 All right, good morning ladies and gentlemen. I am so happy to be here This is my first word crack word cab. So yeah, and standing before you here and being the first week I feel like I'm doing like a grand opening. So Yeah, I'm really excited Let me just Today I'm going to be talking about the relevance of Wordpress to advance entrepreneurship So while I go through my presentation, I want you to let some statistics sink 239,139 of the top 1 million websites run on wordpress and Then 54 out of the top 100 companies and the whole world run on wordpress I don't know. Should I go through the statistics again? You need to like really think about these figures 29.2% of the word of the websites running on the internet are all wordpress based and Wordpress gets an average of 22 billion Plus page views per month and that figure is growing and then Wordpress gets more unique viewers per month more than Amazon but Equivalent to Facebook although it has less stuff. I don't know. Should I give them a moment to get to sink? Yes So these are the figures that we're gonna think about as we go through the this presentation I'm just gonna start by defining just in case, you know, there's someone who doesn't know what wordpress is They just know okay wordpress But they just stumbled upon this event and they just rocked up and they don't really know what it is Wordpress is a content management system Which is used for blogging creating websites and Android Applications it can also be defined as a community of developers designers writers bloggers and publishers and supporters Bill Gates once saved content is where the money is at Those who succeed and propelling the internet forward as a marketplace of ideas Experiences and products are the ones that will will succeed Because we are moving towards a digital economy and everything is about the digital world and that's where we're going When we look at relevance, right? Relevance is like oxygen People back then and 200 VC were breathing in oxygen, right? People in 2018 right now are still breathing in oxygen So when you are relevant, you are like oxygen it never gets out of fashion to breathe in oxygen You will never bump into someone walking around saying, you know, I don't breathe oxygen anymore Because I'm breathing hydrogen peroxide or I'm breathing in carbon monoxide So as a business you need to always be relevant Right now in Zimbabwe when we talk about electricity we talk about ZESA, right? Because they are relevant. So as a business you always need to be relevant, right? I will take the case study of WordPress itself There are lots of companies that have been relevant over the years John Deerey Econets all those guys, but today I'm gonna go on a brief history lesson and then Do a case study of WordPress and how it stayed relevant and how we're still using it today WordPress Was born because another company was dying in 2003 The developers of B2 cafe log decided to discontinue their blogging Website, right? And they're like no, we're not gonna do this because it's it's not giving us money It's not working and then Matt Muellenweg and Mike little saw an opportunity And they're like, you know what these guys are letting this little thing die But we can resuscitate this and make something so the first thing as an entrepreneur that you should know it as You need to seize the opportunity when you see an opportunity you need to pounce on it Like the opportunity that you have right now You might not have it Ten months from now because someone has already done it. So the moment you see an opportunity You should just pounce on it and go with it This is what they did and they decided, you know what these guys are letting this die. Let's resuscitate this and go on So they birthed this idea in 202 o3 204 We're here and Mingus is here Mingus was Wordpress version 1.2 It enabled users and developers to extend the Factionality and they were able to add their own plugins and It's it provided stability and flexibility The market leader at the time was movable type. That was like the biggest competitor at that time, right and At that same time because they thought they were the big guys in the game they decided to put new Licensing terms which were not favorable to the people that were blogging and Then wordpress says, okay, this is an opportunity for us they were providing favorable licensing terms and They were also providing a flexible solution So most of these guys who were not who were using movable type decided to then move to wordpress right, so Wordpress decided no, we're not just gonna begin something. We need to grow with it we need to see what our competitor is doing and improve on that 2005 Strayhorn was born. That's version 1.5 It came was pages it came was common moderation tools and in the same year Duke was born and What I'm getting at is the end this year they were doing upgrades They decided okay. It's not enough to just start something. We need to upgrade This goes to your business as well. You can't Be selling tomatoes this year and then next year you're selling tomatoes again And the same place to the same people you need to upgrade if you're selling tomatoes this year next year I think about okay. I was selling tomatoes last year this year. Let me make some puree Let me make some catch up next year. You're thinking, okay Let me actually grow these tomatoes by myself next year you're thinking, okay I could actually export these tomatoes So it's all about the upgrade. They were like no the first version is not enough We