Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee
Welcome to the Trailblazer FM podcast. This is your host, Lee. On today’s show, we have the one and only Davinder. How are you, mate?
Davinder
I am doing good. Thanks for inviting me here.
Lee
Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Mate, it’s been an awfully long time, hasn’t it, since we chatted. We first met online, I think through Facebook, and we’ve knocked around the same WordPress groups for many, many years. Folks, if you don’t know who Davinder is, he’s now going to tell you who he and a little bit of his background. Mate, go for it.
Davinder
Well, I’m just a regular WordPress user, and I’ve been hanging in a lot of Facebook groups along with Lee for so many years. Finally, settled on a few things, ran a WordPress agency, still run it. Now, the main thing is the WP Weekly, which is the WordPress newsletter. Plus, I do a lot of consulting and coaching, so my life revolves around web and WordPress.
Lee
Life around web and WordPress. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. What do you think?
Davinder
It’s an awesome thing.
Lee
Well, you do run WP Weekly. I would hope that you would say that. Tell us a little bit then first about the agency. It’s fascinating to hear how people started their agency. What was the genesis for that?
Davinder
Now I’ve scaled on my agency, but there were times when I started the agency and the usual really getting clients and upping your prices and doing different things, adding more services, like that four more thing, Oh, this agency is offering this. Let’s add this also. Then you have that burnout thing, Okay, this wasn’t for me. Finding your sweet spot, you got to walk, run, fall down, and then get up again. Then a lot of agency made a lot of websites maybe five, six years ago. Now, I don’t make many websites. It’s more focus is on consulting, coaching, marketing, sales funnels. That’s my sweet spot.
Lee
No, that’s fantastic. Everything you’ve described there, I think, is the journey for many web developers, many agencies, et cetera, is that idea of trying to find what it is that is both your passion but also pays. A lot of people can resonate with that idea of just trying so many different things and that exhaustion. Look at all these websites and what do I have to show for it? I am tired out. Well, I would love, therefore, to find out a little bit more about what you have been up to since the agency. The first thing I saw that you had done was the WP Weekly. I feel like you may have done It was a project before that, but could you just tell us about the journey from agency owner to building something that adds value to the WordPress community?
Davinder
Well, I always wanted to do content creation, but my idea to I knew content creation was different. I didn’t want it to make another blog with another listicle articles or comparison articles. They are good who do that, but that’s not for me. I don’t find that interesting. While doing the agency stuff, I did do the usual thing. basicwp.com was the site where I tried writing best themes, best plugins, and the usual stuff, but I got bored of it very quickly. I also started probeaver.com, which was I remember that. Yeah, that was my training ground, actually. That was the newsletter for Beaver Builder user. I’m still a Beaver Builder user, even though there are many awesome page builders around. But for me, Beaver still ranks at the top. So Pro Beaver actually not just was a training ground, but I learned so many things regarding how to do email marketing, how to create niche of fans or people who are really interested in your content. So when I started Pro Beaver, it was just a passion project, but I learned how you can actually make money from just 500 subscribers in your list. And during that time, I also learned you got to have some end of funnel products.
Davinder
So I also did Beaver Builder courses and sold them to the list because that list was highly targeted. They were all BeaverBuilder user and made a lot of money, but more than money, I think I learned a lot of things, how keeping things simple and focused gives you the maximum returns and satisfaction. I took the same concept of Pro Beaver Weekly and expanded to the WP Weekly. The WP Weekly has grown may be 10 times more than Pro Beaver. I love the WP Weekly platform. I love the connexions that I’ve made through that. It’s a win for everyone.
