In today’s episode, Joe talks to Maciek Palmowski, one of the co-creators of WP Owls, a weekly newsletter focused on the latest and top WordPress news. He also works as a WordPress ambassador for Buddy Works – a top-notch performance into one solution for teams that want to painlessly introduce CI/CD and accelerate the development lifecycle of their software.
Maciek explains how the Polish audience has a completely different social media preference compared to the global community, the surprising challenges of raising his son while working at home, and the customization of the $7 per month web hosting they are using for WP Owls.
What to Listen For:
- 00:00 Intro
- 03:21 Welcome to the pod, Maciek
- 04:23 What is CI/CD?
- 07:16 How WP Owls came to be
- 11:36 WP Owls doesn’t take an aggressive marketing approach
- 18:50 Outreach efforts and invite list
- 22:02 Analytics, growth, and iterations on the articles
- 26:32 Twitter is a very straightforward social media platform
- 36:20 WP Owls run an on a $7 per month custom web hosting
- 41:44 Raising a baby while in the WordPress space
- 47:04 Balancing work and raising a family
- 51:22 Find Maciek online
Episode Resources:
- Buddy
- WP Owls
- Maciek Palmowski is on Twitter and WPMRR Community
- WordFest Live, register Here
- Leave an Apple podcast review or binge-watch past episodes
- Visit the WPMRR Community
- The 2021 WPMRR Virtual Summit
Podcast Transcript:
Joe Howard: [00:00:00] howdy folks, Joe Howard here. So a few updates for you this week. The WP M R our community built on circle is still going strong. One quick note from last week, Artur Grabowski was on the podcast talking about all this stuff he is doing over at extend defy. He did an AMA in the community, and I’m looking at it right now.
13 comments, some good questions. Some of which were asked by yours. Truly. If you want to ask Arthur some questions, go ahead and join that AMA technically it’s over now, but everything’s pretty asynchronous in the community. Cause that’s how circle does their community stuff. So comment and ask art or something about how he is building his company.
If you listened to his podcast episode and you still have questions. The WP MRR virtual summit is coming up. If you want to register for that, all you have to do is actually join the WP MRR community. Cause you will be live streaming it in there. So just takes a few seconds to join and you will automatically be registered.
We’ve got a good, a amount of sponsors who have joined the. Summit this year, I’m talking about GoDaddy pro. I’m talking about blog vault. I’m talking about green geeks. I’m talking about WP engine and I’m also talking about Ken Starr, Molly, Ella mentor, and paid memberships pro. So if you have great sponsors, if you’re interested in sponsoring by the time this episode airs, we may have a legacy’s bumps or ship left.
I’m not sure if that’ll be the case. We were most likely to have some growth sponsorships available as well as some sustainability. So feel free to, uh, check out the sponsors page and get in touch. If you’re interested in doing a sponsorship. Another quick update is I have done speaker outreach for that.
Uh, so about half of the folks have gotten back to me. It was a thumbs up saying I’d be excited to give a cool talk. So that is. Pretty well also, so I’m really excited about some of the folks who have confirmed for that. We’re going to have a great, a number of sessions this year. All right. That is it for updates this week for WP MRR.
Let’s get into the episode. So I got to sit down today and chat with Maciek on mouse ski. Now my chick is from. Uh, he does a few things in the WordPress community, but, um, the biggest thing I have known him for and the thing he is he’s chatted about most in the WPR community is his running WP owls to newsletter in the WordPress space.
Really cool to hear about coming up on his 50th episodes and the things he’s done that have made it successful. Some of the things he doesn’t like to do as much, some of the ways he’s kind of leaning more on his technical background and a little less on his yeah. His marketing background and some strategies he’s used because he’s going to be more interested in the engineering side of things, because he is as a technical developer, some, some strategies he’s used to make sure that his newsletter always has a diverse point of view.
Uh, so it’s really cool talking with him about that. We also did chat a little bit at the end about, and he’s a new dad, so we got to chat a little bit about what that’s like and how that’s going to affect his, his life and his work and all that moving forward. So, all right. Without further ado, let’s go.
Please welcome much cheek Palm mouse, ski enjoy today’s episode. All right. We are live this week with Maciek Paul mouse ski Maciek and I, I asked, I asked to how to say your name before the episode and make sure I was getting a read. I think I got it pretty spot on. Why don’t you tell folks a little bit about what you do with WordPress?
Maciek Palmowski: [00:03:34] Hi, so, um, Now I am working as, uh, someone called workers ambassador at body works. So I am trying to connect people from the workplace workers world, with the people who like to try CIC D. So this is also something new for me, because for most of my life I was at developer. And now I’m working in something called a developer relationships, or how is it called?
So this is really something for me, but it’s really exciting because I have a lot of chances to talk with people. And, uh, I never knew that this is something that I really miss.
Joe Howard: [00:04:13] Totally. And I had that the website opened it’s just buddy.works. And the first thing it says, just kind of on the homepage is like, get the fastest CIC Dee ever.
Um, why don’t you tell folks what a CIC D is? Because I had to do a little research just to check it and make sure I made sure I knew my stuff there.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:04:31] And, uh, especially with the recent situation, I also saw that. Probably some people could think that CIC is something like COVID or something, a virus or whatever, but now that’s not true.
