The people who create tools to assist the WordPress community are striving to provide functions that are unique and practical for your website. Whether it’s a plugin, optimization tool, or customer service, the community is full of talented individuals who lend their time and efforts to ease the learning curve for website creation. Bluehost sat down with Marc Benzakein, Operations Manager for ServerPress, LLC. to discuss his involvement with WPSiteSync, ServerPress.Com, and his love for the WordPress community.
Marc, Tell us about ServerPress and how the company has grown in the past few years?
“ServerPress has four employees who have been holding down the fort since 2011 and we were officially founded as an LLC in 2013. We are big supporters of the WordPress community and everything we do is for WordPress developers and designers. Our wheelhouse is workflow. We believe very strongly in the WordPress community and that’s why we’re dedicated to improving the quality of life of every WordPress user.”
Improving the quality of life for people is very important since WordPress can be used by new or experienced users. How do your products assist developers and designers?
“We create tools that designers and developers use within their workflows. DesktopServer is for all your local WordPress development needs. You can create your website locally within 30 seconds and do all your website content when you are done. It has deployment tools built into it so you can send it to a live host.
WPSiteSync, is a plugin that helps you synchronize content between either a local host, live host, or a staging site. We like to call it a “surgical tool,” because it helps keep your site in synchronization. As you change content with a blog post or page you can use WPSiteSync to actually push that content so it’s not a complete deployment. It’s very easy to use, just one click and that’s it.”
That sounds amazing, what are the available options for users wanting to purchase your products?
“WPSiteSync for content has a freemium model which is free for posts and pages on the repository. We also have extensions for whatever your specific application might be. There is also a premium bundle that a user can purchase for the year with additional syncing options, support features, and early access to new releases.
DesktopServer has a free and premium tier. You can access the free tier by creating and managing up to three websites. The premium tier has features like multisite, support, full CLI capabilities, local IP sharing, and the ability to share or collaborate with other people who aren’t on the same network. They can see it on your local system before it goes to a live host.”
That’s an awesome tactic. Users are more inclined to upgrade to a premium feature once they become familiar with how a product works with their site.
What made you passionate about designing products for the WordPress community?
“I love the community and everything it represents. I love that this community works so well together because it’s about building each other up instead of tearing each other down. You get a very positive vibe when you’re around people in this community who strive to see each other succeed.”
We love your enthusiasm for the community, outside of creating great products, how have you been involved in the community?
“I attended eight WordCamps in 2018 and in 26 in 2017. It was at these camps I received the inspiration to create products that could improve how people build their WordPress websites.”
WordCamps are an excellent way to get familiar with our inclusive community! When you aren’t designing products or at WordCamps, what are your hobbies?
“My main hobby is photography. I love candid photography. I like people, architecture, and nature in their natural state. I’m not good at it, but it’s a habit! I also like to indulge in the occasional cheesecake and lemon meringue pie when I have the time.”
Tell us your vision for your company? How do you see it growing?
“We’ve grown to a user base of around 63,000 users and the goal is to continue supporting our customers. One of the ways we’ve grown is by being their “silent partner”; meaning that while people use our software, the value is that we focus on giving people the best in customer service. Service matters because people value their time more than their money. If we provide good service than we’re helping them to work more efficiently and spend time doing things they want to be doing.
We feel like service and making products that work are important to an inclusive quality of life. Every time we talk about a new feature or service we want to add, the first question we ask ourselves is “How is this going to improve the quality of life for our customers?” All four of us are very passionate about creating a quality of life that is practical and functional within our company. That is how we’ve grown our company and how we’ll continue to grow our company.”
Connect with Marc:
Twitter: @marcbenzak
Comments