Show notes
Brad Williams is the co-founder and CEO of WebDevStudios.com. He is also a co-author of the books Professional WordPress and Professional WordPress Plugin Development. Brad founded the Philly WordPress Meetup in 2010, co-organized the first five WordCamp Philly events, and also co-organized both WordCamp US events held in Philly. He has been developing websites for more than 20 years, including the last 10 where he has focused on open-source technologies like WordPress.Aaron: [Micah: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [[[Aaron: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [[Aaron: [Brad: [Aaron: [Micah: [Brad: [Micah: [Aaron: [Brad: [Micah: [Brad: [“I don’t mind writing a blog post… even if maybe I’m wrong because that’s one of the quickest ways to figure out if you’re wrong is to put it out there and let somebody tell you.” @williamsbaTweetMicah: [Brad: [Micah: [Brad: [15:46] It’s a great resource because it has it all in one spot. I still use it from time to time, I’ll pull up the PDF. People think that developers would know how to build with whatever system, that they just have all that knowledge, that they can get to it on the drop of a dime. And there are people out there like that, but it’s not common. We can’t remember all this stuff, but we know where to find it. We have a rough idea of what we’re looking for. I mean, I’m sure you guys have heard it. Any one in technology probably excels at Google. Because that’s what we do. We find. We don’t always have the answer, but we know how to find it. We know how to look it up, to sift through the garbage until we find the right answer and how to implement that into what we’re doing. Same type of thing. It’s a great resource for people. You can read it top to bottom or you can just flip right to the section you need to know about. Definitely something I’d like to dust off and look at doing a new edition for soon with Gutenberg out the door finally.“Any one in technology probably excels at Google. Because that’s what we do. We find. We don’t always have the answer, but we know how to find it.” @williamsbaTweetMicah: [Brad: [16:50] It wasn’t like something I had on my list of things I wanted to do, like this big kind of pie in the sky list of whatever goals for myself and my career. It was really kind of random. I remember Matt Mullenweg, he put out a blog post about it like, “Hey, O’Reilly’s looking for some authors. If you’re interested, contact Carol.” I had her information. I thought, “Why not?” I just shot her an email and said, “Hey, I’d love to. This is what I got.” I had been blogging on my site pretty regularly for a few years at that point. I’m not so much these days, but back then I was. Basically, as I was learning things, I was writing about it. “Hey, this is how you do X, Y, Z in WordPress”, or, “Are you trying to do this? This is how you do it.” I was just writing about it for my own knowledge and to share. That’s really all it took. I showed that to her and she’s like, “Great! Here, talk to this guy. He’s leading it up.” Then I got signed on to it and away we went. Really just kind of right place at the right time. I threw my hat in the ring. I don’t know how many people I was up against.[17:50] David, Hal, and myself wrote the first edition and it went really well. It was definitely a big learning experience, writing and having deadlines and it took a lot of work. Like I said, I had to research so much stuff and make sure that it was the absolute best that I could make it at the time because I didn’t want to put out something that was obviously terrible or incorrect or just garbage because that would reflect badly on me, reflect badly on the company and it’s worked really well. So it was a fun ride for sure.Micah: [Brad: [[“I was okay with taking a step back [from development and becoming the CEO] because honestly every developer at the company at the time was better than me, and that was on purpose.” @williamsbaTweet[Micah: [Brad: [21:55] No. I mean honestly, like one of the— Is worst the right word? I guess. One of the worst parts of the job is dealing with personnel issues, maybe co-workers not working well together, things like that. You have to deal with them, but it just feels like it’s just something that shouldn’t exist. I just wish whatever drama didn’t exist and it’s taking my focus away from the more important stuff. The more people you have, the more you grow, you’re going to run into it. You’re going to run into issues that you never expected. Whatever it may be, things will happen that you couldn’t have even predicted and you have to be ready to figure it out. And ultimately, especially when you’re at the top, you’re going to make those decisions and you have to stand by them. You have to live with it. It’s a hard job because you have to sometimes make the tough decisions that maybe not everybody at the company agree with. Just a tough call. I mean, the worst thing you have to do is let people go, right? Firing somebody is the worst thing in the world. But, I do it and I’ve done it and it’s just part of the job. If you’re not able to do something like that, then you shouldn’t be in that position.[“I’m doing what’s best for the company, what’s best for my team and their families… and sometimes that is making those tough decisions.” @williamsbaTweetAaron: [Brad: [24:22] A good example, look at Jason Cohen over at WP Engine. He was a founder of the company, really grew it from a startup to a legit, real player in the hosting space for WordPress managed hosting. There you go, WP Engine mug. Ultimately, he decided that his passion is on the technology side, not the CEO administrative side, and made the decision to bring in a CEO, Heather, to run the company and he became CTO so he could focus on what was his passion and where he felt his value was best for the company. I think that is a perfect example of somebody making that hard decision of, “I know I started this company, but it doesn’t mean I need to be at the very top.” He’s still obviously an executive officer. He’s still a C-level officer. He’s still very much in charge but he’s focused on what he’s passionate about, which is the technology side of the house. And I thought, obviously that was the right call because that was years ago and now they’re this huge company that has a whole building in Austin, so they’re doing amazing. I look at that as a really good example of someone who had that conversation with themselves and realized, “This isn’t the best spot for me. So let me get to where my value is the best to make this company succeed and let somebody else run that part of the house.”Aaron: [Micah: [Brad: [[[Aaron: [Brad: [Micah: [Brad: [Micah: [Brad: [[“We’re not trying to be everything to everybody. We do WordPress, 100%.” @williamsbaTweet[32:16] There was definitely luck and I think there always has to be a little bit of luck anytime you start a company, like in any industry, but you just have to do it. Like I said, it’s the easy thing to say, right? Everyone’s like, “Just do it. Just get out there and do it.” The only reason I made it work is because I did dive in headfirst. I didn’t just dip my toe in while I kept my full-time job, my cushy job, and my house in Indianapolis. I quit my job, I sold my house. A twenty-two hundred square foot house. I went to move into the loft with my buddy. It was like resetting my life at like twenty-eight, moving to a different state where I only knew one person. But if I didn’t do that, I don’t think this would’ve ever happened. I don’t think it would have worked. So sometimes if you’re truly passionate about it, “just do it” is good advice. Just jump in headfirst because then there is no other option except for success. And you know that.“If you’re truly passionate, “just do it” is good advice. Just jump in headfirst because then there is no other option except for success.” @williamsbaTweetMicah: [Brad: [Aaron: [Brad: [33:33] Definitely check out our website, webdevstudios.com. For the devs out there, we have a really, really great blog. I’m really proud of the content we produce because it’s, again, another way that we like to give back is we allow our engineers time to actually pick topics that interest them. Maybe some new technologies they’re playing with, maybe existing technologies and how they’re using them differently. But there’s some amazing content and we’re pumping out articles every single week. If you’re a dev, if you’re an agency owner, there’s really great stuff out there for you. It’s not just promotional stuff. And on Twitter, I am @williamsba.Aaron: [Brad: [The full content for Brad Williams (WebDevStudios) can be viewed on WP Square One.



