hey what's going on
welcome to the Doug show its Doug
Pennington here and in this episode I
interview Chris Pearson of DIY themes
DIY themes is the creator of thesis
which is the theme that I use on a niche
site project I've been using it since
the beginning and I really like it and
in the past several months Chris has
released what's called a skin which lays
on top of the foundation of thesis they
don't worry about the technical details
their focus is like a new sort of
minimalist skin that lays on top of
thesis in the past couple months I have
implemented and started using focus a
hundred percent I was using a couple
page builders or one page builder in
particular to do like landing pages and
a couple other things but I decided to
get away from that so Chris and I talked
a lot about that and I won't it's not a
sales pitch for for focus by any means
I'm not an affiliate or anything like
that but this interview was very
interesting for several reasons so
within a few minutes Chris and I
realized that we went to the same
College which is kind of cool I ran the
same time period and then I didn't know
this ahead of time but you know Chris
was pretty instrumental in like
WordPress and premium themes back in the
day so I mean I started using WordPress
in 2013 by then Chris had already been
you know working on WordPress and
creating themes for like six seven eight
year or something like that then it was
partially like a like therapy session
for me to just hear someone talk about
their experiences as an entrepreneur and
Chris runs a very lean team we talk
about that and just I mean through the
years he's only had a few people working
with him in generally he like right now
he's doing the actual customer support
for his customers which is kind of crazy
knowing how many
rumors are out there for him so yeah
it's amazing I think I mentioned it in
the interview but a few weeks ago I had
a couple questions
I opened the ticket sent it in Chris
responded back to me like personally and
I was like that's Chris doing his own
support he is and that is one of the
cool things like you get support
directly from the developer and
obviously he knows exactly what's going
on and can help you out so anyway it was
it was very cool and at the end it's
awesome all right so at the end I asked
Chris about some mistakes that he's made
and just some things that he can share
mistakes so he gave several tips and I
feel like they can almost stand alone as
their own episode or something like that
so I may pull that out I mean it's
pretty awesome advice that Chris gives
so without further ado I'm gonna send it
over to the interview and I encourage
you to check out DIY themes comm what's
up Doug Huntington here I'm with Chris
Pearson of DIY themes welcome Chris yo
good to be here it is a pleasure to talk
to you we were just chatting right
before I hit record and I've been a fan
of thesis and DIY themes for years I've
been using it since the beginning so
thanks for putting out a good product
hey you're welcome
thanks for using it so for the people
that don't know you can you give us an
intro a little bit about your background
and maybe a little about DIY themes
alright so short versions kind of tough
to do I guess I guess people would think
of me as a as a coder and software
developer software engineer I got my
start at least in this version of my
life I got my start with WordPress back
in 2005 as a designer and at the time
that was sort of like the kind of like
the early version like the early growth
of blogging okay so there's a lot of
demand for design it was kind of wild
wild west sort of landscape and just
just all
this demand there was all this people
wanted to take action nobody really knew
how I knew how to put the pieces
together and so I had you know kind of
was able to build my profile during that
time when there was a just a demand for
anyone who was thirsty like me to kind
of learn how to do this stuff and going
you know it's starting as a designer you
know you're always delivering pretty
pictures to people essentially you're
delivering stuff that makes people happy
you say oh this is a look I like and it
was that sort of value exchange that
define my early work and pretty soon I
realized that that stuff didn't go that
far you know you just you satisfy one
client but then 50 people who view the
site don't really care for it you
realize that you've only delivered
something for one person and that that
may not have any extended use beyond
that there may not be any other
application for what you've built and
therefore so like looking at it through
that lens I've started to kind of feel
like everything I had done was sort of
worthless even if the person liked it or
I got paid like I didn't really care
about that I cared about the larger
implication of the value exchange which
I felt like was lacking and so that that
kind of got me through design work I
started dealing with WordPress themes
and then sort of having this realization
that design was was essentially
worthless I mean it really pretty much
is to some extent custom design is
largely worthless and this will be a
theme that we'll touch on a little bit
later I think but um so I started using
the mechanics of themes to deliver more
long-standing value God and that has
that I'm still on that path right so you
got started in about 2005 and for the
actually for the ignorant people like
myself when did WordPress like roll out
when like the first iterations of the
what the fork is only WordPress was
really like 2003 okay um until I'll say
until early 2006 like January of 2006
movable-type was actually the number one
blogging platform all the big big
