In this episode of Woo BizChat, hosts Emma Young and Adam Weeks chat with Anthony Tran, Marketing Director of Beaver Builder, to explore the intersection of WooCommerce and page builders.
Anthony shares his journey from a WordPress web design agency owner to leading the marketing efforts at one of the most popular page builders in the WordPress ecosystem. They talk about the benefits of using page builders like Beaver Builder for creating customized, flexible e-commerce sites, the evolution of page builders in the WordPress community, and the exciting developments on the horizon, including AI integration and upcoming features.
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Takeaways
The Power of Page Builders: Page builders like Beaver Builder offer a user-friendly way to create custom, flexible websites without needing to code. They are beneficial for WooCommerce users looking to enhance their online stores with personalized layouts and consistent branding across their site.
Beaver Builder’s Origin Story: The name “Beaver Builder” was chosen for its fun and memorable branding, which has since become a cornerstone of its identity in the WordPress community.
Customer Success and Community: Anthony Tran’s journey from a user of Beaver Builder to its Marketing Director highlights the company’s strong community focus. Beaver Builder has cultivated a loyal following, evidenced by testimonials and its active community, including contributions to initiatives like 48in48.
Challenges and Misconceptions: While some hardcore WordPress users may initially resist using page builders due to a preference for hand-coding, many have found that page builders significantly speed up development time without sacrificing flexibility. Misconceptions about page builders impacting site speed are often unfounded, as many other factors influence performance.
AI and the Future of Page Builders: Beaver Builder is keeping a close eye on AI developments and exploring how AI can be integrated into its offerings to enhance the user experience, while maintaining the product’s lightweight and efficient performance.
Upcoming Features and Pricing Changes: Beaver Builder is continuously evolving, with new features and integrations on the horizon. The company is also adjusting its pricing for new customers, including the addition of Beaver Themer in all pricing plans, while ensuring that existing customers’ plans remain unchanged.
Educational Resources: For new users, Beaver Builder offers a variety of free resources, including tutorials, courses, and live demos, to help them get the most out of the tool and build their sites with confidence.
Links
- Anthony on LinkedIn
- Beaver Builder
- Beaver Builder Blog
- 48in48
- Web Design Trainer by Joshua Long
- Will Morris’s Article on WooCommerce and Beaver Builder
Episode Transcript
Emma:
Welcome, everybody, to another exciting episode of Do the Woo Biz Chat, where we dive deep into the world of WooCommerce and everything that powers successful e-commerce businesses. We are, again, your hosts, Emma Young and Adam Weeks, and we are thrilled to have you here with us today. Hopefully, we can explore some exciting new trends, tips, tools, and anything to help elevate your site to new heights.
Adam:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ms. Emma. Yes, that’s right. We are joined by Anthony Tran today. He’s the Marketing Director of Beaver Builder, one of the leading page builders in the WordPress ecosystem. He’s here to share his expertise on how page builders can revolutionize your WooCommerce site and enhance your customer experience. Anthony, welcome. We are so glad to have you here. We’ve met a few times, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you onto the show.
Anthony:
Hey everyone, thanks for having me on the show.
Adam:
It’s good to have you. Anthony, would you mind just sharing with us a little bit about your background, how long you’ve been at Beaver Builder, and what Beaver Builder is for those who may not know?
Anthony:
Yeah, I’d be happy to. So I started my entrepreneurship journey in 2013. I left my corporate job and started a podcast. I was podcasting about digital marketing, and it evolved into creating my own WordPress web design agency. My wife and I were building websites using Beaver Builder in 2014, and that’s how we learned about it. After a couple of years doing the agency work, Beaver Builder was looking for a Marketing Director, and I thought, “Wow, this would be such an awesome opportunity with my marketing background using Beaver Builder.” I joined the team, I think, in 2019. So I’ve been with them for about five years, and it’s been a lot of fun. I’m happy to be here and happy to dive into WordPress, Beaver Builder, or wherever you want to take us.
Emma:
That is the ultimate customer success story! You used it for a web agency, and now you’re the Director of Marketing. That’s awesome. Do you happen to know, by any chance, where the name Beaver Builder came from?
