//// ENGLISH
This is an exciting topic that I wanted to share with the community of Software Como Servicio. I talked with Fabian in episode 20 ( https://softwarecomoservicio.com/ep20-webpros-marketing-el-30-del-internet-esta-creado-con-wordpress-crea-negocios-saas-en-este-emocionante-ecosistema/ ) about how you can build your Software as a Service with WordPress but i wanted to go deeper into the topic.
WordPress is a very exciting ecosystem. I invited Michael Short, a WaaS (Website as a Service) expert and he has built several WordPress plugins that help you build your own WaaS and start selling software as a service without the need to invest in coding from scratch a platform.
- We discuss the benefits of building your own WaaS WordPress Network.
- What is a WordPress Network or WordPress Multisite
- Why you should focus on building your WaaS in a Niche that you dominate or can dominate.
- What kind of WordPress Plugins you can use in your WaaS to sell to your Customers.
- How to Brand the whole WordPress experience and put your brand and sell the solution as a real Software as a Service and your customers will not notice its WordPress.
- Why it's a big opportunity to sell WaaS in the Spanish Speaking Market and Portuguese market to sell it in Brazil.
You should listen if you have a Digital Marketing Agency, Productized Service, Digital Strategist, SaaS Entrepreneur, SaaS Marketer.
//// ESPAÑOL
Este es un tema interesante que quería compartir con la comunidad de Software Como Servicio.
Hablé con Fabian en el episodio 20 ( https://softwarecomoservicio.com/ep20-webpros-marketing-el-30-del-internet-esta-creado-con-wordpress-crea-negocios-saas-en-este-emocionante-ecosistema/ ) sobre cómo puedes crear tu software como servicio con WordPress, pero quería profundizar en el tema.
WordPress es un ecosistema muy interesante. Invité a Michael Short, un experto en WaaS (sitio web como servicio) y ha creado varios plugins de WordPress que te ayudan a crear tu propio WaaS y comenzar a vender software como servicio sin la necesidad de invertir en programar una plataforma desde cero.
- Discutimos los beneficios de construir tu propia red WaaS WordPress.
- ¿Qué es WordPress Network o WordPress Multisitio?
- Por qué debería centrarse en construir su WaaS en un nicho que domine o pueda dominar.
- Qué tipo de plugins de WordPress puede utilizar en tu WaaS para vender a tus clientes.
- Cómo personalizar toda la experiencia de WordPress y poner tu marca y vender la solución como un verdadero software como servicio y tus clientes no notarán que es WordPress.
- Por qué es una gran oportunidad para vender WaaS en el mercado de habla hispana y en el mercado portugués para venderlo en Brasil.
Deberías escuchar si tienes una agencia de marketing digital, un servicio productizado, si eres un estratega digital, un emprendedor de SaaS, un marketer de SaaS.
Vamos a Platicar.
Recursos del video:
Compra los Plugins de WaaS Pro por mi enlace de afiliado y te dare 1 hora de consultoría en como crear y vender tu propio WaaS:
https://softwarecomoservicio.com/waaspro
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Transcription:
[00:01:17] Michael Short: Great. Thanks. Alright. Thanks for having me on your show. Appreciate it.
[00:01:21] Jorge Diaz: Thank you for taking the time. I am in Monterrey, Mexico, and you're on the road, right?
[00:01:28] Michael Short: Yeah, I'm on the road. My family and I live in like I was telling you earlier before the call started. Family and I are living in our RV and traveling the US So we're currently on our first week and we're staying in Las Vegas. And then next week on Saturday, actually coming up, we're gonna be heading To Sedona, Arizona. So we have a quite a trip planned. A hand
[00:01:50] Jorge Diaz: Interesting, exciting for you?
[00:01:54] Michael Short: Absolutely. We're super excited. Finally, this has been a long time coming, and we finally got on the road this past weekend. And so it's It's still fresh and new as far as the full time living, but we've been planning it and just getting everything organized and ready since the beginning of the year. Like I mentioned so cool.
[00:02:11] Jorge Diaz: Interesting. So the reason we are here, e told you earlier, because I waas researching how to create a software as a service or software co. Most television with war press. I have bean using war press. Since 2005, 2006, when I started my digital marketing career and, well, warp ResCap evolved a lot. There was not a lot of tools back then, like only templates, and you need to tweak CSS and all that manually. But now we have a lot off development in that space in war press and and I was searching for some solution that with war press, you could sell a software as a service like some some kind off functionality. Let's say a CRM or E don't know many plug ins. You can put functionality in war press, but I found your solution and I want to talk about that. What does Watts pro s or yeah waken touch a lot of points? Sure, but let's go with that.
[00:03:33] Michael Short: Okay? So I'll start with how we got started because it kind of takes us to wear glasses and how we even got to this point. We started as an agency over 20 years ago, um, building websites for clients. We actually, when we very first started, I had to sell people why they needed a website. Back then, they thought that website was just like something that Onley the Joneses is a threat, you know, saying that we have here in the US and keeping up with the Joneses, and people were like, I don't need to keep up with the Jones. I don't need to have a website, or now it's like that's the core of our marketing and so I don't have to sell people why they need a website. Now. I just have toe sell them. The website for Exit eso. So I have been doing that business for quite some time. And along the lines of the marketing agency we were trying always trying to find ways to service our clients better and more efficiently so we can increase our profits. And at some point in time, I came across the idea of multi site, which is a part of WordPress. There's two ways of installing WordPress is a single site are multi site and most don't understand what multi side is. But the multi site actually is what gives us the ability. And that's how we're building our waxes websites as a service within repressed multi site. There are other ways of doing it now, but that's the way that we have embraced and found to be very useful and practical. So so
[00:04:47] Jorge Diaz: with Waas, you can take advantage of giving free trials or giving free.
