1.
W O R D P R E S S AG E N C I E S :
FAC I N G C H A L L E N G E S F O R T H E
NEXT 10 YEARS
SARA @ROSSO, AUTOMATTIC
W O R D C A M P PA R I S 2 0 1 4

2.
10
YEARS OF
WORDPRESS

3.
21.2%
of the top 10 million websites

4.
WORDPRESS:
THE ENTERPRISE ERA

5.
16% and growing
!
Large Business or Enterprise Clients
2013 WordPress survey

6.
“I want to see more large WordPress
consultancies in the future.”

7.
W H AT E N T E R P R I S E S WA N T

8.
“Enterprises love enterprises.”
– JAKE GOLDMAN, 10UP

9.
THINK LIKE AN
ENTERPRISE AT ANY SIZE

10.
ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
• Pricing
• Breadth of services
• Robustness of team
• Ongoing support
• Risk tolerance

11.
GROW

12.
“How do you plan for the future
while you hunt for your next
meal?”
– NICK GERNERT
A U T O M AT T I C , F O R M E R LY V O C E
C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

13.
GROWING
• Always be interviewing
• Try before you hire
• Distributed == Find talent anywhere
• Network inside the WP community

14.
“To build the kind of sites we
wanted, for the kind of
clients we wanted, we needed to
put together a team of
specialists.”
– SIMON DICKSON, CODE FOR THE PEOPLE

15.
“Keep a client. Make a
partnership.”
– PA U L M A I O R A N A
V P M E D I A S E R V I C E S , A U T O M AT T I C

16.
PARTNER FOR SUCCESS

17.
PARTNER
• Other WordPress firms
• Subcontract for overflow or special services
• Larger, non-WordPress specialist firms
• Beyond code

18.
ACQUIRE

19.
ACQUIRE
• Engineering talent
• Products and plugins
• Client base

20.
KNOW

21.
“[WordPress agencies] often have
the talent, but aren't pulling
together the non-development
skills that make clients
comfortable spending the big
bucks.”
– M AT T M U L L E N W E G

22.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
• Managing Expectations
• Proactive Communication & Planning
• Timelines & Dependencies
• Resource Management
• Contingency Plans

23.
MAKE YOUR CODE BETTER

24.
“Code reviews serve two purposes:
to improve your code’s quality,
and to learn from each other.”
– MO JANGDA, WORDPRESS.COM VIP

25.
DEVELOPER PLUGIN

26.
VIP CODE SCANNER

27.
“Every line of code we ship has at
least one extra set of eyes on it. It's
not supervisory, it's peer review,
which fosters collaboration.”
–AUSTIN SMITH, ALLEY INTERACTIVE

28.
CODE REVIEW APPROACHES
• Gatekeeper
• Peer review
• Review by committee
• Pair coding

29.
LEARN WORDPRESS
Flickr: Bohman

30.
LEARN
• Codex
• .org Handbooks
• WordPress.tv

31.
SHOW

32.
TELL YOUR CODE’S STORY

33.
TELLING YOUR CODE’S STORY
• Development approach & coding decisions
• Server or architecture setup & modifications
• Modifications of or forking .org plugins
• Development workflows

34.
TELL YOUR CLIENT’S STORIES

35.
TELLING
THE
CLIENT’S STORY
• Editorial and administrator tools
• Publishing workflows
• Business use cases
• Budgets and cost savings
• Results

36.
“More WordPress agencies need
to wake up to the power of being
part of the WP community.”
– T O M W I L L M O T, H U M A N M A D E

37.
BE IN THE COMMUNITY
Flickr: Heisenbergmedia

38.
BE IN THE COMMUNITY
• WordCamps, Meetups, Hack Days
• Present, Sponsor, Participate, Host
• Release Code & Plugins to .org
• Beta test new releases

39.
CONTRIBUTE TO CORE

40.
CONTRIBUTE
TO
CORE
• Make WordPress
• Core, UI, Mobile, Accessibility
• .org-dedicated Resources
• Documentation and Translation
• Support

41.
KNOW
SHOW
GROW

42.
THANKS!
(We’re hiring!)
@Automattic automattic.com/jobs
@WordPressVIP vip.wordpress.com
Sara @Rosso
sararosso.com
VIP Global Services Manager
Automattic / WordPress.com