Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
Today's interview is with Brian Gardner.
Brian is the founder of StudioPress, which makes WordPress themes based on their Genesis framework.
Brian grew Studio Press from nothing into a multi million dollar business.
In 2010, Brian merged studio Press and several other companies with Copyblogger to create Copyblogger Media.
Brian is a founding partner of Copyblogger Media and also its Chief Product Officer.
So, Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian Gardner (00:56.540)
Thank you so much for having me.
Omer (00:58.380)
Now, I've told our audience just a little bit about you.
Tell us in your own words a little bit more about you personally and then give us an overview of your product and business.
Brian Gardner (01:07.180)
Sure.
So, as you said, I am Brian Gardner.
I am current Chief Product Officer of Copyblogger.
I created the StudioPress company, which was originally founded on a theme I created back in the day, but before that I was a project manager for an architectural firm.
Currently, I am a Sarah McLachlan fan.
I love to run and among other things, my son who is in sports, we do a lot of that stuff as a family.
But I work from home.
I do a lot of my work online and it's great stuff.
Omer (01:44.560)
Great.
Now, before we dive into more details, we like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
What is one of your favorite success quotes?
Brian Gardner (01:58.510)
So the famed hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said, a good hockey player plays where the puck is.
A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.
And that really holds true for me both in the endeavor that I took with WordPress and themes and just general business, you know, as a whole.
You know, there's so many people online who, in my opinion, try to be the next so and so, which in essence, and his quote is, you know, just going to where the puck is.
And, you know, a successful person or someone who, you know, creates something huge is actually a step ahead of them and he's out, you know, where no one's at, but where he knows the puck is going to be.
So for me, that really held true with WordPress themes and selling them because at the time nobody was doing it, but.
But I thought I had something that was marketable and I had an audience.
And so I took a shot and skated up the rink.
And it turns Out.
I was in the right place at the right time, and I shot and scored.
So that's definitely a quote that holds true for me in terms of success.
Omer (03:00.760)
That's a great quote.
So before we talk more about Studio Press, I want to talk a little bit more about you.
Now, when I did my research for this interview, I didn't find as much information as I expected about you.
You do a lot of writing, but I don't think there were many interviews that I found.
Am I right?
Do you not do that many interviews?
Brian Gardner (03:24.140)
I don't do a lot of written interviews primarily because I do so much writing and stuff at the computer anyways.
It's much easier for me to do something that's audio and just kind of talk from the heart rather than try to craft things in a way that I think they should be received.
You know, I've been on a lot of, you know, interviews and podcasts that revolve primarily around WordPress and, you know, the whole building of studio price and what we're doing now.
But, you know, from a personal angle, there hasn't been much in terms of interviews or just writing.
I've nuked my blog a couple of times, so any personal content that has existed does not exist anymore.
So, not that I'm a secret person, but I dole out as much as I care to on social media about who I am and what I do behind the scenes.
So that's usually the best place to find it.
Omer (04:18.350)
Okay, so that was the main question for me when I was doing the research was, who is Brian Gardner?
And so let's start just talking a little bit about how you describe yourself.
So Starbucks addict Sarah McLachlan, fan, nomad, theorist, future iron man, aspiring blogger.
So those are the things that I found.
So it sounds like you were spending a lot of time working from Starbucks.
Do you still work from there now or are you working mostly from home?
Brian Gardner (04:41.830)
You know, I go there once a week just to get out of the house, and I love the ambiance and atmosphere, you know, at a coffee shop and having people come in and go and, you know, it's really good kind of background noise for me.
I usually do work with headphones on, so it is good to get out of the, you know, the caverns of my upstairs office from time to time.
Obviously, I indulge in drinking Starbucks, so it's a natural fit that I go to a coffee shop that serves drinks that I enjoy.
So, yes, that is true.
Omer (05:13.180)
Did I see you?
Were you featured in the New York Times or there was a paper I saw something about you and how much you were spending at Starbucks.
Brian Gardner (05:22.220)
Yeah, believe it or not.