Anthony:
Yeah, there’s a cool story behind it. Robbie has shared this on a mini-podcast, but basically, when they first created the business, it was called Fastline Page Builder. Not a great name, not great branding, but their agency was Fastline LLC, Fastline Media—sorry, Fastline Media. After their initial launch, it didn’t really take off at first. They had some customers who used it and liked the product, but they said, “Hey, maybe you can work on the brand name.” So Robbie and the guys had to brainstorm. They thought, “Let’s figure out what kind of animal builds something.” I think they came up with some really wacky names at first, like “Oh, spiders create webs,” and “Bees make hives.” One day, Robbie came into the office and said, “What do you think about Beaver Builder?” They all kind of chuckled about it; it was kind of goofy. Then they slept on it and thought, “I like it. It’s got a fun ring to it; it’s fun. It kind of has our personality, and we think it’d be fun. Let’s see what happens.” And of course, the name stuck, and it became what it is today.
Adam:
Fantastic. It is memorable. I was at CloudFest in Germany, and we were talking to Robbie. I introduced him to the guy who started Groundhogg, and I was like, “We’ve got groundhogs and beaver builders. WordPress is full of quirky animals.” I wasn’t sure where we could go with that, but it didn’t go anywhere other than it being memorable. So, well done to Robbie for something that sticks in your brain. So, WooCommerce and page builders—what I wanted to pull out of this episode is this idea about where these two intersect, and I’m kind of curious about your take. How does someone know if a page builder is right for them or if it’s not for them if they’re starting a store? What’s your general sense? We’ll kind of start from a high level and then work our way down. From a high level, why would someone want a page builder, Beaver Builder being one of them, but there are a number of them out there. There’s Divi, and these different page builders. Why would someone want to use a page builder?
Anthony:
Well, from a high level, page builders are great because if you’re looking to create a website and you maybe don’t know how to code, you’re not a developer, or you just don’t want to code, and you want to be able to easily drag and drop layouts on the front end of your WordPress website, then a page builder is perfect for you. I don’t know if you all remember back in 2013 how building WordPress websites was like—you would pick a theme, and you would get stuck with this certain layout. You could change the colors and fonts a little bit, and every time you adjusted something, you had to refresh your screen, open it up on the front end, and see what it looked like. Well, with page builders, it’s nice because you see everything, and it’s very intuitive, just drag and drop. So from a high level, I think page builders are great for anyone who wants to be able to build custom websites and have a lot of flexibility to do so.
And as far as from a WooCommerce perspective, I think it works great. It’s just a perfect pairing, especially with Beaver Builder because WooCommerce out of the box is just a great solution for anyone who wants to create an e-commerce website with WordPress. Out of the box, you can have your shop, your cart, your checkout page, your product pages—those are all going to work out of the box. But what Beaver Builder and other page builders do is take it to the next level, where you can create custom layouts for your shop, custom layouts for your product page, your checkout page, your cart page. So all those shopping cart experiences can now be customized to match your brand and be consistent throughout your entire website. So that’s why I really like page builders with WooCommerce.
Adam:
Nice. Excellent answer. Thank you.
Emma:
It was really good. It was like all the questions that I wanted to ask as a follow-up were answered already. He’s good. I can see your podcast experience background. Maybe you can go into another thing, like an additional plugin that can help enhance all of these Beaver Builder features?
Anthony:
Well, thank you for leading with that question or the follow-up question, because Beaver Themer is an add-on product that we have that actually allows you to create all those custom layouts with WooCommerce and Beaver Builder. The good news is—and I was actually going to tell you this later in the podcast—we are going to be including Beaver Themer in all of our pricing packages soon. So now people can get the power of Beaver Builder, Beaver Themer, and if they want to create WooCommerce websites, it’s all going to be in a nice package for you. You can use it and be able to create it. We also have a free video tutorial course on how to create e-commerce websites using all of our products with WooCommerce.
Adam:
Nice. When you said “The Power of Beaver Builder,” there was like a He-Man, “The Power of Beaver Builder.”
Anthony:
Well, Brent, our design lead, always likes to create these themed beavers, especially during Halloween. So I might have to give him that idea, say, “Hey, maybe this year we could do like a Thor Beaver.”
Adam:
Yes, there you go.
Anthony:
We’re even trying to get him to do a Batman Beaver, but he hasn’t gotten around to that yet.