CIC is a term that, uh, it, people that, uh, made. So one doesn’t understand what we are talking about, but that it’s nothing more than deployment automation. Just automation because we are just people. We tend to make mistakes, especially when we repeat the same task over and over and over and CIC D is, uh, we, we should UCS at this point when, when we are doing a lot of repetitive tasks, because we don’t try to automate them because machines doesn’t make mistakes.
We can program them to make a mistake, but they shouldn’t make a mistake just from does. So, um, thanks to this, everything I was in the background and, uh, for example, our backups can go, uh, once a day, uh, we can run some tasks before deploying, uh, or websites and so on and so on. So overall it just, but with that hand, harder to understand.
Joe Howard: [00:05:53] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was checking out that site and I actually, I didn’t even know that you worked at, at, uh, buddy works because I know you in a different role in the WordPress community, which other people may know as well. I think so we kind of we’ve met before and we was like chat we’ve met. I don’t think I met in person maybe like.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:06:19] Berlin during the morning.
Joe Howard: [00:06:20] Camp Europe, 2000, which year was that?
Maciek Palmowski: [00:06:24] It was 2009 18, right?
Joe Howard: [00:06:27] So the last word camp Europe.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:06:29] Last word we met during the tour. Uh, oh my what this guy, what this guy was called for.
Joe Howard: [00:06:37] The tour around the city. Oh my God. I’m like remembering this right now. That’s so funny.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:06:43] Exactly. That, that, that was the first time. And I think this was the only time we met in person.
Joe Howard: [00:06:50] Yeah, I think so. So yeah. Quick side note, we went to, I mean, yes, we met at WordCamp Europe on a walking tour. That point is set up for word campers. I think it was like the day before WordCamp, or maybe it was two days before camp and they took us around the city. I was this great tour. Oh, this is funny. So excellent.
May have met in person, have done some kind of chatter on Twitter and stuff. And I know you because you run the WP owls newsletter. So you also do this newsletter in the WordPress space.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:07:23] Yes. Yes I do. And, um, this is also a funny thing, because first we started, uh, first of all, this was my wife’s idea at the beginning at some point, um, she was like, Hmm, what do you would say that we will share some news over Facebook about WordPress in the Polish community?
And I was like, yeah, why not? Uh, to be honest, there is a T there is a chance I wasn’t listening at full, but I agreed because. This is definitely we do with our wives. We agree because it’s, it’s the safe way. So, yes, I agree. And this is how, um, the Polish version it’s called word peace of God, which almost this is a funny word play because, uh, it connects WordPress with.
Self care, which means little owl. So it’s, it’s, it’s marked it’s much better in Polish. We try to, uh, have a better name in English, but the WP Oles walls, the best we could imagine. And we were running the Polish version for, uh, if I remember. 100 numbers of 100 weeks, and then we decided, okay, let’s go global.
Let’s go global. We will, there is a, there is a worldwide community. Let’s try. I mean, um, we did the research. We knew that there are a lot of great newsletters, like WP mail. There is WP weekly. Which is a slightly older, uh, than WP ALS, but still it’s a great newsletter. Uh, Birgit also has a hard Gutenberg times, which is, uh, only about Gutenberg, but it’s also great.
And, uh, at the beginning it was like, Hmm, it’s gonna be difficult. I mean, um, how can we, uh, just, uh, Tried to get some people to read our newsletter when, where, where they can read some, so many others. But now I think which number is this? We are w w where are some 46? Second is coming tomorrow. If I, if I remember so, so yes, we are.
We are, we are doing it. And, and the 15th number is quite soon. So.
Joe Howard: [00:09:40] It’s a good milestone to hit, you know, it’s, uh, you never really know what something’s going to be, or something’s going to turn into when you do the first iteration of it. You never know if you’re gonna want to change things or change the format or change the design or do something completely different.
But I think making it to 50. Newsletters is pretty, it’s a good milestone to hit. It means you’ve kind of made it to this point of like, I think probably experimenting with it enough to get to the point of like, do I, you know, want to continue this? Do I want to keep doing this? And yeah, that, so, and that’s actually one of the things I did want to talk to you about today running WPLS alongside a few of them.
I mean, there, there are definitely a few other, um, newsletters w uh, were press newsletters out there. There are podcasts coming out that are more news shows than are epic, like podcasts like this, like more interview specific shows. So like post status excerpts has come out. That’s more news-related um, I think.
WP minute is out. It’s called. Yeah. Pat Madeiros I think does that. So it’s quick.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:10:49] Also does such a great job. I really, because let me be honest. I’m not a big fan of podcasts over a podcast overall, uh, bald. He was one of those people that, uh, really, um, really made it. It started being interested in them. I started well listening to them and even starting doing one by myself.
Joe Howard: [00:11:14] So. Yeah, it’s funny how, you know, you have one person you follow or you enjoy listening to it kind of spurs you to try something similar. So shout out to Matt. Madeira is awesome, dude, uh, and runs great audio video stuff, and Hey man, you just motivated someone to start their own thing. So I think that’s what, we’re all, that’s, we’re all in it for us anyway.