Yes, I believe it was run on the New York Times.
Or was it abc?
Actually, I think it was ABC News, but I was contacted by a reporter there because she Googled Starbucks Addict, which I think I ranked number two or three for just based on kind of my fandom.
And so she said, as a Starbucks addict, I'd like to ask if you're willing to participate in this.
And for obvious reasons I thought it would be a fun thing to do.
So yes, I did.
Omer (05:52.500)
See, I love to work from Starbucks, but that wifi drives me so nuts.
It's so slow these days.
But they're rolling out Google WI fi around here in the Seattle area.
Brian Gardner (06:01.120)
So yes, they did the same thing here in Chicago and it's been like night and day different.
Omer (06:06.160)
Awesome.
So tell me what you mean by Nomad theorist.
Brian Gardner (06:10.560)
So a while back, and this really kind of goes into the personal element of my writing.
I wanted to create.
This was three or four years ago, just kind of a generic blog where I could just kind of write about random things and not under my own domain name.
And so I was trying to come up with two words that just kind of personified who I was or where I was at in life.
And there was a popular blog many, many years ago called Thought Mechanics.
It was founded by a couple of folks and I liked the idea of a two word domain name that was kind of unique and interesting, but it kind of portrayed what it is they were trying to go after.
And so I one night I, you know, throw on some music and was just kind of just brainstorming and I, you know, I was stumbling around and I was like, ah man, I don't know what kind of, you know, what I want to do or whatever.
And so just the whole idea of Nomad popped into my head and I was like, well, here I am wandering and this makes sense.
So I'm like, okay, Nomad this, Nomad that, you know, and at the time I think I was thinking about the idea of color theory because I was working on some design stuff.
And so the idea of Theory also popped into my head and I was like, nomad Theory.
And and so I went on to Domain registrar and looked to see if it was available and it was.
And so I bought the domain kind of as a potential landing place for kind of the personal side of me, which it has and hasn't been over the last couple years.
I think I've since shut that down and it just forwards to my domain name now.
So I've kind of still held onto that as a title.
It doesn't mean anything specifically now because I don't have the blog for it, but maybe one day I will.
Omer (07:53.970)
And tell me about future Ironman.
Brian Gardner (07:57.170)
So I've been a runner for about four or five years now and I do long distance events, half marathons and things like that.
And I'm getting kind of bored with the idea of that distance.
I've trimmed off some time.
I've PR'd a couple times recently and I was just looking for something that was out of the comfort zone yet didn't require me to completely reset a hobby.
And so I started thinking about working my way potentially into trying to do an Ironman event, which of course is swimming, running and biking.
And I've yet to really pursue that, but I hope to at some point.
Kind of a bucket list thing, you know, we'll see.
I'm not a huge swimmer, so I'm not sure if that's exactly something that will work out.
But you know, we got to have goals in life and things that we strive to work towards and again, we'll see if that happens.
Omer (08:47.560)
You know, my wife had never even run, you know, a 1k fun run.
And a couple of years ago came home and said that she was going to compete in a triathlon.
And I was like, yeah, sure.
And she actually started training and completed that a couple of years ago and she's done a few since then.
So she's always reading books about this stuff.
And she was showing me a show the other day about the Ironman.
The one.
Is this the one that happens over in Hawaii?
Brian Gardner (09:19.570)
Well, that's the big one.
The Kona World Championships is once a year.
I think it's in October.
And so that's the one that really motivated me because they, I think it's run in October and early December is when they actually kind of produce a show and broadcast the playback of it on NBC.
And you know, so I've.
I've got them all on YouTube where I'll go in and watch them for inspiration.
So.
And I listen to the Ironman World Championships varies from year to year.
Just every day when I go out to run.
So it's definitely still something fresh in my mind.
But good for her.
Omer (09:54.120)
Yeah, I mean, watching that stuff is really inspirational and it kind of reminds me I should be able to just, you know, move my butt and work out at least once a day.
Brian Gardner (10:02.930)
Yep.
