Interview Transcript

Disclaimer: This interview is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. In Practise is an independent publisher and all opinions expressed by guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of In Practise.

Could you perhaps start by telling us a bit about your practice and what type and size of clients do you work with?

We work with small to medium-sized clients and the type of business that I operate in is, pretty much, a business development brand and digital marketing agency. We specialize in web design and development, graphic design, social media marketing, email marketing services, SEO and, basically, business consultation.

Can you give us a couple of examples of clients that you have, just to get a sense?

If I had to like categorize industry wise, healthcare would be one of our industries as well as retail. We also are doing real estate, so we have a lot of real estate people in our industry that we're working with. We're also working with legal services, service-based companies; mostly B2B and not necessarily B2C as much.

Would an example of healthcare be a doctor's office, basically?

Yes, healthcare would be anything wellness based, so wellness practices, chiropractors – we have a couple of them – direct and primary care physicians that we've done a couple website and branding for. We have one hospital which is a medical center that we do work for as well.

What's the range of contract value with these customers, just thinking about the website building side of it and excluding the other services that you provide to them?

Yes; range wise, I guess it depends. For our company, our starting price really is around $1,000; that's our bare minimum for web design. There are a lot of companies that we vet out that do come to us that do want to pay less than that, but most of the clients that we have pay between $1,000 to $10,000.

Could you tell us, for website building, what tools do you use?

We use WIX, so obviously we're a WIX partner. We also use Square Online which is Weebly – Square bought Weebly back in 2018 – so they use their platform, and we're a partner of them as well. We build on WordPress, Shopify and then not so much on GoDaddy. We have done a few profiles on there for clients that already had it and they didn't want to switch. Then there are some other ones that are just not coming to me right at the moment.

If you were to split the volume of websites that you have built, how would you split between the main ones of WIX, Weebly, WordPress and Shopify?

I would say, at first, most of our websites were coming from WIX because we established a partnership with them. When we were originally building, we were building directly on WordPress but with the partnership, of course, they were sending us more leads, so we were just basically building on that. I would say most of our websites are WordPress or WIX.

Could you tell us how the WIX product offering has evolved in the last four years, in your view?

It has definitely improved dramatically. I've been building on WIX for a while and when I first started building on WIX, there were things that I felt they could improve and then I started seeing all the improvements over time. For instance, I also owned an event management company and we used to use WIX for events and they were missing some of the core elements, such as seating arrangements which they have now. They were missing some additional options for registration such being able to fill out customized forms and doing multi-date events. There were a lot of things in that that were missing that I do feel they have improved on. The booking system improved as well, which has been really good, in the sense of making sure that when people are booking, the calendars are a little bit more robust. The pricing structure and the layout, as far as user interface, has also changed which has been good.

There have definitely been a lot of improvements over time, even with the shopping; they continue to add little nuances, for instance, marketing wise. Now you can, basically, do all your Facebook and social media marketing through them, which also has helped some of our clients. I think they're continuing to improve, even just from a back-end development aspect. I know that they really worked on trying to improve the refresh rate, especially with load time when it comes to people getting on the WIX websites, so now they have a different system which they are using.

They also now have Editor X, which helps with building more responsive websites, which also has helped from a developing standpoint. The original WIX editor only allows you to optimize mobile but not tablet and resize things, which Editor X gives you the privilege of doing. They are really just trying to not only look out for the subscribers but the developers are also now being considered as part of the process as well.

How would you judge this pace of improvement compared to the competitors?

Compared to the competitors, WIX has a lot to offer, where it's all bundled. For instance, if we were using WordPress, they have different plugins that you can use that are free, but how well will they work if you don't have to pay for them? For email marketing, yes, you can use Mailchimp for up to 2,000 free subscribers, but after that you have to pay for it. Basically, anything automated you would have to pay for and most people now try to automate. Those are the things that you would be paying for, which on WIX, I would say, for the send program or the send plan, when it comes to email marketing, it is fairly competitive.

I do think there could be some more improvement around that, because there are a lot more ways where people want to track and do certain things and I don't think it's fully robust like some of the other platforms that we've used. But again, I understand WIX can't be 100% the best in everything, but they are doing their best in what they can do. Comparatively, I would say I like that WIX puts everything together so you're not having to go look for everything; it's kind of like your one-stop shop.

