In Episode #16 of the WP Elevation podcast I had the pleasure of chatting with Jake Goldman from 10UP – possibly the largest WordPress consultancy on the planet.
Their clients include TechCrunch and 9to5Mac. Ever seen images load in a”lazy” fashion as you scroll down a webpage? That’s one of Jake’s plugins.
Ever wanted to drag and drop pages into order in the WordPress dashboard? That’s one of Jake’s plugins. What this man doesn’t know about WordPress and client consulting is not worth knowing and his answers in the Elevate round prove it.
I'm giving away a $50 Amazon voucher this week so watch the interview to learn how you can enter.
Jake talks about his first foray into making a WordPress based product – SEO Slides – which is essentially SlideShare but for your own website so you own the traffic and capture your own leads. He also mentions having a pipeline of people (skilled talent) which allows him to say “Yes” to projects, which found fascinating and I’m sure you will too.
I must admit we went right off script in this interview because it was obvious that Jake just loves talking about WordPress and his business philosophies so I just kinda went with it. I hope you find some gold nuggets hidden in our conversation.
I particularly love it when Jake mentions that the WordPress product gravy train does not exist and that building a business around a WordPress product is hard work. Sound advice grounded in reality.
Jake suggested I interview Brian and Jennifer Bourn from Bourn Creative. Guys, I’m coming to get you.
14 Responses
I run into Jake, Brian, and Jennifer a lot here in town. They are all very shrewd business people and very charismatic.
Another great interview Troy. Just by Jake’s strategic vision, you can tell he has built a large, quality company and will most likely continue to get stronger and stronger.
As a professional SEO and generally a poor content creator, I am excited about SEO slides and what it (they) can do to improve on page content. If I were to recommend features for them it would be the ability, flexibility and ease of adding new content types – MP3, Video, Infographics, and other Memes.
Jake, best of luck to 10Up and SEO Slides.
Best biz oriented interview yet Troy. This should resonate with Elevators as so many of us have expressed the wish to work on the business not in it (a nod to E-Myth). I will trial SEO Slides as blog posts. It may be this format could prove easier to read on mobiles than scrolling down a list of “7 Tips to Present Better on Mobiles” style of post. I presume they will present as landscape if the mobile/pad is so oriented.
My suggestion for SEO Slides is to have a more direct connection with Canva. I found Canva from the SEO Slides blog, took a look and in 1 hour, from one interview, I have two highly useful tools. And those don’t grow on trees.
Thanks Troy and Jake
Hey John – do you mean shrewd or “clever”?
Thanks for the feedback Scott.
Thanks for the kind words Ken and I;m glad you found Canva via the SEO Slides blog. It looks like a great tool. I’m sure Jake will appreciate the feedback.
I mean that they are very intelligent people who run their businesses well, communicate to audiences clearly, and do a lot to enrich the WordPress community.
Thanks for clearing that up John – sometimes “shrewd” can be taken to mean cunning, sly or dodgy – and I didn’t imagine you meant any of those things 🙂
No, I totally did not mean to imply anything negative.
I understand John – of course not. It’s the darn English language and all it’s nuances that make communicating in the written word tricky sometimes 🙂
Hey Troy. Great interview! I was just thinking that SEO Slides might be a great addition/integration to an e-Learning plugin such as Sensei or WP Courseware. Courses delivered as interactive slides ( lectures ) might make for a better experience. Food for thought from both SEO slides and the makers of WordPress e-Learning plugins.
Hi Troy,
Liked a lot this interview with Jake.
I feel close to the topics you covered which fortunately went away from the original script and give an original insight about the issues you have to manage with a business – on any level.
I played a bit with SEO Slides. One thing that i would suggest is adding a feature like your Google Analyticator plugin which is tracking of linkview as event or possibility to add a name.
I think there is also a small bug in the slides – at least for me: when editing a slide I have white text on white background. I’ll point out this to the developers too.
Thanks guys.
I’ve thought of a bunch of ways to use SEO Slides now. So now I have a reason to actually create presentations. 🙂
I clicked the little plus + icon on the slides purely out of curiosity. It wasn’t obvious that it would open sharing tools. The share icon from IcoMoon icon font, or the share-alt icon from Font Awesome would be much more intutive to me.
Visual: http://cl.ly/image/0q0R3h18243Q
Such a great question about WP becoming too easy. I was musing on this the past month and thinking that as it gets easier, I might become obsolete. My initial thought was that it should not matter, as people still need to get on with what they do and building an online business is not necessarily it (depending on company size I suppose). Just like I could change my oil, but I would rather have my mechanic do it.
However, I never looked at it from the technical aspect of WP. Jake’s answers about making it easier conversely means it is far more complex under the hood was a keen insight. I had not considered that angle.