Omer (10:03.810)
Okay, so let's take a journey back together just to your early days and explore how you got started.
So before we get into studio press, just tell me a little bit about how you started with the free themes and then moved on to revolution.
Brian Gardner (10:20.210)
So like I said a little bit earlier, I was a project manager at architectural firm and I was just doing desk work and I was getting a little bit bored with that and at the time, and still at the time, but I love to write and so I just, at the time I was like, well, let me just get into blogging.
It was sort of kind of new.
This was 2006ish, 2005ish.
So Google's product, which is Blogger, still exists, but it was one of the few options back in the day.
And so I started playing around with that and kind of outgrew it a little bit.
I was like, well just it was too elementary for me and I wanted to kind of take things a little bit further.
So somebody suggested I look into WordPress.
And so looking into WordPress meant that I had to figure out what self hosting was.
And so I researched and googled and figured out how to install WordPress and pulled down a free theme and just put it on my site.
And some things I didn't like.
So I was trying to figure out how to change colors or to kind of move some things around and basically self taught myself how to code themes from a CSS styling standpoint, but also kind of from a PHP standpoint.
And so I started just playing around with themes and at the time techno ready was like this big thing where they had this top 100 blogs.
And so I had this goal to get myself listed on there.
And my method was to create some free themes and give them away and put a link in the footer, you know, designed by type of thing.
And so I worked my way into the top 100 of techno Radi, which I thought was cool.
And so through all of that exposure it naturally led to some link backs and some inquiries from people saying, hey, I've downloaded this free theme of yours, I want to change it a little bit.
Can I pay you to do it?
I was like, sure, yeah, why not?
It was kind of moonlighting for me at the time and just extra money.
So I started doing that and those types of things kind of led into bigger projects, more full blown custom projects.
And so I was doing a custom project for a real estate agent and really pushed the envelope and created kind of like a homepage on top of a blog for him and came back and said you know what, this looks great and I love it, but I actually don't need a whole website.
I just want to use this for a blog.
And so I was like, I was really bummed.
I was like, man, this is, I thought this was like cutting edge and this was really pushing the envelope with WordPress.
And so I went on my blog and said, hey, what do you think of this design?
Would anybody buy it?
And I got an overwhelming response from people saying, yeah, that's so cool.
Because at the time everyone was used to just a straight kind of blog look from WordPress and this looked like more of a homepage website look.
And so when I got that huge response, I followed that up by saying, how much would you pay for what?
I called at the time premium WordPress theme and you know, range from 50 to $100 was the general consensus.
And a few weeks later I registered a domain name and put it for sale and started making money.
Omer (13:23.770)
How much traffic did you have on your blog at the time?
Brian Gardner (13:26.810)
You know, I don't know numbers wise, I know it was easily in the hundreds of hits a day, maybe close to 1,000 probably at the time.
So I had a pretty decent audience because when I wrote those two blog posts, both of them had easily over 100 comments that I remember.
So I knew there was enough of an audience or an amount of people that I could actually pitch it to.
And so when 30, 40, 50, 100 people said they would buy it, even then I wasn't a schooled entrepreneur, but I was smart enough to realize that there was an opportunity there.
Omer (14:03.600)
So did you have a background in web development or web design when you started out creating these themes?
Brian Gardner (14:10.160)
No, absolutely not.
It was completely self taught.
I'm a street smart kind of guy.
I never graduated college.
I left after two years because I didn't know what I wanted to do and became a manager at a convenience store locally here.
And one of our customers is the guy who ultimately hired me for this architectural job.
And so it was completely all self taught and I had no web development experience, no business experience, and so I was literally flying by the seat of my pants.
Omer (14:39.720)
That's a great story.
So what were you writing about on your blog that was helping you build this audience?
Brian Gardner (14:49.240)
The very, very beginning stages of just the blogging experiment as a whole was just about personal stuff, being a dad and just like things that were going on in my daily life, but as I said, started to kind of offer up some these free WordPress themes that quickly shifted towards kind of, you know, just Teaching people things that I was learning how to do this or how to do that.
