Speaker 3]
So and as your app grows, as your ranking grows, it becomes, like, a little difficult.
00:16:33 [Speaker 3]
So then we took a call that we are going to focus on enterprise.

00:16:37 [Speaker 3]
Of course, the volume becomes a little low when you're not targeting the app store as an acquisition channel.
00:16:43 [Speaker 3]
And when you're working with agencies who are working with bigger brands, the cycle is a little longer, but that is a call that you have to make, essentially.

00:16:51 [Speaker 2]
That's a really interesting approach.
00:16:53 [Speaker 2]
I mean, that I haven't seen a WordPress product go this way, but it it's conceivable, I think.
00:16:59 [Speaker 2]
Basically, the idea of, like, let's not, go the freemium model.
00:17:04 [Speaker 2]
We're not gonna go freemium.
00:17:05 [Speaker 2]
We're gonna go premium only, and we're gonna go really seriously premium only.

00:17:09 [Speaker 2]
And our marketplace then is not the wordpress.org marketplace.
00:17:14 [Speaker 2]
Our marketplace then is the WordPress agencies who implement, for clients.
00:17:20 [Speaker 2]
It's a really interesting approach.
00:17:21 [Speaker 2]
I mean, there are several large agencies in the WordPress space.
00:17:25 [Speaker 2]
VIP is, of course, the the official automatic, agency that implements a lot that has a a large that has a lot, more pricey customer base, essentially.

00:17:37 [Speaker 2]
Human Made is another one, and Ten Up is another one, crowd favorite.
00:17:41 [Speaker 2]
All of these are are, agencies that deal with, the Disneys or the the, National Geographic type, customer base, who those types of folks would be able to easily spend a 100 or 200 a month depending on the product.
00:18:01 [Speaker 2]
But, but they they definitely could do that.
00:18:04 [Speaker 2]
And I I haven't seen a WordPress product go that route, like, agency specific in particular.
00:18:10 [Speaker 2]
But it's conceivable.

00:18:12 [Speaker 2]
It is.
00:18:12 [Speaker 2]
I I feel like it's risky.
00:18:14 [Speaker 2]
Did you start, out of the box when you launched Foxel?
00:18:17 [Speaker 2]
Was it immediately this model?

00:18:21 [Speaker 3]
So not really.
00:18:22 [Speaker 3]
So I think we have a very well defined way of launching a product in Shopify on the app store.
00:18:29 [Speaker 3]
And I was telling Katie also this, and I think Katie is doing a very similar thing with her new product, which is basically when once your app gets approved, you make it unlisted.
00:18:41 [Speaker 3]
You talk to a few brands.
00:18:42 [Speaker 3]
You get a few beta customers.

00:18:44 [Speaker 3]
You I trade on the product.
00:18:47 [Speaker 3]
You get some reviews, make it free initially, and then you go on the App Store.
00:18:53 [Speaker 3]
And that is the route we also took because, basically, initially, when you have very low credibility, you have no reviews.
00:19:02 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, just taking a step back and, understanding, like, how a merchant can install a plug in or an app in Shopify Yeah.
00:19:11 [Speaker 3]
There is only one way.

00:19:13 [Speaker 3]
No matter where you're marketing, where you're distributing, there is only one way to install a public app on Shopify, and that is the app store.
00:19:21 [Speaker 3]
So Yeah.
00:19:22 [Speaker 3]
If somebody's coming from Google, somebody's coming from blogs, somebody's coming from podcasts, doesn't matter.
00:19:26 [Speaker 3]
They are going to land up on Shopify.

00:19:28 [Speaker 2]
That's a really significant difference, between Shopify and WordPress.
00:19:33 [Speaker 2]
So I mean, there's a a million ways to install a plug in on WordPress.

00:19:39 [Speaker 3]
Oh, okay.
00:19:40 [Speaker 3]
Okay.
00:19:40 [Speaker 3]
So so for that reason, your credibility on the App Store really matters.
00:19:45 [Speaker 3]
So let's say, for example, if somebody recommended you, let's say, a restaurant, and you you really trust that person and you say, oh, the restaurant is pretty good, then you go on Google go on Google and check it, and it's, like, 3.4 rating.
00:20:00 [Speaker 3]
So there'll be a little skepticism in your minds, like, is that really good, or should I try it right now or not?

00:20:06 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, on the Shopify App Store, no matter how people recommend you, where people are coming from, if your credibility on the App Store is not good, zero reviews or, like, three star rating or something like that, then, of course, like, a merchant would become a little hesitant.
00:20:20 [Speaker 3]
So that is really important to build a little bit of credibility on the App Store because there's a single source where people can install the app.
00:20:28 [Speaker 3]
So have good amount of reviews, good rating.
00:20:32 [Speaker 3]
We did we got a bid for Shopify badge, which is, like, you follow certain guidelines, that Shopify has set.
00:20:39 [Speaker 3]
And once you meet all of them, then you get a badge that your app is built for Shopify.

00:20:44 [Speaker 3]
So we got that.
00:20:45 [Speaker 3]
So whenever somebody comes on the App Store listing page, they see, okay.
00:20:49 [Speaker 3]
This app is credible because it's a five star rating and good amount of reviews, those kind of things.
00:20:54 [Speaker 3]
So that is how we started.
00:20:55 [Speaker 3]
We started with freeze to get more reviews because you get more volume when you're starting off free.

00:21:02 [Speaker 3]
But after some point, as I said, when support became too much and we caught a bunch of enterprise customers, and that's where we started making most of our revenue, we thought that that is that might be the way to go for now.
00:21:16 [Speaker 3]
Essentially, in the future, we definitely want to capture both the markets.
00:21:20 [Speaker 3]
Not like I don't I want to leave money on the table.
00:21:22 [Speaker 3]
Of course, we wanna capture both the market.
00:21:24 [Speaker 3]
We wanna capture the mid segment who can afford the app, but not the agency pricing.

00:21:29 [Speaker 3]
So, of course, that is something that we also wanna capture, and we wanna capture the enterprise as well.
00:21:34 [Speaker 3]
But right now, for us, based on our team size, based on our bandwidth, based on how we're doing things, I think agency do it is what we decided to go with.

