Bryan Marble

June 2025 was our best month ever, whether we’re talking new sites connected, new members, or MRR growth. 📈 3,444 websites connected to WP Umbrella. 🙌 196 new premium members joined our community. 💸 MRR increased by $7,347 ⬇️ Churn of 1,62% 🛡️ 2232 sites activated our Site-Protect add-on powered by Patchstack 📍 We sponsored 2 WordCamps (WordCamp Europe & WordCamp Kraków) 🔍 Key Updates & Highlights: 1️⃣ Site-Protect & Changelog Enhancements In June, we launched Site-Protect, our proactive security add-on powered by Patchstack. Unlike traditional security plugins that only detect issues after they’ve occurred, Site-Protect actively prevents vulnerabilities with virtual patches before attacks happen. If you’re managing WordPress sites professionally, it’s a game-changer. We also upgraded our changelog feature and 99% of premium plugin changelogs are now seamlessly retrievable within WP Umbrella. 2️⃣ Team & Community IRL In June, our team connected twice in person and interacted directly with users at WordCamp Europe and WordCamp Kraków. It’s incredibly motivating to see the shift over the years: from (1) introducing WP Umbrella, to (2) handling support, to now (3) hearing how our platform genuinely makes your lives easier. This is what building in public is all about. 3️⃣ Market Shift Traditionally, our growth came largely from ManageWP users switching over. Now we’re seeing a clear trend of agencies moving away from self-hosted solutions to WP Umbrella. While we might be pricier than DIY setups, the reliability, security, reporting and convenience we offer make the value obvious. And increasingly worth it. Happy July, everyone! 🌞

47

8 Comments

Most automation tools were built for builders. SMB owners don’t want to build. They want results. Here’s the shift: Old way: learn n8n/Make, read API docs, wire OAuth, test, debug, pray. New way: Type the outcome. Wispix plans it, connects it, runs it, and shows you the receipts. Example: “Create an AI employee that replies to hot leads, chases no-shows, and books time on my calendar.” Wispix: Done. It connects calendar + CRM + email, handles the logic, and logs everything. Simplicity is a strategy. For SMBs, time is the scarcest resource. If the “solution” steals more of it, it’s not a solution. Our design mantra: Plain-English in, production-grade out. Visible, auditable, reversible. Add power without adding complexity. If you’ve been stuck at the starting line— DM me “Simple” and I’ll share the early access link.

4

The best leadership often looks like nothing at all. We’ve moved past the era of the "charismatic hero" leader. Today, great leadership is about building systems and cultures that run beautifully when you aren't in the room. It’s not about being the smartest person at the table; it’s about making sure the smartest people at the table feel safe enough to speak up. If your team feels like they did it all themselves, you’ve won.

3

Hiring more VAs won’t solve chaos. It amplifies it. ❌👥 The real solution is building processes that remove confusion before you hire. ⚙️ Your SOPs should train your new hires not you. 🙅‍♂️ We’ve helped dozens of teams create scalable workflows inside GHL + Closebots + custom automations. 💼🔁 Growth doesn’t have to mean overwhelm. It just means structure. 🧩

2

1 Comment

Still writing passwords on sticky notes, or even worse, forgetting them? Orion Stewart joined me on CTO For The Trades with a quick tip you might not expect! Full episode with loads of actionable tech takeaways you can implement in your trades business coming Dec. 8th.

6

1 Comment

Most large collection agencies have an infrastructure problem, not a strategy problem. Their teams want to automate more workflows and use AI more intelligently, but their software was never built for it. Modern agencies need infrastructure that lets them build: - Open APIs for proprietary systems - Developer tools for custom workflows - Cloud-native scale without on-premise bottlenecks - Secure data access for AI agents - Audit trails across every action and channel - Flexible automation that can adapt as rules change That’s the future of collections software.

