Post Status Happiness Hour Session Fifteen

Transcript ↓

In this episode of the Post Status Happiness Hour, host Michelle Frechette interviews Raquel Manriquez and Carol Stambaugh. They discuss their new venture, Press Conf, a conference focused on the business side of WordPress. Raquel, a former community manager for Elegant Themes, and Carol, co-owner of RadiateU, share their motivations for creating this event. They emphasize the need for a business-centric conference within the WordPress community, contrasting it with the user-focused WordCamps. Press Conf aims to foster deep connections among attendees through a single track of sessions and an intimate setting. The episode highlights their commitment to inclusivity, meaningful networking, and authentic conversations.

Top Takeaways:

Press Conf addresses a significant market gap by being the first WordPress conference specifically focused on business aspects, filling an unmet need in the community for business-oriented professional development.
The conference prioritizes meaningful engagement through intentional design choices like single-track sessions, no recordings, and an intimate setting – all aimed at fostering authentic discussions and deeper connections among attendees.
Careful curation is central to the event’s strategy, from thoughtfully selected speakers to a sustainable pricing model, ensuring high-quality content and long-term viability while delivering value to participants.
The conference emphasizes building an inclusive community that welcomes both industry veterans and newcomers, focusing on fostering constructive dialogue and relationships within the WordPress business ecosystem.

Mentioned In The Show:

🙏 Sponsor: WordPress.com

Build and manage professional sites with secure managed hosting on WordPress.com. Beautiful themes, built-in SEO, and payment tools, and access to over 50,000 plugins. Everything you need for your business, plus 24/7 support from WordPress experts.

🐦 You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:

Raquel Manriquez (Community, ElegantThemes)
Carol Stambaugh (Co-Founder, RadiateWP)
Michelle Frechette (Director of Community Relations, Post Status)
Olivia Bisset (Intern, Post Status)

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Transcript

Michelle Frechette 00:00:02 And we’re live with the Post Status Happiness Hour. Today I have two wonderful guests that I have had the pleasure of meeting in person and go back. I feel like we go back a long ways. Like, I literally don’t remember when we met because I’ve just known you forever. So, although Carol, the first time I think I met you in person was in Phoenix last year.

Carol Stambaugh: Phoenix. Hmhm.

Michelle Frechette: I’ve known you for such a long time. But anyway, we’re gonna talk about PressConf today, and I’m here with my guest today Raquel and Carol. And I would love for you to introduce yourselves. Tell us a little bit about what you do. You know, WordPressy stuff and that kind of thing. And then also, we’re going to dive a deep dive into PressConf, how you thought about it, where it came from. But your hopes and dreams are and all the things. So, Raquel, we’ll start with you.

Raquel Manriquez 00:00:46 Hi, everybody. I’m Raquel, and I, just recently, not quite finally, but formally the community manager for Elegant Themes, and, just started my own biz.

Michelle Frechette: Yes!

Raquel Manriquez 00:01:01 Yeah. So yeah, I came into WordPress in 2012 and had an agent WordPress agency and then then was the community manager for Elegant Themes and yeah, started my own, conference consultancy and my one of my biggest like first, first steps with starting this business was to launch PressConf. So the resurrection of what was Pressnomics, essentially revival, however, we want to look at it, but that’s what I do now.

Michelle Frechette 00:01:33 And I, I pinged you on Slack. the day that you have made all these decisions, I had no idea. And I’m like, hey, I’m gonna write about PressConf on WPWonder Women and you’re like, oh my God, that’s like such karma or I can’t hear what you said like it was. So we got on a huddle. Then we talked for like half an hour and it was so cool. It was so good to see you so excited.

Raquel Manriquez 00:01:55 That was a total like sign. That was I mean, it’s a scary thing to do. And you and I share a love of Wonder Woman.

Michelle Frechette: Yes.

Raquel Manriquez 00:02:03 And so. And I have this, like, huge collection in my room. I look like a my room looks like a teenager’s room. But, yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:02:09 My bathroom is the same way.

Raquel Manriquez 00:02:11 Yeah. So to I literally just got off the call with the company, and then I see just Wonder Woman and PressConf and me all in the same sentence. And I was like, just the tears.

Michelle Frechette 00:02:24 I love it. And in that same issue of WPWonder Woman, I also tagged Carol. So Carol introduce yourself.

Carol Stambaugh 00:02:33 So my name is Carol Stambaugh and I am a agency owner. I am a co-owner of an agency called RadiateU. And Jeremy Saxey and myself run an agency where we’re doing mainly, web, web hosting, maintenance support. And we’re really moving and focusing into more, not as much support, but growth plans and looking at not just a WordPress site’s health, but how are the where are the opportunities? And then really focusing in with clients on the opportunities and maximizing those.