bloggers at the time used movable type
and then there became an awareness
through this this demand for
customization and whatnot you know there
was a demand for this customization
movable-type was very clunky and so
wordpress was a little bit easier to
customize at the time but the thing that
really tipped it in favor of wordpress
cuz movable-type was paid it was like 99
bucks WordPress was free so you think
WordPress would have been a leader that
was not the case
movable-type was the leader because all
the players were using it well what
happened is there became this this SEO
event horizon people start to realize
they need to modify their HTML markup to
be standards compliant and Google would
reward these sites so became like a gold
rush to deliver HTML with with SEO SEO
enhanced HTML this was almost impossible
to do with movable type it was way more
expensive to do with movable type and
WordPress made that much easier there's
a lot less friction on that pathway and
that really is what was the death knell
for movable-type and what you launch
WordPress into the popularity we see now
got it
interesting interesting and then from
your designer days so you're doing like
custom design for folks and then you
were like this is not scalable in a way
that is helping people and stuff like
that and that impact wasn't good enough
you know once the work was done it was
an artifact it was essentially already
dead
I hated that gotcha and you really
probably couldn't really use it because
it's proprietary to forever
sure just limited application always
working in this very idiosyncratic space
that's not really how we solve problems
any type of you know not for an engineer
right
definitely what am i doing I have an
engineering degree it's not in software
but it should've been yeah yeah well I
was gonna say what's your education
background uh well my specific college
degree is in mechanical engineering but
I actually think my education background
is more rooted in and in my high school
which wasn't competitive and and
probably significantly better than any
college was ever going to be or uh
which whether your science was in high
school classes and that was sort of
latent knowledge that I had even working
with WordPress and I sort of avoided
digging into the deep PHP of WordPress
for a very long time because I kind of
knew what a huge can of worms that was
going to be and I knew that it would
arrest me completely
and then once I finally did dig into
that you know is like all of this latent
energy and and knowledge I had was sort
of unleash and that's and I'm still in
that space today interesting and what
I'm just curious like what or where did
you go to high school and then where'd
you go to college if you want it I went
to high school called Saint Xavier in
Louisville Kentucky it's a private
Catholic High School's all-boys so as
competitive as you might imagine yeah
there's nothing else to do no girls to
hit on but you can fight with each other
and then I went to college at Georgia
Tech you did I did man I went to Georgia
Tech - amazing oh yeah 3:03 I crazy okay
so I was a copy and I graduated in
December of oh three so we perhaps Klaus
pants yeah probably so uh you know one
of the most interesting experiences and
I actually talked about this on Twitter
and in social media today when we were
there
CES was a required Gen ed class for
everyone in the school I don't recall
any other class giving people as much
fear and problems as that class uh when
I was a freshman drinking was sort of
the main hobby for everybody in my dorm
and I would get completely hammered and
tutor my residence hall on CS because
they were so bad I was so bad like I you
know how to sit in that class and
everybody else is like you know 40%
failing miserably can't deal with
pseudocode or any of those concepts I
always thought that was very interesting
because I felt like it was a
psychologically situation where people
were psychologically they were psyched
out yeah because I don't think the
concepts are really that bad but for
some reason people seem to have a very
difficult time grasping some of this
stuff that I think is like a 1 or 0 like
it really is pretty basic it's just a
different way of thinking and if you're
not open to it if you're scared of it
then you're definitely never cracking
that wall yet that's school that's a
formative thing for me just seeing all
the pain and the fear that people had
over this it's like hey that's feel
secure in my job because of this it's so
true 15:01 and 15:02 yeah it is y-you
remember the numbers oh yeah yeah yeah
my wife my wife went there too so we
like recall some of those classes from
back in the day that's like wow small
world
okay well moving on to thesis
focus can you tell us when you got
started with thesis and kind of so I did
you so I'm still in the design mostly in
the design space in 2007 I was still
doing freelance work but I was really
really disenchanted with it and in the
fall of 2007 on a string of previous
theme successes so let's back the clock
up a little bit in 2006 late 2006 early
2007 I guess I I'm not sure the exact
date I could find out from my site but i
released a theme called cut line it was
a free wordpress theme that was adapted
for wordpress.com and i had had another
theme before that that was pretty
popular that was adapted for
wordpress.com then my cut line theme
became very popular very fast it
immediately shot to number one on
wordpress.com it was the most used theme
in the world very quickly after its
release it was sort of a very Spartan
New York Times II kind of look and in
the fall of 2007 after I had sold off
cut line to a different group I'm kind
of tired of tired of running it and it
