1:2 Launching A Product Or Service

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Lee:

Hi, and welcome to the WP Innovator podcast, the WordPress podcast for design and web agencies. Let's make WordPress work for your business. Hi, and welcome to episode two of the WP Innovator podcast. Now, in this episode, we interviewed Hani Mourra from SimplePodcastPress, SimpleLive Press, and SimpleVideoPress. And he talked with us about his experiences of developing WordPress plugins and marketing them online. It is such a fascinating episode. I encourage you, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Today, I am really excited to introduce you to Hani Mourra. Hani is a guy I met a few weeks ago via a platform called Blab. And he's the author behind Simple Podcast Press, which I've heard of and used. Simple Live Press and Simple Video Press. So that's three really exciting products which help you automate a whole load of processes. They're incredible. I've heard this guy as well before on other podcasts, and I am really, really, really honoured to have him on as Episode 2 of the WP Innovator podcast. So, Hani, would you like to say hi and give us a little bit of background about yourself?

Hani Mourra:

Absolutely. Thank you, Lee, man. It's my honour to be here. I'm excited. Likewise. So, yeah, a little background about me. I'm a husband and a dad of two beautiful girls, and I'm a software engineer. And like you mentioned, I'm the creator of the Simple Video Press, Simple Podcast Press, Simple Live Press. Those are three WordPress plugins. And our main focus is doing the automation. I'm a big fan of automating things and a big fan of WordPress, huge fan of WordPress. So I'm all about automating and helping content creators just focus on the content and building tools to help them get their content out there.

Lee:

That's awesome. And what I'd be intrigued in just a little bit of background on, I understand it was a Simple Video Press that was your first WordPress plugin that went out there.

Hani Mourra:

Yeah, Simple Video Press. I get my dates totally wrong, but it's been at least two years. I think it's two years from now. Two years, actually, two years from now. I'm talking the future. Two years ago, two and a half years ago, 2013 is when the idea came about. I think it's around three, four months it took from idea to getting it out to the public. It took about four months. And my first venture, I was excited about it. I love video. I'm a video guy. I had a blog about video. So I love videos. I was excited to create a software for people who create video content.

Lee:

And was that born out of a problem that you had already, or was it just something you saw as a great idea that you wanted to pursue?

Hani Mourra:

Well, actually it was scratching my own itch. I know a lot of people say that, and I'm not trying to talk cliché, but it's true. Back then, I was creating a lot of video content. I had a video blog, and YouTube was the number one place for me because it drove a lot of traffic. You can optimize well for search engines. So I got my videos found on YouTube and I would drive the traffic back to my site. But for some reason, it doesn't really take a lot of time. I just found it really annoying that I spent all this energy building a video, editing it, producing it, getting it on YouTube, optimizing the SEO title description. And then I'd have to go to my blog, WordPress site, log in again, make a new post, copy that title over, copy the whole description over because I've already optimized it for SEO. Copy the embed code. And it's all this manual stuff and it just got tiring. Even though it takes a good 10, 15 minutes. Upload the featured image again. It's like, why do I have to do this work twice? That was my question. That's how Simple Video Press was born.

Hani Mourra:

How to automate that process.

Lee:

Now, I remember, so I was introduced to you through Simple Live Press, which converts Blabs automatically. I just remember that feeling of, Oh, wow. I've been doing this manually all along. And I got to be honest, I didn't even realise at the time that I needed your plug in. I was just going through the motions and doing it. But I just remember how much time it has saved me. I literally just automatically publish Blabs now, especially when you did the featured image as well. That was pretty epic because I was still having to do a featured image originally, I think, when version 1.0 came out. So the minute you launched that, I loved it. Awesome. Yeah. So there's some real live customer feedback. And guys, I have to admit, I went ahead and bought every single plug in this guy's ever developed and haven't looked back. So we'll pop some links in the show notes. So thanks so much for the background. That's really fascinating. You're a dad, you're a husband, a software developer, and you're passionate about scratching that itch and creating solutions. So you're the guy I love to hang around with, the guy I love to chat to.

