395 – HeroPress: What it is, and why it’s so important

[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Hello there, and welcome once again to the WP Builds podcast, you've reached episode number 395, entitled. HeroPress: what is it, and why it's so important. It was published on Thursday, the 24th of October, 2024.

My name's Nathan Wrigley. And before we begin a few bits of housekeeping.

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Okay. What have we got for you today? Well, it's, Topher DeRosia talking all about HeroPress. If you've never found the HeroPress website, perhaps today is a good day. Because this is going to cheer you up.

You may be feeling a little bit gloomy in the WordPress space at the moment. No more. Head to HeroPress, and you will be able to find out loads of really transformational stories about people in the WordPress space whose lives have been really enriched and improved by the WordPress project.

You're going to find out all about the positive impact that HeroPress has had. Find out some personal reflections from Topher, why you set up the website, and how it's been going. You'll be able to also find out about the global footprint that HeroPress has. And also a little word on HeroPress' future. And how they would welcome your support to keep that initiative going. So here comes Topher DeRosia. I hope. That you enjoy it.

I am joined on the podcast by Topher DeRosia. Hello Topher.

[00:05:00] Topher DeRosia: Hello. It's great to be

[00:05:02] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you for joining me. This is Happy Day. actually happy week. I don't know exactly when the date was, but, we're here to celebrate something and honestly, I don't know exactly when this podcast is gonna air. But in the recent WordPress past, we've had a lot of, miserable news, let's put it that way.

We've had a lot of pitchforks being, drawn and people kinda getting angry in the WordPress community, and this episode is an antidote to that. It's intended to be an episode in which we celebrate things and the mechanism that we're gonna do that. Via is through Tofus project called Hero Press. And before we start anything right, like this is not a request, this is, an order.

Go to hero press.com, pause this. If you're in a car, pause the podcast, go home, start the computer up. go to hero press.com and browse around. Click on a bunch of links, read the stories, and then when you are feeling a lot better. Come back and press play again, and you can listen to Topher expounding on how all this happened.

So hero press.com, if you've never seen it before, it's gonna cheer you up. Topher, we're on a podcast today and I wanna draw attention to one particular article, before we begin. And it, and by coincidence, it was published just the other day. It was the 9th of October, 2024, and it was called 10 Years of Hero Press, blooming Neck.

what an achievement. Tell us the story at the top, 'cause this is just wonderful. Tell us the story about how it all got started.

[00:06:37] Topher DeRosia: Alright, I'll go back even a little farther than the post says. I was at Work Camp San Francisco, the last one, and I was with my team with XWP and the owner of the company was with us and he actually doesn't do much with the company. He hired managers to take care of it, and, but he came and he was hanging out with us and I was, introducing the team to people.

I, I seem to know everyone. And somebody said, I nominate Topher to, be our community master or whatever. And Dave, the owner, looked at me with a funny little expression and said, would you like that? And I said, yeah. So that was in the spring. So then, in November, about a week before US Thanksgiving, which is coming up about a month from now, I woke up to an email from him that said.

you don't work for XWP anymore. I want you to do something special for WordPress.

[00:07:45] Nathan Wrigley: Huh.

[00:07:46] Topher DeRosia: And that's all it said. That's all it said. I was like, okay. So I wrote back and I said, what is it? And he said, that's your journey to discover, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's, it's freedom. Freedom to build something great.

It is freedom to jump off a cliff and die.

[00:08:09] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. But also when you read that email, the first line, like you don't work for x WP anymore, at that point you're thinking, oh Lord, this is not gonna go well. And then you get the, follow up. So I want you to do something great for WordPress. But then that completely open-ended, bargain, which is just, I don't know what it is.

You go and figure it out. And so literally, is that it? You just got a, huh? Wow.

[00:08:35] Topher DeRosia: He, I literally did not work for XWP anymore. They didn't pay me anymore. He paid me out of his pocket for the next several months, paid my salary. he hired a development team from India and put them at my disposal and said, if you're gonna build something, here they are. he hired a copywriter and she wrote whatever I asked.

I had access to the design team at XWP. They made the logo and the. the fonts and all of that. and he was thinking a product, he was thinking I would come up with a product idea and I wasn't thinking, I couldn't figure that out. I, struggled for weeks. I kept coming up with nothing. And, I was speaking with one of the guys on the Indian development team.

His name was.

We got to know each other. And one evening we were chatting and he let go with the formality and became a peer all of a sudden. And he was very frustrated with, business. His team was actually a bunch of freelancers that got together to see if they could do better together and it wasn't working.

