Angela Bowman:
Welcome to Women in WP, a bimonthly podcast about women who blog, design, develop and more, in the WordPress community.
I’m Angela Bowman. Our podcast has been on hiatus since November, 2022, and I’m excited to be back. Tracy Apps, Amy Masson and I started the podcast in January of 2019, and we met an incredible number of women from around the world. We produced more than 80 episodes, and after almost three years and a pandemic, we each needed to step back and reevaluate our priorities. Hosting a podcast isn’t just about recording a show, but also includes editing, promoting, getting sponsors, scheduling, and so many other details. It is a lot of work. Amy has stepped down from the podcast and will be joining us though for our hundredth episode, should we make it there, which I hope we do, and Tracy will be popping in from time to time. And I’ll keep the show going as we find our feet again, which brings me to today, I thought what better way to get back into it than to interview other women in WordPress who podcast.
So for the next few episodes, I’ll be interviewing a lot of amazing female podcasters in the WordPress space, starting today with my guest, Michelle Frechette, joining us from Rochester, New York, where she is an avid nature photographer, in addition to all the many, many other incredible things she does for the WordPress community. Michelle is the host of the WPCoffeeTalk podcast where she shoots the breeze with lots of folks in the WordPress space. She is co-host of WP Motivate podcast, the Audacity Marketing podcast and host of the WP Constellations podcast.
She is also the co-founder of Underrepresented in Tech, a website with a free database that helps the diversity of people find opportunities in tech. She’s the creator of WPSpeakers.com and WP Career Pages. She’s an author, a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events. And if that weren’t enough, she also has a full-time job at StellarWP as director of community engagement. And if you could see the video right now, Michelle’s just turning a little pink.
Michelle Frechette:
Just a little.
Angela Bowman:
And hot off the press, as of announced today on the platform known as X, Michelle posted some exciting news. She is taking on a new role as the executive director of Post Status, which is a membership community for people who grow and sustain the WordPress community. There is a reason Michelle was called the “busiest woman in WordPress” by Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp US in 2022. Welcome, Michelle.
Michelle Frechette:
Thanks for having me. This is exciting. I’m excited that you’re rebooting your podcast and that you’ll be… We need more women podcasters, especially in WordPress, and so I’m very excited that you’re reestablishing. That’s really exciting.
Angela Bowman:
Yes, and just thinking about how to get back into it, and I realized, wow, I do know several women who have podcasts in WordPress and I want to know more about them. I want to know more about their podcasts, and I want to help promote their podcasts as well. And so, wow, you have so many amazing things we could talk about. I want to start off by just asking you about, of these many podcasts that I just listed, which one was your first and why did you start it?
Michelle Frechette:
So WPCoffeeTalk was my first podcast, and I had attended a session at a WordCamp. I think it was WordCamp Portland, Maine, where somebody… I wish I could give him credit, I’d have to go back and look at the website. I don’t remember who it was that gave the talk, but there was a fellow who gave a talk on podcasting, and I thought, “Oh, gosh, wouldn’t that be a really cool thing to be able to offer my customers?” Because I was freelancing at the time, doing marketing, building websites, and so I thought, “Well, that’d be really cool.” So every time I would talk to a new customer, I’d be like, “Hey, are you interested in starting a podcast? I can help you get that going.” Oh, no, no, no.
I had customers that were picking up dog poop, that was Lily’s Poop Patrols, doesn’t exist anymore, but that was one of my favorite websites. We are number one for your dog’s number two, that was the best tagline I think I ever came up with. He didn’t need a podcast. It turns out that you don’t need a podcast about picking up dog poo, but I thought, “Well, wouldn’t it be cool? I could at least try to start a podcast of my own. So I have the experience. I’ll probably get three or four episodes out, nobody’s going to want to listen to it. My mother and my daughter, I’ll probably have two listeners,” but it actually took on a life of its own. I built a website and launched on a Friday, which you’re never supposed to do. Two hours after I launched the site, I was like, “Oh, I should probably have a Twitter account for this.” So I made a Twitter account.