Lee:

So I'd love to pick your brain, find out more about you, more about your history as an entrepreneur, as a developer, et cetera. So I've got a few questions. You've already been prepped with these, but the first question I'd love to explore is, as a WordPress software developer, what's been the biggest challenge, either to the development process or just to the business?

Hani Mourra:

Yeah, the biggest challenge for me was coming up with my first idea. Now that I look back, it made sense. Okay, I had a little manual effort that I had to do, and it's a perfect solution for it. But coming up with that first idea, a few months before, I knew I wanted to create a software for video. I knew that I loved video. I didn't know what it was. What problem am I trying to solve? I had a very fairly small email list from my blog, my video blog, and I asked them, Hey, what's the biggest problem or frustration? But I didn't get anything concrete. So I found the idea, I come up with an idea and actually really feeling excited about it. The past initial point, I came up with this idea that, Oh, this is awesome. The next day, Oh, you know what? This is a stupid idea. That happened a lot. But come up with an idea that really solves a real problem, whether it's your problem or someone else's problem. And then just writing it down and formalizing into an idea that sticks, the excitement sticks with me. Even until now, when I look back, man, that's a pretty sweet solution.

Hani Mourra:

It's an awesome plug in and I still love the idea. So the biggest challenge is coming up with that idea. One of the biggest challenges and the other ones, obviously, was actually making it come to life because especially if you're starting off, it was the first time for me getting into the WordPress space. I'm a software engineer, I know software. I was more managing and managing teams and software teams, so it was getting less and less hands on. But then when I decided to get into WordPress, I was like, Wow, I know software, but WordPress is a platform. You don't just need to know the language. You need to understand how the platform works, how to hook in to different parts of it. Anyway, long story short, that was a big challenge for me. And how I solved that was I knew I needed help. It's very important to not feel as an entrepreneur, as a designer, as a company, you can't do everything. If you don't have a skill set, especially in the beginning, hire somebody to help you get started.

Lee:

Absolutely. Your background as a software engineer or someone who's also managing other developers must have been pretty damn helpful. For myself, when I first started my own business, Leejacksondev, I was on the product, so I was essentially just building all the time. But there was a real sense of freedom when I realized that I could get others involved who were much better than I was so that I could continue to just look at the bigger picture. Now, although I still get involved in a lot of code, I'm an Uber geek, I absolutely love coding. I'd rather do that sometimes than, I don't know, have a full English breakfast. Actually, I don't know, maybe not, maybe that's a lie. But being freed up as a manager of my business to continue to see the big picture. So what I enjoy most, and I think what I'm getting from you as well is that you're able to continue to see the bigger picture of what each one of these products are going to be whilst the specialist in being able to hook into the relevant WordPress hooks or do all of that code was able to get their teeth into it to make an awesome product whilst you conducted and oversaw the whole thing.

Lee:

Is that right?

Hani Mourra:

That's absolutely right. When people ask me, What's your role? What do you do? I always use the term software architect. I love architecting. You're architect, you put the blueprints for a building, I'm putting the blueprints for an idea and then learning about the different connections between the YouTube and the WordPress just from a conceptual level. Not how to call this function, that function, just conceptually how the building blocks, the Lego blocks connect together, that to me is exciting. I know the experts will figure out how to make it happen, but I know that there's an API here, there's this, that, and that. I know it is possible. Just basically draw a bunch of boxes and connecting them together, then I see, like you said, the bigger picture that really gets me excited.

