I am Jarrett Gucci, the founder, and CEO of WP Fix It. I live in beautiful Southern California in the city of Aliso Viejo. I always like to refer to where I live as beautiful Southern California because it is about 10 minutes from the beach, rarely ever cold and the sun is always shining. It is almost impossible to ever be bummed out about the weather in this part of the world.
Our corporate office is located about two miles from my residence. where my team has serviced over 382,000 WordPress issues since 2009.
I am also known in the WordPress support world as Quicksilver having the ability to troubleshoot WordPress issues at great speeds. I am part mutant that was born in the darkest depths of open source with superhuman support powers.
The Journey Began
So many moons ago I was a District Manager for Linens and Things. I was living in Long Beach CA and my office was about 50 miles away in Orange County. I was responsible for 6 stores in the OC area my main responsibility as a DM was to drive sales and customer service goals.
During my travels to other stores, I met a department manager named Andre and he told me about something he did in college with some buddies. He built a web page using FLASH and it had 1 million squares on it that were 1px by 1px. Each square was sold for $1 as advertising space and when you hovered around the page, it would expand the ad. The goal was to sell 1 million squares at $1 each in 1 year.
The first time I heard the term to make money while you sleep. So I began to teach myself Flash because I thought it was so cool and was the future of the web. That lasted about 6 months and then I gave up and dove into HTML and CSS.
In the first quarter of 2006, Linens and Things was purchased by a private equity firm and they had one goal in mind. Liquidate all inventory and file bankruptcy. I was fortunate enough to see the writing on the wall so I pondered what I would do next to make money for my family. I had been playing around with HTML and CSS for a few months and thought maybe I could sell websites for a living to small business owners.
I gave my notice to Lines and Things and then panicked for about 3 months because I didn’t have the confidence to sell somebody a service I just learned one thing Is that you can build that type of confidence fast when your rent is past due and you are hiding your car so they do not repo it.
I joined the local chamber of commerce in hopes of making my phone ring with tons of business. That did not happen. My phone did ring one day though and it was an employee from the chamber of commerce inviting me to a networking lunch. I asked my buddy to go with me like a wingman because I was nervous. I showed up at this event with about 3 business cards and then noticed there were about 100 small business owners there.
During the event check-in, I was told I will have 30 seconds to ask the attendees for the type of referral I was looking for. I WAS PETRIFIED. Yeah, sure back in retail I used to give massive district training sessions and talk in front of others for hours. But this was different. I was asking a group of professionals for business.
Well, this meeting set a chain of events in motion that would lead me to this very stage in front of you. I was given a referral by a mortgage broker to a woman named Susan that was a realtor specializing in beachfront property and wanted a website to target this niche. This would be the very first website client I ever had.
Now you can imagine I become addicted to this concept of business networking and very soon after my first client I was attending 2-3 meetings per week and receiving 4-6 qualified referrals for website builds each month.
While I was becoming a master networker my HTML and CSS skills were still in the infant phase and if a client asked me to do something with their site I never did before, I always said sure, that is easy. No problem. Then I would rush to the web to figure out how to do it. I was cheating a bit too because I was using a software called Sitebuilder by Homestead which made it easy with drag and drops design.
Then one day, a client of mine that owned a pool cleaning service called me and asked that I take their site offline. I was curious why and he told me that he built a new site using WordPress. I quickly said you built a company site using blogging software? He said not at all and shared with me the new URL.
I was very impressed with what I saw as my client was not tech-savvy at all but managed to build a beautiful site on his own. I then thought wow, maybe WordPress could allow me to cheat even more and make me look like a super website builder.
So in 2009 about 2 years after I sold my first HTML website, I rebuilt my company site on WordPress and began doing all my builds on WordPress.
I am happily married with 5 daughters ranging in age from 8-year twins to a 21-year-old and you can imagine the madness that happens in our home daily. I grew up in Buffalo NY. My wife is from what I like to call Old York England and we both ended up in beautiful Southern California in 2000. Our closest relative is about 1000 miles away in Houston, TX.
