Elementor Sleeping Donkey or Re-Woken Lion For 2024?
With Special Guest Ben Pines, Growth Lead @Elementor
Unveiling Elementor’s Strategy for 2024 – Elevate Your Website Game For 2024.
Join us as we delve into the future of Elementor and its exciting plans for 2024. Discover the innovative features, updates, and tools that will revolutionize website building with this popular WordPress plugin. Stay ahead of the curve by watching our in-depth discussion on what Elementor has in store for the upcoming year. Don’t miss out – watch the video now to stay informed.
#1—Ben, I feel that Elementor has gotten slightly confused about its natural target audience over the last couple of years. What do you think about this?
#2—What are the significant long-term consequences for Elementor linked to offering a fully hosted page and website-building experience?
#3 – Why were the main drivers connected to your decision to return to Elementor?
#4 – What is the main difference between content and product marketing?
#5 -Can you provide some information about how Elementor will integrate AI into its offerings over the next couple of years?
#6—If you had your time machine (H. G. Wells) and could travel back to the beginning of your career and business journey, what essential piece of advice would you give yourself?
This Week Show’s Sponsors
LifterLMS: LifterLMS
Convesio: Convesio
Omnisend: Omnisend
The Show’s Main Transcript And Links
[00:00:38.170] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the WP-Tonic Show this week in WordPress and SaaS. We’ve got a great interview. We’ve got Ben with us, Ben Pines, lead at Elementor. We’re going to be discussing all things, Animator, what they’re up to, what they are planning, and world domination. Are they going to be doing some more great YouTube videos. Very hilarious. Brought great memories back to me. It should be a great discussion. Ben, would you like to quickly introduce yourself to the tribe?
[00:01:44.150] – Ben Pines
Yeah, sure. My name is Ben. I’ve been in marketing for about 18 years. I joined Elementor as the first marketer and the second employee back in 2016. I developed alongside the company. I was a head of content for a few years. Then I left two years ago to work in an AI company. And now I’m back.
[00:02:12.200] – Jonathan Denwood
Oh, you’re back. He’s back. I’ve got my patient and great co-host, Kurt. Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:02:25.170] – Kurt von Ahnen
Absolutely. Kurt von Annen, owner of Magnana Nomas. We focus largely on membership and learning websites and work directly with WP-Tonic and the great team at Lifter LMS.
[00:02:37.060] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s fantastic. We’ve got a great set of questions. We’re going to be asking, where is Elementor? Has it got a bit lost or has it found its way again? Was it ever lost or was it just my imagination? Got a great set of questions. But before we go into the meat and potatoes of the show, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments. Three, two, one. I’m coming back, folks. I just want to point out that we got a couple of great offers from the major sponsors, plus a list of the best WordPress plugins and services that will save you a load of time, the WordPress professional. What more could you ask for? To get all these goodies, all you have to do is go over to Wp-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals.ip-tonic. Com/deals. Ben’s already got his pen out. He’s ready to go there to get the deals. Always up for a deal. So go over there and feast and feast. What more could you ask for? Probably a lot more, but as a WordPress professional, you are used to being disappointed. So there we go. All right, so off we go.
[00:03:57.110] – Jonathan Denwood
So, Ben, this is only from me, so it’s not saying too much. I think it’s really tricky when you’ve got an established product like Elementor; and I did a quick Google, and it seems to be driving between 4-5 million websites. I just personally felt that it was losing its way slightly. But it’s tricky when you got such a broad product, it’s easy at the beginning because you’re not driving over 4 million websites. So first of all, would you agree with anything I’ve just outlined, or B, would you say that I’m just talking dribble, actually, Ben, which wouldn’t be surprising?
[00:04:49.920] – Ben Pines
Well, I have a lot to say about it. Elementor is now powering over 10% of the internet, according to W3Tech. And there’s no creature like it, I think. That’s the truth. We started as a small five-person company with a small plugin, and it grew and grew because we offered a solution that people loved. And now it’s an invaluable tool. I talk to users all the time. Even when I worked in another company, I interviewed developers, and they all mentioned how much they loved it and found it helpful. So now, it serves such a vast audience, and it changed along the way. And I think for the last… So Elementor has been alive for eight years. And the last six years, I think, they’ve been saying the same thing. It’s lost its way, but it’s ever-changing and ever-growing and improving its way. That’s why I came back to the company. And I think nowadays we’re doing fantastic, a lot more than just a page builder, not just the design of a page, but the hosting and a set of products, the image optimizer that I’m now promoting, the AI products. So it’s offering a lot more solutions for the professional and for the everyday user.
