Beaver Builder is a page builder solution developed by the three guys (Robby McCullough, Billy Young and Justin Busa). The boys discovered the internet as a career early on in life and came together five years ago to form their first company FastLine Media, from which followed Beaver Builder. This is a fun interview with the 3 guys, discussing the ups and downs of creating a successfull business – that came about simply from a need to “scratch their own itch”!
The boys are giving away 2 x Pro Memberships at Beaver Builder valued at $199 each!
Juat comment below telling us the number one thing you would fix about WordPress if you could wave a magic wand. Robby will come by in a couple of weeks and award the prizes.
Update: Congratulations John Russell and Rick Moore! Beaver Builder team have chosen the two of you as the lucky winners! Thanks for your contribution and keep elevating
FASTLINE MEDIA STORY
Robby says he found Justin and Billy through Craigslist while looking for a job to leave his customer service job. “I was their first interviewee, and they were my first company.”
FastLine Media was a client-based web development service. Since Robby worked with FastLine, the two worked with Joomla, Drupal and other platforms. Later, they redeveloped their corporate website on WordPress and then stuck with the platform.
The three say they don’t think clients care what platform they’re using, and find that most of them listen to them for advice on platform recommendations.
All three have strengths in development, and typically serve clients from start to finish, and, at times, will pass work on to their partners. Each partner have specializations, Billy serves as operations manager, Justin will work on development-heavy tasks and Robby focuses on design.
Robby says the differentiator for FastLine Media has been Beaver Builder — their page builder solution that allows customers an easy way to build webpages and websites using their online system without a great deal of technical experience. He says their great customer service is also a great differentiator.
The fact that the team is a partnership also differentiates them from other contract-based designers. Because they treat their work as a partnership, they are able to serve clients with a steady customer service platform which has gained them a lot of sub-contract work for other larger developers as well.
MANAGING SCHEDULE
Troy Dean, host of WP Elevation, asks how they handle the schedule management for all of their tasks. The three say while they don’t use any type of software to manageme their workload, “we kind of play it by ear,” says Robby. “If one of our plates are particularly full, or there’s some kind of emergency, there’s someone else in to jump in to help.”
However, with the development of Beaver Builder, job requirements keep growing, but, he says, they’re still getting things done.
Billy jokes the thing that is keeping him up at night, is “maybe drinking too much coffee during the day?” Then, he responds, “We’re always trying to think of ways to enhance Beaver Builder. Because it’s new and it’s our baby, and I’m really excited about it too.”
GETTING AWAY FROM WORK
The three enjoy mountain biking. Robby says they will sometimes head out to a nearby joint for a beer and some good food, while Billy has twin boys that keep him balanced and focused. Robby plays guitar as well.
Robby and Troy mention how they’d like to play guitar in an online jam session, but they’d need to figure out how to deal with the latency issue. Troy jokes they just need to move to South Korea for the internet speed.
He also talks about the things that keep him up at night include some of the business issues, such as health insurance and other financial stressors, while Justin says he still enjoys the benefit of not having a set time to clock in as long as he gets the work done.
Billy agrees with the lack of time constraints, but he also loves having his own office to work in all his own.
THE BEAVER BUILDER STORY
Troy mentions Kim Doyal (WPChick) who introduced Beaver Builder to him. He asks the guys why weren’t they using the visual composer like everyone else.
Recognizing the “stigma surrounding page builders” among developers, Robby says a few of their clients were requesting a website they could edit — one specifically requesting Visual Composer. “They wanted us to build it, then they wanted to be able to take it and make it theirs and not have to come back to us to make changes.” says Robby.
The projects opened the team’s eyes to the benefits of using a page builder tool. “On the agency side of our work a lot of time is spent in email back and forth with past clients about small changes and edits. We went on a really exhaustive search and didn’t find [a solution] that fit all of our needs.”
Justin then started developing their own tool to solve the problems they were having. “It started off as a backend page builder, then we decided we wanted it on the front end… it was one of those ‘scratch your own itch’ cases.”
The three then decided they would try to sell the product, so they launched it as the FastLine Media Page Builder.
WP Elevation host Troy Dean asks how they knew there was room for their solution and that people would buy it. Billy says he was confident that they had found problems with existing page builders and their ability to solve the problems.
“We’re definitely seeing results,” says BIlly. Their tool has been able to overcome some of the stigma held by developers because of the care the three put into the development of the software.
Troy notes that Beaver Builder is a great product. “This took me a while to realize.. .the biggest distinction is that it doesn’t dump a crap-load of shortcodes into the content editor, so if you switch themes, your content is preserved.”
