Elliott Richmond joins the Jukebox Podcast to discuss two decades with WordPress, his pivot into content creation, and an unexpected pizza business built on WordPress tooling. A self‑taught developer who started with early CMSes including b2 (the precursor to WordPress), Elliott has freelanced, contributed to the community (notably a 2013 advent calendar of code snippets), and now combines development, teaching, and small‑business ops.
Background and community
Elliott has worked with WordPress since the beginning, watching it grow from a blogging platform into a flexible CMS. Community connections and meetups played an important role in his development and ongoing engagement. He values the feedback loop from teaching and sharing—learning from replies and evolving ideas based on community input.
The pizza business and plugin
During COVID lockdowns Elliott and his wife launched a local pizza delivery operation. What began as a short‑term local service became a sustained business employing staff and expanding into a licensed model sold to others. WordPress is central: their system runs on WordPress, WooCommerce, Jetpack, and custom code Elliott developed.
He built a plugin (Pizza Pilot) to replicate the business model for others. Features include:
– A WooCommerce‑integrated ordering system
– Time slots and slot‑based ordering
– Radius‑based delivery restrictions (postcode lookup to allow delivery only within a set miles)
– A freemium model with a Pro version bundled for licensees
Elliott emphasizes that WordPress’ flexibility and ecosystem made launching and scaling the micro business practical—handling payments, geolocation, ordering complexity, and business processes.
Working with Automattic and wordpress.com
Elliott was approached via contacts at Automattic to create content showcasing wordpress.com features and workflows. The collaboration offers him early access to some features and the freedom to publish on his own channel. The brief is flexible: he proposes ideas, aligns with wordpress.com goals, and produces educational videos for his audience.
Content focus and approach
Elliott plans a mix of long‑form educational videos and shorter spin‑offs. His aim is to simplify complex concepts (templates, template parts, patterns, developer tooling) and to help people adopt new features. He sees a strong role for content creators to fill documentation and education gaps, especially during a period of rapid change (WordPress core updates, the move to full‑site editing, and AI integration).
He values community feedback—YouTube comments especially—as a source of inspiration and refinement. Negative comments are treated as useful feedback to spark further content or clarify points.
Topics he’s excited to cover include:
– Practical tutorials and workflows for wordpress.com and developer tools
– Features in Studio and other developer environments (e.g., enabling Xdebug)
– AI and emerging tooling: explaining complex concepts in approachable ways
Freedom and trust
Elliott describes the relationship with Automattic as one of trust and latitude. While he receives brief guidance on audience and goals, he retains creative freedom and publishes on his own channel. This model—supporting independent creators with resources rather than centralizing production—has allowed him to continue his independent work while amplifying it with early access and sponsorship.
Content creation process and kit
Elliott’s production setup is intentionally low‑tech:
– Camera: iPhone for recording
– Lighting: DIY diffused light (he jokes about using a cat food pouch box with tissue paper)
– Editing: DaVinci Resolve (he uses the paid version but notes the free edition is powerful)
– Audio: Studio monitors and experience from music production
His workflow emphasizes planning: a loose script or flashcard prompts, brain dumps recorded via Notes/speech‑to‑text, polishing with AI, and iterative editing. He balances scripting with spontaneity—sometimes reading more closely to script, other times using prompts and allowing some off‑piste moments. Motion graphics and analogies help make technical topics more digestible.
Motivation
Elliott is motivated by curiosity and a desire to learn and teach. He likens learning new technical techniques to exploring a new riff on the guitar: small discoveries excite him. While he earns some ad revenue, his primary drive is passion for the subject and the satisfaction of helping others.
Where to find him
Elliott publishes WordPress‑focused content on YouTube at elliottrichmondwp and posts longer written thoughts at elliottrichmond.co.uk (double L, double T). His videos and blog cover developer topics, wordpress.com workflows, demos, and sometimes pizza‑related projects—often with practical takeaways for builders and small businesses using WordPress.
Summary
Elliott Richmond’s story illustrates WordPress’ versatility: it’s not only a platform for websites but a practical backbone for real‑world businesses. His work—spanning plugin development, educational videos, and a thriving local pizza operation—shows how community, creativity, and accessible tooling enable makers to build, teach, and scale.