And so I kind of overtook that personal, you know, content strategy.
And even to this day, I waver back and forth between wanting to write personally and wanting to write kind of more from a professional standpoint, because there are obviously two very different audiences, even though there's some overlap.
But so, yeah, it was just personal stuff.
Then it became WordPress stuff.
And then, especially when I launched, at the time, Revolution, the theme, I realized, well, I have to.
People were using it now and having questions.
And so I had to keep writing in response to that, which clearly paying clients certainly are more important than just the desire to journal online.
Omer (15:56.600)
So did you have a bigger vision in mind at that point when you started selling Revolution, did you know you were building what would become Studio Press?
Brian Gardner (16:03.960)
I did not.
I created the first Revolution theme and started selling it.
And when it was, I think it was the fourth month, as I was selling just the one theme, sales doubled literally from every month to the fourth month.
And at that point, when I realized I was going to launch a second theme, which I believe was the Revolution magazine theme, at that point I realized, okay, maybe this is something more than just selling a theme for a couple months.
Cause revenue was, for me at the time.
I mean, it was ridiculously way more than I had ever seen before.
And so I realized, okay, this isn't just making a few hundred bucks here and there.
Like, there's viable something here.
And so I launched Revolution, the magazine theme and then the news theme.
And at that point, I had three themes and revenue was completely cranking.
And I was like, okay, now I gotta figure something out.
Omer (17:03.620)
So when you launched Revolution, I believe you did about $10,000 in your first month.
Brian Gardner (17:09.540)
Yep.
Omer (17:10.180)
And then what happened in the subsequent months?
Brian Gardner (17:12.740)
As I said, it doubled.
It went from 10 to 20 to 40 to 80 in four months.
And when it got to $80,000 a month, I was.
I first told my wife, you know, I know the plan was for you to quit first so that, you know, we could try to start a family and all that stuff.
And.
But I think it's financially irresponsible for me to keep this job and try to do the business on top of it.
So we agreed that I would leave my job first to pursue this kind of quote unquote web thing.
And a few months later, she was able to quit her job.
And so at that point, it was all Internet stuff.
Omer (17:48.689)
So looking back at those early days, what do you think was one big mistake?
That you made.
Brian Gardner (17:57.370)
So as I said, I wasn't schooled in the line of business and so I was making decisions just kind of uneducatedly.
I didn't realize some of the ramifications of decisions I was making until I got a cease and desist letter from a software company in the United Kingdom that claimed Revolution, the name Revolution was problematic and confusing with the software revolution at the time they had.
And so I took it to an intellectual property attorney and said, this is freaking me out, I don't want to get sued, blah, blah, blah, making lots of money, what do I do?
And you know, he did some research and he said, you know, we can see their claim as being, you know, legit, you know, and so said, I suggest you call it something else.
Which totally freaked me out.
I was like, well, there goes my business.
I just left my job and all this other stuff.
And so ultimately what I did was I went out and hunted down the domain name Studio Press, bought it from a.
By domains or whatever.
I just thought it sounded cool.
Had the same IP lawyer look it up and see if there was any trademarks on it already or anything existing that would be problematic.
He said no.
And so kind of with blind faith, I just, I rebranded everything Studio Press, you know, so that was a big lesson for me, is to take business seriously and to realize that you can't just go do whatever you want without thinking or without researching, you know, certain things.
And so that was big for me.
And so kind of from that point forward, every time I made a decent or major sized decision, it was all about, okay, let me think this through rather than just wing it.
Omer (19:42.410)
So, so, so you launched Studio Press.
What, what did you do with the Revolution theme?
Did you, did that become, did you rename or rebrand that too?
Brian Gardner (19:53.890)
Yeah, everything just kind of just moved over name for name.
You know, I, I wrote a blog post that basically was kind of, you know, transparent.
Said, hey, I've not exactly something I want to do, but hey, this is business and I gotta do this.
And Revolution is rebranding a Studio Press.