By Monday morning, I had four people signed up to be guests on the podcast, and by Monday night, I had 12 people signed up to be guests on the podcast. And I was like, “Oh, I better be careful because I could end up just interviewing so many people and then not have the capacity to put it out.” So I started to put some controls in place as to how many I would record in a month, that kind of thing. And what I thought was going to die a sad little death, that started in 2019, is still here five years later. So I’ve had some ups and downs through the pandemic and through some mental health issues associated with the pandemic. Ended up with some lean years, but right now I have 12 episodes ready to publish over the next few months, and I have more people signed up on the calendar. So I guess people liked it.
Angela Bowman:
That’s amazing. So you started it the same year that we started Women in WP. We started ours in January, and the motivation behind that was a multifaceted story, and people can listen to our first episode about that, but basically, Amy Masson was going to a WordCamp and wanted to listen to some podcasts on her drive, and they were all dudes.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
And she’s like, “Why?” And so it must have been before, because this was a few months. This was at the end of 2018, I believe, that she came to this conclusion and she just threw it out there on Twitter. Well, hey, is anyone interested in starting a podcast? And I had been to Blog World in 2013, the very end of 2013, and did the podcast track. Why? I don’t know. It was just the most fun track because the podcast people are cool.
Angela Bowman:
And I thought, “I want to do a podcast,” and I got really hung up on, you will not believe this, intro and outro music kept from doing the podcast..
Michelle Frechette:
I believe it. It is the hardest thing.
Angela Bowman:
That was it. That was it. The intro and outro, and so I met Tracy at LoopConf in 2015. She and I were like, “Yeah, we should have a Women in WP podcast,” but then we talked to some women, they’re like, “Well, we don’t want to be separated out as women. We want to just be part of this.” And so we didn’t feel like we had anyone interested, but when Amy put that tweet out, it turned out, you know what, there actually is an interest in this, in meeting women and particularly women around the world, I felt, just because making it a worldwide thing made it more interesting.
Michelle Frechette:
Mm-hmm. I agree.
Angela Bowman:
But guess what? Tracy had no problem with coming up with that intro, outro music and setting that all up. And Amy had all the organizational skills, and I was good at finding people, and between the three of us, we pulled it off.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely.
Angela Bowman:
And I’ll tell you what, I just couldn’t have done it by myself. And I’m so curious, in your journey in engaging with these podcasts, what have been the challenges for you?
Michelle Frechette:
Sure. So I didn’t even have intros and outros when I first started because I was just like, “Let’s just put it out there.” I didn’t have a lot of time to do stuff on the side, and the learning curve felt really big for some of those things. And so I was putting things out on YouTube without even thumbnails. I was just jumped in with both feet and learned as I went, and backtracked a little bit, like I went back and added thumbnails so that it all looks really pretty when you land on my YouTube account, those kinds of things. And I’ll tell you, I am a huge proponent now for accessibility, but in the early days, I didn’t even know how to generate a transcript, right? And so those early podcasts don’t even have transcripts associated with them.
I’m a little embarrassed. I will probably go back and add them as I have time, for anybody that does go back and listen from the beginning. But anything last year and later has transcripts associated with it. Anything new I do, I promise there are transcripts, and part of that is finding the right, not only tools, but the right podcast host and things like that, that will provide those for you. And then also understanding that maybe you should edit those a little bit because WordCamp often comes across as work camp, and that makes me think a little bit of prisoners of war and things like that. So I’m really careful about some of those things, and finding the right place to host and all of that.
So that was the first podcast, and I met Allie Nimmons through that because she signed up to be on the podcast. I had no idea who she was. Please don’t anybody go back and listen to that first episode unless you want to learn about Allie. But I fumbled my way through that, talking over my guests, all of those things that you learn over time. But we got it through it. And I recorded four more in the first week and I was like, “This is amazing,” and then people started sponsoring it. People are giving me money just to interview people, and show my face on YouTube, and listen on a podcast. And I was like, “This is insanity,” but I’m not complaining at all. And so, over time, people would say, “Hey,” Allie and I started Underrepresented in Tech and we’re like, “Let’s do a vlog.” We were going to do a video blog. And then it was like, “Well, let’s just turn it into a podcast, that’s so much easier.”