This is different from most page builders, Troy points out, because the use of shortcodes forces the user to basically re-write the content from scratch. “Is that the main point of difference between Beaver Builder and the other solutions on the market?” he asks.
A few of the distinctions raised by the team include the User Interface, as well as some features they’ve intentionally not included, such as columns in columns. “From a user interface experience perspective the interface for that is a nightmare,” Billy mentioned.
REBRANDING BEAVER BUILDER
Orignailly released as the FastLine Media Page Builder, one of their clients was a marketing genius who was helping with software development, and making the suggestion to change the name. “He didn’t think it was memorable and stuck well.”
The team spent multiple weeks writing down names, trying to get a name that was also available as a .com.
The name was suggested as a joke, “but then it just stuck in our heads… it took a good week of us not being able to forget it” before they decided to give it a go.
FINDING FIRST CUSTOMERS
The three joke that the way they found their first customers was through “commenting on blogs.”
Robby noted that they never really kept their finger on the pulse of the community, but with Beaver Builder, they’ve started reaching out to the community, providing evaluation copies for writers to review.
The growth has been slower then they envisioned. But, they’re learning more about how to market their product.
“Marketing a product, we were all clueless,” says Billy. He notes that Robby is learning about how best to market their product. Robby says he’s been reading a lot, reaching out to others, asking for help.
RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIS LEMA
“We got lucky,” says Robby about their relationship with Chris Lema who is featured on the Beaver Builder website. “He wrote an article about the best page builders out there. We were one of his clear favorites.”
Robby says he had reached out to see if Chris would write about their product, but, never heard from them. Then, Chris bought the product and wrote an amazing article about the software. Robby then emailed Lema asking for permission to use a quote on the site as a testimonial for their product.
Other testimonials on the site were obtained organically through twitter, email and support forums. A GoogleDoc helped document the praise given by clients and customers to keep track of the praise given by such influencers in the WordPress development market.
KEEPING UP WITH METRICS
One of the things the guys from BeaverBuilder want to improve is their ability to keep up with analytics and metric tracking. Currently the team has only been tracking traffic numbers and orders.
Robby says he’s learning from KISSMetrics about how to follow the metrics to see how they’re converting traffic to purchase. Growing in their ability to track conversions, the team is using Google Analytics to track sources of traffic to conversions.
FUTURE PLANS FOR FASTLINE MEDIA
Future plans for the three include cutting back on client work they are taking in to continue growth of Beaver Builder, Robby notes that they still like serving their clients. “It’s almost like a dream that we could be able to do software sales, but I don’t think that’s going to be a reality. We want to keep [our client business] viable,” he says.
Troy now asks if they are nervous building on a platform that belongs to someone else. Justin says he’s not too worried about losing the ability to sell their product using WordPress. But, he says, “we’ve built things on other stacks, and then had that become obsolete. We just learned our lessons and, like Robby said, not put all our eggs in one basket.”
ELEVATION ROUND
Q: What’s the number one thing any freelancer or consultant needs to know?
A: Be very organized and have the right tools in their tool belt (Billy)
Q: What’s the number one thing any freelancer or consultant needs to know?
A: Do good work, good support. I can’t tell you how many referrals we’ve had over the years. Some of them have been our biggest clients.(Justin)
Q: How do you stop competing on price?
A: Make sure your pricing provides value to your customers and is also sustainable, then you don’t’ have to compete (Robby)
Q: Any tips on writing better proposals?
A: Make them detailed. Make sure they contain everything the customer would want to be notified of in a proposal. (Justin)
Q: Favorite tool for CRM?
A: We recently started using Harvest. We had been using Sugar, then we split it up between Sugar and a couple of other tools. We switched over to Harvest and kind of hacked it to be our go-to solution for time tracking, customer management and project management as well to some degree. (Robby)
Q: What’s the best way to keep a project and a client on track?
A: Some times you just can’t, says Justin. But, to afford scope-creep, he suggests a well written proposal and good conversations with the client. (Justin)
You can reach out and thank Beaver Builder Team on their twitter @beaverbuilder or at their website at www.wpbeaverbuilder.com
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Beaver Builder Team suggested I interview Matt Mullenweg of WordPress. Matt, keep your eyes on your inbox.
Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment below and tell us the number one thing you would fix about WordPress if you could wave a wand.
67 Responses
Thanks for the great interview, Troy and the Beavers. 🙂
I was using Beaver Builder while listening to the podcast. One thing I found really annoying was that WordPress doesn’t seem to make it easy to reuse image galleries.
And I wanted to turn a WP gallery into a Beaver Builder gallery, and realised I had to reselect all the images and create a new gallery rather than just reusing the old one. 🙁
Beaver Builder is awesome, guys. I hope you add the ability to add a screenshot to custom templates soon, because it would be awesome for the SAAS that I’m creating using Beaver Builder.