[00:04:55] Michael Short: Yeah, it's awesome. E think to me. The number of one feature thing that exciting about, alas, is that if someone doesn't pay you like they don't pay their for their services. Their site gets automatically shut down through this network or through the service platform, whereas when you are an agency and you're building out site by site, it relies on you as the agency owner or whoever is working in the agency is they're gonna have to go in manually, turn the site off and shut it down off the server and whatnot. And so that doesn't really help with relationships. When you're trying to build good, solid relationships with customers, where if you have it in a platform and it does it automatically, it's something that it's just like, you know, paying your electricity bill or something else. If you don't pay, it just turned off, and that's just the way the systems work. And that's what's really cool about it. West.
[00:05:40] Jorge Diaz: Yes, yeah, because there's a lot off solutions now, like hosting companies like, you know, cloud ways or these thes type of panels that connect to the It'll ocean. It's better. It's faster, but it doesn't have that company. That component that you just said, right, it doesn't turns. Yeah, interesting.
[00:06:08] Michael Short: And also like there's ways to, like clone um, like you can create a site and make it a template in a way, and then clone that site every time you have a new build. So there's ways of doing that. But what was also interesting about, alas, is that you could build multiple templates, multiple designs, and I always recommend that you focus on a specific niche of some sort of niche niche. How do you want to say it? Um, and that is like a specific target audience. So that, like, for example, when we got started, um, Jordan, my clients were in automotive aftermarket are also in the auto care, so they're like, painless didn't repair technicians, car washes, things like that. And so it was. It made sense for us to build a last for that market because many of our clients were already in that space, and so we build templates out that were designed just for them. So all they have to do is go pick their template, and then within minutes, they had their site up and running. Whereas if you worked with us as an agency, we would have to go back and forth with whatever you're looking for. What do you want not want that kind of stuff, and then we'd have to build it out. Whereas this can literally you could scale your business to 100 people or 100 new business businesses on your system in a matter of minutes. Where I mean, to try to do that manually is like, nearly impossible. So that's the other really big advantage of the website is the service.
[00:07:22] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, I haven't talked to you about this, but I built my first US company like in the beginning, off the off the year, then copied Hit the entire world on its ah cleaning company in San Antonio, Texas. Like, uh, let's say, an uber with people that have cleaning companies or are individuals that clean houses. And I am like the platform that gets the commerce clients for them and we share ah, profit on. Then I was searching. Yes, exactly. They were for cleaners. It's called it made ops dot com, but I wanted to start also like something like awas, but for cleaning businesses. Also, I even register them the domain name made pages made pages dot com s. So that's the approach you're talking about, right?
[00:08:27] Michael Short: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly
[00:08:28] Jorge Diaz: build your network for niches.
[00:08:32] Michael Short: Yeah, for niches. Because not only that, like you can not only having designed specific specific for that niche, you also could build in specific features that they might need. Like whether that, like in your case, might be something like booking appointments, maybe even uploading pictures to show what their current, you know, place looks like, or size or whatever. You know, there's different things that you know about your specific niche that you can build into the website that you don't have to continue to reproduce every single time you build at one time. And then all they have to do is select what's template they want. And they have all those features already built in ready to go. And that's and then you can obviously charged as little as you want. At that rate, I mean, obviously, the goal is not to try toe go race to the bottom would be the cheapest guy in town, but same time you have that ability to be more flexible on your price because it doesn't require a lot of your man time after you've built this system. So
[00:09:23] Jorge Diaz: yeah, and by the way, in that industries. There are a lot of competition with US companies that are selling the booking form on they straddling and all that and even war prints with some plug ins, you can do the same as a eso for as a service, and you can create some some great solution in that market.