Adam:
Batman… a lot of alliteration going on there. Batman, Beaver Builder. Oh, very cool. Alright, so from a high level, there’s the customization that a page builder can bring you. What challenges might someone face—and this may be if you have any case studies or people that you’re thinking of—what type of challenges can someone run into as they’re building out their e-commerce site using Beaver Builder and WooCommerce? Are there things that you’ve seen, like, “Hey, these are the things you need to avoid,” or “You’re using Beaver Builder wrong”? Anything that you’ve seen that might be some of the challenges?
Anthony:
Well, I think when anyone is using any kind of new tool or software, there’s always going to be some kind of learning curve. But I think what people can find confidence in using WooCommerce and Beaver Builder is that both of those products have been around for a very long time. Beaver Builder’s been around for over 10 years, so the product is very stable, very mature, and it’s not going to go anywhere. The same thing with WooCommerce. WooCommerce has been around since, I mean, probably since WordPress started back in 2009 or so. They’re very reliable. The good news is if you do have any questions, there are so many video tutorials, so many courses, so many YouTube videos about both of these products that you’re going to be able to find any answer to any question you might have. Yeah, there’s a learning curve, and you might run into some roadblocks, but you can simply Google
and find the answer to whatever roadblock you have while you’re creating your e-commerce site.
Emma:
Do you think there’s ever a case—or maybe you’ve seen an example—where a page builder was maybe not the right choice? Is there ever a situation like that?
Anthony:
Yeah, I think if someone’s looking to create a basic online store and they already have a WordPress theme that they just really love and want to use, then that might be a good fit for them. They might say, “Hey, I already have a theme I like, or I have an existing site, and I just want to be able to plug in an e-commerce platform to add some products.” Then that’s perfect for them. They can install WooCommerce, use the default styles and settings, and they’re off and running with creating their e-commerce site. They don’t have to start over with a new page builder or a new website. So if they already have a preexisting site, or they just want to build something very simple, or they want to use a very specific theme, then maybe a page builder is not the right fit for them.
Adam:
Got it. Sometimes when you run into the hardcore WordPress person who wrote the code themselves, I have seen this thing where page builders get a bad reputation, like “You don’t want to use a page builder.” What is the source of that angst that you may have seen out there?
Anthony:
Well, just seeing how WordPress has evolved over the years, I think, like you said, some of those hardcore WordPress users may have been the people who were there from the very beginning and liked to hand-code WordPress themes and their websites. So maybe they feel like, “Hey, a page builder kind of takes away the fun of hand-coding things the way they’re used to.” So they might not have completely adopted the idea of a page builder, but I think if they’re open to exploring it, they’ll find that, man, it really speeds up their development time—the time it takes to build websites—and they still have the flexibility to add code if they want to. So that’s one of the nice things about Beaver Builder. It’s pretty much a no-code type of product, but it does allow you to custom code, add your own HTML, CSS, JavaScript, things like that.
So you can do customization if you like to, but if you want to use a product out of the box without coding, you can. The other thing I will say is that there’s a lot of misconception when it comes to using page builders. People say, “Oh, it impacts speed or performance.” But there have been so many case studies that have been written online about people doing performance speed tests with page builders, including Beaver Builder, that have proven that page builders are actually very fast and are not the main cause of slow performance. When building a WordPress website, there are just so many factors that could impact speed, like slow web hosting services, if someone installs too many plugins, if people upload image files that are too large and haven’t been compressed, or if they’re not using other speed technology like caching tools and CDNs. I mean, there are so many other factors when it comes to speed and performance that I think people are being narrow-minded if they’re thinking that it’s just a page builder that’s slowing down their website.
Emma:
Have you found that some of those hardcore WordPress users who like to do everything themselves from coding everything start to see the beauty of a page builder? And what was it, maybe, that ended up changing their minds?
Anthony:
Yeah, I mean, we get testimonials and feedback reviews all the time from people who say the exact same thing—you know, they had that aha moment where they said, “I have been a diehard non-page builder person for many years. I’ve been hand-coding everything myself, and I’ve finally tried out Beaver Builder or other page builders, and wow, I’m blown away. This is amazing. I’ll never go back to hand-coding everything myself.” And that’s just a fun turnaround story that we love to hear because I don’t think people have to necessarily choose one way or the other. They can actually have a hybrid of both. You can still use page builders and can still custom code on page builders. So I don’t think people have to plant their flag and say, “I only choose one side or the other.”