Carol Stambaugh 00:03:06 So that’s a little bit about what I do. I’ve been doing WordPress. Oh, I quit my regular job in 2010 to go in, and with the time was just a freelancer. And then Jeremy and I joined forces in 2014. So I’ve been an agency owner and co-owner alongside my business partner now for ten years, which is kind of exciting. I mean, often times business partnerships don’t last longer than marriages, and we jokingly say that we’ve even lasted longer than the average marriage. So it’s great.

Carol Stambaugh 00:03:46 He’s a good business partner. So that’s. Yeah. And I other things I’ve done with WordPress, I am the Arizona WordPress Meetup chair where we have several different locations and there’s several satellites, but I kind of in the main, main group or the main leader for that whole group and have been doing that again since 2011. And then every WordCamp Phoenix, with the exception of the very first one and the second one I’ve been on the organizing team for. So I’ve been on the organizing team starting in 2012, and I’ve been on everyone since then, so I yeah, I’m definitely a fan.

Carol Stambaugh 00:04:29 I’m definitely a huge I have a lot of interest and a lot of passion and hope, and I want this WordPress community to succeed. And PressConf was just the thing we were looking for at the time. We were looking for it. And when Raquel started talking to me or she was talking to just a, a small group of us, and I think I probably was the first one that said I’m in. And.

Michelle Frechette 00:05:01 So that’s awesome. Well, I was at WordCamp Phoenix in 2023, and I have to say, you all made the whole thing. So, physically accommodating for people with wheelchairs and other uses. So I can only imagine that PressConf will also be very accommodating that way. I say that with hope in my voice because I haven’t bought my ticket yet, but I’m planning to be there, so I’m just waiting to see if my if my company is going to pay for it or if I am. That’s the only thing that’s different, you know. Why pay if they will.

Michelle Frechette 00:05:32 That’s all I’m saying. So but I’m very much looking forward to it. So I’m going to bring up the, bring up the my screen here and let me just take the branding off so we can actually see the whole thing. There we go. Let’s talk a little bit about first of all, I’ve never been to Tempe. Is it near Phoenix? Is that the airport I fly into? Okay. Yes.

Carol Stambaugh 00:05:54 So super easy. Super easy. By the way, I’ll give a plug. Our airport, unlike some some metropolitan airports their way out, ours is very central. And there is a connection, a little train connection from the airport to the light rail. And the light rail is right across the street from the hotel. But to make it even better, the hotel part of what’s included with the hotel is free shuttle. And so the hotel shuttle will just pick you up at the hotel and it’s, what 10, 15 minutes, maybe 15 minutes in traffic from the airport. So we’re talking about easy in very easy in.

Michelle Frechette 00:06:34 And that’s awesome I love that. did I say it right? Is it Tempe? Tempé? How do you know?

Raquel Manriquez: Correct. First.

Michelle Frechette: The first one. Okay. Just want to make sure.

Raquel Manriquez 00:06:45 Home the, home of Arizona State University, which is where I went. I love that part.

Michelle Frechette 00:06:51 I often hear that local people pronounce their their places differently than everybody else does. So make sure I’m saying it right. You know.

Raquel Manriquez 00:06:59 Spot on. On the very first time.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:02 Sweet. Yeah. We have a town very near where I live called Charlotte. It’s spelled Charlotte.

Raquel Manriquez: Okay.

Michelle Frechette: And and we have a Chili in New York which is spelled chili. So. So I always just want to make sure.

Carol Stambaugh: Wow.

Raquel Manriquez 00:07:17 I know you we have a Prescott, Arizona, but everybody says Prescott.

Carol Stambaugh: Prescott.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:22 Prescott. Yeah. It’s like it’s a press kit. Yeah.

Carol Stambaugh 00:07:26 Yeah. Like biscuit.

Michelle Frechette 00:07:28 Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So Carol, we were talking a little bit before we actually went live that this has been in the works for quite a while. When did you first think about this? I know Raquel, Carol was the first person you asked to join. So, like, where did this kernel of an idea come from and how long ago did you actually start thinking about planning it?

Raquel Manriquez 00:07:48 Well, I mean, so Carol and I both went to almost every single PressNomics of the yester years. From like 2012 to 2019. And, and we’re both on the WordCamp Phoenix team for a long time. Carol is like my partner in crime. She’s been like a mentor in my life. So I say a lot of this, and it just includes her. But I was really getting the itch. Now, I guess, like, a year and a half ago, maybe right around WordCampEU in Athens, which you were at Michelle. And it just started to hear it from the community, just started to hear, like really at the beginning, kind of like we just want PressNomics back. And then from then till, like last spring, it started to morph to like, we need something, we need a business of WordPress event back and and then just hearing here and there from others like, oh my gosh, Raquel, if anyone could do it, you could do it.

