This week starts with streamlining everything: fewer sites, fewer tools, fewer subscriptions. From there we get into SpaceFast. Will talked with founder Batuhan İçöz, and Ryan pushes back on whether SpaceFast actually leads people back to WordPress.

We also get into a prediction about the WP Engine lawsuit that ends with WordPress.org as a link in the footer, big agencies shrinking while one person runs dozens of agents, and whether PRs and branches still matter in agent workflows. Will walks through how he runs about 30 Grokbots across clients, and Ryan shares what seven months of teaching himself development has looked like.

In this episode:

• Streamlining the business and helping yourself first
• Is SpaceFast really WordPress?
• A quiet WordPress week and "just hit update"
• Elementor to FSE conversions, and live site vs staging
• Why WordPress wins in the long run
• The WP Engine lawsuit prediction
• Big agencies shrinking and one person with 40 agents
• CLI vs dashboards, and are PRs dead?
• Billing clients for tokens
• How Will runs 30 Grokbots
• Novamira HQ, InstaWP Studio, and skills changing how we scope work
• Next week: plugins becoming skills

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: live site or staging?
0:14 Intro
0:32 How was your week: streamlining everything
5:23 Agencies struggling and helping yourself first
7:51 Batuhan, SpaceFast, and the bigger picture
9:05 A quiet WordPress week: just hit update
10:55 Getting back into WordPress conversations
12:09 The viral "we don't believe in WordPress" post
12:38 Is SpaceFast really WordPress?
17:08 SpaceFast vs headless WordPress
19:56 Retiring WEP Turned Up for Pine Digital
21:08 Elementor to FSE conversions
26:51 Live site or staging?
28:36 Why WordPress wins in the long run
31:40 The WP Engine lawsuit prediction
34:28 Big agencies shrinking, 40 agents each
37:14 CLI vs dashboards and computer use
40:07 Are PRs and branches dead?
41:20 Ryan's first seven months as a developer
44:43 Billing clients for tokens
45:54 The OpenClaw saga
49:39 How Will runs 30 Grokbots
56:48 What we're building: Novamira HQ and more
1:00:11 InstaWP Studio and hosting
1:01:57 Skills change SOPs and pricing
1:03:23 Coding from the phone and AI 2.0
1:06:59 Next week: plugins becoming skills

Have a topic you want us to cover or a question for us? Send it our way at shipforbrains.dev.

Thanks for listening.

Our first full episode. We start with a rough week of PHP security patches and why managed hosting earns its keep, then get into pricing, password managers, and how much admin access clients should really have.

From there it's AI: agents showing up on client sites, how Ryan actually uses AI day to day, and the pile of tools we're all trying out. We also spend a good while on Elementor, the converters that move sites to the block editor, the Automattic layoffs, and what's going on with WordPress.org and the plugin repo.

In this episode:

• The PHP vulnerability week and why managed hosting matters
• Pricing your work without apologizing for it
• Password managers, Bitwarden, and limiting admin access
• AI agents on your site, and how Ryan uses AI
• Elementor, client add-ons, and block editor converters
• Novamira vs WP Vibe, and too many AI tools
• Automattic layoffs and AI changing how we work
• The state of WordPress.org, the plugin repo, and Five for the Future
• Why we still care about WordPress
• What we're shipping, and pricing products you could vibe code

Chapters:
0:00 Cold open: pickleball
0:23 Intro
1:23 The PHP vulnerability week and managed hosting
4:29 Private equity, pricing, and not apologizing
6:50 Pickleball, under the weather edition
9:24 Security, password managers, and Bitwarden
15:06 Limiting admin access and client reality
17:37 Agents are coming to your site
20:53 How Ryan actually uses AI
25:53 Elementor: love, hate, and client add-ons
31:33 Elementor to block editor converters
38:54 Novamira vs WP Vibe
41:14 Tool overload: OpenClaw, Hermes, Grokbot
45:54 Automattic layoffs and AI changing work
51:37 SpaceFast and the state of WordPress.org
1:00:37 The plugin repo is broken
1:07:42 Five for the Future and giving back
1:11:54 Why we still care about WordPress
1:15:36 What we're shipping this week
1:16:42 Pricing products you could vibe code
1:20:02 Grokbot, Claude, and Wispr Flow
1:22:26 Wrap up

Have a topic you want us to cover or a question for us? Send it our way at shipforbrains.dev.

Thanks for listening.