You mentioned that you work with different products, such as Square, Weebly, WordPress and Shopify. How do you make the decision which of these tools to use when a client comes to you? Is there a particular use case that one of these is better suited for, or does it depend what the client prefers?

For more healthcare related clients, they have their own systems, they have their own CRMs, they have different plugins and things like that that they would be required to use, and they also would want it to be very secure and only have certain access points. I feel, for us, most of the clients that have come in for direct primary care health services that they offer, or for hospitals, we have built their websites using WordPress, mainly because of the systems and the integrations and how responsive they are when we integrate them into the website. We would make that determination based on that.

For some retail clients, Shopify has another robust system that does give the user a more fluid experience, as far as design, that is more appealing. I know WIX has a lot of templates but Shopify does get to a place where they say hey, we have templates; if you use these, you'll be fine. When you are going in using their back end and updating and uploading things, it does streamline a lot of the process as far as how you do your tagging, your SEO and all these additional things that WIX doesn't necessarily give you.

Obviously, you can do it if you know how to do it and we do have the experience to do it, but it's not directly right there as soon as you're adding it. You have to go through a website and figure out how to navigate through it in order to make that work. So we do have a couple people who prefer going to Shopify because of the layouts, because of the designs, which makes sense, and also the payment methods and being able to have those available options.

If we are working with someone or recommending someone, showing some of the clients that we worked with that we've done business for – such as grocery stores and mini shopping centers – we would recommend Square to them. Firstly, it's just a lot easier as far as uploading the list of items they may have, to streamline the amount of time we would be doing on WIX if we had to go in and just import and upload every single one. Secondly, the on delivery option, which WIX doesn't provide, which Square does.

Sometimes we're using multiple platforms in combination. We'll probably have set somebody up with a Square Online website and then we'll create an order online tab on a WIX website and then that takes them to the order online, so then they're working simultaneously together. That is an option that we have used and we do sometimes do that with WordPress as well. Some clients have all their products on Square, the same thing with Clover. And then we would integrate it into their platform, and then integrate it to their actual website.

It's a case-by-case basis, so part of our job is to analyze their business, figure out what makes the most sense, and then also think about the cost factor. With WIX, if you are running a business, the cost of hosting includes everything, which is your emails, your hosting service, some additional add-ons in automation and things like that. But you can easily pay less than $60 for hosting and have a new website running off that hosting and then the remaining cost you can invest that into other things. I understand the price difference, but a lot of it is more just understanding what the client's needs are, at that time, and their long-term goals.

What proportion, would you say, of your new websites that you're building every quarter, every month, are built on WIX versus these other solutions?

More recently, probably about 60%.

I'm guessing that number has gone up over time because of the improving functionality?

Yes.

What use cases are the combination of WIX and Editor X and Velo able to tackle and which use cases do you think are more suited to another solution?

I mentioned that anything health and beauty related, Shopify would probably be a platform that we would recommend. The same thing with retail. When it comes to in store restaurants – because we have done a couple of restaurants – Square Online would probably be a highly recommended one, based on a use case. Anything service based, I would 100% recommend WIX, with the exception of the case where they already have their own system, their own CRM and booking software, then WordPress would be a consideration. Real estate would fall under WIX and WordPress, because the IDX is actually more formattable. I know a lot of real estate companies are using that and also the MLS, so streamlining that on a website is a lot easier on WordPress than it is with WIX, but it's still achievable, which we've done. Then I would say, anything B2B, like consumer-based services, I would probably consider WIX for them as well.

You mentioned something about streamlining in real estate that might not be as good on WIX? Can you explain what you meant there?

With the MLS system, a lot of clients – especially if they are realtors or commercial real estate companies – have their own external tools that they like to integrate, in order to pre-populate listings and things of that nature. I will say, WIX has definitely come a long way as far as being able to streamline that. The custom codes that we would integrate sometimes are not as responsive – as compared to WordPress – but we can go in and build in the custom codes and then be able to change the design, the layout, things of that nature, and it will still be responsive. Just from that perspective for the use case, a real estate company would probably prefer a WordPress website over a WIX website because they already have all the other systems. They just need it to work on a website, rather than using a website that already has systems that they are not going to use.