Thanks for the great interview, Troy and the Beavers. 🙂
I was using Beaver Builder while listening to the podcast. One thing I found really annoying was that WordPress doesn’t seem to make it easy to reuse image galleries.
And I wanted to turn a WP gallery into a Beaver Builder gallery, and realised I had to reselect all the images and create a new gallery rather than just reusing the old one. 🙁
Beaver Builder is awesome, guys. I hope you add the ability to add a screenshot to custom templates soon, because it would be awesome for the SAAS that I’m creating using Beaver Builder.
The number one thing I would fix about WordPress would be to eliminate spammers from registering accounts, and from posting comments.
The number one thing I would fix about WordPress would be to eliminate spammers from registering accounts, and from posting comments.
Great episode guys!
One thing I think should be improved with WordPress is how well it educates first time users to manage and understand basic tasks. I think it would be very useful to have a feature that educates new WordPress providing basic walkthroughs and suggestions, but can be easily disabled at any time.
A specific example of this is that most people don’t understand about image resolutions and how image size can impact on page load speed. Wouldn’t it be great if, when someone uploaded an image into the dashboard, a warning box popped up saying…
“Do you realise this image is 3500px x 2200px? An image this size can impact on page load speed. Would you like to reduce the image size now? Yes / No”
I subscribe to Video User Manuals and the videos are great and I also realise the SIDEKICK plugin provides Walkthroughs, but I think WordPress could be improved by making usability better for new users.
Great episode guys!
One thing I think should be improved with WordPress is how well it educates first time users to manage and understand basic tasks. I think it would be very useful to have a feature that educates new WordPress providing basic walkthroughs and suggestions, but can be easily disabled at any time.
A specific example of this is that most people don’t understand about image resolutions and how image size can impact on page load speed. Wouldn’t it be great if, when someone uploaded an image into the dashboard, a warning box popped up saying…
“Do you realise this image is 3500px x 2200px? An image this size can impact on page load speed. Would you like to reduce the image size now? Yes / No”
I subscribe to Video User Manuals and the videos are great and I also realise the SIDEKICK plugin provides Walkthroughs, but I think WordPress could be improved by making usability better for new users.
That was such a great episode. Love to see the collaboration among friends become a successful and thriving business. Although I was a slow convert to Beaver Builder, I’m now loving it and have just used on first client, so thanks guys!
Tough question about WordPress. Fixing something means it must first be broken and I don’t see anything broken in WordPress 🙂 however, innovation is something else. If I could wave a magic wand, I would add an option from within WordPress to server up different dashboards to adminstrators (ie my clients). Yes, I know I can do that White Label plugin (:) and also from within iThemes Sync, but it would be so much easier to remove specific menu items from within dashboard. Editor is too restrictive and administrator provides total access to everything, which some of my clients do not need!
That was such a great episode. Love to see the collaboration among friends become a successful and thriving business. Although I was a slow convert to Beaver Builder, I’m now loving it and have just used on first client, so thanks guys!
Tough question about WordPress. Fixing something means it must first be broken and I don’t see anything broken in WordPress 🙂 however, innovation is something else. If I could wave a magic wand, I would add an option from within WordPress to server up different dashboards to adminstrators (ie my clients). Yes, I know I can do that White Label plugin (:) and also from within iThemes Sync, but it would be so much easier to remove specific menu items from within dashboard. Editor is too restrictive and administrator provides total access to everything, which some of my clients do not need!
Excellent show. I love BeaverBuilder and after a few months with it, cannot see doing without.
I’m glad to hear that some focus and energy will be put towards landing pages and conversion tweaks, I think that’s your best seller from my clients’ viewpoint. I use the Beaver Theme or Headway as the infrastructure, but I let my clients get in on the Body part so that they can have control of their websites. So the more pre-made great layouts and modules they have to get started, the better for everyone. Beaver Builder is wonderful for that. 🙂
Excellent show. I love BeaverBuilder and after a few months with it, cannot see doing without.
I’m glad to hear that some focus and energy will be put towards landing pages and conversion tweaks, I think that’s your best seller from my clients’ viewpoint. I use the Beaver Theme or Headway as the infrastructure, but I let my clients get in on the Body part so that they can have control of their websites. So the more pre-made great layouts and modules they have to get started, the better for everyone. Beaver Builder is wonderful for that. 🙂
Great video if i would wish for something with wordpress it would be custom fields , custom posts and a click and build search function integrated as standard
Great video if i would wish for something with wordpress it would be custom fields , custom posts and a click and build search function integrated as standard
After hearing “Beaver Builder Beaver Builder” during the podcast, I can’t stop saying it either. I keep reading endorsements from people that have been using and loving it (like Trisha!) and have been looking forward to trying it. If I had magic and needed to use it on WordPress, I think I’d rename the Admin role to SuperUser and give fewer privileges to a new Admin role. Maybe the regular install would install the ‘normal’ admin, but by changing an option during install, we activate the SuperUser role and install the ‘new’ admin. If I could use it on something other than WordPress…magic wine tree.
