{"id":7253,"date":"2026-11-04T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=7253"},"modified":"2026-11-04T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T13:00:00","slug":"wptavern-240-martin-schmidt-on-building-partnerships-between-wordpress-product-makers-and-hosting-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontlinenewsng.org\/?p=7253","title":{"rendered":"WPTavern: #240 \u2013 Martin Schmidt on Building Partnerships Between WordPress Product Makers and Hosting Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"
Transcript\n
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.<\/p>\n

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, building partnerships between WordPress product makers and hosting companies.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com\/feed\/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.<\/p>\n

If you have a topic that you\u2019d like us to feature on the podcast, I\u2019m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com\/contact\/jukebox, and use the form there.<\/p>\n

So on the podcast today we have Martin Schmidt.<\/p>\n

Martin has been deeply involved in the WordPress and hosting industries since 2005 when he created his first WordPress travel blog while living in New Zealand. Over the years, he\u2019s developed websites for small businesses, spent 13 years with IONOS in various management and strategy roles, and built partnerships at Wix, and a German SaaS company.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Martin has focused on connecting WordPress plugin companies with web hosts, helping both sides unlock growth through smarter partnerships.<\/p>\n

Today, the conversation focused on the often overlooked world of partnerships between plugin developers and hosting companies. Martin shares insights from his two decades of experience on why hosting providers are the perfect allies for WordPress product makers looking to grow, given their established relationships and marketing channels to large customer bases.<\/p>\n

We talk about the curious fact that many plugin builders put enormous effort into their products, but stumble when it comes to sales, marketing, and building the business relationships necessary for broader success.<\/p>\n

Martin discusses what hosting companies are actually looking for in a partnership, the technical and marketing preparations plugin makers should have ready, and why empathy and preparation make all the difference when trying to connect with busy product managers.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a developer, freelancer, or agency owner interested in taking your WordPress product to the next level, or if you want a candid look at how partnerships really work in the open source ecosystem, this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com\/podcast, where you\u2019ll find all the other episodes as well.<\/p>\n

And so without further delay, I bring you Martin Schmidt.<\/p>\n

I am joined on the podcast by Martin Schmidt. Hello Martin.<\/p>\n

[00:03:14] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Hi, Nathan. Great to be here.<\/p>\n

[00:03:16] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, thank you. Martin and I do not know one another, so this is our first call, but we were joined together, on maybe LinkedIn. I\u2019m not entirely sure.<\/p>\n

[00:03:23] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> I was LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n

[00:03:25] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Probably LinkedIn, by Nicole, so thank you to Nicole for doing that, really appreciate the linking together there. And we\u2019re going to have a conversation today about, I suppose the word to describe it would be partnerships. How to partner with various different entities, possibly hosting companies are going to come up and things like that, so.<\/p>\n

Before we begin that conversation, Martin are you able to just give us your little bio? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you\u2019ve done in the hosting partnership WordPress space, whatever you think fits best.<\/p>\n

[00:03:55] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes, absolutely. I\u2019m from Germany. I lived down south in Karlsruhe. Originally from the Cologne area. Started working with WordPress actually in I think 2005, something like that. When I was moving to New Zealand and started studying in New Zealand. That\u2019s when I spun up my first WordPress site as a travel blog. And this was my first contact with WordPress. So I think, yeah, one of the, not one of the first users, but one of the very early.<\/p>\n

[00:04:20] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Fairly early, yeah, pretty early.<\/p>\n

[00:04:22] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Very early. So that\u2019s when you still had to like download WordPress and upload it via FTP, and there was no like auto update in the WordPress admin, and stuff like that. So one of the very early users and.<\/p>\n

Yeah, around that time, that\u2019s also how I got in touch with like the whole hosting industry. I was a web developer myself, started in high school developing websites for small businesses. Built them for people here in Germany and then also in New Zealand while I was studying over there.<\/p>\n

And when I got back from New Zealand, I started applying for jobs. And one was with Google, the other one was with Ionos. And Ionos answered I think within a week, and I\u2019m still waiting for the answer from Google till today. So, they never really got back to me, but yeah, it\u2019s somewhere in the mail, yeah.<\/p>\n

But luckily the guys from Ionos got back to me and I think a week later I had a phone interview. Another four days later an interview in Karlsruhe. And then I started, I think two weeks later. Already started there like end of October with my first job as a product manager at Ionos.<\/p>\n