And we were kind of transitioning, you know, the license of the themes anyway, so there was kind of a lot of change going on.
And to be honest, everything was new back then in the WordPress world, you know, with the whole idea of selling themes and companies and things being built on it.
So I think there was a lot of grace just from people because it was like things were changing monthly, you know, just how people were doing things and setting things up.
And so it really didn't shock many people, and revenue was unaffected by the switch.
So once I moved into Studio Press and kind of got a few months behind me, it was all, at that point, just a little wave and whatnot.
Omer (20:50.400)
And so how many themes did you have at the time?
Brian Gardner (20:54.640)
So Studio Press, I can't remember.
There was maybe a handful of them, and they just continued to grow until, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15, you know, ish.
And that's at that point when I realized that there were things that I was, you know, code that I was reusing across multiple themes.
And as I found new ways to do things, had to go back and update all of these themes.
That.
About that time is when I kind of had the idea of creating what's now the Genesis framework, which is.
Is there a way to extract all of the code into a kind of a universal spot and then change the way it looked, you know, independent from that?
So.
So I reached out to Nathan Rice, who at the time was working for iThemes, which is another theme shop, and just kind of just said, hey, what do you think of this whole idea?
And he totally bought into it.
And, you know, it just worked out at the time that, you know, he.
He left that company and kind of came right over to what I was doing.
And.
And that's when we started building.
Building out Genesis.
Omer (22:01.480)
So the idea of the child theme was basically to abstract out, take all the core functionality, put that into the Genesis framework.
So that was like the one piece of code that you were making, all of these major sort of rehauls or adding new functionality in.
And then the child themes were kind of just the kind of the skin that you applied on top of that.
Is that the right way to think about it?
Brian Gardner (22:30.050)
Yeah.
I mean, the best way for me to explain it is you have an iPhone, and you have an iPhone cover.
And so the iPhone, of course, was all of the code, which is Genesis.
And you could change the way it looked by pulling off the COVID and putting on another one, which is, in theory, the Child theme system.
So it's basically just kind of the design and CSS of it all.
Omer (22:51.490)
You got help from Nathan, but other than that was who was involved in the business or who was employed in the Studio Press business.
Brian Gardner (23:00.850)
So at the very onset, Rebecca diamond was a support person, and Craig Teller, who was.
He was a moderator of our support forum, who basically just kind of really, you know, showed, you know, a belief in the product.
And.
And so I kind of just brought him in kind of as more of A mentor and kind of the manager of a lot of things.
Because things were getting so big, I was doing everything myself at the time, answering email, doing support, trying to develop.
And so it just kind of got really, really just uncomfortable with just too much to do.
And so I realized I had to kind of start bringing people in and paying people.
And so it was a small team of about four or five.
And you know, right around the time when we just, when, when Brian Clark reached out to me to merge Studio Press into Copy Blogger was when I met Rafal, who is our designer now.
And so I was bringing him on board as well as that merge was taking place.
So he was just kind of absorbed into the merge when it all happened.
Omer (24:02.710)
And what kind of marketing were you doing to, to keep building this business?
Brian Gardner (24:07.350)
So, you know, we had an affiliate program which, which probably did a lot of the marketing for us.
I as said before, you know, you know, no marketing degree, so I had no idea what I was doing.
And so, you know, my blog was one marketing channel, the affiliate program was the other.
You know, I think I was doing a little bit of pay per click through Google AdWords, you know, so there wasn't a ton of marketing.
It was just kind of like at the time, since it was the only thing out there, it was really kind of its own marketing machine.
Just people talking about it, using it and you know, links found in footers and things like that.
And then obviously when we merged it into Copyblogger, that's when the marketing piece really grew up.
Brian Clark, brilliant marketer and some of the other partners that we have also big into marketing and conversion and that's when we really throttled sales.
Omer (25:00.820)
So let's talk a little bit about that.
What was the driver behind the merger with Brian Clark and Copyblogger?
Brian Gardner (25:11.910)
So at the time, Brian Clark was a partner of DIY Themes with Chris Pearson, who had created the Thesis Framework.
