EP280 – Acquisitions in the WordPress space

not everyone this is Jason Tucker in this is W. P. water cooler episode number two hundred ninety ten guys in more than three hundred what happens at three hundred nothing well I think what this episode is the one where we talked about which the wordpress space that's the one we're going to be talking about today this is those go around this very small room real quick and get everyone to introduce Jonathan tells but yourself my name is Jonathan and I were work activity and I live in or out valued more about me also have you on good to have you on us how bout you with that I'm right aid I do you stop it with that studios and were cracked and you know I have a dog in my room and it's inappropriate I apologize well you know say say usually has her dogs of outside try try to attack each other the bell that or whoever else is walking around out there so that you can tell by your first comment that I love the note of existential dread in Jonathan's voice right as he's like I'm John and then I think she was everything of warm weather I appreciate that doesn't make it better knowledge your existential dread everything gets better only only downhill from here up hills and I look at it you just want to join in on this stuff you can definitely doing on this stuff as well I've even though we're going to be like out of the alphabetical order now and I'm gonna do it anyway star post orders are orders to buy is all messed up but the whoever I read and I make progress to progress progress at the media on all the things coming soon a new thing you can follow but not yet nice we're we're we're gonna sort by menu order here this time instead of a about a quarter but you made it okay a cell I here we're talking about mergers and I would just like to say be nice if people would learn how to merge on the freeway is that we're talking about two years ago well yourself let's see I just got my second work out for the day and listening to the running running to and setting up the computer and heading up the stairs and trying not to lose my temper with that crazy southern California drivers and that but that's not what I do normal I am the side that's what I do on the site and get really good at it and I rations manager for a company called server press LLC we make a couple of work flow products called desktop server and FTP sites think teach chances are if you work it right wordpress you've heard of us and if you haven't now you have he didn't know what's that shows about wordpress it's yeah watercolor wordpress it's about blogging it's about blogging software speaking of walking on the author this particular blog my name is Jason Tucker you find the overages and took on Twitter my website is just talk about blog and I'm I do the show as well as on the show called to be people out we did that yesterday on Thursday you can feel free to go take a look at that when we talk a lot about acquisitions and stuff as well but we kind of focused more on the marketing side of things and how %HESITATION marketing is affected by acquisition so we just thought you know we saw some acquisitions happen that this year we might as well start talking about it and and now we had a a big one with the with genesis and and having that happen so it's kind of dive in a little bit there so which way I have one thing to ask about Debbie people out before I move on one did you guys talk about Monsanto and bear what we talk about we could weed and %HESITATION Anheuser Busch okay that's just not the same though but it's cool outside the repressed industry agriculture right it's all about agriculture so you know what would you have culture I have two questions which is how do you guys feel about the acquisition number one and number two is you know do you think I'm gonna lose my my genesis lifetime account now that did not happen because you know I'm yes I do one yes be yes I I want to talk about weight first let's say I'm going to play the role of Steve real quick which were and so when we're talking about mergers and acquisitions wikipedia says not just getting %HESITATION I did want to frame the thing though what we're talking about or what birds are sparked this conversation is that the announcement this week that W. P. engine has acquired studio press makers of genesis that yep there's a framework so we're talking about that I just want to put that up so will rust loses license that's that's the real question I mean it now and and you know what what what happens there I mean if you have it don't know if you had if if you have a complete set up something a very specific way especially when it comes to you now the freebies and hand outs in the in the cool stuff that that happens or what what ends up happening I mean I was told on the idea that if I wanted to you know build on this beans framework that I would have this long it is there and you know I know that lifetime is not lifetime you know but at the same time made it you know I I I trusted lifetime it as far as the trustee gravity forms and they've never let me down so I I thought it would be kind of the same idea say gravity I tried to live the same way I trust gravity gravity has really let me down so that I personally really interested in talk ramifications of the specific acquisition and W. P. engine which is a very interesting history themselves it's also interesting to talk about the end of the ecosystem as a whole this isn't the first or the last and I'd say this is a good indicator of what we're gonna see more of so I what does that mean for this economy we're just the last one that I can remember was with local by flight will write that that was something else local by Slavic out yet no that isn't an acquisitions recently moved to carry that that was also so I guess the question for me at this one seem like a curious acquisition to me and I I I