Kingpin: An interview with Mario Peshev
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Q1: What is your experience, and how did you get involved in WordPress?
My obsession with computers began at the age of 16, when my parents gave me my first personal computer (100MHz CPU, 16MB of RAM, 421MB HDD). Great times!
In the following years, I developed my first static site in 1999 and continued tinkering using technology throughout the following years I was coding often as well as reading more (despite of the limited amount of data available on the internet at the time).
Q2: What should readers know about all the stuff you're working on in WordPress in the present?
For the past six years I've been actively involved with numerous WordPress initiatives involving the community - including co-organizing the local meetup and a number of WordCamps (including WordCamp Europe 2014 and 2015), through building several themes for free and plugins, presenting at many WordCamps as well as meetings, and contributing to several Open Source projects.
Nowadays, I am the CEO of DevriX DevriX, an international WordPress company for development that specialises in growth-driven partnerships for our regular customers. We are in close contact with a small number of accounts as we wish to understand the business requirements of each client, thereby giving the most effective results to their target audience.
DevriX is currently a team of 25, which employs 5 WordPress core contributors (including myself) as well as creating new ideas in the WordPress market due to our extensive knowledge of creating Software as a Service applications on the top of WordPress and continuously developing capabilities that work on a range of digital platforms that generate more than 10 million session a month.
We are always busy constantly, which is why there's a multitude of internal projects of ours that we grow and experiment in :)
Question 3: What difficulties were you faced in your journey up to the level you're at professionally?
Experience is certainly something that is impossible to be satisfied with. Whatever the number of hours you've invested online it is never ending. There's always plenty to be learning. Each year, I take a look on what we've accomplished as a team, and see so much more than I've never experienced the opportunity to work on in practice.
Beyond that, marketing within the WordPress ecosystem seems like a science-fictional concept to me. There are thousands of service companies offering "professional development" between $10 and $15/hour, as well as an unending number of clients who are of the opinion that everything should be free. The jobs I held prior to joining DevriX involved the Java ecosystem, and more often than the average 20-page website were priced between $80,000 to $120,000. I have seen a variety of quotes for multi-million dollar web projects.
You can imagine what my initial reactions were with quotes for $200-$500 WordPress websites!
Working remotely (overseas) can also lead to certain restrictions for a number of years, but I'm glad that remote work is growing in popularity recently and the idea of "outsourcing" does not have only a negative image. There's a long way until the transition to a global economy, but it seems like things are trending towards the right direction.
Q4: Has anything surprised you while coming up in the WordPress world?
Alongside being in the "race to the lowest" regarding pricing, I was also surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of the service providers within the WordPress sector were not software engineers (or those with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science). Enterprise-level work was accompanied by a less strict requirement - an engineering degrees, certificates, as well as a proven track record of full-time programming before you can leave the "junior" title behind.
The alleged "LEGO-solutions" are a mystery to me. As I browsed the forums it was apparent that people were mostly asking questions or by business owners who don't have the authority to create websites anyway, or service providers that could not go beyond changing a theme via the admin menu or through installing plugins.
After a few years, I'm proud to have met (and have worked in collaboration with) hundreds of skilled developers as well as agencies that are working on high-scale initiatives. It is clear that there is no "black and white". But, the idea of bloggers who are hobbyists and 5-page business websites is all I've seen from my colleagues within WordPress (and the manner in which WordPress has been represented as in Java, .NET, Python or even Drupal events I've been to).
Q5: What does the future look like for you and the WordPress world?
WordPress can be referred to as sometimes the "front layer" or a marketing platform that has to connect with an eRP from a third party or CRM system, and also connect data to a different collection of tools.
Additionally, we work on SaaS solutions constantly Integrations are likely the primary element that separates a profitable company from one that has limitless possibilities. So the REST API in Core is a good start to accept WordPress as a legitimate player in the application and mobile world, instead of a third-class citizen.
Other than that I see WordPress being in a unique position in the moment - not as simple, heavy or cumbersome as compared to the hosted website builders but not like the enterprise frameworks out there. I'd love to see what the future holds of the platform for 2017 and in the years to come.
Question 6: What are the things you search for in an WordPress hosting service?
Quite a lot of things!
We actually have over 200 sites, which is why we're working with over a dozen hosting companies. We've partnered with some of them. While I'm partial to some, I fully realize that diverse business situations will require a different approach and that there's no one tool that is perfect for each task.
As an example, I'm a lover of Lamborghini however, it's not the best choice for an off-road journey towards Everest...
The managed service being limited to WordPress is equally beneficial when it comes to efficiency (no cost in modifications that aren't applicable to WordPress and/or additional options for hackers) But what happens is the best option if we want to establish forums, or even an advertising server in the same instance?
Caching layers might be extremely speedily on a single website or a non-SSL layer, but what about multisites?
We're currently undergoing a transition from a well-known managed service to a partner of ours since:
- the original host's staging setup doesn't work for multisite installations under subdomains.
- The caching layer is only used on the main website
- there have been back-up issues due to the file size limit for one month (or more)
- ssh goes through the VPN (due to an IP white-listing rule)
- "vim" is not possible to use because it is a shell that has been customized that adds weird special symbols on every 5th keystroke, or an unicode backspace
- The support system does not allow for adding any user in Cc when replying to tickets, which makes it impossible to follow up on tickets
Although we've worked with the same company hosting us and had success, the shortcomings at the time weren't acceptable and were dragging the business down.
Q7: What activities do you enjoy doing when you're away from your computer?
I'm never away from my laptop, but I'm fairly hooked on hookah, and sometimes work from nearby hookah bars. Also, we have them both at home and in the office:)
When I'm not playing, I like playing WoW or watching some shows with my friend and our labrador retriever (who happens to be oddly intrigued in raiding and dungeons)!
Q8: Who should we interview next & what is the reason?
It's a great list of WordPress influencers of the moment, and you've ruled out some of my suggestions!
I'd like to invite Lance Cleveland, Vishal Kothari and Nigel Bahadur on stage. In the past that I'm a geek in programming, I've always admired to "old school" engineers who have made an impact within the WordPress industry with its marketing issues. Additionally, DevriX has never been especially active in the development of our products. I've got the highest respect for business owners who run teams of people behind the scenes to create outstanding WordPress plugins that generate a substantial amount of sales on a monthly basis.
Although they've been quietly innovating on the side I think their experience in the business market, together with the successful WordPress experiences in product development would be really helpful for the rest of their WordPress peers.
Brian Jackson
Brian is a big fan for WordPress, has been using it for over a decade, and even develops a couple of premium WordPress plugins. Brian is a fan of movies, blogging, and hiking. Follow Brian on Twitter.