Exactly! That’s why I’m tending towards thinking this should be pitched as widely as possible. Emphasise ease-of-use, predictability, security, stability, democracy, etc etc but I’m going off the idea that CP should be seen as some sort of “business-grade solution”.
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ClassicPress is reliable, stable and trustworthy, which is a big benefit to business users because their websites just keep working. Everyone still needs to follow the basics like staying on top of upgrades and setting strong passwords, but we won’t be pushing major workflow-breaking changes.
And the other part of this: ClassicPress is stable and reliable for businesses who rely on their websites to make money, so it’s definitely good enough for hobbyists and small blogs too.
This is my interpretation of the “business-focused CMS” vision at least. cc @raygulick who was its original author.
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Yes, understand all that. But it’s a concern if @Zooey says she came to check out CP, saw “the business-focused CMS” and thought “oh well, that’s not me” and left again.
I personally think that defining the target market is quite simple… everyone.
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I am loving this discussion, thanks everyone!
From my perspective:
I have over 100 websites that I’ve built over the last 8 years with WordPress. They range in size from just a few pages/out-of-the-box theme to hundreds of pages/full custom builds. Several are WooCommerce sites. Some are built with Divi; some use Gravity Forms or ACF. I’ve even got one multi-site install.
My clients are all business owners – from solopreneurs to huge quasi-government organizations. They vary in the level at which they want to be “in charge” of their site, but no matter what level that is, they want and need a solution that can be easily administrated and is Powerful, Versatile, and Predictable.
My business model has allowed me to help over 100 businesses get their work out onto the digital world because WordPress was what it was. Those businesses are able to manage those sites on their own, or they can continue to engage me to maintain their site for them (which a bunch of them do).
Gutenberg threatens my business model in a number of ways. That’s a conversation for another day, but the truth is, my company is one of your target archetypes… and I am not a dev. I am a brand strategist and web designer, who also does some marketing strategy. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to coping with Gutenbad, I have more important things to focus on. This is one of the reasons why I’m so passionate about ClassicPress.
The other reason is because those individual businesses I built sites for over all those years each need a Powerful, Versatile, and Predictable solution that they can count on for the long haul. Each one of them – whether they spent $$ or $$$$ – made an investment in a website believing it was the best choice at the time… and sometime between now and 2021, they will come to a crossroads.
We are only just beginning to see the fallout of Gutenberg and the impact it is having on the community (I am meeting with someone next week whose site ended up borked because of it). As these businesses awaken to the changes that break their sites and cause tons of time & revenue lost, they’ll be looking for alternatives. We need to position ourselves in a way that makes it clear that we can meet that need, both now and for the long haul.
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Business and blogging target markets overlap. It’s not about being exclusive to a particular market, it’s about focus. WP actually did a pretty good job trying to be all things to all people, but they finally reached the end of that road.
For me, the bottom line is this: CP is the right platform for anyone who was happy with WP before Gutenberg.
If CP focuses on making the platform the standard for small to medium business websites, it will continue to be a great platform for blogs and a lot of sites in between. CP will thrive because it has a ready market (mostly business-oriented in one way or another) that feels abandoned by WP.
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Hmmm… but that’s not the impression I get from this:
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For a while, I didn’t think CP was for me, either, because I’m not a business. I don’t have an IT person, either–It’s all me, tinkering with my sites. WP says Gutenberg is “for bloggers” but I know several non-techie bloggers who hate Gutenberg and might like CP.
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As I said: overlapping target markets, but focused on becoming better for business websites. Doesn’t exclude anyone (except people who like Gutenberg).
In general, improvements for business sites will be improvements for bloggers as well. It will continue to be usable by bloggers and small businesses.
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I’m with Ray on this one. For ClassicPress to be a success we need to have a clear vision so that we can focus on taking steps to achieve it.
WordPress is clearly focused on serving bloggers and the introduction of Gutenberg cements that idea. The fact that many bloggers don’t like Gutenberg is, in essence, collateral damage.
We’ve decided that our focus is to serve the business market and the direction we take will focus on serving their needs - whether that’s in the code itself or providing additional resources such as certification, training and support.
That doesn’t mean informed bloggers can’t also benefit from a using a business focused CMS, but we won’t actively be trying to take the blogging market away from WordPress. There’s room for both WordPress and ClassicPress to thrive whilst we both focus on our respective markets.