can sort of see a little bit of a connection like with most of the GoDaddy acquisitions and certainly with that fly wheels acquisition of of local which was at press or beef or not I press about that past matic I'm sorry I'm not at presser we we love and pressed her right not yeah yeah not you not yet acquired exactly requirement that's yeah yeah press matic you know became local I. flywheel and I can certainly see the logic with those acquisitions this one I I'm kind of curious what everybody's theories are as to why a double like me alright this is awesome I do you all have opinions I mean I have a right to their own studio press hosting right now and like I'm wondering what it's going to happen in real time yeah act that's one thing I'm curious about that if I'd research is but I know the answer to that I can speak about it but the cure is ramifications specifically for customers like is the copy blogger like I think studio presses owned by copy blogger right right now so they had this distinction but they had the web synthesis and hosting platform that had customers on the past and that yeah that I'm I don't know the details of that %HESITATION but speaking specifically to why would any PNG majors in studio press so I don't know like what about how this impacts into says or the copy blogger start thinking studio presses a whole genesis I think this one's really nicely with their move towards a digital experience they've been saying this like weird visual experience platform for awhile now and I guess disclosure I'm a fairly close to somebody engine folks I would work information that's our favorite corsets record not it should be no we don't record this is like all good conversation I don't I don't I I am thousands of little yeah I mean so I'm a big fan of WBNG as a whole things that they do has been really engine to watch their growth and growing pains over the years and this they've been doing this like digital experience messaging for a bit now I think this is a good example of the actions speak louder than words and then try to build this more holistic like because of that so that's been the attraction these frameworks to begin with right okay we're gonna provide this that's why when I've used genesis that pass wasn't really the technology used in that was more of a barrier for me as mark Hey I can have this experience available to my clients for this good experience even more with a whole lot less cost and effort on my part and it's good and debate whether or not we think genesis is good but that's a different episode that I'm not curious I'm curious as to what what this experience is is it but I don't really I don't really understand it I mean I I've seen like I've seen I've seen things that have used the word experience and it doesn't really differ doesn't explain like isn't using a web hosting the web host is is a server that has a stack of software that's going to make wordpress brewed up in need be used and it's going to do that in so that you're adding an extra layer to it which is now framework that you're able to kind of use out west so not that just because you signed up for work or for W. P. Injun you're going to have genesis instantly I don't know how that whole thing's going to work just yet I think this is something that I really want to talk talk talk about talk about and is I kind of see this as a bit of future proofing on WB engines part because so W. P. Injun is now huge company right they started however many years ago as a little Dinky start up they got all sorts of DC investment which as we know is all about exiting and all about you know profit that's what it is so this company has accelerated that it's like it's in the Austin you know tech environment etcetera etcetera so %HESITATION when they look at word practice especially right now we've been talking about this a lot in our different episodes especially right now where Chris is kind of in a tenuous state and no one is really sure which direction it is going so for a big company with millions of dollars of both revenue and you know shareholder you know investment in what I heard VC investment they have to protect their %HESITATION their experience as well their business their customers and so what's the best thing to do if you see something that could be going off the rails over here actually something that %HESITATION we we could also touch on there is that you know with genesis with word press corps they could in fact fork wordpress at some point and create that entire digital experience and whether you know I'm not I'm not saying I'm not things what they're doing but it gives them the capability in a way that they didn't have to create something of their own and that is a little bit more of of its own standalone think probably in my view as a bit of insurance not that it's necessarily going to go that way but no one really knows where it's going at the managed hosting trend everyone's kind of internalizing this wordpress software more and more work camps in beat up to being funded and supported by larger corporations in groups so V. seeing that you know work WEPN Jen doesn't want its future revenue to be decimated because Gutenberg we took some off the rails or someone in the open source community is making decisions so I view it as insurance and protection for them in the future that if they had to they would be able to take that whole system and to do their own yeah I've been waiting for somebody to actually do a wordpress dot com that lack of better term knock off a a I wanna you know a fully managed fully everything you can't get into anything wordpress Dale I'm agree and disagree with you that's all my favorite though the in the true sense I agree that we can't predict the future I anything can happen okay we agree though agree on that but I do the future of awesome common ground but I disagree though that