So, um, yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. Like running a newsletter and, you know, I guess 40 something episodes, uh, newsletters in, uh, how has it been trying to get more subscribers, to do some marketing around the newsletter to try and grow it as its own thing? Cause it is on its own domain. Just WPL wills.com.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:11:57] Hmm, to be honest. Um, I am, I’m one of those people who really doesn’t know no, if think about marketing. So, uh, we just decided to do it like, um, let’s do our newsletter every week. Let’s try to give our best and, uh, people should sign up and it’s working really, it’s working, uh, We also, we even thought about, um, having some more let’s call it aggressive marketing in terms of, um, people to sign up to our newsletter.
But we just, that now we, we just don’t want that. We want our site to be simple. Two people, uh, sign up to our newsletter only when they want to. Not because we, we attack them. We are with few pop-ups and they just, okay, it’s the fifth pop-up let me sign up. Just, I don’t want it anymore. Really. So now we, we, we didn’t use any tactics like this.
We just decided let’s, let’s do quality work. Um, and also at some point we, uh, we decided to, uh, Every second week we have a guest editor. This is something that is quite unique, but to be honest, we have seen that at another regional slider before, but it was only during a holiday. I think two years ago, uh, musters WP had a drink on their newsletter.
They had, uh, during the one drink holidays, uh, they had some guest editors from time to time and I popped, this is a really terrific idea about let’s do it like all the time. And, um, we, I remember that master WP gave like the whole issue to the guest editor and, uh, We just have a section. We ask our guest editor to provide us with, with an intro about, uh, his, about the topic he will, or she will talk about and three or four links with descriptions.
And, uh, I think this is, this is quite this far when it’s working. Okay. Quite well. We had really interesting topics because, um, we try to have not only developers because. Me and my wife, uh, we are developers card, so it would be easier for us just to ask other developers, but then we would be like in a bubble.
And, uh, so we, when, when we tried to pick our news, we know that, um, sometimes we tend to. Uh, go more to the developer side, uh, more than others. And that’s why we try to have guest editors from. For other topics. So for example, we had less, we had Leslie and big. If I remember privacy, uh, we had, uh, Francesca, uh, she, uh, she picked the best speeches from, uh, WordCamps.
It was during the pandemic. So, uh, looking how conference conferences looked live was something pretty great and so on and so on. So we tried to. Have a lot of non-developer topics from, from the guest editors. Oh, and I remember Ana from pixel grade, uh, she’s a copywriter and, uh, in my opinion, she did one of the best, uh, guest editors sections, uh, in, in our history.
So, and if I think that the guest editors are also the thing that, uh, the dream makes us a unique and, um, And I’m still surprised how easy it is to, uh, to ask people, pull from our community to be a guest editor, because, uh, this was the thing I was terrified at first. I mean, um, when I look at some people from WordPress community, I think about them as like, like rock stars.
This is something I remember during quart camp London, when, when I had my first chance to meet Mike Little, I mean, He is a rockstar. And I mean, like this really big WordPress celebrity and, um, and good that I had my wife, my wife with me, and she just pushed me a bit into Mike. So, so we started chatting and, uh, yeah, th this, this was like the, the first situation like this.
And when I started inviting guests to WP ALS, I fought about something, I guess, that, because I knew that. They are people there are normal people and it shouldn’t be a problem. So, I mean, um, at first inviting Francesca or Mariak from your host was, was, was, was, was a big thing because we are just a small newsletter and there are from yours.
And this is almost the same case, like with my boat, they agreed. And I learned that. Again, I learned that our community is really wonderful and inviting people. Isn’t hard. I mean, I think only two, our trip people ever rejected our invite and most of them were just, okay. I will be glad to be your guest editor.
And when you see our list, we really had like, Let me call them again, celebrities in the workforce world.
Joe Howard: [00:17:48] Yeah, I think it’s funny when people, when people start something new, it can be a little bit scary or intimidating to like reach out to someone who may be, you know, Somewhat established in the WordPress space.
And maybe you think like, maybe they don’t have time to do this, or maybe they wouldn’t want to do it. But I think this is like, kind of like a, a trick for people starting out is like, if you, if you reach out to 50 people, Who you know, and you have a nice personalized message to them. A lot of people are going to be willing to give you like 10 minutes of their time and to fill out a newsletter with a few articles.
It’s not, you’re not asking for five hours of time. Right. You’re asking for a few minutes, but Google that together, maybe send it pretty straightforward and you know, they get to be featured in the newsletter and that’s good for everybody. So I think that’s kind of like a little, I don’t know, it’s a little hack when you’re getting started is kind of just like, you know, reach out to people.
See, see, what sticks, how are you, how are you doing your outreach to people where you kind of like finding email addresses or were you kind of like shooting out quick direct messages in slack groups? Or are you like reaching out to people on Twitter?
Maciek Palmowski: [00:19:01] Uh, it depends, but overall, uh, first of all, we tried because we try to be organized.
