A New Way to Learn from WordPress All-Stars: The Experts Corner

I’ve been involved with WordPress product businesses for a few years now and I’m really glad to see this happen.

The Freemius team just launched a free video project called the Experts Corner where a select group of WordPress product masters sit in front of a camera and share their best tips and advice related to starting and growing your own WordPress product business.

There Is No Guidebook

Throughout the past years, knowledge and content on how to create a sustainable and profitable WordPress product business weren’t as available and abundant as they are today.

Getting useful business advice was often only available to the select few who had already tasted success or who were close to others who have.

I’ve been lucky to be involved with products at different stages and to have a business mentor in Jean Galea who has guided me to understand this business from different aspects.

With our WP RSS Aggregator plugin, I was introduced to an already popular and successful project that we still work on today. With the EDD Bookings project, we tried something new and made plenty of mistakes that turned into valuable lessons. Now, based on everything we’ve learned over the years, we’re working on launching the Spotlight for Instagram plugin.

Spotlight for Instagram, a WordPress Plugin

While working on launching Spotlight, a plugin that lets you add Instagram feeds to your WordPress site, I’ve relied on the knowledge I gained in past experiences, and that has helped a lot, but improving your business is a constantly evolving process with new things to learn all the time.

Over the years, I learned a lot by trying, doing, and either succeeding or failing, but there was naturally quite a lot of trial and error. When I joined as a co-host of the Mastermind.fm podcast, I started spending more time learning about and discussing different aspects of WordPress businesses with various experts. From support to pricing, they provided insights that would have otherwise taken me years to figure out for myself.

This showed me the true value of sharing what we know with the community. This has been even more evident with the Spotlight project. We’re launching this new plugin on Freemius and they have given us personalized insight into pricing strategies and other areas.

That’s great, but not everyone will use Freemius or have the level of access to experts that we may have. I know from my personal experience over the years that many product developers don’t get access to this kind of knowledge very easily, and good content for quality business tips is hard to find.

Full Access to the Experts

Although the internet is overflowing with content on how to create a profitable and sustainable business, young entrepreneurs still face a critical problem: How can they find the best advice, cut through all the noise, and discover something worth their while? These days, it’s almost like finding a needle in a haystack.

This new project from Freemius, the Experts Corner, is a big step in the right direction.

They’re sharing insights and best practices to questions many have had for years. Whether you’re launching your first product or running an already successful business, these discussions can trigger new ideas and help you discover new ways to improve things further.

Ben Lev, Freemius’ Head of Video Content, highlighted to me that the Experts Corner videos are presented in a “documentary” style, making it much more interesting to watch and addressing issues that any plugin or theme developer should be aware of. Check out the first intro video in the series presenting Round I of the experts:

Some other topics that they cover besides pricing include:

Is it worth distributing a free version of my plugin or theme through the WordPress.org repository?
Should your business sell multiple products or is it better to focus on a single product?
What’s the best way to offer coupons and seasonal discounts?
How can I protect my business in light of the GPL framework?
And much more!

A Goldmine of Valuable Insights

There are so many things to do when launching a new business or digital product and it’s hard to keep up. The Experts Corner video series will help you discover a lot of those important details you might otherwise have overlooked.

This is a precious opportunity to get incredibly valuable insights from those who have been in your position and come out successful. Whether you’re thinking about developing your first plugin or looking for ways to improve your existing business, there’s plenty to learn about from these experts.

I already subscribed to their YouTube channel and can’t wait to see what else I can learn from them myself. I highly recommend you do the same.