And he said to me, what do we have to do to get contracts from the west? And I said, I don't know. I'm not Indian. I'm not a business guy. I'm not an Indian business guy. I don't know any of that. and, that kind of ended the conversation, but I couldn't, let it go. he was hurting, he was struggling.

all of the people on his team were not making enough to feed their families and I couldn't let it go. And so I asked around and somebody said, Hey, word Camp Mumbai just happened and the organizers are all successful. Can't business owners, maybe they know. And so I went to them and I met them for the first time.

And now they are all lifelong friends, of course. And they said, oh, he needs to stop looking at the west. You won't get any, there's plenty of work inside India. Go there. So I connected them and they had a long conversation and I stayed out of it. I don't actually know where that all went. After that.

I connected them and they talked and worked things out between them. And I thought it felt really, good to help him. And I thought, boy, I wanna help people all over the world. People who are struggling, people in repressed economies, people, can't find work, all of this. But I don't wanna be the great white savior and come in and tell them, this is what you need to do From my, point of privilege, So I thought, I need to replicate what I did. I need to find somebody, find their peer, find somebody who's already solved their problem from their perspective at their privilege level, everything, and connect them. And I thought to do it, via video like Ted. And so I pitched it to Dave and he said, that's not what I was thinking, but.

If it works as a business, we'll do it. he invented the name Hero Press. He registered, he was from Australia, so he registered it as an Australian business. He bought the domain name for a lot of money. and he set the stipulation that we were gonna do a Kickstarter and it needed to get 60,000 Australian dollars before we would start, and if we did not get it.

We would not do it. Everybody walks away, game over. And I learned later he didn't need the money per se. He was looking for $60,001 donations. He wanted 60,000 people to say, I like this idea enough to give you a dollar.

[00:12:32] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:12:35] Topher DeRosia: and that's never happened, actually. Not ever. and we went public at Pressonomics.

And within the first 24 hours, three companies had each given us $5,000,

[00:12:50] Nathan Wrigley: Oh,

[00:12:52] Topher DeRosia: which was exhilarating. But that was the end of it.

[00:12:55] Nathan Wrigley: okay. You're a quarter of the

[00:12:58] Topher DeRosia: I got maybe 30 or 40 people to give five or $10 after that, which is not anywhere near 60,000.

[00:13:05] Nathan Wrigley: No.

[00:13:08] Topher DeRosia: and most importantly, we did not get the groundswell of interest. I. And so that was the end.

He said, I'm sorry it didn't work out. I'm not, I can't pay your salary anymore. And I went, I was unemployed, which was really exciting for my family. but people kept coming to me and saying, listen, this was such a good idea. You can't let this go. And I, said, I'm unemployed. I can't afford to move a film crew around the world, making four videos a year, so I got thinking, how can I make this cheaper?

And the idea of doing it in text came up and with text, you don't have four months of editing. You don't have a crew of people generating this thing, the person makes it themselves in their own words. and the bandwidth is much, much lower. The people I was targeting at the time, like this is 10 years ago, where a lot of 'em were on 3G

and and watching on really old, terrible phones and they don't wanna watch a 4K video, but, 20 5K of texts.

Comes in a heartbeat. I went to Andre Chenko rushed, and I said, would you do your essay in text? He said, sure. And he put it together and we posted it and it was wildly popular and I was really happy and I thought, oh no, I have to get another one for next week.

[00:14:50] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. The treadmill begins. Yeah.

[00:14:54] Topher DeRosia: It was probably two or three months before I realized I should get more than one week ahead. And, and then it just went on. It just, and then, so the funny thing is it was an Australian business that I did not own, and I was still doing this. And I wrote to Dave and asked permission and he never wrote back. But, maybe six months later, he wrote and said, I like what you're doing. Keep it up. And, eventually a couple years later, he just deeded the whole thing to me.

so now I own the domain name and we have made it an actual business in America. so it's all owned by us now. and then in 2015, I think, yeah. I don't remember which. The organizers from Word Camp Pune in India got ahold of me and said, Hey, it's late, but we'd love to have you come speak about hero press. And I said, that's cool. Still unemployed. and it was late. I had to get a visa and everything, so I did a GoFundMe and in 24 hours I got enough money to go be a work camp speaker in India. To talk about hero press and to this day people walk up to me and say, Hey, I met you at Pune, and it's amazing. And it's just been going ever since.