So we do a list. We do a list once, uh, once a few months, and then we try to. To reach people. Uh, I send them a calendar link, so I don’t have to worry about the order, uh, who will feel, which, uh, which slot and, uh, some of them agreed. Some not, um, uh, when the list is, uh, like, uh, And that, and that we, we, we think about other people and that’s all we try to either ask via email.
Uh, the WordPress, the official WordPress slack is also a great place to ask. Uh, Twitter is also a terrific place. Uh, to ask people because, uh, especially when we are already following each other, this was something, uh, well with WebDevStudios also a big company. And also I was a bit afraid, like asking them, because this is where the studios.
Right. And, uh, I was. Really surprised because I could like almost pick anyone, whoever I wanted to from, from, from this and this, this was really amazing. Again.
Joe Howard: [00:20:24] Totally. I’ll give you one more place to find people as the WP MRR circle community, uh, I’ve found that it’s been very cool seeing new people joining us in there because.
Well, just like you, I see you sign up and you come in and then you start posting around and wanting to start this new newsletter space in there. And now you’re on the podcast, right? We like started talking there. So that’s also a cool place to be able to not only find people who can. You know, help to fill content, but to really meet new people and re really meet people who could potentially be like good fits for that.
I’m finding that it’s easy to fill up podcasts slots now for interviews, because it’s like, oh, so many interesting people are joining and posting about such cool stuff. I got to have that person on the podcast to talk to talk. So that might be a good place to, um, okay. Newsletter. So newsletter, WPLS obviously a newsletter.
You said you’re not like a super marketing. Like focused person. I be interested to hear about. If you look at any of like the analytics behind sending emails, or if you have anything in place to try. And I don’t know, like make improvements over time. Maybe you’re just kind of sending out this newsletter and it’s cool.
And you just enjoy it. And if, if that’s. Totally cool. Good on you. Um, but I’m, I’m thinking like where I am with the WP MRR community. I’m like, how do I get feedback? How do I, because I want to make a really good, but I can’t, you know, I need feedback to do that. And you just kind of see how people are interacting.
I need to provide like, Valuable place where people, where they want to be, where they’re like, I want to come back to this community repeatedly to be an active community member. I don’t know if you’ve had anything where you’ve anything you’ve tried over the past 40 something episodes of the newsletter where you’ve either checked out analytics or trying to improve it, or you’ve maybe asked for some like feedback, replying to emails or like a type form survey. I don’t know.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:22:18] Uh, so. First of all, of course, even if I am not a marketing person, I like numbers. I like numbers. So I really like to watch what is happening over our analytics. Um, and, uh, what I see it’s the numbers are growing. So, uh, this is a sign for me that, uh, I think people, uh, like our newsletter. We also know that, uh, our followers over Twitter are also growing.
So this is another. That we know that, um, that people like us want to follow us. Um, over all the episodes we made, uh, over all the issues. We made a lot of changes because like I mentioned, first, we started just, we were just posting a few news over, Facebook. At some point when we saw that people want to read us, we decided, okay, it’s time to have our own website.
And this was the version one. what we have now, it’s, the version three and version four is still underway, but, with all the family stuff for right now, it probably will take, awhile. for example, we also learned that, Polish community and the world, community are totally different because, for example, One of our, main sources of traffic when it comes to, the Polish edition is Facebook
Polish people. For some reason, Facebook, I don’t know why I’m always, I, I really don’t know what to do on Facebook. It’s so like, it’s really not for me. It’s there, there’s only lots of clutter and I really don’t know what to do with it, but. I, so I know that Polish people really love Facebook and, uh, on the second place, they really liked LinkedIn.
So when we started with the English version, we felt, okay, let’s do everything like we are doing now, but in English, it, should work. No It didn’t. So what we learned that, our world worldwide community. Just almost doesn’t use Facebook at all. Our reach over Facebook is like, let’s be honest.
It’s, kind of a junk It’s good in Poland, but not the global audience. Yes, exactly. our biggest traffic source, for the worldwide community is Twitter. It’s Twitter. When in Poland we are growing a bit in terms of followers but I think the Polish version has almost two years already.
And, we don’t even have 200 followers for some reason and this is kind of funny because, I felt that overall the it world loves Twitter. Turns out. Uh, I mean, I know that here’s historically, we always, as Polish people want to do to do something different. Uh, for example, uh, almost the whole world is amazing and we have our own, it’s called Allegra and we have a lot of histories like this.
And it looks like when it comes to social media, it looks the same. I mean, we, we still love Facebook. The whole world went and started using Twitter and we had to learn things like this. Um, so, uh, and for example, the guest editor, we know that, uh, our worldwide committee. Really likes reading, uh, what the guest editors say.
And we know that those links are getting clicked and the policy community in not quiet.
Joe Howard: [00:26:30] Hmm. Interesting. I’d be interested to hear more about it. Like your strategy around Twitter, or maybe I would like to hear, like what your thoughts are around using Twitter, alongside your newsletter to potentially like drive subscribers and give people some news and updates in both areas.
Cause I think there’s some interesting like dynamics behind it. I think like I have trouble, like thinking about how a company like mine would do like more like pure sales, like services or product sales on Twitter, but like driving people to a newsletter. Sounds like the conversion is, would be better because you’re still providing news.