Adam:
I love how you go through testimonials and get to know your customers. Beaver Builder has an incredible community. You have a very active Slack, with a lot of people in there talking about Beaver Builder. I’m curious, is there anyone who stands out who used Beaver Builder in a surprising way? There’s this idea I have that you make a tool, and someone uses your tool in a way that the creator wasn’t expecting or beyond the general idea. Has anybody surprised you, like “Wow, you made that with Beaver Builder”? Anything that stands out?
Anthony:
Wow, there have been so many great websites and examples to choose from. It’s kind of hard to pick, but what recently surprised me was that there have been a lot of college websites created using Beaver Builder—really very recognized institutions. If you Google “College Beaver Builder College Websites,” we wrote a blog post about, I think it was, 13 colleges that created their websites using Beaver Builder. I’m just going to name off a few examples, like Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, USC, University of Florida, UC— I mean, the list goes on. These are all really prominent schools. The nice thing is these colleges are actually teaching these students how to build websites using Beaver Builder. And I’ll give another example that I was recently a part of, which was 48in48—I’m not sure if you guys have heard of that.
It’s a nonprofit organization that helps build websites for organizations that need websites. Basically, they ask for volunteers to build 48 free websites for organizations that need them, and they build them in 48 hours or less, and they’re all using Beaver Builder to create these websites. I got to be part of the judging panel to select the top three. It’s just fun. It’s just some recognition. But I was amazed to see some of these websites that are created—I mean, full five to ten-page websites for these organizations. And I was very impressed by the quality of work that was done. So it was cool just to see people using Beaver Builder in the real world.
Emma:
That is so cool. I’m Googling 48in48 right now, and it makes me want to try it because I’ve just been trying to do a WooCommerce site on the side a couple of hours here and there. Now I’m like, “Alright, I’m going to go home—I’m at home—after this call. I’m going to go get Beaver Builder, sign up for it, and make 48 versions of it.” This is the coolest thing. I got goosebumps when you were telling me about this. This is really cool; it should get more attention. I like this.
Anthony:
Yeah, we’re definitely trying to spread the word too. It’s just a great cause, and they’re always looking for volunteers. So if you want to help build websites or have any marketing skills that you want to volunteer, they’d be willing to have you help them. They always host this. I think every quarter, there’s a new event, so it’s really cool.
Emma:
I just want to quickly circle back to the college websites. I’m also looking at that blog post right now that shows all of the images of it. So would you say—is there a niche or some type of topic that most Beaver Builder users tend to use it for, or does it kind of cover all different types of sites?
Anthony:
We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen it all. I mean, obviously we’ve seen e-commerce sites with WooCommerce. We have college websites; we have blogs. I think Robbie even said there was a NASA website that was using Beaver Builder. I mean, there are just some really cool examples of websites. People build directory websites, membership sites. What else is there? Yeah, I’ve definitely seen a variety, even just simple landing pages. There are so many use cases, and it’s really neat to see a lot of people that use it. I mean, there have been over a million websites built with Beaver Builder, so there’s probably everything you can imagine that’s been built with Beaver Builder.
Adam:
That’s amazing. A million! There are a number of brands in WordPress that have a following, and I would say Beaver Builder is one of them. Sometimes there’s this tongue-in-cheek idea of your company needing fans and raving fans and how to get them. I would say that Beaver Builder actually does have fans, and it is exciting to see that. And I think your commitment to some of these projects where, “Hey, we’re going to give back; we’re going to do this 48in48,” things like that are spectacular. Alright, shifting gears a little bit, because Bob keeps bugging Emma and me that we’ve got to get our numbers up. SEO for this podcast—Bob keeps bugging us, so I’ve got to use the word AI a few more times, apparently. I’m kidding; Bob doesn’t say that. But that is one of the transformational things of technology in this industry. Nothing is going to be left untouched by AI in some way. I’m curious if Beaver Builder has any plans if anything’s happening in that area. Yeah. What’s your take on page builders and how page builders will relate to AI now and going forward?
