10up

Meet the Speaker: Vasken Hauri

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Vasken Hauri

Vasken Hauri has been working with WordPress since 2006. Since then, he has engineered WordPress to create everything from order fulfillment and tracking applications to APIs that withstand several hundred thousand hits per day. He’s the VP of Strategic Engineering at 10up, a leading agency specializing in strategy, design, and engineering.

Vasken has a solid background on the implementation side of things, and it shows in his strategic approach to management of new initiatives, diverse teams, and company growth. He is an active member of the WordPress community as a speaker, thought leader, plugin builder, and core contributor.

At Prestige Conference Minneapolis, he’ll be presenting on the topic of scaling your business. Get to know him through our interview below, or catch up with him on simpleCanvas.

What is your role at 10up?

Working with our various engineering Directors and Executive team, I help 10up deliver well-built, quality websites on a timely basis. A large portion of my time is focused on how we effectively scale our team, while maintaining efficiency, consistency, and a work environment that promotes work-life balance and employee empowerment.

You’ve worked in the technology field for over a decade. Where did your aptitude for online technology first start emerging?

I first published a listing of cheat codes for various games in basic HTML back in 1997. In terms of traffic and engagement on my personal sites, it’s all been downhill from there :-)

Why engineering and not something else?

I love the chance to help others create and build things that have value to our clients and give our team pride in their accomplishments. Working with the open web has given me the unique opportunity to work in a community where knowledge sharing and proliferation are the celebrated norm. The work we do also affords us the ability to meet and work with people all over the world with few of the traditional time and space barriers that have historically limited such possibilities.

Once you figured out where you wanted your career to go, how did you start making things happen?

I never really *decided* to make web development or team management my career. At a young age, I knew I wanted to work with computers and/or technology in general. I was always more curious and autodidactic when it came to broadening my understanding of technology than anything else, so turning that into a career was mostly just a natural progression.

What were some of the biggest roadblocks you encountered on your path to success?

Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, home computing and the web was a new and often misunderstood subject. While my family has always been incredibly supportive whenever possible, their lack of understanding of new technologies made it difficult for them to see the value of what I was doing on the computer, and more often than not, everything from writing code to playing The Sims was grouped under the umbrella of “wasting time on the computer.”

I know many of my colleagues have dealt with similar situations, and so pushing for more recognition of the value of web technology and the associated jobs it offers (especially at the elementary and secondary education levels where change is often slow and difficult) is a key to ensuring a strong pipeline of talent from generations to come.

How did you connect with mentors that supported your technology interests?

Barbara Mindell, who ran the Academic Computing Center at Haverford where I gained much of my initial experience with client services in a technology context, played a key role in my professional development. Barbara was a constant advocate of listening and understanding a problem before making a decision, and of maintaining consistent, clear, and fair policies for her team. These values have come to anchor my approach to team management.

It also didn’t hurt that, as a former lawyer, her occasional quips about how much calmer and easier to deal with our Helpdesk clients were than judges, juries, and lawyers really put things into perspective.

You’ll be speaking about growth and scalability at Prestige. Can you share a little preview about what you’ll be covering?

We live in an age and work in a field where ‘scaling’ often comes with the click of a button. Bandwidth, RAM, cloud infrastructure, even things like Mechanical Turk enable us to scale rapidly on demand. That’s not really the case when it comes to people, though, and so scaling your team can prove to be a singular challenge.

We’ll discuss some proven ways to scale your team while maintaining a consistent corporate culture, from verbal communication techniques that build understanding, to writing policies that enhance, rather than restrict, productive output.

Any industry predictions for 2016?

We’re going to see a huge expansion in the use-cases for WordPress, thanks in large part to the JSON API. WordPress will be used more and more as a true CMS, with the display side propagating beyond templates as the stored content begins to be consumed by other platforms and systems within complex enterprise infrastructures.

What’s coming up next for you?