You’re like, Hey, here’s some great news articles. Now here’s the link to come and like, get this in your inbox every week or something that seems to make sense for me. So do you have like a, I don’t know, a scheduling strategy that you’re using or do you like tweet out. Tag the guest editor every week to make sure like they maybe can retweet and share with their audience.
Anything. Is it like a, do you have like a pretty robust strategy there or are you kind of just kind of like figuring it out along the way?
Maciek Palmowski: [00:27:34] Uh, because of, like I said, my. Big experience in terms of marketing. I don’t have any robust strategy.
Joe Howard: [00:27:42] I think there’s are, most people do with Twitter. They’re like, Hey, let’s try some stuff and see what works.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:27:46] Exactly. But both, to be honest, this is the thing I really love about Twitter because, um, I’m really not a fan of social media. I have problem with, uh, with most of them. I mean, uh, I really don’t get LinkedIn where, and I don’t know, it’s like, Sharing your CV or something like this. I, I really don’t don’t understand it on Facebook.
There are only ads. So this is another thing I don’t understand. And Twitter is really straightforward. I mean, you just have to, um, try to. You relate your faults into those? Uh, how many of these 160 words letters, right. And that’s all there is no place for, uh, Everything you can do on other social media.
It’s like pure and simple. Okay. Now we have also fleets, which is something that is my opinion, a bit useless, but it works. It works. This is also a thing that we constantly use every time. And there is a new issue of WP hours. We just published a fleet and it works, uh,
Joe Howard: [00:28:59] I’ve heard of it, but.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:29:00] This is something like in stuff it’s like, it’s the story on Twitter about it’s like a poor, the mission or man version.
Yes. I mean, really, I, I still don’t understand, um, why they added fleets and, but from if I remember two or three weeks earlier, LinkedIn also added there. Stories or whatever it is called. Um, I really don’t understand the why average everyone decided we have to have stories. I even remember her Helen from Deneb, uh, was sending a proposal to add stories into our WordPress admin panel, which we even started discussing how, how we could do it technically.
And it is doable, but no, let’s not go that way. Um, so, um, First going back to our strategy. Uh, yes, we, uh, we tried to, uh, uh, add, uh, everyone’s nickname in, into, uh, the new issue. So, um, so yes, sometimes they try, they follow us sometime they assigned to our newsletter. And so what’s more, and sometimes they leave command or retweet, which we learned that it’s the most important thing.
And this works, this really works. Uh, I think this is one of our, of the most important things. Next, next thing that we do and what we learned at some point, because we weren’t doing it from the beginning at the beginning, we’re just publishing once a week, we just published the new numb, the new issue. And we waited the next day for a whole week to publish another one.
And that’s all, at some point we realized that we should post something in between. So, uh, every time we big, uh, top three news or top two news and, uh, and the guest editor and we publish them every second day. So like for almost the whole week, something is being published and this really gave us. Uh, first of all, the reach was much bigger just because, we just publish more content.
And on the other hand, There were just more opportunities for people to see us and maybe follow us and this is working. and from, what I see WP weekly, at some point also adopted the strategy if I remember, and it is really working, this is a really great practice. And I think that every newsletter should pick few, best stories.
And try to publish them over and over again, because why not? Especially with, with all the algorithms behind all the social media, when we don’t see the latest post The most interesting, according to Twitter or Facebook or whatever we are using. So sometimes we have to repeat ourselves, just, to have a bigger chance that our audience will have even a chance to see us because following someone doesn’t mean you will have a chance to see all their tweet
Joe Howard: [00:32:37] Yeah, this is actually a really big motivating factor behind me wanting to start our own social group and community at WP MRR, because I felt like you post something on Twitter. Like you don’t even get to decide if your followers see it, or you put something on Facebook. Even if someone like likes your page or someone likes you, like, Facebook’s going to be like, no, I’m going to serve in this ad.
Instead, that’s going to make us more money than them seeing something that they may want to see. So I like circle because it has a lot of that. Like functionality is like a Facebook would have with posts and likes and comments is not too complex, but it’s like, there’s no ads. There’s no algorithms. It’s just like a place where people come, come in and I can decide as the admin, like, how are, how are we going to sort it.
You know, content here, maybe some all sorts like the bigger areas or sort by most popular so people can see what’s had like the most activity I can also choose to sort just by newest. What’s the newest thing to come up, pretty simple and straightforward. And it doesn’t have, there’s no algorithm behind it.
Time to tell people what to see. Except I guess technically the popularity one is technically like an algorithm, but it’s not like a algorithm. Change your thought on something it’s just like, what’s had the most activity, super straightforward and very transparent. So yeah, I’m with you. I’m kind of going back a little bit to use saying you don’t like social media very much.
I’m kind of, self-admittedly like also. I don’t like social media very much, but I’ve recently started to do a little bit more on Twitter and in RW PMR community. So like, those are the two, I think that I, I think I can stomach those. I think that there’s, to me there’s more value in, in the circle community, which we have like really full control over and Twitter, which has its own inherent kind of like the, the WordPress community on Twitter is pretty active.