[00:16:31] Nathan Wrigley: there's a lot in there that I didn't realize for a start. I didn't realize. I've con I was really got into the WordPress thing at about the same time that Hero press started, or at least, in the, email that you received. Late 2020, sorry, 2014. So that was roughly when I moved over from Drupal to To WordPress. And so I was pitching around for, content that, that would help me with WordPress at that time. and usually that content would be like tutorials and things to get me over the hump of actually learning how it all worked and hung together and things like that. And then it probably wasn't until I.

I don't know, a handful of years ago that I came across, hero press. And honestly, I can't tell you how it happened, but ever since then, it's been in my, I'm still old school. I still have an RSS reader and, it's there and when new things pop up, I consume them. And the, one thing that I really take away from it is just this sense of, I don't know what the word is.

I can't encapsulate it, but it's happiness really. it's just, it's a very. Positive publication because the premise is stories, life stories, people's stories about how, they've had a journey with WordPress. it's not relentlessly positive what's happened to the people, but it's positive.

In, in, in the round, the sum of everything is entirely positive. there's, ups and downs and all of that, but I didn't realize that you'd had that relationship with David and it had all got cut off and then you were thinking, gosh, what do I do with this? And kept going with it.

I also didn't realize until I was reading it the other day that it started, the intention was to do it as video I, because I've only consumed it as text. My assumption was that it was always gonna be text. But tell us a little bit about who it's enabled you to meet, because right at the top of the post, which I am gonna link to is, an image, which is actually a small subset of an image, which you're gonna scroll down to.

And if you scroll down, it's not an image. Topher just told me it's actually, I don't know, 200 plus people.

[00:18:38] Topher DeRosia: Tiles. Yeah.

[00:18:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. All the people that have been a part of hero press's journey and who have written their bio autobiographical information about their WordPress journey, just tell us a little bit about some of the, I don't know, some of the interactions that you've had, some of the quirky things.

I'm sure there's loads.

[00:18:57] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. while I tell you that, click on the map link in the top of the

[00:19:02] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, nice. Okay. Got it.

[00:19:04] Topher DeRosia: and for you listening along, click on the map link.

[00:19:09] Nathan Wrigley: grief. Wow.

[00:19:14] Topher DeRosia: I like to think there isn't a country in the world that doesn't have a couch I could crash on if I needed it.

[00:19:18] Nathan Wrigley: That's impressive. Okay, so it's an audio podcast. I really should describe it. So it's, a go, it's like a Google map with pins, hero press pins, nicely done by the way. And they really are dotted all over the place. there's always gonna be some bits of the world which are less. Populated another, the bits that you're expecting are just full of pins and even the bits that I'm not expecting is also full of pins.

You really? That's amazing. Anyway, sorry I interrupted.

[00:19:50] Topher DeRosia: so, some of the best stories actually haven't made it to hero press.

there's, I, want diversity, geographical diversity, and so I will find a country that has none and I'll go looking and I, looked at Iran one day and I went looking and I found a guy, and he said he'd do an essay and he did, and it was great.

And I said, do you know any Iranian women in WordPress? He said, yes, I do. And he connected me with a woman and we talked and she said, yes, I'll do an essay. And then she disappeared and maybe two years later she showed up on Facebook with a new name and she said, I have converted to Christianity and I had to flee the

[00:20:45] Nathan Wrigley: yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:46] Topher DeRosia: So I live in Turkey now, so she lives in Turkey with a new name and. I was able to reach out both through WordPress and she was still making, doing WordPress. I was able to reach out through the WordPress community to get her work and my church community to help her find a place to live and just, I was it because of hero press?

I don't know, but. It was

[00:21:21] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, there's a connection there. There's definitely, oh, that's that. Wow. That's a life changing thing. normally we talk about code and a plugin and a theme or, some new feature of the, the platform. But this, is why I love this because it's actual life changing stories. So I can imagine you, it sounds like that one didn't get published and it also sounds like it didn't get published for obvious.

[00:21:44] Topher DeRosia: not written

[00:21:44] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. But that's one.

[00:21:47] Topher DeRosia: There's There's a, young man in Bangladesh also, I don't have this story yet. he got married, they had some kids. They lived in a very, small village, way out in the middle of nowhere. Most of the village was family, and he couldn't support his family, so he moved to DACA by himself and lived as cheaply as he could and mailed all the money home.

Saw his family once a year.

[00:22:15] Nathan Wrigley: Gosh.

