Pioneering the Future of Web Hosting with Konrad Keck

Join us as we delve into the inspiring journey of Konrad Keck, founder of Modules Garden, and his entrepreneurial path in the web hosting industry. In this episode, we explore the challenges and triumphs of building a SaaS company, the evolving web hosting landscape, and the rise of new technologies like AI and WordPress control panels. Conrad shares insights on the importance of understanding user experience, managing a growing team, and adapting to industry changes. Discover the potential of new ventures such as MetricsCube and Panel Alpha, and learn how to navigate the complexities of business in a rapidly changing world.

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[00:00:00] Ken: It’s interesting that you took on building a control panel in 2024 because we have heard about control panels for a really long time. Obviously, like cPanel is one of the oldest companies in the hosting industry. 

[00:00:13] Konrad Keck: So for me, I, I think that one of the biggest threats for the web hosting industry right now are the site builders and, and platforms like Wix.

[00:00:23] Konrad Keck: And it seems that for at least two or three years hosting companies have noticed that. They need to do something about it, and the answer is WordPress. Yeah. If you don’t have any idea how to build software, you will fail. Yeah. Trust me, ab, it’s not gonna be Absolutely. It’s not going to work very well.

[00:00:40] Ken: I’ll give you a hint. The market for SaaS business analytics tools could definitely use some shaking up 

[00:00:46] Konrad Keck: look, 

[00:00:46] Ken: and, and this is exactly 

[00:00:48] Konrad Keck: why you should listen to the podcasts. It, it is absolutely.

[00:01:03] Ken: Welcome to the podcast Conrad Keck, uh, founder of Modules Garden among other startups in the last decade. I wanna start by talking about, uh, the early years, uh, and what got you into the life of an entrepreneur, because I think as. You and I both know it is a difficult thing, uh, to last as long as you have, uh, building companies.

[00:01:29] Ken: So, before founding Modules Garden, you worked as a freelance developer, uh, basically writing programs for web hosting companies. Can you, uh, tell us about your experience, uh, in those early days working as a freelancer and how that led you to founding modules Garden? 

[00:01:48] Konrad Keck: Yeah. First of all, thank you for, uh, for the invitation.

[00:01:50] Konrad Keck: It’s, it’s a pleasure to be on the other side, on the, of the, um, of the microphone, I guess. Um, yeah, that’s an unofficial information that I’ve been working as a freelancer. It all started, I. Uh, when I was, when I was a teenager, I was, uh, interested in computers. I’ve been, uh, uh, you know, learning some programming, working on some websites, learned PhD, HP, and when I was 19, I was looking for a job as a programmer, which at that time wasn’t very.

[00:02:22] Konrad Keck: Uh, common, uh, career path. I didn’t have any programmer myself. Uh, so it was, uh, an unknown territory at the time. Um, and, uh, I found a job in a company called Host Bill. Uh, not sure if you, if you recognize or the, or the listeners recognize that it’s, uh, one of the billing solutions for the web hosting providers.

[00:02:47] Konrad Keck: And I joined the team and they were still building, um. Building it before it was even launched. Uh, so it’s, uh, two, 2009. Uh, and I was 19. Um, and this is how I got into the industry. Um, and, uh, initially I’ve been involved in, uh. And the core functionality of the system. And once it was released as I wasn’t working full time, uh, I was assigned to custom projects and I was assigned to, uh, third party modules integrations.

[00:03:23] Konrad Keck: So you can already connect the dots that, um, you know, that that’s exactly how I started my own business later. Um, so I worked there for two years and, uh. Didn’t work out, I guess for, for, for the reason that I wasn’t working full-time at, uh, at the moment. I was studying back then and as a, as a student, uh, looking for to get some, some, some extra money.

[00:03:49] Konrad Keck: I, uh, after I left, I, uh, uh, started looking for, uh. For some projects as a freelancer. Um, and this is how I, I discovered, because when we were working on house build, the idea was to make something better than double chances. A really big part of their functionality, uh, was, uh. Maybe not, not copy, but, uh, the inspiration clearly came from WMCS and, and they identified that there were some things missing there and they wanted to make it better.