And then spent 13 years at Ionos in various roles, in product management and the last five years in strategy. And from there I got the chance to move on to Wix. Worked for Wix.com in Germany. There was, during the COVID pandemic, I moved employers and started to work for Wix, and spent two years there building partnerships in, Europe.<\/p>\n

Actually also put them in touch with a company called Sevdesk, which is a German accounting company, similar to Zero or QuickBooks Online. And couple of months later the CEO asked me if I was interested in joining their side, after they had raised some money and built partnerships from their side. I kept him waiting a little bit, but then after a while I decided, that\u2019s interesting to join a German SaaS company. Something different than hosting, and online presence.<\/p>\n

So yeah, I spent the next two years building the ecosystem around the SaaS software, like all the software that integrates with the accounting product basically.<\/p>\n

Then end of 24, I got a call from my former boss from Ionos, who had just moved to hosting.com and became the CRO, and they also wanted to do partnerships. So, yeah, had a chat with him and with the CEO and started there in February 2025, and started building partnerships for hosting.com.<\/p>\n

And, the main focus was really on building partnerships with WordPress companies. Just after Cloudfest, we launched the partnership with WP Rocket. Started to build quite a few more partnerships, or that were in the making. And by the end of the year, which was interesting to me, I had a lot of those WordPress plugin companies that I reached out to telling me, look, this is super interesting. We want to work with hosting companies.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re really glad to be working with you. We would also love to work with a lot of more hosting companies, but honestly we don\u2019t really know where to start, and how to do this. And they really got me thinking. And then over New Years, and you know when you like, get some time to maybe reflect on the year and stuff that\u2019s happening, this was like, it, really hit me. It\u2019s like, well there\u2019s so much interest of companies wanting to partner with web hosts.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve sat on the other side for some 20 years, like people pitching to me, like explaining me why their product is going to be the next big thing for me in the hosting company. And you start to see patterns of like things that people do good, and maybe things that people don\u2019t do as well when like trying to pitch to you as a hosting company.<\/p>\n

And I saw all this demand from these WordPress plugin companies and I was like, hey, maybe this is finally the idea of starting my own business. Like something I wanted to do for the last five years, but I never really had the idea of like what to do? Or not the idea that was convincing enough for myself to give up my corporate job.<\/p>\n

And, once you got a house and family, I mean, it becomes a bit more difficult to just jump into the cold water, right? I guess a lot of people can relate to that. But this time it was different. I felt like this could really be something. So I started reaching out to more people in my network, and ask them, hey, I\u2019m thinking about doing like this sort of consulting advisory thing. Do you think this is interesting? And I got a lot of positive feedback, way more than I had anticipated.<\/p>\n

So I thought, okay, if I\u2019m not doing this now, I will never do it. I will never try and do it. So yeah, I decided to go independent and officially started in May. And that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing now, like helping tech companies who want to partner with web hosts to find a way to do it.<\/p>\n

And I always tell people that are interested in, you can do it by yourself, right? You can find it all out yourself. It\u2019s probably going to take you like three to four years to figure out the right model, and make all the connections. Build the trust with the hosting companies. Find out the right business model. The right support model, like the co-marketing activities, all the things you need to do. Or if you don\u2019t want to wait for four years, you can work with me and I help you take a shortcut.<\/p>\n

And the goal is by month six that you have someone in your organisation who can take care of partnerships, and just run this by yourself. But you don\u2019t make all of those mistakes, and all of those extra investments that don\u2019t turn into anything.<\/p>\n

My pitch to my customers is like, I\u2019m helping you cut down the time to market. I\u2019m telling you what works and what doesn\u2019t work, and what makes a good pitch.<\/p>\n

[00:09:49] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, this is genuinely really interesting to me, and we\u2019ll get into that a little bit later. But I have a different angle to you, but probably we\u2019ll end up at exactly the same place.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been podcasting in the WordPress space for a decade. So 2016, something like that, I started. And, if you do podcasting often enough, your voice is heard, and people have this sort of expectation, if you send an email to me with a product that you\u2019ve just launched, I will somehow have a silver bullet for making you successful.<\/p>\n

And first thing to say is, I basically don\u2019t. You know, I can put you on a podcast episode, but that really is the limits of what I can do.<\/p>\n

