2:3 Running A WordPress Theme Business

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Lee: Hi and welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast. The WordPress Podcast for design and Web agencies. Let's make WordPress work for your business. It's episode 11 and this is the WP Innovator podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. And today we've got a special treat. We're interviewing Ian from Theme. This is our first interview with somebody who runs a real life theme club business. So we're going to find out behind the scenes what goes on. And we're also going to find out about his other business. Now, this is Ionut, its first ever English spoken podcast, so I was super honoured to have him on board and he was amazing. Just kind of makes me realise how rubbish my own language skills are. Like in French. I think I could have probably conducted a French interview, for example, by telling people where I lived, how old I was, and asking where abouts the toilet was. Whereas Inout has nailed it with some fantastic English and amazing knowledge, bombs. So without further ado, here is a quick message from our sponsor. This episode is sponsored by SochiPress, the world's first set and forget Twitter solution for WordPress. The perfect upsell or value add for your design or web agency. Go ahead and check it out on LeeJacksondev.com/plugin that's LeeJacksondev.com/plugin. Hi, this is Lee from the WP Innovator podcast and I'm really pleased today to introduce introduce you, sorry to a young gentleman by the name of Inout from Theme Isle and from Code in WP. Now I think I just murdered your name mate. So do you want to let us know how we pronounce it?

Ionut Neagu: Hey, Lee you're not here, so like, you pronounce my name. Quite. Quite. Okay. So it's not. It's not a problem. Thank you. Thank you for. Thank you for. For having me.

Lee: It's an absolute pleasure, mate. So, as I explained, Ionut is from theme Isle . He's the founder of Theme Isle and also of code in WP. Theme Isle is an amazing resource full of free and paid for WordPress themes. Most of the all of them look absolutely gorgeous and I believe most of them are responsive, if not all of them as well. He's also got a range of plugins on there which are definitely worth checking out, so I'll put them in the show notes. And he's also the founder of Code WP where they create amazing WordPress themes for people. You send in your brief, you send in your designs and these guys work their magic. So mate, enough for me. Do you just want to introduce yourself and give people a little bit of your background?

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, sure. So I started like, maybe I will start not not really from the school or from when I was born, but I will start from five years ago. So I started into web web programming. And, you know, in Romania, like a web developer working on the freelance websites, I was able to, to get some some good money. And in this way I was able to start some entrepreneurial experiences, you know, to start small affiliate websites and try to do some stuff on my own, you know, And after being a freelancer for like maybe 1 or 2 years, I was thinking that, you know, how I can make more money. I should I should have like an agency and how I can get clients through my agency, just start the company and create a website. And I was very stupid at that time because creating a website didn't and some business cards gave me zero clients. Yes. So I thought having some having some experience, I thought that, okay, maybe I can find some a keyword that I can optimise and to get clients through Google, you know, because I don't I didn't have money to pay for AdWords. I didn't have any relations. So I thought, you know, how I can how I can really attract clients. So I found this keyword like Psd2 WordPress that I thought is perfect because it's not so competitive like Psd2. Yeah, but it's also like a lot of people that are looking for it. So I have tried, you know, I created a simple website and I think the website stayed for three, four years, you know, because some people asked how, how do you want to build us a WordPress theme that and you have a website. Yeah. So we, we got lucky, I think in few few months we got on the first page on Google and in this way we got we got started. So it was like a little bit of, of luck involved as well. We were not really thinking that we want to do like a WordPress development company. You know, it was a little bit of luck as well. So we started with this service service business and after struggling with for I think two years with it, I realised that I'm not really good, you know, on this in this position because I'm very, very bad manager And when you run a service business, what I learned, I was not I was not successful with this business, but I think I learned a lot of stuff so I can share them to with people like that are are listening. So what I learned is that you need to be a good manager and you need to be a good sales person because the this was my main issue issues in the business. I was like a very bad manager and you know, I couldn't really organise the tasks properly. So in order to like to hit all the deadlines and in order to be very effective. So it's like quite often we, we, you know, we spend more money in development that than the money that we got for projects or not. Not very big difference, you know, So and all of this was because, you know, I was not able to to manage stuff. You know I learned that I really like to to to do stuff but not, not manage them, you know, like just to go there and do them code something or do some marketing or try some growth hacking, but not really, you know, like organised stuff. So this is what I learned from, from this business and I thought, you know, that I should, I should try to do something else. So I told that a product would be like the way to go for me, you know, because I it's something that I love more doing, you know, to create, to build something that people really enjoy using. And I can work on it After that, I can market it and I can be in touch with, with, with the customers as well. I don't really need to do sales, just marketing, which is way better for me. So in this way I started I started with. After struggling with Émile for one year, we managed to release Zarif, which got, you know, like immediately in a few weeks after we released, it got, you know, like very popular and is now one of the most popular free WordPress themes on the market.