And they were for their own reasons dissolving their relationship.
And so Brian found the opportunity because he had a bigger vision of just where he wanted to go on the web.
And the theme was part of that vision.
And because his relationship with Chris was on its way out, naturally he reached out to someone else that was doing the same thing.
And, and so he reached out to me and said, hey, I know who you are.
Your Studio Press, you're killing it, you're doing awesome.
You know, I have a vision to build a company that would kind of do this kind of all encompassing part of publishing what's now ultimately what we're rolling out, as we speak, the Rainmaker platform.
And he said, you know, what do you think about getting together and just talking about, you know, a partnership or, you know, building a company kind of thing.
And so five of us went to Denver just over four years ago, sat in a room, and we all kind of brought pieces of the product to the table.
And within an hour or two, we had an operating agreement as a company.
So for me, it was an opportunity to take the big step from little guy to big guy.
And I embraced that and I loved it, and I have no regrets on that decision whatsoever.
Omer (26:34.400)
So you are now the chief Product Officer for Copyblogger Media.
And aside from StudioPress, what other products are you overseeing now?
Brian Gardner (26:46.000)
You know, so chief Product officer was a label that I had, you know, from the onset, things have transitioned and we've, you know, we're agile company, and so things are always kind of changing.
And so that we've gotten so big and with so many products that kind of got split up into kind of design and development, two different things.
And so while I oversee some development, that is the Genesis framework, some of the other development is now being headed up by other people in the company.
And so I've kind of really just fallen in love just with the whole idea of design from all perspectives.
Internal design, product design, UI type design.
And so I'm more of the design officer now, for lack of a better term.
Obviously, I'm still very integral on the product side.
Omer (27:39.740)
Yeah, I thought it was quite surprising.
I heard an interview that you did with Andrew Warner over at Mixergy several years ago where you said you didn't really see yourself as a designer.
And that seemed.
That was quite surprising to me considering the quality of the.
These themes that I've seen coming out from you for so long.
And by the way, I bought a developer license of StudioPress a couple of years ago and have been using that for just about every WordPress site that I build.
And that has sort of a good side and a bad side, because I love using the StudioPress and Genesis and all these child themes, but I kind of almost hate it when I see you guys release something new, because I know I'm going to be wasting a lot of time trying out and playing around with this stuff all the time.
But yeah, I mean, so.
So for a guy who, you know, didn't see himself as a designer to now be the chief design officer of the company, has that.
Has that perspective of yourself changed over the last few years?
Brian Gardner (28:49.160)
It hasn't.
It hasn't, you know, I try to be humble and that has its own argument.
And I don't think by any stretch I'm a wonder designer.
Do I sell myself short nowadays?
Probably, yes, because, you know, I do.
You know, looking back on it, we do anywhere between three and $400,000 a month in theme sales.
And I cannot, with the straight face say that has nothing to do with the, you know, the ability for me to design a WordPress theme because at this point there's enough validation.
I don't, I don't boast as a good designer.
I don't do any of that stuff because I'm not a technically, you know, learned graphic designer.
But, but at this point, you know, do I feel confident in my design skills to a point, Yes.
I finally embraced that.
You know, I am a designer by definition and I can hold my own and I've built a company on design.
So, you know, with a grain of salt I'll say yes.
I now, now I'm a decent designer.
Omer (29:54.690)
All right, so when I was doing research for this interview, my five year old daughter Sophia asked me who I was going to interview next.
And I told her I was interviewing a man called Brian who had built this successful multimillion dollar business.
And she asked me, how many millions?
And I said, I don't know.
And she said, was it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?
And I told her I wasn't sure.
And so she looked me straight in the eye and she said, dad, make sure you ask Brian.
And I said, okay, I will.
I'm not sure he's going to tell me, but I'll ask him.
So can you, what numbers can you share with us?
Brian Gardner (30:28.910)
So without getting into too much detail, and yes, this is the no pun intended, million dollar question that we're asked all the time.