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Michelle Frechette:
So there’s no more video. It’s just podcasts from that point. And then I wanted to do projects with people and so I said to Kathy Zant one day, I’m like, “I just really want to do a project with you. Do you want to start a podcast?” She’s like, “Sure.” I said, “Let’s meet this afternoon and record the first episode.” So we met on a Friday afternoon. We recorded the first episode, decided what we’d call it, registered the domain name, created the website, and published the first episode by Monday morning, and just went with it. So that was the WPMotivate podcast.
Angela Bowman:
Awesome.
Michelle Frechette:
And then I wanted to work with Hazel Quimpo on something. So we started Audacity Marketing, and it’s how it went. It seems silly in a way, but it’s like, oh, I want to do a project with you, let’s do a podcast.
Angela Bowman:
I love that, bonding through podcasting.
Michelle Frechette:
[inaudible 00:11:30] people are tired of my voice already, I’m sure.
Angela Bowman:
It’s just amazing. I love how you didn’t let anything hang you up, and that’s such a life lesson, it seems like. Better done than perfect, and I just couldn’t, it’s so funny how I really could not get over the intro, outro. I just was sure that I had to have that, and I couldn’t start it without it. And [inaudible 00:11:56]-
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, I have a secret weapon for the intro, outro. There is, when you have an account on YouTube, which most of us do now, it doesn’t have to be a paid account even, you have creator tools available to you. And there’s so much free music that people put on YouTube that you’re allowed to use without any attribution. And so that’s, now I might spend an hour listening to really bad music until I find the perfect vibe for the podcast, and then I sometimes have the same intro and outro. Sometimes I don’t, it really depends on the podcast itself and what sounds good.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, and I think that’s what Tracy ultimately did. She just got some free licensed music and she cropped it, and then she hired someone on Fiverr to take the logo that she designed and animate it. So that could be part of our animated intro with the music, and it was like nothing to her to make that happen. It’s like, oh, huh, I sat on this for, let’s see, five years because [inaudible 00:12:59]. So what is your favorite part of podcasting, in terms of you have all these different podcasts, and are they all interview shows or is some of them you’re just talking to the same person each time?
Michelle Frechette:
Oh, so really only one is an interview show. So WPCoffeeTalk is an interview show. Sometimes Underrepresented in Tech will bring on somebody who’s got something happening in the WordPress world that it fits the DEIB nature of that project. And Allie has stepped back from that project, and I took a little bit of a hiatus. So starting in March, there’s going to be new episodes where it’s me just interviewing people. And then in April, I can’t say who yet because we’re keeping the surprise, but I do have a new partner on that podcast and in that project. So that’ll be announced in March for us to begin in April.
Angela Bowman:
Okay.
Michelle Frechette:
So stand by, but I promise it’s another woman and you’re going to want to have her on your show.
Angela Bowman:
All righty.
Michelle Frechette:
[inaudible 00:13:59].
Angela Bowman:
Do you find that the interview… What’s the different feeling between the interview podcasts, where the podcasts where you’re just talking to your co-host together, and how’s the structure and feeling of that for you in doing that?
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. So interviewing is way easier because I just have to think of the questions in advance, right?
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
And then you can riff off the conversation for sure. But for WPCoffeeTalk, everybody gets asked the exact same set of questions.
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Michelle Frechette:
It makes it a lot easier, right? But for WP Motivate or Audacity Marketing, so Kathy and I, or Hazel and I, have to come up with a topic each week and then we just launch into it, keep an eye on the time and just talk about it from our own experiences, either marketing or just motivational stuff. And by motivational, we really are just shooting the breeze about our lives, and we invite people to listen into those conversations. And some people like it and some people probably don’t, and I don’t care, either way it’s fine, right? Because it’s just fun for us to do, and it’s very therapeutic too in a lot of ways. And then at WP Constellations, which is my day job that’s associated with StellarWP, I’ll bring a different co-host in every time from Stellar, and then we interview somebody, either internal or external, about a product.