But also what\u2019s quite fascinating, and I honestly genuinely, I probably get about 30 or 40 of these emails a week. And the bit that stands out for me is how unprepared, let\u2019s go for that word, how poorly prepared the email that I receive is.<\/p>\n

So in many cases over the last couple of years, it\u2019s clearly been written by an AI. There hasn\u2019t been a lot of due diligence about who I am, so it kind of feels like this really, really cold call. I somehow got on an email list somehow. And it comes, you know, with all of the usual caveats. The first paragraph is telling me what I do, and I already know what I do. So like there was an AI in there somewhere.<\/p>\n

But also it feels like they\u2019ve got a product. Quite often I\u2019ll go and look at the product and I think to myself, boy, that\u2019s so good. Look at what they\u2019ve done. Like they\u2019ve built a plugin and it\u2019s fulfilling a real need.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I can\u2019t really help them except put them on a podcast, but it occurs to me if only they could connect with all the right people, have the right language, know how to pitch themselves, know how their website should look so that it speaks to people that drop into it.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019m basically trying to build up a picture is of is that there\u2019s loads of people out there who are building things, but clearly the building of it is the part that they\u2019ve been interested in. And as soon as it\u2019s built, they then have this moment of, oh, now what do I do with it? You know? And they don\u2019t have that marketing expertise, and so they\u2019re kind of looking around trying podcasters and what have you. And it feels like you are trying to step into that gap a little bit.<\/p>\n

But instead of it being a podcast, you are trying to hook them up to what are the big players in the WordPress space? The people with deep pockets. The people who have reliable income month over month. And that\u2019s the hosting companies. Have I summarised that correctly? Is that your experience as well? You get people that have got a thing, but don\u2019t really know how to move on from the I\u2019ve built the thing, to now I need to sell the thing.<\/p>\n

[00:12:37] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. So I think you\u2019re spot on. And I would add there\u2019s probably, I would say two groups. There\u2019s the one which is maybe the builder who doesn\u2019t know marketing, right? And we had these people before AI that were building fantastic products. But they just don\u2019t know marketing because they\u2019re fantastic builders. They\u2019re tech people, but they\u2019re missing that marketing piece.<\/p>\n

And the one thing they don\u2019t hire a marketing person who does it for them. I think that\u2019s always a shame. You see this fantastic product, someone like driving a product with their passion. They\u2019re really solving a pain point, but they just don\u2019t understand how to sell it. Because to them it\u2019s all clear, it\u2019s all obvious, but you do need to translate it to people in your target audience.<\/p>\n

So I think this is one group, and I see that also a lot with WordPress plugin companies. It feels like, coming from the hosting space, where all of the big companies are so good at marketing. Looking at WordPress companies, I feel like this is really something that they are somewhat missing.<\/p>\n

I think the most successful WordPress plugin companies, I think that\u2019s probably the ones that have understood that next to building fantastic product, and also needs fantastic marketing. But I think this is really the one group.<\/p>\n

And the other one is, I would call them like lazy salespeople. They\u2019re just sending out like sales messages. And we had them way before AI, just sending out without doing any research at all. You get messages and you look at them or you look at the product, it\u2019s like, there\u2019s no fit at all. I\u2019m selling to small businesses, and you pitching me a product for enterprise customers. Like, why? You are just wasting time, right?<\/p>\n

If your goal is to work with a company to potentially sell to hundred, thousands, or millions of customers, and that\u2019s going to be a deal worth hundred thousands or millions of dollars, you should invest maybe an hour, half an hour, of research and just see if there\u2019s any fit at all right. And then if you take the time to go in a meeting with me and pitch your product, do a little bit of research to just make it fit. Just this tiny bit of research will make you stand out amongst the crowd like completely.<\/p>\n

[00:14:41] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It feels to me in the first case as if, timing\u2019s not really the right word, but there\u2019s a component of timing in here. And what I\u2019m meaning by that is, what I\u2019m feeling is that a lot of people have spent all of their time building the thing. So that might be time, but it might be money, whatever the thing that you\u2019ve got going on in your business.<\/p>\n

But at no point during the time from conception, idea to completed product have they said to themselves, okay, at some point we\u2019re going to have to market this. We\u2019re going to have to think about it.<\/p>\n