I’ll be continuing to work with the engineering team at 10up, streamlining our existing practices and planning to anticipate the next round of industry changes that are more or less inevitable.

Of course, 10up is hiring, and will likely continue to do so until we transition into our sinister, top-secret “Phase 2.” Speaking of which, if you have experience affixing high-powered lasers onto sharks, we might have a long-term job opening for you.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

“Decisive” - Chip and Dan Heath
“The Secrets of Pirate Management” - Peter Leeson
“On War” - Carl von Clausewitz

Just for fun - what’s your favorite junk food?

Currywurst and fries.

What part of Prestige Conference are you looking forward to most?

The conversations. Everyone at the event is knowledgeable, passionate, and opinionated about the WordPress ecosystem and economy, and it shows in the excellent quality of the discussion that occurs throughout the event.

Meet the speaker: Jake Goldman

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Jake Goldman

Jake Goldman has been making websites since the mid-90s. In 2011, Jake put his past experience as a technology director to use in a new capacity - founding 10up, a full-service WordPress agency that specializes in engineering solutions for clients such as TechCrunch, NBC Universal, and Google.

Now in its 4th year, 10up has been recognized as one of the top agencies building on WordPress in the world. Jake has grown the company from a one-man startup to a distributed team of over 100 employees. He is a WordPress core contributor, an incredible business man, and a strategic mastermind. We are very excited to welcome Jake back as a returning speaker to Prestige Conference Las Vegas.

In 3 sentences or less, please describe what you do for a living:

I’m the President and Founder of 10up, a full service digital agency that focuses on making content management simple and fun. I spend the plurality of my time on new and prospective accounts development, with a dose of just about everything else an owner needs to be attentive to: company policy, long term team development and strategy, product development. I also stay grounded with a sprinkling of project strategy and execution.

Why this career and not something else?

I’m in the web publishing technology business because its the perfect intersection of a passion for mass communication (I wanted to be a journalist before a technologist) and modern technology. I also knew I wasn’t cut out for the infrastructure and data side of computing technology after I was miserable in a systems position I took for about 6-7 months.

I’m in the “owner and president” business because after 7 years helping other agencies grow as a senior leader, I decided it was time for me to forge my own path. I’m also very fond of economics and marketing/branding strategy.

When did you figure out what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Who says I’m grown up or I’ve figured it out?

I knew since late in high school that I wanted to focus on the intersections of technology, mass communication, and business. I loved video production (both technical editing and shooting, as well as the storytelling), loved making websites since there was a web to make things on, generally have a strong geek streak, and am fairly competitive by nature (but mostly with myself).

I don’t think my path had a clear beginning. You could argue I fell in love with mass communication and publishing when I worked on my summer camp newspaper in my early teens. You could argue I feel in love with computing technology when my father brought home what can only loosely be described as a “portable computer” when I was about 5. You could argue my interest in websites and business was solidified during a summer job when I was 17. You could argue my path as a consultant began when I left a retail job to consult before I left high school, and continued throughout college. And you could point to my agency career path beginning with my mentors at my first full time jobs after school. It’s been always been a blurry continuum.

Once you figured out what you wanted to do with your career, how did you start making things happen?

There was never a “crystalizing moment” when I figured it out. I studied MIS in college, chased opportunities in web technologies, and always tried to create more value for my customers and employers that my job description required.

Who were your most valuable mentors and how did you connect with them?

I don’t think I could point to a “most valued” mentor. I could point to many inspirations.

The VP of Business Development, a guy named Steve Turner, at a government contractor I worked for really empowered me to stretch my wings in the sales and marketing space, helped me learn to write great proposals, and shared a lot of wisdom that I didn’t even fully appreciate at the time about agency/contractor business strategy. Some of my most ingrained philosophies about hiring came from him - he was the one who told me “if you’re not interviewing and hiring, you’re swirling the drain.”