Anthony:
Yes,
AI is definitely moving very fast, I will say. And it’s exciting. It’s like the internet before the internet became what it is today, and I think that’s why people are so excited. There’s this new technology; they’re all trying to figure out how to apply it to their business, and the potential is limitless. The evolution in the last year or two has just been mind-boggling. Every time there’s a new announcement from OpenAI or Google or Facebook about something using AI, I’m just like, “Wow, it’s amazing.” So anyways, as far as when it comes to building websites, I’ve already seen a lot of technology and products and software that have been created to help web creators build websites using AI. For example, I’ve seen AI that can help create sitemaps. Obviously, they can write content, create stock images, spin up layouts, provide brand colors, and create logos for you.
A lot of these are separate products, and I think where page builder companies will evolve to is they’ll find ways to integrate some of these special features or product capabilities into the page builder, which will eventually give someone more of an all-in-one solution for their customers. So that’s something that we’ve been exploring for our product as well. It’s like, “Okay, we want to continue to evolve our product. We want to give value to our customers, but we also don’t want to…” A lot of big concerns for page builders are that people say, “Oh, we don’t want page builders to have too much bloat.” So there’s a balancing act. We want to add more features, but it’s still got to be lightweight. It’s still got to not impact performance. We want to give all these AI integrations, but is it necessary? Are there other products or tools that are already doing it better that people can just rely on versus us trying to give a different version of it? So there’s definitely a lot of discussion on where AI fits into our business model. But yeah, it’s definitely something that we’re keeping a pulse on, and it’ll be interesting to see how we find ways to use it.
Emma:
Very cool. Thank you. That’s a very nice segue into whether there are any sneak peeks or exciting things happening that you can let us know about over at Beaver Builder. Maybe AI-related, but maybe not.
Anthony:
Yeah, we actually have a lot of projects in development. We used to be, I guess, a little bit behind closed doors. A lot of times, we didn’t want the secret to come out too early, but now we’re trying to be more transparent, more open about what projects we’re working on. Justin Busa, the co-founder of Beaver Builder, actually wrote two blog posts recently about upcoming features and product development that they’re working on, and we’ve actually published them. We shared them, and if you check out those blog posts, we have screenshots, video clips, and examples of what that new technology is going to look like. And what we found is that being more transparent and letting people know what’s coming ahead has actually been a good thing. It’s created a lot of buzz; people are really excited about it. It’s something for people to look forward to. And it just shows that we’re continuing to grow. We’re definitely not stagnant. We’re continuing to add more to our product, continue to improve our product for our customers, and we’re listening to their feedback because a lot of the ideas that we’re implementing came from their feedback and their suggestions.
Emma:
Nice. I love to hear stuff like that—giving clients exactly what they want and a solution to their problems. Actually, those are Adam’s words. I think he drops that at least once in every podcast, but I got him this time. Here you go.
Adam:
Alright, so the name of this podcast is Woo Biz Chat. So, business—a lot of people listening to this have a business in WordPress and WooCommerce. Recently, you all made the decision to update pricing. Pricing is one of those topics that business owners in WordPress, and really in most any business, struggle with. How do we price this product? What are the repercussions of pricing? We know why we change pricing—it’s for profit and different reasons—but I recognize that. If you could maybe take us back behind the curtain a little bit and share with us—so Beaver Builder has updated its pricing. Can you walk us through the thought process, the steps you took to get to where you are today, and some of the things that might’ve made you nervous and how you decided to go forward? I’d love to just hear your thinking on pricing and price changes.
Anthony:
Yeah, this is actually a really good discussion because we just published a blog post last week announcing our upcoming pricing changes that are going to happen in September. Now, before I even dive into that, I just want to let you know that if any existing Beaver Builder customers have a subscription, this does not impact them in any way. Their subscription, their plans, will all remain the same. They do not have to worry.
Adam:
Yeah, that’s a choice right there. That’s part of a philosophy—is that we’re going to grandfather people, and we’re going to keep the people who are on our current plan the same. Okay, this is interesting. Yeah, I want to hear more.
Anthony:
Yeah. So Beaver Builder hasn’t changed its pricing for over 10 years.
Adam:
Oh, wow. Okay.
Anthony:
And of course, over those 10 years, the costs of things have gone up and have changed. But we struggled with changing our pricing because we care about our customers and we didn’t want to interrupt their current pricing models at any time. And so, when we did go through this process, we always thought of them first. These are our legacy customers. Some of these customers have been around for 5, 7, 8, 10 years, and we really wanted to, I guess, reward them for being loyal to us by not interrupting their pricing. We’re going to keep it all the same. So that was number one. It was rule number one—we do not mess with legacy customers’ pricing subscriptions. These changes are only impacting new customers. But we also didn’t want to go with the “Hey, we’re just going to raise prices to raise prices.” That just doesn’t feel good either. We’re really about the people.