Lee:

Now, I know a lot of agencies that are listening. Many of them will have really exciting ideas, I'm sure of it, because myself working in an agency, multiple times I've heard a client raise a particular issue, multiple clients raising the same particular issue, and I'm thinking, Wow, I could really answer that problem. So for you, when you come up with the business idea itself, how did you go about finding that third party, that extra person to come in and help you that expert? Because I know that's a common issue trying to find a good developer or someone who can understand what it is you're trying to say, but also have the skill set to actually deliver. Do you have any tips or were you just one of those really lucky guys who found someone straight away?

Hani Mourra:

No, it's a great question because I got taken for a ride with the first guy. It happens to everybody. Even if you are a technical person and you understand software people and you manage software teams, there's always going to be people who promise something and they cannot deliver. For whatever reason, it's nothing personal. Not even intentional. Maybe it's family issues, something happened. But that happened to me. And now she was very demotivating because this is my first project into WordPress, my first software that I'm about to launch on my own. And I was so excited. And then just the fact that there was no progress for weeks and weeks, I had weekly calls with this developer. But anyway, let me step back. Your question was how to get developers. Because I was starting off, I was funding this like a little bootstrapped business. So I was going to oDesk, which is now called Upwork, and just hiring a contractor who knew WordPress. And the tips that I want to give to people is, if you don't have the expertise, get a friend or get a colleague, get someone to review someone's resume, or maybe help you interview them just to vet them out.

Hani Mourra:

But even then, give them a small task, give them a small... Something with a clear start and a clear end. Say, Hey, implement this one thing. Don't give them the whole big picture. Say, Hey, make this plug in happen that can do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. That does two things. It's bad for two reasons. One is overwhelms them, the developer. And two, I guess it's an easy cop out for you to just hand it off and say, Okay, you make this happen. You have one month. Go. But you can't see, hard to see progress when you're not tracking on a task by task basis. So try to break down the task, handle one piece at a time. Let them prove themselves and then hand them a second piece. Then maybe even hand them a bigger piece after. But let them prove themselves and pay them, of course. Don't let them do any work for free because you're never going to get good quality when you ask someone to do something for free. They're never going to deliver great quality, even if they're trying to impress you.

Lee:

That is such great advice. And I guess as agencies, when we've got so many projects on the go, sometimes there is a temptation to, as a last resort, go and find a developer last minute and try and dump everything on them. And that usually always ends in tears. That's certainly been my own experience as well. And like you, I've learned to... I don't know who said it, but it's higher, slow, fire, fast. And the idea is what I'll do, same as you, is I'll hand over only a very small portion of the project, something that is difficult enough to prove someone's ability, but obviously I'm giving them time to prove themselves, to make sure that we can work together and communicate. And then the project lifecycle will then continue. So I guess as well, if anyone's listening, don't be tempted to just outsource out of requirement and speed and make poor decisions that way. Maybe even now, if you're not busy, start to develop a relationship with some developers, give them small tasks that don't cost a lot of money, but at least do build up a good relationship so that when you get to that point where there may be too much going on and you need an extra developer to come in, then you've got somebody that you can call on that you can already trust and you're not then just dumping a whole load of stuff and potentially creating more problems than you already had.

Lee:

Sorry to interject, but that was just such an awesome segue to that. That's definitely something that's close to my heart as well. I've kissed a few frogs, I guess, as you can say.

Hani Mourra:

That's absolutely right. One more small thing is the relationship is very important. What happened is after this developer, the first one I hired, didn't work out for a few weeks, I went back to a developer that was helping me build websites. I didn't he was building WordPress sites. I didn't know that he knew plug ins, but he knew WordPress and a little bit of customization for themes. I went back to him because I had a relationship with him. I said, Can you do this? And he said, Yeah. I'm like, Wow, why didn't I think of him in the beginning? But anyway, we had a relationship up until now. He helped me build all three products. It's been at least five years. I heard about his kids being born. These are people, right? You have a personal relationship with them. My person is not in the country overseas, but it doesn't matter where that person is. They're human being. They had the skill set, and you develop a friendship with them. So the relationship is very important.