Um, I have some issues with the WordPress community on Twitter, but for 99% of the time. They’re great. So I think that that’s something I’m happy to be a part of. Um, Although I like posting and not really like being active and like checking all the time on it. Because if I check all the time, I’m going to be like stressed out or I’m going to be like, did that person, like my thing, I actually try to be a little bit like you on social media.
I try not to follow the like daily. Behind it, because it’s just like, I want to post something. I think it’s cool. I post a cool thread every day. Like kind of about the work I’m doing the community. And then I just kind of go away. Maybe I’ll apply if someone replies to a tweet, but I’m not going to like how many likes they get?
How many retweets I get, who cares? I’m just like kind of posting for me and now do it every day and I’ll do it because I want to do it. Not because I feel like I need to get this like ultimate result.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:35:12] The only time that I was looking at numbers on Twitter was just to see what is the correlation between.
Uh, likes comments and retweets. And, uh, and to the fact too, how many, how many people sees this tweet? So, so that was when I learned that, uh, like X doesn’t have such a big impact, uh, comments and retweets are the most important thing. So, uh, even having, um, sometimes having a lot of floods. But now comments are retweets will give you a much less reach rather than like having two or three, uh, let’s call it strong retweets from people with a lot of followers or something like this.
So, yeah, it’s what, uh, but this was the only time that I cared about. And when I learned, uh, how it is working. That was all ends. I don’t care anymore.
Joe Howard: [00:36:17] Yeah. I totally hear you on that. Um, I wanna talk also just a little bit about the, uh, website, uh, that, uh, Is WPL or just wpls.co is a cool site. I really dig it.
I like the color theme. I like the design overall. I like that you have dark mode and the top writers in a few websites with that bay you’re one, one of the few is to WPL walls.co. I went into the source code cause I was going to go check like, oh, what, uh, uh, what theme is it? Is it using an and WordPress?
Our car 2020, but I didn’t know if that we didn’t have time to like, do any research, is that this is a custom theme or did you find a theme somewhere? Custom theme.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:36:59] Always build our custom themes. Um, because, um, this is, this is exactly the same thing with you and circle. We just want to have the full control over it.
Joe Howard: [00:37:13] Um, you’re, uh, you’re technical and you’re a developer. So you’re, you’re like, why wouldn’t I, you know.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:37:20] This was one thing. And the second thing was, uh, I decided, uh, to make, uh, this edition of, uh, WP owls to be. The fastest WP hours ever. That’s why it’s, it’s static. I even removed jQuery because I didn’t need it.
I rewrote, uh, all the JavaScripts to pure JL and so on. So on, uh, to be honest, at some point I went a bit paranoid and I remember that my wife just threatened me that. If I touch the code one more time for trying to gain some speed or whatever, she will like literally kill me.
Joe Howard: [00:38:05] It is fast. It is fast. I got to give you that.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:38:08] And, uh, especially when you think that I’m using, I’m paying for my hosting, like $7 per month for both of my, but for both of my sides. So. So, yes, this, this, this was also one thing that, uh, that I wanted to achieve to, uh, even just, just to prove to myself that this is possible, that we don’t need, uh, an expensive house thing and, uh, to spend a lot of money and we can create a static version of a, of a website also finds to CloudFlare.
Uh, it’s like all over the world and it’s equally fast, everywhere. And thrilling. The hosting is I think this is really the tip is hosting in Poland that has a society taxes. So, yeah.
Joe Howard: [00:38:59] Wow. I mean, it’s interesting to talk about, cause you know, a lot of people say the hosts is the most important part of the performance of a website, but it sounds like.
Fairly inexpensive hosting and $7 a month for two sites is very cheap. And then the things you sat and sound like you’re focused on, or just having a solid CDN and cloud CloudFlare, and then static delivery of the website. And those, I don’t know, is there anything else on top of those two things, do you feel like those two things kind of got you what you want.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:39:26] The most, the most important thing is converting the website to static.
This is because thanks to this, I have. And HTML website. I don’t even need, need BHP to serve it on production. And the clouds are only makes, makes it faster. That’s all. And I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m using the free tier from cloud councilor. It’s enough. Yeah. I automated everything. So with just one click of a button, everything converts to static in the background.
And for a long time, I was using a free tier at Bodyworks where this, the whole automation took place. This was also a really good part of the fact that they employed me that now I have the pro tier of, of bodywork so I can make it, uh, I could make it a bit more robust, but it’s still, uh, like I said, the only thing I was paying okay.
Was, was, was the hosting. And, uh, and of course the domains, because this is something we, we, we just have to pay sadly, because I don’t like to spend money. On stuff like that.
Joe Howard: [00:40:32] I see that some people have like a hundred domains or something. They’re like domain collectors. And I’m like, eh, I mean, cool. If that’s what you want to do is totally fine.
But I’m, I feel like it would stress me out to have so many domains. And then like a hundred times a year, I have a renewal thing coming up and then I have to think for 10 minutes, like, do I want to keep this domain? And it’s like 10 minutes, times a hundred. Yeah. No, I don’t even want to take up that much time thinking about it.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:40:55] So everyone likes to collect some stuff. I, for example, like to collect games. So every time when, when I see that there is some sale on steam, yes. Sometimes I spend a lot of money and, uh, and at some point, uh, There is this, this joke. When we know when women try to pick their clouds from, from the closet, try theirs that the study can stay in front of the closet and saying, I don’t have anything to wear.