was it was sort of becoming a big
support thing and I was like let's just
ditch it
I built sort of even more New York Times
II style design that became the the look
that has been associated with thesis
forever the classic you know sort of
Romanesque type layout with a you know a
serif font and you know three New York
Times you looking just go look at the
New York Times homepage you'll see what
the original design was and so I built
that in 2007 and then like while I was
building this I was like man I want to
sell a premium theme which wasn't really
being done at the time and doing that
was much harder than I that I realized
like setting up a store especially back
then I was like oh my god so I spent
probably four months will say December
through March of a 7 208 overlap finally
got that store working and then launched
thesis with like basically no features
on March 29th 2008 and that sort of was
I think there was a couple others that
were for sale prior to that but that was
really sort of the birth of the premium
theme market and then in after three
months of struggling in July of 2000
2008 I launched an affiliate program and
partner with Copyblogger comm and that
blew the lid off the whole thing that
started everything we know today it all
started right in with that partnership
and made a ton of sales thisis was very
popular for like three and a half years
after that got it and I think when I got
thisis back in 2013
I remember seeing all the testimonials
and it was I think there was a lot of
people that got started in that window
where it blew up and I was like oh I
half of those people and yes it's like
oh pretty much everyone who's been
anyone in blogging the last 12 years has
had some contact with it at some point
yeah pretty cool so the the big the big
thing was like hooking up with
Copyblogger and in launching an
affiliate program for that there I don't
believe there had ever been another
affiliate program run on four themes and
so with affiliate marketing it was
usually small margins on a lot of
products like you know you get paid a
$2.00 referral for somebody buying like
a women's hair product or something like
that and then the opposite and that was
like a web hosting referral this was
where people like web type people
bloggers were making the most money was
off these web hosting referrals but even
so your volume is limited because that's
a big purchase and then you have to sell
a bunch of little purchases themes came
in right in the middle I get 30 bucks
per sale for affiliates and that
actually filled in a nice gap and that
just opened the floodgates big time I
mean that was a huge revenue opportunity
for people who wanted to sell the growth
of those themes and like the demand and
everything for them just really it
launched a whole new marketplace worth
millions and millions of dollars Wow
amazing and you were just good timing
and like showing up at the right time so
I mean a lot of the success that's been
attributed to thisis I mean it was the
best product in the space at the time
and absolutely placed a ton of trails
custom CSS files quarantine PHP type
customizations all these things
kind of stuff that I pioneered early on
I've even got posts from my old blog in
like 2006 advocating for custom CSS and
that type of thing but uh so what was
the original question there cuz I kinda
get on was there oh you know what I I
don't I don't even remember either you
were you were telling me a story and I
started riffing got up got off course
couldn't can recall it the original
slant was that's that's totally fine so
I guess moving forward I'm curious about
like setting up like the company and
like running it as far as like all of a
sudden it seems like you were kind of a
one-man shop for a little while you
started scaling a little bit you
mentioned support being a bit of an
issue so when it when thesis blew up how
did you handle your company so it's kind
of interesting I a big theme that I
haven't really returned to in some time
but it's still definitely true is this
idea of gravity okay so for me this in
this sense the use of the term gravity
means like you are you were undertaking
some activity producing all this energy
putting some output out there and stuff
is gonna find you by weight of your
gravity by the sheer force of what you
were doing you will pull things in you
will attract things that could be
helpful you can track the right kinds of
energy you also attract a lot of the
wrong kinds of energy but I pulled from
what I was attracting for help in the
early day so I had people who were eager
to provide support and wanted to because
they want to learn the platform they
want to help people they felt like they
had some knowledge and so opportunity
and so I played to that in the early
days with uh with my support like
probably the second half of Oh 8 I was
doing everything up until then I'm still
doing almost everything until early 2009
and then I started to get a little more
aggressive with development so that you
know that if you if you're into
development you're also into testing and
that is of taking a lot of time and it's
nice to be able to develop like in a
vacuum without having to hear a bunch of
signals because you're gonna get a lot
of wires crossing it because very hard
to make decisions so I sort of started
to quarantine myself and I had in the
early days I had three people come to me
through
you know just by virtue of what I was
doing and they were you know very
helpful and significant parts the
company for a long time so I just it was
just sort of organic in that way all
right
yeah and I was gonna say just from some
of the work that I do I know like email