Lee:

That is so true. And again, something that we've tended to do as well internally is just foster those relationships with all third parties. So anyone that's outsourced, creating a good friendship, a good relationship, that's such good advice. Thanks for that, man. You just dropped a million value bombs in just a few paragraphs. I actually stopped writing notes because I'm going to have to just listen back for the show notes at this point. Here's a question for you then. What one thing, idea, or product has been a complete game changer for your business?

Hani Mourra:

When I got this question, I was trying to think about one thing, and it's really hard to think about one thing. But from a strategy perspective, I mentioned a little bit earlier, especially your first time around, even if it's not your first time around, get the help. When I say help, get the skill set that you need, whether it's development, whether it's marketing side, whatever skill set that you don't have or don't enjoy doing, don't be afraid to get the help that you need. I did that for my first plug in, the Simple Video Press. I did that from different angles. I did that from a development perspective because I wasn't that familiar with WordPress to be able to code up a plug in. Now I'm way more familiar. But the first time around, I didn't have time for me to learn all the plug ins, ins and outs. So I got the expertise to help me build the plug in. And of course, I mapped out the spec. They implemented it. But then also, not only for creating the plugin, but also marketing it and getting it into the market. That's a totally different challenge.

Hani Mourra:

If you're selling software, you're selling services, you want to get your name out there. It's very difficult when you're first starting. Nobody knows who you are. No one's heard of your product. So I did the partnership with somebody who... It's funny, I met accidentally just through relationships from previous. I was a customer of his buying some of his products. I won't get into that story. But I guess the whole idea is I got the help. I wasn't afraid to give up part of the sales, a good chunk of the sales, because he had the right audience and the right skill set to help me market my video product..

Hani Mourra:

Definitely get the help. It's going to cost, whether it's commissions, whether it's you paying contractors. But when you're getting started, getting on the market quickly is very important and you cannot do that. It'd be very difficult to do that if you're doing it by yourself.

Lee:

Yeah, definitely. And in fact, one thing that both me and you were speaking about just before we went live for the podcast was the comment by the chat from LinkedIn as well. You were talking there about speed. There's only a short window. You've got this idea, there's a short window for development to get the product out there as well. I remember myself, I developed a product about three years ago and I kept building it for about a year. I've actually never, ever launched it or marketed it because I was never proud. I was always a bit embarrassed of it. The guy from LinkedIn, what was it he said? If you're not embarrassed by the first product you ship, then you waited too long. Again, guys, you got an idea, don't sit on it. Or if you're halfway through developing it, don't make it perfect. Just get it to the state where it answers that need and then get it out there because actually your user base are going to have far better ideas than you're ever going to have, and that's going to help you evolve the product further. I heard a big Amen, I think, from you.

Hani Mourra:

There, Hani. So true. Especially if I tell you a quick story about simple podcast press. I had a vision for a simple podcast press. It was supposed to take all your podcasts and take them off of something like Libsyn off your feet and add them to WordPress automatically. And it does that and it's great. But then I learned by getting it out into people's hands, that's a beta. I learned, Whoa, a lot of people are using this power press plug in and they're generating the feed on their own site. I'm like, Whoa, that changes everything. They don't need my plug in. Then I adapted the plug in to seamlessly integrate with the power press so that people can still use the player, the functionality of the plug in. And it's something I was aware of. I didn't realize how big percentage of the users do it that way. So I had to change it and implement adapt the plug in to work with this particular feature, the power press feature. But the example was the whole idea is get it out there, do a beta. I always do betas. Actually, I don't say always. With simple live press, I didn't really do a beta.

Hani Mourra:

But the first two projects, beta group, 20 people, private Facebook group, I reached out to them personally and I said, Hey, I have a new software. I want you to try it out for free. And it worked. I got a lot of feedback. And the good thing about a beta is you get validation. You get a sense of people are using it. You give it for free. If people are not using it for free, it's going to be very difficult for someone to pay for it. So you give them something that works, like you said, that does the job but doesn't have all the bells and whistles.