[00:04:24] Konrad Keck: Um, so, but I knew that there is double MCS and it is much more popular than House Bill. So I, I looked for some, uh. Project requests, uh, on some forums and, um, turned out to be, uh, pretty easy to get a project. There were no many people, uh, or programmers working in this, uh, field. And this, this was what I was, um, very well familiar with and pretty quickly turned out that I found a pretty solid niche and they, the projects were coming, people were coming back for more projects and.

[00:04:58] Konrad Keck: Uh, this is how I figure, okay, let’s, let’s build, uh, modules gardens. So it’s been, uh, what, 13 years I can say. 

[00:05:07] Ken: Wow. Uh, and so you started off, uh, you started off just kind of taking some freelance jobs, building modules for W-H-M-C-S for clients, and how did you go from there to actually creating a company modules garden, you know, and hiring employees?

[00:05:22] Ken: Building up your staff? You must have had Yeah. One, you know, large engagement that went beyond your skills as a, as a freelancer.

[00:05:30] Konrad Keck: Mm. I think it was really based on, um, on the demand. The, the, the interesting part in making those modules, at least in the initial stage, was that they were rather small projects that you can do yourself and just, uh.

[00:05:46] Konrad Keck: Uh, you know, it takes, uh, a week or two and you go for another project. And, and so, so small scale, um, allow to, um, you know, you hire a programmer, you give them those tasks and they do it. And it’s like step by step working on this, on these projects. Um. It’s very rare that a project requires a couple of programmers assigned to it, and it takes them a few months.

[00:06:13] Konrad Keck: So it was easy on the, on the management level. Um, you know, when I was, so, so I left house Bill in May and in, uh, September or October I already had a website, an official company established. So, so pretty quickly notice that there’s a. Solid demand, and then I can build a company from that. And I hired first person in December.

[00:06:35] Konrad Keck: So it was, it was very fast. And, uh, um, uh, that’s how it all started. And, and I started to hire more. And, uh, that, that’s how it get 

[00:06:47] Ken: to where we are right now. What sort of set you up in life to be a manager of other people? Because I, I, you know, most 19 year olds, uh. Maybe they can do a bit of coding by themselves, but the, the sort of the work of, of managing other people, of being a boss is not something that you’re taught generally in school.

[00:07:09] Ken: Uh, how do you think you became a good manager? Because you’ve obviously experienced a lot of success over the last 15 years, uh, in building this company. Where did those skills come from? Did you. You know, did you, uh, lead caps or something when you were a teenager? No. No. 

[00:07:26] Konrad Keck: Yeah, I, I had no idea about building a business whatsoever.

[00:07:30] Konrad Keck: I only knew how to code and it was all based on intuition, I guess. Um, I. I can say it was a, a good intu. It must have been a good intuition that, uh, the first five people that I hired back in 2011, 2012 are still working with me. Um, so that’s, that could be a benchmark. Um, and, and, and even nowadays, uh, uh, we have pretty slow, uh, small, uh, pretty solid retention of, of employees.

[00:08:02] Konrad Keck: Um, so I think. It really comes down to some principles, just being nice to other people. Don’t treat them like, uh, in a proper way. Be, uh, you know, understand their, um, their point of view. Be empathic. And that is something that can get you somewhere. Even if you don’t have those, those skills, all the rest can be learned through the, through the way.

[00:08:28] Ken: That’s really interesting. Uh. I think one of the more recent innovations in management generally is this notion of emotional safety. Uh, so the biggest companies, the most successful companies in the world, um, are now teaching their managers, uh, to demand a lot from their employees, uh, and to mm-hmm. You know, foster a lot of ambition.