[00:09:49] Michael Short: Exactly on. There's just so much opportunity. A lot of people think of Lasses because the word websites as a service, you think of it as you're selling websites. But there is so many different things that you could do with the West. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to sell a website. You can actually sell a specific type of feature like a booking calendar. Just that you're your system on. Lee gives them a booking calendar, and you could build that on the backbone of WordPress. It doesn't have to be literally, ah website that they get where they get pages about us and contact us and all that stuff. That's where most people are doing it. But it doesn't have to be that way. It could be an estimator. It could be, you know, calculator. It could be a lot of different things that are just for that feature that people can add to the backbone of their existing website because I think one of the challenges that people face is getting people to convert over from their existing website to this new platform that they might have built. And so if you're if you're platform can just be at an add on to what they already have existing, that's even better, because now you can like scale. You know, you're not gonna have as many knows, because my chances are they probably don't have that specific feature already tied into their website. That makes sense,
[00:10:55] Jorge Diaz: yes, let's let's paint the picture to our viewers and listeners like, Okay, it's built in war pressed, but you have wasps pro, and it's the next level, right, like customizing the look and feel off your WordPress to be your own like wide labeling were pressed to be your yourself, your
[00:11:24] Michael Short: own solution, your own platform. Yeah, on GATT's If so, last pro became so back up to my story here a little bit. I started last procreating plug ins because we were scratching our own edge. We created this West for our target audience which is the auto care industry, like I mentioned. And, um and because we had, like, we I saw some. I had a specific thing I wanted to. I wanted to be able to have order bombs, upsides and downsides through the when they ordered a website. I wanted to be able to offer them in my other services, like logo design and s CEO and things like that. And so, um, so what we did is I looked and found a solution just like you're doing. And you went did some research, and I found Dr Cart and I thought, What if I could get Dr Card to integrate with this other plugging that I'm using for my west? And so that's what I did, I found, actually, um, I play, I found I found a company that homeland second, I'm gonna fix this real quick from my lighting. Doesn't keep screwing up there. I found a company that would help me integrate those two things, and actually, I can't even say that I found the developer to help me integrate those two things. And then the developer said, Yeah, I could do that. And so I had him work on it. And then I said, Well, I'm not the only one that's gonna have this need. Can we create this into a plug in? And they said, Yeah, we could do that So we made it into a plug in and I started a Facebook group, and then I introduced that plug into that group and I said, This is something I've been working on and that's how it works on mine. I gave a demonstration, and so I got a bunch of people to purchase it, and I was like, Wow, if I could make this one plug in I have all these other ideas that I want to do to make my last better. Like what about having managing photos, like having a stock library? So we have one called Stock Library Pro, where the idea is on a multi site. In order for you to add images to every single new sub site, you would have to duplicate those like if you want to give your cuts, let's say you had, for example, 100 different images for your specific niche. So maids right, and they want to. You want to give them the ability to use those images on their website. However, they want to use it. So you have this repository of images that they can select from well without are plugging. You would actually have to install those 100 images on every single install, whether they use them or not. And so, if you can imagine, the database is gonna get pretty large, is going is going to slow down your network. And so I thought, Well, what if we could have a repository like one central location where they're only installed in one place and your customers could just go to that and pick out the images as they want and add them at their leisure? So they're not having to add all 100? They're just adding the few that they're gonna actually use. And so that's that was the next plug. And then we create and then, you know, 20 plug ins later or more, and we just we've solved a lot of different problems, and that's why we have now asked pro. So you can buy are plug ins either individually, if you only have specific needs where you could buy them individually for the year annual license or, um, you could get on our monthly. We have a pro membership where you can get all access to all of our plug ins and just pay monthly for that. And, um, use amount unlimited West is like, we don't say. You can only use it on one or anything. We want you to be successful because I know a lot of us have ideas and, like, Wow, we could do that. I wanna I know people in this industry that are plumbers I know people that air doctors I know people you know so way don't limit you on how many times you can actually use the West are plug ins.
[00:14:31] Jorge Diaz: Yeah. Only the limit is maybe third party plug ins like l a mentor or other. You need to buy the licenses that are multi side, and you can resell them. Know and all that.
[00:14:45] Michael Short: Yeah, you mentioned elementary. And for those of their viewers that understand elementary, um, you can use element or free. I know you gotta do it yourself last, but you can't use the pro version. So the pro version you have to have some sort of manual process in your set up in order to use their probe because they just don't like someone just coming on. I don't know what the reason. I can't even tell you what the reason actually is, but that I know that against their licensing. So for us, though, it's not a bad thing because we found through our own West and we found many of our customers have experienced the similar same thing and that is, are in. Customers don't really want to figure out how to build their own website. They don't wanna learn how to make their own changes. They want someone to just do it for them. And so that's what our services have evolved to. So even though coming into the last space our thought process was, we're gonna build this network that people could then sign up, get a website up and running within minutes, and then they go and modify it themselves, and they're off to the races doing their own thing. And that's not really practical. That's not really what happens that they're not Web developers. They're having to learn a page builder. And even though as a developer ourselves, we think that something like L. A mentor is super intuitive and easy to figure out. It's not for someone that's like cleaning houses are fixing cars and things like that. They they have a whole different skill set in business that they want to focus on. And so what we found is like let's let's just add offer unlimited changes to for them. Let's let's offer a set up and just charge them for the set up of front. And because we know what we're doing, we could get it done in a matter of minutes, maybe 30 minutes at the most, and when it would take them hours to just kind of noodle their way through and trying to figure things out. So we're providing them with so much value that it's benefits them. And then if they have a change, we use a plug in called W feedback. And if they wanna, they just go and mark what they want to change. On their website. We get, we get the notification and we just go make that quick change. It probably takes us a couple minutes and and for them it's just that added value of security, of knowing like I could make whatever change our editor update that I want to my site without having to learn this stuff. And so that's how you keep your customers longer? Uh,
[00:16:50] Jorge Diaz: yeah, yeah. And the interesting part is that these website of the platform has, like, in build copyrighting like even the templates are already for For that industry reading, right?