00:21:44 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:21:44 [Speaker 1]
And that leads us to another comment from Ian, who says, how much time and investment do you put into building your agency partnerships?
00:21:53 [Speaker 1]
So as you've said, it's not your ideal only marketing strategy, but it is a major one.
00:21:59 [Speaker 1]
And I think you mentioned earlier you have 40 agency partnerships, which is a lot.
00:22:04 [Speaker 1]
So

00:22:05 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:22:06 [Speaker 3]
So we so we don't have 40 agency partnerships as in, like, contract partnership.
00:22:11 [Speaker 3]
We are working with about 40 or 50 agencies, but we don't partner with every agencies because we also want to do lead sharing.
00:22:18 [Speaker 3]
So, for example, if a brand comes to us and say, okay.
00:22:21 [Speaker 3]
I want a bundle builder like this.

00:22:23 [Speaker 3]
Can you do it?
00:22:24 [Speaker 3]
So he said, okay.
00:22:25 [Speaker 3]
We don't do it because we have, like, a lot of brands to support, but here's our agency partner who can do it.
00:22:29 [Speaker 3]
So these lead sharing, when it becomes, like, so many agencies, it's difficult to share leads with all of them.
00:22:35 [Speaker 3]
So we partner very, to be honest, judiciously so that it's a win win for both of us.

00:22:42 [Speaker 3]
We do work with a lot of agencies.
00:22:44 [Speaker 3]
We onboard them.
00:22:45 [Speaker 3]
We have a training on onboarding call.
00:22:47 [Speaker 3]
But in terms of, like, written paper partnership, it's, like, 10 to 15 of those agencies, that we are very close with.
00:22:54 [Speaker 3]
In terms of how much time and investment do we put into building agency partnership, I I'm glad somebody asked this question because we put a lot of effort into partnering up with agencies.

00:23:05 [Speaker 3]
We talk to them a lot.
00:23:09 [Speaker 3]
We go and meet them.
00:23:10 [Speaker 3]
We, do regular calls, meet meetups.
00:23:15 [Speaker 3]
Whenever we are in town, we meet them a lot.
00:23:17 [Speaker 3]
So those kind of things we do a lot because we feel like a partnership cannot just be transactional and we really believe in that.

00:23:24 [Speaker 3]
We feel like you need to create a little bit of personal connection and that's where it changes a lot of things even though it's some people say it's the old style of doing business, but I feel, that that personal relationship changes a lot of things.
00:23:38 [Speaker 3]
Because once you get that synergy between both of you, you realize we are very similar kind of people, want similar kind of things, same similar ambition, then you just have that personal connection, then it becomes easier.
00:23:51 [Speaker 3]
So it's like a lot of agencies are partners.
00:23:54 [Speaker 3]
We can call them really good friends also.
00:23:56 [Speaker 3]
So that is something that we really doubled down on.

00:23:58 [Speaker 3]
And, recently, I met one of, one of the CEOs of really big companies, who told us, like, how what we do is whenever you are brainstorming on growth channels, what you do is whatever is working for you, you put them in a matrix and say, okay.
00:24:18 [Speaker 3]
This is where I'm gonna double down on, and the other things are experimental and not think in a way where, okay.
00:24:25 [Speaker 3]
This is already working.
00:24:26 [Speaker 3]
Let's focus on another channel.
00:24:28 [Speaker 3]
So that's the difference.

00:24:29 [Speaker 3]
So what is really working for us, we actually double down on that a lot.
00:24:34 [Speaker 3]
So agency partnerships, that's why we do we try to do a lot of meetups, a lot of events, a lot of dinners, those kind of things as well.

00:24:41 [Speaker 2]
Interesting.
00:24:42 [Speaker 2]
And what I'm I'm going back a little bit to what you were saying about why you like this model so much, and one of the things you said that I really, liked was that you're a really small team overall, and that this model enables you basically to remain a small team, instead of investing a ton in a support team, or a larger marketing team in order to pump into that marketplace funnel as much as possible.
00:25:17 [Speaker 2]
Because I just recently had a conversation on x with a bunch of WordPress folks, asking that exact question saying, I really they were saying, I really want to remain a small and lean team, and also scale larger.
00:25:34 [Speaker 2]
And my experience in the WordPress space is, like, it's not really doable because we depend so much on that.
00:25:42 [Speaker 2]
Not everybody, of course, but, like, a lot of, products depend so much on that freemium model.

00:25:50 [Speaker 2]
Or if you're not a freemium model, you still are dependent on the WordPress ecosystem in general, which is just a very high touch, high support environment.
00:26:01 [Speaker 2]
So I wanna lean in on that a little bit because even though you are partnering with agencies primarily, you're still selling direct to the customer, and the customer still is going to have support requests.

00:26:15 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.

00:26:15 [Speaker 2]
Do you find that the agency actually helps to minimize those support requests, or, like, are they a little bit of a filter?
00:26:23 [Speaker 2]
Or do you still feel like you're able to serve those clients with a lot of excellence with your small team or, you know, just wanna pick that apart a little bit?

00:26:33 [Speaker 3]
No.
00:26:33 [Speaker 3]
So, yeah, I think there are two kind of support that we get.
00:26:38 [Speaker 3]
One is, of course, like, when we do priority onboarding, we onboard them to our Slack.
00:26:43 [Speaker 3]
So it become the communication become faster, and that's how you also make them feel special.
00:26:47 [Speaker 3]
Right?

00:26:47 [Speaker 3]
So whenever they are messaging on Slack, it's very, clear to them that what's the time zone we are in.
00:26:54 [Speaker 3]
So if it's 3AM, 4AM when they're messaging, for us, they are usually very considerate about it.
00:27:00 [Speaker 3]
So they don't expect a response right then and there.
00:27:05 [Speaker 3]
And the second support channel is, of course, our live chat, which is inside the app, which is primarily used by the merchants.
00:27:12 [Speaker 3]
So that is where we try to be more proactive.

