The Builders

In this episode I virtually sat down with Genesis Amaris Kemp.  She’s a Visionary Life Coach, Motivational Speaker, Author and Podcaster.  We began the conversation as we often do by listening to her story, her journey, in her own words.  As she puts it, we discussed the lows and highs .. we talk about the lows too because that is what contributed to her development personally and p...

Our guest today is Inbal Claudio.  We listen to her story from working in the service industry, starting a real estate brokerage, starting her own candle company to pivoting to a tech startup  We all hear the stories of non-techie founders who try to start a tech company or build an app with no experience.  She was the same, but she found her way through this gauntlet!  A lot o...

In this episode we are joined by Laura Raynak.  She shares her long journey through corporate America and how she landed where she is today as a successful business owner.  This journey includes many challenges and a path of discovery.  It includes moments she had to stick up for herself, fight and make difficult moves to continue to move forward with her career.  It’s a story...

In this solo episode, I talk about the launch of my new WordPress product, Unified Email Capture .. that was happening the day after this recording!   And did launch by the way.  :-) This plugin is the first of a series of plugins we are launching that will eventually form what we call a ‘toolkit’. This toolkit is first and foremost going to be used in-house for our own sites and cl...

In today’s episode, Bridget returns to share her business’s story with us.  We start by laying the groundwork..  and maybe getting a little distracted talking about social media (totally my fault, haha).  Then we’re taken on an intriguing journey .. how it started through what things look like today. Why did she leave her job?  What she doesn’t like about working for others.. &...

One of the goals of The Builders is to share stories to inspire the listener and learn from; real life stories from the trenches.  Being that pricing is such a critical component of so many businesses and agencies, this is a topic that we should visit from time to time. Building off of Episode 4, I share my personal pricing strategies and how it's evolved over the years.  What’s happened...

Today I’m joined by Ben Gabler.  Ben is the Founder & CEO of Rocket.net (a web hosting company).  As we do with all our guests, the first episode is always about the person and their journey.  So we dive into his backstory and how he fell in love with his craft. His family always operated businesses so it was natural for him to gravitate to building a business.  Uniquely, i...

Danielle’s back for a 3rd episode! In this one, we check in to see how her web development business is going and to talk WordPress shop. Of course, that’s how we started. Both of us are pretty passionate about WordPress so it’s natural for us to go there. 🙂 We talked about the current state of WordPress, blocks and full-site editing (FSE themes). I was happy to hear she is ready to build her firs...

In this episode Matt’s joined by Matt Campbell. We dig deep into his journey building a wedding site that enjoys 4 million visitors a year due to use SEO & Content Efforts . It’s not by accident either. As you listen, you realize he’s doing exactly what he was cut out to do. Matt’s love for music led him straight into a career as a DJ early in life. And like many of us, life happened, he got m...

On this solo episode, Matt dives deep into what influences him.  The key is what shaped his mindset, attitude and stick to it’ness can be found back in his early 20s (3 decades ago).  In those days he was one of those young people that were lost, mad at the world, and just wanted to have fun -- and be an artist.  But it wasn’t easy and it wasn’t playing out like he’d envisioned or h...

Today I’m joined by Joe Matz. Over the last 30 years Joe has run and owned a variety of businesses . From restaurants to schools. But what’s most interesting is he’s done that in 3 different countries! He spent years in Italy (twice), years in Brazil and back here in the United States. One of his big strengths is going into business knowing literally nothing.. not even the language. He had to lear...

Matt is joined by.. I mean, Doland is joined by Matt Levenhagen! What? Doland had this great idea to do a Sadie Hawkins episode.. but instead of the girls asking the boys to the dance, Doland turns the tables and interviews Matt about his business. It was a lot of fun! So we talk about how I ended up doing what I do. Why did I decide to start an agency? We talk a LOT about ‘truth’ in business. How...