[00:08:58] Ken: But, uh. What, as much as you’re asking people to stretch themselves to, uh, grow the company or to exceed metrics, uh, if they don’t succeed or if there’s a, a disagreement, it should be professional. It shouldn’t come along with any, uh, personal diminishment. So they, they, they talk about emotional safety. It sounds like you’ve built that into the DNA of your company perhaps.

[00:09:27] Ken: Unwittingly just like based on your own sort of principles. 

[00:09:31] Konrad Keck: You know, the how would I want to be treated in my own company is how I build it. And maybe that’s a good thing that I wasn’t working for a b corporation, that I didn’t learn bad patterns that are there. Um, again, I was 19 or 20 at the time. I was like a, the blank page in terms of, uh, approach to employees and maybe that that is what paid off.

[00:09:57] Ken: Very good. Uh, so, um, let’s, let’s, uh, look back a little bit farther, um, for a moment. What caused you, I mean, you, so, so I, I presume you’re, you’re in Poland right now. Did you grow up in Poland? Yeah. Yes. And so you went through the education system. You somehow got out the other end, you’re 19. What got you anywhere close to the web hosting industry in the first place?

[00:10:20] Ken: How did you get into that area? I knew 

[00:10:24] Konrad Keck: nothing about web hosting when I started working at House Bill, and this is where, where I learned all about, uh, the basics. But I, to be honest, I, I don’t think that I learned a lot about the business itself for many years. Even after I built, uh, modules Garden, it was more about, you know, uh, customers came for a project.

[00:10:46] Konrad Keck: And, uh, they have certain set of requirements and as a, from programming point of view, you just focus on their requirements and you try to implement it. Um, things like. Uh, business cases for these guys. Understanding a bit more context came a bit later. Um, ’cause we identified that okay. Sometimes we, we do, uh, do a project based on their requirements and it just.

[00:11:13] Konrad Keck: It doesn’t connect. Sometimes, uh, things were not working very well because it turned out that some of the logic was, was not there. So understanding those workflows and business, um, came I guess a few year, years later. Um, and, and this is how I learned more about the. Uh, about the industry. Um, again, I was, I had a bias of a, of a programmer and focusing on the code initially, and I had to get out of it and, and make more business analysis on every, on every 

[00:11:46] Ken: case like that.

[00:11:48] Ken: And so, uh, over the following years, the hosting industry changed a lot. Uh, you know, if I think about how things were in hosting back in 2009 versus how they are today. Oh, yeah. Today we have this, you know, industry full of, uh, really well funded giant companies. There’s a ton of consolidation activity always happening.

[00:12:09] Ken: The, the software platforms have changed a lot. Um. Uh, how has that, you know, how have you noticed things changing? How have you adapted to the changing industry, uh, over the last 15 years or so? 

[00:12:26] Konrad Keck: Yeah, yeah. So as you said, um, the industry changed. I. I think that the biggest change that you would see if someone, I don’t know, had a coma and woke up today, uh, since 2009, the first thing that they would notice is that there’s no free housing, free unlimited housing and things like that don’t exist anymore.

[00:12:46] Konrad Keck: Um, and, and the pricing has changed. Approach to customers have changed, uh, consolidation. Yeah. The, the, the market is more saturated, uh, as well. Um, but. The things that have been changing. Um, so back in the days, people were just setting up. I’m, I’m setting up a hosting company. I am, uh, installing cPanel on my server, uh, setting up double HMCS for the billing.

[00:13:16] Konrad Keck: And I go and I try to make, make some money out of it. Uh, things like that don’t work anymore. Um, and we had this because other than the custom project that we were building, of course after. Not, not that much later, we started, uh, making readymade models, uh, on our marketplace. One of the key principles that I think I learned at hold believe in was, uh, putting more attention into user experience.

[00:13:44] Konrad Keck: That’s also changed, uh, where you try to provide a more, um, look at your business from customer perspective. You want to simplify things and you want to have a single interface to manage all the services, for example, or, um. Uh, there’s also much more, um, much more integrations and upselling involved. That was, was not a case, um, many years ago, uh, where you can provide more services.