00:27:15 [Speaker 3]
That is where we try to, have, like, a human present there at all times so that whenever somebody is messaging, even if we are not able to solve that, at least they know that a human has looked into it and they have raised the request.
00:27:29 [Speaker 3]
So that is the minimum that we do because, of course, like, at this point, we can't do 247 support.
00:27:35 [Speaker 3]
So whenever we are out, we have an automated message that say, okay.
00:27:39 [Speaker 3]
It's 2AM, so we'll reply as soon as we can.
00:27:43 [Speaker 3]
But, and if somebody is available, they just write away message that, okay.

00:27:49 [Speaker 3]
This is something that we can solve if it's like a we have a support documentation as well internal.
00:27:54 [Speaker 3]
So if it's present there, they solve it then and there.
00:27:58 [Speaker 3]
If it's not, then they say, okay.
00:27:59 [Speaker 3]
We have raised the ticket to our tech team, and we'll get back to as soon as possible.
00:28:03 [Speaker 3]
So usually, merchants don't like when nobody responds, but they are usually okay with, having them so people listen to them, but the resolution is a little bit later.

00:28:17 [Speaker 3]
So I think that is that is something that we've learned.
00:28:20 [Speaker 3]
So most of the support still comes from our agency partners and not from the merchant because the volume is a little low from the App Store, like I mentioned.
00:28:28 [Speaker 3]
So that is how we are able to get things done.

00:28:31 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:28:31 [Speaker 2]
I like the that your primary modes of support are Slack, which I think is really interesting, and the live chat that you put in the product directly.

00:28:42 [Speaker 3]
Correct.

00:28:43 [Speaker 2]
That's actually a trend that's happening more and more in the WordPress space.
00:28:45 [Speaker 2]
It's harder for us because we're all distributed products that live in wild and crazy unpredictable environments.
00:28:54 [Speaker 2]
But, you know, at Stellar, we are putting our support experiences in our products directly, and, it's been actually really helpful and beneficial overall for the brands that have already done it.
00:29:07 [Speaker 2]
But that's that's kind of like, you know, the wild west frontier of in the WordPress space.
00:29:13 [Speaker 2]
It's not the norm at all right now.

00:29:15 [Speaker 3]
I I actually, read Katie's tweet also when she was mentioning that, like, twenty four seven support is not a thing in WordPress, but apparently, it's like a big thing in Shopify.
00:29:29 [Speaker 3]
So So I just wanted to understand, like, how does the brands or the merchants are using your plug in?
00:29:36 [Speaker 3]
What what is their psyche like when they message you on support?
00:29:39 [Speaker 3]
Like, do they do, like, send you emails, or do they do like you said, do you have live chat now?
00:29:45 [Speaker 3]
So what are their expectations in the word proceed?

00:29:47 [Speaker 2]
That's a good one.
00:29:48 [Speaker 2]
We can do a whole another episode on that, honestly.
00:29:51 [Speaker 2]
But, like, really super briefly, I will say, like, the generally speaking, the support experience is Monday through Friday, and it tends to be, email based primarily.
00:30:03 [Speaker 2]
And it tends to be not just like send us an email whenever you want.
00:30:07 [Speaker 2]
It's go to our website, fill out a form, and that form will send us an email, and then we'll reply to you.

00:30:15 [Speaker 2]
It's it's tends to be very gatekeepy, and a little bit on purpose because some plug ins have hundreds of thousands of users, and, and it the volume can be extreme.
00:30:29 [Speaker 2]
And because the WordPress environment is so unpredictable, you can't just simply say, hey.
00:30:37 [Speaker 2]
It's broken.
00:30:37 [Speaker 2]
Fix it.
00:30:38 [Speaker 2]
That's not you're not gonna get a good reply.

00:30:41 [Speaker 2]
You really have to give us a lot of detail in order for us to understand at all what's going on in your environment.
00:30:49 [Speaker 2]
That said, I've been pushing the limits a lot on the way that we offer support at Stellar, and we've now we're now doing a twelve hour per day, support experience, like, 5AM to 5PM, Monday through Friday, typically.
00:31:02 [Speaker 2]
And we even have support techs who do work on the weekend, although we don't really advertise it.
00:31:07 [Speaker 2]
We we are working on the weekend sometimes as well, in order to push that envelope.
00:31:13 [Speaker 2]
We have some products now that are hosted, and the hosted products need to be twenty four seven support.

00:31:19 [Speaker 2]
Mhmm.
00:31:20 [Speaker 2]
And, we try to orient mostly around the time zone of the largest portion of our, customer base.
00:31:29 [Speaker 2]
So we analyze that as much as we can.
00:31:31 [Speaker 2]
And that 5AM to 5PM is 5AM to 5PM eastern time.
00:31:36 [Speaker 2]
And, that tends to get the large majority of our folks.

00:31:40 [Speaker 2]
But, but we try to set those expectations really, really clear that that's our office hours.
00:31:45 [Speaker 2]
That's when we're that's when you should expect a response from us.
00:31:49 [Speaker 2]
But we still get folks who will email at 6PM on a Friday and be mad if they don't get a response right away.

00:31:56 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:31:57 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:31:57 [Speaker 3]
That makes sense.
00:31:58 [Speaker 3]
Like, I think in Shopify ecosystem, a lot of things are driven by review, like your rankings, your those kind of things.
00:32:04 [Speaker 3]
So review becomes, like, really important.

00:32:07 [Speaker 3]
And one star review, two star review is, like, sometimes it's at your early stages, essentially, a business killer where if you start your app and you receive a one star review, so it becomes, like, very difficult.
00:32:18 [Speaker 3]
And usually when your app has a freemium model, it's more likely because the smaller stores tends to be more emotional and get angrier quickly.
00:32:29 [Speaker 3]
So they leave a bad review.
00:32:31 [Speaker 3]
They're more likely to leave a bad review, and you just can't afford that initially.
00:32:34 [Speaker 3]
So you have to have, like, a I

00:32:35 [Speaker 2]
mean, reputation management is something that we are dealing with all the time.
00:32:40 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:32:41 [Speaker 2]
It's a big deal.
00:32:42 [Speaker 2]
Yep.
00:32:44 [Speaker 2]
It's a Very scary.