support and that sort of thing I can
appreciate what you're saying you need
to be quarantine so your mind can do
what it needs to do without so many
distractions and maybe you have a bad
egg in there every now and then that's
driving you crazy
they're always that's what happens it's
inevitable inevitable if you're
contacting people that's what's gonna
happen it's really remarkable that even
I even got through those early days that
anyone did quite frankly because it
seems to me that over the last decade
people's desires have increased and
their ability and willingness to tackle
them themselves has decreased so we've
had trends moving in opposite directions
in the early days everyone was sort of
that pioneering and had this sort of
like gunslinger mentality that they were
gonna you know get in there and hammer
on some things and make it work and that
actually uh that actually was something
of a pressure relief valve even though
the landscape really didn't support it
at all like it was much harder to
customize back in the day interesting
interesting so fast-forwarding to sort
of current day can you tell us about
focus and I'm just gonna throw out some
some of the sort of tag lines and stuff
optimized for speed speed and clarity
visitor first approach and I'm just
gonna let you Kris talk about that stuff
right we got it we got to have a segue
to lead into this reality to answer
those questions so we go back to 2010
okay
this there was a big blowup on social
media I did an interview with Andrew
Warner of mixergy comm I did an
interview with him and we talked about
the success of the system and like the
growth of WordPress themes and
apparently I don't remember exactly the
mechanics of it but I think Matt
Mullenweg of WordPress reached out to
Andrew and was like I'd like to respond
to this or to talk about you know stuff
that he found unsavory that Andrew and I
had spoken about basically he wanted to
attack me over the licensing of thesis
and the reality was thesis never even
had a software license and also
disclaimer for audience
nobody cares about software licenses
you're probably hearing this thing who
gives a damn and you're right who does
give a damn nobody that's the true
answer that question but in reality in
back in 2010 I was kind of uh publicly
lambasted for this and thesis never had
a software license never had a software
license I sold like six million dollars
worth of product with no self license
probably I mean like four million
wouldn't know software license and and
then I was attacked publicly for this
and I don't like being attacked and I'm
certainly not going to be get attacked
and then just amend my behavior you know
like after the attack oh come to Jesus
moment I recant you know please please
resolve me of my sins let me just do the
right thing so you stop attacking me I'm
never gonna behave that way it's just
never gonna happen and and so you know
you know if you bite me in public I'm
gonna bite back and some people didn't
like the optics of that other people did
which is interesting you know I prefer a
guy who sticks by his guns when he's
under duress
that's not everybody's cup of tea
especially if you already have favorites
going in but what happened in the wake
of this was that it uh completely
destroyed version one of my business
because shattered it and then caused
some course corrections to occur so
needless to say this happened in July of
2010 so I've been doing a lot of
thinking between like July of 2010 in
the end of that year it had become
apparent to me through my continued
development work with thesis that so
what I was attempting to do was to
provide a foundation that could be
infinitely modified to into any flavor
you want while retaining performance
putting that first not committing these
performance sins that just are hallmarks
of WordPress themes and have been for so
long so I wanted to commit no
performance ends I wanted to be kept
standing I want to give Google and other
search engines exactly what they wanted
with no BS I mean exactly
not like it would be nice if no I want
to be this so I did not want to
compromise on the the code underneath
you know what was under the hood I
wanted a perfect engine and then like I
said I want to be infinitely customized
but the the way that the landscape had
been up to that point we would not
accommodate this that was not going to
be possible and there were also some
definite other points of leverage that
were going to be available at the code
level that had never been done and I saw
these opportunities I began to you know
really have a good vision of what that
might look like and so that was it that
was pressing on me pretty hard I could
have continued with the current course
which was very successful and still at
the time even though I said my company
sort of my course got corrected there
and I had to make some other decisions
the company was still very very
successful I was selling like six
thousand dollars worth of product today
it's ridiculous
but you know like I said I didn't care
about that I cared about like trying to
solve these problems that's what was
eating at me it wasn't like oh how do I
maintain these sales I didn't care and
so I said about refactoring what thesis
was like like in building this engine to
do these things I just described you
know to make it so that you wouldn't
have to modify the core to make it so
that your customizations would be
bulletproof
etc etc and what happened was that ended
up being a to really and also like a
three-year journey of building and
testing this thing and it right know
what it was when I started building it
and then when I was done I realized what
