Katie Keith

Get to know Katie 🎙️

Can you start by painting a picture of what a typical day looks like for you? What fuels your passion for the work you do, and how does it tie into your involvement with WCEU?

I normally start my work day at about 9am after taking my 12-year-old daughter to school. My office is in an apartment a few minutes drive from my house in Mallorca, Spain. 

First, I review my priorities and post my “Daily Goals” on the Barn2 Slack. This helps my team to know what each other are working on, and also helps me to prioritize and focus on the most important tasks. I then work though my daily tasks, along with lots of other interruptions!

I love my work because it’s incredibly varied and I’m my own boss and don’t have to answer to anyone! A typical day might include team management, marketing, business analysis, project management, testing new features of our plugins, liaising with other members of the WordPress community, and a million other things.

What sparked your interest in becoming a speaker at WCEU? Was there a particular moment or experience that motivated you to share your insights with this community?

Matt Cromwell and I had been co-hosting the WP Product Talk podcast for over a year, along with our two other co-hosts Zack Katz and Amber Hinds. Between us, we had interviewed over 50 WordPress product company owners and other experts in the field. They had shared a huge number of valuable insights into how to build a successful WordPress product business.

It occurred to Matt that doing a talk at WordCamp Europe would be the perfect opportunity to collate this knowledge and share it with the wider WordPress community. As a result, we decided to offer to do a talk which would contain the ultimate playbook to being successful at selling themes or plugins.

For those awaiting your talk, could you give us a preview of what we can expect to learn from your talk? Any sneak peeks?

The talk will bring together the best advice from all the previous episodes of WP Product Talk. It will cover a wide range of aspects of selling WordPress products, including product development, marketing, customer experience, monetization, and business.

Is it your first time at a WCEU or WordPress event? Any standout memories or lessons learned that you’d like to share?

I have sponsored WCEU and WCAsia in the past and attended many others. However, this is the first time that I will do a talk at a WordCamp. I am excited and scared at the same time!

Looking beyond the scheduled sessions, what do you hope attendees will take away from their overall experience at WCEU? How can they leverage the event to enhance their professional development or personal growth? 

I always think that WCEU is the best WordCamp for having talks about a wide range of topics, but the benefits of attending go far beyond the talks. It’s the perfect opportunity to meet other people in the WordPress community, learn from their experiences, have fun and make friends. 

If you already know lots of people in the WordPress community then WCEU is an excellent chance to catch up with them. However, you can get more out of the event if you step outside of your comfort zone and make an effort to meet new people too. 

If this is your first WordCamp then don’t be scared – you’ll be amazed at how friendly everyone is. Whatever your background, you can feel comfortable walking up to people and starting a conversation. To get the most out of the experience, I recommend reaching out to people who you have seen online and who do similar work to you. For example, when I knew fewer people I used to contact other WordPress product company owners on Facebook, email etc. to ask if they’d like to meet up. This helped me to network with people who I would have something in common with and learn the most from.