[00:06:29.590] – Ben Pines
So I still believe in the vision and where it’s headed.
[00:06:38.220] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m just going to throw it over to Kurt, over to you.
[00:06:41.880] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it’s a follow-up to the first question, Ben, and that is, we were saying, is it slightly confusing to the target audience and things like that? I’ll be honest: I was a late adopter of Elementor, and then I became truly dependent upon Elementor. I became one of those things as an agency where I was able to kick out products pretty quickly using Elementor. But then if I’m going to be transparent, I ran into a maintenance issue with Elementor because I was having different critical errors during the update process or something like that. And if it’s one site, you can work around it and do rollbacks and stuff. But if it’s 10 or 15 sites, well, now you’ve got a nightmare. Who do you consider the actual target audience for the Elementor product? Is it I mean, if you had to pick the perfect avatar, what would that perfect avatar be and who is Elementor driving towards?
[00:07:39.050] – Ben Pines
So as a big company that powers a lot of websites, we have to have few personas. We can’t have just one. So we have to cater to beginner users and professionals that just need their website up. But I think the thing that is leading the division is always the professional, the agency, people who do it for a living, and the web creators who need professional tools. Since day one, this was the goal not to compromise and to offer a solution that gives you top-notch design, uncompromised design and performance, and everything a developer and a professional designer needs And that’s a much harder task to fulfill, a much harder vision to accomplish than just serving the beginners that just need a page up. So I’m not saying it… Of course, we have to cater to beginners and newbies because it’s part of the people who pay us and rely on us. But definitely what steers the ship is the web creator, the professional.
[00:09:03.700] – Kurt von Ahnen
Thanks. That leads to the next question, which was really centered on Elementor’s extra focus—or I shouldn’t say extra focus—that’s up to you to say, I guess. But from going from a page builder to having a fully hosted page and fully hosted web building experiences, have there been, would you say, benefits or consequences to spreading out that focus?
[00:09:30.820] – Ben Pines
Well, it serves the same purpose. So a professional, an agency, or even a beginner, they want to have their website up, and they want to have a successful website that brings them success and business success and appearance online. So in the beginning, it was just the editing, the building part. But as the company progressed, we needed to offer a broader scope because we were able to offer a higher level of service in those areas of hosting in terms of the performance, in terms of the overall experience. So if you are building a site, but Then you need to do some maintenance, or you need to change something in the C-panel, and you start going to hosting, and you see that the service is not always similar. It’s That’s not always what you’d expect. So, offering the same seamless experience you get from Elementor in your Hosting and in the product that I developed right now, even in image optimization, you just set it and forget it, and you can have all your site pages load fast. And with AI, it’s just a broader spectrum, and it’s not a deviation. I mean, it’s a bigger company now, so we’re able to have a few teams.
[00:11:09.790] – Ben Pines
That’s what most companies of that size are. That’s the advantage of having a large company. You can actually have a full solution.
[00:11:20.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
Excellent. Jonathan, over to you.
[00:11:23.280] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I don’t plan for this show to be a bashing center for Elemator because there’s no need for that. It’s a fantastic product. I’m more interested because I think it’s tricky. I think it’s tricky where Elemator ‘s’ is, and what do I mean by tricky? Well, as you stated, it’s totally logical to have a hosted solution. You’ve highlighted some very logical reasons. But the obvious problem with it, I wouldn’t say a problem, that’s not the correct word, but I’m only going to state the obvious. The thing is if you become a Wix, and there’s nothing wrong in becoming a Wix, but that isn’t really WordPress either, because if you don’t want WordPress, you can go to Wix or Squarespace, But you’re in the middle, you got like one foot in both camps, your traditional WordPress, but also you provided this hosting solution your own. I don’t know if there was a lot of debate about going those two routes and ongoing discussion about how you deal with the knack Maybe the natural contradictions of those two approaches, if you think there are any- I think the real question is the user perspective.