Raquel Manriquez 00:08:49 And that really pumped me up and, you know, gave me reason. And then, in fact, you were on the Mastermind call Michelle, we for community, you know, for WordPress Community. And we we all kind of were sharing the same sentiment that like that we need some sort of business of WordPress and and for me, long time WordCamp organizer, Carol, a long time WordCamp organizer Michelle, you as well like it just I didn’t see how it could work. And and so it just really solidified that the way this is going to happen is to make it happen. And so then I just immediately contacted Josh and Sally Strebel, who were the OG, originators of PressNomics and just basically asked for their blessing because, you know, it. It’s this isn’t PressNomics. This is different. but it’s still in the spirit of and I really wanted to make sure I, I honored them and gave them respect and also kind of like this idea that like, yeah, yeah, that it has this blessing.

Raquel Manriquez 00:09:52 I mean, I know that’s a little the woowoo spiritual side, but it, it and maybe that’s for my upbringing, but I just own it. That was important to me. And and we did. They gave us the machine and here we are.

Michelle Frechette 00:10:04 I love that. Well, when I started this podcast, the Post Status Happiness Hour actually it was because Doc Popular was no longer doing The Talk Social Hour. And so there was this, this like void where that used to be, where we talk about issues, we talk about, well, events and we talk about projects like this. And so I actually went to him first and said, I’d like to do this, but I don’t want to step on your toes. And he’s like, you have my blessing. Have fun with it. So I totally understand that.

Carol Stambaugh 00:10:34 I think there’s good karma in that too, you know?

Michelle Frechette 00:10:38 Absolutely, absolutely. So it’s been a while. It’s been in the works. It isn’t something that like last week, you want, hey, let’s do a conference.

Michelle Frechette 00:10:46 How is it different than a WordCamp? Because I’m sure it is. But I’m sure there’s some similarities too, because like conferences or conferences. Let’s face that. Right? Like I’ve been I’ve been to school board conferences that I’m like, oh, this is a little bit like a WordCamp because like a conference is a conference. But how is it different than WordCamp?

Raquel Manriquez 00:11:03 Yeah. So one of the biggest ways I differentiate it off the bat from a WordCamp is that WordCamps are for the user majority. And also such an amazing platform to help up and coming never spoken before potential amazing speakers. And and that’s a that’s all good and grand and I love it. I very much love it. But what we get at the WordCamp is a lot of hallway trackers, like, you know, people who don’t ever go to sessions and they use that time to have meetings with each other, you know, and, and kind of do some other work. And so PressConf is for the hallway track so that there is essentially no hallway track at a PressConf, because these sessions are for those who would be in the hallways.

Raquel Manriquez 00:11:49 And I’m very careful to say this because I don’t want to take away from how amazing it is and what a gift it is to give a first term speaker a platform to grow and to learn. But but we had a deficit, right? Like so it’s yes and. It’s like, yes, we have WordCamps and yes, it serves this demographic and I love it. But we were seeing this deficit for serving those who ended up in the hallway track at a WordCamp. So that’s one of the biggest, I guess you can say ways to categorize and differentiate, but something that you would see is there’s only one track and we’re all together in this one track at a PressConf.

Michelle Frechette 00:12:23 If you skip it, it’s obvious.

Carol Stambaugh 00:12:28 Yes. And these are not recorded. They’re not recorded. This is very different than a WordCamp because we’re not talking about things. We’re not talking about how to make a custom post type. We’re talking about people, entrepreneurs who have built a business. That can be very personal.

Carol Stambaugh 00:12:49 There’s very personal stories oftentimes behind that because entrepreneurs struggle. They you know, they have their you know, that’s how they build their business. And so what we want is this to be a place where we’re hearing the real, unfiltered stories of other people who may have gone before us or those who have experienced a real challenging time and can share for others. Those kind of conversations are not really ones you want to have recorded and uploaded out there. And so we are going to be very clear with our attendees too that. No recording, please. You know, you absolutely, you know, if it’s okay with the presenters, they can take pictures, maybe even quote them. But we don’t want, we want this to we want this, this, this session to be a space where the presenter can feel like they’re not having to filter, and where those in the audience just get a really exceptional, amazing experience. And you have to be in the room where it happens. Raquel says that.

Michelle Frechette: To quote Hamilton.