[00:17:05] Michael Short: Exactly. So that was that, you know, one of the biggest challenges the agencies face. Or at least I know I could speak for myself And our agency is that collecting that content from your customers, trying to get them to give you images and give you the words that they wanted the website that could make a project go for a very long time. And so, like you just mentioned what we do instead of using Laura MIPs. Um, type of copy. Just like random nothingness. We actually wrote the content. Now, of course, you know it's not gonna be ideal for S e o. No one's gonna really benefit from using the same content, but it's better than nothing is. It's a way for them to get up and running really quickly, whereas without it, then they're just your again going back into that cycle of having to wait and all of that stuff. So, yeah, it's really been beneficial to be able to build out these templates that have both content and design ready to go out of the box, and we just go in and just updated. They have content. They have an existing website. We could go and, uh, carry that over really quickly and easily for them. So
[00:18:01] Jorge Diaz: e think that Z, uh, the best of both worlds because you can go to the business model off like agency, but with a website that I accept payments, recurring payments and all that. But you have moving parts and you still need to talk with with your client and with AWAS. Maybe it's a one off set up on all that, and little may maintain its with WP feedback pro or this plug in that enables you to well, for the user. Toe asked for a comment like in this bottom, change it toe blue or whatever, and it's with that plugging is very easy to do. That maintenance, right?
[00:18:51] Michael Short: Absolutely. We found it to be, Yeah, it's an amazing plug in, and we're super excited to be able to use that in our side of our last or multi sites.
[00:19:00] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, I heard about that plugging, and it changes. Well, it's a game changer, but not like an apple. Proud, like Whoa, like whatever their marketing is. But it's useful for people that build websites right on. That's the ecosystem of war. Press that you have many solutions like that. Well, you are a testament of that. You built one industry that waas not existing. And you are now the some of the people that has a lot off presence in the West space, right?
[00:19:41] Michael Short: Yeah, it's It's amazing how it all kind of evolved that, you know, I've always been just that person on the sideline buying the tools, and then eventually, it just like I realized I could do it. And so that's just make it. Let's make it happen. And so that's how it kind of evolved. And, you know, one of the questions that you had asked me before It was like, what? What gets me up during the day and and to me, like, gets me excited to get up in the day and for me, like I get excited just knowing, like being able to build new tools and new ways of making other people's lives easier, and so that they could make money and provide for their families and stuff. And so that's that's exciting to me. And we're always like trying to re innovate with our West pro eso. We have West Pro plug ins. As you know, we also have a West camp, so there's some people that come into this space that just wanna learn more about it. We have a free version of it that gives you just kind of introductory. Look at what West is all about. And then we have a couple of levels of paid versions where the ultimate version is going to show you exactly how to plan for a last with different target. How to target different industries, how to find your right industry, that it's not only just, um, you know, like your your product but also fits you as a person because that's important to you that you've got to enjoy what it is you're doing. If you know if you have, you don't know anything about mechanics. You probably don't want to get into the mechanic industry because it's just not gonna relate with those guys. You know, that's not maybe your your forte. So you want to pick something that you're interested in? So we talk about all this stuff inside of West camp. That's west dot camp is if you want to check that out, and then we also we start, we show you how to build it with how to use the tools, how to use our tools, but also how to use other tools that will help you provide a a Z. Um, that's what I'm looking for. I a series of tool sets that you can build out within a West. Whether that's like using cart flows is a good one using groundhog fluent for like, there's so many different great plug ins that we show you actually how to implement into your west inside of West Camp. And so, if you wanna learn that, that's how you can get on board learning West how to create a West. And then we also have another platform we recently just launched, which is called West Press. So think of like WordPress, um dot com, where you can go in and actually build out your own site. Last press. We are actually building out your west for you, for the most part, Like you can pick. You can design your templates. You can pick your names. You can put all your copying, but the infrastructure is there and includes all of our plug ins already pre built, like already built into the system. You're just picking. Okay? How many customers do you want your system to be able to have? And you kind of just go through and walk through what it is that your needs are and we build it out for you for the most part, So we get you is kind of getting you a head start. So that's West Press. Um,
[00:22:14] Jorge Diaz: yeah, because, for example, if you build it by yourself that your own, you need to figure out that the hosting you need to figure out that planning the compatibility and if it waas Yes, If you go to us, press you you said them up with coasting, and you charge that your clients and support
[00:22:42] Michael Short: Yeah, it's all right there. So we picked out specific plug ins that we know work well together. Well, well, 100% support them in terms of like if there's conflicts are developers will get in the back and figure that out. That's the other thing about building your own West. What we found to be challenging to some people is that you know, we're not Not every one of us are like actual coders and know how to troubleshoot some of these things. And so but we all doesn't mean that we don't have ideas and don't want have, like, a audience that we want to reach out to and be able to provide such a service. And so that's why we created last press to kind of take away that technology from Have you having to figure that out? We figured it out for you. We'll put it together and we try to make it really reasonable in terms of cost so that, you know, you go out, make money. That's the ultimate goal. We wanna we want Thio. We feel that more people we can help get what they want. We will get more of what we want. I mean, I learned that from Zig Ziglar. So, um yeah, that's that's kind of what West Press is all about. So those there are three core products. Whether you're gonna do it yourself and just get our plug ins or you're going you want training on how to do it and then also watch press where we do it for you?