Lee:

Exactly. Yeah, validation, again, so important. Another value bomb there. So getting your product to the extent where it at least meets the particular need and then seeing where's their market. I mean, there is another way of validation as well. I heard probably a year or two ago where some people will even create a landing page, describe the product, not even build it, but then get people to subscribe to a list to be the first people to go and check it out once it's built. So as long as they're getting a lot of people filling in, then based on that, they're then going to go ahead and build the product. Some people even go ahead and I think they create pre orders. I'm not really 100 % sure though the legalities of that, especially in the UK. So I've always avoided anything like that.

Hani Mourra:

Yeah, I've done the early bird list for all my products. It works really well. I've even paid for Facebook traffic to drive people to the early bird list just to get the right eyes in front of it and see how many people actually opt in. And if you're doing one of those, I recommend doing a video. Even if your product is not finished, you're just showing something that's doing something like an actual software doing something. It's just more real for someone watching and they're more likely to opt in.

Lee:

Another value bomb from Hani. Use videos and use videos in your Facebook ads as well. I believe you can do videos as well in Facebook ads or at least in the stream because, again, videos seem to... Well, they say, and I don't know who they are, but they say that videos convert better than, say, an image or even just text. So there's another value bomb. All ready, well, let's move on to the WordPress community. Obviously, over the last few years, you have immersed yourself in WordPress, obviously developing plug ins, but also checking out other plug ins, other services, et cetera. And is there a particular WordPress plugin that you use? It could be one of your own. I don't mind. But is there a particular WordPress plugin that you would really recommend the community go and check out, even just test and take a look at? Absolutely.

Hani Mourra:

I mean, I couldn't think of one, so I had to give you three.

Lee:

That's fine. I'll sit back and relax.

Hani Mourra:

Go for it. Two of them are free and one of them is not free. So the first one I use on every site is called Limit login attempts. And this one, every single site that I have, because it's not a foolproof way, but it just minimizes chances of somebody doing a brute force attack, which means just trying to hitting your website over and over and trying to log into your site and gaining access. So it's just basically locks somebody out who puts the password wrong after the first three tries. And the reason why I like this one is it's very simple, it's very light. It's not adding a heavy load is just a very simple light and free plug in. So definitely put that as one form of measure to minimizes your chance of getting hacked. Every site, all of my sites have that. And the other one is pretty link light. That's basically a URL shortener. Basically, take any URL that you have on your site, a blog post, or maybe a sales page, or maybe something that has a long URL and you want to make it short for social media or short just in your emails, but you can customize what it looks like.

Hani Mourra:

So it could be, for example, hanimourra.com/lee, and that could be a link to my episode on your site, for example. So I can shorten any page, whether it's on my side or anybody else's side, but keep my branding on it. So my domain name. So that's pretty link light. And they have a pro version, but I've always used the free version and it gives you stats as well. It tells you how many people clicked on the link, which is pretty interesting. My third plug in is Optimize Press. I'm a huge fan of Optimize Press. I bought this thing many years ago and basically there's a lot of options out there, a lot of newer options, I would say. But I've always loved optimize price, which is basically a sales page, lead page, whatever you want to call it. It's designed lead pages, sales pages in a nice graphical way to give you the tools to do that. And the nice thing about it is it comes as a plug in or a theme, depending on your site, you can have it as a plug in or a theme. But I just love how it's so easy and so customizable.

Hani Mourra:

I'm very technical. Not I'm saying I'm very technical. I'm technical and I like to customize and tinker with every little detail of a sales page. I love Optimize Press. I'm a huge fan of that.

Lee:

From memory, is that Optimize Press, do they have a free version that you can check out as well?