this said nobody knows where it's going because I think we pay attention to what's happened across the ecosystem and look at the track record and look at like where the friction lies where the questions like where the unanswered questions remain there's a lot we can there's a lot of reasonable hypotheses we can make about what's going to happen next so this is a response to some of those fairly reasonable have I I think what I I I may disagree with about some the characterization of hearing from you engines like what you're sayin striving to begin his father not give them enough credit like it like I'm here you to characterize this more as a %HESITATION lets out what's up yeah insurance I will be that the great characterization I didn't I don't think that's the only reason I can play a factor factor but I would argue that it's not a primary factor in and and this is more about like when I when I look at their track record as an organization what they've done and there's some successes there's been some failures general though very positive trends and we look at kind of what happened next did you did you guys follow Ben Thompson's attacker yep so I bends fantastic he talks a lot about the the ecosystem technology as a whole %HESITATION and %HESITATION these insights and like you look aggregators and the different players the different types of business models and one of the things that I expect to see I we already seen in different ways is these companies like WBNG and working hard to find clear differentiation right where we're not between their their company and other companies are in their industry are winning in the they don't know when none of these hosts most of them don't like to be called host right like digital experience right now then the question is how do they backed that up and I went from me on that where and I believe that WCA engine can and well and they they probably also take taken off my like friends the engine after a moment I would say that they're not they got a long ways to go I see early edges of that promise being filled and I think I look at a move like studio presses them say we're working to really back this up and go all the way they've done some for projection of what they're going to be and they their sales guys would say we do this now I would say I can see that you can do that and if you keep going in directions like this then and which I expect you well like I'm not surprised by this acquisition makes a lot of they see that they can do what back up that like we were a digital experience like at the end of the day there'll be people on W. P. engine would allow hosting what's that thinking like that and that's well I mean are they also saying wordpress what's that because that digital experience is more of a brand experience branded W. P. engine that's kind of again it may not be that it's separating itself community or removing itself completely it's just that what are there if if there are trying to create a digital experience in their own little world you know are they moving away from from that as %HESITATION we're wordpress host I would not say so I think one of the things that either because they would rather get really mad but I'm thinking well sure and making it because I think that your strategy is different from someone like %HESITATION like some of the other like a go Daddy or something right where they have there so they can have multiple parts of the business they're gonna lock to customers I could see a future state with their customers and they they have their separate products that arguably could be awkward press right and I thought this is really important to those customers until until it it because if we all do our jobs well we're press is going to become better and more about thing that's in the tracking point in of itself Adrianus though and it is a lot of good things to talk about in that round I think W. P. engine is going to they're going to continue to be all in with this idea of work presses value but they're trying to focus more and more on what you know what matters most of the businesses that they're serving right and and you see things now under prop or like insights occur servicing the dashboard they're trying to give you like Hey here's some here's some things that are happening with your site and here's some decisions that you can make based on yeah I I really see that going as we're gonna be hooked to this open source software and this you know as long as we can and then if that needs to be come and hitched up with little side car they've got going on you can't build a multi million dollar business nest on something that is %HESITATION has you know that's that's the problems everyone keeps running into right with larger companies totally can't I'm not saying you can't I'm just saying when you're looking five to ten years down the future for V. sees they have different %HESITATION you know what expectations they're not like over the community is strong well here's you know ten million dollars you know that that's getting okay maybe they do do that but that is getting tighter is my point is what I'm saying and that is I think there's more uncertainty in this ecosystem than there was I'm not saying it's all going to hell I'm not saying that that's their plan I'm saying that it it might be a aside strategy I I just want to know what's going to come next because like when GoDaddy acquired managed of U. P. and then following that with security that makes sense right could manage to be P. the added security feature and goes hand in hand eighty no lie like I could see GoDaddy buying something like a prime robot because managed to repeat as uptime monitoring and stuff like that I'm very curious why a W. PNG went this way I mean we know that if you can't do not comment itself is on genesis and the and it's using a flavor of it I mean like what is