After hearing “Beaver Builder Beaver Builder” during the podcast, I can’t stop saying it either. I keep reading endorsements from people that have been using and loving it (like Trisha!) and have been looking forward to trying it. If I had magic and needed to use it on WordPress, I think I’d rename the Admin role to SuperUser and give fewer privileges to a new Admin role. Maybe the regular install would install the ‘normal’ admin, but by changing an option during install, we activate the SuperUser role and install the ‘new’ admin. If I could use it on something other than WordPress…magic wine tree.
Hi everyone! Thanks for all the nice comments here. We had a blast doing the podcast, and it’s nice to know my mom’s not the only one tuning in! 🙂
Hi everyone! Thanks for all the nice comments here. We had a blast doing the podcast, and it’s nice to know my mom’s not the only one tuning in! 🙂
I was just introduced to Beaver Builder through a Facebook WordPress group and I’m really hoping it can help with getting a site that’s on an extremely compressed timeline built quickly and easily. I’m a big fan of Genesis and it, in combo with Beaver Builder, looks like exactly what I need. If I were to fix one thing about WordPress it would probably be the 100 or so tiny, but annoying, things that should be in the core, such as email address obfuscation, cloning posts, better media search, support for Google Fonts, a checkbox list for tags, an easy ‘notes’ capability right in the dashboard, ad nauseam. Actually, there’s one more – I would find a way to get theme developers to stop duplicating functionality that should be handled by core or a plugin, such as SEO. When picking up a project, there’s often a lot of time spent on ‘discovery’ to determine where they’ve put certain data – time that could be better spent.
I was just introduced to Beaver Builder through a Facebook WordPress group and I’m really hoping it can help with getting a site that’s on an extremely compressed timeline built quickly and easily. I’m a big fan of Genesis and it, in combo with Beaver Builder, looks like exactly what I need. If I were to fix one thing about WordPress it would probably be the 100 or so tiny, but annoying, things that should be in the core, such as email address obfuscation, cloning posts, better media search, support for Google Fonts, a checkbox list for tags, an easy ‘notes’ capability right in the dashboard, ad nauseam. Actually, there’s one more – I would find a way to get theme developers to stop duplicating functionality that should be handled by core or a plugin, such as SEO. When picking up a project, there’s often a lot of time spent on ‘discovery’ to determine where they’ve put certain data – time that could be better spent.
Sweet!! Admittedly I have a ton of vodcasts here to catch up and thanks for that in-depth look at Beaver Builder. I would love to use that on sites I’m building.
Also the one thing I would totally love to see in WordPress if I had the power to see it done, is to have freaking advanced galleries integrated right out the box. I love the gallery styles on sites like slyelist.com and think a gallery/slideshow style that functions like that would set wordpress even more far beyond what any other cms can offer. – may be a far fetched dream, but heck that’s what my wand would create 🙂
Sweet!! Admittedly I have a ton of vodcasts here to catch up and thanks for that in-depth look at Beaver Builder. I would love to use that on sites I’m building.
Also the one thing I would totally love to see in WordPress if I had the power to see it done, is to have freaking advanced galleries integrated right out the box. I love the gallery styles on sites like http://www.stylelist.com/ and think a gallery/slideshow style that functions like that would set wordpress even more far beyond what any other cms can offer. – may be a far fetched dream, but heck that’s what my wand would create 🙂
Wow – this Beaver Builder shizz is rocking my puny world. Thanks boys! I would say that the thing I would fix about WordPress is how bloated it is. Options are great but I would love to be able to install a stripped back minimal set up of it and then add features to the dash as needed, rather than the other way around. Having said that, knowing wp, you probably can – I’ve just been to busy to find out 🙂
Wow – this Beaver Builder shizz is rocking my puny world. Thanks boys! I would say that the thing I would fix about WordPress is how bloated it is. Options are great but I would love to be able to install a stripped back minimal set up of it and then add features to the dash as needed, rather than the other way around. Having said that, knowing wp, you probably can – I’ve just been to busy to find out 🙂
Ok, I’ll play…
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
I really had to think about this for a bit, because I can’t really remember a time when I wanted something fixed with WordPress and there not being a plugin that could provide it. WordPress is great, and anytime I dream something up that’s out of the box, it just takes a simple search to find a plugin that does almost exactly what I need.