[00:13:11.660] – Ben Pines
So nowadays, if you think about it, the user has a few options. They can go to Wix or Webflow Squarespace, which I think now has been acquired, or WordPress. Com, which is also WordPress, but hosting. Or they can to one of the hosting providers, and some of them are great but very expensive, and some of them are very cheap but not so good. You get a bad experience. So the question, I think, is, is there a need in the market for So there’s nothing better. Now, supposedly, that’s the promise that we give, and then we need to deliver it. And I can tell you that it is getting better, the solution, but there’s definitely a need. There’s no question that there is frustration among that they are running their site, they’re building a site with their mentors. Suddenly, they need to do something. They need to migrate. They need to set something up with their email on their host. Some hosting companies even block their email. You can’t send email because the SMTP is blocked. So there are so many problems that the user faces. So that’s how business works. We see that, and then we see we can offer the solution.
[00:14:34.440] – Ben Pines
And if we can, and we are able to charge so it’s a sustainable business, then it’s a win Can win. Now, it all depends on whether we can offer something that others don’t. And in the past, I’ve talked to customers of Wix Shopify and Webflow. And I know the frustration there. And I know even the numbers that sometimes users have to pay there because they’re basically hijacked. They have their site and everything, and they can’t transfer. So, it’s a closed system. So yeah, I think there’s a lot we can offer there that can change the market, and It can do a lot of good.
[00:15:32.680] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I follow it because like I say, I think it’d be the third time I’ve said it in this interview, it’s tricky. I’m not saying that anything that animators are trying to attempt or always doing is in any shape or form not suitable or utilize that language. It’s just business. But I think it’s really tricky. I think there are a lot of people who find in that sweet spot where you offer the reliability and stability of a SaaS product, but you also have the other foot in where you have the flexibility and choice, but you’ve also… It’s slightly more of a Wild West platform where it’s self-hosted. I just think it’s all very tricky. But what was What has led your decision to come back and have another go at all of this?
[00:16:39.150] – Ben Pines
When I left, I started in 2016, so I was a long time in the company, and I felt like I didn’t want to just be Ben from Elementor. I wanted to do something else, and I did. I was fortunate to be in an excellent AI company. It even started a new brand talking about AI and writing and a lot of the things I did. Then I decided to come back because I met with the founder with Yoni, the founder, and saw the change that was happening with the company and the new product lines and the opportunity that it’s like the opportunity to get back to building new products again because we have new lines of products. So that’s where I wanted to hop on the ship again and get back to the company.
[00:17:47.100] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. I think the other area which people… I think Kirk has touched on upon it about some of his frustrations with updates I think they’ve been shared. But I think the other area that Elementor has been consistently criticized is the code quality that it produces. I know Which is okay, isn’t it? Because Elementor was a very unique product when it initially… Technology moves on, doesn’t At the time, it was a very unique product, and it attempted to do something very effectively, which other… Where it was competing, it was clearly the leader. But there’s obviously a technology baggage by being as time passes. Do you see that is that something that’s discussed? Because you got all the legacy, you got all the legacy, you’ve got all the history, you’ve got technology moving ever forward. How does the animator internally deal with that contradiction in a way?
[00:19:14.880] – Ben Pines
So if you’ve been following the latest releases, then there were a few releases that had to deal with performance and improving the performance and speed of the plugin. So we are always trying to find ways to be better. And legacy does have a downside, but it also has an upside where you can rely on it. Sometimes you get the newcomer and it’s very alluring. But if you’re building a website, you’re probably building it for it to last and for it to upgrade and for it to develop and to be able to build upon it. So that’s also we’re trying to see how we’re doing both of these areas. So it will continue to develop. Listen, we just, in the last year, we added the AI, which is a totally new way to build sections and containers. So I I do think that there is a way to innovate and to change and to make something new. But I think there’s a lot more value with this. I think rarely does a site succeed because the code was the best. That’s the truth. Site succeeds not just because of it. It succeeds because of the design, because of the functionality, because of how it’s planned and invested on.
[00:21:06.400] – Ben Pines
So I think sometimes there’s what you call over optimization, where people tunnel vision and think about matters of code, I know a lot of high volume, high traffic e-commerce sites, and and brand sites that are generating hundreds of thousands of visits a month and are able to scale with Elementor. The proof is in the pudding in the complex sites that are running Elementor and doing it successfully, I think.