Carol Stambaugh: We are both Ham fans. And so exactly. You want to be in the room where it happens.

Michelle Frechette 00:14:12 Yeah, absolutely. Now I like to refer, I’m sorry. I like to refer to some things in our, in our space as like gap fillers. Right. So like I created WP Speakers because it’s hard to find speakers for things sometimes, especially like your monthly word, WordPress Meetups and things like that. Marcus Burnette has created The WP World, which oh my gosh, like he it’s amazing stuff all the time, right. Like and it’s like, well why do you need that if you’ve got a profile on wp.org? Because it doesn’t. It’s added to what’s on wp.org. Right. So there’s so much more there. I see this as being one of those gap fillers to like you. It’s not like, well, I have to go to that or WordCamps so you can do both for sure. which brings me to my next point, which is it’s not free and it’s not cheap, which I am so proud of y’all for doing, quite honestly.

Michelle Frechette 00:15:03 Right? Because I’m constantly preaching that when you do work like that, you should be paid for it. And when you’re pulling something together that’s this big, you should be like, how do you hold a conference about making money if you aren’t also making money? That’s like, that’s like a what are they, a non sequitur? Is that what you call that? Like I love using words I think I used it right. But but how did you arrive at the price point, like I hope I mean, it costs money to put on these kinds of events. And yes, I think you get sponsors and things like that, but I’m hoping that you’re also putting a little bit of money in your pockets.

Raquel Manriquez 00:15:38 Yeah. I mean, so all of us again, have worn the WordCamp. Even lead organizer hat, all of us. And right here, the three of us. So. And there’s definitely this passion in this love, for it and I, I’ve often I think I’m now kind of recovering but I had the label so has Carole of serial volunteer and you know, and.

Michelle Frechette 00:16:04 You have never been accused of that.

Raquel Manriquez 00:16:08 And I mean, I think the three of us are in good company, but we’re you had a point where you’re like, this is a lot of work. And we’ve cried and sweated and bled over it, and we’ve loved it every step of the way. But at some point, you also want you also get to the realization that I got to start to, you know, to put money and value to.

Michelle Frechette 00:16:31 It to be an ROI on all of your work, for sure.

Raquel Manriquez 00:16:34 And not that there’s not. Because even like I look back at the last decade of, you know-ish of, planning and organizing WordCamps and some of the most amazing humans and friends I’ve made, you know, and relationships and the ROI they’re so and and even this team for PressConf half of them came from my, the WordCamp Phoenix team. So there’s definitely there is ROI and it progresses without getting you know, we all know the crazy drama that we’re going through right now, but it progresses the fundamental idea of open source software.

Raquel Manriquez 00:17:07 And so I’m very pro that I’m very pro. But this now is, you know, the opportunity to again have. Yes and, so that was you know kind of like a little back story to where we got to the, the pricing. So there’s a little bit of pricing PressNomics back in 2019, which was now almost six years ago. and, and then.

Michelle Frechette 00:17:31 Pre- Covid, as they say.

Raquel Manriquez: Exactly right.

Carol Stambaugh 00:17:33 Big difference.

Raquel Manriquez 00:17:35 Big difference. And I mean, at the same time, I didn’t want to like, you know, because we all know tech conferences could be $1,200, you know, and not even including flights and hotels. And so I didn’t I was definitely not trying to like, you know, exploit our community by meeting. No, but even just looking at where we were 2019 to now and what’s a good, you know, not terrible amount I to increase. I will say that the team had to convince me to go higher.

Michelle Frechette: I’m glad they did.

Raquel Manriquez: Yeah. Like I’m, I’m over here like, I don’t know, guys. Like, it could be I still got that WordCamp hat on. I still like, want to do. But but you know, and that’s the point. The point is, is like we don’t want this all the bulk to be on the sponsors for this event. Like how WordCamp is the bulk of of the, the the finance, the financial needs are on the shoulders of our sponsors, which. Which I’m okay with. but for this we don’t need that many. You know, we have room for eight regular eight foot table booths and a backdrop. So this isn’t a trade show. It’s not a WordCamp US, Europe, Asia. There’s no 20 by 20. So we don’t. And so it’s not about necessarily a sponsor coming in and doing all this like sponsoring things. Because the beauty of it is, is our sponsors get to come in and actually be part of the action because it’s not a foot traffic heavy event. Not that there’s not going to be foot traffic there will. But, you know, we’re all going into sessions together, you know, so it’s like you don’t need to.