I had done was completely replaced the
WordPress theme system and the reality
of this situation is the WordPress theme
system is a single file with a big
if-then statement if this then this if
this then this and that if then
statement that runs the WordPress theme
system I'm saying using quotes because
there's no system at all is reliant on
the naming of files that exist in the
active theme folder like categories -
whatever for a specific categories
template I mean it is the most non
system system in the world if you know
anything about computer science is a
sham and so I replaced one file with a
terrible offense statement and a faulty
file naming convention with an
object-oriented modular piece of
software to deliver templates and thus
themes and also styles and everything
that goes along with that it ended up
being a monumental undertaking in fact
it's probably
with the exception of like you know the
editor to do to do content it's probably
the most most difficult functional piece
and like the the biggest and most
important because this you know that
your HTML code is your website you know
I mean it is and how well you can
customize it how well you can integrate
things like really built the thing you
know I realized when I finished that
like why didn't this exist in WordPress
before why had no one done this oh who
has three years of time and this sort of
insane determination to achieve that
outcome you know I only had that much
time because the company was making so
much money right that's real talk
couldn't have done it if it wasn't
printing money could not have done wow
so that was there was it's not years oh
good sorry so I I rolled out so this was
this was real bad this is an interesting
story
uh I I talked about this publicly
because you know I talk about what I'm
doing I always have and unfortunately
showed talk about what I was doing but I
didn't have the foresight to know this
and so talking about it you know I was
talking about this probably in December
of 2010 on social media and so fomenting
this idea that tea substitute was going
to be a thing and everyone loved thisis
one so it was like well let's see what
you know the the godfather of the theme
space is going to come up with next and
so there's a lot of expectation and a
lot of anticipation for what I might do
well that drag going all the way through
2011 I worked on at the whole year I
rented an office at some point I think
in late 2011 and hired a developer and
really tried to take it full-time
because I just knew what was in front of
me and and continued to work on it all
the way through 2012 we did this big
marketing push
I had Derek Halpern of
socialtriggers.com doing all my content
and all my marketing at the time and he
really wanted something new to market
like he was chomping at the bit who
could blame him you know I mean we've
got this huge customer list we got all
this enthusiasm like definitely let's
capitalize on this so I was on board
with that but what happened was this
dragged out over such a long period of
time that people get frustrated and in
addition to that trying to create some
of these more capitalize on some of
these marketing opportunities that just
naturally occurred as a result of all
this
creates external pressure to deliver and
but the problem is with marketing you
have to have a date right just be an
open-ended promise it has to occur at a
time that way everyone can that's how it
works unfortunately when you're
developing something that you don't even
totally understand the scope of and how
could you because there was nothing that
existed prior to this you know what I
mean it's not like you just look at and
say oh this is exactly what we need it
was never like that there's always some
new wart to uncover with WordPress it
seems
and so this development just dragged on
and on and on and finally when we
decided to put a date on it you know we
really aimed for October 1st 2012 it
always seemed like that was gonna be
achievable but the reality was it was
not and even when something seems
achievable you know like in my life
honestly like at nine months yeah maybe
add more and that sounds crazy to people
but like this is the reality this is a
reality of developing and testing and
engineering and throwing stuff against
the wall I'm trying to figure it out
especially if you're you're forging new
territory that has not been forged
before and so what happened with that is
that all this anticipation happened
thesis 2 was released well before it
should have been it actually what people
could use when I delivered it actually
had fewer options and fewer flex less
flexibility than what people had been
accustomed to before so from an end-user
perspective this is a failure I don't
understand the mechanisms underneath
this I don't care I care about what I
can use and what's relevant to me and
what I am seeing is not a good thing and
I sympathize with that viewpoint
completely and those people were correct
in their assessment and what happened
was because of this there was a terrible
terrible negative cascading effect as a
result people became discontent
I was working feverishly to make changes
and to continue to try and bring this
thing to light and I'm still hanging you
know in the reality was I kept hammering
away at this thing non-stop until July
of 2013 so another good like nine months
after I the release date but during that
nine months which got hammered with
negativity I mean it was like literally
nothing but negativity there was almost
no positivity at all the only people who
are positive or people who really
understood the WordPress theme
environment like
grasped what I had built and what I was
