Launching WP Minute Launch Services and WP Product Writeup

Matt and Eric revised

[00:00:00] Matt: Hey, Eric, welcome back to the podcast.

[00:00:05] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: Hey, thanks for having me, Matt.

[00:00:07] Matt: we’re gonna talk today about some exciting da da exciting new product announcements from from both of us. But before we get to that, we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about why, we’re rolling out these, these new services. Not really new services. You know, you and I have been writing and, and helping WordPress brands market and reach an audience for many years.

[00:00:34] You specifically, I’ve been doing it through, the platform of the WP Minute, but you and I have sort of come to, not a crossroads, crossroads is not the right word, but the market has sort of pushed us into saying, you know what? I think folks need. Some writing services, some human writing services, some marketing services, some PR services, in order to help them reach their audience, but also for you and I to find new streams of revenue.

[00:01:07] ’cause the market’s different these days, wouldn’t you say?

[00:01:10] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: It is. Yeah. you know, I’ve been doing content for developers and designers and users for over a decade and, recently there’s been a little bit of a downshift in revenue, honestly, for some of the folks I published for. And so that’s kind of cut into my revenue a little bit. And so I started thinking about ways that not only I could increase that revenue, but maybe kind of serve, um, a niche audience a little bit better, using, you know, the experience I have with WordPress and particularly with, taking a, a complicated issue and kind of simplifying it for public consumption.

[00:01:54] Matt: We will give the listener the T L D R you can. Hire us . You can hire Eric specifically, at wp product writeup.com. This is a website you just launched today. As of this recording, uh, wp product writeup.com. Give your WordPress product an edge. Get quality, easy to understand, white label content. For your WordPress theme plugin or SaaS, all while keeping things simple for your customers.

[00:02:23] Basically you’ll be able to take the two decades of WordPress knowledge and writing, from Eric, and he will write up a piece about your product or your service and hand deliver it to you. Say, here you go. Take this pro, take this document and publish it on your blog. Give it to your PR team. If you have a PR team, give it to your marketing team.

[00:02:45] Let them sort of slice and dice it up. Or you can springboard that and have it published right here at the WP Minute. So we’ve sort of come to this realization, you know, you mentioned that some of the publishers have have taken a hit, in terms of revenue, which has sort of impacted your roles at these publishers.

[00:03:05] The WP Minute included. You and I had talked extensively about this at Word Camp us. We had a nice, steak dinner. Was it a steak? No, I had, I had duck. You had chicken.

[00:03:15] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: I had chicken,

[00:03:16] but It

[00:03:17] Matt: at a steakhouse.

[00:03:18] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: It was, and it was super expensive ’cause it was at the, word camp US hotel, but ooh, it was tasty.

[00:03:24] Matt: So the WP Minute’s gonna go through a bit of a shift.

[00:03:26] what I’ve realized is making the bet on WordPress news, and this is something that. You and I have talked about on this podcast before, I had others on this podcast talk about before making the, the, the bet on WordPress news has been quite difficult

[00:03:40] not a lot of WordPress news happening all the time. ? So there’s that variable, and then it’s a weird space. This WordPress community, WordPress is massive, but the people that care about WordPress news, I. Small businesses in the WordPress space. Lots of them, but kind of tight knit. Right?

[00:04:02] It’s hard to really compare and contrast businesses without, I don’t know, taking like a hard stance against each other. It’s, it’s weird because we’re all friendly with each other. We’ve, we’ve known each other for years.

[00:04:18] So it becomes pretty challenging to have this consistent cycle of news, commentary, criticism, and then when we have criticism, it’s generally at . Pointed directly to the top, which is Mullen wag and automatic and jet pack. And my God, we’ve seen that fallout. But what that also does as the inside baseball to all of this is, and we’ve both seen this at the WP Minute, I mean me specifically, is people get burned out from it.

[00:04:48] When these massive, WP Drama events unfold, they’re like, Hey, I’m a WordPress developer, designer professional, just trying to run my business.

[00:04:58] I wanna stay up to the news, stay up with the news. But when the news is just drama, it’s tiring and stressful, and a just a sheer waste of time. What the WP Minute is, is a product around WordPress News . So when people don’t like the temperature of the water and you’re selling a pool, nobody wants to go in

[00:05:22] Right? And that’s one of the issues,

[00:05:25] We’re, you know, alongside of Eric who has launched wp product writeup.com. We’re also launching.

[00:05:32] Launch with WP Minute where you can get the same writing from Eric. about your, about, about your product or service. And we do things like videos, video overviews for, your product owner YouTube channel, and we do sponsorship and we do a whole little launch package for your product or service to get it in front of the audience.

[00:05:53] And this is our sort of build in public experiment to find new streams of revenue for the business alongside of our, you know, supporters, long-term supporters and, and memberships.

[00:06:04] Do you have a different perspective or have you seen it a different way?

[00:06:08] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: Well, I can only speak personally. I, I think, you know, sometimes we look at WordPress as a way to kind of escape the, depressing news of the rest of the world. I mean, seriously, if you sat there and watched the news all day, then you’d get pretty bummed out. WordPress has a ni nice friendly community where, you know, it’s not perfect, but things do come up and that do cause undue stress on us. And so, you know, to keep WordPress thriving, as we’ve been talking about a lot lately, I think we need to come together as a community and think about You know, how we can help each other, how we can empower each other rather than being dragged into petty arguments and those type of things. And sometimes the news gets into that. and people just don’t wanna, they don’t, they don’t want that at work. There’s enough stress at work. There’s enough stress outside of work. So why do we wanna put more of that on ourselves? Why don’t we find ways to lift each other up? And I know maybe that sounds cheesy when you’re When you’re, selling a product, but I think you can make money and, you know, lift up the community.