Hani Mourra:

I don't believe they do. I think they have licences. It's like a one or 10 license. I've had it for many years. I just keep renewing the license. I've had it for at least three years and I just love it. There's not a lot of options. I think there's a Thrive builder and there's... I don't know if that's a theme or not. There's something called Lead pages is another separate platform for creating Lead pages and sales pages. But I just like this one. I like Optimize Press because it's customizable, but it's also simple because it gives you templates.

Lee:

I guess that's really important, isn't it? When you are selecting a WordPress plugin in general, if a plugin has tons and tons of features and looks amazing, sounds amazing, it's not always necessarily the best for your website, simply because if there is too much, it's going to add resource. I think what you're saying, Optimize Press sounds like it's got everything you need, but it's also lightweight at the same time. I'm going to check that out as well. I've heard of Optimize press. I actually use the Thrive content builder myself that allows me to do the leads and the landing pages, but I'm always open as well to checking out other services. In fact, it's part of my job. I have to immerse myself in pretty much every plugin out there so that I can make the right recommendations to my clients to say, Well, actually, for your need, Optimize press is going to be the bee's knees.

Hani Mourra:

It's been around for a long time. So don't know, maybe because I've had it for a long time. Maybe that's why I never looked around. But it serves all my needs. It has countdown timers. It has templates for thank you pages, webinar pages. So I don't know. I guess one thing is for you, it's different story because you're checking out different plug ins. But if you're in a business and you're running a business and you have a solution that works, like you're using Thrive content builder, I'd recommend just keep doing it. It's not always good to tinker in every situation with new tools that you may not need because it could be a waste of your time. But in your case, of course, because it's part of your work. You're trying to recommend the right tools for the right person. But for someone listening, use what you have, get it out there. Don't use plug ins or tools as an excuse not to get your product or service out there.

Lee:

Absolutely. Again, another value one. The idea of changing, if you've got something that does work and then changing, you're just adding a whole lot of extra time in there. I tell you what, Hani, the last few days have been hell because it's been Black Friday and Cyber Monday and everybody is sending me amazing offers to their systems that in theory sound better than what I'm currently using. And I have literally had to tie my hands to my chair to stop me from purchasing things that I probably won't need. In fact, I think at one point I filled in an entire form and got to the point where I was about to log into PayPal and had a sanity check. Do I really need to buy this product which is already covered off by a product I already have? And thankfully, I didn't go that far. I didn't make the purchase.

Hani Mourra:

I was in a similar boat. I was going to buy something that I thought, Hey, maybe I'll need this later. And that's a downfall as well. If you need it later, just spend the money later. Even though it might be a little more expensive. Don't try to think you might need a product. Buy what you need at the time. And actually, this leads perfectly into my next answer for the next question coming up is, buy things, consume things that you need at the time to solve the problem you're dealing with now. Don't try to buy everything under the world to have all these tools available to you, or read all these podcasts, or consume all this content. You're going to overwhelm yourself. Just buy what you need for your business at the moment. If you're doing Facebook ads, look into Facebook ads, do the research on Facebook ads, buy a course on Facebook ads when you're ready for Facebook ads. Not because it's Black Friday or Cyber Monday and say, Oh, one day I'll need this. It's not worth your time and it's going to overwhelm you. Just focus. Consume products, buy products, or resources or podcasts that you need right now that are relevant to you.

Lee:

Well, my credit card wishes I had been thinking in that manner about two years ago. I've got a whole load of licenses I've never used. But that was my catalyst as well for realising at the end of that Cyber Monday that a few weeks later I was like, I just have no usage for these plugins. And that just cured me of impulse buying there. Although it still was tempting at times, especially with these shiny marketing images and these amazing benefits being sold to me. It was quite tempting.

Hani Mourra:

Oh, yeah. Even me myself. It happens to the best of us.

Lee:

Well, we're talking now about resources. You mentioned that, and that is the next plug in. Is there a particular resource, a podcast, a website, or anything like that that you would recommend to our listeners?