[00:21:53.520] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally understand where you’re coming from, and in some ways I agree with you. I just think, like I say, I think this is a gray area because the type of people that listen to this particular show, WordPress professionals, a lot of them are driven by accessibility code standards. I do agree with you. I think to some degree it can be overdriven. But have you… Because you got this whole, like you say, You’re running 10% of the internet, so you got a huge diverse group of people who, for understandable reasons, have very diverse needs and wants. Have you thought about doing what Wix is doing? You have a professional tool. You got Wix, they’re trying to establish Wix Studio, aren’t they? And then you got normal Wix. Is that something you’ve considered to have a professional full product that’s separate from the main one?
[00:23:02.900] – Ben Pines
I think the problem is that Wix started in the beginning only targeted towards the newbies. And we always wanted the balance where it’s visual on the one hand, but also generates clean code. Since I joined two months ago, and I focused on the image optimizer, so I talked to a lot of agencies, and I even made some use cases. And you’d be surprised that just by using a simple plugin for image optimization, you’re actually able to reduce what you usually think is the code and everything. It could be just large images. So one story was a site that was one and a half gigabytes and was reduced to a fraction of that, and the page load speed just jumped. So there are some quick solutions that you can implement very fast that can improve. It doesn’t necessarily need to address it otherwise with jumping into changing the platform or doing something radical?
[00:24:36.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, the whole thing, it’s all fragmented, isn’t it? Because it’s only a small subsection of the professional WordPress user base that even listen to a professionally focused podcast. The bulk of graphic or web agencies, they utilize WordPress or Animator, but they would never subscribe to a WordPress podcast, would they? They wouldn’t even think about it, would they? It’s tribe in a tribe in a tribe, isn’t it?
[00:25:18.070] – Ben Pines
Well, building a site, the successful agencies, they are able to focus on not just, like we said, not just zoom into the technical stuff, but see a broader picture of what is the tech stack that I’m bringing? What is the process that I’m bringing? How am I educating my clients to use the tools correctly and not ruin the site after I’ve handed it over. And I think part of it is also being in touch with the community listening to podcast and being up to date. So when you see something new, a new way, you’re improving the business as you go. But it’s hard to do. It’s not easy to build a business to build website. You need to focus on the business side. You need to have the client relations. You need to focus on the coding side, high design standards, juggling all that. It takes a lot of thinking. It’s not just, okay, I’m just going to find the fastest solution, the trendiest solution, and everything will be grave No, it’s a lot of hard work. So that’s the downside. The good side is that if you manage to do it, then you get a lot of success because these are the outlier agencies that are just doing great.
[00:26:54.450] – Jonathan Denwood
Right, yeah. I think we’re going for our mid-break, folks. We’re delving, we’re interrogating, we’re probing, getting the tools of the trade out, but I think it’s been a great discussion so far. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. We’ve had a dive into the world of Animator and their plans for world domination. There we go. Before we We go into the second part of the show, I just want to point out we’ve got a great Facebook group. It’s called the Membership Machine Show Group on Facebook. It’s all about WordPress and membership and community. It’s a great mixture of entrepreneurs and WordPress professionals. So go over there and join that. We’d love you to be part of the conversation. Over to you, Kurt.
[00:27:58.690] – Kurt von Ahnen
Thanks. Ben, coming on here as the marketing expert, and you have, obviously, the chops to have this talk, for people that are listening to the show, what’s like, describe the main difference between content and product marketing? Because it’s obvious some of the clients we talk to at WP Tonic are confused about the subject as well. So if you could enlighten us from a pros perspective that might help the people that are listening.
[00:28:29.140] – Ben Pines
Yeah. So So I was the head of content at Elementor and at the previous company I worked with. So I’ve been in content for years, and there is a huge difference. So recently, I decided to get back to the product marketing and do the jump to product marketing. And there are some similarities, and the similarities are important because you might feel a bit low confidence in doing this move. And the similarities is really in both sides, you need to really think about the client, the person you’re writing to, and It’s a lot like both professions are a bit like journalism. You’re trying to investigate, you’re trying to research and find something that will be valuable that people will connect with. Okay, Okay, so there are similarities, and I think there is logic to do this transition. Product marketing is a lot broader, so you need to make a lot more decisions, and there are a lot more varied, because in content, it’s a very narrow road. You know the topic you’re writing about, you know how you’re going to investigate, you know the medium, you get to know the the type of videos you’re making or articles you’re making, the interaction with the audience.