attempting to achieve but those people
don't pay the bills and what happened
but what really sucked and I this has
become a theme here lately because I've
been talking about affiliates what
really sucked is when the big affiliates
abandon me they abandon me because my
product was no longer selling as easily
or as frictionlessly and all the chatter
around it is negative it's just not
worth if you're an affiliate it's not
worth fighting an uphill battle all you
sell the hot stuff that's all you sell
but and I think I think that moment was
actually pivotable pivotal for the
entire WordPress marketplace not just
for my business you know that that
really signaled a shift away from from
my products mm-hmm
because nobody's gonna wait and see what
I came up with after the fact it was
just thesis Tuesday failure . then that
was sort of the narrative that that
became real now I kept working at it
because I knew it wasn't failure not at
all it delivered it enabled me to
deliver a much greater degree of
flexibility that I'm finally
capitalizing on today which we will get
there just a little bit however um what
happened when affiliates abandoned me
and started favoring other stuff as it
really became clear that they were
favoring exactly what the the salvo that
the market you know wanted right now
they were market was foaming at the
mouth for specific looks and then there
was this idea there's another theme
called headway that sort of started this
and I was working towards this well
actually when I started making thesis
ooh I thought it was gonna make a
drag-and-drop editor for design that's
what I thought I was gonna build when I
got into the process of doing that and
actually working with something like
that I realized that doesn't work it
doesn't work
everything's an idiosyncratic snowflake
you have no systematic level of control
over anything like I said everything's
an idiosyncrasy do syncretic you're
dragging a box out to this width on this
particular template well it doesn't
apply to every template and then you're
adding an idiosyncratic CSS for this
particular thing you've got spacing
that's off you guys sizing the top
you've got all these you know problems
that are inherent to that type of editor
so I abandoned that very early on when I
realized what the problems were but that
line of thinking was intuitive and so
that's what everyone began to build
that's what began to sell that's what
affiliates began
to push it was a snowball effect that
led us to the page builders and stuff
that we have today now I would never sit
here and deny that those things are
useful for people in the sense that they
enable people who don't know anything to
deliver some an outcome on a webpage the
problem with the outcome random outcome
on a webpage is that it actually has to
work it actually has to load in under 10
seconds it actually has to be
configurable if you ever want to change
anything in the future and that's where
the problems start to arise and anyone
who's dealt with these things gonna be
like oh yeah I see what he's talking
about here I totally get that I ran to
that same brick wall and and that that
whole momentum from that still exists
today and only recently and I think
pretty much because of my messaging
starting in the second half of last year
we're fighting back against that because
it's just not the right answer it
creates these untenable situations where
you have a frank incite that you can no
longer control or manage it's slow its
clunky like people might be come to me
all the time my sites alone like I can't
help you yet
layers of crap so many layers of crap
you you just could never afford to pay
me what it would take to undo this and
and then there's another problem I spoke
about in so many other videos but it's
like freelance design is not what it was
freelance development is not what it was
10 years ago
everyone who's worth a damn has migrated
to an agency where they have a cushy
salary and they have better gigs
agencies aren't gonna touch it if you
don't have $25,000 so at least this
massive hole so you can either take some
some bottom you know bottom feeder off
Fiverr and hope they know what they're
doing when the reality is it's gonna
screw up your website or you have to
pony up for the agency and this left
this huge chasm in the middle of people
who can't help themselves anymore and so
that my messaging now I'm seeing a
widespread appeal and a lot of resonance
because people have have you know
painted themselves into a corner with
these Franken sites which is the only
thing that's been sold in the last six
years yeah and so that leads us to focus
which is my new product now which is so
with thisis to that roll out the problem
was I did the foundational layer that
nobody even knew nobody even thought
this needed to exist nobody realizes
this was a need so I delivered a need
that didn't exist
so no wonder it wasn't very popular but
the the skin layer which is analogous to
a theme on WordPress that is where the
functionality and the stuff that works
for you lives and focus is a full scale
realization of all the stuff I've worked
on for years systematic approach to
design where if you change one thing
everything else adjusts to accommodate
these changes intelligent changes it's
not about making one spot change here
spot changes or for phonies in code
parlance that's analogous to a concept
known as hard coding hard coding is not
how you build software and so focus in
addition to being functionally you know
finally like the full presentation of
what I've been trying to do for years in
terms of the actual design itself it is
a response to this emergent environment
that we now find ourselves in the
