Chris Badgett – Co-Founder of LifterLMS

I am Chris Badgett, CEO, and co-founder of LifterLMS. I live on a small farm in a small town on the coast of Maine in the United States. I grew up in North Carolina and studies Anthropology, Sustainable Development, and Philosophy at University.

The Journey Began

Before WordPress, I ran sled dogs in Alaska for almost a decade. I helped a dog sled musher raise sled dogs and train them for the Iditarod race which is a 1,000-mile race across Alaska. I also helped manage a helicopter-supported dog sled tour business on a remote glacier in the Juneau Icefield of Alaska.

I discovered WordPress in 2008 so I could start a blog about outdoor leadership. I learned how to work with WordPress by watching YouTube videos.

The Need for LifterLMS

LifterLMS Logo

In 2013 I had a WordPress agency where we were building high-end training-based membership sites with WordPress from scratch for clients. At that time there was no solid all-in-one solution designed to meet the needs of the membership, LMS, eCommerce, and gamification so we built LifterLMS to fulfill that need. Our clients were the first users of LifterLMS. We launched LifterLMS to the public in 2014.

The biggest challenge of bootstrapping a WordPress plugin business out of a service business is sharing resources. We survived by heavily reinvesting service profits into the plugin development.

A moment we are very proud of was when we launched LifterLMS initially and got 42 customers in the first week.

The core LifterLMS plugin is free, and one of our main contributions to the WordPress community.

And we have these premium add-ons:

• Stripe Add-On
• PayPal Add-On
• Authorize.net
• WooCommerce Add-On
• LaunchPad Theme
• LifterLMS Powerpack
• MailChimp Add-On
• ConvertKit Add-On
• Gravity Forms Add-On
• Ninja Forms Add-On
• WPForms Add-On
• Formidable Forms Add-On
• Twilio Add-On
• Advanced Quizzes Add-On
• Assignments Add-On
• Groups Add-On
• Private Areas Add-On
• Social Learning Add-On
• Advanced Videos Add-On
• PDF’s Add-On
• Custom Fields Add-On
• Office Hours Mastermind

Myself with my Brilliant Team

This is the amazing LifterLMS team:

Team LifterLMS

Advice for Business Owners

My biggest piece of advice for starting a business is to not do it alone. Much of LifterLMS’s success is attributable to the relationship with my business partner Thomas Levy. We have completely different skill sets, and could not have done it alone without the other.

The online education niche is booming and not going away. WordPress freelancers and agencies would do well to focus services in this direction.

WordPress & Beyond

LifterLMS will continue to evolve rapidly as the world’s most powerful customizable learning management system for WordPress. You’ll see more innovation in our core software and continued development to make LifterLMS easy to use across the 9 main use cases for online learning.

WordPress has a lot of life to go. It will continue to thrive, evolve, and increase in market dominance for quite some time. I don’t see any real threats as long as the community around it continues to expand and evolve.

My Love for the WordPress Community

I have attended, sponsored, and helped organize WordCamps. These events are a great way for a primarily virtual community to connect.

I have too many WordPress friends to have a shortlist. That’s the point. This community is massive and there are so many great, talented, kind, and friendly people here.

How I Keep Myself Updated

I simply stay up to date with WordPress by using it myself for our company websites, and all the content creation we do from podcasts to blogs, to sales funnels, to courses, and more.

I Have a Life Other Than the Work

I homeschool my kids and have a lot of farm animals. Here’s a video tour of my farm and home office cabin:

I Reward Myself by

I love traveling for business and connecting with online colleagues, customers, and friends all over the world. I also spend a lot of time hiking and exploring nature.

Connect With Me

•  Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn