Episode 448 Wp Weekly With Davinder Singh Kanith

---

---

Show Summary

Rob Cairns talks to Davinder Singh Kanith about the business of WordPress news.

Show Highlights:

• What is the WP Weekly?
• Plans for the WP Weekly.
• Lots of information about the business of WordPress news.

1. What is the WP Weekly? 2. Plans for the WP Weekly. 3. Lots of information about the business of WordPress news.

Show Notes

Rob Cairns here and today I’m here with my good friend Mr. Davinder Singh-Kanith. how are you, Mr. Davinder?

I’m doing good. How are you?

Not too bad. You’re always good somehow, somewhere. That’s pretty typical today. I thought, you know, it was interesting. I thought we’d. Chat about WordPress news a little bit. Something you know a little bit about. And ironically, before we get to it, I want to talked about at the time of this record, we now have a new writer for WP Tavern apparently. I don’t remember who it was, but it’s now posted on social, so we now have a new writer. The Tavern has reborn and re jumped into the the new circle again.

Well, they should. Have appointed me as WP Tab One’s head of content I would hire. I would have hired the best writers.

Ohh, I’m sure you would have. If you so that was a little bit about why you started WP Weekly originally.

Well, the you know. I’m in the WordPress space. My friends are all in WordPress, including you, right? So there’s no single point where one can access. What is the best things? When I say best thing it’s not the official announcements like we can access those official announcements, but the best thing that people like me, you and others are creating. Regularly and they don’t get any, you know. Publicity, or they don’t get noticed, they don’t get broadcasted in to the wider audience because there’s no easy medium to discover them. And that was my main goal to start it and. It’s been going great and I love I myself also love, you know, finding new, you know, plugins, services teams that have been.

Yep.

Based on what present? Yeah. And amazing new people in the space. That’s even more fun to discover. People coming from different parts of the world and creating awesome things.

It sure is. Have you been doing it now? I think it’s gotta be going on almost three years, isn’t it? Somewhere in that?

Yeah, I’m around 205th. You know addition. So probably more than two years now.

And what’s your subscriber account at these days?

Well, it’s well, the one that I send it to like last week, I sent it to 10,200 something, but I do have subscribers about 15,000. But you know what I call them. You know, I fell to the less regularly because that’s how you do e-mail marketing.

That’s true. You have to filter the list. And how did those 10,000 do you? And if you don’t want to share, it’s OK. What’s your open rate? Would you run that?

It’s always above. It’s always above 40% and I aim for 45%. So when it drops it’s time to, you know, filter out the people who cannot open for last. You know, I do. The ballpark thing is like if someone has not opened for last three months, you put him in the different group and don’t send fresh emails.

That’s exactly what I do in e-mail marketing, because there’s no point in wasting your time sending people emails or.

You know experts talking about e-mail marketing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It’s so true. So you got all. That on the go and I’d be amiss if I didn’t ask you. And I’m gonna let you plug away here because you know you’re doing some good stuff. Just kind of sponsoring your newsletter these days.

Well, there are many amazing companies, so.

Yes.

The 20 are hosting in motion hosting, they’ve been every year, so they’ve been great with their support. So other than Kingstar joined it recently for the whole year and then Omnisend also joined it for the whole year. So yeah, and plus, there’s a lot of other companies recently patch stuff also joined. You know, there are a lot of companies who, especially the smaller ones, what they what I’ve seen the trend. So they will join in for like a month of you know sponsorship and then they come back after 2-3 months. It worked for us and we want to sign up for a bigger plan. So that’s why I’ve kept like 515 hundred and you know these plans because for a bootstrapped company, it’s easier to spend $500 rather than $5000. And they can actually measure whether it works for them. And fortunately, majority of people who you know, subscribe to the $500 plan for like few issues. They’ve upgraded to the bigger one, probably it. Works for them I guess.

Yeah, I would. I would agree with you and and five hundreds like starter money to get in the door and see how it. Works. And get a flavor for what you’re doing.

There’s a free option also like I share it for free and everything. Every content there is for free. I don’t charge unlike other places. So yeah.

But I I have to ask you with having sponsorship and it’s always the the process we. We deal with sponsors. Sometimes you’re at the whim of the companies that sponsor you. Have you ever had a company company and say don’t publish this or don’t do this because? We’re sponsoring you.

Ohh never never ever because I you know, I’ve been into the online space for almost 20 years. So whenever I sign up any sponsor they have to sign a contract 1st and once they sign a contract then the payment goes through and in contract it’s clearly written. You don’t have any rights on the editorial part of the you know things. You just have the right to publish your snippet in the sponsorship area only and other than that you don’t have any rights.

And then I have to ask around the same thing. Have you ever gotten to the point where you kind of look at something and say I don’t want to publish this cause I know will tick one of my. Sponsors off or is that never been in this?

Or never, never, never even have I share regularly. You know stuff from so-called companies which are not considered ethical, you know. You know, blah blah blah because I, you know, everyone has a different perspective. You know, for me WP Weekly is not about opinions. It’s not about, you know, liking or disliking something. It’s about sharing what something someone has created in a WordPress space. That’s about it. Now people can learn about it once they find a product they can create their own opinion about the product. Maker the company or the product itself? I’m out of it. It’s not about opinions here.

No, I I agree. So more, you’re just kind of feeding people the content and letting them derive their own opinion from it instead of instead of being a own list in the newspaper where you have an opinion, you what I call Switzerland.

Exactly. I I do have. I do have opinions but. Do not publish them here because WP Weekly is not meant for that. It’s also you know what our WordPress space is highly polarized, especially if you see small subset of users or product make. And but if you take the majority of, you know, population in the WordPress space, they don’t really care. They only care about the product is good and it’s useful for me. I’m OK with it again, whether you want to deal with that subset is just you wanna waste your energy.

Yeah. So you’ve been doing that for 2 1/2 years, three years, give or take, right? We’ve known each other a long time as well. So that’s a good thing. Is there anything you’ve really learned in doing WP weekly that if you had a chance you wouldn’t do it?

Good.

I would definitely do it again, but.

No, I didn’t. I didn’t mean WP weekly. I meant is there something that you’ve done with WP weekly at one time that you wouldn’t do again, that didn’t work out the way you wanted or you published in the way you wanted this or?

You know the the only struggle that I had with WW Weekly was the format in which I need to serve the content because it’s a very tricky thing when you have like 100 items that you need to be shy. That organizing them in a proper format that is easily digestible and you know at word camp, this recently concluded word Camp Asia in Taiwan, I got really good feedback from few people like what I can do to improve it and actually made those changes and they love it because now it’s more even I personally love it. Now it’s more easily. It’s more easy to scan the content now rather than in the previous version, so I guess.

Folks.

So the other question is you have all this great content and I subscribe and by the way if you. Don’t subscribe. We’ll do it now, right? Get on the free and it’s good information.

It’s free.

Do you curate the content? You kind of just read socials like acts and Facebook and kind of drive off that. Or do you?

So.

You and you dump it into all a Google box or how do you how do you curate the content for the newsletter?

OK, so in the beginning I I was the only digger and I used to dig all the spaces to get the content, but now with big subscriber base and people know it and so I get lot of submissions via the submit form. So there’s submit form submissions, there’s Twitter DMS, XMS Facebook messages. So whenever. Someone sends me something via. Whether be it social or some. Inform I actually put that stuff in a draft mode e-mail in my Gmail, so that’s my Gmail is my, you know To Do List. So I have a draft e-mail called the WP Weekly for last four years and it never that e-mail went nowhere for last four years. It just sat there and it will be sitting there.

I’ve heard you say that before.

So I’ll just keep adding it. So when I have to write it, I usually start writing on Fridays, so I just scan that whole, you know, draft e-mail and just put it. And once I’m done writing, I just delete everything that I’ve added there for that week. And then it gets filled again once the once the issue is done and the for the next one starts.

It’s an interesting way of doing it, cause I know when I curate for a podcast and there’s, you know, not a lot of difference when you’re curating for WP weekly or a podcast or my client newsletter that goes out weekly, right. I actually use pocket and I save articles to pocket and I tagged them. And I I’ve gone that approach and for me that seems to work really well.

I’m. I’m pretty boring person and I like things very simple, so Gmail is always there on my phone, on my, you know, system. So why not use?

Thank you.

It.

Yeah. So whatever. But it’s like whatever works, right, Dean?

Exactly.

Hey, it’s that. So you’ve done that, what does it take you like for the episode? You put it out typically Sunday night, our time Monday morning your time because you’re in India.

No. So.

What is it typically take you to put that together as a couple hours and that? For five hours. What’s?

Even that has evolved over the years now, like earlier, I used to sit down and write from one start to finish in one go, and that was a tiring, brutal process. But now I’m gonna do.

The prevention. So it’s it’s awful. It’s awful.

That. So I earlier I used to start on Fridays. Now I usually start around Thursdays also, so I will write for half an hour some things, and then we’ll add another thing. On Friday and keep adding on Saturdays. Sunday. I just steal one hour or two hours here to. Proof. Read it, finalize everything and done with it. Like I’ll make the web version. I’ll also draft the e-mail version and Monday morning when I wake up and with my morning tea. Only thing I have to do is publish the post and pub and click send on the e-mail and I’m done with it and then I can, you know, do other things on the Monday morning because I also do other. That’s right.

Unlike unlike people like me that like to schedule their newsletters to go at 5:00 AM when they’re still in bed and.

Then no, I I I like the feeling of clicking publish button, you know rather than scheduling and you don’t even know.

Ohh it it’s that dopamine effect can push publish now, so that’s going well. Is there anything you wanna do with WP weekly like moving form?

OK.

Good.

Ohh yes, you know the the News Letter part is there, but I’m also want to make it as a resource hub. Unopinionated resource hub. Just people can access their resources, so there’s a WP awards that’s happening this year as well, so that has been an awesome addition. And you know the feedback is amazing. It’s not just about voting for your favorite products, it’s also discovering new products in certain, you know categories even that is also my favorite thing. The W balls, obviously we know the whereas they’re mostly. They are the most popular plugins that get the. There’s both, so there’s that. There’s a lifetime deals database which also. You know, surprisingly gets really good response from people and various product makers want to include their deals in it, which I do it for free because again, we P weekly, everything is free, there’s no charge. The only way people can support is either affiliates or, you know, sponsorship. And another thing that I launched last week. So I had this business of WordPress.

Concepts.

Database where I used to, you know add acquisitions, investments resources that happen basically the business side of things in a directory format. And there I also used to add launches like new product launches and so I’ve taken out that and created a separate record for launches because we tend to have a lot of launches every week. So it is getting cluttered and the response has been amazing. It’s just been like 10 days that I did it and people are like oh, this is awesome. Now I’ve bookmarked.

That’s awesome. Have you have you ever had a story that you’ve run that you wish you hadn’t?

Sorry.

Have you ever had a controversial story you’ve run that you wish you hadn’t have at the end of it?

Yeah, honestly, especially, you know, it’s it’s it’s a very these topics are very tricky, especially those racism topics, diversity topics, these are like 2 edged sword. Now The thing is, I’m in India. I’m neither black, I’m not white. So understanding these things can be very hard for me. Also, because again, we have a different way of things here compared to Western countries. So I have all kinds of friends from you know, various countries. So I just tend to be a good listener rather than a good reactor because again.

Culture.

I am not either this party or that party. Again, those things also apply here also. But here the way racism, diversity, you know, these things happen are pretty much different from, you know how it is in say Canada or US. So that can be a very tricky thing. I’m still learning. We all learn because again. Things happen in your country would obviously be different from things happening in other countries. Again, you need to travel the world to actually open your eyes.