Angela Bowman:
Okay.
Michelle Frechette:
So it’s really about their products, so, yeah.
Angela Bowman:
So it’s a good mix of interview versus just, yeah-
Michelle Frechette:
It is.
Angela Bowman:
… shooting the breeze, talking about, off your knowledge, but a little bit more pressure on you to show up for the non-interview ones and have something interesting to say.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
I totally feel you on that.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
Talk to me about Post Status, because this is your whole new… This was a huge announcement today, and what is that going to [inaudible 00:15:47] for you?
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. It is, yeah. So I actually started working with Post Status. It’s my second job, it’s the side job. I started working with them in the fall of 2021, actually right around the same time I started working at StellarWP, after GiveWP was acquired. And so I was hired to write about whatever I wanted to write about, about the things that interest me, so DEIB work, job placement, things like that, that I do a lot of work around. And so I just started working, doing that kind of stuff, and over the course of the last few years, people have come, people have gone from the staff there, and then Cory talked to me a couple weeks ago and said he really wanted to do… He loves Post Status, he wants to keep working with it, but he doesn’t want to be the face of it anymore. He needs somebody who can manage the day to day and asked me if I would step in. We came up with a title together that we both liked, which was the executive director because I’m like, “Hey, that’s never been on my resume before. Let’s try that one.”
So yeah, so as of today, I am handling the newsletter. I am answering questions for people and making some decisions around things that happen within Post Status. But also within the Slack channel, being there for people to ask questions of, and everything from, like I say, chief cook and bottle washer, right? So it’s like, oh, you have a problem with your account, let me try to solve that for you. So support all the way up, but it’s nice. I’ve always, from day one with Cory and Lindsey, been offered carte blanche. So I can write whatever I want. I wrote that to the story, 5 Days Without a Shower, which was a little bit of an expose on inaccessibility in WordPress events.
I wrote a very controversial article before that called Misogyny in WordPress is Real, and so-
Angela Bowman:
Yep. I’ve read these articles.
Michelle Frechette:
So yeah, I’ll send you the links if you want to include them in the show notes-
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Michelle Frechette:
… if people are interested. But really, given the opportunity, I can interview who I want. I don’t have to get to do things like that for the Draft podcast, Post Status Draft. And so I do that too, right? So if somebody has something interesting they want to talk about, we chat. It’s not a webinar per se, but sometimes it’s webinar type information. I did a podcast for the Draft not too long ago with Matt Medeiros on how to be a good podcast guest because I think a lot of people don’t understand.
Angela Bowman:
Oh.
Michelle Frechette:
And I think I posted it on Twitter, and you answered [inaudible 00:18:17]-
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Michelle Frechette:
… with some ideas too. And so we incorporated all of those into that conversation as well. So-
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
So, yeah, it’s really exciting that I get to be part of that community. I remember the first time I was ever mentioned in the Post Status newsletter for WPCoffeeTalk, I screenshot it and I saved it in a folder, and now I’m the executive director. So girls, dreams do come true.
Angela Bowman:
Oh. Well, and for people who are listening, we have a lot of people who are in the know of the WordPress community, but we have a lot of listeners who may not be. And I realized, it took me a long time to even find Post Status, and it would be really great for you to describe what Post Status is, who it’s for, because there’s different levels of belonging, if you will, and different types of engagement. And then what are the offerings of Post Status to the community?
Michelle Frechette:
Sure. So most people think of it as a newsletter because we do put on a weekly newsletter where we aggregate a bunch of WordPress news from the week, events and things like that. And I have people who are contributing to that. So Marieke van de Rakt is one of the owners or one of the investors in Post Status, and she writes a column. Nathan Ingram writes a column about what’s happening in the business of WordPress, and then I coordinate what’s happening in hiring, so the jobs and things like that as well as community. And now I write the intro to the newsletter as well, but it’s more than a newsletter, it’s a community.