Matt’s trying something brand new in this episode. He’s always been a big fan of follow alongs himself.. following along while someone or a business does ‘something’. Today you’ll listen in as he shares highlights from a week at his agency. Real calendar items, real projects.. what his team is working on. Follow along as he shares the type of meetings he has - how many meetings does he have on a w...

Today Matt talks about identifying the pain points on a website and solving them. Matt is the founder of a web design agency and their whole job is to help a client identify and solve these issues. After defining what pain points are in this context, he provides 7 examples for real world projects he’s been involved with. Sometimes a problem stems from how a site was coded or designed. Sometimes it...

In this solo episode Matt takes you through his design process.  Besides doing web development, website maintenance and custom coding work, they design websites!  And wouldn’t it be amazing to pull back the curtain a bit and see how they take a clients vision, how they work with a client and translate that to a design mockup?  Which in turn can be translated to code? It all starts w...

Today I’m joined by Nathan S. Bryan, PhD.  Dr. Bryan is an international leader in molecular medicine and nitric oxide biochemistry. He has been involved in nitric oxide research for the past 18+ years and has made many seminal discoveries in the field. These discoveries and findings have transformed the development of safe and effective functional bioactive natural products in the treatment...

In this episode Matt updates the builders crew about his own business. Besides this podcast, his primary business is running a web design agency and is on a track to launch a new product later this year. A lot of what Matt does revolves around WordPress. He’s been building sites since ~2004 with WordPress and has specialized in WordPress development since 2012. While discussing the state of Unifie...

Today I’m joined by Geoff Chan.  He is the found of a digital agency called StackFive.  It’s a great conversation about his journey to becoming a web developer.  We share our stories about how our Father’s influenced us along with others. “Getting in the reps”.  One of the key ways he gets better at something is to set a goal to do 'x' number of projects and then back filling t...

In this episode we are joined by Brian Bauer.  He is the founder of a CRO Agency called Bauer Entertainment Marketing.  We first talk talk about his journey from becoming a 3rd generation drummer in his household, his work on in radio , becoming a member of a touring band and landing in Nashville where he eventually takes all that experience in the entertainment industry and builds an ag...

In this episode, Matt’s joined by Ilisa Millermoon.  Ilisa is an “ Intuitive Energy Artist ” working in Acrylic Ink and Gouache.  But through this conversation there’s so much more that she does.. the art is a means to an end – it is a ‘tool for healing’.   It’s interwoven into more services and the content she creates for her ‘tribe’. We talk about her journey to becoming an a...

In this episode, Matt talks about marketing for non-marketers .  There are a lot of people that find themselves in business because of their passion, talents and just because they do their thing.. their craft.  But at some point think, “I would really like to market this business now”. But that sounds easier said than done.  You’re busy!  You don’t know much, if anything, about...

In this episode, Matt provides his perspective on estimating - from the trenches.  Estimating is an important part of any agencies business.  That’s how we win business after all.  But if one is not careful, estimating can soak up a lot of time .  Time that would be better spent in our areas of your business or taking care of your existing projects, clients and team. Learn how...

In this episode, Ryan Lawrence joins us again to discuss WordPress Full-site editing (FSE) and it’s impact on existing or future client sites and projects.  Both Ryan and I service clients and other agencies that use WordPress.  In fact, for both of us, the vast majority of our clients have WordPress sites or build them. But a lots been changing with WordPress.  And the reality is t...

Today Ed Fox joins us.  Born and raised in Australia (now living in America) Ed’s been a serial Entrepreneur since he was a kid!  He was finding creative opportunities to sell stuff already when he was 7 years old.  He was building businesses when most people are still trying to figure out who they are in their teens. But this is not by accident.  Ed grew up in an environment s...

In this episode Matt dives into a topic near and dear to his heart: project and time management … getting things done . He starts out recapping how 2022 is going, networking and his experience so far with his new VR headset. Then we he shares his experience from THE TRENCHES as it relates to the main topic. A big part of how he manages his day to day is having an awesome team to help him in a vari...