That is, that is so true, and those topics are always hard, because unfortunately, when you go down that road, you’re never going to make everybody happy, no matter what you do. And it always causes arguments, and it always causes somebody to be mad at you, and it always causes somebody. To hate you. Even I’ve been the victim of that I had. And somebody recently told me your podcasts, not diverse. I said. Really. Ladies, have I had on my podcast how many? Not white ladies have I had on my podcast? How many people from other countries have I had on my podcasts like? And I am so and I live in the Toronto area and Toronto is known in the world as being a United Nations city. So like I can’t win, you know.

Fortunately, I’ve never had that kind of feedback for. My stuff, not just WP go any stuff, because again, I’m not white. I’m brown, so I guess that helps. That helps a little. I guess now I’m just trying to be funny here, but again, you know, these things have to be taken lightly because if you take it seriously, it can really, you know, boil a lot of people’s blood. And I really don’t want to spread negativity.

Yeah. Thanks Steve.

And make someone feel bad. So yeah, it’s always good. To listen to such conversation and you know, and assimilate and then react rather than immediately react on these things and get in.

In trouble?

Very true. If you had. In a perfect world, and we know there’s other people doing WordPress news and we know who they are, I’m not even gonna get into them somewhere.

Yeah, you can name them. I’m friends with most of them. So in fact, all of them.

Like some, some are like some I don’t like for a. Number of reasons. Perfect tools you think we have too many people covering the news or do you think we’re?

Ohh it’s too too, too little. We it’s actually too little.

Everything’s got a different voice.

We need more WP Taverns actual.

Yes.

Honestly speaking, one WP Tavern is not enough. Actually, I was almost at the point of launching something other than WP weekly in format of, you know, more long form, you know, coverage of WordPress space, but it’s difficult. I have still have this idea in my head. I would do it, but not as a low as a solo person. I would rather do it with bunch of, you know. Partners because that would be easier to manage because newsletter I can manage. All alone. Still, I, you know, get feedback. You do it all alone. Yes, I do it all alone. Because people think I have a team that does this. No, it’s all alone. But if I want to do something like WP Tavern, it has to be a team. And that team has to be spread all over the world so that you know people from different parts of the world can bring their own perspectives while covering things rather than just two or one writer.

Mm-hmm.

You know, blasting the content out.

And I and I think that’s important, the more perspectives we have, the more we learn from those perspectives and the more we enrich the world around us. So I think that’s really, really important. And we also culture has a big part of perspective. We just talked about, right, so. You know it’s interesting because, I mean, I I might be a white male, but I’ve got family that goes back to Yugoslavia and Serbia. I got family that goes back to Scott on my partner’s Italian. So I mean, there’s a number of perspectives right there that. If you’re walk in your own little bubble, you wouldn’t get right.

Absolutely.

What you’re using mail or light? I believe for WP Weekly still.

Yep, and I need to switch from old mail alite to the new one, so that’s a.

All right.

That’s a big migration thing, probably. I’ll do it during the Christmas downtime. Uh, in December? Not now. So that’s on my To Do List. I need to do that, but I love mail a light. It works for me.

Yeah. Yeah. What other interesting things are going on in your To Do List to make this better? Here. That you can share.

Well.

I am thinking of launching something more with regard to WordPress, but I’m still again that thinking hat you know what I I I I do very few websites now for clients and all that I’ve moved away from the agency logging thing. I’ve done a lot. And a lot burned a lot. But now I’m doing things that I actually want to do, and fortunately, these things are also making me money, so it’s like best. Of both the. Worlds and every day when you open your computer and you do work, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s like fun and and when you do something that you enjoy, actually the quality of output is. Even higher. So yeah, I’ve. I’ve got a big To Do List because December is like. Even though Western world is like celebrating, you know it’s a big thing there, but in India. Even though we also get like 20 days holidays in December during Christmas and you know first two weeks of January, but here it’s not about celebration, it’s about you know visiting your family and friends you know. So I’m a solo person at that time and I can, you know, hide in my cave and build something.

I agree. If somebody wants to sign up for WP weekly or get a whole even talk about it, what’s the best way?

Just go to Wpweekly.com

Thanks D. You have an awesome day, my friend. Be well.

Thanks. Thanks for inviting me here. Always awesome to chat with you.