So maybe, and I don\u2019t know if this is part of the sort of wisdom that you have, but it feels like maybe halfway through that process of build to complete build, you need to put the brakes on and say, okay, now we\u2019re halfway through, let\u2019s work in two channels now. Let\u2019s do the, finish the build, but also at the same time, let\u2019s do the marketing.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything in there, like just put on the brakes before you finish, have some resources, have some ideas of contacts, have some marketing, have a website and all of that kind of stuff done. So that when you finish, it\u2019s all ready to roll.<\/p>\n

[00:15:43] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. That\u2019s definitely it. I don\u2019t know if you have to put on the brakes, but I think it\u2019s like, at least you as the CEO, you have to like work on two tracks. There\u2019s the guys building the product, but then there\u2019s also the marketing piece of it, right?<\/p>\n

And you can have the most fantastic product if you\u2019re not telling the story, if you\u2019re not letting the world know. How are people going to find you, right? I think we see, I saw a stat on LinkedIn recently that there\u2019s like a thousand plugins published on the repository every week. It\u2019s going to be so crowded. You need to do something to stand out and to be found.<\/p>\n

And I think that\u2019s also with web hosts and every tech company, you can have the most amazing product, but if you\u2019re not found, if the target audience doesn\u2019t know about you, nobody will use your product. And you\u2019re going to be the only user of your own product.<\/p>\n

I think in the end, you need to master marketing to be successful with your business. And it\u2019s not just about the best product. And, I think that\u2019s the important message here. You don\u2019t need to know marketing yourself. Just hire someone. There\u2019s so many people specialise in marketing. Just get someone on board who knows marketing and who understands a little bit of tech to get why your product is so special, and who\u2019s able to translate that into a customer pain point, and figure out how to sell it. that\u2019s really it.<\/p>\n

[00:16:58] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> So we\u2019ve done podcast episodes on this podcast before where we\u2019ve talked about partnerships in a different way. We\u2019ve talked about partnerships in terms of plugin Company A joining with plugin Company B, because they\u2019ve got similar enough products that they kind of overlap, and they can help each other out and mutually market and do marketing campaigns together and things like that.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what we\u2019re talking about here. We\u2019re talking specifically about going to hosting companies. So I guess the first question is, why go to hosting companies? What is it that they bring? I suppose the obvious answer is they\u2019ve got bajillions of customers. In many cases, you know, some of the big hosts, if you can forge some sort of relationship with them, goodness knows, you know, maybe they literally have millions of customers. But why have you made hosting companies the bit of the half of this jigsaw puzzle?<\/p>\n

[00:17:45] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. beside me coming from hosting and knowing hosting, which was kind of like, make it a bit easy to decide for hosters. But I think they also play an important role. In the end, if a small business wants to run a website, they need to host it somewhere. They decide for hosting company. They get their WordPress site spun up. And then, that\u2019s where usually in the next step you would go with like certain plugins. Like for SEO, performance, backup, security, translations, whatever your use case is, right?<\/p>\n

As you mentioned, the hosting company is the one that has all of the relationships with the customers. And unlike the WordPress companies, who are not allowed by the repository rules to directly market to their customers via email and things like that, they can only use popups inside the WordPress admin.<\/p>\n

One thing that the host is free to do, they can call the customers, they can send text messages, they can send them emails. They can do all of the up and cross sell marketing to their customers. And I think that\u2019s one advantage that the hoster has that they can bring to the table, beside all of these customer relationships, right? They can really do the full blown marketing to those free users, to push a premium version of the plugin.<\/p>\n

[00:18:59] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Okay. So it\u2019s not just visibility within the platform of, I don\u2019t know, you\u2019re at the point of it installing a plugin because you\u2019ve got a brand new WordPress website. And look, here\u2019s a bunch of partners that we\u2019ve got, you may be interested in those.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one piece of it. But there\u2019s also this sort of marketing side. Presumably just like every company on earth, web hosting companies are as keen to keep front of mind as any other company. So if they can come up with a good, and I\u2019m doing air quotes, excuse to send out an email, they\u2019ll do that. And why not send out an email because we\u2019ve onboarded a new partner and, you know, have you thought about doing this with your website? It turns out we\u2019ve got a partnership with this particular plugin company.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing there that the ability to send out emails is something, you know, to keep front of mind is something that the web host would want to do. But what\u2019s in it for the web host? Like if I was a plugin company coming to a web host, I would want to have in my mind, okay, these are the kind of things I know they\u2019re looking for. What are they, what do the web hosts want in return?<\/p>\n

