[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. I’m Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox covers all things WordPress — people, events, plugins, blocks, themes — and today the interconnected WordPress ecosystem, partnerships, and trust. Subscribe at wptavern.com/feed/podcast. If you have a topic, use wptavern.com/contact/jukebox.
Today’s guest is Zach Stepek — a “unicorn” with roles across design and development, from ColdFusion and Flash to JavaScript, WordPress, and WooCommerce. He’s worked with brands like IBM and MTV, spoken at WordCamps and WooConf, and contributed via agencies and product companies. Zach explains how partnerships work in WordPress and why they matter.
Zach starts with his journey into WordPress, early challenges, and a viral moment that deepened his involvement. He outlines three interconnected pillars for WordPress success: agencies/individuals, product companies (themes/plugins), and hosting/infrastructure — and how each depends on the others. We discuss current partnership dynamics, trust, the tension between short-term ROI-driven thinking and long-term ecosystem stewardship, hosting challenges, and why relationship equity matters. He argues a rising tide can lift all boats if the community keeps a collective focus.
Now, Zach Stepek.
[00:04:00] Zach Stepek: Hey Nathan.
Nathan: Tell us about yourself.
Zach: I’ve worn many hats. I began as a ColdFusion dev, moved into Flash and taught the Flex Framework for IBM and MTV as an Adobe Certified Instructor. When Flash declined, contracts vanished and I shifted into support and then WordPress. I worked as an Experience Designer at an EMR company and then Comply365, doing JavaScript demos for airline forms. Parallel to that I built a WooCommerce site for a resurrected record label and later helped Oscar Mike, a nonprofit for injured veterans. Oscar Mike’s WooCommerce site crashed under unexpected traffic after being featured on Thanksgiving Day TV — the email spool filled and the small VPS ran out of memory, taking the site down. Fixing that launched my deeper work with WordPress and WooCommerce.
I spoke at WordCamp Milwaukee 2015, connected with the WooCommerce team, and later keynoted at WooConf 2017. I started an agency, pivoted, then moved into hosting work focused on partnerships. Today I freelance doing fractional partnership work, e-commerce consulting, and hosting recommendations at mightyswarm.com and zachstepek.com. I’m zstepek across social platforms.
Nathan: Many listeners might not know how partnerships work in WordPress. Paint a picture of partnerships in 2026.
Zach: I think of partnerships in two broad ways: the relationship between builders/agencies and their hosts, and product companies that build themes/plugins partnering with agencies or hosts. WordPress is an ecosystem with three interconnected layers: agencies/individuals, product companies (plugins/themes), and hosting/infrastructure. Successful sites need all three working in harmony: agencies must understand products to implement them, product companies must support agencies, and hosting must provide the infrastructure to support scale and traffic.
Hosting is like choosing a retail storefront location: cheap rent limits traffic and capability; premium hosting supports scale and sales. E-commerce especially relies on infrastructure because every visitor is a potential sale. If your site fails under traffic, it’s like a store where products vanish for fractions of time — customers won’t stay.
Nathan: Are these layers overlapping rather than a simple stack?
Zach: Yes — think of a Celtic knot. The layers constantly interconnect. Weakness in any layer — bad support from a product, hosting, or agency — weakens the whole. The ecosystem only works when pieces collaborate well.
Nathan: Hosting seems to have a lot of revenue and a smaller number of big players, while product companies and agencies are many smaller entities. Does that shape dynamics?
Zach: Absolutely. Big hosting companies often have more resources and can drive values-based partnerships. But many agencies and product companies also give back and build useful open-source tools. Examples: Fueled released ElasticPress as open source, and WebDevStudios released Theme Switcher Pro to ease migration to block themes. Agencies can become product companies and vice versa. But install too many plugins or have one that breaks compatibility, and the whole site can fail. A rising tide lifts all ships; hosting companies can steward partnerships and invest in mutual success. Values-driven partnerships are long-term — like planting a forest rather than just picking apples.
Nathan: I feel the original WordPress ethos of community and shared stewardship is eroding. Has money and ROI-driven thinking shifted things?
Zach: Many companies took on investment and now face pressure to produce returns. Private equity and investors often focus solely on financial metrics. That transactional mindset clashes with open-source ecosystems that thrive on long-term collaboration. Short-term revenue focus can erode trust and community perception. When companies treat partners as line items instead of collaborators, trust degrades. Long-term investment in relationships and community yields durable reputation and compounding benefits. Trust is a company’s most important asset; revenue alone isn’t sufficient.
Nathan: Could broader economic pressures be pushing companies toward short-termism?
Zach: Yes. The pandemic shrank economies, and subsequent inflation and market uncertainty caused fear. Companies are tightening belts; sponsorships and event participation have declined. Some hosts and companies have stopped sending people to events. There are additional fears from infrastructure pressures: demand for hardware, especially for AI workloads, is straining supply chains. Large language models (often called “AI”) require massive compute and cooling, driving up component demand and prices. Memory, processors, GPUs cost more; hosting becomes more expensive. Hosts built on very cheap models may struggle when component and operational costs rise. All this leads to risk-averse behavior and short-term decision-making.
Nathan: There’s also a perception problem: philanthropic contributions and unpaid community work are often invisible to spreadsheets. Could recognition systems for contributor hours or badges help quantify community investment and make it a part of ROI?
Zach: Partnerships are hard to measure; revenue is the clearest signal but not the only one. Partnerships take time — like tending a garden. Relationship equity precedes revenue. Other signals matter: trust between teams, proactive collaboration, and improved customer outcomes because of partnerships. If hosting companies and others collect logos only, that’s transactional. True partnerships require learning each other’s businesses and investing time. Short-term fear kills patience, the first casualty of long-term ecosystem building. Those who do the hard work of partnership will benefit in the long run.
Nathan: We’re at an inflection point in 2026. This could play out as slow erosion or big disruption. It’ll be interesting to see which it becomes.
Zach: Partnerships compound slowly. Revenue is a signal but not the only one. Investing in people and shared wins creates social proof, builds reputation, and drives durable growth. In an environment of fear, patience decreases, but the long game of partnerships and trust remains essential.
Nathan: That’s a great place to stop. Where can people find you?
Zach: My eCommerce consultancy and agency are at mightyswarm.com. Fractional partnership work will be there soon. My personal site is zachstepek.com. I’m zstepek on social platforms.
Nathan: Links will be in the show notes at wptavern.com/podcast. Thanks, Zach.
Zach: Thanks for having me.