[00:22:17] Topher DeRosia: just not an ideal situation. And then he got a job working for an SEO company that rhymes with toast.

[00:22:24] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, that one, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:27] Topher DeRosia: they, have a policy of paying people the same all over the world. And the baseline salary is their hometown in the Netherlands, which is a much, much, higher salary than you're gonna make in the backwards of Bangladesh.

And so he was able to move home. And not only support his own family, but his whole extended family, which was basically the whole village.

[00:22:52] Nathan Wrigley: Wow.

[00:22:55] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. And, I've talked to him on Slack. he's very shy. He's not, he told me I could tell a story. He's not excited about writing. But I love that story.

[00:23:11] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it's interesting. I.

[00:23:12] Topher DeRosia: and it's not a, it's not a hero press story yet, but is it, aren't they all hero press stories?

[00:23:17] Nathan Wrigley: isn't that the point, right? you are, you're not claiming the stories as your own, are you? It's not okay, this is a hero press story. This is just you acting as a conduit for the story, which is already written. that individual was out there. But that individual's story never got heard.

And, obviously for many people keeping their story to themselves and private is fine. that's what they would prefer. But for those people out there who, read these things and, we could rattle off a whole bunch of country names or read regions or parts of the world where maybe.

Having that exposure to a story like that is gonna be the difference between, I don't know, carrying on with WordPress and finding that career or just the necessary, I don't know, positivism or something along those lines to, to feel Okay. I. WordPress is a place that I can hang out and that will help guide people on that path.

And as far as I know, I could be wrong about this and apologies to any content creators who are doing what Hero press are doing, but as far as I know, your, hero press is the only source of content like this. I Is that true?

[00:24:29] Topher DeRosia: for the most part, there are a number of podcasts that are just people chitchatting and stories are told. But I don't know anybody doing essays like

[00:24:40] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. And so you've managed to get to 10 years. Let's just go through some of the stats actually, 'cause it is really cool. and again, I'm, gonna go through the, 10 year of hero press, blog post. And, obviously, that will then hopefully feed you into the main site. You go through the archive and check it all out.

so the stats that I'm reading. As follows, in the past 10 years, we have published, so we meaning Hero Press 278 Essays in Wait for It, 29 Languages. That in itself is actually quite remarkable, you know how this goes typically, lots of things are done in English, but also it's not typical.

At least in my experience for the one site to span so many languages, you might get a couple, but to have content written in all those different languages is remarkable. And you could tell us about that in a minute. the co the countries represented a 66, 66 countries have, put things in, 136 of those have been women, 134 men.

So that's an interesting endeavor just by itself. You've actually managed to get. a greater diversity than, certainly, than it is typical. Let's say that, three non-binary, and this is so good. The longest that anyone has ever taken to get an essay to you was Wait for it. Nine years.

[00:26:08] Topher DeRosia: Yeah.

[00:26:10] Nathan Wrigley: That's so good.

[00:26:11] Topher DeRosia: Yep,

[00:26:12] Nathan Wrigley: so let's just dwell on the sort of geographical spread. You mentioned that, we've got the map. We've seen that 66 countries though, that's pretty amazing. 29 languages. How does that even work? Do you get them, do you get these people to submit it in their native language or in English and then you get it translated?

What's going on?

[00:26:30] Topher DeRosia: No, I asked 'em to do it both in English and whatever their first language is. and I didn't start doing that till seven or eight years in. And so there are a number of old essays that I could go back and get new languages. I have some fascinating. perspectives, I don't know what you call it.

there's, one young man from, India, but in the northeastern states, the, tiny ones that are off by themselves. And I said, would you do it in English and your first language? And he said, I can't do my first language. It hasn't been coded digitally yet.

[00:27:12] Nathan Wrigley: Whoa. What? Wait. That's

[00:27:16] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. So, he said, I'll do it in my neighbor's first language so he can read it.

[00:27:24] Nathan Wrigley: Which is more likely to,

[00:27:25] Topher DeRosia: And I was like, wow. there's a, do you know Howa?

[00:27:33] Nathan Wrigley: Yes. I know her. I don't think I've met Howard, but Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:38] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. Her first language is an obscure Nigerian language and. She said, I could do it, but no one would ever read it. And I said, you don't know that somebody somewhere is gonna find it.

which leads me to my next point. when Herpa very first started, especially related to India, because I have so many languages, I asked, would it be helpful to have this in languages other than English? And all of the Indians said, no.