How responsive or not has WIX been to your feedback on product improvement?

I would say they've been pretty good. I have submitted requests or things that I felt like they should improve on and they've done it and they also email me back at some point. They don't do it often any more but they will email me back and say, we resolved this, go check it out, or come check out this new feature now. I know, in general, they're receiving it and they're trying to make improvements as soon as they can. I think a lot of these new product lines, such as Editor X and Velo, are in response to that.

Do you get any kind of client referrals through WIX?

As a partner, yes. They do send us leads throughout the week.

Do you do a lot of business via those leads?

I would say most of the clients that we have got through WIX or WIX websites that we have built have been through WIX leads sent over, and then some we have recommended to specific clients based on their specific needs and where they are with their business.

What is the impression of WIX among your peers?

I think the response has been really good, generally. Most clients that are starting off or clients that come to us and say, we're trying to build a website, we're just starting a business, they tend to lean more towards WIX initially. We tend to recommend WIX first because there's so much that is already built in and they don't have to go paying for all those additional services. Whereas the medium-sized, bigger-sized companies that we have worked with, they already have a very robust system. They are very hard in a sense of not wanting to switch platforms and still want something more custom that isn't on a WIX platform.

Overall, I would say most of the clients that we have worked with that are small businesses coming in tend to have smaller budgets, so they prefer going with something that already has everything, versus some of the medium and the bigger clients who don't tend to care about going to WIX as much. They care more about the user experience and the systems that are going to be integrated to streamline their business process. Those clients are willing to spend more on us being able to build those systems for them. Of the leads that we get from WIX, about 80% to 85% probably have budgets are under $2,000. They're not trying to spend anything more than that; they don't really have the flexibility to spend additional funds on building out a website fully through us. That's just across the board.

We've also sourced leads through Bark, which is another lead generating platform. We've had agreements through that company and even through Bark, most of the WIX leads that come in, their budgets are under $1,000. Other companies, vendors or business owners want a website and are willing to spend $2,000 to $5,000 to $10,000. They're not looking to spend money on WIX; they're looking to spend money on a different platform or they want something more custom.

It sounds as if these bigger clients have preexisting systems, whether that's CRM or a booking system or some kind of real estate listing thing, that they already have that they use and you're saying it's easier to plug into WordPress than it is to plug into WIX? Is that something that's a permanent state and WIX can do nothing about, or are they making progress in being able to make these integrations?

I would think it's knowledge base. I would say web design is becoming very saturated in terms of the different platforms. Various platforms are now saying that they specialize in real estate design websites and templates and all your designs for real estate you can find through this particular website. People are now going more niche focused. For instance, we had a guy this week, we spoke with him, he came through as a lead and even though he was interested in WIX, he was saying, I heard WIX is good, my wife told me about it, and that's why I was interested in it, but I have no idea what it is. He owns this really big commercial real estate company, so he's heard of WordPress and some of these other sites and then he also found very specific websites or platforms that specifically focus on commercial real estate and that's all that they build. He would prefer to work with a client and platform that specializes in what he has to offer.

So yes, we've done a couple with WIX, we were able to show some, but at the same time, we said, these are your options. Here are the ones that are built on WordPress, here are the ones built on WIX, have a look at them and layout wise I would say he was more leaning towards WordPress than he was to WIX. The decision process for people building websites or finding the platform that they're going to use is also shifting to, does this market service my industry? That's why a lot of people, even with Shopify, as soon as they think retail or I want to sell a product or I'm trying to start a clothing line or a jewelry line or a product line, they automatically start looking at Shopify, and that's because that's how they are branding themselves.

They are branding themselves based on, we're the leading retailer web builder, so if you're trying to sell your products, this is where you come to. That differs from WIX where they're not picking and choosing and saying hey, you know we're the best in retail, we're the best in this. They're saying, we have great templates that can support your business, but they're not claiming a particular industry. For a lot of companies, they're basing their decisions based on the company and what they're doing, and what they feel other people are using and why they're using it.