Raquel Manriquez 00:19:08 So then there’s not as much pressure on a sponsor at the same time. We so we only have I mean we have community sponsors. We have as many as any as people want to sponsor. We only have eight spots for a booth. And then we have just a few, a couple of parties. And really so we don’t need a terrible amount of sponsorship. And that’s the whole idea is that now we’re all kind of sharing the load, you know?

Michelle Frechette 00:19:32 Yeah, I love that. No, I think it’s great. and I.

Carol Stambaugh 00:19:35 Think that was a part of it too. Yeah. They’re not I mean, you know, in a regular when sponsors stay in the sponsor hall and people go to session. Well, that’s not going to happen. The sponsors are in session with us because they are part of the group of professionals driving the WordPress economy. So there’s not this distinction of your this and your that we are together.

Michelle Frechette 00:19:57 Remember there’s no hallway track. They won’t be there.

Carol Stambaugh 00:19:59 No hallway track.

Michelle Frechette 00:20:02 I think that’s great. Now I know that you have you’re not doing a regular call for speakers either. So you’re not just kind of stop gapping and like, gosh, fingers crossed that the right kinds of people apply. Have you, like, tapped people on the shoulder? Have you asked people like, how are you going about doing that? If I can ask?

Raquel Manriquez 00:20:20 Take it away, Carol.

Carol Stambaugh 00:20:22 So this is very different also than a WordCamp. I love working with speakers at a WordCamp. I’ve been doing that for, I don’t know how long that’s been my role. And so that’s obviously where I’m really helping Rachel with. We did not do a call for speakers because what we wanted is to set the vibe. We want, what we want, and we kind of know that. And so we we identified the people that we think are going to be incredible speakers for our events. And we tapped them on the shoulder and we say, can we have a phone call and can we talk? And we have this discussion with them.

Carol Stambaugh 00:21:03 We tell them a little bit about the conference. We tell them what what kind of vibe and mood we’re trying to give and what we would like to see from our speakers. And we say, do you have something that can fit this? And then we work together. So it is not someone who has a speech and wants to pitch it to us. This is a very collaborative process of working with these speakers to make sure that it really does have a cohesive feel and that we are bringing together the best event. And I will say as I mean, I speaker doing speakers for WordCamps always hard because you’re you’re having to read through all the proposals and all of this. I almost think that what we’re doing now is even harder, because we are doing one on ones with every single person, and sometimes we’re actually coming back and we’re bringing groups together and discussing ideas. So the programming of this conference is very intentional, and we are really designing this so that it will be, just worth it for everyone to be there.

Carol Stambaugh 00:22:18 So yeah, that’s that’s how we’re handling it. And, and if it feels like we’re getting speakers out slowly, that’s why we actually have some speakers. But but we are making sure that we have these conversations so that things are, are just like I said, are Cohesive. And so yeah, you’ll be hearing those speaker announcements very soon. And when you do, everyone’s going to be even more excited and they’re going to want to come. So.

Michelle Frechette 00:22:45 I love that. And that is exciting.

Raquel Manriquez 00:22:47 Yeah. We’re we’re also we’re not done tapping shoulders by any means.

Carol Stambaugh: No, no we’re not.

Raquel Manriquez: And we are experimenting with a very special call for speakers, for a very special session. So that’s a teaser.

Michelle Frechette 00:23:02 I’m intrigued. Yeah, yeah. Well, and when you have one track. So it’s not like you have five tracks over three days. So you have to be very specific because every session counts. There’s no like wow, that doesn’t fit me. So I’m just going to hit the hallway track.

Michelle Frechette 00:23:20 So it makes perfect sense. Absolutely. Yeah. So what is your target attendance? How many people can you accommodate? What are you hoping for? Like I’m not asking for trade secrets or anything, but what’s what’s your target? How many people would you like to see attend this?

Raquel Manriquez 00:23:38 Traditionally, PressNomics has always been capped right around 200. And so we like that, you know, we’re comfortable with that. We have decided to allow for a bit more and cap it no more than 300. And the reason why is because it’s it’s an intimate. It’s an intimate sort of conference. It’s not a flagship WordCamp, which, you know, can be 1600 to 3000. It’s more intimate. And you are given the opportunity to rub shoulders with the who’s who. And I say that very respectfully. You could you know, one thing I love about our community is that anybody could be a who’s who, you know? And everyone, it’s kind of like this old idea of, you know, the land of opportunity is that we all can if we decide to kind of raise up in the ranks of reputation within WordPress and that it’s not just ran by like certain individuals.

