MainWP Roundup: Celebrating Ten years of MainWP

In this edition of the MainWP Roundup, we are going to celebrate 10 years of MainWP. We are going to look at articles and podcast appearances from our co-founder Dennis Dornon and Marketing Manager Marc Benzakein.

So grab a slice of the MainWP Ten Year celebration cake, a glass of your favorite drink, sit back and ride through this month’s roundup. (choose one below, with a little help from AI)

Here is a look at some articles and podcasts that you may have missed.

Dennis interviewed at Atarim

This article with Dennis is part of the Atarim Founder’s Series and was published in September 2022.

“Continuing with our series of interviews, we have Dennis Dornon today. He is the co-founder of MainWP, an all-in-one WordPress website management plugin. More than 500k WordPress sites are being managed using MainWP.”

Dennis told a bit about his background, including working for AT&T Wireless and Sprint Cellular, a busboy and being a car salesperson.

He learned ColdFusion in his early 20s to help with his employer’s intranet sites.

Eventually, he worked as a car salesperson and created a car dealership review site. This led to his digital marketing career.

He then transitioned to affiliate marketing, ultimately leading to WordPress.

Once Google started to crack down on “cookie cutter” sites, he moved to working with WordPress. While running over 100 sites, he realized the headache of maintaining that many sites. That is where MainWP was born.

Dennis explains that there are three things that set MainWP apart: privacy focus, open source, and the ability to self host.

As he says, “privacy is built into the DNA of MainWP” and the open source allows them to be transparent.

When asked about growing a web care consultant business, Dennis notes agencies should educate their customers using a free newsletter, provide engaging content including testimonials and success stories, and create efficiency by improving workflows.

Dennis’s Interview with Cloudways

In March 2020, Dennis was interviewed by the Cloudways blog. In this article, Dennis delves into the past of his coding and non-coding experience prior to MainWP.

You can hear his entrepreneurial spirit as he explained how he solved the problem by creating an online training manual for customer service representatives, saving his company the money of printing off new manuals and discarding the old.

Dennis explains the need to develop MainWP,

“The idea came from a need to update over a hundred WordPress sites while keeping everything private at the time the two major players either were using the SaaS model or using obfuscated code.”

Why is Dennis so obsessed with privacy for MainWP? He explains it comes from his time doing affiliate marketing,

“Most other plugins of this type use the SaaS model or obfuscated code and that is the part I have never been able to wrap my head around and maybe it’s because I come from the affiliate side of things where you keep your money making sites and techniques a secret. I just don’t see how people just install all their client sites and information where other people/companies have access to all that information. Especially as much detail that can be gleaned from a Management Dashboard. It’s insane to me.”

Dennis explains that Bogdan, Sanja, and Thang have all been with MainWP from the beginning and gives them credit for maintaining the integrity of the product.

Another interesting thing that came up was Gutenberg. Thus far MainWP has maintained the classic editor, even four years later.

Dennis talks about where he gets his WordPress and industry news and his thoughts on how he is inspired in WordPress.

Dennis Dornon podcast appearances

#55 – Dennis Dornon on How Partnerships Have Helped Grow His WordPress Plugin Business

December 2022, Dennis appeared on the WP Tavern Jukebox with Nathan Wrigley.

Dennis discussed how the MainWP target audience changed.

“We’ve definitely made a shift from where we originally were. If you look at MainWP, in the beginning we were really affiliate focused. I mean, that’s what we came from. Everything was set for affiliates and to grow affiliates and to make sure, you know, you could be a profitable affiliate. As years have gone by, I would say now we’re much more agency or creator focused than we are affiliate focused.”

Additionally, MainWP is partnering with the other plugin makers to create the extensions, making everything more efficient.

He tells how the backup extensions came to be.

Nathan and Dennis discuss how MainWP is more of a platform than a plugin, meaning it becomes a centralized location for lots of various functionalities.

Dennis explained he is solely focused only on MainWP and gives the reasons why.

He also shares that he has been trying (and has!) to do better about being on podcasts and videos and being more involved in the WordPress community.

Interesting info:

• Approximately 60 child sites per dashboard (how many do you have?)
• The MainWP website privacy policy written by Donata Stroink-Skillrud of Agency Attorneys
• Free Support: “One of the things I’m proud of, we don’t charge for support. So if you’re a free user, or a pro-level user, we’re providing the same support for both levels.”

Additional appearances for Dennis and Marc

Is It Possible To Build Successful WordPress Business With A Totally Free Core Product? – WP Tonic

Episode 329: Talking MainWP with Dennis Dornon – Rob Cairns

Marc Benzakein: WordPress Comeback Journey – The WP Minute

https://thewpminute.com/marc-benzakein-wordpress-comeback-journey/

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 19th February 2023 – WP Builds

This Week in WordPress #288

Wrapping it up

Learn more about the recent changes for version 5 and the 10-year journey at MainWP from these recent articles:

MainWP Version 5 by the Numbers: A Monumental Update

A Decade of MainWP: Celebrating Version 5 and Our 10-Year Journey

Happy Ten-Year Anniversary to MainWP! Let us know your favorite feature at MainWP in the MainWP Users Facebook Group.