They were built for simpler days, when you had a handful of logins to remember. When “security” meant you were intelligent enough not to use the same password everywhere Now you have hundreds of accounts spanning personal, work, banking, entertainment, and business. And have our password habits matured? If they have, it’s probably not enough. (more…)
You know that feeling when you log into your WordPress dashboard…. and wait.
You’re just trying to add an upcoming event or view a sales report or export some order data or change one sentence on a landing page. But the page just hangs, and with it you feel your patience draining. That spare five minutes between meetings to grab some data has eaten up fifteen minutes. And (more…)
Thinking about hiring a business coach? Read this.
We hired a business coach once. During a time when we were completely overwhelmed. I cried almost every day.
The contributing factors?
- We had a great team, but we were still doing too much ourselves.
- Our processes weren’t documented. Worse yet, our vision wasn’t documented.
- We didn’t even know if we wanted to keep doing this. Could one of us get out and the other stay? (If you don’t know me, I’ve run a software product company w/my spouse for 18+ yrs)
All this building pressure meant our marriage was feeling the strain. And at the time, our teen/preteen kids needed us in new ways.
So we reached out to a friend. And that friend suggested we needed help from a coach. A neutral someone with CEO-level experience to guide some big conversations.
Looking back, it was both the biggest waste of money and one of the best decisions we ever made.
Playing pretend isn’t just for kids. As adults, it’s how we make better decisions.
Whenever I think about a big change, a new hire, a puppy, a second house, hell, even before me and Jason had our second kid, I play a game: << If this existed in my life right now, how would it fit? >> Would I have to take the puppy to a friend’s house this (more…)
Building a WordPress site for your membership business is actually really hard.
And I don’t think product companies like mine are as focused on making it easier (as we should be). We preach “endless customization,” because it is the number one thing we hear in customer feedback. Why those chose us. But for a great number of people, that just turns into: “Oooooo. I can fiddle with (more…)
Stop asking kids what they want to be when they grow up. Most of us don’t know and never will know.
When a kid gets asked that question, 99.999% chance their answer is what they think you want to hear. And if you force someone to repeat something often enough, it might start to feel real. Real enough to pursue. As their “first” career. Ouch. Me? I thought I would own a bakery.Reality: I own a (more…)
Treating Eden’s Cushing’s Disease
Excessive thirst. Increased appetite. Becoming more reactive to people and other animals. Who know all of these small changes would lead us to a Cushing’s Disease diagnosis for our dog, Eden, in August 2023.
Jason and I have keep a log of all of Eden’s tests, treatments, medicines, and diet changes since the diagnosis. This post is designed to help anyone actively battling Cushing’s or who suspects their pet has a positive diagnosis.
February 2024 TL;DR: Eden is doing really well. We’ll have to manage this disease for the rest of her life, but she is happy, energetic, and should have many years ahead of her.
December 2025 TL;DR: Eden had a minor setback with pancreatitis and tore her CCL. Overall, still doing really well. We added an additional supplement (Six Flavor Rehmanni / Liu Wei Di Huang) and are now sourcing her Si Miao San (Four Marvels) from a holistic vet in Washington state.
Warning: There are some graphic photos of some of Eden’s wounds in this article.
The Whammy Bar: Product Development Lessons from a Missing Guitar Piece
The other day, Jason was hunting for the whammy bar that came with his newest guitar.
After a bit of searching, he found the missing part. I heard him yell out “found it!”. Then, “oh cool there’s an allen wrench in here that’s the exact size I need.“
A seemingly mundane event that sparked a big thought.
CaboPress, Returning to Work, Managing Change
Entrepreneurs are curious by nature. We seek to solve problems. We seek business opportunities in everything we do: no small hobby is safe when it pops into the mind of a creator.
So what happens when you put 45 of these individuals together for a week? What happens is change.
Add UTM Parameters to WordPress Menu Items
We’re working on use case-focused documentation and getting started guides over at Paid Memberships Pro.
For this effort, I also needed to add direct links to our most popular use cases in our site’s footer—and I need these links to have unique UTM parameters so I can track which use cases are getting the most interactions.
Here’s a quick code recipe to demonstrate using the nav_menu_link_attributes filter to extend a wp_nav_menu.