Lee: And absolutely gorgeous.

Ionut Neagu: Thank you. And this allowed us, you know, to to get a good stream of revenue. So it's not really mentioned on our website. But just to to to make you aware, we think maybe a half year ago we stopped accepting clients on coding. WP because we, we thought that we, we are doing better with, with the, with the product business. We decided not to really like not close the website or something like this, just like post it because maybe, you know, like in the, in the coming months I can find, you know, like a good manager that can be in charge of things. Yeah, because this is my only solution that I see. You know, I don't see myself like, like doing this. I have tried. I have struggled for like two, three years. And, you know, like compared with other service businesses, I saw that I'm doing quite, quite bad.

Lee: That's that's really that's an absolute fascinating insight. I mean, it's really encouraging as well to hear that the theme business for you has has done so well and has actually been able to replace the revenue of the original service based business. So what you have now is a product based business where you have something that people essentially you build once and people will use and reuse, and all you then need to do is continue just to support the product itself and support the users who are using it rather than going from project to project. Yeah, absolutely. Fascinating. So, well, I think it's we would normally ask people what was their biggest challenge in the business and it sounds like management was the biggest challenge in coding. WP And I would be super excited to find out what happens with that in the future. As you, you know, you look to get other people involved, but in the theme itself, being such a saturated market, I mean there are a lot of theme developers out there Envato with Themeforest, there's an awful lot of stuff on there. What was the biggest challenge to the launch of Theme and getting your name out there?

Ionut Neagu: A Kind of like you said before, you know, like I think the biggest challenge was was marketing at the at the beginning because, you know, when we launched it, what I thought, you know, like, we will we will because let me. Okay, go go back a little bit before launching theme. I thought, you know, like one of the best things that I can do is to to buy an already existing theme business, because in this way I can learn very quickly how it is to run a theme business and to to see, you know, like if it's worth it or not, you know? So one year before starting Theme, I bought like already Teams.com. It was a website that built themes for review and affiliate sites and it was generating something like $300 per month. I bought it with $3,000. The teams were quite old and not even responsive, but it was something, you know, it was something to to start. And it allows me like in one month to really understand how it is to run a team business, how to provide, what kind of support you need to provide, what people expect from you, how to deliver updates and stuff, you know. So this allowed me to see, I mean, also to see the potential. Yeah. So it was like an accelerated learning, you know, that I got through like paying in advance without really waiting one year to see how it goes, you know? So I was quite excited about how this, how is to like to, to run a team business thought okay, so this I learned some stuff, now I want to start something from scratch, you know. So I decided to start to start team and I thought that should be shouldn't be so complicated. So we built like 5 or 6 teams and we released we released the website like we like we did some press release and stuff. We thought that would be cool and people will start buying and etcetera, you know? But this didn't happen, you know, like in first six months I think we sold maybe ten licenses or something. So I don't know, like what, what is, what is happening, what's why I'm wrong, you know, because like if ready team site with teams that were not responsive and I managed to managed to sell something like $1,000 per month and here we have more teams and we have better teams. Why? Why is not working? You know? So I started to look more deep into things, you know, and etcetera. So I, you know, this was one of the biggest challenge because you, you asked me, you know, that I thought things would be would be much easier. But in fact, they were, they were not. So what we decided to do then is to be more much more aggressive than the market is. So what we did, we released like a really kind of premium quality team for.

Lee: Three.