reality is we don't use websites to what
we use them in 2010 we don't browse
blogs anymore we click on links from
social media we click on links from
email and we click on specific referrals
wherever we find them and when we go to
a page we expect to receive whatever
value was promised and in most cases
once that is exhausted we will leave
there is not much of this delve further
into unless we are exploring a product
that we wish to buy people perform
research and go deep when they're
reading reviews stuff like that this is
sort of the new social internet and our
behaviors have changed in response to
this new emergent social Internet in
addition we have external pressures
coming from the screens on which we
access he sings a lot of stuff happens
on social 99% of everything you know
with WordPress and lament or Divi Avada
all the crap that these things spit out
is designed for desktop that's not the
reality anymore and the absolute reality
of this is that anything that happens on
desktop has to be massaged into an
environment that will work on mobile the
number one problem people have with
WordPress today is I made some change to
my site integrated a plugin did
something something broke on mobile it's
cuz you're using a piece of crap that
was
designed to do this you're using
something that was designed to satiate
your immediate need and all of this
other stuff under the surface it's like
the tip of an iceberg and then
underneath is you know Everest Everest
has not been accommodated but this
little you know a little peak where
you're chilling with your tent is good
and I think people are coming with
realization that that is an untenable
situation and so focus is uh is my
answer to many of those of these execs
tent problems and I think you know
people look at and they say well this
looks vanilla this is not what I was
expecting that's probably true it's not
what I expected either but it is a
response to the reality that we now find
ourselves in and on top of that it's
fully configurable I deliver you vanilla
that way there's not anything you have
to remove to get to where you want to go
it's all adding that's something else
that WordPress assemblers people who
work with sites will understand if you
work with a foundation you generally
have to undo a bunch of stuff that you
didn't like about that foundation then
add your own stuff I hate that layer I
don't want to undo anything anything I
want you know that needs to be undone
angers me so I want to start with
something and only add exactly what I
need and know that I am doing everything
in the most efficient way possible
got it that was a solid answer Chris
history that context matters yeah I mean
we went all the way back to 2010 -
that's amazing so to sort of summarize
to make sure I got it
generally right you have a more sort of
efficient foundation to build focus upon
and you've been working on it for years
and this current iteration is a bit of a
reaction to the bloated themes that are
out there page builders that are slow
and that sort of theme so people can
actually like use it on pointing at my
phone that you can't see but mobile and
tablets where we're getting you know
what 50 80 % of our traffic most of the
time right well I mean it depends on the
site sure there's a huge enough segment
like I said the behaviors that we see
are clicked through some social media
social media click throughs are you know
the trending towards mobile clickers and
so that's the reality of how people are
gonna see your site and how they're
gonna receive information there's so
much to this too but like you know in
most parts of the world downloading a
page on a phone is not done over Wi-Fi
it's done over broadband Broadband's not
cheap there's so much baked in crap with
your typical WordPress page so if you
use a tool called webpagetest.org you
can see this but your average wordpress
page is gonna come in at something like
2.3 megabytes
that means that phones gonna have to
download 2.3 megabytes to up 2.3
megabytes of data just to serve one page
contrast that with with my stuff you
know if it's over 200 kilobytes like
what are you doing which is you know 10
percent right 10 percent is large so it
this is efficient and so on so many
levels like this you know if you want to
talk about like environmental
friendliness being energy conscious you
know conscious of what we are consuming
I don't really understand how you can
justify any other approach you know this
this is ticking all of the boxes like it
would be nice if it would be nice if the
only thing it's not ticking is this ego
satisfying like overdone design sort of
desire but this has been the internet
for 10 years like nobody cares I think
we're blind to all this crap we see big
images we just scroll down to the
content we give a shit what that image
is regarding my French there but like
people don't care we don't care I think
of your experience on mobile right you
load a page at loads and clunky parts
it's got this big header thing it loads
an ad at the bottom you're you're trying
to scroll to get down and you
accidentally tap on the thing that
popped up on the bottom it's madness
yes I was gonna say that was I was
reading something this morning and I'm
like just get rid of the ads what do we
do in here I don't care about like you
said no one gives a shit about the the
header and like who cares I just want
the answer to my question say exactly
exactly we want that value exchange
quickly and you know I mean I could go
on about this there's a hundred
different angles that I could take this
with and go into big discussion about
marketing like should you have email
pop-ups well these convert better yeah