00:32:45 [Speaker 2]
Questions in the comments here too.
00:32:46 [Speaker 2]
And this I I love this conversation.
00:32:48 [Speaker 2]
It's really engaging.

00:32:51 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:32:51 [Speaker 1]
So let's do the support ones then.
00:32:53 [Speaker 1]
So, Ian says we have live chat in one of our plugins, and people email us anyways.
00:32:59 [Speaker 1]
The user base expectations are weird.
00:33:02 [Speaker 1]
Now I think it's that different people have different communication sky styles.

00:33:07 [Speaker 1]
And as software companies, we need to be offering a range based on our customers rather than making it about us.
00:33:15 [Speaker 1]
I'm in debate with my support team about this quite a lot at the moment, particularly with the Shopify project, because some people want live chat, some people want phone calls, support team do not like that idea, And some people just want to email and do it, asynchronously.
00:33:34 [Speaker 1]
So I think that, yeah, Ian's right with that observation, and it's about offering that choice because everybody's different.

00:33:41 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:33:42 [Speaker 2]
I do think that the email preference in the WordPress space is maybe largely just because the WordPress space has trained all of these WordPress users to use email.
00:33:53 [Speaker 2]
It's absolutely the norm, across all of the WordPress products.
00:33:58 [Speaker 2]
And so and oftentimes, I think folks will just guess.
00:34:01 [Speaker 2]
They'll just be like, I'm sure that they use [email protected] to be their support intake form.

00:34:08 [Speaker 2]
So they just email those and and see what happens.
00:34:12 [Speaker 2]
So yeah.

00:34:13 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:34:14 [Speaker 3]
Sometimes I've also observed this thing is where, we get email, but it's like a one liner request.
00:34:21 [Speaker 3]
So it feels like this person could have just messaged on the live chat instead of email because the tone looks like that.
00:34:28 [Speaker 3]
But sometimes I think there are some ad blockers that prevents live chats also from loading on your product.
00:34:34 [Speaker 3]
Mhmm.

00:34:35 [Speaker 3]
So for that, they think there is no live chat, so they have to email.
00:34:40 [Speaker 3]
So that is also one case where people miss out on a lot with the thing.
00:34:44 [Speaker 3]
Why did they email?
00:34:45 [Speaker 3]
Why couldn't they just have messaged me on live chat?
00:34:47 [Speaker 3]
But they my live chat might not have loaded because of some ad blocker or something that they're using.

00:34:52 [Speaker 3]
Yep.

00:34:53 [Speaker 1]
Good point.
00:34:54 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:34:54 [Speaker 1]
So Ian would also like to know more about the Slack support channel for agency partnerships.
00:35:00 [Speaker 1]
What does it look like, and do you position that as a meaningful value, or is it an expectation

00:35:12 [Speaker 3]
of course, like, this is a really important thing, because when you treat agency partner or any partner as your extended team, you don't expect communication on an email.
00:35:25 [Speaker 3]
You expect more informal communication, more quicker communication because, let's say, when they're getting onboarded to your app, they are likely to have more issues than, when they have already been onboarded or when they're not using your app.
00:35:40 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, instead of saying, hey.
00:35:43 [Speaker 3]
How are you?
00:35:44 [Speaker 3]
Good morning.

00:35:44 [Speaker 3]
Hope your day is good.
00:35:45 [Speaker 3]
I'm facing this issue on an email.
00:35:47 [Speaker 3]
They can just send me a Slack message and say, this is not working.
00:35:50 [Speaker 3]
What am I doing wrong?
00:35:52 [Speaker 3]
Which is which just increase the productivity, makes the communication faster, and it's like a win win.

00:35:57 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, it's not I don't think it's an expectation, but I think it's, like, a very meaningful value.
00:36:02 [Speaker 3]
Like, if you're doing partnerships, not just with agency, even with apps, even with anything, I think a common communication channel, which is not email, is, like, it's insanely helpful.

00:36:16 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:36:16 [Speaker 1]
Definitely.
00:36:17 [Speaker 1]
You're treating them like colleagues as you say.
00:36:20 [Speaker 1]
We talk to our colleagues on Slack, and we need the agencies to feel like that in terms of partnership rather than Exactly.
00:36:27 [Speaker 1]
Their clients or something like that.

00:36:29 [Speaker 3]
Exactly.
00:36:30 [Speaker 3]
Exactly.
00:36:31 [Speaker 3]
And sorry.
00:36:32 [Speaker 3]
No.
00:36:32 [Speaker 3]
I'm just about to add this thing where it at certain point when you talk to them a lot, it becomes a little informal as well.

00:36:40 [Speaker 3]
So you're just wishing them happy birthdays.
00:36:42 [Speaker 3]
You're wishing them congratulations on certain things that the milestone that they've achieved, those kind of things just creates your partnership more personal, and that's, I think, that's how that's the way to go.
00:36:53 [Speaker 3]
And it's easier to remind them about yourself when they're on Slack as compared to one email.
00:36:58 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:36:59 [Speaker 3]
So that's also there.

00:37:00 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:37:01 [Speaker 2]
I'm sorry.
00:37:01 [Speaker 2]
You you

00:37:01 [Speaker 3]
were saying something, kitty.

00:37:04 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:37:04 [Speaker 1]
I think we should move on to the, show and tell in a minute.
00:37:08 [Speaker 1]
But before we do that, we've got a question from Tach who is curious.
00:37:13 [Speaker 1]
When did you discover that this is the model that works for you?
00:37:17 [Speaker 1]
At what stage did you discover this?

00:37:18 [Speaker 1]
Because you mentioned it wasn't right at the beginning.

00:37:22 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:37:22 [Speaker 3]
So hi, Taks.
00:37:23 [Speaker 3]
Taks is actually a good friend of ours.
00:37:26 [Speaker 3]
So but yeah.
00:37:27 [Speaker 3]
So, we like I mentioned already, I think we started with a free plan, free for all because we wanna get more reviews.