[00:14:16] Konrad Keck: And this is also where. As a, as an integrator of, um, because when you offered those extra services, you want to have a billing and automation around it. So this is how Modus Garden was, was, was getting into it. And that’s how we’ve been also evolving with this, uh, industry. Huh, 

[00:14:32] Ken: cool. So, uh. As, uh, as modules garden has grown, uh, you now have 50 or so employees or even even larger than that across your enterprise.

[00:14:43] Konrad Keck: It’s, it’s, it’s smaller. Um, that’s one of the things that you have to learn. Uhhuh the hard way is that growing as much as you as possible is not the best. Strategy, uh, when building a business, we’re closer to 40 right now. Um, and we had to optimize the processes and make it just simpler because at some point, um, it just didn’t make any sense to grow, uh, as much.

[00:15:08] Konrad Keck: Uh, so that changed, but yeah. But we are pretty stable at around 40 right now. 

[00:15:13] Ken: I, I am not. A fan of more is better in terms of headcount. Uh oh. Yeah. You can do Oh, that’s, that’s what I know right now. Yeah. But 

[00:15:21] Konrad Keck: maybe that’s also my mentality initially and my imagination about making business was, the bigger you are the better.

[00:15:27] Konrad Keck: And it, the headcount is one of the benchmarks that you can say, Hey, I have 50 employees. That has changed. Yeah. In my head, uh, over the last few years. And the, again, you, you learn, uh, these things. Um, I had to learn it hard way to some extent, but. It’s, yeah, it’s pretty solid right now. 

[00:15:49] Ken: Yeah. I, I, I always, um, I always think very carefully about adding, um, people to the team because Yeah, employees cost a lot of money now.

[00:15:58] Ken: Oh, yeah. They, they bring a lot of value. But, uh, in, in a business, uh, especially when you’re small, uh, the cost of each employee relative to your revenue is huge. Right. So yeah. You know, it’s like a, and also, yeah, big increment. And that 

[00:16:13] Konrad Keck: also grows exponentially when you add management on top of that because at some point you cannot manage every single person.

[00:16:17] Konrad Keck: You need to have another layers that also cost extra so it just doesn’t add up at some point. 

[00:16:23] Ken: Yeah. Yeah. It blows my mind. Uh, it blows my mind how fast, uh, some companies grow in terms of headcount. Like I get it if they have tons of investment capital to burn, uh, but. Uh, when you’re, you know, when you’re trying to operate a, a profitable, steady state business, it’s very tough.

[00:16:40] Ken: Very tough. Oh yeah. To work with headcount. Um, we’ve seen the rise of big, like hyperscaler clouds. Uh, how, how has that impacted modules garden? Um, is it just something you’ve adapted to, or, you know, have you seen some real changes in the way that you have to de, you know, develop and deploy software for your clients?

[00:17:03] Konrad Keck: Yeah, so I think it was like. 20 16, 20 17 when the things have been, uh, going, um, a lot of, uh, SPOs around those hyperscalers AWS of course. Um, you know, initially it, it seemed like a very big threat for the traditional hosting people were just go and, uh, migrate everything to cloud. We know nowadays that people are, are actually coming back because of the super high costs, uh, uh, that are, um, involved.

[00:17:35] Konrad Keck: But in terms of, you know, just hosting a site, I don’t think that, uh,

[00:17:42] Konrad Keck: the, because the market grew, and I’m gonna repeat something that my guests are, were also saying the whole market grew so large that it didn’t affect the web hosting as much. You know, web hosting was growing, uh, during this time as well. Uh, it, it just like. Took a certain type of customers who, who, who, who wanna do that.

[00:18:04] Konrad Keck: But still, I think that if you want to set up a website, you AWS or setting up a, a server like this is not the first thing that you have in your head. So it didn’t affect that much web hosting itself. But Asmo Juice Garden and the Direct Cs is also not just for the web hosting and cPanel server. Um, so we were trying to add some.