need to keep improving and keep meeting our consumers needs as the same year when they changed the the trademark and everything and then 2008 They decided Okay, we've been providing this service But we really don't know what our users think and they partnered with happy cog and Conducted a study with the users that they they that were using WordPress at the time because they wanted to you to develop a user-friendly Interface and they're like, okay. We need to consult the people that actually use the service so as a business You need to get to a point where you actually consult the people that use your service and hear what they think because Yes, you have great ideas and yes, you are providing a service But sometimes what you're providing is not what people need It's like me going up to someone who doesn't have a beard and I'm trying to say sell them some shaving shaving cream that won't work because they'll just look at me like Okay, what are you trying to do, you know, or I go to someone who's bold and I'm trying to sell them a weave That doesn't work. You need to consistently Consult with the users and see what their needs are so they decided to consult and they came up with a user-friendly interface 2010 They decided to transfer the ownership of their organization so that it could run independently as A business and to ensure that it continued and they still were upgrading. They never stopped upgrading now. We had Thelonious that's version 3.0 Just a quick question. Does anyone know where or what inspired these names for all the versions for WordPress? anyone anyone So I just found it very interesting that most of the developers of WordPress loved jazz So all these versions the names were named after all the best jazz musicians. I Don't know. Does anyone listen to jazz in here? Does it do the names now start to sound familiar? Strayhorn Duke So, yeah, that's that's a bit of some interesting facts about that and As I was saying they continues to upgrade and they never stopped 2011 the post formats changed the admin bars made appearances and the for the first time WordPress became a business They started off as just bloggers like we're just blogging having conversations on that Internet and into and then they decide, you know what we can't continue to do this We need to make it a business now e-commerce was involved and you could have plugins for online stores You could actually go and sell something. You could actually go and buy something You know They decided to be destructive Let me just talk about being destructive for a minute when you enter an atmosphere You don't go there to change the rules When you go there You don't go there to change the rules if you want to stay relevant when you enter a game For you to survive you need to change the game altogether and create your own rules That's the only way you will survive. So this is what they were trying to do When they did this they're like, you know what we need to stay relevant. We need to stay in this game We need to keep our people and have them Continue to grow with us as we do this thing 2012 You could now add pictures edit them and all of that and they kept growing 2013 I know this sounds like a history lesson. I'm just going through the versions I hope you see where I'm going with this 2013 another version came through 3.7 so with version 3.7 it had Automatic software updates, right and the customer the consumers Out here say I don't want an automatic software update I didn't sign up for this. They didn't want it and WordPress decides to respond and give them options like you could disable that and not have You know the option to have automatic updates as a business sometimes you provide something and people Don't want it or don't like the way you've provided it You should be able to provide options and not just stand there and say oh people are just hating on my business People are just hating on my hustle But you should actually look at that criticism and turn it around into something positive This is what they did right there because they thought okay We've got this brilliant idea where people don't need to constantly go and upgrade this their WordPress It just happens automatically But then when it came to the consumer the consumers like I don't want updates that I didn't sign up for I Want to be able to choose the updates that I want So when you then link it to any ordinary business, you should be able to respond to any negative feedback that you might get Because as much as it might hurt your ego and say okay, but I thought this was a brilliant idea. You know You should be able to improve on that 2014 was about enticing our eyes We're going to a place where everyone is constantly on their phone people are looking at things People are looking at videos people on their Instagram and everything looking at all these images people sharing So they decide okay, this is where we're going and People love to look at things am I like People are constantly like you you will find someone on Pinterest just hours and hours just looking at images Images image after image people on Instagram Looking at people's profiles picture after picture that pictures that they won't they don't even like or anything They'll just be looking and they say commenting and just saying okay. I saw that picture I saw that video. Did you see this so they decide? Okay, the people that use word praise the people that were targeting they're looking at the bigger picture People are all about content as Bill Gates was saying it's