We do revenue on WordPress themes, you know, between 1 and $10 million a year.
If you do the math, based on what I said about five minutes ago, three to 400,000.
So we're in the low millions.
And this is Studio Press alone.
We obviously have other lines of business.
You know, it is public knowledge that we as a company do, you know, upwards of 6 to 7 to $8 million a year in sales.
So, you know, if that, that kind of spells it out.
And now you have an answer for your daughter.
Omer (31:09.000)
Not that sure.
I'm not sure she'll understand much of that, but exactly.
So what's the one thing in your business that you're most excited about right now?
Brian Gardner (31:19.490)
I alluded to it a little bit earlier and without a doubt it's our Rainmaker platform.
This is something that we had as a vision four years ago in Denver to build the all encompassing solution for online folks, primarily in the marketing and small business sector, which includes the hosted environment, the theme element, the design element of the website, conversion and, you know, traffic, statistical pieces to it, membership pieces, you know, Scribe, which is our kind of keyword analysis and search, you know, part of the product it's all bundled in.
And we're finally bringing it to the market with, with a completely redesigned user interface still built on WordPress but completely custom.
Rafal did a great job there.
And so we're literally weeks away from officially kind of doing a public launch on that and it's really kind of full circle from when we sat down in that room four years ago to now.
So without a doubt that's what I'm most excited about.
Omer (32:28.950)
So I believe the WordPress self hosted, not self hosted, the managed WordPress hosting, which I believe was synthesis, is that being rolled into this Rainmaker platform.
Brian Gardner (32:45.440)
The Rainmaker is built upon the same principles and technical functionalities as Synthesis.
Synthesis is still different because it's the hosted version of WordPress that we sell.
It's basically our hosting product.
Rainmaker is completely different because it's a hosted for you environment.
In other words, if you're a developer and you need access to back end stuff, server side stuff, FTP, that kind of thing, synthesis is for you because that's like any other.
Hosting gives you the ability to go in and do what you need to.
Whereas Rainmaker is more for the DIY types.
The ones who don't need to get into that, they just want to sign up, go online, produce content, sell, market, build their email list, that kind of thing.
Um, you know, it's a, it's a hosted environment and you live kind of within the dashboard and that's it.
So two different types of clients, both obviously lines of business that are, you know, increasing in revenue.
Omer (33:44.810)
So now I've heard people in the past who have got into the hosting business talk about how much they regretted it and how much of a pain in the butt it was.
How has that worked out for you guys?
Brian Gardner (33:58.790)
You know, hosting is always going to be kind of an animal when it comes to support and people having questions and asking things.
We've been able to combat that a bit by reducing the amount of smaller or low scale type packages.
And so we've changed kind of our target audience to be more of a sophisticated client than a onesie twosie hands on thing.
So the ROI or the, you know, the revenue per support ticket is different and so it's more scalable.
So, you know, we've definitely learned some things along the way.
It's still a growing business for us.
And because we've been able to kind of reprioritize how we want to have, you know, clients, it's been good for us.
We've, you know, we don't regret going into that line of business.
It's the foundation of what we've built with Rainmaker.
So, you know, from both of those perspectives, it's still a great thing for us.
Omer (34:58.540)
Okay, so now it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and I'd like you just to answer them as quickly as you can.
Are you ready for that?
Brian Gardner (35:06.540)
I'll do my best.
Omer (35:07.580)
All right, let's do it.
So what's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?
Brian Gardner (35:13.900)
Oh, gosh, that's next.
Omer (35:18.700)
We could come back to that.
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Brian Gardner (35:24.620)
I read a book called Once Lucky Twice.
Good.
I believe it was Max Levchin.
I founded or Co founded PayPal.
And for me, it's a book that talks about if you build something that's successful the first time, that could be by chance, could be by luck.
And for me right now, I believe that's the case.
Why I read it is at some point in time, there's going to be a next stage for me.
And it's one of those things where he believed that he was good because he was successful a second time.
So from that perspective, it's good for what you're going through or what you might go through.