One of my first consulting customers, when I was about 17, was a packaging machine manufacturer, and I worked directly with the co-owner Anne DeHertogh (the wife in the husband/wife team). She offered me unique opportunities to work across their business marketing needs: I created promotional videos, brochures, and of course, built them one of the first websites I was really proud of. She was incredibly supportive, graceful with her feedback, and really made me feel like this path was for me. (In hindsight, she also got an incredible deal. 😉 )

An old friend of mine, Jeff Wilhelm, always had strong entrepreneurial genes, and a business leadership savvy. He introduced me to many opportunities (including my earliest consulting gigs), and often inspired me with his work ethic and drive.

Rick Goldman (no relation), CFO of a huge insurance business (where he started around employee #3), worked with me on a few projects and really taught me to think about and appreciate the practical importance of financial metrics and tools. He taught me to *really* understand basics that I’d learned on paper, like the real cost of a first employee.

This list could go on for a long time. I’d point to most senior leaders at my past employers, brilliant people at 10up like our CEO, John Eckman (who’s ability to be graceful, firm, tough, and respectful all at once I try to model to this day), and many more.

What’s coming up next for you?

My main focus is taking 10up to a place where its as known and admired for great design (UX, creative, overall experience) as it is for industry leading engineering. I’ll decline to be more specific about how we get there. :-)

Any industry predictions for 2015?

The CMS marketplace will continue to get wider and flatter. That is to say, there are more customers than ever publishing online, many of whom have astonishing traffic numbers, but the “wealth” gap is closing: there are fewer and fewer companies and publishers who will be spending enormously (7+ figures) in the space as their margins and perception of CMS cost erodes.

I also think “selling code” (as in a downloadable module) will continue to be a diminishing business. It will still be *a* business, but will continue to be displaced by SaaS and PaaS solutions with “no installation required”, easier cross platform access (from phone to desktop with “central cloud storage”), and where the experience can be better controlled. That poses an interesting challenging for WordPress itself, too, and underscores the importance of a rich hosted platform ecosystem. I plan to really explore these themes at Prestige.

What book(s) are you reading right now?

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Favorite “guilty pleasure” song or band that you can’t help but rock out to?

Jason Derulo (I’m not sure if that counts as guilty?)

Name one thing you’re looking forward to for Prestige Conference Las Vegas:

Asking some hard questions. I love that we’re adopting a more interview-focused format, with serious preparation going in, and am proud to help get this format off the ground - and excited to hear the answers. I think this format will bring out gems that you don’t get by asking someone to stand up and talk about themselves (either because of humility, embarrassment, or other factors).

Meet the Speaker: John Eckman

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John Eckman

With 15+ years experience working in digital strategy, user experience design, and software engineering with professional services agencies, John Eckman brings a lot to the table for the Las Vegas edition of Prestige Conference.

The current CEO of 10up, one of the fastest-growing agencies in the WordPress ecosystem, will be speaking about the enterprise market and how CMS systems can be marketed beyond small- to medium-sized business clients. He has worked with clients ranging from small startups to Fortune 50 companies, and his session is one you won’t want to miss.

Read on to get to know John a little bit better before our event, and make sure to check out his blog Open Parenthesis where he writes regularly about free and open source software, internet strategy, and building compelling experiences for the web and mobile.

In 3 sentences or less, please describe what you do for a living:

I help run 10up, a distributed digital agency delivering content-centric web experiences on the WordPress platform. I focus on operations, hr, culture, and process - scaling the firm - and work with selected clients on strategy.

Why this career and not something else?

Beats digging ditches. My first career was in academia - did a PhD and taught in an English department. But then the web came along, and it was just too revolutionary, world-changing, and cool to avoid.

The internet, and most specifically the web as a manifestation of the best the internet can do, is the most revolutionary innovation since movable type, and perhaps bigger than that.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Depending on how far back you go: Novelist, Literature Professor, Rock Star, Race Car Driver, Chemical Engineer, Teacher.