[00:23:46] Jorge Diaz: Yeah. Even you have your own hosting company or
[00:23:51] Michael Short: hosting. Just want hosting. Yeah, we also have that. So yeah, it z way got a lot of things going on. But the
[00:24:01] Jorge Diaz: interesting thing is that everything you have, it's in the same Mitch. Its's it complemented. Yeah,
[00:24:10] Michael Short: they're all complimented. Yeah, they're all trying to help. Agencies are solar preneurs go down a business that's more efficient and where they could make more money. You know, I'm gonna faster and more efficient way.
[00:24:22] Jorge Diaz: And what do you think about the opportunity off selling was to the Spanish speaking market?
[00:24:29] Michael Short: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think I mean, we actually have a couple of customer, a few custom, quite a few customers, actually that are in the Spanish speaking market. One actually happens to be in the cleaning industry. Believe it or not, he's living in a I think it's near Brazil, but I know that's not necessary. But Anyways, we have them all over the world and they're all in different languages. One thing the reason I say it was interesting the beginning is because one of the things that we don't do with our plug ins quite yet is allowed for Thio interpreted in the any other language than English. So we only have English plug ins as of now. But that's something we are actually looking into because we do have several people from different countries asking us, Can we translate your plug ins into our language? And that's something we wanna be able to provide now that we're more and more global all the time. But as far as the market like, it's the same. I think for anybody like being able to provide a cost effective service works in Mexico just the same as it would in us. And I think it's great
[00:25:33] Jorge Diaz: on. And what do you think about WP ultimo or what do you recommend plugging wise? Uh, like there's, uh, PMP. I forgot the name of that plug in. There's a lot off plug ins you can just to build your network, but do you think it's this just with WP Ultimo.
[00:25:56] Michael Short: Yeah, absolutely. That's the core plugging So when we're very first. So when we very first started, we I discovered a company called W P M you Dev, and they were like the leaders and this whole multi site thing. And so they had a They had a plugging called pro Sites. And I was really excited that we got our last up built and at the last minute when it was came to like getting the payment, processing and all of that dial. Then it was just very clunky. And we just we person, we couldn't figure it out on our own team. And so, fortunately for us at that same time, we discovered WP Ultimate. And so we end up having to rebuild our entire West inside a W ultimate. But way haven't looked back since W. Ultimate has been great majority. Many of our plug ins um, all of our plug ins will integrate with it in one way or another. Um, there's a couple that we have that you are on Lee for integration with the ultimate. For example, we have a cart flows plug in where you can integrate with Baltimore. We also have one for Thrive card. That was the very first one we started. Andi believe there's like at least one or two more that we are specific for the ultimate. But, yeah, W ultimate great. And in fact, they're in the process of building out 2.0, right now, which I think will make it that even that much better once once they release it. It's very you promised
[00:27:09] Jorge Diaz: on. How does the card flow? Integration works like the first steps is the war press multi side set up right? And then
[00:27:19] Michael Short: eso what our card flows plug in. Our integration plug in does is with card flows. You have to have a woo commerce product to select as part of the the ordering process. Like it asked you what we will product. Do you want to be the main selling tool? And then after that, you start adding more products to the back end, like whether that's a service you're providing are some sort of digital products. And so our plug in you have tohave blue commerce. Of course, you're gonna have to have woo subscriptions, cart flows ultimo and our plug in. So you have. I guess that's five plug ins there that you have to have all together to make this work. But what what are Plug and actually does in that equation is it takes the WP ultimate plan and converts it into a woo product so that that's select double within CART flows so that you could use the order bombs, upsides and downsides of cart flows. That's
[00:28:10] Jorge Diaz: that's great. Even a good idea for AWAS is like, I don't know the licensing off car close. But selling funnels right in an automated way.
[00:28:22] Michael Short: Yes, yes. So if you wanted to be like a funnel builder, my recommendation would probably do use up, sell plug, and then that's all. That's mainly because you don't have to use blue Commerce is a direct integration with your striper PayPal, and also they have a a West specific license so that you can use it on one last with for unlimited sites on your West, whereas with a car flows you. Actually, I bought the lifetime license when it first came out, so I'm just going to use what I know I have, which is 50 license. I think it's 30 now. If you bought an annual license I think you get 30 licenses with that or 30 sites, but that once you're 30 sides air done, then you're gonna have to go by another license, whereas this other one call up sell plug in. You don't actually have to buy another license. You were one license will cover your entire network. That
[00:29:07] Jorge Diaz: Zatz. Very interesting. Yeah, you You need these kind of plug ins. And many plug ins are adapting to the space off the multi side because a lot of people are intending to build their own network, right? You're seeing a lot of interest or what is? Yeah,
[00:29:29] Michael Short: it's growing all the time everyday. I mean, we had, like I mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned in the video or just before I called. But we have a Facebook group of over 3400 people already, and it just continues to grow and grow. And so um, yeah, you can look for us on Facebook last pro developer network and you'll find us, um, it's there's a lot of people getting involved with it. I think it's I keep saying we're in the infancy stages. We're still not even adolescents. It's still in the beginning of it, and I think ultimately it's just going to really everybody's gonna have to get in on this game on gets better to get in early before it's too late, because it's gonna be hard to compete as an agency when you have customers or potential customers that say, Well, how much is it to build a website? How come I could get this website over here and or, you know, 16 $50 a month or whatever it is? And it comes with all these features in this, that and the other. And you're trying to charge me, you know, 2000 or $5000 or whatever it ISS, and it's because they have a system. They have a network already built so they don't have toe, you know, touch each one individually every time they get a new customer, so it will be hard to compete against that. So now is the time to really, like, pick your niche and really, it helps you to When you product ties your services, it helps you. Sella's well, like it makes it easier to like pick up the phone and call and sell someone on your service because you have a product to show them. You have something to talk about. Like it's not like, Okay, we'll give me What kind of how many pages do you want? How many pictures are we gonna have? How much content are we gonna Okay, I'll get back to you with a quote. It's all right. There is like, This is what you get. This is how much it costs. Let's get you signed up today. It's really simple, so it's a lot easier to sell a product service.
