There is no way (at present) CP could work for hobbyists: they can’t find CP, dont’ know what it is (for the vast majority of WP hobbyists out there), could not install it in its present state.
(To me) the future and sustainability in CP lies in its marketing (or lack thereof), and ability to reach legitimate business owners who will pay for “Gutenberg fixes” or for their WP sites to be saved or transitioned over to something more stable and easy to use. This last part is key to reaching an ideal niche audience. It’s an alternative to a changing WP that is becoming more and more less user friendly despite its goal of being the Wix conqueror. Let WP reach for the low hanging fruit. CP should pursue legitimate WP agencies, businesses using WP to earn tangible profits and who want to keep what they have stable and easy to use. So I would state that I contrapuntally disagree with your assessment respectfully sir. What works for a global corporation cannot and should not be the same path for a startup.
No. This is exactly, what can be changed with marketing. Hobbyist, who want to escape Gutenberg, is one of the target market now. Maybe he can’t install a new website, but he can migrate an old one. For a hobbyist to cope with the Gutenberg can be harder that to migrate to CP.
My two cents.
I am no expert…
But first we need to distinguish.
Business=uses the site to drive money in some way.
Hobbyist=don’t use the site to drive money in
First category is, as @voltaire says, blurred. There are REAL businesses with plans in place that try to do their best, and there are the “NeverToBeBusinesses”. And I agree a dev has to choose which of the two business category is best to serve.
BUT
CP as a CMS can’t choose. I mean, CP gets adopted. How do you avoid bad businesses from choosing CP? A dev can refuse to install CP for them. But CP ecosystem should not and could not make a distinguo among the people installing it. Or are we planning to let a very vetted selection of devs install CP only to good businesses? I am serious about this…
That said, from my perspective: CP should appeal to everyone as a stable, reliable solution TARGETED TO THE NEEDS OF BUSINESS OWNERS. All the business owners. CP should ask business owners: what are your needs AS A BUSINESS? (And it does, we have PETITIONS).
Then CP should develop with business owners answers in mind.
Then if the casual blogger wants to use CP and learn its particular ways and peculiarities… Just kudos! Nobody will tell him to go away. But he has to know CP listen to business owners. As far as he knows this he can freely use CP.
Another point to make, I think CP traction should not depend on conversion of unsatisfied previous WordPressers. Best way to gain traction is to push it for the creation of new sites. One converted site is good, but… The owner will always have in the back of his mind the fact he has NOT chosen freely, but was compelled to choose because his site was jeopardised. And he had to decide fast. It’s an obliged path. An “ob torto collo” (with bent neck) decision. Instead, a new site made in CP speaks about someone taking time to evaluate the best solution.
Exactly this should be primary effort - to attract unsatisfied WP users. The majority of the first million sites will be migrations from WP.
From the marketing standpoint, the best way to communicate a comprehensible message - to say what you are not, or against whom you are. Remember the classic “horseless carriage”? This is how our brains process information - the new information should be related to something we know.
WP site owners have a problem - we offer a solution. Don’t be afraid to attack bad code & bad ideas. The whole CP is an attack to a bad idea.
‘‘I don’t work with clients unless they have been in business for at least five years, have several employees, have at least tried marketing in some capacity before on a serious level and understand basic concepts around business (such as need for a plan, P&L statements, book keeping, and so forth).’’
My point: I really don’t care about their seniority in the business as long as they can pay for a project.
‘‘CP should pursue legitimate WP agencies, businesses using WP to earn tangible profits.’’
My point: The customer really don’t care what is in the background. Your customers will only enter some basic data or blog posts.
‘‘What works for a global corporation cannot and should not be the same path for a startup.’’
My point: a global corporation works mostly with his own employees, not with you.
show me a single website made by you in WP or CP (one link)
did you ever try to use the Wix editor ? show me a single website made by you in Wix.
CP in the actual state is used and will be used mostly (90% at least) exactly by the hobbyist just because they can’t adapt to WP.
Moderator Note: user account has been removed upon request. User was asked to meet community code of conduct and chose to rather have their account removed.
Thanks @anon17165634.
Those were my other points I was afraid to word out loud.
And, let me again disagree @voltaire…
Yes, the first sites in CP will be migrations. But WP is just a competitor, not an enemy to kill. AND from my POV, WP is not BAD CODE. Sorry, I can get a bit angry… I learned what web is using WP my own way. And being it the powerful CMS it is, I was able to dream things and also realize them.
We can say WP has taken a road we don’t want to follow, for sure. We can say some WP code can be written better… But no. Do not say it’s bad code. You were a WordPresser too.
And by the way, I can use wix, Weebly and similar. Do I like them? No…
I don’t like the fact that I can’t “code” it. To a certain extent I learned to use pieces of code here and there in WP and in the wix you get what you see, you can’t bend it.
I convinced buddypress to handle # with a broken plugin and some tweaks (and I am not a coder, not in the conventional way!)… Can’t do the same with wix. It’s just drag it and drop it.
It seems to me there may be some confusion about who can use ClassicPress (anyone who wants to) and who we are targeting in our marketing (business site owners and developers).
We cannot target ‘everyone’ with our marketing efforts. We don’t have the time or the resources. So we’re targeting the market segment that we believe is most ‘injured’ (if that’s the right word) by WP’s block editor integration into core. And also, it’s the segment that we believe provides the best opportunities for CP to grow into the platform we think it can become.
For instance, one of the areas in which CP is seeking to make improvements is ‘security,’ because that’s super important to business site owners. Would bloggers also benefit from that improvement? Absolutely! And we welcome and encourage their use of ClassicPress, even though we are not actively pursuing bloggers through our marketing efforts.
