Justin Sainton from Zao Web Design has developed a Groupon clone for WordPress called Group Deals plugin.
Tell us a bit about your business. How do you use WordPress?
My name is Justin Sainton and the Group Deals plugin is a joint venture project between Zao & Instinct. You already know about Dan and Instinct (Dan’s amazing, if you haven’t met him, you’re in for a treat!). Zao is a web development firm I founded 6 years ago near Portland, Oregon in the States. We started Group Deals in early 2011 as a segment of our business. We are finding that the global phenomenon with group buying (or social buying, as some call it) is a lasting trend, and by putting the power of group buying in anyone’s hands, we believe we’re providing one of the most valuable e-Commerce plugins in the world. Using WordPress and WP e-Commerce to do this makes brilliant sense, as WordPress is the leading CMS in the world, and WP E-Commerce is the leading e-commerce engine in the world.
Why WordPress?
Why not? Having personally been in professional web development for over 12 years now, I’ve seen my fair share of content management systems. From a business development perspective, no other CMS is worth going all in to – Drupal’s core is in constant flux and their community is fragmented, Joomla lacks direction and is possibly the worst piece of software I’ve ever had to use, and nearly nothing else is worth investing in. Only WordPress has a vibrant, active community; a coherent core vision and core committing team; and scalable architecture that makes software development an absolute joy. I’m both too smart and too dumb to go with anything else 🙂
Why did you decide to get involved and sponsor WordCamp Cape Town 2011?
I love WordCamps 🙂 I’ve been to about nine of them all around the world in the last year or so, and they are always a great time. When Ashley approached us about helping out and adding some value for the attendees, it was a no-brainer. For a community and a product that we have received so much from, it seems almost a moral imperative to give back.
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?
In regards to the WordPress community, I’m reminded of a Winston Churchill quote –
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
The WordPress community is the best open-source community in the world. But sometimes, the community can feel like the best and worst part about WordPress – at the very same time 🙂 On one hand, you get drama, politics, general B.S. that accompanies every movement of any sort. But the good things, the things that FAR outweigh the drama – those are just incredible. The relationships you build. I’ve made some life-long friends because of WordPress. The projects you get to work on – we’ve been able to work on some incredibly high-profile projects, not just because we’re so awesome (and we are), but because WordPress is so awesome.
As far as the South African community goes, I love South Africa. Even though I’ve haven’t visited yet, I feel a real kindred connection to the global WordPress community, and having used WooThemes and Obox in the past, and worked with Ashley at LightSpeed – the whole South African WP community has an incredible vibe and momentum moving with it.
What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?
Well, we won’t actually be in attendance, but I will be living it vicariously through my friend Dan Milward – just as he will be living vicariously through me while I am enjoying WordCamp Portland at the exact same time! In all seriousness, though, I know WordCamp Cape Town is going to be an incredible event. Great town, great organizers, great sponsors 😉
Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?
I’ve really been quite inspired by Mark Jaquith and Andrew Nacin specifically. These guys are the top of the top, and they’re still incredibly humble about their position and influence on the world and the web. I’m inspired not only by their code, but more importantly, by them as human beings. Very cool guys, @nacin and @markjaquith on Twitter.
What is the most exciting improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?
I’ve been loving the UX stuff that Daryl Koopersmith (another incredible core dev!) has been doing. The majority of the pretty, fun, user-facing features in the last cycle or two have had his hands in it, and I’ve been digging it. Being so heavy into plugin development, I rarely take the time to appreciate the UX/UI beauty that makes WordPress as brilliant as it is. So definite hat-tip to Jane Wells (@janeforshort), Daryl and all the other UX minds.
Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?
Getting better all the time 🙂 I expect we’ll be contributing more patches to core, I expect the WordPress feature-set and development philosophy will continue to transition gracefully from a ‘blog’ mindset (as it has been for the last several cycles) to a more and more robust CMS. It’s going to keep getting better, and we’ll all keep enjoying our jobs for decades to come 🙂