sure they do but the people you're
acquiring are crappy leads you know it's
about value it's about like really
connecting it's not about just you know
trawling the ocean with a large net and
caching you know you caught your tuna
but you also caught two endangered
sharks and you caught some other stuff
and a narwhal just like come on man you
know not all these are good transactions
exactly exactly so I had a couple other
questions
but I think I know the answer to a few
of them so I would say a lot of plugins
on the site you're probably against
right extreme prejudice extreme
prejudice there's a ton of reasons why
okay so first of all let's backtrack
mentioned page builders earlier focus
works great with page builders and in
fact if you're hell-bent on using a page
builder you ought to use it with a focus
foundation because at least the rest of
your citing gonna be a disaster that's
what his focus friendly with page
builders absolutely you cannot work with
page builders in a better environment
than this but but page builders and
pretty much every other plug-in that
does anything you're gonna want to do is
going to commit performance sins with
impunity with impunity there's reasons
for this it's not like a you know
specifically just blaming developers
they are trying to shoehorn their stuff
into an environment that is pure chaos
it is pure chaos because you have to
work with other themes if you only had
to work with focus plug-in developers
could do a bang-up job and always
preserve performance but that's not the
reality that we deal with they have to
work with all these are the crappy
themes that are done up in a variety
different ways so they necessarily have
to commit performance sins to get the
thing to just work without you having to
do anything so that's what their whole
business model is predicated on making
sure it just works for you with no
hassle so they don't get support
requests but the trade-off that you are
making with this exchange it's say well
my sites now gonna be not very
performant and if I ever want to make it
better performing I'm gonna have to go
through a lot of Hoops and stuff that
most people are not qualified to do
indeed so inside of a devil it's a
devil's bargain it's not good I was
gonna say I was using a page builder
kind of landing page thing called thrive
themes or drive architect no I'm not a
fan I couldn't wait to get it off my
sites
and just use focus and it took a little
work cuz it was you know oh yeah how it
is twe in taking LTP entangled in your
content and everything else but I'm
happy to save my site loads way faster
and looks better and it's just you know
I want to minimize the touch points just
in general yes
yes and I I realized that people really
don't care about you know the little
feature box or if I can have columns or
whatever they just want an answer to
their question and they don't want my
ads or whatever to get in the way so
yeah getting rid of thrive architect was
fantastic and little story I had some
issues so and tried to get some support
didn't go well they have their very
backed up and it took days to get an
answer and then they were like remove
all the other plugins you have and I'm
like it's a course site I can't remove
all the plugins like that's not that's
not a answer but I submitted a support
request to you Chris and you can recall
this yeah and like a day and over the
weekend and I was like it's uh Chris
answering my support request so yeah
that's a good job on that that's amazing
there's actually some information behind
that that's quite interesting I think so
I can only imagine what these other
companies support issues must look like
I mean a thorn in my side for years has
been the nature of the questions I am
asked in support right there were
patterns that emerge like it's very
clear there's going to be some patterns
and generally speaking for for Product X
the patterns that emerge through support
are showing you weaknesses in your
platform or weaknesses in your messaging
right people are asking questions they
shouldn't be asking or people are asking
the same sorts of questions and you have
a problem you need to fix and this stuff
really wears you down over time if you
are not able to answer in a pattern eyes
duay if every issues a snowflake that
sucks if you can answer things in a
pattern nice way you begin to iron out
the support landscape if you really want
to take this into a dystopian future if
you want to draw this out as far as you
can
ideally you'd have an AI bots be able to
answer every support request because
everything falls a better okay now that
would be the goal if you want to run the
most efficient company you can there
your software is so pattern eyes your
landscape is so pattern eyes that
everything fits into this and can be
codified in some way that's what I
that's part of what my mission was with
focus and why I've really tried to sort
of set up these guardrails for people to
operate within because I know if you
stay within these you can be successful
and get the outcomes you want you may
not be able to get some of the designing
crap you wanted but your expectations
suck you need to confront this reality
I've had to confront this reality things
I thought I wanted I have discarded
because I realized that they are not
worthless right this is just part of
growth like you have to be willing to
let go of things you thought you wanted
but what says has happened is that this
has really streamlined my support and
the types of questions that are asked so
my day every morning starts with I look
at the sport forums I try to give the
best most detailed answers possible not
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