[00:19:55] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yeah. So a lot of web host will tell you, hey, I want new customers, and that\u2019s what I usually tell the web hosts. This is something you can\u2019t expect from the WordPress plugin company. Because they are like in the later stage of that decision process. So the customer decides for the plugin a lot later than they decide for the host. So it\u2019s not fair to ask the plugin company to bring in new customers to the web host.<\/p>\n

But what they can do and what the WordPress plugin company can help with is, A, make the product a lot more attractive. They\u2019re web hosts that sell hosting bundled in with plugins like WP Rocket. So the product itself is more attractive from the get go.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t bundle it in the start, you can also help solve certain customer pains that make the customer more happy, therefore more sticky, right? So you prevent churn. As a host, you reach like a hundred thousand, 200,000 customers. You really need to work hard that your new customer growth isn\u2019t eaten up all by churn. Making your customers sticky and drive up the revenue per customer, that\u2019s in the interest of the web host, right? And, with a certain size, increasing that revenue per customer also becomes very important and interesting for the web host.<\/p>\n

So I think that\u2019s where the plugin company can come in and help the web host. They won\u2019t just partner with any plugin. The plugin needs to solve a certain pain point for the customer. So this could be performance, this could be SEO, this could be accessibility. So these are challenges that the customers of the web host are actually faced with. And the plugin is simply a solution to that pain point.<\/p>\n

So the hoster has an answer to that question of their customer. They\u2019re in the role of the trusted advisor to their customers. And if the customer says, look, I\u2019m running a website on your servers. I need to now be in compliance with the accessibility requirements in my country, or I need to do certain things. Then there\u2019s the answer. Let\u2019s use WP Rocket for performance. Here\u2019s a partnership that we have with them, right? And that\u2019s where the plugin company can come in and help the host.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, obviously joint co-marketing will also help the hoster. And obviously if you talk like Ionos, GoDaddy or Newfold, I mean they\u2019re massive, like they have millions of customers. So probably what a plugin company can bring to help them in co-marketing is not going to make a huge impact. There\u2019s hundreds of hosters with hundred thousands of customers. For them working with one of those plugin companies can still be very interesting in doing like joint co-marketing, and getting the word out.<\/p>\n

[00:22:32] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting. In the back of my head, when we were talking until just now, for some reason I was thinking about all the big hosts. You know, the ones that you\u2019ve all heard of with the millions of customers. But of course that\u2019s not the case, is it? There are thousands of smaller hosts.<\/p>\n

[00:22:47] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

[00:22:48] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Who may be more amenable to this kind of thing because, well, Idon\u2019t know, they just don\u2019t have that sort of scale that they need to worry about. And, you know, they\u2019re looking for opportunities because they themselves are looking to grow in different ways that perhaps the other big hosts don\u2019t have to think about quite so much.<\/p>\n

Okay. So that\u2019s interesting. So, you know, if it doesn\u2019t fit one hosting company and you get a silent wall from all the big ones, that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re out of the game. It may be that the smaller hosts with different staff, and a different approach, and different geography and things like that, they may be more amenable to that.<\/p>\n

[00:23:21] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes, absolutely. And I will always tell my clients, I know that GoDaddy, Ionos and Newfold look very interesting because their publications, that they have millions of customers, but you don\u2019t want to start with them. It\u2019s going to take you three or four years to get a deal done if at all. If you start with them, I mean you\u2019re going to give up frustrated halfway through probably.<\/p>\n

So start with the smaller guys. They\u2019re more approachable, right? They may be less busy. You mentioned that you get like 30 emails a week. That\u2019s what the everyday of a product manager at an Ionos or GoDaddy looks like as well. They get pitches all the time. Getting some air time with them is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n

Start with the smaller guys and they\u2019re going to be a lot more open to discuss with you. And start some smaller partnerships. Work through the teething problems of partnerships with bigger companies, right? Build some track record. And once you\u2019ve established a track record, you can work your way up, right? Every hoster has a competitor that\u2019s bigger and one that\u2019s smaller. Once the smaller competitor starts doing something, they will notice, and they will look like, why are these guys partnering with plugin company XYZ? Should we be doing the same? So you kind of like work your way up to the bigger guys and the bigger guys, right?<\/p>\n