[00:28:12] Nathan Wrigley: Huh.

[00:28:13] Topher DeRosia: everybody here speaks English. It's fine.

I learned later that, something like 60% of India does not speak English. but then once I started doing it, I had people come up to me and say, I speak English just fine. we're, talking together. But to read it in my own language was special.

[00:28:36] Nathan Wrigley: Oh yeah.

[00:28:38] Topher DeRosia: And not only special, but people.

Are often more articulate, more nuanced in their own language than in something else.

[00:28:53] Nathan Wrigley: that, that makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. I guess it, it's the thing that you are most familiar with. I am, I'm a typical Brit. I don't speak any other languages particularly well. but the ones that I learned at school, it would be just chaos. If I tried to, write in that it would be far better to have the nuance and the flow and the familiarity with that.

[00:29:15] Topher DeRosia: Yeah,

[00:29:16] Nathan Wrigley: innate language that you are born with your birth language. Anyway, sorry I interrupted. Carry on.

[00:29:21] Topher DeRosia: no, that's right. and so all the time people will say to me, oh, wow, I can't believe you have an essay in my language. we have Vietnamese. We have, Bhutanese, we have a guy from Bhutan. but that's a good story. I, I don't remember how I found him, but I, I want every country and I said, Hey, we do an essay.

And he did. And I met him at Work Camp Asia in Bangkok and he said, I'm on, the theme team, I think you said, and I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be on that team if you hadn't talked to me

[00:30:01] Nathan Wrigley: Oh.

[00:30:02] Topher DeRosia: and got me to do an essay. oh, there, we'll be lucky if we get through this and I don't cry.

[00:30:11] Nathan Wrigley: Oh,

[00:30:12] Topher DeRosia: there are so many stories like that.

do you know Har Schenker?

[00:30:16] Nathan Wrigley: know I, I've messaged, but I've not, as far as I'm aware, I've not met. Yeah.

[00:30:22] Topher DeRosia: So Indian kids are almost all pushed to become engineers, doctors and lawyers. And if you don't get to do that, then there's obviously something wrong with you. And so kids who just aren't built for that struggle there, there's obviously something wrong with them. And Hari did not do well in formal school.

He didn't enjoy it. He didn't learn well from it. he's very intelligent. It's just that it didn't fit him. And so he became a pariah in his community and his own family. his parents. Yeah. and he was pretty desperate. He didn't have a job, he didn't have family. He loved him. He didn't have friends.

he was in a bad place. And he somehow got turned on to WordPress, I think. No, He found hero press

[00:31:24] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, nice.

[00:31:26] Topher DeRosia: Hero press and read every essay and said, this is what I need to do.

[00:31:33] Nathan Wrigley: Nice.

[00:31:34] Topher DeRosia: And he started learning WordPress and then some months later applied to Automatic, he got married and he applied to Automatic, and his wife was the one that was there with him to cry with Joy when he got a job.

A great job that was gonna respect him and give him international travel and pay well and all of that. And it just blew my mind when he told me that.

[00:32:05] Nathan Wrigley: That is so amazing. the fact that he found your publication first and then from that WordPress. Yeah. the, long tail of this is so interesting and the truth is Topher, you'll never know even a fraction of it.

[00:32:22] Topher DeRosia: yeah, that's

[00:32:22] Nathan Wrigley: a few because they've come up to you and said the things that they said to you.

But you can, you imagine the, dozens, the hundreds, the thousands of people. That have read this and got something out of it, but just, it's not in their, it's not in their sort of character necessarily to reach out to you, and yet that, impact will be felt. I as an example, I read 'em all and I don't ever reach out to you and say, thank you.

That's me. That's me being me. but there's countless people like me who do exactly that. just read it, consume it, enjoy it, get a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling from it. But don't necessarily feel the need to reach out. What's the future, though, with all this, do you wanna keep this endeavor going?

I know the answer to this question by the way. I.

[00:33:14] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. Yeah. We want to keep it going. and it's interesting you asked about the future because a few years ago, we, my wife and I talked about trying to do a fundraiser for your request that we get enough money to pay for a salary for her, not for me. I would keep my day job and. she would work on ear press full-time.

So that would mean recurring gifts, not just one time. and because it was hers, it was our second salary, it didn't need to be as high as our first salary. but she felt that just maintaining essays was not a full-time job that we can ask people for all that money for. she wanted to make something more.

