In Episode #14 I hung out with my good friend Cory Miller from iThemes. We had a lot of technical issues getting started and eventually hooked up on FaceTime and used Screenflow to record it. Cory is big on people and building a great culture to allow people to flourish. He treats his team as his family and the company he has built is testament to the fact that the people he surrounds himself with admire him and are all on the same page.
Cory very kindly donated a copy of the Builder Theme developer package valued at $150 as a prize for this episode - watch the interview for details on how to enter.
Cory mentioned he first started publishing thoughts and content on his own website way back in 1998 and I found a snapshot on the wayback machine from Oct 1999 – I know Cory won’t mind.
Here’s the blogger account he setup in 2004 courtesy of the wayback machine again. It looks like Cory discovered WordPress around February 2007 and started posting themes up in 2007 too. His own website started looking very nice around the middle of 2007 and it looks like iThemes started to take hold around early 2007.
I applaud Cory for having the courage to talk about how he and his wife Lindsey frequently see a counsellor to help them navigate their way through life. They are both advocates for mental health and this is something I think should be talked about more openly.
Cory also tells the great story of how BackupBuddy came about. These guys lost their server (with lots of client sites) twice without backups! So they built an all in one backup solution for WordPress. There’s also some great nuggets about the future of WordPress business models, freemium, support, services vs products and an honest discourse of building the biggest thing they’ve ever done and giving it away for free (the eCommerce plugin Exchange).
There’s boatloads of great advice for WordPress consultants and freelancers in this interview – don’t miss a word!
You can reach out and thank Cory on his Twitter at @corymiller303 and by his email [email protected].
Cory suggested I interview Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the author if WordPress for Dummies. Lisa, I’m coming to get you.
Hint: to enter the competition, tell us the one feature you’d like to see in Exchange, the iThemes eCommerce plugin.
9 Responses
Facetime + Screenflow is such an awesome idea! And the quality of this recording is so much better than the majority of Skpe recordings – think this might be the way forward!
Great inspirational video and the ithemes Developer Pack Rocks. Its a great place for a new webdesign company to start. This is a wonderful story ! – Looking Fine Web Design
I thoroughly enjoyed this interview! I am an ithemes fan and absolutely LOVE all your products. It was great getting to know you and viewing some of your old web pages. I am a Christian and loved reading your testimony.
What feature should you add to Exchange? I would say more payment options. I have attempted to get a couple clients to use it but they needed something that would work with their existing merchant account.
P.S. Sync is awesome! If you need a guinea pig, let me know. I’ve used several other similar services and would have valuable feedback. My email address is [email protected].
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
Cory came across as an unusually thoughtful guy. I particularly liked his suggestiion that we should highlight the major benefit to the client at the beginning of the proposal. And his reminder about the best way to gey referrals.
I don’t have a suggestion for the Exchange as it is. But when it gets to offer a wider range of shipping options, it would be very helpful to the buyer to show in the cart only those shipping options expressed as relevant to what is in the cart. Maybe by way of shipping classes.
Great Podcast. Some excellent thoughts that came across eg. to first expand on ideas on a meeting before filtering and deciding….
I don’t know exchange yet, but probably will have a look at it. What I miss on almost all shopping plugins is a default payment option for “Einzahlungsschein” (Inpayment slips), the most common way of payment in Switzerland. I know, it’s a small market, but nevertheless….
Also SEPA Direct Debit, an European payment system is gaining momentum but is not directly supported by most American or non-European systems. Be one of the first and best, please 😉
That was an awesome interview. Key things I took away: “Ship!” and “Alignment of work/life”. I get paralyzed sometimes by doing something new because it’s just that: new. Feels like jumping off of a high cliff into cold water – you are afraid of the shock but you want to do it because it’s fun and tells you a bit about yourself in pushing past limits.
The Alignment part is also key in so many ways. For me, it is what brings out the best creativity in my entire day. I live to work and work to live with such harmony that it allows for growth as both a person and a leader. There’s then no cap on how far life can take me.
My thoughts on “Exchange”:
My desire for Exchange to be an awesome eCommerce tool (that would do better than WooCommerce) is to allow for the developer/administrator to easily control the workflow of product selection to checkout. I have worked with clients before who want to have a specific work flow that doesn’t fit the traditional shopping cart presentation and buying procedure. We like what WooCommerce does on the backend for payment gateways, order data, emails that say “thanks”, and those types of things. If I can control the buttons and the order forms and the overall checkout experience for the end-user, I will have a heavy advantage against other Web Solution Providers who’d have this stuff farmed out to developers to create these customizations.
Thanks again Cory for your awesome words of wisdom!
Cheers!
Loving the compeition in WordPress eCommerce space. The Membership ability is beautiful but would love to see more focus on physical products. Product Variations (Size, Color, etc) & Bulk Pricing Discount (12 or more – is $2 less)
The one feature that I’ like to see in Exchange? Customer reviews with 1 to 5 star ratings for products.