From your perspective, is it so easy to just jump from one tool to another or you have dedicated people that you know this is my WordPress guy, this is my WIX guy, this is a commercial real estate tool guy and they know how to use these different systems but they don't jump around?

Everyone on my team, all our developers and web designers, they're versatile in WordPress; that was their first primary. Some of them never used WIX before, so I obviously had to walk them through it, train them, in order for them to take on some of those projects that we would be getting from WIX. Originally, most web designers are not really using WIX, most of them are using WordPress. But then the newer age web designers that became partners with WIX and also are using WIX to generate new leads, because they probably weren't doing it on their own, had a mindset shift in wanting to be on WIX and learn WIX more and to actually be part of the development process.

I do see that there is a bit of a shift in terms of developers now wanting to use WIX a little bit more. Internationally, considering that we also do have an office in London, overseas more people are still using WordPress rather than WIX, but there is a bit of a transition now because, even in our London office, we have the teams that we bought in and they started getting trained on WIX. Some of the clients that we ended up having, have WIX accounts in London. But once you start getting to India and some of the other countries, they stay away from WIX or they just prefer not using it.

It sounds like that referral lead generation program with is quite important in steering designers towards WIX? Is that the main attraction? They see they can get clients that way and can build a practice on WIX?

Definitely; I think it plays a huge role, because as a developer and web designer, initially, when I was building websites, I wasn't thinking of WIX. I had a WIX personal account from my own personal profile. I built one just to have one and I've had two other personal business ventures that I built on WIX. Eventually, with some of my other ventures, we ended up migrating to a different platform because we wanted to integrate more robust features and do more SEO, more coding, and really customize our site. In general, that was part of our shift, but overall, I would say the program, in itself, is a good incentive to keep you on board. As a designer, that would really impact a business. There are some designers and developers that can get as many leads but if they're not willing to pay the money you normally would charge, then how valuable is the lead to them?

We're declining numerous leads because, at the end of the day, if they're not within our budget, it's not going to make sense for us time wise. Some of them are wanting full websites at $200 and that's just not going to happen for us but there are people, who are not designers, but they're learning WIX and they want to start building a clientele and they're willing to take that. For us, we can't operate a business if we're taking 10 clients at $250; we're not going to have the time; we're not going to be able to have the bandwidth to pay people. So if we do get clients through WIX, if it's a quick landing page maybe or something else then yes, of course great, we can do it at a reasonable cost.

The other element to it is maintenance. Web developers and designers make their money not only from the website, but also from hosting and maintaining the website. With WIX being user friendly, you design the website, the client can go in and manage it themselves, so the revenue stream is basically cut off as far as getting consistent income afterwards, in terms of maintaining their website because, in order to build a sustainable business, you need residual income, to some degree.

As a developer, if you're unable to get a couple of people to agree to a monthly subscription of you maintaining or doing updates to the website, then you're only basically seeing that customer once. If you offer other services, you might be able to get them to pay for them. Those are also other factors where I feel, for web developers – even though they might be using WIX because of the partnership and just to get additional income – it's long term for them, probably not because there's more advantages of them building a custom site more than building a site that they can just turn over to a client.

Would that problem exist with Editor X? My understanding was this would be a more complex type of software for the client to use and they would not want to be messing around with it?

It's like a shop. You build something but they are still going to want to play around with it. They're going to go in and say, I want to touch this, this looks cool, let me see if I can fix this myself. We built a lot of websites and we video tape our websites and use that as our portfolio. We just felt as if videos probably spoke more than images because then they can fast forward and see other pages. But as soon as we build it and we transfer the website over, clients are changing things. They go in and think they can redesign a section and then, by the time the whole week goes by, we go back to their website and I look at it and think, this is not the website we built; what happened to it? Then they will say, we were trying to fix this and we don't know what happened. The same thing is going to happen with Editor X.