And so we built a number of other sites. we built the hero press network.com, WP Photos, WP Wallpapers find at wp, hallway Chats, podcasts, all these sites. Then they all fed into euro plus network.com, and I was gonna make tutorial videos as a gift to the world and. Which I did. There's, 52 of them on YouTube.

I did video of the week for 52 weeks. we're gonna do all this stuff and, the fundraiser mostly fizzled, in recurring gifts. Right now I think we're at $300

[00:34:53] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[00:34:54] Topher DeRosia: a month. which is how it helps. It's nice it pays a bill, but that's not a salary. and so she moved on to do other things and I maintained those other sites for two, three years.

And it got to be a lot of work. that was a job and I couldn't maintain it. And so we started shutting all that down. and so the future actually is going to revert to what it has been for 10 years is, just the essays really.

[00:35:25] Nathan Wrigley: Got

[00:35:27] Topher DeRosia: I thought about, starting a podcast. It would be informal and it wouldn't be like the essays, it would just be chatting with people.

[00:35:36] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that's got a nice, I think what's really interesting about that though is that I think humans have got a real need to hear stories. the whole, if you go back tens of thousands of years, that whole, the proto humans, if you like, sitting around the campfire exchanging stories and listening to one another and all of that, and, you only have to look at what people spend most of their evening doing, which is, looking at the tv, looking at dramas, looking at films, all that kind of stuff.

We're just deeply into stories, and I think that podcast has got legs. If it's just stories. 'cause I don't know anybody else in the WordPress space that's doing a podcast of just stories. so you get my vote. Do it.

[00:36:21] Topher DeRosia: yeah, the hard part is if I have the person on the hard part is accents.

[00:36:28] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:31] Topher DeRosia: there's no accent in written English really. you can tell if they don't, if they're not native, but it's perfectly clear. And so you take someone who knows English very well, but doesn't practice it verbally very often.

they can write a beautiful essay, but they're gonna really struggle on a podcast. And so I don't know how to handle that. I don't know if I want to have them tell me the story and then I tell the story.

[00:37:02] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, it's like a book at bedtime kind of thing. Yeah. You're reading it, you receive the story and then read it out

[00:37:07] Topher DeRosia: fireside chats with.

[00:37:09] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. The other option, is, to do what Bob's done, where he just is putting out episodes in Bob, Don, do the Woo, putting out podcasts in different languages.

the French variant or the Vietnamese variant or what have you. And,

[00:37:24] Topher DeRosia: I have thought of that. Yep.

[00:37:26] Nathan Wrigley: but obviously there's a lot of bandwidth for all that, but, okay, so the idea though is to strip away all of the fat, if you like, that's grown up over the years around hero press and get back to the written word.

Maybe a podcast or something. We'll see. But the, in order to do that, you need to be. like anything, you where you live is where you live. You're in North America. It's not a cheap place to live. You've gotta pay the bills. And so to that end, to a's got a bit of a, donate campaign going on at the moment.

And, and if you've got the bandwidth, let's just hear him out. Let's, let's see if we can get some, Some boots on the ground, if So what is it that you're doing? What, is it simply a recurring thing that you're after or is it, is one-off donations? Fine. I will say, sorry. Just very quickly, if you go to hero press.com, and you look in the main menu, you'll find a donate menu, but probably easier to just go to hero press.com slash.

Donate and over there you'll be able to see the, status of the campaign at the moment. But yeah, just tell us what, it is that you're after and how people can go about contributing if they found it meaningful.

[00:38:35] Topher DeRosia: Yeah. recurring is most helpful because it's something I can count on in the future. So to a certain extent, I would rather have $10 a month than $120 donation.

however that doesn't work for some people either. They don't want to do it. In India, it's illegal to do a recurring donation to, or a recurring payment to America.

The federal government has said, no, we don't do that, and so they can't. one officer, great. something I did this time that I haven't done in the past is set a goal and it's, really high, in my opinion, it's $50,000. That would, it would be life changing for us. It would free us up to actually spend an employee's time on hero press.

because there's a ton of stuff that it needs on an ongoing basis that it doesn't always get just because I'm working or hanging around with my family or whatever. couple years ago, one, one year ago, I started approaching businesses and saying, listen, would you give a one time thousand dollar donation?

And I was surprised by how many said yes because in the past, many had said, no, we don't, when we can't give to hero press. and what I learned is a thousand dollars is actually just below the discretionary threshold for most businesses.

[00:40:23] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, Okay.