So we have our own Slack channel, when you are a member of Post Status. And you can be an individual member, or you can sign up as a company, or a hosting company, agency, things like that. So there’s different levels depending on the size of your organization that you can sign up for, but it gives you access to the Slack community. And I think that that’s really where so much of the magic happens, because so many conversations happen in there, publicly, about what’s going on in WordPress and what people think, and questions, and helping people solve problems that they’re up against. But also, we don’t see those private conversations, but we hear about the fact that so many deals have been struck or at least started, acquisitions, mergers, things like that, hiring, those kinds of big deal issues, because people are connecting with one another in the Post Status Slack.
So yeah, so it’s really about that we put out as much helpful information. I did a career fest, WP career fest, a couple years ago. We’re going to do another one this summer, helping people understand how to get hired and how to do hiring, what’s the best practices that [inaudible 00:20:56]-
Angela Bowman:
Right.
Michelle Frechette:
… in WordPress, as well as, like I said, there’s Post Status Draft. I work with Corey Maass. Cory Miller and Corey Maass launched OMGIMG plugin last year. Now I’m working with Corey Maass to market it in public. So every Tuesday from 5:00 to 6:00, we do a live stream on YouTube that gets put up on the Post Status Draft as well. So a lot of fun things happening.
Angela Bowman:
So it sounds like if you want to be in the know, getting on that Post Status newsletter, and if you want to be engaged, and connecting with other people, and building your network, the Slack community is key there.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
And then how would you compare that to the WP Minute, which is another newsy site in that way? You do similar crossover there, right?
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of joking back and forth about the fact that we’re better, you’re better, that kind of stuff. But the truth is, I contribute to both, and I’m paid by one and I contribute to the other, and Matt Medeiros came on the Post Status show with me, and so there’s a lot of crossover.
I think the focus of what people are looking for is different with all of the newsletters. I think that I sign up for all the newsletters. I see what people are putting out there because we focus on different things. We’re not WP [inaudible 00:22:14] we’re not the WP Minute. We’re not WP Weekly or Weekly WP. I can’t remember all the different names of the ones that I get.
Angela Bowman:
[inaudible 00:22:21].
Michelle Frechette:
You know what I’m trying to say though. And I think that we tend to focus and tell the stories in different ways, and I think that that’s a beautiful thing. So it’s not like, there’s really no competition. It’s really different ways that you can consume information and different ways to be involved. So WP Minute has a Slack channel now too. I’m in it, I see. I support them as well, and so it’s just about being in touch with one another and being part of the community in a way that you can actively participate as frequently as you’d like.
Angela Bowman:
So I am going to have you pick some either favorite podcasts that you listen to right now other than your own, if you do. And I hate to put you on the spot like that because it’s so funny, when I’m asked my favorite podcast, they usually have nothing to do with WordPress, and that’s okay if you are a podcast consumer of something other than WordPress. Or even some of your favorite episodes that you’ve recorded recently. I just listened to your episode with Chris Ford on WPCoffeeTalk.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
Loved it, and it really helped me feel better about the past several years of the pandemic and everything. You two were so frank about imposter syndrome, about just trying to even… She was trying to get a recording that she had to get up for an online event that you helped her with, mental health issues. What ends up being the topics or things that you end up gravitating for, that just really gives you a lot of juice?
Michelle Frechette:
I’m not going to name a specific podcast because I really look for topics more than anything else. [inaudible 00:24:10]-
Angela Bowman:
Yeah. Yeah. So what are your favorite topics [inaudible 00:24:12]-
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, so my favorite topics are listening to people who are underrepresented folks. So not just my own podcast, obviously I talk about stuff there, but listening to other people talk about how they made moves and how they climbed the ladder within, whether it’s WordPress or tech in general, as an underrepresented person, whether that means they’re a person of color, they’re a woman, they’re disabled, they are neurodivergent. There’s so many different ways, LGBTQ community, all of those different things. And I think of myself as a gap filler. So I listen to what people are talking about, and then I think of how can we address that in the community that we work in, which for most of us is WordPress. What are the areas that need to be addressed? How can we talk about those things? How can I bring those further? How can I bring them into Post Status. How can I bring them into some of my other podcasts? And be inspired by those people, and maybe then invite them to be a guest on mine too, right?