00:37:35 [Speaker 3]
And then when we thought that we are getting, like, more support around from, like, smaller stores and more revenue from bigger stores, that is when we thought, like, okay.
00:37:47 [Speaker 3]
This is the model that we should shift on.
00:37:50 [Speaker 3]
And this is the thing that not a lot of apps were doing on the App Store, so that became an edge for us at that point of time.
00:37:57 [Speaker 3]
And that is how when we realized, okay, let's completely switch to agency model.
00:38:03 [Speaker 3]
And then we actually started getting a lot of inbound agencies because what happens is that when somebody when an agency is working with a brand, they tend to install a lot of apps and see what's working for them.

00:38:16 [Speaker 3]
So we did a lot of inbound support.
00:38:18 [Speaker 3]
As soon as somebody installed, we send them, hey.
00:38:20 [Speaker 3]
Hi.
00:38:20 [Speaker 3]
How's it going?
00:38:21 [Speaker 3]
How can I help you?

00:38:23 [Speaker 3]
Do you have a requirement?
00:38:24 [Speaker 3]
Do you wanna book a call or something like that?
00:38:27 [Speaker 3]
And we started getting few inbound requests, and, we had, like, a free for development store plan as well.
00:38:35 [Speaker 3]
So any agency or any partner who has a dev store on Shopify can use the app completely for free.
00:38:42 [Speaker 3]
Anyway, dev store can't sell actual products, so it doesn't matter.

00:38:47 [Speaker 3]
It's just for testing.
00:38:47 [Speaker 3]
So it becomes really easy for agency to test the app.
00:38:51 [Speaker 3]
And that's when we got a lot of agencies to start using our app, for their brands.
00:38:58 [Speaker 3]
And then we thought, okay.
00:38:59 [Speaker 3]
This is the primary source of revenue, so why not make it the primary source of acquisition and just double down on it?

00:39:04 [Speaker 3]
So that's when we realized that, we should just pivot and just move to this model.

00:39:10 [Speaker 2]
That's awesome.
00:39:11 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:39:11 [Speaker 2]
I mean, I think any business that radically changes their business model, and survives, is, deserves a big congratulations.
00:39:21 [Speaker 2]
So

00:39:22 [Speaker 3]
Thank you.
00:39:23 [Speaker 3]
Thank you so much.

00:39:24 [Speaker 2]
Good job making that happen.
00:39:24 [Speaker 2]
I'm sure it was a little bit uncomfortable for a little while in that transition.
00:39:28 [Speaker 2]
Right?

00:39:28 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:39:29 [Speaker 3]
I think starting a new product is always really uncomfortable, but you learn along the way.
00:39:33 [Speaker 3]
And as soon as you adapt, I think that that's more better for the product.
00:39:38 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:39:38 [Speaker 3]
Because initially, you're not getting any way.

00:39:40 [Speaker 3]
You're not generating money because you only have free plans.
00:39:42 [Speaker 3]
So it's I I feel like that's the best time to experiment.
00:39:46 [Speaker 3]
It's very difficult to pivot once you start making a lot of money.
00:39:49 [Speaker 3]
And once you start actually supporting a lot of brands, then it's difficult to pivot.
00:39:54 [Speaker 3]
But when you don't have money, you have essentially nothing nothing to lose.

00:39:58 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:39:58 [Speaker 3]
So then it just makes, like, an experiment.
00:40:01 [Speaker 3]
So yeah.
00:40:04 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.

00:40:04 [Speaker 1]
Okay.
00:40:05 [Speaker 1]
Well, let's move to the show and tell section before we finish, which I think will be a bit shorter than usual.
00:40:11 [Speaker 1]
So, that's where we each talk about a bit more about our experience of agency partnership.
00:40:17 [Speaker 1]
Mine's gonna be quite brief, but I think it's worth talking about what I have done in the WordPress space to think about it through the lens of this discussion and whether there's other things we could be doing and things like that.
00:40:30 [Speaker 1]
So I've whenever I've, like, sponsored a WordCamp, which is the WordPress event, one of our goals has been to do agency partnerships and, tell agencies about our products so they're more likely to use us for their projects, and it never works.

00:40:48 [Speaker 1]
Nothing ever happens.
00:40:50 [Speaker 1]
It might because what our products do is too niche, like I said earlier, but we've never had anything from that.
00:40:56 [Speaker 1]
We do things like link exchanges and co marketing with agencies.
00:41:01 [Speaker 1]
We sometimes I coauthored an ebook with a big, UK based agency called Focus.
00:41:08 [Speaker 1]
So that was kind of brand awareness.

00:41:10 [Speaker 1]
But in terms of getting them to remember and regularly sell our products, they either do or they don't.
00:41:15 [Speaker 1]
And nothing I have done has changed that.
00:41:18 [Speaker 1]
What about you, Matt, with all the Stellar brands?

00:41:22 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:41:22 [Speaker 2]
Honestly, I it's I would say it's similar.
00:41:25 [Speaker 2]
I've tried a couple different things along the way.
00:41:27 [Speaker 2]
One significant experience we had was that, we there was a a very large client, that came to VIP and wanted to use, GiveWP.
00:41:40 [Speaker 2]
This was many years ago.

00:41:42 [Speaker 2]
And, I, you know, I won't mention, names, but, they they didn't end up using Give in in the end because VIP has very strict, rules about the type of code that they allow on their platform, and, really strict standards, that most WordPress products don't pay attention to, honestly.
00:42:05 [Speaker 2]
And it's not like it's not like a, you know, a requirement for, you know, good performance or things like that.
00:42:12 [Speaker 2]
But it's, it's it's just the way that they wanna make sure all of their platforms are are performing.
00:42:17 [Speaker 2]
They came to us and wanted a whole bunch of changes made in order for us to, for them to use us for their client, for their very large and significant client.
00:42:26 [Speaker 2]
We are really tempted to just jump through all those hoops and, and make it work because it was an awesome client, and that we would have been proud to be used on on that website.

