Davinder Singh – Founder of The WP Weekly

My name is Davinder Singh Kainth and I am from Chandigarh, India. I am a web designer and developer by trait. I am also an SEO expert and love to coach people by actively participating in course creation, podcasting, and content creation.

Over the last 15 years, I have done many things in the online world mainly out of curiosity. See, you got to break things to learn – and that’s my philosophy (in simpler words my way of doing things).

I identify as a “Digital Consultant” who patiently listens to a problem, builds a plan, and implements the solution that brings desired results. My experience along with a healthy community of experts helps me in this process.

The Journey Began

My digital life started when I was studying in college. I was fortunate enough to have a computer and an internet connection, which was very rare back in the days (all thanks to my amazing parents). Out of curiosity, I started to learn how to build web pages using HTML, and then there were tools like Frontpage, Dreamweaver, and so on.

The journey began when I made my first blog on the Blogger platform (Blogspot, now owned by Google). I started by writing tips and tutorials around the Windows operating system but it was all fun and learning at that time.

However, as my blogging grew (and I became serious about it) so did my urge to go to the next level. Hence, I bought my first domain, web hosting, and moved my blogger blog to WordPress. Back then WordPress was a very simple blogging platform – but that is all I needed at that time.

One fine day I discovered the Google Adsense program and started using it on existing blogs to see if it works for me. Fortunately, it did and drove significant revenue. As you can guess, my excitement at that time was through the roof and since I was a teenager still, this was a deadly combination.

As I progressed I got more serious about blogging but eventually got bored of it so I transitioned into website design and development. Now, this was another struggle because I had to start from the ground up. After finding my feet in client acquisition -I built my own web agency and also worked with other bigger agencies.

As of now, I have a number of different revenue streams which is exactly what I planned. If you want to survive, flourish, and keep things interesting on the internet – get involved in a lot of variety of work in the digital world. This way, one just does not learn a lot, it keeps the interest and energy levels high. Plus, there is money to be made in every field you get into.

The Need for The WP Weekly

The WP Weekly Logo

I always wanted to do something like “The WP Weekly” but was busy chasing money and work for so many years. Now that I have a stable ship financially – carrying out a big passion project was easy. My specialty is to build niche content websites that cater to a specific subset of the ecosystem. Like ProBeaver is specifically for Beaver Builder users.

The WP Weekly is a platform for experts in our field to share their best. The main content vertical is the news & updates for WordPress enthusiasts featuring real people who have done real work in the online ecosystem. Of course, there are other content verticals like ToolBo and Glossary to keep pushing the knowledge hub offering more. (still a work in progress, though).

Starting The WP Weekly was easy as I have already built so many branded spaces in the online world. The challenging part was making myself comfortable with the audio and video medium of content production. But then, since I love doing new things and challenging myself – it went fine.

As a few wise people say, you will always be rough at your first 10 episodes. So, get over the rough part to finally discover the path of refinement.

Moreover, I started with ToThePC.com more than a decade back. No content updates have been done in the last few years but guess what it still makes some money. ProBeaver is my most successful niche content website from a financial and visibility point of view. It offers a one-stop destination for Beaver Builder plugin users.

I run a bunch of courses (and more on the way) at Smart Web School website. Also, there is Simple Pro Themes selling commercial WordPress Themes for Genesis Framework. Besides that, being the owner of the The WP Weekly website, I am also involved in The WP Daily project. In addition, another WordPress resources website BasicWP is rebooting this year.

My main agency front website is iGuiding Creative. It has been an ignored child of mine as I don’t focus much on direct clients and mostly prefer to work with referrals from trusted sources. Nevertheless, the makeover is in the making (still my child).

Advice for Business Owners

Most people fail because they are stubborn with regard to the list of things they want to do and to the list of people that want to learn from. The other common rabbit hole is the urge to learn everything. “You cannot learn and be expert at everything.” – the earlier someone understands this the better.

Learn things that interest you and invoke passion to explore it. For other things, you can just hire people who are experts in those fields. That’s how a successful business is run. In the online world, we have a big advantage with the huge pool of remote workers and freelancers. Just use that to your advantage!

There are success stories in every field of the WordPress ecosystem from people from different corners of the world. Just because there is a popular plugin that does something specific, it should not stop you from creating something similar. You might end up creating something even better and become the next leader in that field. There have been many such examples in the WordPress ecosystem.

The business you want to create should match your interests and capabilities. Asking a developer focussed person to start a graphic design business would be a “dead on arrival” scenario.

If you are unfamiliar with the industry, work with other people to get a feel of the ecosystem. If you get a chance to work with a bigger agency, then do it even if you get less money for it. Because things you will learn there and tools you will be exposed to while working in a big agency setup is way more valuable than money in question. It is like your training to go the next step when you venture independently in the future.

My story isn’t different from the majority of people who have spent close to a decade in the WordPress ecosystem. We all start making smaller websites and eventually climb the ladder of big-ticket projects.

After I went from blogging to website building, almost 100% of income was dependent on website design and development projects. I have gone through that rumble of chasing clients and trying to get more leads (it’s a fun thing for a limited time only).

For the last 3-4 years, my focus has been to diversify my income sources (wish I had started doing this earlier). As of now, 40% of my income comes from non-website building work like coaching, courses, consulting, affiliate sales, partnership, and so on. I am focusing more on my web properties to up this percentage to 65% and reduce the money flow percentage from the website making to 35% or less.

How? Learn new things and surround yourself with people smarter than you, and then even daunting things look easy.

WordPress & Beyond

With Gutenberg, WordPress is in a big transition phase as of now. Once Gutenberg gets more stable – WordPress will become a more attractive option for even those users looking for alternatives during this transition phase.

WordPress is still the best platform for solid and extensive website development. Plus, now you can do a lot more than build a simple website on the WordPress platform. With a big ecosystem around WordPress, the future for sure is bright and promising.

There is an alternative option for everything in life, WordPress is no different. Yes, now WordPress competitors like Wix, SquareSpace, Webflow, and so on are more visible and do have a growing user base. But the overall ecosystem has also grown in terms of users and the number of websites being made. A healthy and competitive ecosystem is a good thing, even to keep WordPress at the top of its game.

My Love for the WordPress Community

Surprisingly I attended my first meetup a decade ago and then never got a chance to attend the second one. But recently I got an invite to be a speaker at a WordCamp and to challenge myself – I said yes. So, I did attend WordCamp Udaipur in November 2019 as a speaker and attendee.

Davinder Singh Speaking at WordCamp

I loved the whole experience of meeting geeks and speaking my language (we cannot do that with our family members as for them, it’s an alien language). I was all booked to attend WordCamp Asia 2020 but unfortunately, it was canceled due to COVID 19.

I have so many WordPress friends who I have seen grow so much in the last few years. We share and learn so much from each other in our private Facebook groups like Web Creators Community. My three favorite people in the ecosystem are Kim Doyal, Todd E Jones, and Robert Cairns.

How I Keep Myself Updated

I spend a lot of time in a bunch of Facebook groups. Just by watching the conversations, you tend to learn a lot of new things, tools, resources, and happenings in the ecosystem. Plus, I am subscribed to a lot of good email lists for that targeted information access within email inbox.

I Have a Life Other Than the Work

I like to design something cool or watch animal programs. Quiet time with people who matter is my thing. I love traveling and one of my favorite destinations is Singapore. I also had pet cats some years back. Now, none – a kid is enough.

I Reward Myself by

Spending time with people who matter, donating, and more importantly helping new people who have a passion and patience to learn (and not speed race into this world).

Connect With Me

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