[00:31:03] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, the back and forth kills many, many, many cells as it simplifies also your work because you can replicate it with one click with WPL team. All
[00:31:16] Michael Short: right, exactly. It's the business to be nowadays for sure, for sure.
[00:31:24] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, there's a lot off proselytizer services like content creation, podcast creation on. They just focus on one big problem or or need for any start up. But I think I think the market will able to sell whatever plugging functionality for a more Priss. For example. Ah, lot off at me. I mean templates like, for example, in workers, they are templates for your website. All kinds of categories right. But now they are launching a lot off at mean
[00:32:05] Michael Short: way. Have a couple, actually,
[00:32:08] Jorge Diaz: Yes, exactly. If you can talk about that,
[00:32:11] Michael Short: Yeah, like you're saying there's so you're white, labeling the entire experience. You don't want them to feel like they're inside of WordPress. I mean, there's there's two, like schools of thought on that Some people like I want them to know it's WordPress because then they'll have, ah, plethora resource is that they can reach out to like on YouTube or whatever they learn how toe How that, you know, make edits and stuff themselves or the other side of it is like I want to be. I don't want them to know that they could get this somewhere else or put the tool sets together themselves. And, you know, this is like white label. This branded to my brand is everything. We have a lot of white label plug ins. That's but that's like probably the majority of our plug ins at this point is, if you want to bring on like our phones, we have a white label plugging. If you were to offer car flows to your customers, you can actually hide the fact that says car flows and you can call it whatever your funnel builder and whatever you wanna call your funnel builder. Um, it's just it just makes more sense to keep everything consistent, cohesive within your marketing and your your admin. So when they log in, they just see your brand and nothing else. It's just makes for a much better experience, in my opinion.
[00:33:15] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, and what I was going to tell you. Also, it's There's an admin template. I don't remember the name at me in 2020 or something like that on. They have, like, now, a multi license unlimited. If you buy the lifetime license, you can put it in in your multi side side. But I think in the beginning he didn't know that was going toe. Two came across that customers asked for that or stuff like that. And I have seen that a lot of plugging developers will have their division off workers. Multi side.
[00:33:57] Michael Short: Yeah, it's evolving. A lot of people are realizing that this is a new market and, um, they want to be a part of it. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's just it really does. You have one installation. You only have to monitor and manage one set of plug ins that are used across the entire network. So each site you don't have to update each site like you would on a single sites with your client. Individual clients. Um, it's just there's a lot of benefits for being multi site now. There's drawbacks, too, but I think the benefits, in my opinion, outweigh the neg. Anything that's potentially negative.
[00:34:27] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, I was going to talk about the drawback is that you cannot do Ah, uh, war, personal decide or war press network with blue commerce functionality, right? Yeah,
[00:34:43] Michael Short: it's just not advise. You could do it, but I think because it's so we're commerce is such a demanding plugging, and they use a lot of tables and whatnot. When you start compounding a lot of data, um, it could become it could slow down your network from what I'm not the most technical person, so I might not be saying exactly right. But I just know that in our community, alive, pretty much suggest not to use will commerce when possible, at least not to sell it as like a Shopify eyes experience. Yeah,
[00:35:13] Jorge Diaz: exactly. Because I heard that, uh, multi side works like in the same database on it creates, like a copy in a sub domain like client one dot your domain dot com on it can go toe client 1000. Right? So all these clients are sharing one that a vase with their customers alert our old E. If one customer buys with the competition, they will share that client and the log into their e commerce will be like or I already have a new account. It can mix up the information off all your customers, and it will be a mess.
[00:36:02] Michael Short: Yeah, it'll slow your network so their websites will be slow and stuff like that, too.
[00:36:07] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, but just with all comers,
[00:36:08] Michael Short: Yeah, drawback. There's another plug in, like Amelia, if you're into the booking stuff, that one has a lot of tables and also could slow down when it's compound it. But that doesn't happen too often. There's not very many plug ins that are going to be that heavy. That's going to cause issues. Um, for the most part, you'll you shouldn't have too much troubles.
[00:36:31] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, it's it's very interesting. I wanted to talk also about hosting, but it's just a matter off. You cannot put this networks in, like house gator or something.