[00:40:25] Topher DeRosia: Where a manager can just say, sure, let's do it. They don't have to ask, they don't have to fill out papers.

five or six companies have stepped forward and just given a thousand dollars one time, and if 50 of them did it, we'd have our goal.

[00:40:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:40:44] Topher DeRosia: Are there 50 WordPress companies in the world?

[00:40:47] Nathan Wrigley: oh, yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:40:51] Topher DeRosia: But it hasn't happened yet. And I don't know if it's because they choose not to or if I haven't communicated well,

[00:40:57] Nathan Wrigley: hopefully, things like this will, help a little bit, the, is there, deadline on this? Do you have a sort of the clock is ticking mentality about it or is that page just gonna stay up and add infinitum?

[00:41:12] Topher DeRosia: The, page has been there for years. I really only pushing the birthday thing probably till the end of December.

[00:41:20] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[00:41:24] Topher DeRosia: I, I'm not gonna take it down, but, until the end of December, I'll be on socials and on a variety of podcasts and things like that.

[00:41:36] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so you.

[00:41:37] Topher DeRosia: email newsletters.

[00:41:38] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, yeah. ni I hope that, that what comes outta this podcast episode is firstly, firstly just pause the donate bit in your head. if that's, if, you're thinking to yourself, wait, hang on a minute. There's Topher here on a podcast, and he's, asking me for some cash.

yeah, it is. But just go and look at the website, and read a bit first, and after you've bathed in the warm glow of it all. Then go to the donate button and, and you know

[00:42:08] Topher DeRosia: if I could get 50,000 people to give $1, I'd be happy.

[00:42:12] Nathan Wrigley: There's a thought. so before we round it off, I'll just say the URLs one more time. Hero press.com is the place to go to check it out.

Honestly. Just click all the links all over the place and have a look. Subscribe on your RSS reader of choice. I. if you like, like I do, and also head to, hero press.com/donate to find out more, Topher. If, let's say there's somebody that listen, has listened to this, that wants to reach out to you, whether that's to find out more about donation or just whether they can submit content, where's the best place to find you?

[00:42:49] Topher DeRosia: boy, I'm everywhere. [email protected] is my email. I use Topher one Kenobi, the number

[00:42:57] Nathan Wrigley: it.

[00:42:59] Topher DeRosia: pretty much everywhere I am on literally 60 slacks in the WordPress community.

[00:43:04] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[00:43:06] Topher DeRosia: that's a lot of the way I find people actually, I like, I'm on the Slack channel.

[00:43:11] Nathan Wrigley: Nice. Yeah, of course you are.

[00:43:12] Topher DeRosia: there are no uz, Becky's there,

[00:43:15] Nathan Wrigley: But.

[00:43:16] Topher DeRosia: but there's me. yeah, all the socials, just Google for Topher, Roja and I fill the homepage.

[00:43:27] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[00:43:28] Topher DeRosia: can I tell you, a story twice?

[00:43:31] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, please go on.

[00:43:33] Topher DeRosia: do you know Morton Rand Hendrickson?

[00:43:35] Nathan Wrigley: Yes, I've interviewed him one

[00:43:37] Topher DeRosia: He is, he's traditionally been a big fan of hero press. He really, likes it. And one day we were chatting and I said, do you read every week? He said, no, not at all. I thought, oh man, if somebody who likes it doesn't read it, traffic sometimes gets me down often on Sundays we'll get six people looking at the website all day, and I hear people saying, oh, we get thousands of visitors to our website.

And I'm like, I wish. But he, then he said, when I get down about the WordPress community, when people are yelling, throwing rocks and it's horrible, I go to Hero press and I read 10 essays

[00:44:23] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, binge reading.

[00:44:26] Topher DeRosia: I feel great.

[00:44:27] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.

[00:44:29] Topher DeRosia: And so then a couple years later I was at Work Camp Ann Arbor and Josepha came up to me and said.

I have to tell you something and she said, I often act as the motherly shoulder of employees, of automatic people come to her and say, listen, I'm on support and people are horrible and or, I have to do this job and I hate it and I don't want to, or whatever. And often she doesn't have to say anything to them.