[00:24:34] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

[00:24:35] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Everyone is watching the other guys and watch what they do. So it\u2019s, once you start working with some of them, the rest will start like, oh, this is interesting. If X, Y, Z worked with them, maybe we should too. That\u2019s how you build the traction, but you need someone to start, right? And that\u2019s probably not going to be the biggest guy.<\/p>\n

[00:24:53] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, and again, I hadn\u2019t really thought about that, but yeah, the, sort of looking over your shoulder if you\u2019re a hosting company, seeing with perhaps jealous eyes, oh look, they\u2019re getting loads of attention out there on social media because they\u2019ve formed this relationship. And their emails are going out, and people are making comments on their tweets and their blog posts and things like that. Oh, we should definitely get a bit of that. Okay. That\u2019s, really interesting.<\/p>\n

So if somebody approaches you, then let\u2019s say they\u2019ve got a plugin. Let\u2019s just assume that it\u2019s a plugin that is useful and that a hosting company would be interested in it, if they had everything wrapped up correctly. What would be some wisdom that you would drop in terms of how to wrap it up? Like, how prepared do you need to be? What are the kind of things that you expect plugin developers to have ready, so that on day one, when you do your first outreach to the first hosting company, you feel confident that, okay, I\u2019ve got a good client here, we\u2019ve got a good chance. What are the bits and pieces that you need to have them have done?<\/p>\n

[00:25:50] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> I think on the technical side, I mean they will need to have some sort of like provisioning enabled. The host would probably want to sell the plugin themselves within their billing engine, and their system. So they will need some sort of provisioning to your system to say look, someone bought a licence and this licence needs to be valid and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

So, this integration and that usually, I mean, if you don\u2019t have that, it probably takes you a few months to implement that. So that\u2019s something like, I would really start first and built these kind of things.<\/p>\n

The other stuff that I think the plugin company should have ready is, what\u2019s your proposition to the web host? And what\u2019s the proposition of your product to the web host customers? I always tell my clients like, don\u2019t make the other guys think. Tell them. Show them that you thought about it. Coming back to our earlier point about people being unprepared, don\u2019t be that unprepared person. Like once you get some air time with these guys, tell them what your product is. Tell them what your product, or your company can do for the web host. But also tell them how they should be using your product and marketed to their customers.<\/p>\n

[00:26:56] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Kind of spoonfeed them basically.<\/p>\n

[00:26:58] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n

[00:26:59] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Have everything so that they can lift it and just walk off with it and, okay, we\u2019ll do that then.<\/p>\n

[00:27:03] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. It might feel like spoonfeeding and like, why do I need to do your job? But I mean, in the end, put yourself in the shoes of that product manager, and tell them, look, if I was you, I would be selling my product this and this way.<\/p>\n

Some of the worst product pitches I had. Companies came to me. Told me look, this is our product. You\u2019re going to make millions with it. And then I was like, okay, that\u2019s interesting. How do I sell it to my customer? And then the answer was like, I don\u2019t know your customers. You need to know how to sell stuff to your customer. It\u2019s like, that\u2019s not how you land a deal, right?<\/p>\n

And one thing I like to do when I was pitching products. I looked at the website of the company I was pitching to. I mocked up their website with my product, and I put that in my presentation, and I told them, look sorry guys, we already hacked your website. Our product is already on your website. This is what it\u2019s going to looks like. This is what it\u2019s sold for, right? It shows them that you put some thought into that. That\u2019s going to make you stand out.<\/p>\n

Understand the work life of that product manager. They get those 30 emails like you, do. They decide to go on that meeting with you. You spend 30 minute pitching your product, and then you leave them with this big question mark. Like okay, this sounds interesting, but how the heck do I sell this to my customers?<\/p>\n

After your meeting then they have lunch, then there\u2019s like an escalation, then there\u2019s an all hands, then there\u2019s the weekend. On the next Monday they will have almost forgotten about you. And if they think about you it\u2019s, oh, I still have to figure out how to sell this. This is complicated. I don\u2019t have time for this. I\u2019m going to postpone it. And that\u2019s not what you want to achieve.<\/p>\n

You want them to go out of that meeting and thinking, well this is an amazing product, solves a problem for my customers. And these partners, they think about me. They think about how I should be selling it. And maybe it\u2019s not a hundred percent right. It\u2019s not about getting it a hundred percent right.<\/p>\n