But you don’t know what you don’t know until you start to really look and listen to what people are talking about, and listen to the struggles, and listen to the challenges, but also the triumphs of people who are trying to do things in a man’s world, if you will, right? It’s like there’s a lot of cishet white men at the top of every, well, every food chain, but specifically technology, and yet they’re great. I’m not putting them down, but move over, there’s room for more, [inaudible 00:25:38] kind of thing. And so I do really listen to a lot of those kinds of voices from all over, to make sure that I’m helping to address the issues, and I don’t want to climb a ladder and remove the rungs behind me. I want to climb a ladder and make sure that those rungs are really secure before the next people come up behind me. So if I can do that, then I think that I’ve helped a lot. And I think that listening to a lot of voices helps us do that.
Angela Bowman:
Well, and those two posts that you mentioned that you wrote, speak to that. So that passion comes through, and even with your career pages and your speakers pages, and of course Underrepresented in Tech, but even those, even though they might be used by the white cisgendered men-
Michelle Frechette:
Of course, mm-hmm.
Angela Bowman:
… I have felt that come from you, that you are the gap filler. You are the one who is trying to get those people who don’t have easy access to any of that stuff, access.
Michelle Frechette:
Right.
Angela Bowman:
And so it provides access to everyone, but I think what drives you, it seems to me, is getting the access to the people who usually would have more restricted access.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. [inaudible 00:26:54].
Angela Bowman:
So that does seem to be your personal passion and what motivates you to continue to stay engaged with being the busiest woman in WordPress. Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
When I was at WordCamp US 2019, no, 2022, post-pandemic [inaudible 00:27:12]-
Angela Bowman:
I was there [inaudible 00:27:14] San Diego.
Michelle Frechette:
… in San Diego. I was not the only person there who had mobility issues. And I talked to some of the other people there with mobility issues to find out how they were faring, and they were not faring any better than I was.
Angela Bowman:
[inaudible 00:27:27].
Michelle Frechette:
And I realized that I have a very loud voice in WordPress, for whatever reason. I’ve carved it out. People have given me a platform and a voice. And so if I have that platform, I should be using it for others. And so I try as often as possible to speak to that. I think of myself as that icebreaker boat, that big ship that takes on and busts through the ice so that all the smaller ships can come behind. And yeah, sometimes that boat gets scarred and sometimes that boat… But it’s got broad shoulders and it’s got a thick hull to be able to, yeah, so you get beat up a little bit, but I’m still afloat so that the people who come behind me won’t get beat up as badly and can float through a little more easily. And so that’s kind of how I see it, and I realize that there will be other people who are going to be able to take that over and move forward. And I will happily seed that position to them when my job is done.
I think that there’s still a little time left for me to be able to do some of those things, but I’m excited to see other women really taking position and positions of authority. And there’s a lot of women CEOs now, and there’s a lot of women directors now, more than there was 10 years ago or 14 years ago when I started in WordPress. Gosh, I think it was 13 years ago, to be honest. And to see women really take the stage more, to see women have those positions within companies, has been exciting for me. And then to have a project like Underrepresented in Tech, to make sure that the guests that come on WPCoffeeTalk, that I am representing underrepresented people in those areas too, I think has really helped a lot. And that’s just something that’s a huge passion because our world is such a rich place if we don’t all look and sound the same. And so we really do have to make sure that we are inclusive of more people, and more people’s experiences and their points of view, so that everything is enriched by that.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, I love that. And that, of course for Women in WP, that was just the huge motivation.
Michelle Frechette:
Of course.
Angela Bowman:
And for us also, not just women, but that we found a diversity of women, and a diversity of countries, and a diversity of first languages.
Michelle Frechette:
Yes.