Hani Mourra:

Yeah. I used to consume a lot of podcasts and I love listening to podcasts. And then I also used to read up a lot of different articles about different things. And then, leading back to what I said a few minutes ago, I started cutting back. I started unsubscribing from emails, started unsubscribing from podcasts. Not because I don't like them, it's just because they're not relevant to me now. So for me, the only podcast I really listen to is a weekly podcast. It's called The Startups for the Rest of us. Rob Walling and Mike Tabor. That's the perfect podcast for me right now because it's focused primarily on software, but it's not a technical software coding and stuff. It's about software and marketing your software and creating your software. So it's a perfect podcast for me right now. So it's called Startups for the Rest of Us.

Lee:

Startups for the Rest of Us. Again, that sounds great then, especially for those agencies that have established, hey, here's a problem, we can probably meet this need using software, using some custom development. That definitely sounds like a great podcast. I've never heard of that myself, so I'm going to go check that out. But like you, I had an awful lot of resources that I consumed all the time. And then over the last year, especially, I've had to dramatically cut back because there is too much information and it's only consumed when you need it. So you eat when you're hungry, don't you? You don't eat all the time.

Hani Mourra:

Exactly. No, it's so true. You spend your money and your time and your energy, your mental energy. Your brain is being bombarded with all this information and you can't process it because you don't know what to do with it because you're not ready for it. You're not ready to learn about Facebook marketing, Facebook advertising, for example, if you're just creating your software now. So always focus on what you're doing in this current state in your business and consume the content relevant to that.

Lee:

That's awesome. I just had this image when you were saying that of somebody listening to this podcast with their finger just hovered over the buy button and they're just slowly drawing it away. We got.

Lee:

Be real, guys. I'm glad I listen to this.

Hani Mourra:

We're here to help people, right? Help people with their business.

Lee:

Exactly. There's a lot of this track is good advice. There is so many. That vision is essentially me because when I listen to podcasts or resources, I do find myself also looking at other stuff, and I have purchased things whilst not thinking about it properly whilst listening to a podcast. So it's quite an amusing picture for me. So one of the things that we really want to do in our podcast is make sure that people go away with one or two things that they could go away and do now that will make a massive difference to their business. Now, you've been amazing because you've actually been dropping amazing one liners that I need to go and write down again later and add to the show notes. So thank you for all of that. But out of everything you've said today, or maybe you've not shared it yet, what is that one thing that you would recommend people go and apply either to their business or to their life that will that will massively make a difference?

Hani Mourra:

For me, it's taking action and getting your product or service out to the market to test it in the market as quickly as possible. And to me, my perfect example for this was my latest product, the simple live press. The idea hit me on September 31st, and I had it on the market. I built it pretty much from scratch. I used some of my existing software, but pretty much from scratch or maybe halfway from scratch. And then sold over 100 copies of it in two weeks. Two weeks. Built, sold, marketed. Because I just had the idea and I just ran with it, like full force. Everything else got put onto the side. I was really passionate about the idea and I knew it would help people. The timing was also important because this platform, the Blab platform, was a lot of hype around it. There still is a lot of hype around it, but it's fairly new and this is a good solution for us. So I jumped on it and I focused on it and I took the action. I didn't stop and think too much about it. A day or two and I was like, I got to do this, whether it flops or it doesn't flop, I may be wasted a few weeks of...

Hani Mourra:

Not full time, but a few weeks worth of time. But I really felt passionate about the idea and I took the action. So I think it's really important to, if you feel something strong, strongly about something to take the action and get it out. Something that I knew, I knew it had issues. Simple Life had issues when I launched it, but I got it out there and then released updates a week later. We fixed the issues, right? It's getting it out there. I remember.

Lee:

The updates.

Hani Mourra:

As well. Yeah. You actually found a lot of the issues. You told us. So I appreciate that. But it's good to have that validation that people are buying it, A which is awesome validation. People are spending money because they need it. And then B, you're one of the first out there with a solution. Take action, get it out there quickly, whatever it is, product, service, whatever you're working on right now.