00:42:37 [Speaker 2]
But we were really small at the time.
00:42:39 [Speaker 2]
We were like, this is gonna take us, like, eight months of work, for us to to make this to make this work.
00:42:46 [Speaker 2]
And we we just decided to tell them, you know what?
00:42:48 [Speaker 2]
We just don't have the capacity to make this work for you.
00:42:52 [Speaker 2]
I've always been bummed about that, but I also know that we shipped a lot of really good stuff that expanded our reach really far in that eight months.

00:42:59 [Speaker 2]
Instead of catering to one customer, we decided to cater to thousands, really.
00:43:05 [Speaker 2]
That was the choice that we had to make at the time, and I think it was the right choice.
00:43:08 [Speaker 2]
It just was a bummer.
00:43:09 [Speaker 2]
You know?
00:43:10 [Speaker 2]
But besides that, my experience is probably very similar to Katie in terms of, like, when I'm at word camps, I do talk to any and all agency folks, that I can.

00:43:20 [Speaker 2]
I've I've maintained good relationships, with crowd favorite folks.
00:43:24 [Speaker 2]
Kareem is there, of course.
00:43:25 [Speaker 2]
Jake Goldman from ten up, fueled now, by the way, and, Justin Sainten.
00:43:32 [Speaker 2]
I mean, across the board, I try to always talk with those folks.
00:43:35 [Speaker 2]
And I will say that, they come to me when they have a client who is going to use our product.

00:43:41 [Speaker 2]
It's not as if, like, hey.
00:43:42 [Speaker 2]
I'm going to go pitch to use your product.
00:43:44 [Speaker 2]
It's more of, like, we already sold this client on this website, and we need your product.
00:43:50 [Speaker 2]
Can you help us have the most success with it?
00:43:54 [Speaker 2]
Under those circumstances, I'm like, yes.

00:43:56 [Speaker 2]
Let me help you as much as possible.
00:43:58 [Speaker 2]
So it it is that human touch, like you mentioned, Prakat, that, that I think is really, really significant and important, in order to just make sure that anytime that opportunity comes up, it's a win.

00:44:12 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:44:13 [Speaker 3]
That makes sense.
00:44:15 [Speaker 3]
Just wanted to before I, add anything, just wanted to follow-up on Matt's, answer.
00:44:22 [Speaker 3]
Did you did you ever think, like, we would if we were to do that eight months of work, we would have, like, a huge logo to put on our website, and that would maybe attract, like, bigger brands and maybe do it.
00:44:35 [Speaker 3]
And, also, like, a second part of that question is do you charge, like, brands on the basis of how big they are, or is it, like, a flat fee for every brand?

00:44:44 [Speaker 3]
So does it make sense if it's, like, a big brand?

00:44:47 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:44:47 [Speaker 2]
Flat fee for every brand.
00:44:49 [Speaker 2]
I mean, that's one of the things that distinguishes WordPress in many ways from, SaaS, in general.
00:44:55 [Speaker 2]
So, like, GiveWP is a a donation platform, and, our biggest competitors are not in the WordPress space.
00:45:03 [Speaker 2]
They are SaaS platforms.

00:45:05 [Speaker 2]
And, but back at when this was first happening, there were the SaaS platforms were extremely expensive for nonprofits to run on them.
00:45:16 [Speaker 2]
It it was a very different time, at that time.
00:45:19 [Speaker 2]
And so us being able to say, you're just gonna pay $300 a year for our platform, it was extremely competitive against any of those SaaS platforms at the time.
00:45:32 [Speaker 2]
And, and a lot of people chose us just for that reason alone, and they were already on WordPress anyway.
00:45:38 [Speaker 2]
And, it just makes a lot of sense.

00:45:42 [Speaker 2]
But the to be VIP approved, basically, like, WordPress VIP approved, it is interesting.
00:45:48 [Speaker 2]
I do think that if a product is relatively new and they try to get that approval, and you can work with VIP directly and get, like, their badge on your website and things like that.
00:46:03 [Speaker 2]
I there is a a a product shop.
00:46:08 [Speaker 2]
I'm trying to remember the name right now.
00:46:09 [Speaker 2]
Why is it failing?

00:46:10 [Speaker 2]
Is it is it, WeDevs?
00:46:13 [Speaker 2]
I think WeDevs.
00:46:14 [Speaker 2]
I don't wanna I don't wanna say it wrong.
00:46:16 [Speaker 2]
One of these shops that is VIP approved that gets a lot of really good, plug in work as well, because of their relationship with VIP in particular.
00:46:25 [Speaker 2]
So there is opportunity there, and we're some WordPress shops do do that.

00:46:30 [Speaker 3]
Mhmm.

00:46:30 [Speaker 2]
But, yeah, we didn't make that choice.

00:46:34 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:46:35 [Speaker 3]
That's that's pretty bold, but I think good for the long run.
00:46:38 [Speaker 3]
Right?

00:46:38 [Speaker 2]
Yeah.
00:46:39 [Speaker 2]
I mean, at this stage, we our coding standards are, what are they called?
00:46:45 [Speaker 2]
We use the p 12 co coding standards now for PHP.
00:46:50 [Speaker 2]
And for in order for give in particular to convert completely to WordPress coding standards, it would it would be like a refactor almost.

00:46:58 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.

00:46:59 [Speaker 2]
So it's a significant change at this stage of the game.

00:47:03 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:47:03 [Speaker 3]
That makes sense.
00:47:05 [Speaker 3]
For us, I think I've added a lot of things about, like, what this agency wants, and how what they're looking in a partnership.
00:47:12 [Speaker 3]
But I think one thing I wanted to add about what a lot of apps and a lot of plugins usually mistake, make usually make a mistake about is basically trying to get everyone and every agency to partner with them without focusing on the ICP for an agency.
00:47:36 [Speaker 3]
So example, when you are building a product, you all you always have an ICP ideal customer profile.

00:47:42 [Speaker 3]
Like, what kind of customer uses you the most?
00:47:45 [Speaker 3]
You know this really well for the brands or the shops that's using you.
00:47:49 [Speaker 3]
But, essentially, when it comes to agencies, suddenly, you wanna partner up with everyone, and that's just not how it works.
00:47:57 [Speaker 3]
You need to understand, like, in terms of agencies, there are marketing agencies, there are CRO agencies, full service agency, design and development agencies, diff different types of agencies.
00:48:07 [Speaker 3]
What is the ICP in your agencies?