And this is, this is me looking at my steam account. I really don’t know what to play. That there’s stuff in here.
Joe Howard: [00:41:35] Yeah, I guess we probably all have something like that. We’re a little bit obsessive over it. Um, cool. I do want to, uh, wrap up soon, but I want to talk a little bit about being a new dad in the, in the WordPress space, in the WordPress community.
So we were talking offline a little bit and you’ve got a brand new baby at home your first, um, how are you feeling? How’s everything going.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:42:00] To be honest. This was, this is, uh, I knew it will, it will change if it would change my life. Uh, but I really didn’t suspect to what degree, uh, I mean, I’m, we, we are really happy that we have a chance to sleep.
So we are not those like zombie parents, because when I discuss with some, uh, with some of our friends and they were like, yeah, for about two months we were sleeping. Like, I don’t know, one hour per day. And I was like, oh God, I know that. Sometimes I did some project, like during the night and I weren’t sleeping for two or three days, but for a whole mouth, I’m not sure I will, I would survive this, but happily, uh, our little Nicholas is, uh, is a sleeper.
So that’s, that’s a good thing. Uh, we are still learning. We are still learning, but, um, with, with some right organization, I am. I’m still working from home. Um, I got myself prepared and got myself an office for, for some emergencies when, if I just had to, uh, like, uh, do some heavy work that I need, like focus on 100% and I, and any distraction would be problematic.
But at this point, I think I only use it. Twice. And once I had to just repaint it and second to set everything up. So, um, it even today for, for some, for some time I was wondering maybe I will go to my office and try it out. But, uh, in the end, I’m, I’m recording this from, from my home because yeah, it’s possible.
It doesn’t needs some organization and some understanding. Uh, also the cool part is, uh, That bodywear where I work are they, they are really flexible, flexible. A lot of people there also have have kids and they’re really understand, uh, that that’s that having a kid and it won’t be just possible to like work those eight hours straight or something like this.
Right. I’d be like once I will be writing an email and few months later, I will be just like going around with the kid, trying to make him sleep or something like that. This is totally normal. And sometimes I will be doing both. Like I already tried. It is possible to fall and it is possible to go to write the.
Everything is possible. I mean, we are also at this point where, uh, this kid has, um, like only few things that it needs. I mean, it needs food and sleep and the part that happens after eating. So we are, we are. Yeah. Yes. But I also know that at some weather. When, where he, he will grow, he will be probably more and more, more interested.
What is happening on this side of this black box that he sees most of the time from, from, from the second, even when I work, my wife, uh, and Nicholas are like behind my computer. So we are together. And even if, if, if, if he cries, uh, Okay. It’s happened. It’s it’s a kid. I mean, We know what we are signing for.
Okay. Let’s be honest. I didn’t suspect he will be so loud, but okay. So he is loud.
Joe Howard: [00:46:04] Yes. They learn that they find their lungs earlier. Maybe not all babies, but my son as well. He was, he failed his as quickly.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:46:12] Yes. I mean, my learnt is that he can be loud. Like very loud. The second he was born, because I remember I was just waiting, uh, to see, to see him.
And it was like quiet, like only some quiet hospital noises. And at some point I heard the scream and I knew that there was Cory door. There was like two pair of doors. Uh, between us and I was like hearing this awful scream and I was all God, so this is the little Nicholas. And then the first door opened that it was much louder.
The second opened the door and then he saw me and he stopped crying. So it was really nice.
Joe Howard: [00:47:03] Yeah. Yeah. Are you, um, are you nervous at all that. And it will be a challenge to have, to be able to split your attention between family and new son and the work stuff you’re doing. You mentioned the flexibility at work is good.
You obviously have flex some pretty good flexibility in your work at WPL is, you know, you can kind of work on that whenever you want to. Um, anything that makes you nervous at all about being able to. Continue to do the things you want to professionally, or do you feel like you have pretty good balance moving forward?
Maciek Palmowski: [00:47:39] I mean, I I’ve, I think I’m, I was preparing for this situation from, from, from many years because, um, a few years ago I had my own agency, uh, and I learned how, how it is to work too much because having your own agency, you just, uh, Something that you created, so you don’t want to quit at any point. You want to just give like 110% than 10%.
Um, but you just can’t do it all the time. And, uh, I learned the world, uh, how, how, how it feels to be burned out burnout. And it, it, wasn’t a nice feeling. I tried working like a typical eight hour job, even I once tried to work from, from dufus because most of our lives I worked remotely. I mean, even before it became so popular.
Um, but, uh, but yeah, I still, I will, uh, I learned all those things, and I knew that, um, I will really need some flexible job that will let me, um, not, I only focus on the time I have to spend working, but that I can, like the thing that I, that I said, I can write an email and, uh, spend some time with my kid.
And, uh, to be honest, I would really love to do it all the time because, um, I would really, I would really love, and I really want to be like an important part of his life and not just a working dad that just goes out for like eight to 10 hours and just come, just comes back.