Lee
That’s phenomenal. So essentially, you’ve taken what was a very niche, i.e, the beaver builder aspect. You’ve learned through that as your training ground, and then you’ve applied that to a much bigger and broader topic of the WordPress Weekly. Now, speaking of bigger and broader, how do you make sure you don’t go off topic? Because I ask for personal reasons, because my podcast started off as the WP Innovator podcast. I was very much focused on WordPress. But then over the years, I got lost and was often talking about agencies and design and all sorts of other things, marketing, you name it. I went off on lots of tangents. It’s only really recently where I’ve gone back to basics and focusing back on WordPress that I’m able to rein it all in. How do you pick the topics that you you cover and make sure that you still cover a broad enough range of WordPress-related topics on WP Weekly without people losing interest?
Davinder
Well, I keep it very simple. Now, since WP Weekly is very popular, I get a lot of submissions via the website form itself. So my simple criteria is if I find it interesting as a WordPress user, it goes to the newsletter. I don’t care whether it has been created by a newbie or a big company or a celebrity in the space. If it’s useful, it goes there. And obviously it has to be WordPress related because that’s what it is all about. So yeah, and we all wander here and there. You talk about podcast, right? Even I used to run a podcast called Smart Web Creators, where you were the guest, I think. I don’t know if you remember, but yeah.
Lee
Gosh, I can’t remember. I’m so old.
Davinder
I actually ran it for, I think, for two or three years and stopped it when COVID hit and didn’t restart it. Maybe I’ll reboot next year. That’s my 2026 goal. I don’t know if it will happen or not because running a podcast is a big thing. It looks like a small thing, but there’s so much work that has to be done underneath. So yeah, regarding WP Weekly, it’s WordPress, WordPress, and WordPress only.
Lee
Yeah. No, that’s phenomenal. And what’s been the journey for this? Because I imagine when you first started, what that looks like then is much different to today. How did you keep that motivation going when numbers were smaller?
Davinder
I didn’t start it for money. I just love writing. Writing is my passion. But again, I don’t like writing those listicle things and long stuff. I like my writing to be very summarised and to the point. When I started WP Weekly, I didn’t make money for eight months or so because money was not the goal that I was chasing or after. Because I used to run agency then also. Now my agency is a little smaller in terms of clients and all that. But The money, the base money was still coming from agency. I didn’t make any money, but then one fine day, again, if you surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, you get good ideas. I think you know the person called Kim Doyal, right?
Lee
I do know Kim very well.
Davinder
Yeah, common friend. She suggested me to have sponsorship, and I said, It’s a new project. Who will sponsor? I said, Okay, I’ll put a sponsorship page. The next step is, what should I price? Because I don’t know the worth of what I’m putting out. It’s because it’s all new. So put an imaginary figure in dollar amount and let’s see. I put the sponsorship page and within two days, Two big WordPress brands signed up for an yearly sponsorship, which was surprising. I guess that was the juggernaut waiting to happen. For now, sponsorship slots are all gone most of the time because maybe it’s the value for money. A lot of people come back and say that we are renewing sponsorship because it is working for us, because no one wants to spend money for the sake of spending money.
Lee
No, exactly.
Davinder
Sponsorship has been the big financial pillar for WP Weekly, obviously there’s affiliate income as well on the side. But then there are other two verticals that happens in WP Weekly. One, again, is the WP Awards, which has, again, quadruple It has just gone up and up every year. And the other is the Black Friday deals listing and all that. So there are deals listing page on a lot of websites, but on WP Weekly, it’s the massive and the most simple one. I prefer to keep things simple and big.
Lee
Well, actually on that then, folks, this episode is being recorded on the 26th of November, and we’ll be going live on the 27th of November. If you are listening before Black Friday or on Black Friday, you can go ahead and check the link in the show notes for all of Davinder incredible deals that he links to, which is really nicely organised as well with a categorization there at the top. You can go straight for back-end options or for hosting or SEO or whatever it is you want to go for. That’s all there. I do believe WP Weekly is also still open for voting?
Davinder
Oh, yes. Two days left, 48 hours left still.