[00:28:51] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Right. They can adapt.<\/p>\n

[00:28:52] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. But giving them something to adapt is like a lot more than just don\u2019t give them anything, right. And adapting is always easier than coming up with it yourself.<\/p>\n

[00:29:01] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> So, the email that I typically get is basically a description of a product. It tells me what it\u2019s called and then what it does. And often it\u2019s a fairly technical description of a product. And, I imagine that if you are a marketer, you\u2019re four lines into that email and your eyes have glazed over, and it\u2019s like, okay great.<\/p>\n

But what you are describing is go the extra mile. Don\u2019t just explain the product. Presumably, there\u2019s a bit of that\u2019s got to go on, but it\u2019s also now explain to the person receiving that email how their company can use that. How they could market it. The way that could be marketed. The sort of mockup landing page that you described just there. Go the extra mile, sit in their seat for a minute. Try to imagine what their busy life is like, have a bit of empathy, and imagine that they\u2019ve only got an attention span of a few moments. It\u2019s more that, than the here\u2019s a product description. Now that you know what it is, please come and contact us, because that\u2019s just not going to happen.<\/p>\n

[00:29:59] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not. I think it\u2019s the same for us in private life. If you get emails about products that. I mean you just know yourself. You\u2019re busy with so many things in between. Your kids coming home from school, and someone calling, your parents calling and all of that. You, just look at the email and if it doesn\u2019t click immediately, it goes to the trash bin.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the same with these guys as well. Convincing people just in email is probably going to be difficult. You need to at least get them into the meeting. And I think that\u2019s the one step before that. But once you have them in a meeting, spend that time wisely. It\u2019s difficult enough to get them into the meeting. But if you have them in a meeting, don\u2019t waste it with generic presentations.<\/p>\n

Invest this little bit of effort, and mocking up that websites or just taking a bit of a look at who they\u2019re selling to and adapting your message to that. It doesn\u2019t take a ton of work. And it didn\u2019t take a tonne of work four or five years ago. And now with AI it\u2019s even less, it\u2019s even less work, right? But if you want me to trust you as my partner to go forward and sell to my customers, that\u2019s going to blame me for everything. I want to see that you invest a little bit of effort too.<\/p>\n

[00:31:04] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s right. Yeah. I think that\u2019s a very human characteristic, isn\u2019t it? I would like to see that you made an effort, if I\u2019m going to make an effort. That\u2019s just how the game goes, right? That\u2019s just how it is. You know, if I get the impression that you just want to rock up, make loads of money, and do nothing, that\u2019s never going to work really.<\/p>\n

[00:31:25] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n

[00:31:26] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> I mean there\u2019s the occasional person that manages to pull that off, but on the whole, that\u2019s not how human relationships flourish and work.<\/p>\n

[00:31:33] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> In the end, it\u2019s about you want to build a partnership, right? And that\u2019s not, I come to you and you give me loads of money. I don\u2019t have a lot of friends like that. And I don\u2019t think anyone else has a lots of friends like that.<\/p>\n

Usually it\u2019s like you give and you receive, right? And sometimes one side invests a bit more, and the other side invests a bit more. But usually if only one side is giving and the other one is only taking, that\u2019s a toxic relationship. And usually they tend to break. So why should business relationships work any differently?<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a funny conception that a lot of companies have is oh, I want to do partnerships. I just go out there and then they\u2019re going to sell my product and I\u2019m going to make lots of money, and I don\u2019t need to do anything. That\u2019s honestly what a lot of companies think.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the difficulty that a lot of partner managers have, right? They\u2019re being sent out to get those partners, and then they\u2019re expected to bring in just all the revenue without any additional investment. And that\u2019s just not happening. Honest truth, nobody is out there waiting for you and for your product.<\/p>\n

[00:32:32] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah. That is the brutal truth isn\u2019t it? Do you subscribe to doing things in person? You know, so WordPress has got a real panoply of events, Meetups and WordCamps and there\u2019s obviously other things that you mentioned, you know, Cloudfest and things like that. Do you find that tends to short circuit things?<\/p>\n

