“So here’s the short version… kind of.”
Since 1988 I’ve managed to turn bartending breaks into a freelance design gig, let an odd-eyed kitten talk me into starting a graphic design business, stumbled into WordPress, and casually created a personal brand called BobWP. Along the way there were failed ideas, way too many Chamber of Commerce mixers, a stock photo site that didn’t last, and a dozen podcasts I swore would be my last. Now, after three decades, or more, of pivots, detours, and questionable decisions, we’ve arrived here. You’re welcome.
The changelog
pre-1988 – Those first 31 years are better left for stories, in person and over your favorite beverage.
1988 – I started some freelance design aka desktop publishing. Nothing too complicated but enough to give me the bug. I probably bartended more than I freelanced.
1993 – It happened. Judy and I had an idea for a business to start. A kind man from SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives, a nonprofit in the US) helped us get it straight.
We brainstormed a few names, but finally landed on Cat’s Eye Graphics. In some convoluted way the details of good design equates to a cat’s eyes. Or may it was their stubborn independence. Or something to do with the litter box. But as we pondered this for a few days, an odd-eyed, abandoned kitty showed up on our door step asking us to name the business after him if we give him some food. We fed him, gave him a name, but Nuz Design didn’t sound right. So we compromised and gave him a home. Plus we promised if he would continue using the litter box, we could always call it Cat’s Eye [something].
From a design shop it grew into a full fledge marketing company. Pivots and pathways bouncing off the walls. A plethora in fact. Marginal little brochures printed on an inkjet to full color corporate annual reports. Dozens of logos designed when you could make money doing it. It was all about printing a majority of those years. Including several martinis when a typo came off the final press run.
From a design shop it grew into a full fledge marketing company. Pivots and pathways bouncing off the walls. A plethora in fact. Crappy little brochures printed on an inkjet to full color corporate annual reports. Dozens of logos designed when you could make money doing it. It was all about printing a majority of those years. Including several martinis when a typo came off the final press run.
We offered it all. Design, copywriting, editing, branding, consulting, photography and marketing. Sat at many dull Chamber of Commerce functions warding off business cards. Lot’s of pro bono work that gave us anti-money deposits. But all in all, quite the experience.
1990-2005 – How about a stock photo site before there were so many, around 2003. Well, Northwest Hotshots hosted on something called Shop.com lasted about a year with minimal income.
Various other small pathways that just sounded good at night and not so much the next day.
2006 – WordPress entered my life. I dabbled and played with it. Then between 2007 and 2008 I got more serious and realized I could finally put together a decent site as opposed to my eyesore HTML and Flash sites with dancing letters forming a word.
Plus this idea of open source intrigued me as it was kind of new to me. At the same time it was a bit odd. Felt like a circle of people, holding hands and singing songs about kittens and puppies. I did come back to reality shortly after that image and decided open source was kind of cool.
2008 – Two good friends and colleagues of mine invited me to a small podcasting workshop they were doing. They told me I had the perfect voice for podcasting and knew I would be perfect for it. But a voice alone doesn’t help. I looked at the time and resources it would take and shuddered. So I told them,”let me think about it”. I ended up thinking about it for 6 years.
2010 - 2011 – So what about a membership site? Helping small business owners to get online. Naming it Savvy WordPress. And the site was focused on solopreneurs, Nine months building it with the Headway theme and Wishlist, launched it and 14 months later Judy and I looked at each other, with members in the two digits, and we both decided we didn’t want to do it. Switched off the lights and refunded members. About the same amount of time it took me to quit mistyping the word solopreneur.
I wish there was a fascinating story behind the name BobWP. All I knew is the previous several years I had been working on a personal brand. Well, I guess you could call it that. We officially closed down Cat’s Eye Marketing Group and I chose to totally focus on WordPress. And in a quick moment, it hit me. Why not just call myself BobWP.
I will have to admit this was one of the best decisions I made, even if at the time it was nothing earth-shattering or even a slight tremor. People who got it were my potential clients. And those that pronounced BobWoop quickly dismissed it. It started with design, and moved into coaching, teaching, tutorials, podcasting and a lot of odds and ends.
2014 – I simply could not stand doing design, coaching or anything with client. I dug a hole in my timeline and buried client work.
I made the decision to focus on education and blogging. Maybe I could become rich from affiliate links. Never happened. But I had been dabbling with WooCommerce since it had just come out. Having done hundreds of tutorials already on WordPress something occurred to me. Having already introduced my audience to WooCommerce, I was seeing more affiliate income coming from those tutorials. Yeah, right. Store owners had a invested into their sites and were willing to pay for stuff. Who would have thunk. And that’s when it started, again.
2014 - 2018 – Remember when I told you about my two friends who tried to talk me into starting a podcast. Sounded great, but I was trying to run a business and couldn’t see possible squeezing any more blood out of myself. So I waited… and the end result was a number of podcasts, sometimes even overlapping each other.
2014 - 2015 (13 months): WordPress Breakdown.My very first podcast. Thought I was clever with the name. Was a talking head podcast where I simply regurgitated content from my tutorial posts. Figured I could do better, someday.
2016 - 2020 : (4 years, 1 month)It hit me. This was it. An podcast on WooCommerce. Thought of the name Do the Woo. But then about 10 episodes into it I changed it to WP eCommerce Show. Some little part of my brain said I should start with the bigger picture of ecommerce and WordPress. Was a good run with about 260 episodes.
2017 - (3 months):Podcasting with BobWP. Yeah, how meta, huh. I’m guessing a lot of podcasters have done this. Guess I wrapped up what I knew then in 90 days.
some unknown date, but best forgotten – short lived, maybe 5 episodes. BobWPs Neighborhood. I can even begin to tell you about this one that kicked off similarly to Mister Rogers Neighborhood. It was kind of weird.
2017 - 2018 (11 months): I had been making money with affiliates and other stuff and figured, what about something called the BobWP Monetizer Podcast? I figured I could teach people how to do it without the bullshit. I did, I conquered and I grew tired of that one.
2018– The podcast pathway that has led me to where I am today. Do the Woo is now Open Channels FM. I could literally write a lot about this period of time. But instead, if you are really, really interested in the paths and pivots of Do the Woo, and you are afraid you will not be able to sleep nights until you do know the details, I have a changelog over on OpenChannels.fm that gives you every step along the way. So there’s that.2019 – A four episode track record of WP Digital Shop Podcast, digital and content marketing with WordPress. A simple revisit to the cover art makes me think it was best endeded.
2025– Slipping back over to this site. Cleaned out all the posts and restarted. My podcasting vibes (not attributed to AI but more the 60’s and 70’s) took hold of me here. But five episodes in to what I called Bob’s Wild Pathways, my brain said, not so much. Ended that by going back to hyper minimal.
Which brings me to know (Oct. 10, 2025. Many things going on and my focus right now is making Open Channels FM sustainable.
As far as what transpires here. Nobody can say for sure.
And like any changelog, there will be updates.
bobwp 