Ionut Neagu: So at that point, when we released the reef light, it was you couldn't see in like a WordPress theme directory, a theme that was so featured and with a good design and, you know, like customisable and etcetera, you know. So it was like it was really one of the best free themes that you can find at that point. You know. Now, of course, in the past one and a half year, a lot of new products appeared and I'm not checking each of them. So maybe there are themes that are better than ours or not, I don't know. But at that point when we released it, it was like really one of the best on the market. So this being this aggressive allowed us, you know, to to to grow.

Lee: That's that's fascinating. And there is really something to be said in adding value. So and that value you guys added was by creating a high quality premium level WordPress theme that you gave away for free. And that's incredible. And obviously you're going to build up your database that way. I mean, one of the things my own mentor is always encouraging me is to create either free courses, free documents like ebooks, etcetera. Anything that adds massive value and also helps you build up an audience. And that's that's really exciting.

Ionut Neagu: You do this with the Postcard podcast as well because the podcast is free to listen for people. So you provide, you you provide them value.

Lee: Exactly right. And it allows me to make some awesome connections. It's been great actually. I mean, through the podcast, I've met some fascinating people already and I've already recorded some up and coming podcasts with people that I never thought I would get to talk to. And I mean, I guess this podcast is a first for us both. You mentioned to me that this is your first podcast in English, so yeah, exactly. And this is also my first podcast with a, you know, a theme development company. It's I found it absolutely fascinating seeing all these all these themes. And it's it's certainly I've certainly been encouraged to see people like Theme Kingdom and yourselves and other people make a real good go of it and stay around because, you know, with so much competition out there and so many themes available, sometimes it's really hard or themes can get a bad name. So it's really great to see someone who's being consistent, putting out consistent, good, consistently good content, consistently good products. So you know, all power to you. And I'm giving you a digital high five right now. Thank you. That kind of segues me into one of my favourite questions. Then what was I think I'm guessing we've kind of covered this, but what was the one idea that really catapulted, um, theme to the next level? So you'd, you'd, you'd put your website up. I loved it right at the very beginning where you said create a website in a business card and got zero business. That's hilarious. But you know, what was that game changer for you with theme isle? Um, was it the was it that theme? Did you see things catapult straight away from then or was there something else that you did alongside that theme that really got you from ten licenses to a good turnover, which, you know, stopped you from having to run the other business?

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, it's a question that.

Lee: Is hard to say. You know, like it was something that really like like a trigger, you know. But if you are looking like in growth and the revenue, yeah, we can say that, you know like releasing releasing reef and releasing, you know, like giving away such a such so much quality for people for free. It was really something that really catapulted our, our business and our revenues and our user base. But if we are thinking, you know, like as a business and like an idea, you know, that that, you know, helped helped us to, to, to, to grow and to, to leave the, the service business and to start doing product. It was really that I, I realised that, you know, like I'm not I'm not good at management, I'm not good at sales. And I think I might be good in building product, you know. So I think this is for me, this is the most important thing is to, to try to, to study yourself mean whatever you are doing. Like you run a web agency, you are a freelancer and to see what are your strong points and what are your weak points, you know, and to try to to find something that to adapt and find something that you are good at because, you know, it might be very good at doing the things that I'm doing now, but at a lot of other things, I'm really bad. Uh, so I think this, this is for most of the people, you know, like you see that people that really have, they have tremendous success, but at, at a bunch of other stuff, they are really, really super bad. But they just found, you know, a thing that they are good at.

Ionut Neagu: So that's great. Kim Doyle is always saying, do, do what's fun. If it's not fun, it's not worth doing it. And you found your niche, you found what you you know, what you enjoy to do. You're obviously good at it as well. And and it just shows, doesn't it, when you're doing something you're passionate about, then the success follows a lot. You know, I remember back when I was younger, I got into. Because I thought that's where the money was and I utterly hated it. I was actually quite good at it, but I also hated it. So it was only when I went into web development, when you know, where I found all of the opportunities because I was passionate about web development. And it's clear you're passionate about product development as well.