I guess there\u2019s a bit of personality that comes into this as well. You know, some people are, seem to have all the characteristics for selling. They\u2019re incredibly good at that kind of thing. Maybe they\u2019re practised at it. Maybe they\u2019re just, you know, born in that wonderful manner. Do you subscribe to that? Is that a part of this jigsaw puzzle as well? You know, show up, meet the people, shake the hands, go to the restaurants, do the schmoozing and all of that.<\/p>\n

[00:33:12] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Absolutely. You could do all the Zoom calls that you want, but I\u2019ve experienced it firsthand. Like during COVID, we were talking to people for six months via video conference. Like one in person meeting in Munich. It felt like this moved us further than just the six months of constant video calls.<\/p>\n

You can meet people, and you can relate to them, and there can be some sympathy and stuff like that. And you might not have to meet ever, but it usually helps a lot to build that trust. To just meet the person face to face, shake a hand, maybe have a beer and have a laugh and stuff like that just helps a great deal.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve seen partnerships without any face-to-face meeting, but usually I would definitely advise to see people in person. And some people are just difficult to get hold of. And then catching them at the Colosseum Bar at Cloudfest 10 o\u2019clock at night really helps to suddenly be in touch with that person.<\/p>\n

[00:34:07] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> There is something ever so human about that isn\u2019t there? And I think we all on some level enjoy that.<\/p>\n

So you found yourself in this product market space. Like I said, I know that this is a thing. So I would imagine that given a fair wind, you\u2019ll be doing this for years to come.<\/p>\n

Where do you find yourself online? Do you have a website where you\u2019ve packaged up these products and services, you know, these partnership liaison services that you do? Where can people find you? Where do they go online to discover more about you?<\/p>\n

[00:34:37] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> At the moment mostly active on LinkedIn. That\u2019s where I meet a lot of the people. I also have a website, martinschmidt.co. And that\u2019s where also people can reach out to me. The website has been a little bit neglected to be quite fair because I straight on, jumped into LinkedIn and started publishing on LinkedIn, because the audience is already there. And people are not searching for how do I build partnerships with web hosts? But they come to me via LinkedIn because they tend to read some of my posts, and that\u2019s how I get to speak to people like yourself.<\/p>\n

[00:35:07] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah. Well, that is exactly how it happened. It was LinkedIn and I think you\u2019re right. I think having a website would be of great value, but at the same time, you know, given the proclivities of what you\u2019re doing, LinkedIn seems to be very much the best place to do that.<\/p>\n

What I\u2019ll do is I will put your bits and pieces into the show notes. So if dear listener, you head to wptavern.com you search for the episode with Martin Schmidt, that\u2019s S-C-H-M-I-D-T, you\u2019ll be able to find the links there. So hopefully you\u2019ll be able to contact Martin via LinkedIn and what have you.<\/p>\n

Really interesting topic and Martin, thank you for chatting to me about it today.<\/p>\n

[00:35:42] Martin Schmidt:<\/strong> Yes. Thanks for having me, Nathan. It was fantastic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n

On the podcast today we have Martin Schmidt.<\/p>\n

Martin has been deeply involved in the WordPress and hosting industries since 2005, when he created his first WordPress travel blog while living in New Zealand. Over the years, he\u2019s developed websites for small businesses, spent 13 years with IONOS in various management and strategy roles, and built partnerships at Wix and a German SaaS company. Most recently, Martin has focused on connecting WordPress plugin companies with web hosts, helping both sides unlock growth through smarter partnerships.<\/p>\n

Today the conversation focused on the often-overlooked world of partnerships between plugin developers and hosting companies. Martin shares insights from his two decades of experience on why hosting providers are the perfect allies for WordPress product makers looking to grow, given their established relationships and marketing channels to large customer bases.<\/p>\n

We talk about the curious fact that many plugin builders put enormous effort into their products, but stumble when it comes to sales, marketing, and building the business relationships necessary for broader success.<\/p>\n

Martin discusses what hosting companies are actually looking for in a partnership, the technical and marketing preparations plugin makers should have ready, and why empathy and preparation make all the difference when trying to connect with busy product managers.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a developer, freelancer, or agency owner interested in taking your WordPress product to the next level, or if you want a candid look at how partnerships really work in the open source ecosystem, this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

Useful links<\/h2>\n

IONOS<\/a><\/p>\n

Hosting.com<\/a><\/p>\n

WP Rocket<\/a><\/p>\n

Martin on LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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