Raquel Manriquez 00:24:35 So that being said, this gives you access to rub shoulders with those individuals and the probability that you’ll run into them when you’re 200 to max 300 person event is higher than 1600 and 3,000 person event. And we’re all together. And so so the idea is that you’re all in the same areas all together, and it’s intimate and it’s serendipitous. So I know like I’ve been hearing that especially with like sponsors, they’re like, well how many? I’m like, get ready, brace yourself. 2 to 300. And they’re like, oh no. But it’s it’s it’s magic. It’s it’s 2 to 300 of decision makers which sponsors love you know.

Michelle Frechette 00:25:15 Absolutely.

Raquel Manriquez 00:25:16 Yeah. So that’s pretty much where we’re landing.

Carol Stambaugh 00:25:20 I have kind of a funny personal.

Carol Stambaugh 00:25:22 I have kind of a funny personal story. I shared this whenever we we got our team together and we, the first meeting, Raquel asked everyone who had been to a PressNomics to talk about their experience and why it was so special and the magic. And so my story was it was it was the very first PressNomics, if I remember right, was 2012.

Carol Stambaugh 00:25:44 Is that right?

Raquel Manriquez: Yeah.

Carol Stambaigh: Okay. 2012. And I was fairly new to the WordPress community. I had, quit my job in 2010 and gotten involved in 2011. So I was I was fairly new, but I was already at that time going to lead WordCamp Phoenix 2013. And so I came to PressNomics going, you know, gosh, I don’t know any of these people. I’m looking for speakers I’m looking for, you know, so I just kind of came as a newbie with my eyes wide open and not even really understanding or knowing who was who. So we left the hotel we were at at the time, wandered over to Santan Brewery, the old PressNomics people will remember Sandton Brewery and, I just happened to follow this group of friendly looking people in the door and that friendly group of people included Troy Dean, Alex King, Chris Lima, and Karim, Karim.

Michelle Frechette: Marucchi.

Carol Stambaugh: Marucchi. Yes. And I sat right across from Troy and Troy. And I talked the whole time, and, I, you know. I know who.

Michelle Frechette 00:26:55 That’s a who’s who right there. That list.

Carol Stambaugh 00:26:57 And I did not even know any of these. Well, and to be fair, this was 2012. And so some of these people weren’t whose who yet. I remember Troy and I were talking because he was at the time doing video user manuals. That was plug in that he had and he had this idea of a coaching business that he wanted to do. And I remember talking with him about that. Oh my goodness. You know. And so yeah, that’s that’s my magic story of being able to come in and serendipitously get to see and meet these people who I now know truly were and are the movers and shakers in our WordPress world. So yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:27:40 I love that.

Raquel Manriquez 00:27:41 But I do want to just add one thing to everybody is welcome. Carol’s a good example of like, she wasn’t yet like this, like business owner necessarily, or like anything more than a freelancer. Very much this conference is for you as well.

Michelle Frechette 00:27:57 Absolutely.

Raquel Manriquez 00:27:58 It’s not an exclusive club.

Carol Stambaugh 00:28:00 You can get a little wide eyed person like I was that comes in and you can meet and have discussions with these awesome people. Yeah. Just the same way.

Michelle Frechette 00:28:12 And it seems to me like a, an event like this, those people that you look up to that have really built something. The people who haven’t been there yet are the ones who are learning. Well, how did they do that? So it makes perfect sense for if you haven’t achieved that, whatever status you think that is, You are the person that should be attending this event. So it’s not just the two of you. We have quite a few people. I tried to get as much on the screen as possible. So Raquel and Carol, you are joined by some very, amazing people as well. So can you just tell us, like, who else is part of this and maybe what they’re doing?

Raquel Manriquez 00:28:50 Yeah. So we’ll start with WordCamp Phoenix, peeps. Yeah. I had already kind of intimately shared with the WordCamp Phoenix team of my idea of doing this. And so when it did come to fruition, I definitely, you know, was like, who wants to come? But like Carol, even though, like, Carol didn’t have a choice, even though she did beat me to it. She doesn’t have a choice. But like,

Michelle Frechette 00:29:15 You’re doing it, Carol. That’s all there is to it.

Raquel Manriquez 00:29:18 But Dave, who came on a little bit later, Dave Ryan, he is, he works for Bluehost, and he’s, battled, on and off of cancer, and I wanted to be respectful of his time, and thankfully he’s been doing really well lately. And so he definitely came on board, just recently. And he’s been taking care of our site. And he is. I mean, Dave, like the three of us, me, Carol, Dave have always kind of been this trio together. So, like, I’m just so grateful. Yeah. but, I mean, everybody has some sort of clout here. Nathan Atkinson, who has long been an organizer for WordCamp Phoenix, and he takes care of budget and he’s amazing. He keeps me on track. I am I am crazy, I am, I jump off the walls. It’s hard to keep me in my chair and to not have these wide eyed ideas.