Lee: This is true.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, I just I just put it in other words. But this is true. Yeah. It's also like, really a lot what I'm what I'm doing, you know? But this, this has also a downside because when you do what you love, it's. It's really you, you you can get better faster than other people because you really like what you are doing. You pay more attention, you are more interested and you can get better. But the what the some you know, some not so good things that I learned too. When you are doing something that you really love is that you tend you tend to do it too much. At least this happens for me, you know, guilty as charged. It's good. It's good to be passionate about something, but it's not so good to be obsessed with something, you know? This is what I felt at some point, you know, because I had some points. What I. I became obsessed with this thing, you know, like dreaming and thinking all day about it. And this is not really so good for my sleep, for my brain or for my friends, you know?

Lee: No, I can definitely empathise with that. I can. I've just pictured myself when you were saying that of some of the evenings I've sat there with my laptop teaching myself something new about WordPress or creating and, you know, creating something that I got an idea for. And I'm getting a very cold stare from my wife telling me to turn the laptop off.

Ionut Neagu: And this happens to all of us.

Lee: Well, it's clear you've got a passion for WordPress. You've been working with WordPress for many years, although obviously you don't look old enough, you young whippersnapper. But what over the last few years, what's that one WordPress plugin that you've been like, Whoa, this is amazing. And you would recommend people go and check out.

Ionut Neagu: So I need to think a little bit there. There are a lot of I can't I can't say really one plugin. There are those like popular plugins that everybody use. So I don't think I think I have something that is really like a secret, but I use Yoast a lot because, you know, like I'm passionate about SEO as well. So it he really helpful for, for me, I use easy digital downloads to run my business and you know, Pippin is doing like a really, really good job and it's a really strong plugin.

Lee: Oh, I can really recommend that we're using that as well for our plugins, sochipress and the activation and the updates, etcetera. It's all done for you and the plugin. It's great isn't it? So yeah, yeah.

Ionut Neagu: So, Yeah. So it's.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, basically I can recommend, you know, like everything that people is people is building like also affiliate WP, we are using affiliate WP to run our like affiliate system and it's also a great product. So these are just a few of the plugins that I'm using that I'm using and they are really, you know, besides our plugins, you know, that thought that is lame to recommend our own plugins even they are amazing, you know.

Lee: Well let's talk, let's talk about your plugins. So like like we talked about earlier, you've actually got a range of free plugins already, which is awesome. For example, WP Product Review Lite, which allows people to do product reviews, etcetera. You've got a login customizer which looks absolutely gorgeous and you're giving this stuff away for free, which is incredible. And again, I'll put that in the show notes. Um, but is there any one particular product you're particularly proud of one of your plugins that you guys have put out there?

Ionut Neagu: Yeah. Yeah.

Lee: The plugin that I'm most proud of is the Revive Old Post. Yeah, because it's also like a kind of unique concept and it's one, it's like the first plugin that is doing this kind of thing is it allows you to revive your evergreen content from the blog. So let's say that, you know, like you, you have like three, four years since you are writing on your blog. You have some evergreen content out there, but you know that content got buried, you know, that came after, you know, when it's when you have like on the second page of your blog or something like nobody go there, you know, So, you know, like this, this fun stuff, you know, what is the best place to to hide the dead body, you know, like on the second page of Google.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah. So it's it's the same, you know.

Lee: So this, this plugin helps you, you know, to just configure it at the beginning. And after that just, you know, like kind the name says revive that content on your social networks. Yeah. So it's all automatic and you just, you know, spend five minutes to set up and after that it's just going, you know, so it's, it's also the our most popular, most popular plugin.

Ionut Neagu: I'm right in thinking as well am I that you offer a standard version for free and then you have the pay for upgrade as well. And you also have things like business license and marketer license. So if you're a design agency and you're looking at this, the revive old posts, it's actually something that other people have recommended to me in the past, even before, um, as two got together for this discussion. So it's a great plugin allows you to share old, old content. It's one of those beautiful set and forget systems. I love that sort of thing and it's definitely a great value add. If you're an agency, a web developer and you can provide this to your client, it's definitely a great value add. So yeah, I probably would have picked that one myself, to be honest. Out of all of yours, I guess the only other one that people might want to check out that I find quite cool is the easy content types.

Lee: Yeah, we just acquired.

Ionut Neagu: It like.

Lee: Last week.