[00:18:25] Konrad Keck: And we have implemented a couple of integrations, uh, like Open Stack. We have, uh, integration with A AWS that had a considerable um, success. And, um, that’s how we, that you can say adapted to this. But at the same time, I would say that, um. That’s with that. 

[00:18:48] Ken: Sounds good. So, uh, along the way, uh, mods Garden, uh, you know, mods Garden, obviously your core business, uh, it builds, um, add-ons for W-H-M-C-S, which at this point in the podcast, if you don’t know what it is, W-H-M-C-S is a, uh, it’s a software package that allows.

[00:19:08] Ken: Hosting providers and really anyone not necessarily hosting providers to, um, to sell things on a subscription basis, uh, for their, for their online business, right? So, uh, you know, let’s say you have some new type of thing that you wanna sell or some other thing that you wanna plug in to W-H-M-C-S, it has an add-on or a plugin system and modules garden.

[00:19:32] Ken: Uh, it is got, got its start building, uh, integrations. Yeah. With that platform. Um, since that time, you’ve created a few other businesses or brands, uh mm-hmm. Do you wanna talk about, uh, other, uh, these other companies, uh, and initiatives that you’ve started, uh, since founding Modules Garden? 

[00:19:51] Konrad Keck: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:19:51] Konrad Keck: So maybe a little bit more about opportunity Cs in terms of the business approach. So, as I said, it was a niche that we found. Uh, that we were able to build business quickly because no one was that much into it. Um, but at the same time, it’s a, it, it is the, it’s a, it’s the curse that the niche has a limit.

[00:20:14] Konrad Keck: I. It’s, uh, you know, not as big as, let’s say, just a regular or the general websites market, uh, or WordPress or like, it’s not even comparable. So we couldn’t grow or I had in my mind that the business will be not growing that much in the, in the W-G-M-C-S space. And we, um, it was more like a business decision to look for opportunities where we can build a, our own SY systems and software.

[00:20:43] Konrad Keck: Um, that potentially would be connected to web hosting, uh, as this was our, uh, main area of interest. And, and that that’s how, um, first of all, we, we, uh, created easy DCIM. Which is a system automating, uh, uh, dedicated server provisioning or co-location and providing management around that. So this is, this was the first thing, and that worked out very well.

[00:21:10] Konrad Keck: It’s been on the market for over 10 years and it’s, it’s been a solid success. Then we found that we wanted to build a SaaS, um, for, uh, it’s called Metrics Cube, and it’s a system. That’s also about evol evolving of, uh, web hosting companies, is that more and more want to be aware of what’s actually happening.

[00:21:34] Konrad Keck: Um, we talk with many hosting providers that. They don’t even know what’s their churn. They sometimes they don’t even know what’s their revenue per product or things like that. So we wanted to make a platform that allows them a, an easy reporting, easy way to access this data and process it. So, so you can connect Metrics Cube with your W-G-M-C-S and get all this information.

[00:21:56] Konrad Keck: Um, and, and our recent, uh, project that I launched is called pfa and it’s our, um. Uh, is our, uh, control panel, WordPress hosting control panel, seeing the popularity of WordPress and that, uh, we think that, uh, the hosting providers should put much more attention to, to WordPress as being the most popular way of setting up the website right now.

[00:22:24] Konrad Keck: And, and as I speak with the hosting providers, most of their customers are setting up sites. Um, so, so having a solid. Interface for them and automation and, and, um, and connect that very well with their environment is, is what Pan Alpha is right now. And we are seeing pretty solid at traction right now.

[00:22:48] Konrad Keck: And a lot of, uh, hosting companies want to implement it as a, as a solution for the 

[00:22:51] Ken: customers. It’s interesting that you took on building a control panel. In 2024, because we have heard about control panels for a really long time. Obviously, like cPanel is one of the oldest companies in the hosting industry, uh, class, you know, these, these guys are owned by a giant private equity company ultimately, uh, uh, via web pros.