We had a guy yesterday and he said, yes, I have a photography and videography business and I want to use Editor X; it seems really cool. He had a GoDaddy website. I said, yes, Editor X is definitely a great tool, a great platform and we can build you a very responsive site, blah blah blah; I kind of went through the spiel with him. He was like all right great, that seems very interesting, it is something I definitely want to do. We were telling him that, with Editor X, it's a little bit more complex as far as editing and things of that nature. He said, that's fine; you guys can still build it and then we will try to make our changes after once you're done. Either way, people are still going to want to make their own changes.

Is this different from WordPress or would people tinker with WordPress too?

It’s different from WordPress because a lot of people don't know how to navigate through WordPress. It's not as user friendly. To a designer yes of course, they are going to be able to navigate. They're going to know what plugins to use; they're going to know what menu options to turn on and off; they're going to know about additional features, how to customize your SEO, change your tag to H1; whether to use Elementor or Gutenberg or whatever other tools that are in there. We have full knowledge about those things.

We had a client, also in real estate, but they do property management. We built their WordPress website for them, they went in, tried to make changes and they messed up the whole website; they were trying to make changes to the content. We built it on Elementor but they edited the website not using Elementor, so it messed up the whole layout. It looked as if the front home page was scrambled and they didn’t know what to do. That's where we had to come into play and try to resolve that issue for them. I think people are just going to try to figure it out, but it's a lot easier to sell a monthly maintenance package to somebody who is building a website on WordPress or even Shopify, because a lot of people don't want to spend time updating.

If we go back to the use cases where WordPress is more suited, it seems to be that it tends to be when companies or businesses have their own systems – could be a CRM, could be something else – that needs to be integrated and WIX is not good as integrating those systems as WordPress, is that correct?

The picture of it, yes.

Do you think that's something that WIX could fix?

I definitely think it's something that they can fix, and I think they've already been working on it. As I said, the custom HTML widget has been really helpful as far as streamlining forms or integrating email templates and custom pop-up banners, things like that. I know they have been a lot easier to implement now compared to before. Overall, it's definitely a much better experience. They're still working on it and they're growing in various capacities, and I think the shift is going to be figuring out which tools make the most sense for the client.

If somebody still wants usability, that level of customization, then I think Editor X might be a great way to pitch that. However, having Editor X and also trying to integrate technology such as the MLS system, I know it's still something that they're working on. It may not be as robust because of the responsiveness, because of the custom code for the external platforms, but if somebody is trying to more of an integration, the WIX editor Velo is probably a much better option. I think just placing the client under the right service or the product offering that WIX has to offer, plays a vital role and knowing which one makes the most sense for the client is important.

Do you use Webflow?

I haven't used it. It's a whole new thing as far as people building websites on there. I've also seen an increase in people using it through platforms such as Upwork; there's a lot of people now requesting that. Webflow is another competitor in the market that I think is getting ready to break into the industry or they already have, because I do see that a lot of people are talking about them. They do have an incentive program as well, so they are also following a similar pattern to WIX and some of the other platforms.

I know Square’s referral program isn't as robust, and they're only probably doing around one new lead a month. They're still trying to build it out but that's not really generating many leads and they're expecting the clients to bring the clients more than they send the leads to them. It's one of those relationships where they expect you to do the work and then they'll probably give you maybe one client a month. Whereas the WIX Partners Program is different because they're generating new leads and giving those away to various clients. It's not designated to one individual whereas Square is designated to one individual; if they give you that product, that client, that's your client. With WIX it's a little bit different; you still have to sell them and close them. For Webflow, I know they have an incentive program; we haven't enrolled in there or anything like that, but I do know that they tend to follow a similar model.

When you kind of talk to your peers in the industry, like other web design agencies, are they using WIX more or less over time?

I think the ones that are exposed to WIX are slowly using it a little bit more because a lot of clients are requesting it. But across the industry, I would say designers and developers are still using WordPress and some of the other platforms at a high usage rate compare to WIX. I guess we have to separate both of them; a web designer and a web developer are two different people. A web designer can be anyone that understands how to design a website. At this point, I think a lot of people are claiming to be web designers because they can go in and design a website. When I see individuals online or in Facebook groups and they're trying to promote building websites and they can do it for $500, they're using WIX; they're not using WordPress; they're not using other platforms. Then those that are advertising that they can actually build and a develop a website or even design a highly efficient one, those individuals I've seen are still using WordPress as their primary and then if somebody is using WIX they have the knowledge and the experience.