that bonus light like what comes after that and and that's what I'm really curious that because everything else that we've seen like it makes sense this follows that all of this but this I don't know where we go well I sorry go ahead well I was just to say this is kind of the age old %HESITATION a strategy of of when you talk about experience at Seattle strategy of give them no reason to go away from our real estate right right so and so giving them at an option for a very versatile framework I mean there users that experience gives users no reason to actually straight away from the W. P. ends in space sell it in that sense it makes it makes sense I'm I'm more curious about why would that be kind of their first move I I think that's kind of like where I find it a little bit curious is not that it completely doesn't make sense to me it's it's more why would that be their first acquisition I'd I think we're saying the same thing yeah yeah maybe sale and maybe yeah we don't either like you could just be the right time in the right place rather they were register at was an opportunity and they took it yeah I think one thing that with this specifically and this comes from me you know if you have ever if you watch the show for a long time you see my evolution right its developer from being completely you know back when we first started I was like screw up one and are called everything you know because it was a different world that we're living in essentially %HESITATION but I've always had a bit of an issue with genesis because of that second layer that it adds right at the chasing you touched on that and so you know what I see has value especially for developers especially liners what I'm confused about is that it doesn't really relate to consumers it doesn't make the consumer side easier to make the user side here so genesis is for developers and designers so how are they going to incorporate genesis into %HESITATION into the user experience or WPS like if you don't develop their own flavors of genesis that have bike their own theme shop right there on it did space right part of it no matter what really got us going on to be people out we were talking about this and I was I was actually using marks business as an example of this because I've seen mark in a room with a bunch of newbies who have just barely use wordpress and he's like OK so we're gonna sell the software that's gonna make it so that you can use wordpress on your computer no web hosting whatsoever just use were pressing in computers play around with it for a little while and then when you're good to go then you can launch it and that's where I was kinda comparing and his product to to local and fly wheel and how those types of peace is kind of you it's the it's a stepping stone to get you into it which makes me think that if anything Debbie pension can take this and go I want to compete with the square spaces the wax and we believe that are out there and I want to bring in more of the the normal folks that are not developer you that are not doing any type agency work and I can still bring the men what do you guys think about that I wish we could get somebody like John Brown on because you know they just acquired teams from from it like web savvy or something like that because they have all those genesis I don't like I want to know how that's going to impact in two kids you know they went ahead and made by a student right to be the thing and you know what is that trickle down and out John Collins try make ten Bucks here or something then eight yeah to your point though Jay's and that's exactly what I'm saying when I'm saying they're preparing to possibly create their own experience where its genesis team are you know street studio pressing that say genesis seems I got so its genesis themes and %HESITATION within their own system with in a squarespace our Shopify and that looks like a growth trajectory to me in the look at what's happening with square station job growth you know what all of that so if they're especially if they're concerned and let's be honest the wordpress community is concerned if we're not different if we're being honest where everyone we've been talking about it for a year everyone's asking about it all the different word camps and whatever and we should talk about it we're concerned about where the future of this offers way and we should be and it's all valid so if you're a multi million dollar company who's looking five ten years in the future and you're looking at not only of square space and Shopify and wicks as your competitors you're also looking at go Daddy and %HESITATION liquid web and fly wheel and wordpress dot com you're gonna be like you know if these are all getting bigger what we're all sharing a shrinking piece of pie or are you know they don't know is that we've got these various tracks that are out there and so I really think that this is part about this is insurance for them to potentially do that if they need to do it but well but they could well but there's always this balance of trying to figure out okay when are we getting outside where we'll house and and kind of dissolving what are the central focus is supposed to be and then how good can we be at at I've always kind of you know I've always kind of had this philosophy of you do one thing and do really well until you've got it close to perfection and then move on to another thing and do it and tell you get really good at it and you know and I realize that these companies are requiring already other companies that have their own work flows in their own systems in place and so they don't necessarily have to manage that but then on the other hand they really do have to manage it and so how much does that you know is it spread it spread the people then as far as resources wise to be able to manage all that well you know what with automatic or buying