Lee
48 hours. My mission is to be on that podcast list again one day if you’ve still got the podcast list because I’ve not been about WordPress for a long time. Have you got a podcast list? I’m scrolling down. This is a long I have a list of things to vote for. Oh, yeah, there you go. Podcasts as well. I want to be on that list next year, just saying.
Davinder
I’m sure you will be there.
Lee
I’m taking such a significant break that I don’t deserve to be on there right now, which is fine. Now, what you’ve shared with us, mate, and I just want to take a couple of takeaways here, is that you have led with your passion. Your passion is to create content on things that you are interested in. You’ve not gone at this for the money. You’ve gone at this for building something that you want to build for you. You’ve enjoyed the process of creating WP Weekly. It’s something you’re interested in. What’s happened is you’ve attracted people who are also interested in that. You’ve then mixed with the right folks who have spoken wisdom into you, like Kim Doyle, bless her, and you have been able to monetize that passion in a way community that allows you to continue to be free to do that thing that you love. I want to applaud you, mate, for building something that I think is highly valuable for the community. You’re clearly not trying to rip people off. You’re just trying to continue to build something that’s of value to the WordPress community, and you are making it pay in a fair way, which, again, I want to applaud you for.
Lee
It feels rare, I think, to find online folks doing it in such a respectful and non-greedy way. So please do take encouragement from that.
Davinder
Thank you so much.
Lee
Now, there are people listening who may be in the early days of, say, develop it, or maybe they just developed a plugin or a theme for WordPress, and they’re looking to promote that. And let’s face it, there are tens of thousands of plugins and themes across all these different sites. Obviously, there’s the the wordpress. Org website where all the plugins are there. But equally, there’s things like Envato elements and other third-party services that sell premium plugins, etc. How do you think somebody could start to promote their product in this 2025 competitive day and age?
Davinder
The biggest problem with developers who are hard core developers, they think we’ll develop a plugin and it will sell automatically. That’s me. But the reality is developing a plugin is only 30% of the job done. 70% is all about marketing and selling. The first step from a developer perspective The first step for selling a plugin is conversion and making a sale, which actually is not the case. The first step, if you want to sell your plugin, is visibility, connexion, go out, hang out where WordPress people or the people who probably will buy your product, hang out there, solve their problems, tell them that I’ve created a solution in the form of a plugin, go there, be a nice person, solve someone’s problem, and they will automatically buy. So it’s like the first step is visibility, interaction, and then education, and then comes the conversion. So there are three, four steps for the conversion, and that is what most developers or most product creators don’t want to do, especially the new ones, because they don’t want to do because they don’t know about it. Giving, again, an example of the WP Weekly, I get emails from a lot of new developers who have created their first product, and I share it like a normal…
Davinder
It’s like, I don’t charge them. Everything that happens on WP Weekly is free. There’s nothing paid there. Obviously, there’s sponsorship slots. Those are separate things, but every content is free. The biggest validation I get, I still remember I got an email from a person That person just wrote one article related to WordPress on his website, and he said, Can you share this article? I found that article very interesting. I said, Yeah, I’ll share it. Within three days, he replied to my email, You know what? My small little website never had 200 hits in a day. How did that happen? I said, Wow. You know that thank you thing? Just he said, Thank you, and that is more than enough for me, to be honest. It’s just helping it because it will also give him encouragement that he wrote something useful. Now it’s time to up the game, maybe write something even better. It lifts the whole ecosystem.
Lee
That’s phenomenal. Where could people go? I mean, especially, say, WordPress plugin developers and theme, themed developers, et cetera. When you say you turn up where people are, are you talking physically at events or are you talking more online via, say, Facebook groups where you and I met?