12

1 Comment

Copilot Studio is becoming a key part of how organisations scale intelligent automations. In this short piece, I walk through the difference between Lite and Full versions and how they support safe, governed innovation. P.S. Yes, it’s weird seeing your own face talking back at you — but if it helps someone, totally worth it! 😅

3

This is an older talk, but one I refer to often and recommend to current tech leads and those on a path to becoming a tech lead. Eryn summarizes the shift from being a full-time coder to balancing technical oversight with advocacy, facilitation, and motivation - ensuring that everyone else has what they need to succeed. Technical leads are the bridge between the business stakeholders' goals and the engineering team's ability to deliver. Definitely worth a watch (on repeat)! #engineering #leadership #techlead #leaddev https://lnkd.in/gDypDS78

12

I was showing Ichi to about 120 building department staff when something interesting happened... During my webinar with CALBO last week I was demonstrating how we pull code sections and jurisdiction-specific requirements. Standard demo stuff. But these folks didn't only care about the speed (though yeah, turning 30-minute code searches into seconds is nice). They want to know, how can they trust it. This is where being able to show them the exact source of information matters. Makes total sense when you think about it. These are the people who carry the liability when something goes wrong. They're not going to trust some AI that spits out answers without showing its work. That's why we built Ichi to be completely transparent. The plan reviewers and inspectors I talked to after were genuinely relieved. Someone finally built tech that respects how they actually need to work. If you want to see what transparent AI for building departments actually looks like, I'll share the full demo link in the comments.

34

4 Comments

Curious what folks are using today as core infrastructure for their long-horizon agents embedded within their product. Are you buying or building? We've gone down the build path but always looking for ways to improve what we have.

8

A site I run was silently serving 2,098 orphaned images. 1.8 gigs of build output. No errors. No warnings. Pages loaded fine. The problem was invisible because I was only looking at what I expected to see. Every organization has this. Processes that work at current load, encoding assumptions about scale that nobody's written down and nobody's tested. Because there's been no reason to. Everything's running fine. https://lnkd.in/gbK_gEQX #TechLeadership #WebDevelopment #SystemsDesign

3

When I see it, I just see it. This is exactly what I had in mind when Sameer Sharma, EA first came to me with the idea. Really cool to see it come alive and operate in the real world. Workflows organized. Teams operating efficiently. System running 24/7. Tens of thousands of documents processed. Real scale. Minimal issues. That’s what good software should do. Kudos Rishika Ravichandran on her first real-world project, growing from intern to Junior Software Associate.

6

Two years ago, Sohil was building an agent framework and many of the primitives commonplace today (LLM router, tools, etc.) before they even existed. Biased but I would recommend this talk.

18

2 Comments

Our pilot kickoff with a new client started with a classic "oops." We were supposed to have test credentials, but they slipped through the cracks. Instead of waiting, our agent just signed up cold. It explored their live onboarding, flagged a few real usability issues, and got to work. When we mentioned it on the call, their reaction was priceless: “Ah, you should’ve pinged us. But honestly… we love that you just made it work.” That moment was a powerful reminder. The bar for a B2B tool isn't perfection in a perfect demo environment. The real test is: Can you deliver value when things inevitably go sideways? Because for the early-stage teams we serve: → People are stretched thin. → Details get missed. → Perfect handoffs are a fantasy. Trust isn't built on flawless presentations. It's built on resilience. #FounderInsights #B2BSaaS #StartupLife #ProductDesign #Resilience

29

The products I’ve bought via Claude are all dev tools, and I’m fully reliant on Claude for every meaningful action I now take in those platforms. FWIW, my Claude Code account visits the help center and API docs of each of those products way more than my Cowork instance fetched the marketing site when I was first learning about those vendors. Starting to think AEO is just as much about utility+retention as acquisition. And now I'm wondering if most users acquired via Cowork or Claude Code will continue to use Claude as a go-to assistant throughout the customer lifecycle, which puts a middle man/agentic VAR between the vendor and the customer. At least for dev tools - docs and help centers are becoming "agent first, human second" real estate, which isn't the case for marketing sites (yet). Bigger picture: the agentically acquired customer is the agentically dependent user... and I'm not sure if that's a good thing for vendors.

41

3 Comments

The low-key genius growth engine quietly powering Feedcoyote's 10,000 new users every month! Dr. Stevens Bonhomme, D.B.A, M.A reveals the vision behind Feedcoyote and how the platform’s own users are driving its rapid expansion. Sloss Tech 2025

41

4 Comments