you know will convert that is that is the best example that you have right they they are a team of developers to build word crafting and organize this you know release schedule but now they have this other thing and and how are they managing that it's very interesting because you know we've seen how will Congress in the last few years has changed Jurassic week right right now here I feel like I I use the word Jurassic and Jurassic Park I like those we are very dinosaur sized yeah like we we we saw that and I think that was my first kind of wake up call to like things are really changing yeah yeah so you have to keep in mind that automatic is not a traditional corporation so you have companies like say for instance go Daddy who is going to ask after every single word camp where is our our ally for sponsoring this work camp and and all these things because that shareholders that they have to answer to and all these things and Erica project aligned with that all it's cool yeah right yeah well a bit the the but the point but the point that I'm making with that is that when you have all those things to consider and shareholders to consider you know they are going to start asking questions the shareholders are and say what you know and then if you have like those old quote unquote Old World corporate ways of looking at things other companies and say we're not going to change a thing does anybody actually believe that we're not going to say if they're not gonna change anything tomorrow but to date right now you know I did go out to be the same whatever three months later it is a completely different right right now disappeared manageable appear right now is the complete different beasts bright eyes when two years ago yeah I do I would argue like a couple months ago it just it evolved and it's completely different and like I I like were managed to be P. is what I mean same concept of the bike you know we we really value these people we like their tradition and it's like boom here's our span and you know it it's either adapt died or use it so my question yeah you've been doing get in that when I think about so the side of the P. engine produced I'm Terry that I absolutely expect more people to do the the Corp of vertical integration right where they're gonna say we're gonna go head on to the wakes squarespace but we're gonna do it on wordpress it's gonna be our thing we're going to be back the project what I'm personally interested in doing seem rather is that the other part happened when they do those cost things they create those entire plays that people own this draft the notes wordpress they probably should have there's benefit but what I want to make sure happens is they continue to invest in the core project inappropriate ways for them because that's good for their business it's I mean that's what creates the innovation of the word press corps and that open source community and knowledge and brain bank is not something that any of those companies can have on their own if they separate away from where entirely and that is what keeps them all together because it's that diverse city it's that literal global think tank a free global think take working on software and is weird sometimes in convoluted and difficult as it can be that still what it is and that is a really valuable resource for any company it's not something that a BC necessarily look at and understand or value but the companies that are in that space understand that value and so I would hope I think that it's a matter of me understand the value and they're willing to do that as long as they see it continuing to grow as it is but they are also preparing in my view in case it doesn't in case rand experiment fails I don't think they understand the value enough and that's why I think we need to talk about it more as I think there's a bit of luck we create the reality project right and %HESITATION and if not enough people continue to invest in wordpress than to be the future is a very different one exactly can you tell you it makes me happy is that I I completely lately with that we know people W. canned gin and they are fully capable they could have just came up with their own team and you know undercut the market and I'm glad they acquired and that those people are keeping you know jobs or it's getting acquired and what with being just you know I'm gonna do it better and cheaper and quicker and just you know under column I'm very I'm very happy for that here's my question where are they going to put these themes like where is the shop where's the install for the studio press teams in the admit is that on the WB and insight is it in the user portal late I'm late because the way that it's set up now with Janice it's it's not just go get your studio press team an admin or whatever so that is a layer that I find it may be turning into like a motel marketplace type thing for WPF right right and that's interesting I want to see where that goes I I'd like goes in the desk that is it folks Russ Routt has say two words go for it all right we don't know we don't know the answer to your question Russell I don't know what I'm glad we're having this talk and I want to have the more it on Wednesday yeah well for all of you guys for coming on the show and hang out with us and talking with us about the stuff I do I do wanna say make sure you go over to W. water court accomplished to be people out re watch this this exact same type of topic but on the marketing side of things we can talk about like this like crazy idea of an acquisition of Google acquiring did wordpress I was like whoa this is some weird stuff going on here as well so if you want to take a look at that rigid talked about over there that's my teaser touch all later garter website did you work with a com slash to be our last subscribe and you can learn how to subscribe to this stuff dot dot later by