[00:23:14] Ken: Um, and there are also huge WordPress hosting platforms with their own kind of native control panels. Uh. Yet you saw something here, uh, and, and built your own control panel for WordPress. Can you talk about why, uh, why you decided that the world needs another WordPress control panel? 

[00:23:36] Konrad Keck: Yeah, so I. I wouldn’t say that a CPA or plus are addressing WordPress very well, given that they are the most popular.

[00:23:44] Konrad Keck: So I’m, I’m bringing, uh, them up. Um, yeah, we can add direct admin as well, uh, to the equation. Those three are dominating the, the space, but these. Platforms are not very well optimized for porus, and we’ve been testing this, uh, in terms of performance, but also in terms of interface. It’s like adding some, uh, something on top of that.

[00:24:06] Konrad Keck: Like they are very general, uh, systems. And so for me, I, I think that one of the biggest threats for the web hosting industry right now are the site builders and, and platforms like Wix. And it seems that for at least two or three years hosting companies have noticed that they need to do something about it.

[00:24:31] Konrad Keck: And the answer is WordPress. Um, so when you want to compete with those guys, uh, one thing is of course WordPress itself, uh, allows you a lot of things and you can build a website of it. Um, and there is a lot of work. Core of war to become more easy for those new buys and guys who just don’t know anything about it.

[00:24:52] Konrad Keck: Um, but then you have, you know, when you want to offer a website, you go to wix.com and you click a button and you get a few steps and you have a website. That’s not something that is. Achievable with the, the traditional cPanel, uh, or plasma direct admin with, uh, or with the bridge MCS. So we wanted to make a platform that allows that and gives much more control.

[00:25:14] Konrad Keck: Much, much easier approach to hosting, like the, if you are addressing the, the new coming, uh, customers. They want, they don’t wanna even know what’s FTP? They don’t even know. Yeah. Don’t know what, don’t want to know what’s a cPanel. Or then they go to cPanel, uh, interface and you suddenly have like 50 icons to click, where’s your website?

[00:25:37] Konrad Keck: How can I do it? It’s way more complicated. And again, don’t I, it’s not that I’m, uh, making a, but marketing for cpa, it’s, it’s common for all the, all these. Typical hosting control panels and, uh, we wanted to build something that addresses this issue. Makes it much easier to launch a site, much more intuitive.

[00:25:59] Konrad Keck: But at the same time, I think that the biggest advantage of WordPress is that you can customize it in much more. Options. Those site builders and, and SaaS solutions, by definition have some limit limitation. With war, you can do whatever you want, so you need to work with programmers, you want to work with designers, and you can do whatever you want with WordPress.

[00:26:21] Konrad Keck: Plus, it’s not easy to migrate from Wix, for example. I, I would say it’s nearly 

[00:26:27] Ken: impossible to migrate. That’s right. It’s kind of by design, 

[00:26:31] Konrad Keck: right? You know, we were even talking with some, uh, guys who had a site builder, Hey, why didn’t you create a migrator from Wix? Like, the, most of the sites are pretty simple.

[00:26:41] Konrad Keck: And number one problem is, um, property rights to graphics that you have on your website. Um. They are licensed to Wix. You cannot just get, um, get an image from your website because it’s not yours and you cannot host it somewhere else because you will be violating the, the, the, you know, the rights to the, to, to these images.

[00:27:03] Konrad Keck: So potentially it’s your website, but in fact it’s, it’s, you don’t own it. So, so WordPress is an answer to that. We think we, we see that, um. And also I had a discussion with guys from, uh, from WordPress themselves. They, they see this potential, um, or even we were at World Camp and, and Matt Mullenweg, uh, was talking about that, that’s the biggest advantage of WordPress.

[00:27:27] Konrad Keck: And for those customers who are aware that, um, they, they, they, they should own. Their content, their their side. Um, that’s the way to go. So, so we wanted to create a platform that allows that and, and gives much more, uh. Flexibility and allows those workflows that are, that, that are around the website, not about the server and, and hosting.

