Pippin Williamson on Life After WordPress, Selling a Business, and Beer

I recently caught up with Pippin Williamson, who as many of you know was a prominent figure in the WordPress world for over a decade. He founded Sandhills Development and created popular plugins like Easy Digital Downloads before selling to Awesome Motive a couple years back. (Watch my previous interview on YouTube.)

I was curious to hear what Pippin’s been up to and also get his thoughts on the WordPress ecosystem since his exit. A few things stood out that I thought would interest you all:

First off, Pippin was very clear that his reason for moving on from WordPress boiled down to prioritizing time with family. After so many years of plugin development, he felt burnt out from being on that relentless “hamster wheel” of building and maintaining products. He had zero regrets about leaving.

When it came time to sell Sandhills Development, Pippin made finding the right steward for his team and products a top priority over price or other factors. He felt confident Awesome Motive was the best fit given their product focus. Although he does wish there had been less team turnover resulting from the acquisition.

And while Pippin keeps a very casual eye on WordPress these days, he did note how interesting it was to return to using it purely as an end user rather than a developer. Even being removed for a couple years, he immediately noticed some of the lingering friction between core, plugins, and the overall user experience.

Anyway, those were just a few WordPress-related nuggets I wanted to share. Let me know if you have any other thoughts or reflections on Pippin’s time in our community!

Visit Pippin’s Brewery: Sandhills Brewing

Matt Medeiros

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Thursday, 30 Nov 2023

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