But, with that said…
If there was one thing that I would fix about WordPress, it would have to be the plugins themselves. More specifically, I would make it so that ALL plugins worked perfectly, that ALL plugins never had conflicts with other plugins, that every plugin I love was ALWAYS kept up to date and maintained, that plugins NEVER break my WordPress websites, and that EVERY plugin was designed in the exact way that I intend on using it.
That’s it… (When you said “wave a wand,” I was thinking a magic wand my friend!)
### @Troy Dean ###
In the video, you were talking about WordPress adoption, and needing the ability to customize dashboards for specific industries like music, etc…
I’m with you on this, but I don’t think that it’s the responsibility of WordPress to make it happen.
I think that it’s our responsibility as developers (applying that title to myself lightly as I’m more of a designer that knows just enough PHP to get myself into trouble lol) to create specific solutions for each industry. WordPress has given us the perfect platform to accomplish exactly what you’re talking about with Multisite. It’s up to us, as web professionals, to create a industry specific platforms using the the tools provided to us.
Heck, just pair Multisite, Beaver Builder, White Label CMS, and Google Analyticator and you’re already most of the way to an industry specific website platform. I think we should encourage devs to build this stuff rather than Matt. Open to other thoughts on this as well.
### @robbymccullough:disqus ###
I didn’t see Mrs. McCullough on the list of attendees. Sorry bud. But at least the rest of us showed up still, and I’m sure she loves you anyways my friend!!! (couldn’t help taking a cheap shot)
Oh ya… And don’t worry about entering me into the competition because I’ve already happily paid for a Beaver Builder license – and so should everybody else. I’ll probably even upgrade it to an agency license sooner or later, so no use wasting a perfectly good license donation on me.
I’m probably already disqualified for taking a cheap shot at Robby anyhow 😉
Ok, I’ll play…
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
I really had to think about this for a bit, because I can’t really remember a time when I wanted something fixed with WordPress and there not being a plugin that could provide it. WordPress is great, and anytime I dream something up that’s outside the box, it just takes a simple search to find a plugin that does almost exactly what I need.
But, with that said…
If there was one thing that I would fix about WordPress, it would have to be the plugins themselves. More specifically, I would make it so that ALL plugins worked perfectly, that ALL plugins never had conflicts with other plugins, that every plugin I love was ALWAYS kept up to date and maintained, that plugins NEVER break my WordPress websites, and that EVERY plugin was designed in the exact way that I intend on using it.
That’s it… (When you said “wave a wand,” I was thinking a magic wand my friend!)
### @Troy Dean ###
In the video, you were talking about WordPress adoption, and needing the ability to customize dashboards for specific industries like music, etc…
I’m with you on this, but I don’t think that it’s the responsibility of WordPress to make it happen.
I think that it’s our responsibility as developers (applying that title to myself lightly as I’m more of a designer that knows just enough PHP to get myself into trouble lol) to create specific solutions for each industry. WordPress has given us the perfect platform to accomplish exactly what you’re talking about with Multisite. It’s up to us, as web professionals, to create a industry specific platforms using the the tools provided to us.
Heck, just pair Multisite, Beaver Builder, White Label CMS, and Google Analyticator and you’re already most of the way to an industry specific website platform. I think we should encourage devs to build this stuff rather than Matt. Open to other thoughts on this as well.
### @robbymccullough:disqus ###
I didn’t see Mrs. McCullough on the list of attendees. Sorry bud. But at least the rest of us showed up still, and I’m sure she loves you anyways my friend!!! (couldn’t help taking a cheap shot)
Oh ya… And don’t worry about entering me into the competition because I’ve already happily paid for a Beaver Builder license – and so should everybody else. I’ll probably even upgrade it to an agency license sooner or later, so no use wasting a perfectly good license donation on me.
I’m probably already disqualified for taking a cheap shot at Robby anyhow 😉
BeaverBuilder is a great tool. I like it and would love to win it.
What would I use a magic wand to do to fix WordPress?
I’m not sure how this could be accomplished, but that’s why we use a magic wand.
I’d make WordPress much more intuitive for first time users and users not web savvy at all.
Video users manual is great to teach people, but honestly most people don’t want to learn, they just want to be able to use it. And in WordPress it’s kind of difficult, if you don’t have a basic understanding of what posts and pages are, how they differ etc.
And if you have no idea of HTML and CSS even the best page builder or custom CSS plugin can’t really help. What will a novice enter in a field “class”? (Of course it’s in the advanced section, but sometimes people that are not as advanced would need this but don’t know).