00:48:10 [Speaker 3]
What what are the agencies who can benefit most out of your product?
00:48:13 [Speaker 3]
So for example, let's say, a lot of there are a lot of page builder apps on Shopify.
00:48:19 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:48:20 [Speaker 3]
So should they partner up with full service agencies or, like, design and development agencies?
00:48:26 [Speaker 3]
As per me, I don't think so.

00:48:28 [Speaker 3]
Because, essentially, design and development and full service agencies provide really customized experience, which is essentially a competitor to these page builder apps.
00:48:37 [Speaker 3]
These page builder apps, their target audience is, their target audience is smaller stores who want something out of the box.
00:48:47 [Speaker 3]
So their primary thing should not be very big agencies, but smaller design agencies who can do really well design but can't code and implement that.
00:48:57 [Speaker 3]
So that's where the drag and drop page builder would come in, start a certification for your page builder apps that, okay, these are experts of our app.
00:49:06 [Speaker 3]
And then those smaller agencies would get you a lot of brands.

00:49:10 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, understanding what your ICP and agencies is also very important because you need to treat them as separate segment of your customers.
00:49:20 [Speaker 3]
And, what are the agencies where you can add most value?
00:49:24 [Speaker 3]
For example, for us, it's CRO design and development agencies because that's where we excel in.
00:49:30 [Speaker 3]
You design really nice storefront experience.
00:49:32 [Speaker 3]
You develop them and use our app to set up the rules and those kind of stuff.

00:49:38 [Speaker 3]
That is where we excel in.
00:49:40 [Speaker 3]
That is primarily with what we focus on.
00:49:43 [Speaker 3]
If you are an email marketing tool or you are an SMS marketing or a digital marketing platform, marketing agencies is your ICP.
00:49:49 [Speaker 3]
So understand your product, where does it add more most value, what kind of agencies, and then try to partner with them and not just go to where agencies hang out and just try to partner with everyone because that's not how you should go about it.
00:50:08 [Speaker 3]
That's not how a product tries to get customers.

00:50:12 [Speaker 3]
Once you have your ICP, you try to double down on your ICP and not try to get complete market.
00:50:17 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:50:18 [Speaker 3]
So that is also one thing that I want to add.
00:50:20 [Speaker 3]
And apart from that, like I mentioned, like, you need to make them your colleagues and not your not, should not run away from them.
00:50:29 [Speaker 3]
So onboard them to your product, take their feature request, give them high priority, understand their pain points.

00:50:38 [Speaker 3]
Because these people, the agency works with a lot of brands.
00:50:41 [Speaker 3]
So the insights that they have, it's very it's it's basically amalgamation of hundreds of brands coming to you and giving you feedback, and why would you reject that.
00:50:50 [Speaker 3]
Right?
00:50:50 [Speaker 3]
So, taking doing, like, one on ones with them, calls with them, understanding them, what where they are facing issue, what could be done better, what could be improved, that is, like, I think, really makes a difference.
00:51:05 [Speaker 3]
It's product is there, but when you make that personal connection, it becomes really, really valuable.

00:51:11 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:51:12 [Speaker 1]
I love the advice about choosing the type of agency, and that, in my mind, fits really well with what you said earlier about helping the agency to actually get the prod get the projects with the client in the first place.
00:51:25 [Speaker 1]
So if you are targeting agencies that specialize in conversion optimization and growing sales of an existing store, then that would make sense because you can encourage them to identify identify Shopify merchants who aren't using bundles but sell the type of products that could benefit from them.
00:51:45 [Speaker 1]
So that works really, really well as a marketing strategy.
00:51:49 [Speaker 1]
But what I would like to know is a bit more about your process from start to finish.

00:51:54 [Speaker 1]
So how do you contact that agency that you don't have a connection with, and how does that lead to them regularly recommending Vauxhall?

00:52:04 [Speaker 3]
Right.
00:52:04 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, there are also two channels there.
00:52:07 [Speaker 3]
Like I mentioned, we get some inbound because of the development plan that we have.
00:52:12 [Speaker 3]
It's free for everything.
00:52:13 [Speaker 3]
So we, have a lot of inbound.

00:52:17 [Speaker 3]
Whenever somebody comes, we check, like, what agencies agency are.
00:52:22 [Speaker 3]
They their marketing agency, we just say, hi.
00:52:24 [Speaker 3]
How can I help?
00:52:25 [Speaker 3]
If they are design and development agencies at ICP, we tell them, okay.
00:52:29 [Speaker 3]
We have a lot of agency partners.

00:52:31 [Speaker 3]
This is what you can do, and would you like to get on a call?
00:52:34 [Speaker 3]
Of course, like, the conversion rate is not 100%.
00:52:37 [Speaker 3]
Some people reply, some people don't reply.
00:52:39 [Speaker 3]
But essentially, we do that on an inbound basis.
00:52:43 [Speaker 3]
On in terms of outbound, we actively reach out people.

00:52:46 [Speaker 3]
But essentially, in the agency space where everyone is trying to partner with everyone, warm intros really help.
00:52:54 [Speaker 3]
So, for example, when we are with an agency, we tell them, okay.
00:52:59 [Speaker 3]
If you know any agencies in the similar department or similar space, can you introduce us to, this and this person?
00:53:06 [Speaker 3]
So that's that has also been really helpful, being part of communities where, there are developers who are facing issues with bundles, just reaching out to them, understanding them.
00:53:19 [Speaker 3]
And then one other thing is the biggest thing in ecommerce that works is the word-of-mouth.

00:53:25 [Speaker 3]
So, essentially, trying to get people to pitch for you on social media, on actively post about you.
00:53:34 [Speaker 3]
Those kind of things really help, and that's basically how a lead generation works.
00:53:38 [Speaker 3]
It's like inbound, outbound, communities, events, and word-of-mouth.
00:53:44 [Speaker 3]
All of those things, basically, it took a lot of time to build that, but once they are in place, the we get, like, a lot of leads that way.
00:53:52 [Speaker 3]
And then once they are on a call with us, we show them the demo.