Once you figured out what you wanted to do with your career, how did you start making things happen?

Ran hard and fast at every opportunity. Front-end development, user experience, information architecture, project management, technical architecture, engineering, sales, management - every role I took I focused on what new thing I was learning.

Back in 2005/2006, I decided to focus in on open source, and specifically Drupal and WordPress. I started WordCamp Boston in 2010 - that started a number of snowballs rolling down hills.

Who were your most valuable mentors and how did you connect with them?

Ralph Folz and Tom Little, who were the cofounders of TVisions; Mavis Chin and Dave Gynn from Optaros, Jeff Cram from ISITE - all people I’ve worked with/for and kept in touch with.

Now, of course, that list includes Jake Goldman and the team at 10up.

What’s coming up next for you?

Continuing to focus on 10up - improving our processes, investing in our culture - making sure we can continue to scale without sacrificing quality of delivery or employee experience.

Any industry predictions for 2015?

More focus on financial metrics - how can we demonstrate the real value of the investments we make in web products. This includes optimization (A/B and multivariate testing) but also wholesale redesigns and replatforms - how do we know we’re getting our money’s worth?

What book(s) are you reading right now?

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, by Gabriella Coleman.

Favorite “guilty pleasure” song or band that you can’t help but rock out to?

Too many to count. I guess the most unavoidable is New Order’s “Blue Monday” - gets me dancing every time.

Name something you’re looking forward to for Prestige Conference Las Vegas:

A quality, curated content experience with plenty of time for discussion - more of what we saw in Minneapolis last time.

Specifically, Pippin and Jake, John Hawkins & Kim Schaefer.

Going to the Pawn Shop from Pawn Stars.

Want to go to Prestige Conference for Free?

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All you have to do is convince your boss to pay for your ticket. In trying to get your boss to cover the cost for Prestige Conference, it’s important that you show your boss the value of spending the money on a ticket is going to bring back to the office. A lot of you probably think, “I’m just a developer, I’m just a designer, and this is a business conference. My boss is not going to want to send me to this.” If you think that way, you’re right but only because you won’t ask!

Give me a minute and let’s see if we can change your Boss’s story

What you need to do is you need to get into his/her thinking and help them see it a little differently, ultimately have them begging you to go to the conference. To promote this change of thought, you must show return on the investment.

One of the things you’re going to learn at this conference is how Modern Tribe took a client project and abstracted it into a commercial plugin. You’ll learn about the potential value of a product like and some of the pitfalls and costs to support something like that. Being able to bring that kind of understanding back to the office is well worth the money spent. Unless you work weekends, you’re going to the conference on your own time and you have an example that makes it well worth $200 for your boss to buy your ticket to Prestige Conference.

Once you get your boss to convince you to go to the conference (see what I did there?), you get to learn from and talk with industry leaders that have built businesses from nothing. Jake Goldman is going to be talking about how he built 10up to be a premier WordPress agency. He grew his company from a one-man shop to over seventy people in less than 3-1/2 years. It’s a miraculous story! If you can bring that back to your boss and show how this knowledge will help grow business and impact the bottom line, that’s where it’s an easy sell. If even after all that you can’t sell your boss on springing for your Prestige Conference ticket, then you should come anyway. Pay for the ticket yourself because you probably should find a new job.

If you decide working for yourself is your path, Jennifer Bourn will help you learn from her mistakes and take more vacations while you’re at it. Her and her husband have been running Bourn Creative for over 10 years! The lessons she shares are always very eye-opening. You can read Jennifer’s post about Prestige Conference on her blog.

Those are some small snippets from the sessions we’ve announced so far. There are still three more session descriptions coming. Early Bird pricing lasts until Friday August 15th at 5pm Pacific. Make sure you get on your boss’s calendar so you can talk about this before the prices go to their normal price. Make the case to come to Prestige Conference for free by getting your boss to foot the bill. Most importantly, come learn the tricks of the trade from some of the best business leaders around.