Ionut Neagu: It's on there. Oh, I thought you guys had always done it because I remember this from yesteryear. Yeah, well, there you go. Easy content types. So you can essentially create custom post types, custom taxonomies, etcetera. So we talked about advanced custom fields and all the amazing stuff you can do there. Well, easy content types actually allows you to create those content types. So those, those the taxonomy itself without having to do lines of code etcetera or the post types. So yeah, they're awesome mate. We've covered a whole load of WordPress plugins. That's amazing. And the fact that you guys are behind some incredibly powerful plugins is again testament to I think your passion for creating products. So yeah, well done buddy. That's awesome. Hey, have you got any particular blog or online resource that you kind of go to regularly that you reckon people should go ahead and check out?

Lee: Uh, yeah, I have some things, you know, that I, I'm a big fan of learning new stuff, you know. So like always, each day I'm checking, you know, like I'm ten, 20, 50 websites, articles that I'm reading, you know, like each day. So I, I have some resources that I follow. So I will regarding WordPress, I like post status. They have also club membership when they send you like three newsletters per week on where when Brian tells you, you know, like what happened in the WordPress community. So it's quite good if you are busy and you don't like to check, you know, 100 sites. Your feet or etcetera. You can rely just on this newsletter and it's all that you need, you know, to be on top of the of the things that are happening. And I like that, you know, because sometimes I have time to, to, to check around and to look on different sites and communities but sometimes don't have I don't have enough time you know so I that newsletter really helpful for me and I would recommend to to everybody.

Ionut Neagu: And Something that I like lately a lot is not WordPress or design related is like waitbutwhy.com.

Lee: Waitbutwhy.com.

Ionut Neagu: You don't know you.

Lee: Know not heard it. I'm just checking it out now.

Ionut Neagu: Hey it's an amazing website. So basically they are discussing about broad range of topics and on each topic they are going really deep and answering the why question. You know.

Ionut Neagu: So for example, they cover what I read lately, what they covered, you know, like Tesla and SpaceX and why, you know, about this thing about pollution, about electric cars and about going to Mars and etcetera. So but they really covered it in a in detail, you know. So this is what I like. You know, I'm not the kind of person that like to read a headline and two words and say, you know, this kind of article, How to learn WordPress in two minutes, you know, So this kind of stuff, those are like, I feel that are bullshit, you know, that it's not possible to to learn something or to know this. This one sentence will change your life, you know, this kind of stuff. I really think that in order to, to, to be good at stuff or to learn stuff, you need to spend time and invest time in doing them. You know, you want to be good at WordPress, okay? So you need to work a lot and to read a lot and to learn a lot. It's not like you, you there are five things that will help you learn WordPress and get rich, you know?

Lee: Yeah. So that's.

Ionut Neagu: That's what I like about that.

Ionut Neagu: Website I think.

Lee: I think this is, this is building up a picture of you as a gentleman who has a very inquisitive mind and who likes to know how things work. So I'm just taking a look at this website and there's a I've just bookmarked the how and why SpaceX will colonise Mars. Having just read the book The Martian, I am absolutely intrigued. So I'm going to be checking this one out.

Ionut Neagu: He recommended that book.

Ionut Neagu: I noted it, so I will download it and I want to read it myself because it was recommended in the article but didn't read it. So you enjoyed it, right?

Lee: Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant book and I'm can't wait for the film to come out. So as of recording, I think the film comes out on DVD in a few weeks time. So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting that.

Ionut Neagu: Okay, cool.

Ionut Neagu: I'm glad. Glad to to hear, but can't wait to read it as well.

Lee: No brilliant book actually. Got it on Audible, so I've read and listened to it kind of whilst I've been working. I'm a total fanboy originally as well. It came out as a blog, which is cool. It was originally just a blog series which was then turned into a book. So again, I kind of like that backstory to that. And it's also meant to be one of the most realistic sci fi fiction books around there, you know. So the way he, he grows potatoes, etcetera, all the different things that he does are meant to be quite scientifically accurate rather than maybe other sorts of science fiction where, okay, yeah, like.

Ionut Neagu: Okay, don't, don't Tell me too, too much about It.

Lee: Well, and then the Titanic sinks, so there you go. Okay. Wrong film. Don't worry. I never understood why people want to go and watch that film because we all knew what the ending was.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, I've never seen it.

