Post Status

Simon Kraft: Okay, so you already mentioned like the history of first with Brian and then going forward. Now, the reason why we're talking in the middle of the night is, is that that you had big news today.

Joost de Valk: Yes.

Simon Kraft: And that was something that was in the work for quite some time now as as far as i remember.

Joost de Valk: Yes it had taken quite a while to actually do all this so I had been discussing with Cory for quite a while how do we what do we do with post status is it ever going to become a profitable company or if we do that does that if we push too hard to become profitable does that mean that we by doing so break the community aspect of it and I basically came to the conclusion that making it making it make a lot of money was going to be very hard and would break what we have which i like so much and also that given especially the last few months given everything happening in the WordPress ecosystem that was happening it became very important for everyone to have a place to speak and to speak relatively freely. So I was reinvigorated in my thinking about "hey, how do we do this differently?" So we ended up buying the assets out of the Slack, the brand and all these things from Cory and Lindsey. From the US LLC that it was, and immediately donating it to a new foundation in the Netherlands, a non-profit foundation, of which I'm the chair and but basically it's: we're going to keep it all running as people know it but it's changed jurisdictions and it's changed well how it's set up it's no longer meant to make money it's meant to keep Post Status available to everyone and to to service the community as best as it can and luckily for that we have Michelle Frechette who's been our executive director for a while. She's amazing. She's very good at connecting everyone to everyone and also at keeping things in check, as they say. She will stay on. And we're now in the process. I started this morning in the process of getting sponsors in so that we can actually pay for it all over time because I'm happy to fund it going into this, but it needs to be actually a sustainable thing for the long term.

Simon Kraft: Is there a sign up on the Post Status website where we can send people? I'll put a link in the show notes.

Joost de Valk: There will be tomorrow. I think the best thing that people can do is DM me anywhere. And I'll fix it.

Simon Kraft: Okay sounds like a plan. So what are your plans? It's now donated to this foundation where do we go from here?

Joost de Valk: So the foundation is is really like meant to make sure that I am kept in check in how we run this stuff so I'll be doing the day-to-day management together with Michelle and then where we go from here is first of all moving all of the infrastructure to infrastructure that I can control more easily. So we will remain on Slack, but we have some work to do to get nonprofit status there and make it pro. All the fun paperwork, which I enjoy *so much*. And... if you can't hear the sarcasm in my voice, I'm sorry. And then there are things that we would like to do. So there's a new podcast that Michelle is starting. There's another new podcast, "Get Hired" that are starting very soon basically helping people get a job in the WordPress ecosystem. i'd like to do a bit more collaborations with some uh some others on hey how can we make fun stuff around WordPress and meaningful stuff around WordPress for a lot of people so how can we teach people more things in in many different ways and at the same time while i say that it's also not going to change all that much because it's not like it's broken now.

Simon Kraft: I see. Post Status membership is a thing that people have to pay for. Right?

Joost de Valk: Yes.

Simon Kraft: And you made some changes about that as well.

Joost de Valk: Yeah we're lowering the cost for that by a lot so depending a bit on what type of company you were it could be a fairly expensive thing to sign up for Post Status which is not something I ever liked because it gave it a bit of an and the idea of an old boys club which it definitely shouldn't be. So we are lowering that to 50 USD and we have also said to one another if there are ever people that cannot afford that 50 USD a year but want to get in and are in the WordPress ecosystem we'll make sure that they get in.

Simon Kraft: Which i think is a policy that Cory already kind of had before.

Joost de Valk: Cory was very liberal about that already which is one of the reasons why we're not on a paid Slack right now.

Simon Kraft: Because to be fully transparent, I've never paid a cent for my post-status membership. Corey at some point was like, hey, you should join.

Joost de Valk: No, and I think that's it, right? You want everyone who's in the WordPress ecosystem to be in there. I would hope that we'd get most people to actually contribute a bit so that it becomes a bit easier to sustain it. It doesn't need tons of money to stay alive. If we become a nonprofit, according to Slack, then with 80 to 100K a year, We can run the entire thing, pay for Michelle, do all the things that we want to do. And we basically have a community that we all cherish. Be paid for. Also, in finding sponsors, I'm trying to find a lot of sponsors at a relatively low amount so that we don't have one sponsor that has an awful lot of influence, because I don't think that that actually works in the long run in communities like this. So I am trying to set it up in a way that it's sustainable. And at the same time, well, trying to push it forward a bit. But I think that the sustainable part is now the first thing that needs to happen.

Simon Kraft: Makes sense. I don't really want to take up more of your time because it's as I said pretty late and we both had long days for .. .

Joost de Valk: Hey i'm happy to come back to you and talk to you about anything anytime.

Simon Kraft: Actually, actually now that you mentioned that could you at some point explain SEO to me.

Joost de Valk: I might yeah.

Simon Kraft: Do you know a thing or two about it maybe?

Joost de Valk: Do you have a week.

Simon Kraft: Sure sure yeah let's have a chat about that at some point. I would really in all seriousness love.. .

Joost de Valk: My absolute pleasure yeah no it is a fun topic to talk about and i still very much love doing it.

Simon Kraft: Cool okay thank you so much man.

Joost de Valk: My pleasure.