Davinder
It depends on your comfort level. Online and offline, both works. I never attended WordCamps when you were there five, six years back. I actually started attending WordCamps only four or five years back. Prior to that, I always thought that attending WordCamp was a waste of time. But once I started it, it’s like eye opener. Now, I make sure I attend at least two or three WordCamps every year. I’ve never missed WordCamp Asia. I attended all three iterations of it. I also attend here in their local WordCamps. They have game changer for me because the connection, once you meet a person in a physical one, two, face-to-face, that you take that connexion online and there’s more trust, there’s more credibility. Anyone who’s listening, if you can afford, because again, when you’re new, you don’t have that financial backing also to attend the bigger word games because it gets expensive to travel and hotel and all that. But you can definitely start by attending local word games and interact with people, interact with the people representing agencies, learn from them.
Lee
I think some people may think that that sounds like an awful lot of work. What would you say into that?
Davinder
Well, nothing comes easy in life, does it? Yes.
Lee
Carry on, sorry.
Davinder
Yeah, because, again, if you’re making a WordPress plugin or a product, make sure you also have a passion behind it. If you’re just doing it for the money’s sake, then it’s going to be DOA, dead on arrival Yes, that is so true.
Lee
I released, was it yesterday, episode 395 of this podcast where I share my journey about Trailblazer FM. Long story short, and folks go and listen to it for a bit more detail. But long story short is that I started this podcast for what you and I are doing. We’re having a chat. I’m asking you questions about things that I’m personally interested in, and I’m learning from you, which is phenomenal. I used to love doing that. It’s also not video, it’s just audio. It’s like having a telephone conversation with a friend. I’ve got a nice hot cup of tea here with me and we’re having a great chat. This is what it was all about for me. But when it grew and people were encouraging me to monetize, et cetera, the podcast itself and all the community and everything all became about, All right, how do I grow this? How do I get more and more people in so that we can sell courses and sell memberships and sell tickets to events? My heart wasn’t in I slogged and slogged and slogged away, but my heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t passionate about that. I always missed those early days of those nice relaxing chats, et cetera.
Lee
Eventually, I actually closed the podcast down in 2023. We’re now back. I go listen to 395 as to why, but it’s very much that passion. If the passion is missing, you’re not going to make the money. If you’re making the plugin because you’ve got a good idea and you think you’re going to make bank really, really quick, Unfortunately, that ain’t going to happen.
Davinder
I remember you launched a membership called Agency Transformation, and it had a lot of membership and courses and all that.
Lee
It was good, and it was valuable to people. I enjoyed doing it initially, but it just became such a facing. I was having to constantly output content, et cetera, and show up as well as run my own business, et cetera. It was just all far too much My heart was just in this, a nice honest chat with a mate, and it wasn’t really all about all of that stuff. But I think that’s the mistake, isn’t it, that people make. They think they have to do all sorts of other things or they think they have to grow by economies of scale. You shared right at the very beginning that your small list for pro…
Davinder
It was called ProBeaver.
Lee
Beaver Pro. That small list was ridiculously valuable to you because it was a super niche product.
Davinder
Absolutely. As you grow old, as you get more mature, you want to do less things, but more impactful things. This comes naturally. If you ask a 20-year-old person, that person will have altogether different view of the world and different way of thinking that they want to do everything. Obviously, they have physical energy and mental energy, but once you cross 40 years old, you just don’t want to waste energy on things that you don’t feel worth like.
Lee
I think this podcast should be called Two Old Men because I agreed with everything you just said. I like nothing better than to stay at home and relax.
Davinder
Oh, yes. But occasionally, Original travel for talking to WordPress people at a WordCamp is my interest area now because you can talk that WordPress, CSS, and all the technical jargon with them because all these things are for talking to people at home. We need some people who can understand your Lingo.
Lee
Yeah, that’s true. My wife really is not interested in WordPress plugins. Now, speaking of WordPress, is there any Anything, any plugin, any company or any event that’s happening right now that’s really piqued your interest?
