18
Feb
2008
Posted by The Mad Ape as Interviews, WordPress Plugins
Most of you do not know Pawan Agrawal but I bet most of you are familiar with his suite of impressive WordPress Plugins. This guy is a workaholic and is constantly coming up with quality products that make the lives of us blog owners easier.
I use a lot of his plugins and they do make my blogging life a more productive and efficient experience.
Recently, Pawan took time from his busy schedule and agreed to do a candid interview with the Mad Ape.
As the CEO of MaxBlogPress, he and his staff have developed some truly amazing WordPress plugins in a very short period of time. These include:
MaxBlogPress DealDotCom Widget
MaxBlogPress Unblockable Popup
Mad Ape: How long have you been blogging?
Pawan: I think I’ve created my first blog 3 years back. But that was not a real blog in practice. I don’t like writing much so I usually use blog as a CMS. (content management system)
Mad Ape: What got you started?
Pawan: I first got started in the web marketing business without any plan. I was just randomly surfing the internet and stumbled upon an ad which promised to me that I could earn money by just reading emails.
Later I realized I couldn’t earn much from such things but I was really interested in this (marketing) field. I continued to learn more and tried a lot of new things.
Mad Ape: When did you discover WordPress? Why did you pick that over other forms of Web communication and development?
Pawan: I discovered WordPress when I was searching for a solution to create my own blog. I picked it when I discovered that WordPress was free and that I could customize it in any way I liked.
At that time WordPress was in its very early stage of development and it did not dominate over other blogging platforms like it does now.
Initially, WordPress was just a blogging platform. I soon realized that it could not only be used for blogging but that it could be used as a very good and customizable CMS. I loved this system and started using it in every website I created.
Mad Ape: What are your company’s long term goals and objectives?
Pawan: My goal is to help bloggers get more traffic to their blog and make for them to make more money out of it by developing useful software/scripts.
There’s a lot of things which can be automated, which otherwise is nearly impossible to do manually. My objective is to identify the processes which will help bloggers generate a lot of traffic and income and then create scripts/software for that process. That way all bloggers can take advantage of my products without much effort on their part.
Mad Ape: Where do you see MaxBlogPress and yourself in 5 years?
Pawan: Things changes so fast in the Internet world that 5 years seems to be a very long time. I usually don’t look too far ahead these days because things can change so dramatically that what I plan now wont apply in the future.
I think by 5 years MaxBlogPress will be recognized as one of the best websites for WordPress plugins which will help bloggers to monitize their blogs better and attract more traffic.
Mad Ape: What is your favorite WordPress plugin?
Pawan: It’s quite hard to say which is my favorite. I have come across a lot of plugins and often I find something which is very nice.
One plugin I like very much is “exec-php”. (http://bluesome.net/post/2005
Mad Ape: What has been the most challenging plugin to develop?
Pawan: MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer is the plugin which took a lot of our time to develop. It was quite a bit of challenge to test the WordPress’ pinging behaviour in different WordPress versions.
Also, this plugin uses its own pinging function instead of using the WordPress default ping function. This make the plugin more useful by having the ability to show what was happened during the ping like: If the ping was successful or not. If it wasn’t successful what was the error?
Here are some of the pinging tests we did while developing the plugin. The information in brackets is what WordPress should do (but doesn’t) and the MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer makes sure to ping in that manner.
What will happen while:
* Publishing new post: (It should Ping)
* Save a new post (never published post) (It should NOT ping)
* Save a published post by clicking on “Save and Continue” or “Save” (It should NOT ping)
* Edit time stamp using future post and publish it (It should NOT ping)
* Edit time stamp using future post and save it as draft (It should NOT ping)
* After the future post appear in the blog (It should ping)
* Future published post edited and saved as draft (It should NOT ping, because it will get automatically pinged when it gets published again)
Mad Ape: Where do you live?
Pawan: Kathmandu, Nepal
Mad Ape: What are the advantages of operating a business in Nepal?
Pawan: The biggest advantage is that the cost of living is very low compared to other big countries. I can afford to deliver my products to my clients for a cheaper price and maintain excellent quality.
Mad Ape: And the disadvantages?
Pawan: It’s quite hard to do dollar transactions from here. Beside that I often find that my country is not listed on the supported countries list of many affiliate networks/payment processors etc.
Mad Ape: Have you had a mentor in your life?
Pawan: I don’t have any “one to one” kind of mentors but I consider many successful people as my mentor as I learn a lot from their courses and their success.
Rich Schefren is the man who dramatically changed the way I look at business. I like the way he deeply researches his topic and provides solid information on that.
I consider Mike Filsaime and Russell Brunson as the people who inspire me. I have seen them grow so fast from nothing to million dollars which is simply amazing.
Mad Ape: MaxBlogPress has provided a lot of good products for bloggers in a short period of time - Where do you get the ideas to create new plugins? What inspires you?
Pawan: Since, I use WordPress a lot myself, I often find myself saying that it should have this or that for a feature. That’s where I get many ideas for creating plugins.
Besides that, I’m an avid reader and whenever I’m involved in something I like to read everything on that topic. I keep an eye on everything related to WordPress and blogging always looking at ways it can be used for attracting traffic and money.
I often find good plugin ideas by reading blog posts, comments from readers, and discussions on Internet forums. Sometimes I get an idea from other plugins which have a great concept but poor design, coding, or support. I take that idea and expand on it, improving it so I can provide a better product that will make the user have a better blogging experience.
Mad Ape: Is this a full-time career for you or do you supplement your income with other work?
Pawan: Yes, it’s now a full-time career for me.
Mad Ape: What other web businesses have you been involved with? Are you still involved? Why or why not?
Pawan: I have been involved in many other web businesses like affiliate marketing, creating entertainment websites for a particular niche, developing content websites for Adsense etc…
I like trying a lot of different things.
Currently, I’m putting my full energy into MaxBlogPress. I’m quite passionate about this project and have a long term plan for it as discussed earlier.
Mad Ape: Are you married? Children?
Pawan: No, and obviously no.
Mad Ape: What are your hobbies?
Pawan: I love working on computer and developing new things. It’s the part of my work but it’s like my hobby too.
Besides that, I like traveling to new places, meeting new people, experiencing new things and learn new things. Have you noticed the word “new” here multiple times? I get bored by same things again and again.
Mad Ape: Thank you for your time.
Pawan: You are welcome.
Technorati Tags: MaxBlogPress, WordPress Plugins, Pawan Agrawal, Mad Ape Interview
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