Is it cheaper for you, from your own time spent perspective, to design a website with WIX, or are you indifferent between working on WIX or WordPress in terms of the time commitment that it requires to design a similar type of website?

That's a good question. I was building a website for one of our clients that is in junk removals; it's a service-based company. It took probably about 12 to 14 working hours to build a first draft website, and that's mainly because I don't believe in using templates. I would rather go into WIX and start from scratch. The other thing behind this is the idea that we're building custom websites for you, so using a template doesn't necessarily work for us, even though it might save time. You can just go in, plug and play. But the thing with WIX is, that when clients reach out to someone to build a website on WIX, it's because they're either already on it and they're trying to figure it out and they're just lost and they're like hey, I need some support; I thought I could do this but I can't.

When they hire us, they've probably gone through the templates already. If we're telling them hey, we're building a custom website but then, all of a sudden, we just go grab a template and start adding things to it, it looks as if we're defrauding them, because we're charging them a premium. On WordPress, there are so many themes out there that we can pull ideas from and just basically restructure and change around, that it's a lot easier. Building a custom WordPress site may save us an extra two or three hours in design time because we just need the framework and then we build off of that. So yes, we probably spend a little less time on WordPress.

Building a website on WIX is easier to navigate because we can go between pages whereas WordPress you don't have that option; you have to finish updating one page, get out of that page, go to the next page and then make the changes to the next page. As far as fluidity in design, in general, WIX is a lot easier.

In terms of maintaining these websites, you raised an issue that maybe customers are less willing to give you that maintenance contract or the subscription contract with WIX, in terms of just security and how much time you have to spend updating these plugins on WordPress. Is there an attraction in using WIX for you, in that you know that it saves time? Is it more secure or is that not really a factor in your decision making?

WIX does have a pretty big market place now compared to before, as far as plugins, and I would say that it's become easier, versus some of the other platforms. In terms of figuring out the right tools if we're using WIX, most of the ones that people are using that they need are basically already there. So it's easier for us to build and design on WIX, versus if we're doing a custom website for a client. We have three primary target audiences but we still get clients in different industries. For those clients that are in other industries, we now have to do our due diligence, to find the systems that they can use to integrate into the website to make it work, which does require time on our behalf, versus if WIX already has everything then great; we can set them up and that will be it.

One other thing that did come to my mind, that I know WIX did not have – and that they said that they would be working on when I suggested it – was multi-vendor payout systems. That seems to be a growing industry in itself, especially within the retail industry. A lot of companies that are, for example, in the furniture business or they might have various products and they want to work with other companies and set up payouts, WIX does not have an option for that, and WordPress does. There are also some multi-channel platforms that do specialize in that and we've had clients that did want that option, but WIX just didn't offer it, and those clients obviously were willing to spend $10,000 to $20,000. That was also another area of improvement that we did suggest. I'm not if they have integrated it or figured out a way to be able to do it just yet, but I know, with WordPress, they have affiliated third party partners that they use for that, which made it a lot easier for us to build and integrate.

When you refer to multi-vendor payout systems, what exactly is that?

Let's say somebody owns a beauty shop, they might have over 40 vendors. Each of those vendors have their own products, and some of those products might compete against the other products that are there. The vendor would want to set up their own shop on that client's website, and be able to sell their products and for people to filter and find their products, versus somebody else just coming in and the person who owns the company has to take all the products from all the vendors, upload all the products and then try to filter them. It’s preferable for the vendor to be able to go in, add all their products and then they can just facilitate the branding and marketing of the company to drive people to the website to find that specific vendor's product. They can then make their own money from it and get their own percentage. That takes away from them having to own inventory of the other vendors or buying from the other vendors to try to sell it themselves. The vendors become an affiliated partner of theirs, and then the vendor would be able to pass on some of the proceeds to them, just for the marketing.

That's very helpful. If we pull this all together right into a conclusion, if you think about your business and your competitors or peers you're familiar with, would you say WIX will be used slightly more often in the future, slightly less often or materially more often or materially less often? What do you see the trend in terms of how popular WIX is going to be with web developers and designers in the future?