Joe Howard: [00:49:31] And yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s, uh, is hearing you.
Feel not very stressed out about it is actually very eye-opening I’ve I talked to them. I know I talked with a lot of people on this podcast and a lot of WordPress professionals and people who have kids, a kid, kids, family, a lot of other responsibilities. And the biggest thing that people say. Or I th I feel like the biggest reason people are not too stressed out about, you know, a kid coming in and had taken up so much work.
Attention is like one having a pretty flexible work schedule, being able to work when it’s important to work. And it doesn’t mean nine to five. It means whenever you feel like it’s important to work. And the second part is, is preparing for it. So you kind of mentioned, like you had an agency before you knew what it was like to be burned out.
You knew at some point you’d want to have a child and you’ve been kind of, maybe not like actively preparing for it, but mentally you said like, I want to, you know, I, I need to. Be burned out. I need to be working better time and to work towards that, you know, over time is preparing for it. And I think those two things, like they always striked me from people who like, I like Joe Casabona, you know, he’s got, you know, I’m not spoiling anything cause he put it out on Twitter, but he’s got another kid on the way.
And man, he’s just kind of cruising like he is because he has total flexibility over his schedule and he, uh, you know, obviously like prepared his professional life to be this super flexible, to be able to do any of this. So I think that’s a great, great place to wrap up for the day and a great kind of lesson for folks because I sure there are people listening who are thinking, man, maybe I want to have a family in the future.
These are things that are thinking about now. So. Machek thanks so much for being on it’s been awesome, Martin. The catch-up two things before we totally wrap up for the day. First is I always ask, uh, if you could just tell folks where they can find your stuff online, WPLS buddy works any social media.
Maybe you’re not super active, but maybe they want to find you somewhere.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:51:39] So, uh, first of all, you can find me over Twitter and, uh, The best way to find me is just find the WP owls. And, uh, with, with, with this, you will be, you will also be able to find my, my personal profile and, uh, when it comes to social media, this is, this is the only place when I am like really active.
Uh, apart from that, uh, like I mentioned, I’m working at Bodyworks. So if you would like to automate some of your staff, this is a really great place to start. And, um, I think this are the, the only places you can find me like being active because when I’m not behind the computer, I’m on my, on my bike. So I don’t have time to.
Detect the social media or, or, or things like that. So I just prefer to see what’s happening around me.
Joe Howard: [00:52:38] Totally. And my check is very humble, but he’s also a big contributor in the WP MRR community. So you can also find him in there. Um, cool. Last but not least, I ask our guests to ask our listeners for a little apple podcast review.
So if you wouldn’t mind asking folks listening to give us a little review, I’d appreciate it.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:52:58] Um, like I’ve, like I said before, uh, for a long time, I have, um, I had quite a problem listening overall to podcasts because, um, I was always more of a radio person when there was music and people talking. So this, the, the, this was the mix bump, uh, But at some point I started listening to podcasts and, um, and I really like, uh, I, I really like, first of all, it’s like, like I mentioned, I started with, uh, with all the maths, maths podcasts, but at some, some point, uh, I started also listening to two years and, uh, I just, I just really like it.
I, I really like, uh, the, the informal, informal tone of them just like that. We were talking about kids and it, this is this isn’t the most typical topic. And, uh, but this is, uh, this is what I really like finding those informal things about people, not only things that we know about them because. I shared a lot of stuff about, for example, or my engineer’s staff or related to body related WP alls, but they don’t share too much stuff about being a father, because I think this is for, for example, this, this is a part in terms of social media, where I will be kind of always private, but we talk about it here.
And I really like it. And I hope that some people will learn something from this and. And this is the thing I really, I really liked from about your podcast findings, such things.
Joe Howard: [00:54:48] Cool. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. If people are leaving a review for the podcast, just WP, M R r.com forward slash review. Uh, redirects you right there.
If you are on an apple device or a Mac, if you are a new listener to the show, we’ve got 150 ish older episodes, WP MRR, duck. Forward slash podcast. We’ve got a little search bar there. You can search for something you’re having a challenge with, or, you know, sort by news. See what our newest episodes are, go and binge some older episodes of the show.
If you like listening to us here on the WP MRR podcast, and you want to get more involved, we have launched a community on circle. If you want to not just hear about how you can improve, you know, monthly recurring revenue and make your business a little better, you can. Actually get involved and we can all do it together.
It’s just at community dot WP. mrr.com. Virtual summit is coming up in September. Uh, the good news is all you have to do is join the WP MRR community, and you’re automatically registered for the session. Uh, WP mrr.com has a bunch of details about, uh, summit. We’ve got speaker announcements coming soon.
Sponsor announcements are going live right now. A lot of cool stuff happening, Brian and I are working hard to make this an awesome event. So go check out some of the updates there, uh, and register@communitydotwpmrr.com. That is it for this week on the WP MRR podcast, we will be in your earbuds again.
Next Tuesday. My check. Thanks again for being on man. It’s been real.
Maciek Palmowski: [00:56:27] See you later.
Joe Howard: [00:56:28] Bye everybody.
