Cloudways: It’s been a great pleasure to have you for this interview, Ashan. Could you please tell our readers about yourself? What is your professional journey? How did you start your career? What were the challenges you faced in the beginning?
Ashan: Thank you for doing an interview with me. I am Ashan Jay, I am the creator behind the EventON WordPress event calendar plugin. So after graduating from college in 2008 with great ambitions to become a financial analyst – as I majored in finance, soon I found myself, it was not the best time to be in finance with the 2008 financial crisis and no one was hiring in finance.
Luckily, I didn’t have any debt thanks to my uncle, but because I failed few classes I had to take 1 extra semester, My uncle didn’t pay for it and I had to pay for it myself (a whopping $8000 fee for international student), along with utilities, rent, and food with no money I had. This was my greatest challenge, my back was up against a wall, I was at rock bottom there was no way down to go and I had to figure out a way to come out of it. So I made a website and start advertising everything I could do, graphic design, marketing materials, website design, logos, etc.
Out of the blue, I got an email from a real company wanting to hire me for graphic design work and was going to pay $50/hr. (I still do work for this client from time to time). This was the biggest turning point in my professional journey and the start to web/marketing career as a consultant which has now turned into a digital product business with EventON. In recent times, I have also started putting more time into stock investments – finally using the knowledge I learned in college. 🙂
Cloudways: You started your career in 2011 as a marketing and web design consultant and in the same year, you developed EventON, an event management plugin. What was your idea to develop this plugin when there were different plugins already existed in the same category?
Ashan: By this point, I have been playing around with Google Calendar and WordPress. I love the ease of Google Calendar, but I did not like how your data is owned by a big company that sells it for profit. I wanted to create a calendar where you own the data and you have full control of everything. So I built a calendar that is clean, minimal, and easy on the eye.
Cloudways: EventON has more than 50K sales and 4.39/5 ratings on Envato Marketplace. What do you think is the reason that makes your plugin different from others? What are some of the features of EventON you think are really helpful for the users?
Ashan: I believe the reason for EventON progress is its unique clean designs. Not very often you see a beautifully designed calendar on the web. There are a lot of neat calendar apps for mobile. Especially when it comes to WordPress, calendars were pretty boxy and 90s designs. And it’s very interesting to see how other WordPress calendar plugins have started coping with EventON designs. I suppose imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
As far as features, I think the ease of viewing event details from EventON is what really helps our users. I think people finding EventON are the ones who are tired of the clunky and busy event calendar, wanting something minimal but still packed with the same features.
Cloudways: When COVID-19 hit the world since then the majority of the events that were supposed to be held went virtual. What role did EventON play in accommodating the users’ requirements? How your own team tackled the pandemic?
Ashan: You know its the circle of life, pandemics comes and go, but the sun still rises in the east. We must stop the need to control every aspect of it, but learn to let go, and just like everything else this too will pass through on its own terms. And It is what you do during this downtime that defines where you are heading and how resilient you are to challenges.
For the first couple of months in 2020 we weren’t really affected that much but the past couple of months we started seeing drops in sales because of the pandemic. So EventON started adding virtual events support at a more comprehensive level using Zoom integrated into events using Zoom API. People can still hold events, classes, lectures, speeches, etc. The only difference is that they are online and EventON supports virtual events 100 percent. We will probably introduce more features that further help people’s lives online with virtual events.
Cloudways: WordPress repository has more than 50K plugins for different categories. In fact, some of them stand out in their respective categories. What do you think that make those plugins to beat the competition? Is there anything common in them?
Ashan: Some time ago I read a marketing book, maybe it was “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing”. It says something like, do you know who the first person to fly? Of course, you know it’s Wright Brothers. Do you know who the 23rd person to fly? NO. But do you know who the first female to fly? That is Amelia Earhart, she was not the first person to fly, but she was the first female in her category.
So being first in a niche plugin category, creates that plugin the leader in it rather than becoming the next plugin in an already existing category that is heavily populated. And I think that is probably the same thing that happens in the WordPress plugin repository.
Cloudways: Since you have been a web design consultant, I would be happy to know about your design philosophy. I am sure, you must have applied it to your products. What do you think are the must-have aesthetics for a great user experience?
Ashan: I think design concepts basically just come down to our basic human needs. We all want things that make us feel better. Things that make us feel alive on this earth. Feel better and alive in the sense that when we use it, the ease of use of it makes us feel better, the ease to our eye of its cleanness makes us feel better. I think what you think (from your point of view and experience) that will make the user feel better is the must-have aesthetics for you.
Cloudways: WordPress has a large market share in the CMS industry; more and more people are attracting towards it on a regular basis. What are the best practices you would suggest to them? Could you please also share some of your favorite tools?
Ashan: I am sorry I don’t have a best practice list for a regular basis. I think the best practice lists when you see them you want to try it yourself on your site. And you try several best-practice lists and then you realize that now you are left with all these bits and pieces of best practices. Which in itself has made it all not the best practice after all?
I would say to people the best practice is the one you are doing right now. Some wise men probably have said, “the best practice is the practice of not practicing best practices.” 🙂 And I think as WordPress space is becoming more populated, it is important to recognize what is important for you, for your circumstances, not because it was said in a best practice list.
As for tools, I don’t use a lot of the WordPress plugins, other than to test out EventON compatibility. I’ve always been a guy who develops my own thing if I need something. However, WooCommerce is definitely a tool I use regularly.
Cloudways: The majority of hosting providers have created ecosystems for WordPress, making it easier for the users of all levels to get started with it. Which type of hosting you would prefer for WordPress? What are your thoughts on managed hosting?
Ashan: If someone is not well versed in WordPress backend installations and updates and FTPs, I would certainly suggest them a managed WordPress hosting platform like Cloudways. Managed hosting for WordPress really helps if you are unfamiliar with that side and it is not important for you to figure it out. We use VPS hosting but we do a lot of visits and transactions and data storage. So certainly depends on what you expect to get out of the hosting, to see what sort of caliber you need from hosting.
For example, a shared server with 25 others may work for a startup or personal site, but it will start to run out of space and bandwidth when your needs from a WordPress site expand. I also think managed hosting is an amazing option for business owners, who need to spend their time on the business (that generates money) rather than trying to figure out how to manage the hosting part of the business website.
Cloudways: It is sometimes hard to balance a personal and professional life, especially when you are an entrepreneur and running several startups at the same time. What do you do when you are not working? Would you like to tell us about your hobbies?
Ashan: Certainly, I do various things to keep my soul happy and revitalized, when I am not working. I usually start and end my day with meditations. I use an app called “Insight timer”. I grew up with Buddhist meditations so it has been nice to rekindle myself with it again. I also do yoga with my wife, lift, and HIIT cardio. I have started hill cycling again. Whenever I can I listen to audiobooks. Usually, at night I do an acrylic painting. Volleyball was a huge part of my life before COVID. I also enjoy cooking vegetarian dishes from scratch. And most importantly, I spend a lot of my time with my family and my 4-year-old son.
Cloudways: It would be great if you can share an image of your workstation for our readers. Thank you!
Ashan: Sure thing. And thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity!
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].