So we said, “How can we add more value to our new customer base?” And one of the pieces of feedback that we got over the years was, “Hey, can you include Beaver Themer in all your pricing plans?” Now, when Beaver Themer came out in 2017, it was a new thing. Theme builders were not around. So Beaver Themer was one of the first to do it, or if not the first to do it. And so it was a new revolutionary product. So of course, we felt like, “Hey, this new product—we want to be able to provide it as an add-on subscription. If people want to use it, they can purchase it. If not, Beaver Builder as it is works great.” But over the years, as we got more competitors, our competitors started building theme builders into their pricing plans.
So we said, “Okay, we want to be competitive with our competitors, so we’re going to include Beaver Themer in all our new pricing plans. We’re going to include the WordPress Beaver Builder theme in all of our pricing plans, and we’re going to change our lowest pricing package from $99 to $89.” So it lowers the barrier to entry for any new customer that just wants to build one website. They’ll get all of our products—the page builder, the theme, and Beaver Themer for only $89, which I think makes us very competitive. Then some of our other pricing plans, like our highest tier plan, our unlimited plan, is actually still the same. So not only did we lower our lowest price, we kept our highest price the same, and then our middle tiers are just slightly higher, but they include everything. They include Beaver Themer. So we really said, “Hey, how can we balance providing value and still make us competitive in the market?”
And then the only main differentiator from our legacy users is that before, all of our plans in our legacy packages were unlimited. Now we have some site limitations. So our middle tier has a 50-site limit, our highest tier is unlimited, and our lowest tier is one site. But here’s the thing—we took it one step further. We didn’t just throw out any random number. We did a lot of digging into our analytics and did a case study of all of our customers out there—how many sites each subscription had, how many websites they built, and all these things in different pricing packages. We ran the numbers and said, “Okay, if we were to make this change, would it drastically impact our customers or any of our new customers?” And the answer is no. So we found a really nice balance where it’s like, we’re going to give you more value, and yeah, we’re going to give you slight limitations, but 90% of you are not even going to be impacted even if you change to the new plans. But if you stay with the old ones, you’re still going to be okay. It was a very well-thought-out process. I’m very proud of the team. It took us months to really come to where we are today. Even then, before pulling the trigger, we announced it to our Facebook group just to get some initial feedback to see if anyone brought up any things that we didn’t think of that we might need to adjust.
Luckily, it’s been really well-received, so we’re very excited to push it out.
Adam:
Nice. Congratulations on that. It sounds like it was something that you had to think through a lot. There were a lot of questions on, “Are we doing this the right way?” And it wasn’t just, “We need more money—raise prices.” It was done the Beaver Builder way, where you guys think through things and care a lot about your community. So well done there. But you say it’s not actually until September that this is going live?
Anthony:
Yes. Yeah. September, I believe it’s September 10th or 11th, somewhere around that range, is when we’re going live. And yeah, I will definitely say that we really wanted to focus on our customers, our community, and we did not want to upset them in any way. And that’s the one thing we definitely led with—this new plan does not impact you if you’re not changing your subscription. Legacy users, you’re still good.
Adam:
There you go. So if you are listening to this podcast before September 10th, hurry up and go get your— but if you’re already a Beaver Builder user, you’re fine.
Emma:
But that’s actually great advice for all the listeners out there who have pricing plans on their sites—the thought process and all of the data analysis that you guys put into deciding when to do the change and how to do the change and what the price is like. That’s something that we hopefully can adapt into our own business models, however big or small your personal Woo business is. But that leads me into another question. Let’s say somebody jumps on this before the pricing change or after—it doesn’t matter—and they’re considering trying out Beaver Builder. Maybe they’re a first-timer for building a site in general. What kind of things should they focus on to get the most out of this tool? Is there a right or wrong way to build a website? Is there a logical way? It can be maybe something you recommend from experience, but yeah, what would be something that you would advise to someone using it for the first time?