[00:07:20] At the same time. I think you can, you know, be a, a people centered business that, effectively and brings, you know, knowledge and, and, you know, better experiences to everyone. I think that’s kind of why I’m in this.

[00:07:38] Matt: I’ve always said, I, I lean towards what I call the blue collar digital worker. Right? Somebody who

[00:07:44] launched their product or service, it’s been a couple of years, and now they’re like, Hey, I need to get this out. I need to market this. I need to get it in front of other people now. and I’m not a trained marketer or a trained content writer. The knee jerk reaction these days is I’ll just have chat.

[00:08:01] G p t, do it. No, no you will not. You don’t want AI doing this stuff. You want a human who understands the landscape. Eric, that’s what you bring to the table.

[00:08:11] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: I’m excited about it. I think, you know, this is an industry where you constantly have to evolve and. you know, the, the market changes, what people are looking for changes. this does not mean that I’m gonna stop writing regular content altogether. That’s definitely not the, plan

[00:08:30] Matt: I haven’t fired Eric, if that’s what you’re wondering.

[00:08:32] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: No, I, I am still, I’m still employed by the WP Minute.

[00:08:35] I but I do have, you know, An opportunity here to kind of branch out and work more directly with product makers, which I think a lot of them could use that extra boost to be honest. I wrote something for my other publication, specie Boy a few weeks ago about, the trouble communicating in the WordPress space.

[00:08:56] You know, some of the terminology we use is Very developer focused and it kind of leaves, everyday users out. And it can even leave, other WordPress professionals out if you’re, not necessarily, digging into code all day or you just don’t have time to, focus on that aspect of it. You just want to know what a product does, why it’s worth using, you know, what it, what it can do for you and what, how it can make your business better. Then, you know, that’s what I’m looking to do. I’m looking to promote products in a way that is very user friendly, that avoids all of the technical jargon. I mean, sometimes there’s a place for that, but usually when you’re selling direct to, everyday users or even freelancers, You know, you want to keep things as simple as possible, so that’s what I’m hoping to do. long story short.

[00:09:48] Matt: You can combine. The efforts that you’ve hired Eric for, to write up about your product or service. You can combine that with the WP Minute launch packages that we have. if you are interested in this head to the WP Minute, to go to the footer and click on WP Minute Launch Services, you can click that link and learn more about that.

[00:10:07] We can combo that with the writing that you, hired Eric for@wpproductwriteup.com, and

[00:10:14] we hope that we can solve of these marketing issues, some of these communication issues, you know, with our, with our products because, Once again, people get to a certain level of success with their product or service. There’s a certain ceiling you start to hit if you’re trying to do it all yourself.

[00:10:29] and even if you are fine doing it all yourself, partnering up with Eric or the WP Minute to have

[00:10:34] Track 1: a

[00:10:35] Matt: different perspective, to launch a kind of different campaign, marketing campaign around your product or service can also be beneficial.

[00:10:42] Do you have a, do you have a perspective on, on like at what point a product owner or a service owner should be knocking on our doors?

[00:10:50] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: If you find that, your product has a lot of potential and it just hasn’t taken off the way you wanted it to, or even if you’re just starting something and you want to explain it to, know, everyday users, Or other professionals and you know, what the benefits are. I think that’s, that’s always a, a good time to get going with content. And I will say too, I mean, you know, even if you can hire a marketing agency, there’s no guarantee that they’re going to be experts at what you are selling. I think that’s Matt. I think that’s our advantage here. We have so much experience in WordPress. I have been a freelancer on the, as well from since 1999. So I have used all these products. I have, you know, built custom sites. Matt has extensive knowledge and experience at WordPress, and I just think that, you know, for us, we’re able to, maybe drill things down to a level that, you know, maybe a traditional marketing agency might not be able to do. So I think maybe that that’s where we have a little bit of an advantage.

[00:11:58] And when you talked about AI earlier, I mean, that’s awesome stuff, but do you really wanna trust your product’s image to a bot that, you know is prone to mistakes and who knows? Plagiarism could be anything, but I, I, I think there is, you know, room here for expertise and experience. I think that’s what between the both of us, we, we have plenty of it.

[00:12:24] Matt: Wanna launch your next WordPress product or your existing WordPress product service? Event, go to wp product writeup.com. You can hire Eric. He’ll write it up for you. He’ll send it to you. We’ll publish it. Uh, if you choose to publish it on the WP Minute, you also help support the WP Minute. if you wanna go a step further, combo that with the WP Minute Launch Services, we can help you launch and get the word out.

[00:12:48] Support the WP Minute reach WordPress professionals. What I like to say, it’s the most impactful audience in the WordPress space. We have the decision makers. The product owners, the people in the community that have been doing this for many years, here at the WP Minute. So we thank you for your support.

[00:13:07] Eric, any other, uh, parting words besides go Orioles? Do you say go Orioles,

[00:13:14] eric-karkovack_2_09-29-2023_092341: Uh, we say, let’s go os

[00:13:16] really, that’s, that’s our thing. But, um, just thank everybody for, um, The opportunity and, you know, I, I look forward to working with, WordPress products of all types