[00:36:43] Michael Short: Yeah, you don't wanna put on some shared network or whatever. Yeah, you definitely want Thio understand how hosting works. Especially if you're looking to scale that business. You're gonna want to make sure that it's done right. Like if you look at our last press offerings, we only go, I believe upto 150 sites at the most. When you start getting beyond that, then you really got to start looking at your hosting more intently, and we have services for that as well. But we don't have anyone on it, to be honest with you and there at this time, so I can't even speak to it for the most part. But there's at that point. You know, there's just more that you have to do when it comes to the hosting you have toe. Just make sure that it can handle that many concurrent users at one time and without issues and fails. So, um, yeah, it
[00:37:26] Jorge Diaz: sounds pretty demanding. And what have you seen with your customers or yourself? Like a network go from one customer to 100. Is that I'm
[00:37:39] Michael Short: not? Yeah, We've got people in the group that had So just to give you a little transparency on our network, we we have maybe about 50 customers on it. Max, we never really grew up beyond that. And I don't make a solid effort anymore to try to continue to grow that part of my business because I've been so focused on helping other people grow There is it just seems like it would be contradicted, like just it would be hard for me to spread myself so thin. So I prefer I found joy in building out the West community in the West, plug ins and tools and stuff like that that I just focused on my attention towards that. Now, although we still have our last, we still have customers that we service, but that's not our focus. We're not looking to make phone calls and add more people in that network, but now go back to answer your questions. There are people that do have a few 100 on their network, and it's not an uncommon thing. Um, but it is more commented or people getting like right now. Like I mentioned earlier, we're in the infancy stages, so people have been just doing this for a little bit of time, and they've been doing a kind of a majority of people are probably doing it like on the side of whatever their main hustle list. Whether that's running an agency the normal way or there, they have another job or whatever s o the majority of people that you might find inside like let's say, our Facebook group are not at that level yet, but there are certainly some that are and there killing it. There's one called drop funnels. For example, drop funnels dot com It's a funnel builder and he's killing it. He's on W ultimo from my understanding and, uh, constantly just keeps adding more and more customers to his network. And it's working really well for him. So
[00:39:11] Jorge Diaz: wow, Yeah, this can be like a 10,000 Vermont business software as a service, and Andi, all based in war press and and maybe built by a note non colder, maybe have some developers that do support but not code in. In that sense, maybe just with the support off your company.
[00:39:39] Michael Short: Yeah, and that's what exactly? We build last press because one of the things I realized that our audience really is not just developers. We, our audience, they're like coaches and influencers and people that have an audience already that want to be able to add another service to their mix of products that they're already offering just sites is like a shoe and type of service that you can offer anybody for the most part, like if you're a coach like here, we understand, you know, you need these services and these kind of websites. So we built this platform for you. Um, I went to a a networking event called It's Not Really a networking event, but it was a instructional event called product Launch formula by a guy named Jeff Walker. And I went to his event, and he's got a room full of people that have all these ideas, and they want to learn how to launch their products to their audience. And most of those people were not launching websites. They were launching a multitude of different things, and one of the things that he has you do is like getting groups of you know four or five people and get to know each other and share each other's ideas and that kind of thing. And and then, like when I was there, this was a couple years ago. It dawned on me like Wait a second. Like this is my audience people. There's one lady, for example. She has a knitting audience of like 30,000 people that follow her on how to do knitting. Who would ever think about that? Seven inch, like That's just so crazy. But those people want to knit, but they also want to sell their nets knitting online. Or have you know, besides just with that, see if they can show how toe blogged about it and all that stuff like you this girl had now has an opportunity to reach out to them. Say, Look, I can set you up with your blogged and knitting and you can sell them online and all this stuff it just makes so much sense, you know. So for her toe have, alas, to be able to offer to her already existing audience. And so there's so many different sub niches out there that could use a service like this that you know the sky's the limit. Really?
[00:41:25] Jorge Diaz: Yeah. For there's an example off business that was sold by a e. Don't remember the name restaurant engine, and it's like a, um yeah, product Eyes service for restaurant. They created your website and your online ordering for your restaurant, and they did it manually with with employees. But that can now be automated,
[00:41:52] Michael Short: right? It's a it's awesome.
[00:41:56] Jorge Diaz: That's for for restaurant, for one or other. Yeah, made maids or gaining services outdoor repair, maybe even for agencies build their own. Yeah, watch this or don't for you, for I don't know what type off. Different claims the agency's cast hap It can be. Yeah,
[00:42:24] Michael Short: so they're already focusing on initiative would be a great idea to bring into their offering. Go Out and West Network for Target, Like a lot of people are using it as a foot in the door service. So, like if you have another service that is more expensive, but you just want to get a customer in the door so that you can start developing that relationship will last is a great way of doing that, like it doesn't have to be the end all be all service that you're offering. It could be the beginning stages of something bigger and taking them through your what we cost. Um, Russell Bronson, I think, is the one that coined it. But dissension ladder, taking them through the process of like buying something here and then, like now they've spent a little bit more in a little bit more in a little bit more. Um so, yeah, that West is a great place to start with them.
[00:43:07] Jorge Diaz: It's very interesting. That's the reason I brought brought you to the show because I am always I like them. No code industry like toe build. I am not a blocker. I'm a designer and mark on a marketer on I want to build a stuff like mobile laps websites. I know how to do it because I learned WordPress since 2005. Now you can do a lot of things with war press, but knowing more presents back in the day, thes new platform, citing There they They do a good job, but you need cell tow program something or no programming or something. And WordPress For me, it's easy, Easy or for many people, it's easy to to create their own, um, application. Even now you can do Ah, um, mobile app with war press connected in the vacuum or something.
