Watchful's Hot Air Podcast

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. Season 1 of the Watchful podcast ended last week with Episode 20, featuring Brian Sooy. So what are we doing here with one more episode? We have a special interview with Vic Drover. Normally, Vic is one of my co-hosts on the Watchful pod, but...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. In this episode, we’re talking with Brian Sooy. Brian has a successful agency called AESPIRE in Ohio in the United States. And he just celebrated 25 years in the web development and digital marketing industry. He uses websites built with Joomla and...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. In this episode, we’re talking with Kimberly Lipari. She’s the CEO of Valet, an agency that focuses on WordPress support and development. She’s also one of the lead organizers for WordCamp US. This year the event is going virtual for the first time and we...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. In this episode, we’re talking with Teresa and Jennifer from Red Sage Communications. They are a full-service digital agency with two locations in Alabama in the American southeast. Red Sage is a successful female-owned agency. They pay good salaries...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Andrew Palmer. Andrew manages over 300 sites at his digital agency in the UK and describes himself as an “accidental entrepreneur”. Andrew may be an “accidental entrepreneur” but he is a fascinating and...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Nathan Ingram. He’s a growth coach for WordPress agency owners and the founder of MonsterContracts.com. Nathan is really in the sweet spot for this podcast. He’s been building websites for customers for 25...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Mike Demo. Mike has had a long career building websites at digital agencies. He now works at Web Ventures, an investment subsidiary of InMotion Hosting. Mike is a long-time friend of both of ours. In fact,...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re talking with Brian Mitchell. Brian is the newly minted President of Open Source Matters, the legal and financial organization that backs the Joomla project. Brian runs his own web agency called Intergen. In fact, his...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we're speaking with Adam Silver. No, this isn't the commissioner of the NBA, but rather one of WordPress’ most prolific podcasters. He’s also an agency owner and serial start-up founder. Adam runs several podcasts including...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Nicola Fleming. Nicola and I got to talking over email about her growing business, our shared involvement in the sport of rugby, and the winding paths of our careers. Nicola runs a one-person agency...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Jamie Schmid. She is a WordPress developer and consultant who lives in Portland. We didn’t know this until we started preparing for this episode, but apparently Vic was the first person that Jamie met face-to-face...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Keanan Koppenhaver. Keanan runs Alpha Particle, an agency in Chicago. They focus on WordPress as a publishing platform and work on sites such as Rolling Stone and Variety. Keanan is heavily involved in the...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Ovi Liuta. For the first time on the podcast, we're talking with one of our colleagues! Ovi joined our team this month when Watchful acquired the XCloner plugin. Ovi lives in Cluj, Romania and has been the lead...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Parth Lawate. Parth has a fascinating story. He now runs Tedki, an agency of 70 people, from Pune, India. Parth started 15 years ago doing basic web development. His agency has grown steadily and they are now...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Mike Herchel. Mike is a senior frontend developer for Lullabot, which is a 60-person agency. Lullabot has been a distributed company since it was founded over a decade ago. Mike talks about how Lullabot maintains a...

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Deb Cinkus. Deb runs a conversion optimization agency called Polished Geek. Deb has made some fascinating and bold choices over the years. She moved with several of her employees from North Carolina to Guatemala....

On the Hot Air podcast, we talk with people involved with digital agencies. We discuss business models, strategies, and tools for making your agency successful. And along the way, we hope to have a little fun and make some friends. On this episode of the pod, we’re speaking with Sander Potjer and Martijn Boomsma. Sander and Martijn run a development-focused agency in the Netherlands called PerfectWebTeam.com. They've built some of the most high-profile Joomla sites in Europe. In the first...

On this week's pod we’re speaking with Matt Schwartz. He runs an agency called Inspry from Atlanta. Matt thrives as part of big network of contractors and sub-contractors. He deals with WordPress, Joomla, Magento and more. With many diverse work requests moving into and out of his office constantly, we talk about his challenges with billing and project management.

On today's pod we’re speaking with Donata Kalnenaite and Hans Skillrud. Hans ran and then sold a web agency in Chicago. We talk about how he built and prepared his agency for a successful exit. Then we talk about what came after the sale: teaming up with Donata to launch a privacy-focused service called Termageddeon which helps agency owners and their clients stay on top of new online privacy laws.

On today's pod we’re speaking with SD Williams from Danico Enterprises. SD runs her Joomla agency from Chicago where she also teaches content strategy at DePaul University. SD uses Joomla for most of her client work, and organizes both Joomla Day Chicago and Joomla User Group Chicago North. We discuss how Danico Enterprises began, what the business model is, and how she attracts new business. We also chat about frameworks/page builders, SEO and speed optimization, user experience for...