Where did the initial idea for WPfounders come from, and how did WPfounders come about?
The idea of WPfounders.com can be traced back to our time (mine and Mustaasam Saleem’s) when we were working at Cloudways and leading the digital marketing efforts in the WordPress communities. Back then, we had a very active interview series underway, where we interviewed WordPress contributors, individuals, event organizers, content creators, and founders of prominent WordPress companies. We eventually started running these interview series with a theme behind them. For example, we would only interview contributors for a month or two, then shift to interviewing podcasters and content creators, and so on. After a period of time, we conducted a series of interviews over several months, focusing on the founders of successful WordPress companies. The goal was to establish contact with them and then partner with their companies to run cross-promotional marketing campaigns. We were very successful with that strategy. To increase visibility for founders and remove the commercial aspect from our interview series at Cloudways, we decided to launch a separate domain and start publishing interviews there. WPfounders.com was available, and without wasting time, Mustaasam registered the domain and attempted to launch the project under Cloudways. But things didn’t work out, and so we had to wait for its launch. Eventually, in 2020, our first series of interviews went live on WPfounders.com, and we received such positive feedback that we were amazed that founders of multi-million-dollar companies found the time to share their stories with us and our audience at WPfounders.com. Since launching, we have expanded the project, launched our newsletter, and, since WPfounders.com was not generating any revenue, we decided to open sponsorship slots on our website to secure community support. We have some great sponsors, including WP Engine, Bluehost, A2 Hosting, Kinsta, WordPress.com, Omnisend, MotoPress, EWWW Image Optimizer, and The WP Minute. WPfounders is a “for community” project made possible with contributions from founders from around the globe and our partners.Who can share their success stories on WPfounders.com, and what is the process like?
Like the name of the domain suggests, founders of WordPress companies from anywhere in the world, from all backgrounds, languages, and cultures are welcomed to share their stories on WPfounders.com – our objective is to be a collection of success stories from within WordPress community and how famous companies, products and services were launched. We are still amazed that many companies had such humble beginnings, and most founders’ secret is that they are honest about their craft, passionate about solving issues, and want to move WordPress forward as a project. It serves as a motivational resource for us and our audiences, and we want to play our part in inspiring the next generation of WordPress entrepreneurs. The process of sharing the interviews is straightforward, sometimes we find founders ourselves and other times founders or their teams would contact us via email or our social channels and show interest in sharing their story on our platform, our team then sends them a document with guidelines on how the founders can write their story, the format is defined with enough room to be creative to share any aspect of their WordPress journey in their stories. Once we receive the document back, we review it, extract some inspiring quotations to share on our social media, and then publish them. Once published, the interview remains on our site permanently and is reused in our newsletter, future posts, and social media channels.Why should someone consider becoming a partner or a sponsor of WPfounders?
“Sponsoring WPfounders isn’t just about visibility—it’s about supporting a community resource that inspires future WordPress entrepreneurs.” As I previously mentioned, sponsors are the reason WPfounders generates any revenue; it primarily goes towards maintaining the project. We receive decent traffic on our website, and we typically attract individuals seeking to learn more about the company or the person behind it, specifically the WordPress company. After analyzing our traffic statistics and launching our newsletter, we realized that to move this project forward, we needed to find support. It was only in November of 2023 that we announced our partner program (wpfounders.com/become-a-partner), and EWWW Image Optimizer and The WP Minute were the first two sponsors of our project. Since then, we have had nearly 10 different sponsors. We’re selective with sponsors to ensure alignment with our community values. Being a sponsor of WPfounders.com is a very economical and low-cost option; companies gain constant visibility across all our channels, and we also tend to collaborate more closely with our partners through various marketing campaigns. The sponsors we have are appropriately vetted and of the highest quality, offering excellent products and services with top-tier support.What can you tell me about WPapac Collective and its mission?
“WPapac Collective was born from a shared realization: the Asia-Pacific WordPress community is underrepresented globally. We’re changing that.”
WPdots.io is our parent company, which was established on 1st July 2023. Under the WPdots umbrella, we have multiple projects that constantly evolve and grow, with new projects being launched periodically.
WPApac.com is our project, launched in collaboration with our partner in Australia, Lawrence Ladomery (wpbiz.dev), with whom we shared a similar insight. Within the WordPress community, we see businesses from the Western hemisphere more represented in both online and offline events. However, companies and individuals from the Asia-Pacific region are underrepresented in these events.
As the project is still in its infancy, what is your growth strategy there, and what can we expect from the WPapac Collective in the near future?
My motivation is driven by community contributions, making new connections, working with people from around the globe, knowing their stories, and empowering people. With WPapac.com, our primary goal is to gather people from around the APAC region, populate our website and community, host virtual meetups, spotlight APAC contributors, and partner with regional WordCamps. Once we have the conversations underway, we will establish a system within the community that discusses global events, both online and offline, as well as resources for learning and techniques for producing content that helps businesses and individuals gain visibility. I firmly believe that collaborations are always the way forward; we can learn from each other’s experiences and build better products.What is your vision with WPdots.io, and do you think WordPress still has the potential to get significant growth over the next few years?
I have been involved with the WordPress community since 2014, and during this period, WordPress experienced impressive growth from 2014 to 2022. Since then, it has slowed down, but it is still growing and will continue to do so over the next decade. The definition of growth will change; however, the way we build websites will undergo drastic changes. We won’t be building websites for humans, but also for AI Agents. I envision a future where we will have genuine traffic from Humans, Bots, and AI agents seeking to utilize information on your website. Innovation needs to be practiced to survive the next decade for online businesses. As individuals, we need to rewire our thinking; the way we work offers numerous opportunities to become more efficient. Making the most of our time is going to be a challenge that we, as the human race, need to be mindful of. As for WPdots.io’s vision, this company is like my child, and to make it successful, it will require constant efforts in various fields, including building amazing products, offering unmatched service, and innovating the way we do business online over time.For more information, you can visit WPdots.io, WPfounders.com, and WPApac.com,
as well as Ahsan’s social media pages at www.facebook.com/ahsanparwez134, www.linkedin.com/in/ahsanparwez, and twitter.com/AhsanParwez