[00:44:12] Michael Short: Yeah, it's crazy. WordPress is is definitely I'm growing quite a bit.
[00:44:17] Jorge Diaz: Yes, you can create. For example, you're, let's say, your mobile app in IOS and Android for, like, $1500 and you can start charging recurring subscriptions with just your face or your the retail footprint. Some prints and start charging recurring income. And you can sell courses or a community and that tied to war. Press without coding. And that's very interesting. That's about body press. Body body, body boss. Yes, base it off body press. But it's very interesting all that eco system. I don't know if later you could do like awas off body press, but that's e don't know their license thing. That's important to see the licenses off.
[00:45:21] Michael Short: There's people using buddy bus for their glasses. Actually, it z coming. Ah, Chris, Buddy Boss itself is a theme, So it's just a nice design that has community to it, adds the community a component. So, you know, that's one thing that could be beneficial depending on your niche to have community to build up something where they can communicate with each other at the same time of having a website. I know several people that are building out there west is that with you, it's just really the sky is the limit on what you could do with building out of West and towards you can.
[00:45:51] Jorge Diaz: But but selling body body bus or they having body bus
[00:45:57] Michael Short: both. So when one in particular that is one of our West camp members, Um, he's building out a buddy Bus West. Essentially, that helps people that want to have a buddy bus network or community built for them. He, his West will do that. He'll set it up. He'll show you. He's got all these different plug ins that comes included. Uh, the APP is included. Hosting is included like because a lot of times like hosting when you get into the community and how Maney current users you can have in the community, you have to have a good understanding of hosting. And so he's got all that dial, then figured out and is providing it as one package service as part of his west. Yeah,
[00:46:36] Jorge Diaz: actually, that's the the whole work, right? Hosting compatible compatibility.
[00:46:46] Michael Short: That's the core of the business. If that fails, then and all of that was for nothing. Yeah,
[00:46:53] Jorge Diaz: it's interesting. And what are you? What are the most important passions outside of your work?
[00:47:02] Michael Short: Yeah, So I I mentioned before we got on the call that I'm actually on the road. My family and I are living in art. I think I started talking about this in the beginning of this, according actually Chew. But yeah, we travel was a big thing for me. I love traveling, and it's something that I've always wanted to do more of and now, like I mean, you can't see my set up, but I'm I'm instead of an RV, and I got it all dialed in, and it's just it's awesome to be able to go anywhere and still take my work with me Thio extent, and it's exciting.
[00:47:32] Jorge Diaz: How is this set up off the Internet or WiFi S.
[00:47:37] Michael Short: So we have some challenges trying to get on this cause I think that might have been part of it, but I'm using an unlimited data service for A T and T, and it's It's some special service that I got through like, uh, like, if you do are being research and stuff, there's like You can't just go to the A T and T store in other words, and get this particular type of service. You have to buy it like through somebody. And so it's not really black market, but they got in on something way early in the game. And so now they're able to, like, resell it to people like me that are doing this so it's unlimited. It works really well so far, and other than just are a little bit of a hiccup earlier trying to get on this call. But yeah, it zingre so it's just on then. Also, some campsites will also have the offer. WiFi, but I don't wanna rely on them. Obviously, if I'm running my business, I have to make sure that I dial Dancel. It's working
[00:48:28] Jorge Diaz: very, very interesting. And where can we follow you to know more about what you do?
[00:48:36] Michael Short: I think the best way to find us besides our websites, which is last dash pro dot com, last press dot com and west dot camp and also west host dot com. Um, if not those services, then actually, just get on toe Facebook and go to Facebook groups. And we are west pro developer Network. Just search for that and join the conversations is free to join and just get involved in ask questions and see what it's all about. Him is a good fit for you. And I'm more than willing to jump on a call with anybody that help them walk him through the process to if they had any specific questions.
[00:49:12] Jorge Diaz: Yeah, I will join the Facebook group bills. I'm not already in, but I will. Today s So what? What are the last words for entrepreneurs that want to start a WAAS company in the Latino American market?
[00:49:29] Michael Short: I would say, Don't hesitate. Just do it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Don't think that you have to put out a perfect product. If it's not, if it's perfect, then you took too long to launch it. You want to make you want to just get it out there and just tweak it as you go because you're gonna change your ideas. They're gonna change what you think is a great idea may not be so great for your target audience. So you might spend hours and hours trying to get perfect what you think your audience wants. And then once you launch it is like, Wait a second, they don't even want that. And so you waste time, so just get out. The minimum viable product was what they call it M v p. Um, And just just get whatever is the most basic level feature set that you can have and get people start testing it and say, Let them request the features that they actually want. And then that's how you know the best way to grow it. Get started.
[00:50:15] Jorge Diaz: Perfect. Well, Michael, it has been a pleasure to have you in the software coma. Zarrabeitia Podcast. Thank you for being here and sharing your knowledge and time.
[00:50:29] Michael Short: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you. Take care
[00:50:33] Jorge Diaz: bye