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OK. Thanks for clarifying that. Sorry to be harping on about it, but I have been trying to think of ways to promote CP and it’s good to know where you are heading and where we should be directing our efforts.
For example, I was very keen to get this onto the one-click installers like Softaculous and Installatron, but that’s probably not really that important. I doubt there are many one-click-installers who would have a github account. 
Why would a one-click installer need a GitHub account any more than they need an SVN account to use WordPress?
Most people will install CP and then ad plugins from the WP repo or CP directory once it exists.
Sorry - it was a vague attempt at flippancy. I was equating one-click installers with novice bloggers.
I think we are missing something.
The word “business” to me just means someone using wp/cp to make money. Be it a blogger, company, plumber, agency… Self-thought or experienced. DIY or hire someone to do it for you…
If the website makes money for the owner we are speaking of business.
Business needs go towards reliability, stability, security, ease of use, KISS strategies and the like, so CP caters to those needs… And in doing so it also intercepts the ones not making money with their site, because it is so good it can be used also for this. In more less is contained (“nel più ci sta il meno” , in italian).
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i think some might associate the idea of “corporate” with “business”, in terms of scale.
In that sense, it would help to change the copy “business website market” which equates to agencies, to include something more inclusive of all the business sizes. Large to small.
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This is an important discussion, and I am glad that it takes place. I must admit that I felt sometimes puzzled by that ‘business’ emphasis - this is not me, even if I manage more than 15 medium and small WP/CP websites (all non profit, except for one of them).
I wonder if there could not be several lines - overlapping indeed? Beside the “business focus”, one might also think of the “serious blogger”, or something on that line - in order to make a few other target groups appear on the future, new CP website, even while keeping the business emphasis.
People active on this forum should not be seen as representative of the entire CP community as we hope to see it emerging. Developers and techies should be expected to make only a tiny part of the audience. (I have a GitHub account, that I opened last year, but only because I needed occasional access to some information, and I am definitely not one who will spend time on GitHub.)
Beside ‘powerful’, ‘versatile’ and 'predictable", another word that comes to my mind is ‘reliable’. And we should probably find a word that would make it clear that CP will remain easy to use for non-techies too (this will be a relied for small businesses, I guess!). After all, most of us embraced WP due to its powerful features and its many solutions that non-techies could easily implement.
It is true that, when I read ‘business’, what comes to my mind are firms with a technical staff - something most of us obviously do not have available.
While I understand that CP won’t be able to challenge WP for blogging, still I hope that it can present itself as a reliable solution for those bloggers and webmasters who want something else than the Gutenberg experience.
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As someone managing small business websites, the appeal of CP is in a stabile and predictable release schedule. In particular, having overlapping major releases that allow old legacy code to be cleaned out of the core and that give site owners time to make the changes needed to upgrade on their schedule.
The term “business-focused” is a little nebulous to me. It can mean different things to different people. If it’s confusing to some people that CP would otherwise be a good fit for, maybe “professional” would be more inclusive and more descriptive of the effort to make the appearance of CP more, how should I say, dignified for a professional environment. I mean removing messages like “Howdy” and “Cheatin’ huh”.
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“Professional” is a really good term, but could also be considered nebulous, don’t you think?
As we’ve said, there are a lot of overlaps, and trying to define exactly where those overlaps occur or how far they extend is sort of a waste of time, IMO.
If there are bloggers, or people with websites that fall somewhere in the overlaps, who want the benefits of a business-focused CMS (which, admittedly, we’re still struggling a bit to enumerate; partially because we’re focused on v1, which is not primarily about making improvements), we’re more than happy to welcome them aboard.
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I agree, “professional” is also somewhat nebulous. I just thought it might be a little more inclusive for those that weren’t sure if “business-focused” meant enterprise level or something more corporate.
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Scanning through the discussion, I wanted to add a few things.
Without getting too specific, there are two types of users CP should cater too:
- An existing business
- Someone looking to start a business/make money
Their technical abilities can be advance or novice, regardless of what it is CP offers a platform for both.
For novice, CP offers an easy to use platform to launch a business and make a living.
For advance, CP offers flexibility, stability and security to grow an existing business.
So when we talk about CP being business focused, what we are really saying:
ClassicPress offers an easy to use, flexible, stable, and secure CMS to start or grow a business of any type or size; be it a blog, e-commerce store, or a local restaurant.
Something like that.
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Agreed ‘professional’ is more inclusive. The downside is it doesn’t specify who our primary target is as well as ‘business’.
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