BeaverBuilder is surely a great tool, but even here it’s not all just clear.
For example: when I click “Add content” in Beaver Builder an then on any element – nothing happens. I need to drag the thing onto the page. Seems logical, but only after I know.
Also there is no “preview” and although it’s mainly not needed, there are use cases it would be nice:
When I add an accordion and want to see how it opens and closes, I can’t. Since when I click on it I start the editing feature.
And a lot of people I have in courses that want to build a website with WordPress have really almost no clue.
They had difficulties to create a website with squarespace, weebly, wix or the like – how much more with WordPress. 34000 plugins is cool, but how can they find the few tat could help them accomplish what they want.
So the magic wand probably had to work as much on the people that wants to use WordPress and don’t know how yet as on WordPress itself.
BeaverBuilder is a great tool. I like it and would love to win it.
What would I use a magic wand to do to fix WordPress?
I’m not sure how this could be accomplished, but that’s why we use a magic wand.
I’d make WordPress much more intuitive for first time users and users not web savvy at all.
Video users manual is great to teach people, but honestly most people don’t want to learn, they just want to be able to use it. And in WordPress it’s kind of difficult, if you don’t have a basic understanding of what posts and pages are, how they differ etc.
And if you have no idea of HTML and CSS even the best page builder or custom CSS plugin can’t really help. What will a novice enter in a field “class”? (Of course it’s in the advanced section, but sometimes people that are not as advanced would need this but don’t know).
BeaverBuilder is surely a great tool, but even here it’s not all just clear.
For example: when I click “Add content” in Beaver Builder an then on any element – nothing happens. I need to drag the thing onto the page. Seems logical, but only after I know.
Also there is no “preview” and although it’s mainly not needed, there are use cases it would be nice:
When I add an accordion and want to see how it opens and closes, I can’t. Since when I click on it I start the editing feature.
And a lot of people I have in courses that want to build a website with WordPress have really almost no clue.
They had difficulties to create a website with squarespace, weebly, wix or the like – how much more with WordPress. 34000 plugins is cool, but how can they find the few tat could help them accomplish what they want.
So the magic wand probably had to work as much on the people that wants to use WordPress and don’t know how yet as on WordPress itself.
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
No question at all, the WYSIWYG editor needs to actually be WYSIWYG.
A good starting place might be having it pick up you CSS definitions for H1, H2, P etc… and actually display them as they would be on the front end.
Even though I don’t really use this page/post editor, my customers get very confused by it regularly
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
No question at all, the WYSIWYG editor needs to actually be WYSIWYG.
A good starting place might be having it pick up you CSS definitions for H1, H2, P etc… and actually display them as they would be on the front end.
Even though I don’t really use this page/post editor, my customers get very confused by it regularly
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
Plugins would be packagable as dependancies in a pre-baked build system, much in the way that roots.io has built into bedrock.
This would help to speed up development time and prevent redundant code being used.
Of course, this would would require major re-engineering of wordpress. But hey, if I had my way, this would be one thing I’d like to see magically appear.
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
Plugins would be packagable as dependancies in a pre-baked build system, much in the way that roots.io has built into bedrock.
This would help to speed up development time and prevent redundant code being used.
Of course, this would would require major re-engineering of wordpress. But hey, if I had my way, this would be one thing I’d like to see magically appear.
Hey Guys. Thanks for sharing your journey. The one thing I would change about WordPress is a better UI experience for the user. I do a bit of training with clients and there are 2 things that are common among most of my clients. (1) The WP user interface is confusing for a lot of clients (once guided most get it though) and (2) how difficult it is for users to easily achieve more advanced page layout options (without using shortcodes).
I’m a big fan of Advanced Custom Fields in my development and agree with Troy that the UI can become a bit daunting for some users. I read about Beaver Builder on chrislema.com and the thing that appeals to me the most is that you don’t mess with the content.
Hey Guys. Thanks for sharing your journey. The one thing I would change about WordPress is a better UI experience for the user. I do a bit of training with clients and there are 2 things that are common among most of my clients. (1) The WP user interface is confusing for a lot of clients (once guided most get it though) and (2) how difficult it is for users to easily achieve more advanced page layout options (without using shortcodes).
I’m a big fan of Advanced Custom Fields in my development and agree with Troy that the UI can become a bit daunting for some users. I read about Beaver Builder on chrislema.com and the thing that appeals to me the most is that you don’t mess with the content.
