Ever wondered how a side project in Patagonia could turn into a global WordPress powerhouse? Buckle up, because Amir Helzer's journey with WPML is one wild ride.

From tinkering with electronics to revolutionizing multilingual websites, Amir's story is a testament to the unexpected twists of entrepreneurship. He didn't set out to create one of WordPress's most popular plugins – it just sort of... happened.

In this candid chat, Amir spills the beans on WPML's accidental birth, the growing pains of remote work (spoiler: he's "really bad at it"), and why updating plugins used to give developers nightmares. You'll get a peek behind the curtain of a company that's quietly powering communication across language barriers for over 1.5 million websites.

But it's not all smooth sailing. Amir opens up about the unique challenges of the WordPress ecosystem, where one misstep can sink your reputation faster than you can say "fatal error." He also drops some hints about an AI-powered translation tool that might just change the game for software localization.

So grab a coffee, settle in, and prepare for a no-nonsense look at building a WordPress empire from the ground up. Who knows? You might just find the spark for your own million-dollar idea lurking in the most unexpected place.

Amir, you started your career as an electronics engineer before transitioning to software. What sparked your interest in WordPress, and how did this lead to founding OnTheGoSystems in 2007?

I reached WordPress by chance. Since I was young, I wanted to have my own business. I was always working on some project, which I hoped would turn into a business. My little projects started having their own websites. As I was doing all this work during my evenings, I looked for ways to save time. When WordPress allowed users to add “pages”, I started building my tiny sites with WordPress. However, I was missing a way to make these sites multilingual. I hired a freelance PHP developer for this, and so WPML and OnTheGoSystems were born.

OnTheGoSystems began as a side project in Patagonia, Argentina. Can you share the story of those early days and how you grew from a one-person operation to a company with over 100 employees?

I was using WPML for my own little sites for all sorts of projects that I was working on. As it was a “plugin”, I put it on the WordPress plugin repo. The initial commercial objective of WPML was different from what it turned out to be. It was free. I thought of selling “premium support” for it, to cover costs. This didn’t work for me. Before pulling the plug on the project, I decided to charge people for using it, instead of hoping to get “premium support” clients. The plugin got frozen for several months, as me and the solo developer were improving the product to make it “good enough to sell”. And the day we launched the paid version, it started selling.

WPML has become one of the most popular multilingual plugins for WordPress. What inspired its creation, and what were some of the biggest challenges you faced in its early development?

Developing WordPress plugins is challenging because we always have to keep up with WordPress itself. We also have to “play nice” with many other third-party developers who build themes and plugins. It’s a very dynamic landscape, making long-term planning difficult. Today we have enough capacity to do both long-term planning and handle short-term surprises. When we were just two people, it was a lot harder.

Today’s challenges are very different from those we faced in our early days. With over a quarter-of-a-million clients and 1.5 million sites running WPML, we are obsessed with stability, performance, customer experience, value, and usability.

Your company operates on a fully remote model. How do you maintain company culture and ensure effective collaboration across a team spread around the world?

I’m really bad at this. Fortunately, our HR manager, Laura, is great at what I’m bad at. She leads our HR team, which includes Irina and Tetiana, and together, they’re doing an amazing job. Laura is also responsible for our healthy company culture. We frequently celebrate people’s 10-year anniversary working with us, so I think we’re doing a good job at building and maintaining our culture. 

What has been your biggest challenge in managing a fully remote team and what has been your workaround?

Before starting OnTheGoSystems, I was working as an engineer in a standard office. I’d show up at the office every day in the morning and leave in the afternoon. I did this for 17 years before starting OnTheGoSystems. Our remote-work environment is not much different from an office environment. We work in teams and we try to have everyone in the team in a similar time zone. Teams have quick daily check-ins, weekly progress meetings, sprint planning, and retrospectives.

When I worked in an office, I didn’t like people looking over my shoulder to see what I was doing. We don’t do that at OnTheGoSystems. 

In an office, I was expected to deliver. That’s how we work too.

In my opinion, the big difference between office and remote work is the social life. Physically seeing people in the office is different from seeing people on a computer screen in video calls. At OnTheGoSystems, we encourage everyone to go out, participate in real-world activities, and spend time with other people. You can see some examples of activities that our team enjoys in a recent blog post:

Health and Happiness Journeys of our Remote Team Members (Part VII) - OnTheGoSystems

Personally, I like to dance, hike and windsurf. Recently, I started wing foiling, but I mostly just crash into the water.

Can you walk us through the evolution of WPML? How has customer feedback shaped its development over the years?

There’s one example that keeps popping into my head. Years ago, at a WordCamp in Berlin, I was chatting with people who make a living from building WordPress sites. We talked about everything. One thing came up several times from several people – the fear of applying software updates. 