Anthony:
Well, if you’re interested in Beaver Builder, I would say there are a couple of opportunities to try it for free. Number one, we have Beaver Builder Lite, which is our free version. We’ve added some more to it, by the way, recently. And there’s also a free live demo on our website where you can actually click, and it’ll spin up a demo website, and you can literally drag and drop the modules and see how it works. So there are definitely some free versions that you can use to try it before you buy it. The other thing is we have free courses, as I mentioned, not only published on our YouTube channel, but they’re also available on our website. We don’t try to sell you anything. We just have you log in, and you can watch the video tutorials. You can watch video tutorials on how to use the product.
We even have a course that walks you from beginning to end on how to build a website, and you watch—we call it Follow Along—where you just follow us building the website, and we give you all the design files. That’s another way to do it as well. And gosh, like I said, there are just so many resources out there. There was a gentleman named Joshua Long—I’m just going to give him a shout-out. He just created a course recently on webdesigntrainer.com, where it’s a beginning-to-end, soup-to-nuts course on how to build a website using Beaver Builder. It’s very well created. I want to give him a shout-out. Also, WP101 has created a course on how to use basic WordPress. Their video tutorials are great, but they also have some course content regarding Beaver Builder. So yeah, there are a lot of different ways to learn about Beaver Builder, learn about WordPress, and learn how to use WooCommerce too. So hopefully, don’t be scared—just jump in, take it a little bit at a time, day by day, and you’ll be surprised at what you can create in a couple of days.
Adam:
Yeah, I was very impressed. I Googled WooCommerce and Beaver Builder, and Will Morris wrote a really in-depth article—just step-by-step—on how to build a WooCommerce site using Beaver Builder. And it is just a very well-done tutorial with videos. I think that type of attention to detail is one of the reasons why Beaver Builder is so popular. I think Elementor—and no shade to them at all, they’re great people over there—but one thing about Beaver Builder is that it feels to me like it’s the page builder for the people who know… just, it kind of has that feeling to me. And one thing I liked is that in that article, someone asked a question, and you were the first person to answer it. There was another one back in 2021. This article has been updated. And so you personally hopped in and answered a question. I think that just goes to who Beaver Builder is and what you guys really stand for.
Anthony:
Thank you. Yeah, we’re definitely for the people. We try to be personable. And actually, we’re going to be at WordCamp US. So if you are in Portland this year, feel free to say hi to us. The founders are going to be there—Billy, Robbie, Justin, and I. So yeah, make sure you come and say hi. We’ll have a booth out there too.
Adam:
Very cool. Yeah, I was just going to ask—so if anybody wants to get to know Beaver Builder, WordCamp US is where you should be.
Emma:
Yeah. Hopefully with a beaver holding a Thor hammer.
Adam:
I have high expectations.
Emma:
But yeah, WordCamp US is just around the corner, so if you have more personal questions to ask Anthony or his colleagues, go find him at his booth, wherever that may be in the large conference hall. But is there maybe something that we didn’t ask you that you wanted to talk about related to Beaver Builder, WordPress, or a Woo site? Or it can be completely unrelated as well. We’re always down with that. Maybe something we forgot.
Anthony:
Well, I guess I’ll just leave with this. One of the great things about WordPress I’ve found is the community. Whatever product or products you use within WordPress, I think we all just look at it as a big ecosystem. We’re all one big family, especially when you notice it when we go to WordCamps, the WordPress meetups, local meetups, and of course the big conferences—WordCamp US, WordCamp Europe, Asia, etc. There’s just this really amazing community where we’re all just friends, and we all geek out about the same thing. It’s just fun to be able to hang out with like-minded people. So I would say if you haven’t gone to one of these live events, please do. It’s a lot of fun, and a lot of people put a lot of work into hosting these events. So make a trip, and hopefully, we’ll meet you all there.
Adam:
Fantastic. Well, Anthony, thank you so much for supporting the WordPress community by attending these events. And again, yeah, stop by and meet Anthony and the good people of Beaver Builder at a WordCamp near you. Thank you for this time. This has been another episode of Biz Chat. You can find us wherever you find a podcast. Please share this podcast with people that you care about. If you don’t care about them, don’t share it with them. But if you do care about people, you should share this podcast because you’ll get to meet amazing people like Anthony and learn about the companies in WordPress that are doing the work, such as Beaver Builder. And with that, thank you so much. I hope you guys have a great rest of your day.








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