What is it like to become a MainWP user? We visit with Dutch developer Jos Klever to learn more about him, his business and how he became a MainWP customer.
Klever has a background in IT support for about 16 years before he started his own business providing support for his customers starting in 2015. After a short history with ManageWP, Klever jumped over to MainWP and has been using our product for about 7 years.
Today we learn more about Jos Klever.
How did you get started using WordPress?
I’ve been working with websites as long as the internet is available for the public in the late 90s. First using HTML, a bit of CSS, later some PHP and the first CMS I used was Joomla. Until I found out that if I wanted to update, I had to rebuild the site completely on the newer version. That’s when I found WordPress in 2010. It must have been around version 2.9, or so. Since then I’ve never wanted something else!
What do you like most about using WordPress?
That you can update old websites with newer versions without the need to completely start over, was a big win. WordPress is easy enough to quickly start using it for a website, even if you don’t have much experience.
For more complex projects, it’s extendible with so many plugins, so you can build anything you can think of as long as you have the knowledge or know the right developers.
But the very large community is the best. There are so many websites built with WordPress that there’s a lot of work you can do. Competitors are actually just colleagues, because there’s enough work for everyone.
When did you decide to focus on website care services?
When I started Jos Klever Web Support in 2015, I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to do. Soon I discovered that I didn’t have the creative skills to build good websites for clients, but with my history in IT support I found out that lots of sites weren’t maintained well.
Clients didn’t know what updates would do, so they ignored them, web developers didn’t have time to check for updates regularly, because they were building new sites and so I saw the opportunity to start doing maintenance directly for clients and working via designers and developers as well. These partnerships made it possible to grow faster.
Besides updates, security and backups, I also manage my own dedicated server for hosting smaller WordPress websites. And I migrate websites to other hosts and clean up hacked websites on a regular basis.
My clients are all over the Netherlands and Belgium.
How did you get started using MainWP?
In the startup phase of business in 2014, I’ve used ManageWP, but as the number of sites increased and I realized I needed to pay per site for extra features. While I tried to keep my prices as low as possible for my mostly small clients, I found MainWP as a much better solution that could grow with my needs. That was at the end of 2014. So I’ve been a happy customer for over 7.5 years now!
How does MainWP help you do your work better?
MainWP saves me so much time, because in my care packages I check the sites (over 230 at the moment) for updates at least daily, and often, multiple times a day. I’ve learned that it’s important to stay on top of the updates, certainly if they contain security fixes. Most of the hacked sites I’ve cleaned were infected because updates weren’t installed in time.
Searching for sites that are using certain themes or plugins is easy, just like using code snippets to get information from all sites and much more.
What do you like to do when you are not working on websites?
My work is my biggest hobby, so besides the work for paying customers I also try to help as much as possible in a Dutch WordPress Facebook group and in a few international groups as well.
But when I’m not at my computer, I like drinking as many different beers possible. In almost 3 years, I’ve tasted around 1000 different beers. If you’re interested, you can check my Untappd profile! I like to watch movies and series, Formula 1, hiking, traveling, exploring nature, etc.
What communication methods do you use to stay in touch with your clients?
Most of the communication is via email and Facebook chat and when it’s good to see face to face or share screens, I love Whereby.com to have video calls (1 on 1) for free, without the need for an account or installation. So clients can use it directly.
I’m still looking for an easy platform to keep track of all the communication and tasks, so I can monitor the status better than via an email archive. I’m just looking at Atarim, but I’m not sure yet it will fit my workflow.
What is your hope for the future of WordPress?
Of course I hope it will keep its market share, but it would be good to see some improvements regarding code cleanup to drop deprecated code that’s still in WP for backward compatibility. We can’t keep that working forever. Lots of people are working on improvements as I read along in various Slack channels, like #hosting-community, #core-performance and the new #sustainability project.
Where possible I try to help improve WordPress core, but also plugins by reporting bugs and doing feature requests. These are all good ways to keep track of the development of WordPress and its community!
Wrapping it up
You can learn more about Jos and his business by visiting him online on his website or Facebook page.
What were some reasons you switched to MainWP? Are you interested in learning more about MainWP? Give a try today!
