Elliott Richmond joins the WP Tavern Jukebox Podcast to discuss two decades with WordPress, his unexpected pizza business, and his growing role as a content creator working with wordpress.com.
Background and WordPress history
Elliott has developed with WordPress since its b2 days—over 20 years. Self-taught, he moved from early web projects and other CMS platforms into WordPress, contributing to the community (including a 2013 WordPress advent calendar) and building a freelance development career. Today he remains an active developer, YouTuber, and part-time pizzaiolo.
Pizza business powered by WordPress
During COVID lockdowns, Elliott and his wife launched a local pizza delivery service. What began as a temporary community effort grew into a thriving business employing staff and operating as a replicable model they license to others. WordPress is central: the site runs on WordPress + WooCommerce, with Jetpack and custom integrations to manage ordering, time slots, delivery radius, payments, and more.
Elliott developed a plugin—Pizza Pilot (freemium with a Pro bundle)—that handles:
– an ordering and slot system (time-based availability),
– geolocation-based delivery radius (postcode checks for delivery vs. collection),
– customization for local operations.
The plugin supports other businesses with restricted delivery windows or zones (bakeries, local restaurants, etc.), and licensees buy the business model rather than a formal franchise. Elliott bundles the Pro plugin for licensees and continues refining it while maintaining his WordPress development work.
Working with Automattic/wordpress.com
Automattic reached out via Michelle Frechette, leading to introductions with Stacey Carlson and Brit Solata. They invited Elliott to create videos about wordpress.com products and workflows. He submitted several concepts and was given flexible briefs rather than strict directives, allowing him to make educational content aligned with features and audiences wordpress.com wants to reach.
Influences and community
Jamie Marsland (head of the wordpress.com YouTube channel) inspired Elliott’s move into YouTube. The community feedback loop—especially YouTube comments—drives much of Elliott’s content planning and helps surface real user questions and pain points. He sees value in content creators filling documentation and education gaps as WordPress evolves, especially around new features and developer tooling.
Content style and approach
Elliott focuses on educational, approachable content: explain features, show how to access and implement them, and simplify complex concepts (templating, template parts, patterns, developer tools, AI concepts). He plans both long-form videos and short-form spin-offs, aiming to keep material useful despite WordPress’s rapid change.
He values the feedback loop of publishing and revising: negative comments are treated as constructive input for better explanations or follow-up videos. His agreement with wordpress.com lets him publish on his own channel (elliottrichmondwp), with some alignment on timing and themes but no tight control from Automattic.
Tools, process, and production
Elliott emphasizes substance over gear. His kit is intentionally low-fi:
– Camera: iPhone (used for filming).
– Lighting: DIY diffuser (cat food pouch/box with tissue paper over an LED).
– Audio/monitoring: studio monitors and other audio gear from music production.
– Editing: DaVinci Resolve (paid for the full feature set but the free version already offers powerful tools).
– Workflow: loose scripting (flashcard-style prompts), brain dumps via the Notes app and voice-to-text, AI polishing for drafts, then editing and motion graphics. He enjoys the scripting, structure, and iterative editing process.
He also highlights developer-focused topics he plans to cover, like Xdebug availability in the Studio app and other tooling that can be obscure but valuable for developers.
Philosophy and future plans
Elliott loves learning and teaching—comparing problem-solving in code to experimenting with music. He relishes simplifying technical subjects with graphics and analogies, and he plans to continue producing educational content through at least the current arrangement (running through December, as arranged), while also doing his own independent videos, including pizza-related content that can also tie back to WordPress (e.g., dough calculators).
He appreciates the trust and flexibility from wordpress.com/Automattic: they provide briefed objectives and early access to features, but creators retain freedom in how they explain and present material. Elliott views this as a positive, community-driven model that amplifies useful education for diverse WordPress users.
Where to find Elliott
– YouTube: elliottrichmondwp
– Website/blog: elliottrichmond.co.uk
The episode explores how WordPress serves beyond traditional websites—as glue for small business systems (like local pizza operations), as a platform for developer tooling practices, and as the foundation for educational content that helps the wider community adapt to the platform’s ongoing changes.