all about content The moment we entice you the moment you see something on the internet the moment you Assault an experience now you want a piece of that so they decide to capitalize that and That's how they built version 3.9 and that was built that same year of 4.0 and 4.1 That same year and in that same year The non-English downloads for word praise surpassed the English downloads. There was Hindi. There was Portuguese French downloads Surprisingly, I didn't see any debate there or show on the downloads like someone needs to really work on that because you know We are like not catching up 2015 was project power This this year was the year that they released Version 4.2 4.3 4.4. This was the year they Introduced emojis improved the theme customization and all of that did you know that They were just looking at all the customers and what they were using at the time Because now people are all about the whatsapp life people are all about using emojis people don't text Full sentences people are just responding more in emojis and they're like, okay, we need to Catch up and use that as well 2016 They streamlines their updates plugins as well as content recovery using Browser storage and in this year like more versions was were produced 2017 this came with default widgets audios video games videos images and it was paving the way for block-based editing and Still they were upgrading while I was going to this this History what I was getting at is it was a journey where they always Adapted to stay relevant. They were always adapting to stay in the game The top companies in the world use wordpress We're talking tech crunch. We're talking BBC. We're talking sunny Facebook and These are businesses that are making it Everyone is on the internet. No one is really looking for anything physical. Everything is on the internet Look at some of the websites BBC Mercedes Butter It's all about content Fortune 500 companies are investing in Being on the internet using wordpress as a small business You should do the same if you want to stay relevant as a small business if you want to stay in the game That is what you should do How many entrepreneurs do we have in this place? Okay That's quite a number. How many of the entrepreneurs that just lifted up their hands is a programmer Okay How many are not programmers? Quite interesting Let me just run through the reasons why you should use wordpress First of all, it's easy to use right You don't need to be fluent in TensorFlow or Python or C plus Whatever you can just start at the beginning. You don't need to invest into. Oh, yeah You know, I need to start learning a language and be fluent and C plus or something. It's easy to use and Secondly, it's a hundred percent free like it will cost you zero dollars to have a wordpress website like zero dollars and You can advance your functionality by yourself and It automatically Increases your as it's SEO friendly meaning you become Googleable one of the major Advances that you could make as a business as being Googleable. We are going towards an age where business cards are Redundant as a business as a person you should be able to Google someone and find out what you need and contact them You know, I was listening to one of these speakers saying, you know having a business card is Redundant you should just be Googleable as a company as a business. So that's where we're going Okay, and then the last the other thing is it's accessible You can access it anywhere and you can do whatever you want. You're in Guatemala Trinidad You can access your website anywhere So that means you have access to all the people that are anywhere in the world and as a business That means people can access and know about your little business that you're running somewhere in Vuri and someone is in Paris and they're like, okay, I think I want what this guy is selling and The other thing being wordpress is customizable. It's like Play-Doh You can make it whatever you want You can make whatever you want and the words of Ti You can have whatever you like When you have wordpress you can make your website whatever you want the other thing why you should use wordpress as a business is as Much as it empowers you to do all these things by yourself When you do need the help you get it When you get stuck even the best programmers in the world their times when they actually need help so There is always a network of people that are ready to help you ready to be at your back and call when you encounter a challenge So that's the other reason The other reason being Everyone wants control that means literally you are in control of your own website and the things that you post Or the things that you want people knowing about your business because there's always that oh, yeah I need to tell this person then they can make this and make that but when you have wordpress as a small business You are in control of your business. You have control over the content that goes out there and Conclusion it's all about content it's all about content Enticing people's eyes enticing people with experiences selling them what you Have and making them believe Selling them dreams that can actually become reality So with wordpress as a small business if you are looking at the bigger picture of not just staying a small business But of growing I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong some maybe some people want to stay small businesses forever But if you want to grow Wordpress as your answer So that is my little presentation. Thank you very much