Raquel Manriquez 00:30:07 And so like Nathan is like very grounding for me. And then next to him, Nathan B Weller was my my manager at Elegant Themes for, for the years that I was there. And he and I have kept a, a relationship going. And so he’s coming on on to help with marketing. So I’m very grateful for him. And then Brian Richards and Matt Medeiros kind of the same thing. It’s like just had earlier conversations with both of them and they’re like, I want to help. And I’m like, oh my gosh, yes. It’s like the dream team here. So, yeah, yeah, that’s basically us. It’s lean. It doesn’t need to be much, much bigger. You know, we’re.

Michelle Frechette 00:30:46 Yeah.

Raquel Manriquez 00:30:47 It’s really just filling in the gaps and everybody’s shining at what they’re excellent at. So yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:30:52 I love that. Now let’s look really quickly at tickets. So we have I think reasonable prices. Right. So we have the VIP All Access which is everything. And then General Admission as well, which really the price is pretty close to each other.

Michelle Frechette 00:31:09 $100 difference.Yeah. And everybody can be a VIP? Like, if everybody wants to access, they can get that one? There’s not a certain number that’s reserved for that.

Raquel Manriquez 00:31:20 No, the only difference is the fun day. So one thing that was really cool about PressNomics and we wanted to keep that aspect going is a third day fun day. So two days of sessions, really, really great sessions. And then the third day of either golf or not golf. And we kind of have this little like funny little thing going with that because nobody on the team is a golfer except for Matt Medeiros. So like. We were cracking up.Because we’re like, I know everyone demands golf. And so yes. It will be golf.

Raquel Manriquez 00:31:51 But there’s always traditionally been a not golf option to. So we are finalizing those details and we’ll announce. But but that third day is really just a day to take everything that you’ve done and like your brains and your gears spinning all up in your brain and working hard, and then any relationships you might have built or for the first time, or even just continuing all to take that on that Saturday and just have fun with each other.

Raquel Manriquez 00:32:17 Really. Yeah. I mean, a lot of the golfers, they all have all these stories that they loved when they golfed, you know? And so we definitely don’t want to not take that away from them. We’re over here like, what is golf?

Michelle Frechette 00:32:34 I think I did putt putt back in high school, but I’m a non golfer. I will not be on the greens that day. I will be with the other the non other non golfers. Yeah.

Carol Stambaugh 00:32:44 And we have some great plans in the works. Stay tuned. We don’t want to ruin surprises but we’ve got some fun stuff.

Raquel Manriquez 00:32:49 That’s really the only difference. They’re the same. You don’t have to do the fun day. But I would highly encourage everybody because it really is just fun and chill.

Speaker 4 00:32:56 Oh, it really is.

Carol Stambaugh 00:32:59 It’s a great it’s a great end to, we hope, a very, deep valued and somewhat intense conference. And then at the end you just solidify those relationships.

Michelle Frechette 00:33:14 Yeah. So it’s April 23rd to 26. So if you live someplace like I do in the Great North, it’s much warmer in Arizona at that time of year than it is in Rochester, New York. We’ve had May I mean, we have snow. We’ve had snow into May here before.

Carol Stambaugh 00:33:29 Oh wow.

Michelle Frechette 00:33:31 I will be grateful to get someplace warm. And is there a deadline by which? Are you going to stop ticket sales at some point? Obviously, if you hit your if you hit your, you know, your goal or you hit the 300, but will there be a point in time when like only up to two weeks before or anything like that, or. If people are worried.

Raquel Manriquez 00:33:51 We haven’t hit that. We haven’t decided that yet. You know, we actually haven’t even done much marketing other than some tweets and a pre-holiday sale, you know? So, all of that is still coming, and especially once speakers get announced and like, the fun day activities, all that get announced. but but we’ll assess it right now.

Raquel Manriquez 00:34:12 Everybody’s safe. We we’ve definitely have sold quite a bit of tickets already. but I don’t we’re not going to sell out tomorrow. So everybody say today, right?

Raquel Manriquez 00:34:23 But we’ll I mean, yeah, we’ll assess and we’ll definitely keep everybody posted if that is the case.

Michelle Frechette 00:34:29 And I saw that you can still inquire about sponsorship. So do you still have a few spots left for sponsors?

Raquel Manriquez 00:34:36 Yeah. Well we have unlimited community sponsors. if anyone wants to just have, you know, that it’s a little bit of the same as a WordCamp, only we recognize that some people just want to sponsor and get their name on the board, essentially. So we do have a unlimited amount of those, booths. Like I said, we’re maxed out at eight. So some of those are available still. And then the add-ons. And the fun part about this time, this, PressConf is that we get to have a little fun with branding even further. So like lanyards, hotel key cards, things like that.

