Ever wondered what happens when you mix a 13-year-old Aussie coding genius with an entrepreneurial spirit? You get Josh Kohlbach, the Brisbane-based software professional who’s been shaking up the e-commerce and WordPress world. It can’t get any better than the man himself being the guest of myCred.
We sat down with Josh, the brain behind Rymera Web Co and popular WooCommerce plugins like Wholesale Suite and Advanced Coupons. From his early days of tinkering with code to becoming a respected figure in the WordPress community, Josh’s journey is anything but ordinary. He’s not just about creating cool tech; he’s on a mission to solve real-world e-commerce headaches. The best part? He’s an open book, sharing the highs, lows, and everything in between of his entrepreneurial adventure.
So, grab a cuppa (that’s Aussie for a cup of coffee 😊), and let’s get open up with Josh Kohlbach – an inspirational professional whose success is measured in happy users and lines of code.
Q1. How long have you been in the WordPress industry?
I’ve been a programmer since I was 13 years old (now closing in on 40!). In terms of being in WordPress, I came into it just before custom post types were launched so late v2 from memory.
I came across WP when I was consulting for a local point of sale software company in Australia implementing a new customer management and support system using SugarCRM.
Just before I started they’d implemented a new website using WordPress and the person who knew all about it left the company shortly before I arrived. I ended up taking it over as well and fell in love with the open source community around WP.
This led me to change job to work for a local marketing agency as their lead developer implementing sites and solutions in WordPress. After a couple of years there I ended up branching out on my own as they were changing direction into the medical field.
I built an agency doing backend WordPress development and implementing ecommerce solutions using WP E-Commerce and shortly after, WooCommerce. This led me into the direction of WooCommerce plugins to solve a lot of the needs that I was seeing in my consulting work. Shortly after we pivoted into plugin products full time and haven’t looked back.
Q2. What are your day-to-day responsibilities as a CEO of Rymera Web Co?
Something that surprises a lot of people is the amount that I actually still code. I went for a while very hands off and just managing developers, but I missed coding so over the last few years have been actively involved in development. It helps me stay hands on.
Day to day my activities range from project management, industry outreach, hiring/firing. My busiest times are start and end of quarters where I’m doing a lot of company vision related tasks and project management.
Q3. Tell us about your most demanding WordPress & WooCommerce products.
Wholesale Suite is considered our biggest contribution to WooCommerce and I love working on it to this day.
I would say the most demanding would be figuring out the path ahead for the brands we’ve acquired – we acquired 3 brands over the last 18 months so this is always a challenge.
Dealing with technical debt while keeping an eye on costs, growth, and being innovative sure is a balancing act.
Q4. Is Syed Balkhi (Awesome Motive Inc.) your investor or strategic partner?
Syed and I have been online friends for more than 10 years. He was one of the very first users of ThirstyAffiliates which was my first successful commercial plugin (I exited this business in 2019).
When WPBeginner announced it was starting an accelerator program I was really happy for him and an early proponent of it. The first couple of years he ran that were based around yearly intakes, I was in the second batch because I missed the intake on the first year due to a timezone mixup!
Q5. Which e-commerce trends excite you at the moment? Do ‘Loyalty Programs’ add any value for store owners?
I’m very excited about the path forward in WooCommerce, to borrow something Jeff Bezos says, I think we’re still Day 1.
I love the inherent viral component to loyalty programs, it’s a great way to grow your store. It’s also a good way to take a proven “offline” process (think those loyalty cards from your local coffee shop, car detailers, etc) and bring it online.
I’m also excited about all the technical changes in our industry, AI, better more efficient coding, and the power of open source. All of these things are going to have a measurable impact on ecommerce and therefore WooCommerce.
Q6. Where do you see the future of WooCommerce?
WooCommerce needs to lean into its strengths as a platform that is flexible and open. It’s what we all love about it over closed systems like Shopify.
I see WooCommerce being the platform of choice for those that want to own their data, scale their sites, and keep a handle on costs.
For example, you can deploy a really cost effective WooCommerce store these days on a reliable web hosting platform for a lot cheaper than Shopify or other hosted platforms where you end up paying more once you’ve factored in the cost for “plus” features, third party integrations, and transaction fee costs.
If we, as a community, reiterate and lean into that the future of WooCommerce is very bright indeed.
Q7. Is WooCommerce popular in Australia, too?
WooCommerce is very popular in Australia, most websites here use WordPress (as with the rest of the internet).
That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of competition for market share in Australia, Shopify is also quite prominent as is Squarespace.
Q8. What’s your opinion about the global WordPress community?
We have our problems just like any other community with clashing priorities and ideas but what I’ve always loved about WordPress is the drive to make it better. You just have to look around at all the cool things that people are building for it every day.
Q9. Describe, in three words, what WordPress has given to you.
Goals, purpose, friends.
Q10. Do you have any suggestions for newbie WordPress business owners?
Get involved, launch something, and don’t overthink things. You’re better launching and getting feedback on your ideas than trying to make it perfect. That, and, run your own race – don’t worry so much about what others are doing and if you’re keeping up.
Closing Note
Our chat with Josh winds down here. And we can’t help but feel like we’ve just debugged the motherboard of success itself. If this interview were a line of code, it’d be so clean it’d make other developers weep with joy. But unlike a difficult WordPress plugin, Josh’s insights won’t crash your browser – they’ll only crash your preconceptions about what it takes to make it in the wild world of tech entrepreneurship.
So, Josh, mate (as they say Down Under 😊), thanks for not putting us on hold like a frustrating customer service call. You’ve given us a VIP pass to the backstage of WordPress stardom, and we’re walking away with more gems than a WooCommerce jewelry store.
Thanks for your time and we hope your future is as bright as a perfectly optimized website and your success as widespread as a viral meme.
Disclaimer: This audio was generated using the Google AI tool ‘NotebooLM.’ Please note that it may contain some factual inaccuracies.