[00:30:06.880] – Ben Pines
It’s very easy to get… Sort of easy to get feedback on if they liked it the share and reach that you get. And when you’re trying to do product marketing, you need to hold the product from both ends. So you need to communicate with all of the various elements in the company that develop this product, whether it’s data and the product team and everyone else, including the content team. So You need to communicate with all of the various elements in the company that developed this product, whether it’s data and the product team and everyone else, including the content team. So you need to communicate with all of them, know the situation. And it’s so broad because you’re basically trying to make a product a success. So you need to be able to know where to focus on. So it’s not like you have a goal asset that you need to write something or you need to have your weekly thing that you publish, but rather you need to understand what is the strategy, what is How do you go back? What right now is the best way to reach the next step. So I think it’s a lot more agile, and you need to move between hyper focus, where you do need to produce and develop some marketing material for the product you’re developing, and more the big picture where you’re trying to figure out which area to focus, what is the challenge right now, How are you going to fix the problem?
[00:31:48.140] – Ben Pines
So all this in combination with the fact that things happen and you can’t predict them make it very challenging. But for me, it’s been fun to I have a new, different challenge in my life.
[00:32:06.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
Nice. And then as a follow up to that question, how much do you relate marketing to the idea of sales?
[00:32:18.160] – Ben Pines
Yeah, I heard about this line, marketing is sales at scale. And in some ways, I think when you’re doing sales correctly, and I think there are a a lot of similarities, because if you crack it, you’re trying to crack communication. And how am I going to convey? I know my product is great and it’s going to help people out there. How can I create the story that conveys it in a way that’s clear? Because people have a short attention span. They don’t want to necessarily listen to you. But hopefully, the product that you’re promoting is helpful and it’s something that is useful, then you need to figure out how you’re going to touch people and connect with them. I think sales is different. The difference is that for sales or in general for B2B products, it’s more about the one-on-one communication. So you’re talking to someone and you’re trying to influence them. You’re trying to influence a single person. For me, what I love about more B2C or more of a mass marketing is that you have an audience. It’s not that clear. You need to figure it out. You need to relate and pick up clues.
[00:33:50.560] – Ben Pines
It’s a lot more detective work than sales. Sales can talk to someone and that person says, Yeah, I like your product, but this and For marketing, you can do the same. You should do the same and talk to customers and get the feedback, but it’s not enough because for the feedback you’re going to get, you need to still put on your thinking cap and say, Is this feedback right? Am I seeing it enough to see this is a trend? This is something I need to deal with and improve in the product or maybe promote more because it’s a valuable feature. So I think that’s the difference. And that’s why I like marketing, B2C marketing, because I like the psychology side, I think. Nice.
[00:34:41.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
Jonathan?
[00:34:42.650] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think some of your adverts were very original, but focused. But they had a lot of re-ad, I can’t talk. That’s a problem for a pod It’s the most, isn’t it? This is the views. Originality. Some of your YouTube adverts and that, I was watching a couple of the old ones, especially I crafted my own course on the old geeser with the gold hat with the fin. Can you see the similarity, Ben? I think you can, can’t you? Who thought those up? Was that done in-house or did How did you hire agency to help you do those?
[00:35:33.210] – Ben Pines
This was actually done in-house. This was a nice project. I wasn’t the mastermind for this one.
[00:35:43.000] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s your show? I was going to talk to the boss because I really like that.
[00:35:48.260] – Ben Pines
I really liked it. I always liked theater and improvisation. I even did a bit of it. I think that’s It’s fun if you can incorporate a bit of humor and a bit of fun in what you do. I certainly like it. I hope I continue to do that.
[00:36:18.810] – Jonathan Denwood
Any idea why so much WordPress advertising is so extremely boring, though?
[00:36:27.820] – Ben Pines
Yeah, that’s a good question. I I think…
[00:36:34.490] – Jonathan Denwood
It is a total yawn fest, most of it, isn’t it?
[00:36:39.950] – Ben Pines
I think there are certain… Let’s say there are certain figures in WordPress that are out there that are the complete opposite. A lot of the podcasters and the Matt from the Matt report. Matt Madeos. Matt Madeos, yeah. And a lot of the figures are… And Bridget, a lot of the figures are colorful, and I think they bring a lot of something different to WordPress because I know, I think maybe because it’s more developer-oriented and it gets a serious mode. But I think in the past few years, WordPress has incorporated slowly more of the fun and more engaging- I totally disagree with you.