Lee: Oh, fair enough. Okay, mate. Well, I'll tell you what. It has been absolutely fantastic learning all about your business. I'm intrigued to see how you know what products you're going to put out there, what new plugins you're going to put out there. So I'm going to be following you guys very, very closely. And yeah, just can't wait to see what your next theme is going to be.

Ionut Neagu: And don't hesitate.

Lee: To be critique in case we are doing some stupid stuff. You know, like I, you know, I consider this thing to be really important, you know, to have to have people that to tell you when when you are stupid, you know.

Ionut Neagu: So don't.

Lee: You worry. I've I've emailed now and again I have emailed theme authors or plugin authors and just noted something that's wrong with their plugin. I'll usually give them the snippet of code as well, which will fix it. So as long as I say it nicely, people tend not to be too offended, which is nice. So for.

Ionut Neagu: Me, just, just.

Lee: Just say, you know, like you are, you are stupid and it's enough.

Ionut Neagu: I will fix it myself.

Lee: Oh, no, I'd be kind. Okay. Well, it's clear. You've got it's clear. You've got an absolute vast range of experience over the last year, well, over the last few years. And from what you've learned, what one piece I mean, let me reframe the question. What we like to do is at the end of a podcast, people are have been filled up with loads of value bombs from yourself. They're intrigued by your story and they found it fascinating. But sometimes it's really hard to remember everything. So what would be one thing that you feel that you've learnt that people could apply to their business today? One small thing they could apply today that will start to make a difference. Of their business to their agency or whatever it is they're working on.

Ionut Neagu: Okay.

Ionut Neagu: So one common mistake that I see and something that we did and it worked really, really good for us is that we was not afraid of on spending money in my business, you know, I see a lot of people and especially like in the WordPress community, that they are really afraid to invest money in their business. They are really they think that they don't want to pay too much for a conference, then don't want to acquire some pay traffic, then don't want to pay for this and for that, you know, because they would rather pay with their their own time because people think that their time is free while, you know, even that they have money they need to pay. You know. So I think it's one one of the most common mistakes that I that I saw. And it's something that for us really worked great. You know, like 50% think 50% of our business. We we built through acquiring new products like that revival post plugin. We acquired it like one and a half years ago or two years ago. And we just, you know, like, like and like really things like I said at the beginning, we acquired it and we learn it how to build email and a bunch of other stuff like Zarif. We acquired the rights from the template or we acquired like 4 or 5 teams that we have on the our site we acquired from other other people. Easy content types we acquire from Pippin is people are afraid of doing that. You know, I see very rarely, like very few people are doing it. And for us it works. It's working wonders. Maybe because of how run run stuff and how I, you know, like the things that I'm good at. But I would recommend to other people to, to to try it as well. I would recommend to don't be don't be afraid to put to invest money rather than time and don't be afraid to to like acquire new stuff that will help accelerate their business growth, you know, absolutely acquire maybe acquire like a small competitor or a I don't know. There are different things that you can you can do, but just don't be afraid of of doing that. You know, if they have more questions that can ask me about it. But just I see this very, very, very often, you know and people that are afraid of doing this thing. And for us, it works so, so well, you know.

Lee: That's such good advice. And I remember John Perez just the other day was saying, I mean, he was talking about something different, about don't be afraid to use tools to help speed up the process. But you are so right here as in, you know, actually investing in products that are already made instead of putting months and months into an idea where you've got code and bugs and testing, etcetera, actually invest in something that already exists. There's a phrase over here in the UK called If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So purchasing something that is working, it's already been validated. People already want to use that product and then you can take it on to the next level. So yeah, that's that's brilliant advice. Don't be afraid. Afraid. Sorry to spend money on your business. I was nodding vigorously when you said that, but.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, because, because.

Ionut Neagu: The thing is, you know, you have one person that, you know, like worked on it and did whatever he thinks that it's like it was good for that product. And after that, on top of that, you put your experience. So it's just, you know, like everybody keep adding a layer of of quality over that product. Maybe the previous owner was good at development, You are good at marketing on the other way around, you know? Yeah.

Lee: Exactly. You're plugging in the gaps, aren't you? That's awesome, man. Hey, buddy. Well, you mentioned that people could talk to you about that idea. So what would be the best ways for people to connect with you?

