Elliott Richmond has been part of the WordPress world for more than two decades. A self-taught developer who cut his teeth on the web in the 1990s, Elliott moved through early CMSs like Joomla and Drupal before arriving at b2 and then WordPress itself. He has contributed to the community in creative ways — including running a developer “advent calendar” in 2013 — and today divides his time between development work, educational video creation, and an unexpectedly successful pizza business built on WordPress.
From hobby to micro-business
During the COVID lockdowns Elliott and his wife Rachel began offering pizzas to their local village when other outlets were closing. What began as a temporary community service quickly scaled: five years on they employ staff, sell licences to others who want to replicate the model, and operate a business that relies on WordPress as its backbone.
The shop runs on WooCommerce, Jetpack and a set of customisations Elliott built. Payment handling, geofenced delivery, time slots and collection options are all handled through the WordPress stack — demonstrating how flexible the platform can be when adapted beyond traditional marketing sites.
Pizza Pilot: a plugin born from dogfooding
Elliott has packaged much of what he built into a plugin (branded Pizza Pilot). It’s offered as a freemium product with a Pro tier bundled into licence packages for people launching their own local pizza services. Key features include:
– A slot system for scheduling orders and constraining availability by time.
– Radius-based delivery limits determined by postcode so orders outside the delivery zone can be forced to collection only.
– A standard WooCommerce checkout and order flow, with additional controls to suit a local delivery model.
Elliott stresses this is not a franchise. People buy a full operating model and licence rather than signing up to corporate controls. The plugin has attracted interest from diverse small businesses — from bakeries to local kitchens — wherever restricted delivery zones and time-based ordering make sense.
A content creator working with wordpress.com
Elliott is also an active video creator on YouTube. His clear, technical yet approachable style caught the attention of Automattic — specifically connections introduced by Michelle Frechette and Stacey Carlson — and led to a collaboration to produce content about wordpress.com through 2026. That relationship has broadened into further introductions inside Automattic’s marketing and influence teams.
The agreement gives Elliott early access to features and a lot of creative freedom. He’ll publish on his own channel (elliottrichmondwp) for his audience, while aligning a portion of the work to wordpress.com’s priorities. The brief is flexible: Automattic asks for content that helps people understand and use the hosted platform, but Elliott is free to approach topics in the way he thinks will educate most effectively.
Educational focus: long and short form
Elliott’s aim is to make technical concepts accessible. He plans a mix of long-form educational pieces and short-form spinoffs suitable for social platforms. Topics will include practical tutorials (how to use features, template parts and patterns), developer-focused tips (debugging with Xdebug in Studio, for example), and explainers that demystify emerging technologies such as AI and large language models.
He views YouTube as a fast feedback loop: comments from viewers inform follow-up content, highlight gaps in documentation, and shape how features are taught. That community interaction matters as much to him as producing the material — it feeds improvements back into both the videos and the projects they cover.
Process and kit: low-tech, high craft
Elliott’s production setup is refreshingly modest. He shoots on an iPhone, uses a DIY light diffuser (a cat food pouch box with tissue paper), records ideas in the Notes app via voice-dictation, and polishes the script using AI. From that point he refines, structures the script and prepares motion graphics when needed.
Editing happens in DaVinci Resolve, which provides both motion-graphics and advanced editing tools (he uses the paid version but praises the capabilities of the free edition). Studio monitors, audio work and a background in music production help him get clean sound and balanced mixes, but the essentials are inexpensive and approachable: a phone, a quiet space, simple lighting and a willingness to learn.
Scripting is an important part of the craft. Elliott describes his approach as loosely scripted: structured prompts or “flashcard” style notes rather than rigid word-for-word delivery. He balances spontaneity with planning so the videos remain natural but tightly focused.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
A recurring theme in the conversation is the relationship between hosted wordpress.com and the open-source wordpress.org codebase. Elliott emphasises that using wordpress.com’s Studio app or hosted services still lets developers work with local files, build complex sites and access development tools — the main difference is hosting and operational overhead. For many small operators that tradeoff — less hosting friction, built-in performance and security — is a practical win.
Community, trust, and the evolving role of video
Elliott points out that WordPress has always been adaptable and that people in the community use it in surprising ways — a gardener at his local Meetup runs invoicing through WordPress, for example. He also sees a trend: Automattic and wordpress.com are investing in creators who already understand and teach WordPress. Rather than building a large in-house content studio, they’re funding trusted creators to produce education at scale, giving them broad latitude in how they present material.
That trust-based approach has worked well for Elliott; he’s had minimal creative constraints, a clear—but flexible—brief, and the freedom to pursue topics that matter to his audience.
Where to find Elliott
– YouTube: elliottrichmondwp
– Website and blog: elliottrichmond.co.uk (note: double L, double T in Elliott)
Final notes
Elliott’s path — from early WordPress contributor to developer, educator and pizza entrepreneur — highlights how the platform can be the glue between very different ventures. Whether you’re building sites, teaching others, or launching a neighbourhood food business, WordPress can be adapted to fit. Elliott’s combination of practical solutions (a working pizza plugin), clear teaching and community-minded feedback makes him an example of how developers can turn technical skills into multiple kinds of value.