Raquel Manriquez 00:35:15 We looked into elevator wraps, but the venue won’t allow it. So you know, no elevator wraps.

Michelle Frechette 00:35:22 Not this time.

Raquel Manriquez 00:35:23 Yeah, the lanyards and hotel keycards are a big deal in the hotel. Key cards. And there’s a few others that. So there’s some really fun ways to to sponsor still, but yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:35:31 Absolutely fantastic. Is there anything else you want to mention that I’ve forgotten to ask?

Raquel Manriquez 00:35:41 Um I mean. Do you have something Carol?

Carol Stambaugh 00:35:45 A lot of people have been asking the question about, given the current state of everything that’s going on, you know, what’s that going to be like? You know, some people have even asked, you know, well, which side are you on? And Raquel, very, very appropriately says we’re on the side of WordPress. we’re on WordPress’s side. We’re on the community side. We want WordPress to succeed. And so they’re everyone’s welcome at this event. We have automatons, who are already scheduled to speak, and we have people who work from WP Engine who are possibilities of speaking.

Carol Stambaugh 00:36:25 And so it is just there is there is no one that’s not welcome to this conference. And we’re, you know, there may be some discussions among people about it, but this conference is not going to be focused around that. And it’s really important to know this was in the works long before it, it just happened. We happen to go live three days before the closing talk at WordCamp US. And so we, we, we, we became known at the same time that the that the, the everything exploded. And it’s far beyond this issue, this, this issue is happening now. And it’s a great time for the community to get together and to come together and think about the future of WordPress. But we were already going to do it anyway. So this is not the cause. This is just a. Oh, great. Well, we’re going to, you know, we’re here. We’re doing this anyway.

Michelle Frechette 00:37:27 So people are interested in learning more. They just have to go to pressconf.events.

Michelle Frechette 00:37:32 It’s not dot com it’s dot events. You can buy your tickets there. I didn’t I didn’t think to look. Is there a contact form. If people have questions?

Raquel Manriquez: Yes.

Michelle Frechette: Okay. Great. And they can always I know we’re all a lot of us are reachable through various social media and different Slack channels and things like that. I would probably Slack you, but, Yeah.

Michelle Frechette 00:37:54 But if people are connected to you that way, they can always reach out through other social channels and then also through the website. Correct? Okay.

Raquel Manriquez 00:38:02 Yeah. One logistical bonus too is the the hotel room block. The hotel. Everything’s all together. You stay at the hotel, the conference at the hotel. It’s right there. It’s really accessible. It’s such a cool place. Like cheaper than most of the room blocks that we get at for WordCamp US or anything like it’s like seriously reasonable. And they allow you to roommate it up if anybody’s curious about that.

Raquel Manriquez 00:38:28 Don’t don’t be shy. Check out the the room block there.

Carol Stambaugh 00:38:32 And if for those who haven’t been to PressNomics, this particular hotel is very well suited for a conference like this because there’s so much open courtyard space. And of course, at that time of the year, it’s really nice and you’ll just see people get there’s so many places for people to gather and just talk. And so it really is a place you want to stay at the hotel, because that’s where everyone’s going to be, and that’s where people will gather. And you’ll you don’t want to miss those, those, you know, in between times whenever you just have the opportunity. So and the hotel is gorgeous, is lovely. It’s so nice.

Michelle Frechette 00:39:09 Nice. Well, I’m looking forward to it. I promise I will be registered as soon as I know where we’re registered. How I’m registering, I will I will look forward to seeing everybody there. and if I do have questions, I know how I’m reaching out to you. But everybody else, if they don’t, if you don’t know how to reach out, go to pressconf.events and you can get all the information there, and you can buy your ticket and make sure you go for the VIP. Like, who doesn’t want to have a fun day at the end for sure, right?

Raquel Manriquez 00:39:35 Exactly.

Michelle Frechette 00:39:35 Well, I thank you both for so much for being here, for taking the time out of your busy days to, to join us at the Post Status Happiness Hour. I am very excited, about everything you’re doing. And congratulations on launching such a really, amazing event. This is the last Post Status Happiness Hour for 2024, so I’m not going to try to push one in. I’m not going to do one next weekend. I’m not doing it on Christmas Day. So I will be back with Post Status Happiness Hours starting again in January. So we’ll see everybody then. And in the meantime, Happy Holidays if you celebrate. So thank you again for being here.

Raquel Manriquez 00:40:12 Thank you.

Carol Stambaugh: Thanks.