Paul Lacey

Paul Lacey doesn’t need much of an introduction. You’ve watched him for the last few years on the WP Builds podcast, co-hosting with Nathan Wrigley. He’s devoted a large portion of his professional life to WordPress as an advocate, business owner, and content creator. He has a deep understanding on how the WordPress economy operates with a deeper connection to the WordPress community. I’m excited to have him join us to help build this new experience of WordPress news. Join the WP Minute membership and get involved in the WordPress news. We also have a new Content Bounty available that sponsors one of our members to create a new piece of content.

Rob Cairns sits down with Paul Lacey to talk about WordPress Mergers and Acquistions. Show Highlights: Why Now? Impacts on the community. Thoughts on if this is good or bad for the WordPress space. Why the community will survive. How hosting companies have been involved in the mergers and Acquistions. Shout outs to many of our favorite WordPress people.

All too often, we hear only the success story. The Olympian who won the goal. The successful millionaire who launched a business from her dorm room. It's easy to assume these stories are without struggles. But what we don't see is the sacrifices the olympian made. We don't see the dozen other ideas and years of work the successful millionaire put in. Today we get to hear it all. Paul Lacey is as generous with his time as he is with his story. See, Paul has gone a long way in his travels as a web developer, from the pre-dot-com burst to crashing an agency and bouncing back. And he's learned a ton along the way that he generously shares with us in today's episode. So I just tried to get out of the way and tell his story. I think you'll love it. Show Notes: Paul LaceyPaul Lacey on TwitterWP BuildsFourth DoctorHow Giving Back saved my some gigRon Gijsel EpisodeCompany of OneCreator CrewSponsored by: Podcast Liftoff | TextExpander

"When one door closes, another window opens." In this episode, we meet with Paul Lacey who made the difficult choice of closing down his agency. Having realised that keeping their agency going was not for them, Paul and his business partner agreed to part ways and are embarking on their own separate plans. Full show notes: https://agencytrailblazer.com/322

Paul is proud to have completed The Witcher 3 multiple times. In real life, He has a lovely wife and 2 awesome kids to play Fortnite with every day in lockdown. His little Cavapoo dog Ellie is his soulmate, and he has 3 cats and a chicken (sadly one of the chickens had to be put to sleep today so we're down to 1, but plan to get some fertilized bantam eggs for Mabel (surviving chicken) to hopefully get broody over (and hopefully not just eat). A design & UX expert, Paul has been working with WordPress for over 15 years but joined the community side of things in 2016 after attending his first WordPress meetup in Birmingham. Since then he's been involved in all sorts of things WordPress sharing insights on design, development in communities and videos, talking on Podcast interviews, on stage at agency events, WordPress meetups and more recently online summits - talking about WordPress development, UX and design. More recently Paul is probably better known for his talks in and around his journey through agency life and mental health struggles, and of course known as the co-host for THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR WORDPRESS PANEL SHOW (apparently right?) This Week in WordPress. Paul has an unhealthy admiration of Matt Medieros. https://www.wpelevation.com/finding-success-and-maintaining-your-mental-health-with-paul-lacey/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgnEXOwF-uM