Davinder
Well, WordCamp Asia is coming up and I’m excited about it. Next year is going to happen in India itself, so I don’t need to travel really far to attend it. I’m excited about WordCamp Asia. I have not attended WordCamp Europe and US yet, but I am thinking of attending one, either or one, probably next year. Because again, I would always advise people, if you can afford it, attend at least one of the three flagship events, which is WordCamp US, Europe, and Asia. You will learn a lot, not by just listening to awesome speakers and sessions, but a lot of conversation and real conversations and connexions happens in the side events, in the hallways, in the sponsor booth. You will just love it. I know some people are a little introvert. They don’t want to, but once you see the vibe in a word camp, all the shyness will go away. You will automatically say, Hello, let’s start a conversation.
Lee
Now, on the introverted side, and believe it or not, the reason I like sitting not on camera is because I am slightly introverted myself and I do find events overwhelming. I do understand, at least in the UK, the Europe events, et cetera, that they were creating space for people who maybe feel a little overwhelmed or anxious, et cetera, or don’t mix well with large groups of people so that they can go ahead and go and hide and feel safe, et cetera. Do they do that over in the WordCamp Asia as well?
Davinder
Well, they’re not specifically designated places, but there are so many… Because WordCamp Asia and Europe and US happens on a big scale. There’s always a space where you can make your own group and talk. Plus, there are many side events. There are smaller side events, and you can just go to a side event and get less overwhelmed because the number of people are very less, and they have a specific targeted topic, a interaction. There’s so many ways you can do it. Plus, most of these flagship have two or three halls, and the sessions are running parallel. There’s always a place to go in one corner and talk, interact. I think everyone feels at home. Obviously, you will not like to talk to everyone because that’s human nature. But you can try talking to everyone and then find who you like or who you don’t.
Lee
That’s true. Also, if you knock around a few Facebook groups, you might meet a few people as well who are going. At least you then have someone that you can go and latch on as it were.
Davinder
You know what? I just want to point out one thing. A lot of people didn’t know me, right? When I attended WordCamp in the beginning, the WordCamp Asia and all that. For the what I did, I put WP Weekly under my badge name and I said, Oh, WP Weekly. I know WP Weekly, but I don’t know who you are, so now I know who you are.
Lee
Amazing. Wow. So the brand transcended because a lot of people are saying, Oh, you must do a personal brand. You are actually a really good example of somebody who’s been able to build a brand that’s recognisable without having to be the person who has to keep showing up. That was something I was very conscious of wpweekly.com, the wpweekly.com, does not have your face plastered everywhere.
Davinder
No, it doesn’t.
Lee
No, it is leading with WordPress and a simple brand, etc, which I think is phenomenal. Now, as we’re coming into land Mate, you mentioned really early on that you still use Beaver Builder. We still use Beaver Builder as well. We think it’s phenomenal. We also use It’s a mix as well for some of the more modern sites that we’re working on. But I’m interested from you, what is it about the Beaver Builder products that keeps you so loyal to it?
Davinder
Well, I’ve been hitting the update button on hundreds of websites for five, six years, and not a single website has broken on the hitting Update button. That says a lot about the stability of the product, firstly. Secondly, it does everything that I need to do to build a website. I always tell people if your tools, which is plugin or a page builder, is working on a foundational level, you don’t need to change it. Obviously, if someone new is coming to the ecosystem, he or she may not select Vivo Builder, he may select Bricks or something else, which is the newer generation page builder. But I think Vivo Builder is catching up really well. They’ve been switching from… They had post-module, right? Now they have a box module, so which is on flex-grade and all that. They’re also working on reducing the divification or less divs in the source code and all that. Because, again, people would compare so-called your favourite page builder with, say, what, say, Bricks is doing or something similar is doing. Everyone is catching up and Beaver Builder team is now working really well and putting out the limitations, taking off limitations that were there when they compare a Beaver Builder plugin, which is a legacy plugin compared to a modern.
Davinder
For me, maybe I’m a little old now. I don’t want to change, so I don’t know.