We have seen some stressful times over the years. Now my wife has worked her entire adult life until about 2010 when we decided that it would be best for her to become a stay-at-home mom because I was doing a horrible job at night checking homework, making dinner, and brushing hair. This meant that I alone would be responsible for providing all the financial support we needed and it freaked me out a bit.
Thank goodness I had spent the last 8 years building a relationship with WordPress and inside of about 18 months, WordPress would completely change my life and the lives of the ones you see in this picture below.
Jarrett Gucci Family
The Need for WP Fix It
WP Fix It Logo
I am not a Mac person. I have always used PCs.
One day I was speaking with an office neighbor of mine about Apple support and he explained how it worked where you pay a flat fee and they will service your issue until resolved. I thought this would be a brilliant concept for WordPress support. So one Sunday afternoon in December of 2009 while my wife was asleep on the couch I created my current company.
I did some research to see if any other WordPress support companies were offering flat fee one-off support. The only company I came across back in 2009 was a company called WP Curve (GoDaddy acquired in 2016) which offered monthly plans only.
In August 2015, I decided to step away from building WordPress sites and only focus on support. This is when I immersed myself in the community and was hungry to know more about the people that use WordPress. In less than 6 months because of this LIFEWARE is also known as WordPress, I was making more money per month than I ever had in my life.
One of the biggest challenges I had, in the beginning, was juggling the main source of income which was developing websites for small business owners, and the time I had to invest in generating clients for that business and then at the same time still giving attention to WP Fix It and growing that.
There never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get everything. The other big challenge for me is that I look for immediate results and as it is well-known creating and starting a business does not yield instant success. Nevertheless, I stayed diligent and managed my time as best as possible between the two businesses.
Another massive challenge was delivering 24/7 availability for WordPress support. I didn’t want this to be a statement but rather an assurance that no matter what time of the day or day of the week a WordPress user needed support they could get that support from WP Fix It.
One of the main things that motivated us was the customers’ positive feedback on WP Fix It knowing that they could get WordPress support any time of the day at a flat fee and not be tied to a monthly expense.
WP Fix It Stats
WP Fix It offers a wide range of flat fee WordPress Support Services.
- Our General Support service resolves any single specific WordPress issue for $39.
- Our Infection Removal service will identify all the malicious files and code in a WordPress website, remove all of the traces of the infection, and secure the website from future attacks.
- Our Speed Optimization service will ensure that our speed specialist squeezed every ounce of speed out of a WordPress website to make it as fast as possible.
We also have a wide variety of additional services that can handle any type of WordPress support you need. If you need your website migrated from one location to another or perhaps you need to update the PHP we have a service that can support your needs.
We also launched our hosting platform which is a fully focused WordPress environment that has some of the most cutting-edge WordPress management tools.
My Brilliant Team
Team WP Fix It
Advice for Business Owners
Throughout my professional life, I have always had a motto of “Motion Creates Motion“. The easiest way to explain this is when you are unsure what to do, just do something. You need to constantly keep yourself in motion and active in your business.
Nothing happens by waiting, you have to take action if you want to achieve success. This concept of motion helped me to reach my professional goals.
I think anybody starting or running a business can find themselves overwhelmed from time to time. Keeping your thoughts and your actions in motion creates energy that can lead to success.
I believe one of the best strategies in picking the type of business that you would like to start and focus on should begin with the question, “Will it make money?”. It is always a great situation when you can find something that you are passionate and excited about that also makes money, but if you are only doing something that you enjoy but there is no return financially this is not a good business venture unless your goal is to start a charity.
You should always be focused on going into business to make money. This should not be an ugly topic or something that is not talked about. The more you can align yourself with a business goal of being profitable the better outline you will have to reach that goal.
Stay in Touch
WordPress & Beyond
I strongly feel that the main difference between WP Fix It and other support companies is the true 24/7 support. We are always available all day. I spend most of my waking moments thinking about different creative ways to market this fact of true 24/7 support. Getting this message out to WordPress users all over the world is a very valuable growth tool for our business.
Another path for growth is the creation and the development of services that are needed by WordPress users as the software evolves. When the company was started back in 2009. We only had one service and now have 13 services.