[00:37:39.690] – Jonathan Denwood
I think it’s getting more dire myself, more on message. What I liked about Element, I always saw you as the pirates of WordPress, either way.
[00:37:54.680] – Ben Pines
I follow different companies, And the companies that are able to produce things that are more fun and humorous, like Wistia and Drift, I think it’s not something you can definitely measure, but I think it definitely promotes a love for the brand. So it gives motivation for the people doing it. So I think it’s definitely something that needs to be done.
[00:38:30.800] – Jonathan Denwood
Back over to you, Kurt.
[00:38:33.870] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think we’ll jump into the AI portion of the show, but this time we’ve got someone with real chops in AI. What can you tell us about how Elementor is integrating AI? You’ve already mentioned an image optimizer three times in the show that I can count. So this is the chance, man. Tell us all about it and what you guys are moving forward with.
[00:38:55.430] – Ben Pines
Well, I have to say that you need to have the The head of this operation to really give you the most updated thing. But we’ve integrated AI in a few different places. So first of all, the obvious ones, when you generate images for your site or when you need to generate text for titles and descriptions and a lot. Also, when you need to hank around with the CSS and the code. So I actually used it when I built my site, just to have something small. If you’re not a CSS guru, you know when you’ll write the CSS, you’ll make a mistake with the column. So I found that helpful. But the real next generation is the building part. So when you’re building a container or a section, or as we develop a page and a website that’s not far away, we already see that there’s a need for it in the market. But I think it’s a tricky place. Why? Because there’s a need in the it, and immediately there is someone that fills it. But the technology that fills it not necessarily is developed. It gives you the right solution. So people use it and they fail because it’s It’s still not there.
[00:40:30.820] – Ben Pines
It still takes a few. I think that the way that Elementary is doing it, where it slowly, gradually adding layers for it. So now we added the copilot that when you build a section, it can predict the next section that you might want and build it for you. Or if you have an inspiration. You want to have a certain section that you have on another site. You want to have it on this side, so you put the URL and it generates the same section. I think that this is how We’re going about it. And I don’t think you need to jump the gun. I think you need to slowly, if you’re a professional and you want to start integrating AI, I think the right way is to start using it in the build process and see how it helps you.
[00:41:39.710] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I’ve played with a few AI tools, and Jonathan and I did a show where we reviewed, it was 18 or 21 different AI tools. That was a good show. But I think you touched on a point there. It’s like the rush to AI and the rush to label everything as AI. I mean, it’s filled my inbox with spam. I can’t even review any of the products in my inbox anymore. I mean, there’s just so much. And so trying to elevate yourself or to your position, market yourself as an expert that has the right tool at the right time for the right avatar, the right people, must be an extraordinary challenge.
[00:42:24.800] – Ben Pines
Yeah, because the problem is that the need arises for the wrong people. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say, but- That was the right thing to say. It’s the same when I was using… And it’s not good news, but it’s the same when I was using the AI writing tool. So when you’re a writer and you’re using it, you’re able to… I use ChatGPT every day for research, for writing, for it just makes it faster. And That’s one of my skills is writing. It’s what I do best. So if it’s one of the things you do best, it’s going to help you. That’s the truth. If you know the trade, you know how to plan a page, you know when a page is right and when it’s wrong, when it looks, when it conveys what the business does, when you have that eye, then you can use… It’ll be easy for you to use AI because AI will produce something. You’ll know if it needs some tweaking. But the need is more strong with the newbie, with the person that doesn’t have a clue how to build a page. They want AI to help them.
[00:43:47.730] – Ben Pines
But unfortunately, the people who will win the most with this AI, I believe, are the people who have this eye for how how websites should be built. And it’s not different than it was eight years ago when I started. Professional companies they’re able to produce individuals or freelancers. They’re able to produce websites that you can instantly say, This is good. This is showing the business in a way that’s respectable. And branding-wise, it’s doing a good job. And that hasn’t been solved yet by AI.
[00:44:35.750] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I think we’re similar on that page there, Ben. I feel the same that there’s going to be such a proliferation of AI and AI content that there’s going to be an elevated need for that human touch, for an expert to come in and go, no, this needs to be reformatted, or this needs to be reedited, or this needs to be drilled down. Because the more AI trains itself on AI generated content, I think the more muddied it might get. So I think the human perspective is really going to be a high value for those that really train themselves up on it.