Angela Bowman:
And it made the world a smaller place, and like you said, it’s more rich. But when I went to WordCamp Europe, I could hug all these women that I only knew from the podcast, and it was like, wow, there’s just a worldwide community here. It makes the world a smaller place, but I think when you do represent people who aren’t as well represented, for us with Women in WP, it’s been like you’re speaking to the CEOs, the company owners, the plugin… It overcomes a lot of stereotypes that are out there in tech. And especially I’ve had seen things on Twitter, oh, everyone assumes that the plugins on the repository are all written by men or there’s no women developers and that [inaudible 00:30:49]-
Michelle Frechette:
Right. That’s not true.
Angela Bowman:
That’s not true, and there’s so many. And so I’m hoping that on our website we can start to highlight those and create some filters where you can see-
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely.
Angela Bowman:
… who are the women plugin developers that we’ve interviewed? Who are the women CEOs or company founders? And things like that. I’m hoping to add a lot more filters for people to be able to see that breadth of skill. They’re not just all designers and marketing people, which is where [inaudible 00:31:19]-
Michelle Frechette:
[inaudible 00:31:19]. Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
… are acceptably niched into. Yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
I work for StellarWP, which is part of Liquid Web, and our president is a woman, Carrie Wheeler. And so at the end of last year, I was able to bring her on the WP Constellations podcast and talk about her experiences as a woman CEO, or, I’m sorry, woman president of the company. And it was delightful, and it was really exciting to be able to talk to a woman who’s got such power and authority within a big company, and think, “Other women can do that too.”
Angela Bowman:
That’s fabulous. So I think we’ll start wrapping up here. And what I wanted to ask you is just an exit question, is what’s your advice for any woman listening to this show who wants to start a podcast and might think, “Oh, there’s so many. Should I start one?” I want to speak maybe to that self of me-
Michelle Frechette:
[inaudible 00:32:13].
Angela Bowman:
… back in 2014 where I didn’t. So what would you say to someone?
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, I think anybody can do it. I think anybody should do it, right? And sometimes people get bogged down in the, well, what’s the right microphone? And I don’t have the right lighting, and just start. When you listen to my early podcasts, and I had no external microphone, that’s tinny as heck. It sounds terrible because I’m just using my computer’s microphone, right? But that gets better, and all the lighting was terrible, but it gets better because as you grow, you maybe have some sponsorship and you can get better equipment, but start. If you don’t start, you can’t grow into those things. And yes, there’s room because your point of view is different than everybody else’s point of view. Your take on things, your direction of your podcast can be different than everybody else’s. If you start WPCoffeeChat and you borrow all my questions… Maybe that’s not going to fly as much. But if you start something that means something to you, then absolutely. I say, go for it. There’s room for more women. There’s room for more underrepresented folks, and there’s lots of conversations that can still be had.
Angela Bowman:
Well, thank you so much for being such an advocate for all of us and being the icebreaker that’s plowing the lane for all of us to flow into joyfully, and [inaudible 00:33:34]-
Michelle Frechette:
I hope so.
Angela Bowman:
I hope that we all also take up that mantle of just being that person to help. You could lead us as an example, if you see something that’s not working for someone, speak up and stand up because I think it’s sometimes hard for people in that position to stand up for themselves.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, well, do you know what’s better than one icebreaker? Two.
Angela Bowman:
Yes.
Michelle Frechette:
You know what’s better than two icebreakers? Four. So everybody doesn’t have to line up behind one person. You can take it on your shoulders too if you feel confident, and if you don’t feel confident, come talk to me. I will give you that pep talk that you might need. But absolutely, there’s plenty of room for all of us to really make an impact.
Angela Bowman:
Well, this is just the pep talk I needed to keep going with our subsequent episodes-
Michelle Frechette:
[inaudible 00:34:22].
Angela Bowman:
… and I’m really looking forward to speaking to so many other women podcasters and finding out what motivates them to keep going because it’s not easy, but it sure is a lot of fun.
Michelle Frechette:
Well, I’ll be listening, I promise.
Angela Bowman:
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter or join our Facebook group. We would be honored if you subscribe to the show. You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and iTunes. Finally, if you want to be on the show or know someone who would, visit our website at womeninwp.com. Until next time.