Lee
I’m with you there, mate. They’ve also added the post modules. Sorry, not post modules. They’ve added the post loops so that you can actually build really complex designs within a loop as well, I think, which is phenomenal. Something that has been baked into bricks for a long time. When I saw it was coming to Beaver Builder, I was very pleased and excited. I think I’ve often considered, I don’t know if you’re aware of Linux much, but I’ve often considered Beaver Builder to be the Debian of the Linux world. Debian meaning it’s the stable release that slowly iterates and they test everything really well and make sure it’s good, solid and stable. Then a lot of the other releases, like Arch and that, are the bleeding edge where things can break. They’ve got all the latest features, but things can break. As a business owner, my first choice is always, and this is not sponsored, by the way, folks, but this is just two guys here like BeaverBuilder talking about it. I always go back to BeaverBuilder for that stability.
Davinder
The funny part, I connected with a lot of BeaverBuilder users when I was running Pro Beaver, and I still talk to them here and there, and they are still using Beaver Builder, even though they were adding another page builder to their stack, but they still use Beaver Builder. It doesn’t break, so why change it?
Lee
Exactly that. We have to our stack, Beaver Builder and or bricks, and they are the only two we will use. But Beaver Builder, again, for that stability, and also for multisite because we do multi-site things, et cetera. It’s so extensible. The documentation is great. We’ve built so many of our own custom modules and logic, et cetera, and none of that’s broken. I mean, if you think about that, we developed some of these plugins five, six, seven years ago. Because Beaver Builder is so good and they’ve made sure their backwards compatibility is so good, nothing’s broken.
Davinder
It works on every hosting platform. It’s very light. It doesn’t hog your server resources as well.
Lee
I’m going to have to find an affiliate link. I’m sure I’ve got one somewhere. I think we’ve just sold a new generation on Beaver Builder.
Davinder
Well, while Lee Jackson finds affiliate link, you can go to Probeaver.com and get my affiliate link from there.
Lee
Probeaver.com. I did say episode 395, I did I can’t specifically say that I am not looking to monetize this podcast at all. I’ll pass you over to probeaver.com. Go check that out.
Davinder
I would still suggest you… I know there’s another this problem that is there in WordPress ecosystem, like Using affiliate link is something like you’re doing something evil thing. It’s not evil thing. I see some people who say, We don’t have any affiliate links on this website and all that. That is not a quality of your website, right? If you don’t have affiliate links. If you don’t want to make money, you want to work for free, that’s for you. Because those people don’t last, they vanish after two, three years because in the end, you still need money, right?
Lee
Absolutely.
Davinder
I would even tell you, if you’re not promoting some product, just use Affiliate Link.
Lee
Right. Well, Actually, I will find my affiliate link and pop it in there, and then, folks, you can choose. Although, yeah, very much for me, the whole point of Trailblazer FM was that when it became my job to earn money with it, it really soured it. I do want to very careful about what I do when it comes to generating any income. This is very much me right now hanging out with friends such as you and having a good chin wag. But, mate, we are coming to the end of our show. What is the best way for people to connect with you, other than physically at WordCamp Asia and any other WordCamps that you choose to attend? How can people follow what you’re up to? Then we shall say goodbye.
Davinder
Well, you can just remember one keyword that is iDavinder. I as in iPhone, followed by Davinder, D-A-V-I-N-D-E-R. You can go to idavinder.com. You will see a very old-looking Beaver Builder website there. Don’t get surprised. But you can go to a socials like Twitter, iDavinder, Facebook, LinkedIn, all iDavinder.
Lee
I am grateful that you called it Twitter.
Davinder
I still call it Twitter.
Lee
I don’t like change. It’s not X, it’s Twitter. Damn it. Mate, thank you so much for your time. It’s been great to hang out. I’m going to get this edited and we’ll upload it tomorrow. All that’s left for me to say is thank you and goodbye.
Davinder
Davinder
Thank you.