Building a stronger community and not staying stagnant when it comes to the way users can interact with the software to achieve their online dreams. As the community is such a big part of making open-source software like WordPress successful.
I believe that competition is such a healthy part of running a successful business. There is always a threat to any company from its competitors. What limits that threat is by staying on the cutting edge of what users need and again going back to the community aspect of WordPress, this is what really will keep it going and keep it ahead of the pack.
My Love for the WordPress Community
WordCamps are one of my favorite activities. It’s been very sad since the outset of covid-19 and not being able to attend WordCamps. Below is the website badge from the very first WordCamp that I presented in Los Angeles back in 2016.
I have been a presenter in 16 other WordCamps throughout the United States and a keynote speaker in St Louis back in 2017. I can’t wait until these resumes in person as it was always something I looked forward to being a part of.
Jarrett Gucci Speaking at WordCamp
Full List of WordCamps I Presented at:
- WordCamp Los Angeles 2014
- WordCamp San Antonio 2015
- WordCamp St. Louis 2015
- WordCamp Orange County 2015
- WordCamp Saratoga Springs 2015
- WordCamp Dayton 2016
- WordCamp Minneapolis 2016
- WordCamp Phoenix 2016
- WordCamp St. Louis (Keynote) 2017
- WordCamp Orange County 2017
- WordCamp Sacramento 2017
- WordCamp Los Angeles 2017
- WordCamp New York City 2017
- WordCamp Las Vegas 2017
- WordCamp Riverside 2017
- WordCamp Los Angeles 2018
- WordCamp Riverside 2018
- WordCamp St. Louis 2018
I have two colleagues who both work here at WP Fix It. Nile Flores and Bhuvanesh Kumar. I was fortunate enough to talk with them into becoming an agent and any success I’ve had would not be there without their hard work and influence.
How I Keep Myself Updated
Some of my most favorite articles to read or anything that has to do with the explanation or advancement of browser and server technology to allow WordPress to run and execute processes faster.
I’ve always felt that WordPress speed is one of the most important things that could be beneficial to any user. I make it a point to educate myself constantly on what is changing in the WordPress world of speed technology.
I believe staying on top of this will help me to translate that information to our customers so they can be more successful online with their WordPress sites.
The same approach is taken when it comes to security as well. I love staying on top of any articles or authors that are WordPress security-focused. Just bragging about the community again there is so much information out there by very talented authors so there is an endless list of resources that one could access to stay on top of what is changing in the WordPress Community when it comes to speed and security.
I Have a Life Other Than the Work
One of my most favorite things to do in the whole world is play hockey. When you are on the ice it’s all about skating and playing and there is not another thought that is going through your mind. It’s the one place where I fully disconnect and enjoy every second. I play twice a week and have been for about 10 years now.
Jarrett Gucci Playing Hockey
Holidays are such an amazing time for me because it is all about the family. My wife is a picture maniac and thank goodness because she captures all of these wonderful moments that we later enjoy looking at. Below is an example of one of these moments which was Christmas and one of my favorite holidays.
Christmas Celebration
Being that I live in Southern California, I already live in a very desired travel destination. It’s kind of hard to pick a favorite place to go when where I live is already very enjoyable. There is however a resort in Palm Springs that I take my family to each summer.
There are several pools on the property and each night they do a movie in the pool for the kids. It is a lot of fun and we look forward to each year.
Believe it or not, this beautiful dog was a rescue. About 4 years ago in the middle of the night, somebody tried to get into our house. The next day we went looking for a dog that could not only be part of the family but help to deter anybody that would want to get into our house. The ironic thing with our lovely dog is that she does not bark. To be fully honest I believe goldfish bark more than Sophie. We love her anyway and she is the BEST with the kids!
Pet of Jarrett Gucci
I Reward Myself by
My wife and I make it a point to spend time together without the children. We do this by making sure that every other week we schedule a babysitter to watch the kids so we can have a date night. This time is so important for us to reconnect and get a break from The Madness of work and family life. Below is a picture from one of our most recent date nights.