It's good affirmation to get through something like that.
Omer (36:08.280)
So what's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Brian Gardner (36:13.880)
Determination.
As a runner, I make a lot of things in life about marathon and the idea of the wall.
And I'm asked all the time by people you know, oh, I'm a blogger.
I'm starting out.
What's your biggest piece of advice?
And it's to hang in there and to get through the wall.
Whether it's blogging, whether it's starting a business, whether it's anything is, you know, people like Chris Brogan or Darren Rouse from Problogger, where they got to now was complete, you know, correlation to their ability to get through when things were tough or when they weren't popular before, kind of all of that.
And so determination and the ability to hang tough when you want to throw the towel in is far and away, because once you break through that wall, you're there.
You're in the promised land.
And, you know, if I had thrown the towel in when things weren't quite right with Studio Press or Revolution at the time, or, you know, or even, well before that with blogging when I wasn't getting any traffic, I wouldn't be where I'm at now.
Omer (37:16.220)
Yeah, I had a great expression that someone used the other day, which was like, you know, an overnight success that took five years or something.
And I think that's a good way to think about it.
Brian Gardner (37:25.340)
Totally.
Omer (37:26.700)
So what's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Brian Gardner (37:31.340)
You know, that's good.
I'm a lean guy as it is.
I don't use anything like, you know, Evernote or anything like that.
I mean, my Gmail inbox is literally where I do all of my stuff, so.
So from that perspective, a lot of what I do is just because of the nature of design and creativity.
There really aren't any fences or tunnels that I need to roll down.
And so sometimes it's just a matter of just turning on the computer and just surfing around the Internet looking for inspiration.
So from that perspective, I don't have a lot of boundaries that hold me in or try to keep me accountable.
So, you know, leaving the inbox open and social media open while doing what I do is just kind of just the way I do business in life.
Omer (38:17.910)
If you had to start over tomorrow, what type of business would you go and build that?
Brian Gardner (38:23.990)
You know, it's a great question.
I don't want to be hokey and say, oh, I do the same thing all over again.
I might, because I love what I do right now.
So, you know, it's not like I look back or, you know, look at where I'm at and just wish I was doing something different.
Thankfully, you know, our company has grown, and I've been able to evolve into the role where I'm at now, and.
And because I love design so much, and I have the ability to just create and turn that into money is really a golden situation for me right now.
So I don't even know that I could answer that question, to be honest.
Omer (39:00.360)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Brian Gardner (39:05.400)
I used to ride bulls.
Omer (39:08.280)
You used to what?
Brian Gardner (39:09.480)
Ride bulls?
Ride bulls in the rodeo.
Not in rodeos, but at ranches and more recreational bull riding.
But yes, when I lived in Southern California, it's something that me and some of our friends used to do.
And, you know, I'm not a huge country music advocate and fan as I used to be, but it is something that's in my closet many folks don't know about.
Omer (39:31.970)
Okay, the last one.
What is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Brian Gardner (39:36.210)
Music.
Omer (39:38.210)
All right, great answers.
Thank you, Brian.
Brian Gardner (39:40.930)
You're welcome.
Omer (39:42.690)
So, unfortunately, it's time for us to wrap up.
Brian, I want to thank you for joining me today and talking about Studio Press, Copy Blogger, media and everything else.
I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and insights with our audience.
And thank you for letting us get to know you a little bit better.
Better personally as well.
Brian Gardner (40:00.410)
Yeah, you're most definitely welcome.
Omer (40:02.170)
Now, if people want to find out more about Copyblogger Media and Studio Press, where's the best place for them to go?
Brian Gardner (40:08.890)
Naturally.
Copyblogger.com StudioPress.com and NewRainmaker.com which is the domain for our platform and me personally.
You can find me at briangardner.com or at bgardener on Twitter.
Omer (40:25.930)
Awesome.
So thanks again, Brian, and I wish you continued success in the future.
Brian Gardner (40:29.610)
Great.
Thank you so much, Homer.
Omer (40:31.050)
Cheers.