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
If I could change one thing about WordPress I would improve the efficiency of managing content. Maintaining existing content isn’t particularly bad, but when originally creating content for larger sites (50+ pages) it takes a lot of clicks to jump back and forth between the dashboard and the front-end. For instance, from the front end it would be nice to be able to jump to editing any page (via drop-down list or search) from the admin bar. Also, from the admin bar, there is the ability to jump directly to creating a “new page”, or editing the current page, but no option to go to the “Pages” page. Also from the “Pages” screen each page table row takes up a decent amount of vertical space and when there are a lot of pages it can require quite a bit of scrolling. At any rate, I’m sure there are many efficiency tweaks that could be thought up to reduce clicks and scrolling and when you’re managing dozens of WordPress sites this would amount to a substantial time savings.
### WordPress Magic Wand Question ###
If I could change one thing about WordPress I would improve the efficiency of managing content. Maintaining existing content isn’t particularly bad, but when originally creating content for larger sites (50+ pages) it takes a lot of clicks to jump back and forth between the dashboard and the front-end. For instance, from the front end it would be nice to be able to jump to editing any page (via drop-down list or search) from the admin bar. Also, from the admin bar, there is the ability to jump directly to creating a “new page”, or editing the current page, but no option to go to the “Pages” page. Also from the “Pages” screen each page table row takes up a decent amount of vertical space and when there are a lot of pages it can require quite a bit of scrolling. At any rate, I’m sure there are many efficiency tweaks that could be thought up to reduce clicks and scrolling and when you’re managing dozens of WordPress sites this would amount to a substantial time savings.
Haha! Hey, Dan! Thanks for showing up and joining the contest. Don’t worry, you won’t get disqualified for the cheap shot =P – it made me chuckle!!
Haha! Hey, Dan! Thanks for showing up and joining the contest. Don’t worry, you won’t get disqualified for the cheap shot =P – it made me chuckle!!
Our pleasure, Greg! Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to leave a comment! 🙂
Our pleasure, Greg! Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to leave a comment! 🙂
Haha! Hi Seamus! That’s a great point. It reminds me of jQuery and Zepto. WordPress is almost “too good” when it comes to backwards compatibility and platform support. A modernized, light-weight version of WordPress, that only supported modern hosting stacks, would be an awesome tool if it existed!
Haha! Hi Seamus! That’s a great point. It reminds me of jQuery and Zepto. WordPress is almost “too good” when it comes to backwards compatibility and platform support. A modernized, light-weight version of WordPress, that only supported modern hosting stacks, would be an awesome tool if it existed!
Thanks, Trisha! We’re really excited for our plans to rework our template system, but admittedly this update is going to take some time. We are working on it, though!
Thanks, Trisha! We’re really excited for our plans to rework our template system, but admittedly this update is going to take some time. We are working on it, though!
Thanks Robby. It’s really going to take Beaver Builder up to the next level.
Thanks Robby. It’s really going to take Beaver Builder up to the next level.
I am going to presume that this is the uber-geek version of what I said and that we concur ha ha 🙂
I am going to presume that this is the uber-geek version of what I said and that we concur ha ha 🙂
Oh, haha. Yeah, I guess it is. We do concur, though! 🙂
Oh, haha. Yeah, I guess it is. We do concur, though! 🙂
Thanks for your generous prize offer!
I enjoyed listening to you both here and on Kim Doyal’s podcast.
I would wave my magic WordPress wand (complete with glitter, bling, and sound effects) and streamline the dashboard to make it easier to use. When I teach a beginner class and/or hand off a site to a new user/owner, I often have to go through each part with them – many, many, many times.
I even created a small guide for them to print, but even that can quickly become out of date each time there is an update – twice a year or more!
(A wee bit of trivia: I am a member of a group of fun-loving Scottish ladies who call themselves the Beaver Sisters. LOL!)
Thanks for your generous prize offer!
I enjoyed listening to you both here and on Kim Doyal’s podcast.
I would wave my magic WordPress wand (complete with glitter, bling, and sound effects) and streamline the dashboard to make it easier to use. When I teach a beginner class and/or hand off a site to a new user/owner, I often have to go through each part with them – many, many, many times.
I even created a small guide for them to print, but even that can quickly become out of date each time there is an update – twice a year or more!
(A wee bit of trivia: I am a member of a group of fun-loving Scottish ladies who call themselves the Beaver Sisters. LOL!)
PS – I love your stickers! 🙂
PS – I love your stickers! 🙂
Great interview guys! I love Beaver Builder and I’m stoked that you have integrated the SmugMug service into the editor. As a keen photographer, I’m now redoing my photo website on WordPress and having the photos still stored on Smugmug together with their protection and payment / printing features.