Do you find it hard to admit to those around you that you're not doing ok? Perhaps even admitting it to yourself if difficult. Today's guest has been there and come through the other side to tell you his story. Paul Lacey is the co-founder of The Dickiebirds Studio, which is an award-winning WordPress and UX/UI design and development agency in the UK. In this episode, Paul talks about his path to finding success and how getting involved with the WordPress community helped him get there. We hear about his latest project - building the Beaver Builder version of Katka by Elementor. And we also discuss the importance of taking care of your mental health whilst running your own business. Leveraging the WordPress Community Paul’s first experience with WordPress was way back in 2005. He recalls that he tried a few different programs before he landed on WordPress because of its usability and potential. However, he didn't properly utilise the community until around 2010. In the last two years, Paul has become even more active within the WordPress community. One of his posts was about how he created a website using GeneratePress. One man commented with what could be called constructive criticism. But that comment led to a creative friendship that blossomed after a WordCamp conference. The man behind the comment? Barna Buxbaum, creator of Katka by Elementor - the beginning of a beautiful friendship! The Beaver Builder Project Barna and Paul began talking, and Barna came up with the idea to build the Beaver Builder twin of Katka. They both loved the idea of the against-the-odds story of a Beaver Builder guy and an Elementor guy working together. Paul compares their relationship to the relationship between Rocky Balboa and the Russian, Ivan Drago in the movie Rocky IV. In the movie, Rocky and Ivan come from very different backgrounds and training styles, but the two end up being incredibly well matched. Rocky even gains the respect of the Russians. Rocky’s famous quote at the end speaks to the ability people have to come together. “If I can change, and you can change, then everybody can change!” There was always drama about which platform was the best builder. This collaboration allowed Paul and Barna to create something that would combine the two communities and improve the possibilities for both Beaver Builder and Elementor fans. Collaborating With Beaver Builder When Paul began seriously devoting time to the Beaver Builder project, he hired a developer named Adrian to work on the complex, responsive design.  One of Adrian's ideas was to use CSS variables to change the global colours. Paul thought this was a great idea and showed it to some friends in a private Mastermind group. These friends had contacts at Beaver Builder and told them about Paul's project. So to his surprise, when Paul reached out to the founders of Beaver Builder at WordCamp London, they already knew about his idea and wanted to hear more! The idea took off from there. It was from this experience that he realised something that he now gives as advice to people thinking about getting involved in the WordPress community. “Everyone’s always got something to offer… Whatever you put in you get back 10 times.” Beaver Builder eventually wanted to hire him to work for them. Paul turned down the offer and instead opted to work with them on a collaborative basis. Paul developed a Beaver Builder agency called Beaver Kit with it's own branding. Beaver Kit’s products are now going to be included as part of the core in the next release of Beaver Builder.  He tells us that hearing this news was an unbelievable moment for him. Initial Impressions of WP Elevation Paul recently started our Blueprint course and tells Troy that he did a great job with WP Elevation's free webinar that he joined. Paul says that after watching the webinar he was ready to sign up straight away. He had heard a lot of good feedback about WP Elevation within the WordPress community and had wanted to do it for some time, but he was going through a family crises and it wasn't the right time until now. Now that he has reformed Dickiebirds Studio and doubled the team to four people, he feels he has more responsibility for the business to succeed and ensure consistent work for everyone under his employ. Paul explains that he is excellent at completing tasks, but not great at coming up with the blueprint to accomplish those tasks. So the blueprint provided by WP Elevation really made it possible for him to push himself and focus on improving. Dickiebirds now has a unique value proposition—something Paul learned from WP Elevation. You get what you pay for Make Mental Health Your Priority Paul's family crises that he mentioned earlier were in regard to his eight-year-old daughter's serious anxiety. His wife had to shut down her successful events company because it became too much to deal with. His daughter is doing much better now, but coming out of it was difficult. In the midst of it, you deal with it, but when you come out the other end, you realise you’re still in the battle mindset, but there isn’t a battle anymore. On his 39th birthday in 2017, he was still struggling with his mental health. Paul was watching a WP Elevation video by Mike Killen on the topic of mental health. Right then and there he decided he’d had enough and went to the doctor to get some advice. Paul recognises he only feels comfortable talking about this now because it’s behind him. “When you’re suffering from it, it’s difficult to talk about it. It’s much easier to talk about it when it’s historical.” In his case, the doctor gave him some good advice and some medication that was able to help him through it. A year later, he is doing much better and because of this, so is his business. The message he wants to get out there is to just look after yourself. “Take care of yourself, don’t be ashamed to admit things, and just get yourself back on that right track.” Paul suggests doing outreach projects in the community to accomplish that. He also recommends WP&UP, a charity that works to provide mental health support within the WordPress community. If you're interested in watching the webinar which lead Paul to join us here at WP Elevation, click here.  Links The Dickiebirds Studio Paul's Twitter Paul's Youtube Channel GeneratePress Community WP Elevation: Flight Cadets Beaver Builder GroupSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode I talk with the amazing Paul Lacey, who runs the successful agency, Dickiebirds. Paul is becoming a prolific staple in the WordPress community, is well known for his amazing development and design skills and has some exciting projects coming out for Beaver Builder, GeneratePress and Elementor.

Meet Paul Lacey from Dickiebirds Studio. They are an award-winning WordPress & UX/UI design & development agency in the UK. They design and develop responsive WordPress websites for businesses, agencies & personal brands. Full show notes: https://agencytrailblazer.com/podcast/agencylife-series-paul-lacey-dickiebirds-studio --- OUR EVENT: Do you want to make real change in your business? Join us at our in-person event Agency Transformation Live Meet Troy Dean; Lee Jackson, Chris Ducker, Kelly Baader, Amy Woods, Paul Lacey, Dave Foy and other legends in this fantastic conference focused on actionable steps that you can use to transform your agency. --- See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Paul Lacey is a co-founder of the UK web agency The Dickiebirds Studio. They specialize in UX Design & WordPress design, development, and consulting. They do both direct client work and white-label agency partnership. Their clients include Jaguar, Land Rover, GeneratePress, Beaver Builder, and the Church of England.

Paul reached a point in his agency where he couldn't take it any more. Overwhelmed, stressed and unhappy. He was able to turn everything around through the support of the wonderful online WordPress communities, and is now creating a business that he loves. As you listen to this episode you can see his journey and thought process via the "Wayback Machine" on archive.org 2009 - Full service agency 2015 - Freelancer but no clear messaging 2017 - New focus with obvious service offerings Here is the design he mentions - click here. Recommended Facebook Groups: Beaver Builder: https://www.facebook.com/groups/beaverbuilders/ Content Creators: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ContentCreatorsGroup/ WP Builds: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpbuilds/ WP Innovator: http://wpinnovator.com/group Connect with Paul: Twitter - https://twitter.com/wp_paullacey Website - https://wpblueprint.design --- OUR EVENT: Do you want to make real change in your business? Join us at our in-person event Agency Transformation Live Meet Troy Dean; Lee Jackson, Chris Ducker, Kelly Baader, Amy Woods, Paul Lacey, Dave Foy and other legends in this fantastic conference focused on actionable steps that you can use to transform your agency. --- See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.