00:53:57 [Speaker 3]
We tell them, okay.
00:53:58 [Speaker 3]
This is what you can do.
00:53:59 [Speaker 3]
This is what people have done.
00:54:01 [Speaker 3]
And then we try to get them on our Slack channel.
00:54:04 [Speaker 3]
We try to provide, like, really high priority support and, give them a lot of resources, on how they can, how they can get onboarded more even if they don't wanna get on a call.

00:54:17 [Speaker 3]
We have, like, a set of videos that they can watch and learn more about the product, about what they can do.
00:54:23 [Speaker 3]
We have a lot of resources.
00:54:24 [Speaker 3]
Because these are primary source of acquisition, we have invested a lot of time in building those resources.
00:54:30 [Speaker 3]
So it becomes like an internal documentation for agencies on how to work with that app.
00:54:35 [Speaker 3]
And, yeah, once they've started, we give them very generous trial periods for their brands so that they don't have to worry about, when, we suddenly get charged.

00:54:47 [Speaker 3]
We we are suddenly getting charged and those kind of things.
00:54:49 [Speaker 3]
We are we are very generous with our trial periods.
00:54:52 [Speaker 3]
And, yeah, once they go live, then then we start pay, then we start charging them.
00:54:58 [Speaker 3]
So there are a lot of, things that we do, to make the process easier, but, essentially, it's, like, very different for different kind of agencies.
00:55:05 [Speaker 3]
But on surface, this is what we try to do.

00:55:09 [Speaker 3]
Does that answer your question, or if you do want me to go into something specific?

00:55:13 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:55:13 [Speaker 1]
I think that's really good.
00:55:15 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:55:16 [Speaker 1]
And the way you approach them all the way through to working with them and having projects go live.
00:55:22 [Speaker 1]
So we've covered tons of stuff, about how to build agency partnerships and use them to sell your product.

00:55:29 [Speaker 1]
When we finish, we always bring it together, and we each will give one piece of best advice.
00:55:35 [Speaker 1]
So if you were just, as Matt always says, if you're rushing past someone in a corridor at a conference and you've got one thing to advise them, what would you say?
00:55:43 [Speaker 1]
So what would your one piece of advice be?

00:55:47 [Speaker 3]
So, I'm repeating this because I really believe in this.
00:55:50 [Speaker 3]
Do not try to partner with everyone.
00:55:52 [Speaker 3]
Figure out your ICP in agencies like you do with your brands, with your shops, and then double down on that.
00:55:58 [Speaker 3]
Just don't try to be desperate and try to get everyone to partner with you.
00:56:03 [Speaker 3]
Just make it, like, a really exclusive thing and focus on that in terms of agency partnerships.

00:56:08 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.

00:56:10 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:56:10 [Speaker 1]
And Matt?

00:56:13 [Speaker 2]
Honestly, I would say talk to more folks like Prakar.
00:56:18 [Speaker 2]
That would be my best advice because it just helps broaden your horizons in terms of what you can do, in terms of, marketplace and, funnels.
00:56:31 [Speaker 2]
I love your focus on ICP.
00:56:34 [Speaker 2]
You know, on this show, we talk with a lot of WordPress folks, over a long period of time, and, and they always bring something new and interesting.
00:56:43 [Speaker 2]
But talking to folks from a totally different perspective, always brings something new and exciting, I think.

00:56:49 [Speaker 2]
So, go outside your comfort zones a little bit, folks, and, and, and meet some new people like Katie's been doing.
00:56:56 [Speaker 2]
It I think it's awesome, and, and always be curious.

00:57:02 [Speaker 1]
Yeah.
00:57:03 [Speaker 1]
Well, mine is to think about agency partnerships in the context of your wider business model.
00:57:09 [Speaker 1]
So if you are using the the freemium model, if your product is really cheap and it's about volume, maybe that won't work for you.
00:57:17 [Speaker 1]
If you're going for a more premium product and that that would benefit from that extra selling from the agency, then maybe put the time into that as a major marketing strategy.
00:57:28 [Speaker 1]
So it's not for everybody, but I think more WordPress products should be considering it because it is largely overlooked in the space.

00:57:36 [Speaker 1]
So, well, that's a wrap.
00:57:38 [Speaker 1]
Prakar, thank you so much for joining us.
00:57:40 [Speaker 1]
Where can people find you online?

00:57:43 [Speaker 3]
Yeah.
00:57:43 [Speaker 3]
So I actively post a lot on social media.
00:57:46 [Speaker 3]
So you can find me on Twitter, on LinkedIn, both of them.
00:57:50 [Speaker 3]
My username is prakaris ninety six.
00:57:54 [Speaker 3]
On Twitter, on LinkedIn, just you can, reach out to me, DM me if you have any questions, and you can follow the app handles as well, which is foxtail bundles.

00:58:04 [Speaker 3]
So if you wanna go there.
00:58:06 [Speaker 3]
And if if I can plug in, we are also having a ecommerce event in India on twenty seventh September, which is called ShopQuest.
00:58:13 [Speaker 3]
So if anybody wants to join that, feel free to registrations will be going live this week.

00:58:18 [Speaker 2]
That's awesome.
00:58:20 [Speaker 2]
And thanks so much.
00:58:22 [Speaker 2]
Next week, our cohost, Zach and Amber, are gonna be chatting with Elena Eli from CrocoBlock about how to leverage the customer feedback loop for your products roadmap.
00:58:31 [Speaker 2]
Put it in your calendar now.
00:58:32 [Speaker 2]
It's gonna be a good conversation.

00:58:34 [Speaker 2]
I think I'm gonna have to be in the comments because I love that topic so much, and I'm bummed I don't get to be there.

00:58:42 [Speaker 1]
And special thanks to Post Status for being our green room.
00:58:46 [Speaker 1]
If you're enjoying these shows, do us a favor and hit like, subscribe, share it with your friends, reference us in your newsletters, and don't forget to tune in next week.
00:58:55 [Speaker 1]
Bye.