Transcript
[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.
Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the interconnected WordPress ecosystem and how to build partnerships and trust.
If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.
If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.
So on the podcast today, we have Zach Stepek. Zach is what you might call a unicorn in the tech world, having held roles in design development, and much more. His experience spans everything from Cold Fusion and Flash, to JavaScript, WordPress, and WooCommerce. He’s worked with brands like IBM and MTV, in varied industries from medical records to e-commerce, and has spoken at WordCamps, WooConf, and contributed to the WordPress community through both agencies and product companies.
You might know about WordPress, agencies, product companies and hosting, but might not have thought about how partnerships actually work in this ecosystem, or why they matter right now. Zach is here to explain just that.
He starts off by sharing his journey into WordPress, his early challenges, and how an unexpected viral moment led him deeper into the ecosystem.
He describes the three interconnected pillars of WordPress success, agencies or individuals, product companies, think plugins and themes, and hosting or infrastructure, and how each depends on the other to thrive.
We