The ethos of my entrepreneurial career has always been partnership.
I’ve long sought to live and apply the African proverb:
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
In fact, it’s been essential to my personal fulfillment and success.
It was true in 2008 when I founded iThemes. And true again in 2020 at Post Status with founder Brian Krosgard.
And for the last 13 years, alongside me, too often in the background but all the way, has been my wife and partner in all things, Lindsey Miller.
I never did it alone.
I never wanted to do it alone.
I am so much better alongside great people who share vision and values and are committed to going far together.
The work and results are so much better in those partnerships.
Today, I am thrilled to announce that Joost de Valk and Marieke van de Rakt have joined Post Status as equity partners alongside Lindsey and I.
All partners invested cash in Post Status to strengthen the business and take the next steps in our vision of supporting and promoting the Business of WordPress.
We’ve known Joost and Marieke for years and have long respected them and their work in WordPress and business. They’ve become friends.
Their reputation, commitment, and work in WordPress precedes them. And to say their vision and values align with ours is an understatement.
As we began talking earlier this year, it became obvious that we wanted to partner at Post Status.
From Marieke van de Rakt:
“I am really excited about partnering with Lindsey and Cory at Post Status. Post Status has created the most important networking possibilities for us in the past and helped us grow our WordPress businesses. It seems only fit to contribute and to take on an active role in the Post Status community at this point.
“From a personal perspective, I am just really happy to be able to work with Lindsey and Cory Miller. They’re halfway across the planet from us, yet our lives have been impacted by WordPress in very similar ways. I feel a deep connection with them and look forward to working with them more intensively.
I am a writer, and I love storytelling and marketing, and I hope that I will be able to help Post Status grow even bigger by applying these skills.”
From Joost de Valk:
“Post Status has always been of tremendous importance to my WordPress community ‘engagement’ ever since its inception. The Slack channel is where a lot of the important discussions take place, and through its Slack channels, I’ve met lots of people. The newsletter has always been one of our sources of news that we didn’t just read ourselves but told our team members to read to stay up to date on all things WordPress.
“As the WordPress community grows and the ecosystem gets more relatively big companies, it’s super important for that ecosystem to ‘stay in touch,’ to have a place where we can all reach each other and foster that spirit of collaboration that is exactly what has made WordPress what it is today.
“We, as company owners, whether plugin, theme or agency, project leadership, project members, or investors, have a shared responsibility towards the WordPress community and the Open Web at large to make sure that we keep that spirit of collaboration alive and improve upon it. At the same time, we also have an obligation to ourselves to make sure that these companies can thrive and everyone can earn a healthy living wage.
“We think Post Status can play an important role in all of that, and partnering with Cory and Lindsey made a ton of sense for that reason. I’ll happily assume the role of ‘CTO’ at Post Status, using my engineering skills to drive development and also plan to write articles.”
What This Means for Post Status
We’re not just here to stay…. We’ve committed to grow and expand what we do for our members.
We believe in Post Status. We believe in you. We believe in WordPress and the Open Web. And we’re ready to take this thing to the next level for you.
We are invested in that vision.
It also means more leadership help.
Joost will become our new CTO. Lindsey will become our new CMO. For now, Marieke will advise and contribute as she can to our editorial work. I will resume CEO duties.
In the coming weeks and months, we’ll share more of our plans and work to support you, but suffice to say, we’re here for you and want to go far together… with you.
Thank you for continuing to support our work here at Post Status through business memberships and sponsorships.
Last but certainly not least, I want to thank Post Status founder Brian Krogsgard for his initiative and vision in establishing this awesome community.
We simply took the baton and ran with it.