Ionut Neagu: Uh.

Ionut Neagu: You can connect with me on Twitter. Like @hackinglife7. You can. I think that you can put it in the notes also as well.

Ionut Neagu: I will do indeed.

Lee: And my email address is hi@inoutn.com. So you can also maybe it's better to write it down as well.

Ionut Neagu: Oh, definitely. Put that one in the show notes as well.

Lee: Yeah. So like you know like.

Ionut Neagu: Another thing that also helped me a lot in growing my business is that, you know, like other people helped people around me. So I would be very happy to, to like if anyone, anybody has questions about, you know, like different things about how we do stuff or they need some help with their things. Don't hesitate to, to, to ask me, you know, like I, I like helping people.

Ionut Neagu: In, you know, like up to the time that I have. But usually I find time for this.

Lee: You are a very generous and kind person. I think I'll be putting you on my list to reach out to.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, don't hesitate to do.

Ionut Neagu: That because I find this is also, you know, like very, very effective. You know, like helping, helping others, you know, that they need it because when you have experience on on some, on some topic for me, you know, like I can spend maybe five minutes to answer an email, but for that person can be, you know, worth a lot of a lot of time because I saw this on my when I asked other people that were more experienced than me, I saw like one day they just answered my email and, you know, like it helps my business a lot with five minutes from on their time.

Lee: That's amazing, isn't it? It saves you a load of time. But you know, also you're going to want to thank that person as well in the long run. Yeah, I remember I helped someone for free probably a couple of years ago and that led to her recommending me in with a very large company, of which and that turned into, you know, a very big contract for us as a business. So that was awesome.

Ionut Neagu: You never you never know, you know, you never.

Lee: You never know. So I hope I hope that happens for you.

Ionut Neagu: I'm sure I really I really believe in this in this thing, you know, like.

Lee: I Love I love the idea, though. And to be honest, though, if you're any I think we're very similar. I, I just love to help people without charging anyway because I love to learn and I love to do what I do. And if it's only going to take me a couple of minutes to help someone, it's going to save them hours of time. Then it's something that just brings great pleasure. So, uh, so you heard it here. You can contact him any time you want. It's hackinglife7 Twitter. I'll put this on the on the show notes and I'll also pop in the email address as well as all of the websites and everything that we've discussed. So, buddy, thank you so much for your time. It's been greatly appreciated. I've had loads of fun and I'm really excited to go and check out some of your other plugins that I didn't know you had, especially that Visualiser plugin, because that's something that people are talking to me a lot. So all that's left for me mate, is to say thank you so much for your time and have an awesome day.

Ionut Neagu: Yeah, thank you for having me. Lee You know, like it really appreciate it because as I said, don't have it was like my first podcast for me. So it's a, it's a, it's also important, you know, because like the first things that you do is you don't really forget them so quickly. And it's, you know, the people that have really also in business, you know, the people that helps you at the beginning. There are also like really important for your business. So yeah. Thank you very much for for inviting me.

Ionut Neagu: Well, I appreciate it, mate. And you've rocked it. So it was your first English one. You rocked it fine. And you've. Tortoise stands. Thank you. Thank you. Take care now.

Ionut Neagu: Okay. Have a good day. Bye. Thank you. Bye.

Lee: And there we are, Episode 11. Now, I don't know about you, but this all seems to be going so quickly. We're at episode 11 already and we also have some fantastic shows already pre-recorded to share with you over the next few weeks. I'm super excited and I'm super pumped. Now then, if you'd like to be a part of the show, we're especially looking to connect with design agency owners so people who get involved in pitching, people who get involved in the day to day running of a design agency. You don't have to be a WordPress expert because we'd love to learn more about your agency. If you're interested, get in touch with us on leejacksondev.com/podcast That's leejacksondev.com forward slash podcast. Now I do have a secret and that secret is a plugin list. This is ten plugins that I have used to completely transform form my web agency. So if you want to get your hands on that list, just head over to leejacksondev.com/secret list that's leejacksondev.com/secret list. The offer expires in 51 days of this recording so that's 51 days left to grab my secret plugin list before I take it down. So let it be our secret and head over again to leeJacksondev.com/secret list. Thanks so much for listening. Have an awesome day and keep innovating.