Updating WordPress, themes, and plugins was a traumatic experience for them. The problem is, updates almost always come at the wrong time. By then, developers have finished the project, been paid, and moved on. Suddenly, site owners see a notification asking them to run the updates. They click on it. Many times it goes fine, but sometimes, there’s a problem. And when there’s a problem, it’s panic time. A client who’s no longer paying the developer for their services suddenly calls every 10 minutes to check what’s going on. The developer might be working on a different project, enjoying their weekend, or on vacation with their family. This is something that they definitely do not enjoy.

After hearing these stories, I decided that we’ll do whatever it takes to not cause these kinds of problems. We have extensive automated test coverage and release updates gradually. The team leaders and I keep drilling the topic of “stability” to everyone in the company. Of course, we still sometimes cause some unintended trouble for clients. When we do, we take it seriously and prioritize fixing any damage that we’ve caused. Luckily, these cases, when clients update WPML and their sites crash, are rare.

OnTheGoSystems has expanded beyond WPML to include other products like Toolset. How do you come up with ideas for your plugins? Are they based on your own experience, or do you follow a specific process to develop and refine new ideas?

Again, from talking to people and identifying where there are pain points and where we might have a good solution. Now, we are working on a brand new product, which will complement WPML. It’s called Private Translation Cloud (PTC). PTC will translate software, like WPML translates websites. The great thing about it is that it will translate automatically and quickly at a higher quality than most human translators do. PTC is already providing the software translations for WPML, Toolset, and all our internal projects. We’re aiming to launch PTC commercially by the end of 2024.

Looking ahead, how do you see the future of multilingual websites especially with the advent of AI?

I think that having a multilingual website is the most cost-effective thing that any business can do to get more clients. Creating a business is really hard and building a high-quality website for that business is a lot of work. Making it multilingual is easy and it opens up the business to many clients from other countries, speaking different languages. I can’t think of anything else that’s as cost-effective for growing a business. So yes, I don’t see multilingual websites going away anytime soon.

AI is helping clients translate faster and better. We’ve recently released our own WPML AI, which provides excellent translations.

What are your primary distribution methods for the WPML plugin? What marketing strategies were most effective in the early days? What is the most efficient distribution method today?

We'll continue with the same marketing strategy we've used so far:

1. Understand what our clients need
2. Build it
3. Be compatible with other tools, services, and software that our clients are using

What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of marketing a product within the WordPress ecosystem? How does the marketing differ for non-WordPress products like SaaS etc.?

Word travels fast inside an intimate ecosystem such as WordPress. This means that generating word-of-mouth is possible. It also means that it’s easy to strike out. If you build a bad reputation for yourself, there’s no way back. I think that in wider ecosystems, it’s possible to fail and relaunch the same product several times to different audiences. I think that Airbnb “officially launched” four times until they got it right. We can’t do something like that in the WordPress ecosystem.

Your team actively participates in WordPress community events. How has this involvement influenced your products and company culture?

We participate in WordPress events to ‘get out of the house’ (we work from home), meet clients, people from other companies, and to have small informal OnTheGoSystems get-togethers. I went to WordCamp Asia in Taipei together with two people from OnTheGoSystems, and it was great.

Lastly, as a founder who has successfully grown a WordPress-based business, what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs in the WordPress space?

I don’t think that they need advice from me. They’ve already taken the big step by deciding to be entrepreneurs. They probably know that it’s not going to be easy. There’s no generic advice because every situation is different. But if someone wants to reach out to me, they’re welcome to connect on Linkedin, and I’ll be happy to help.

From accidental entrepreneur to WordPress plugin mogul, Amir Helzer's journey with WPML is a rollercoaster of determination, adaptability, and a dash of serendipity. His story reminds us that sometimes the best business ideas are born from scratching your own itch – even if that itch is halfway across the world in Patagonia.

Amir's insights into remote work culture, the delicate balance of plugin updates, and the future of multilingual websites offer valuable lessons for anyone navigating the ever-changing waters of the WordPress ecosystem. His emphasis on stability and customer experience highlights the often-overlooked aspects of running a successful plugin business.

As AI continues to reshape the landscape of translation and web development, it's clear that Amir and OnTheGoSystems are poised to ride the wave of innovation. Their upcoming Private Translation Cloud project hints at exciting possibilities for the future of software localization.

Whether you're a seasoned WordPress developer or a budding entrepreneur, Amir's journey offers plenty of food for thought. It's a reminder that in the world of tech, sometimes the most successful path is the one you stumble upon by accident.

Hungry for more insider stories from the world of WordPress? Don't miss our other interviews with plugin developers and entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of the web. Their diverse experiences and unique perspectives might just spark your next big idea. So why not dive into another interview and see where it takes you?