Dan and Nathan jump on the show this week to share with me their pride and joy, PodcasterPlus Blocks. A WordPress plugin that lets podcasters build customisable, automated podcast websites using modular blocks that pull content directly from RSS feeds, enabling design freedom without having to rely on third-party player embeds.

Some of the best products are born out of a problem the creators had. Not market research. Not competitor analysis. Just someone annoyed enough to fix what is bugging them! Exactly what Nathan and Dan have done!

I loved hearing how they have developed this WordPress plugin together, especially the dynamics of their working relationship. It's always so much fun to get a behind the scenes glance at the development of a product.

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/build-what-you-know/

Accessibility is often an after thought to a web build, even considered optional. We assume that most people are able to access our content and at best slap on a third party accessibility widget to tick a box. Gen Herres, my guest today, challenged several of my limiting beliefs...

• more people have hidden disabilities than we realise
• even if it were only a few, why exclude them
• and automation alone isn't enough, we need manual testing too

She also smashes the perception that Accessibility is only something that folks with big budgets can do. She shares practical advice for supporting ALL users of your site without breaking the bank, breaking a sweat, or losing your sanity!

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/the-forgotten-many/

What do you normally sacrifice when delivering for a client whilst trying to stay within the budget AND meet deadlines!? Look, we're all small businesses here, how on EARTH do we deliver quality without overwhelm? I am sure we'd love nothing better than to tinker till we hit perfection but that aint gonna pay the bills right!? What if there was a way to do it all tho!?

Sam Sayer is here to share how! He's a bloody legend, and so was his Grandad (literally)... no spoilers, you HAVE to listen to this episode. Enjoy!

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/form-and-function/

I can't doomscroll for 5 seconds without some "marketing guru" telling me what I should be doing to market my business. It's bloody exhausting! You might remember I burned out trying to do everything back in 2023 and I nearly closed down this very podcast as a result! Rob Cairns is a long time friend of mine, who's championed both my mental health and the work I do with the podcast. I asked him to come on to sanity check the advice we receive as small business owners, and to help us market without the burnout.

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/marketing-till-you-drop/

Posts, pages, categories, media, WordPress has you covered. But when it comes to complex builds where do you turn? Great Opomu suggests... WordPress!? Whaaat!? Well I happen to agree if I am honest, I was saying this in 2016! WordPress and the ecosystem has done a LOT of growing up since then. The code base has matured, there are epic tools out there for rapid application development and the community is huge.

Great has authored the WPforOPs Manifesto where he encourages folks to consider WordPress as a powerful business operations platform capable of doing the work of multiple SaaS tools all in one place, where you own the data and can customise till your hearts content... within reason right!?

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/more-than-just-a-wordpress/

When asked what you do, what do you say? "I build websites" or "I am a web developer". Heck even "I build websites in the XYZ industry". Sounds nice and nichey right!? Well maybe not. Alex Curtis joins us today and shares his own experience of niching down.

He shares what he does, who he does it for and the all important ingredient that defines your business, the end result.

Spoiler alert: The niche is the who you help and the result they pay for. And he points out that what you do to GET those results is not necessarily as important to clients, nor to hang your entire marketing around.

In episode 400, Adam and I talked about becoming a generalist in a changing world, and perhaps a niche is not so important. Yet in this episode, even with AI, automation, machine learning and Donald Trump, Alex shares how you can be a "generalist" within a niche.

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/what-you-do-isnt-the-niche/

I having banged on for years about niching down have to admit that today's epic guest, young Adam Lowe is right when recommends we consider becoming a little more generalist! Why? Because like it or loath it, AI, machine learning, automation and other tools are making building websites a commodity and we might wanna consider become the "glue" that holds our client, their team and systems together.

Don't drop your niche straight away tho! Listen to the show as it should inspire you to add other services or fill other gaps within the industry or industries you serve as a good starting point! There is still a LOT going for niching especially if you do have a wider skill set than making a site look pretty.

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/uno-reverso-niche-o/

"Why are most WordPress developers musicians" was a throw away comment from Zack during a random online natter. What was likely meant in jest sent my mind in circles. If it was a movie you'd see flashbacks of all the podcasts I have done in the past and behind most folks being interviewed, hanging on the wall would be a guitar, or a keyboard nearby. "YES.... WHYYYYYY".... and with that I invited the old chap onto the show for a completely random chat to see if we can make any sense of this riddle.

I actually thought this would be a laugh a minute (there are a few laughs don't get me wrong), but we went deep! And I mean REALLY deep! The sort of deep that leaves you staring blankly at the shower wall for 30 mins.

Full show notes: https://trailblazer.fm/why-most-wordpress-devs-are-musicians/