[00:45:10.680] – Ben Pines
It’s a good opportunity for skilled people like you said. But for the less skilled, I’m afraid it’s not good news.
[00:45:25.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, Jonathan, with that pessimism, I’ll pass it over to you.
[00:45:29.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I’ve got an off-script question. What’s the internal discussion in Elemator about Gutenberg? You’re in the WordPress community, you’re there, you got 10%, yet you got this jugular or this attempted jugal of Gutenberg, haven’t you? You’re part of WordPress, but you’re not part of the Gutenberg jugal, are you? But you’re still running 10%, and I don’t know if it’s growing. I’m sure you’re not going to tell me. But it must be ongoing. How do you see yourself as part of WordPress, but also part outside of this Gutenberg thing?
[00:46:36.240] – Ben Pines
Well, we now have Miriam Schwab. I don’t know if you had her in your show, but she now is head of WordPress at Elementor. So we totally understand. It’s part of our vision to promote and develop WordPress. We have core contributors like a developer who is a core contributor to WordPress, and a few people in the company contribute regularly to WordPress. And we see it as part of our mission. And we actually, I mean, we also see it. We see that Elementor is driving people who would have gone to Wix or another solution. They’re choosing WordPress because they know they have a way to build that’s easy and scalable. And I think it’s much clearer now this understanding that it’s really a win-win. We’re in this together. And it’s a mutual vision to build the best platform for WordPress. So we are in it to win it and with WordPress. That’s how we see it. And Gutenberg offers people who use it. I mean, yeah, it’s also great because it improves WordPress and people have the option.
[00:48:24.340] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I suppose you got to accept it, haven’t you? You have to accept that Elementor and its founders and backers would love every WordPress website to use Elementor, but that’s not reality, is it? You’re always going to have competition, aren’t you?
[00:48:47.310] – Ben Pines
You’re always going to —I’m not sure because I can definitely see a website that uses Elementor for its services and landing pages and Gutenberg, maybe, for writing its blog posts or something else. I don’t know, a combination of those things. So, I’m not entirely sure. It’s something we need to think about.
[00:49:21.130] – Jonathan Denwood
Back over to you, Kurt.
[00:49:25.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think I get the pleasure of the last question, and that’s if you had your own time machine, H. G. Wells, or thinking about Dr. Who, and you could go back to the beginning of your career, what advice would you give yourself, Ben?
[00:49:43.050] – Ben Pines
Well, I think I’ll have an answer here that is not common. And I think this came with maturity and with age. I think when you’re working in startups and in high tech or building a business, It’s a lot of stress, a lot of overwhelm, and a lot of tasks, and your schedule is efficiently full. I think what I learned is the importance of attending to the emotional side attending to how you’re feeling, and really learning how to deal with your emotions. So, we talked a few minutes ago about the fact that maybe WordPress is more developer-oriented and more gray in that area. I think that a big change that maybe can bring more life, spirit, and humor to WordPress is the understanding of the need to think of the other, the more emotional side, and give yourself time to think to plan. So I think these two things are to attend to your emotions and to give time to plan and really think about what you are doing.
[00:51:11.360] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s good stuff. It’s good stuff. You know, If we all took a little more time to adapt ourselves, how much better off would we all be, right?
[00:51:21.750] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, for sure.
[00:51:25.220] – Ben Pines
Jonathan?
[00:51:26.470] – Jonathan Denwood
All right, Ben. I think we’re going to wrap it up. So what’s the best What’s your way for people to find out more about you, your thoughts, and what you’re up to, Ben?
[00:51:35.720] – Ben Pines
Well, I haven’t lately, but I will get back to writing on LinkedIn so they can follow me, Ben Pines at LinkedIn, and also they can follow the Elementor blog. We are going to open a Discord for Elementor, so that’s exciting. So You’ll also be able to find me there.
[00:52:04.200] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. I look forward to that. We’re going to wrap it up, folks. It’s been a fabulous discussion. I think next week is our roundtable show. That should be a laugh. We got some great guests going to join us on that. If you want to support the show, do share it on your social media platforms. That’s the best way to get more listeners, which we have achieved recently. We’ll be back next week. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
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