I definitely think it's going to be more popular. They're spending a lot of money investing and building a relationship with the developers, building a community with the developers, taking their ideas into consideration, running contests for them to develop really cool, unique websites and get paid for it. With the affiliated Partnership Program, that is helping because, once you reach a certain level, you get incentives based on how many clients you have. That is a whole different nudge for a developer to be able to reach a certain level and be able to still get some revenue sharing as well.

As a partner, a better fit for us is that we can also offer hosting through WIX, through our own vendor platform. If we are in the scenario of trying to bring a new client on to WIX, we can basically create our own packages, which include hosting, because they're going to need it anyway, and then we can get some type of fee from that. I think just figuring out ways to be smarter and being able to maximize on the revenue streams that WIX has to offer is also an advantage for a developer.

Overall, more people are switching over to WIX in my opinion. Not every industry but for a lot of the industries that are B2B, B2C, the less IT-related ones. We've had some IT companies that are on WIX and they just absolutely hated it and wanted us to switch to WordPress, so we had to switch them. But like I said, I think WIX has their niche and they just have to continue to build on it, strengthen it, listen to the users, listen to the developers, and just continue to make those improvements to really streamline. I think if they're going to market themselves, it should really be an all-in-one platform for XYZ person or XYZ business, rather than it just being hey, we service all companies or most companies in this industry. That would kind of give them more of a standpoint where people can now say, okay we're going to WIX for this.

Why do the IT companies dislike WIX so much? Is it the integration capabilities or something else?

Integration, technology, security. Some of the IT companies we work for also are direct affiliate companies with NASA, so security wise, they felt as if it wasn't as secure as they wanted it to be. They also had intranet logins that were not fully capable with WIX that were capable with WordPress. They can manage their security logins and protocols and make sure that no one is hacking in and getting the information. There was just a lot more that they required that they felt WIX just didn't have, which was true.

The same thing applied to educational systems as well. We have some clients in the educational space, and some of the requirements from the school systems throughout the US, especially colleges, are that you have to have a certain level of security and maintenance systems. Some also require that you have your own direct line of hosting, not a shared hosting, in order to be able to directly partner with those school systems. We had to switch people or build Podium, for instance. We switched a couple of people from Podium, that offered educational services, to WordPress because it just didn't give them the capabilities and they were missing out on being able to generate new clients because they didn't have the right security systems and protocols. But again, you can't service everybody with one platform. In an ideal world yes, it's probably possible, but to try to spend that much money trying to do it, is it going to be worth it? I don't know; I don't have an answer for that.

Just a follow up on the security point, because they pride themselves for being very secure. They advertise that this is a selling feature for WIX. In your opinion, is it that they are not that secure, or is it that you cannot adjust all of these parameters and have all these bells and whistles that educational or IT clients wanted? Is it the number of adjustments that they wanted to make, which were just not available on WIX, or is WIX fundamentally a less secure platform, in their opinion?

Yes, I think it's more the hosting. The fact that we're basically enrolling on a shared hosting platform because WIX has their own dedicated hosting and they have people who manage it. People in the companies that are dealing with government contracts or bigger clients that require these security protocols, like to know that you have the control, and that WIX headquarters is not going to go log into your websites, steal your client's information and it's supposed to be secure. It makes sense why WIX does it, but it does also limit you in that scenario because there are some clients who want to have their own hosting system. They have probably been with a hosting company, have numerous websites and they don't want to switch to a platform that they can't do their own shared hosting. That's something else we ran into with certain clients.

The last thing is the mobile app element. WIX now has the option of you being able to build your own mobile app, however originally, a lot of people were switching to WordPress because they actually have APIs and plugins that can convert a website into a mobile app that is transferable in iOS and Android. We have a lot of clients who were switching because they want to build their own apps and they wanted something that could be streamlined whereas WIX don't allow you to convert their WIX website over to an app. They are now giving you more flexibility and capability around that, but there is still some work to be done in improving that.

Very clear and super interesting and helpful, I enjoyed the conversation a lot, yes, thank you for your insights. Thank you.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to connect with your guys.