Steve’s Blog

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Keanan Koppenhaver, who runs Alpha Particle, a Chicago agency that builds WordPress publishing sites for brands like Rolling Stone and Variety. We cover how the pandemic changed his sales process, plus his work with Webflow, Airtable and headless/JAMstack projects. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Ovi Liuta, our first colleague on the show, who joined Watchful when we acquired his XCloner backup plugin. He talks about a decade as a solo developer, the unusual challenges of backup software, and why he decided to partner up. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Parth Lawate, who grew Tekdi from basic web development into a 70-person agency in Pune, India, building national-scale projects such as India’s identity card system. He explains how values, socially useful work, and open source shape the company. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Mike Herchel, a senior front-end developer at Lullabot, a 60-person agency that has been fully distributed for more than a decade. He explains how Lullabot keeps a close-knit culture, pays the bills, and protects work-life balance. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Deb Cinkus, who has made bold moves: relocating with staff from North Carolina to Guatemala, and pivoting Polished Geek from web development to conversion optimization. She walks through how she handles big changes and the personalization tools she relies on. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Sander Potjer and Martijn Boomsma, who run Perfect Web Team, behind some of Europe’s best-known Joomla sites. They explain why they run everything through GitHub, including client communication, and share lessons on performance optimization. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Matt Schwartz, who runs Inspry in Atlanta, working within a large network of contractors across WordPress, Joomla and Magento. We dig into the billing and project management challenges that come with such varied work. People in this episode

The Hot Air Podcast was a series I recorded with my friend Vic Drover for Watchful.net. In this episode, we talk with Hans Skillrud and Donata Kalnenaite. Hans built and sold a Chicago web agency, then teamed up with Donata to launch Termageddon. They talk about preparing an agency for sale, and how Termageddon helps agencies and clients keep up with privacy laws. People in this episode