Lee:

That is awesome. So guys, just do it. I don't know if that's trademarked. Maybe I need to edit that out. But yeah, just go ahead, get it made, get it out there. And that is how me and Hani met. We met on the Blab platform. And it was somebody else on Blab that was talking about his plug in that made me aware of it. And then somehow, Hani joined the conversation at some point. But it just goes to show, Hani was there really early on. He got in there before anyone else had made a plug in. I had another friend who was thinking of maybe making a Blab plug in, but hey, Hani had the idea. He went for it. Instead of stalling, he just went for it. He got out there and that's incredible. Kind of 100 sales within two weeks. That's amazing. So here is a round of applause. I should have one of those things they have an iCarly where I can press a button and just get there. Anyway. Oh, and I've just admitted I watch iCarly. I'm so sorry. Yes. All righty, well, that is absolutely awesome. I am so grateful to have you on the show.

Lee:

You've been incredible. You've given us so much amazing information. How could people connect with you?

Hani Mourra:

Basically, the two platforms I hang out most are Facebook and Twitter. For my Facebook, it's facebook.com/hanimourra and twitter.com/hanimourra. I think you put them in the show notes. That would be great. I'd love to hear from you whether you have an idea or you want to bounce an idea or you want to just share something. I'd love to hear from you. I love this part of the business where I get to talk to people. I've done a lot of podcast interviews and I really enjoy them. It's just fun talking about the business, but also talking to other people and interacting. It's a fun part of the business.

Lee:

Well, I'll have to note that down that call Hani again. Anytime. He likes being interviewed on podcast. That's awesome. I'd really encourage you, if you're listening to this podcast, you've got this far, first of all, well done. Secondly, I'm sure your brain is now filled with excitement and ideas. Can I encourage you, connect with Hani? He's is one of the most approachable guys I've ever met. Sometimes there's a little bit of fear about approaching somebody online, somebody who's a developer or has some name online. But Hani is super approachable. He's full of amazing ideas and I definitely encourage you just to connect with this guy, have a chat. He's down to Earth. He's awesome. I hope your head's not getting too big over there, Hani. But yeah, he's a great guy. So, Hani, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Really, really grateful. And everyone, I encourage you, go and check out Simple Podcast Press. If you have a podcast, Simple Live Press if you're on Blab and you want to automatically push out your content. And finally, and not least is Simple Video Press. If you've got a YouTube channel of some sort, you want to feed that data into your website.

Lee:

I encourage you, go check out that. All righty, thanks very much and adieu to you. And that wraps up Episode 2. I had an absolute blast chatting with Hani, and he's really inspired me to get my own product wrapped up and finished. I've set an official launch date of January the 18th, and I'm getting myself together to get the product finished. So SociPress, which I'll tell you more about about in future episodes will be coming out on a January the 18th, and I've got this episode and Hani's amazing inspiration to thank, really, for pushing me on and getting my own product finished and out there. So if you have any questions, you want to be involved in the podcast, or you just generally want to have a chat, then let me encourage you, get in touch. It's leejacksondev.com/podcast. You can get in touch there. You can subscribe via iTunes. Really love to hear from you. Really love to hear from your ideas. And if you want to connect with me on social media, it's Lee Jackson Dev. So we've got a lot to look forward to in Episode 3 next week, where we're speaking with Kim Doyal.

Lee:

Now, I know that we said we were going to keep these podcasts to around 30 to 40 minutes, but I'm afraid with Kim Doyal, she was so on fire. She had so much amazing advice and so many fascinating stories that next week's episode will go on for an hour. So I definitely recommend you find a space where you can just sit back and relax and just be fed amazing, inspirational advice. So that's Episode 3 coming next Monday. Have an awesome week. Thank you for supporting this new WordPress podcast. Take care and keep innovating.