They just talk and she listens. And at the end they often say, okay, I'm gonna go read five Euro press essays now and I'll be all fine.

it made me realize that I need to stop expecting a surge of traffic every Wednesday when I post. I. But it's not enormous. I'm happy to get a hundred hits before noon, and I rarely get more than 300 on a Wednesday when I post. But to know that this library exists for hurting people to go to anytime they want and heal, recover is, that makes the whole thing worth it.

if nobody read it on Wednesday. I would still do it because somebody's gonna read it on a Sunday when they need, when they really need something,

[00:46:03] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think it's one of those kind of like the profundity of it is hard to encapsulate. You read these stories and they are life changing stories and it may be that how to, encapsulate what I'm about to say. It's difficult. It's one of those situations where. If you've changed one person's life for the good.

That is an important metric, isn't it? if in life you've done, you've done good deeds and you've affected people in a positive way, e even if it's just one or two people, that's quite profound. Obviously it would be great to imagine that you're at the center of everybody's universe, but that's not the way it is.

And, and so the, I don't think the stats necessarily, the number of page views or what have you need to re need to reflect how optimistic you are about it. The content itself is optimism enough. And, and yeah, don't beat yourself up too much about that. I don't think I, I think it's, I'm gonna encapsulate it, it as this hero press to me is the antidote to the WP Drama hashtag, just if you are down, if you work's, getting you down, and you wondering, what the heck am I doing around WordPress?

what's going on these days? What's it all about? Where do I fit into that jigsaw puzzle? Go and read some of these inspirational stories and check it out.

[00:47:21] Topher DeRosia: People ask me all the time, what's your opinion, of what's going on? actually, Matt asked me my opinion of his board camp talk about 20 minutes after he gave it, and. I didn't have the mental capacity or context to have an opinion then, and I've really struggled since then.

I have a number of friends that have publicly quit WordPress. They're just, they're gone. a number of friends quit automatic, A number of friends stayed automatic. A number of friends have stayed in WordPress and they all have their reasons, and they're all good reasons. And so then I have to think, what am I doing?

Am I gonna, am I gonna stick with this? Am I gonna go somewhere else? Am I gonna, am I gonna stop Euro oppress? what am I gonna do? And every time. okay, so backing up a little bit, when Dave first came to me in that November, he sent me a photo of a 4-year-old Indian child being bathed by his mother in an alley.

And it wasn't a particularly, it wasn't intended to be a bad picture. They weren't living in swell or anything, it's just that she was dumping water on his head and they did it outside rather than inside. You know what I.

to me, whatever you do, whatever you make, I wanted to help this kid. Now he's a stock photo.

We don't know who that kid is, but we know all the kids like him. You know what I mean?

I want you to help this kid. And so when I think about ending hero press, there are people who read it now who are in WordPress who were 10 years old when I made it.

[00:49:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:31] Topher DeRosia: And I think about 14 year olds in Bangladesh finding hero press and thinking, wow, I can make a living with this. And they don't know who Matt is. They don't know who WP Engine is, they don't care. they now know who I am. They know who their peers in Bangladesh are, who wrote for the hero press. And we can say to them, hi, you're welcome.

We love you. We're glad you're here. How can we help you? How can we teach you? How can we help you feed your family? And none of that has anything to do with the overall lawsuits.

You know what I mean?

[00:50:22] Nathan Wrigley: I do. I do.

[00:50:24] Topher DeRosia: I worry that. I worry that it could get so bad that WordPress itself either goes away or becomes unuseful because then we need to find something else for those 14 year olds, And I don't think there is anything right now. We might make something,

[00:50:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that's a very profound message, isn't it? it's stepping back from where we're at and thinking about the bigger picture, isn't it?

[00:50:53] Topher DeRosia: So that's my answer of why, I stay, why I'm staying, because I can't let those kids go. Those adults go, those grandparents who are getting into their fourth career,

[00:51:10] Nathan Wrigley: I think, honestly, I think there is no more poignant place to end this particular podcast. So I am gonna end it there and say, Topher Roja, from hero press.com. Thank you so much for chatting to me today. I really appreciate it. That was lovely.

[00:51:25] Topher DeRosia: You are very welcome. I had a great time. Thanks for having me.

[00:51:28] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. I hope that you enjoyed that. Very nice chatting to Topher. Don't forget that Topher made a bit of a plea in that podcast episode. If you want to support HeroPress, please go and find out more on the HeroPress website. You'll be able to donate over there and keep that project going.

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Okay. That really is all I've got time for this week. Just one more plea. If you really are into black Friday, head to WP Builds.com forward slash black. Bookmark that page for all of your black Friday deals needs.

Okay, I'm going to fade in some cheesy music. I'm going to wish you a very happy week. We'll see you at some point in the next week. Stay safe. Bye-bye for now.