My Magic wand request for WordPress – improve the permalinks setup would be one, but I’ll go for a bigger one (it is magic, right?) – strip WordPress down to the core code functionality and package it with a set of optional plugins to do the additional features (security, backup, seo, import-export, theme customizer, page editor, image management, auto-updates, permalinks etc) – plugins that are tested and “WordPress Endorsed”. Of course, then also have other “WordPress Endorsed” plugins that can also provide further functionality (like of course Beaver Builder!). Each plugin would be clean code and be for a specific purpose, rather than a “swiss army knife” with a lot of ballast.
Just a thought!
Great interview guys! I love Beaver Builder and I’m stoked that you have integrated the SmugMug service into the editor. As a keen photographer, I’m now redoing my photo website on WordPress and having the photos still stored on Smugmug together with their protection and payment / printing features.
My Magic wand request for WordPress – improve the permalinks setup would be one, but I’ll go for a bigger one (it is magic, right?) – strip WordPress down to the core code functionality and package it with a set of optional plugins to do the additional features (security, backup, seo, import-export, theme customizer, page editor, image management, auto-updates, permalinks etc) – plugins that are tested and “WordPress Endorsed”. Of course, then also have other “WordPress Endorsed” plugins that can also provide further functionality (like of course Beaver Builder!). Each plugin would be clean code and be for a specific purpose, rather than a “swiss army knife” with a lot of ballast.
Just a thought!
Great podcast…I am very intrigued by this product.
I would say the one thing that I would love to fix about WordPress is to get everyone to contribute to the same cause. What I mean by this is, get all developers to head in the same direction and use the same code standards, etc to provide consistent and viable options for businesses to use.
I am not saying that there should not be a variety of products, such as Beaver Builder. I think that competition is great. However, it would be nice if everyone was using the same standards so that these products could be developed and then even extended by other developers. It seems, from my point of view, that market places such as themeforest are allowing anyone to get on there and sell. This allows for a variety of options in the theme and plugin marketplace and this makes WordPress much more difficult to use.
Great podcast…I am very intrigued by this product.
I would say the one thing that I would love to fix about WordPress is to get everyone to contribute to the same cause. What I mean by this is, get all developers to head in the same direction and use the same code standards, etc to provide consistent and viable options for businesses to use.
I am not saying that there should not be a variety of products, such as Beaver Builder. I think that competition is great. However, it would be nice if everyone was using the same standards so that these products could be developed and then even extended by other developers. It seems, from my point of view, that market places such as themeforest are allowing anyone to get on there and sell. This allows for a variety of options in the theme and plugin marketplace and this makes WordPress much more difficult to use.
Hey Grant! Glad we struck your interest. I agree completely. We need more open platforms (like WordPress itself) within the WordPress ecosystem.
Hey Grant! Glad we struck your interest. I agree completely. We need more open platforms (like WordPress itself) within the WordPress ecosystem.
Thanks Nancy! You’ll have to tell the Beaver Sisters we say hello, haha. Completely unrelated, but I was fishing the other day and I actually saw a live beaver swim right by me! They’re quite rare in this particular lake, so I am quite sure it was a sign. 🙂
Thanks Nancy! You’ll have to tell the Beaver Sisters we say hello, haha. Completely unrelated, but I was fishing the other day and I actually saw a live beaver swim right by me! They’re quite rare in this particular lake, so I am quite sure it was a sign. 🙂
Thanks Jürgen! We did a lot of work with SmugMug in the past, we’re big fans of their service.
I like your suggestion a lot. It sounds a bit like JetPack!
Thanks Jürgen! We did a lot of work with SmugMug in the past, we’re big fans of their service.
I like your suggestion a lot. It sounds a bit like JetPack!
Absolutely.
Yes, very much so. I was also happy to find out that it works in a multi-site environment. I have some idea’s of how to use it with a new idea I have :).
Absolutely.
Yes, very much so. I was also happy to find out that it works in a multi-site environment. I have some idea’s of how to use it with a new idea I have :).
Alright! Thanks to everyone that participated in our contest! We we’re thrilled to see so many awesome suggestions.
It was really tough trying to choose someone to win the contest, since all the ideas we’re really excellent. So, we decided to do just choose completely randomly. That said, congrats to the winners: Rick Moore & John Russel! I am just finishing up setting up both of your accounts.
Thanks again to everyone for the nice comments and joining our contest, and thanks to Troy and the WP Elevation crew for having us on the show.
Alright! Thanks to everyone that participated in our contest! We we’re thrilled to see so many awesome suggestions.
It was really tough trying to choose someone to win the contest, since all the ideas we’re really excellent. So, we decided to do just choose completely randomly. That said, congrats to the winners: Rick Moore & John Russel! I am just finishing up setting up both of your accounts.
Thanks again to everyone for the nice comments and joining our contest, and thanks to Troy and the WP Elevation crew for having us on the show.