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Matt Report 1 year later & the state of podcasting
Yesterday I published episode 52 of the Matt Report exactly 1 year to the date of the first episode. Honestly, I didn’t even realize it until recording another show I host, Week in WordPress. How time flies when you’re having fun. I want to take a moment to reflect on the past year, where I…
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Episode 52: A startup, some themes, a bit of freelancing and a full-time job
You’re an entrepreneur still trading time for dollars — how do you get out of that? You launch a new WordPress website for a client and everyone is excited to go live — but wait, they wanted you to upload their 1,000 pages of content. It wasn’t your responsibility. Months later you realize you’ve been…
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Don’t just stand there with your hands out
The greatest reward from starting the Matt Report podcast are the new relationships I’ve made. I get e-mail’s like this all the time: “Are you getting qualified leads from the podcast?” “How is the conversion rate to your newsletter?” “What’s it like being a WordPress celebrity?” Humbled by the 3rd, but I reserve that for…
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Episode 51: A true WordPress entrepreneur
I can’t believe it took 51 episodes to get the guy who puts the hustle in being a WordPress entrepreneur. Meet Syed Balkhi the man behind WPBeginner.com, one of the world’s largest free WordPress resources. How does he manage this publication, monetize and build a team around it? He’s also spearheading a new SaaS app built on…
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Early stage WordPress startups apply here
There’s some changes in the works for The Matt Report podcast. I’ll have more announcements coming soon, but in the meantime I’d like to find a few good candidates. If you’re an early stage WordPress startup or entrepreneur, tell me more about what you’re up to. So, how do I define early stage? You have…
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Episode 50: Systemizing your way to more revenue
A while back I said Shane Pearlman is the Godfather of Freelancing. If that’s true, than Bill Erickson is a made man. I’ve been a fan of Bill since I stepped on to the scene of WordPress some time ago. From a distance, he has a really lean and mean service product. “Your WordPress website…
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Episode 49: 2.2 million downloads w/ $35k monthly theme sales
Roughly 2.2 million total free downloads across 9 themes and monthly revenue upwards of $35k a month. Meet Trent Lapinski, CEO of CyberChimps themes. I invited Trent on to the show to tell us all about what it’s like to earn a living selling premium themes and supporting such a large install base. Aside from…
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Episode 48: The Godfather of Freelancing
If there were ever a mob or “Family” of WordPress freelancers, it’s a safe bet that Shane Pearlman would be head of the family. I had always known about Modern Tribe and their successful plugins, but I never knew much about their progressive take on the WordPress service business. Now that I’ve had the chance…
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Episode 47: What every freelancer needs to know
How long have you been freelancing? Long enough to think you’re the man? Brian Richards is one of the keenest entreprenerus that I’ve interviewed. The funny thing is, he never set out *expecting* to be one. See like most of us starting out in WordPress, we did some favors, got paid a little bit and…