[00:27:55] Konrad Keck: Like, I don’t think that clients should be that much into it. They just want to have a website and, and have an easy way to do that. And that’s what we were focusing on with, uh, with Pan Lafa. 

[00:28:05] Ken: Huh. And so, uh, with Panel Alpha, uh. How are you finding customers? I mean, presumably you, you, you have a lot of, uh, people you know, in the hosting industry from your work at Building Modules Garden, uh, basically since the dawn of the, the industry.

[00:28:22] Ken: Uh, but how is that? I mean, I know I. Because we’ve been selling to hosting providers, uh, since about 2010. Uh, it can be challenging to sell stuff. It, they, they can be a skeptical audience. Uh, they can be very, uh, reluctant to spend money on stuff that other people have built. Uh, what, what is your approach to selling Panel Alpha, uh, to the hosting industry?

[00:28:48] Ken: Our initial approach 

[00:28:49] Konrad Keck: to this, um, with the product is, uh, was to. Targeted to the housing providers, and that’s what we are doing. And that was natural for us because we already had a customer base. So we, we rather try to upsold this to our existing customers and, and it’s been working very well. Um, we have clients asking for it and, and, and working on it.

[00:29:10] Konrad Keck: You know, uh, a specific thing about web hosting companies is that they are pretty slow. I wouldn’t say it’s about the costs. It’s more about if you want to offer a real web WordPress hosting, you need to set up a new product line. You need to train your staff to understand more about WordPress. And you have new platform Panel Alpha.

[00:29:34] Konrad Keck: You need to learn how it works and how to connect all the dots You need to implement it on the technical level. It’s not that complicated. Mm-hmm. And um, the costs. It’s also not a problem, but, uh, we see that it, it’s taking months for some companies to, to just enable that for their customers as a new, as a new line of products.

[00:29:52] Konrad Keck: So this is one of the biggest challenges of offering something to a web hosting companies, that it takes time and you need to have a patience. Um, but as we have already started with working with the web hosting companies, we are kind of pivoting right now. Uh, and making it more, uh, targeting more, um, the for self use.

[00:30:20] Konrad Keck: And that’s what we will be launching early next year is that Pan Alpha will be available to anyone who wants to host a site on their server. Uh, you can, with just a few clicks, you can have a pretty solid control panel that is. Strictly for WordPress, very well optimized, and so we’ll be opening ourselves to wider audience, but still working with web hosting companies and having a, an offer for them.

[00:30:45] Konrad Keck: And I also see that there is, uh, some opportunity in working with, uh, cloud providers or VPS providers who, you know, they have their own end customers and probably big part of them are also hosting WordPress on their VP s servers. Offer them PAF as a, as a solution. So, so we are kind of opening up and getting out of this.

[00:31:05] Konrad Keck: Uh, this pretty slow in industry approach. 

[00:31:09] Ken: Yeah. Like, because one of the, uh, one of the approaches that seems to have worked in the past, uh, with WordPress, you know, because of the complexity of getting WordPress set up properly. I mean, it is, it is a hard thing to just sort of sit down at a server and set up WordPress.

[00:31:24] Ken: Uh. Companies like WP Engine, uh, Kinta, uh, and others have built their own, uh, native control panels that, I mean, it’s more than a control panel. It’s a whole orchestration framework and user experience for deploying and managing WordPress sites. Uh, I suppose, uh, for the sort of first wave of WordPress automation companies.

[00:31:49] Ken: It made sense to centralize everything and build their own custom software stack for it. But this seems to be a new approach that you’re going forward with Panel Alpha where you provide software that anyone can install, uh, given the assumption that they have access to a hosting server like a VPS mm-hmm.

[00:32:05] Ken: Uh, and then they get their control panel. That’s a really interesting way to kind of sneak around the back and, and develop some market for yourself without having to wait for the hosting provider. To schedule resources to get a migration done. I, because yeah, I know from personal experience, like, uh, hosting providers move slowly on new infrastructure.

[00:32:24] Ken: Oh, yeah. Uh, because they, they have all of their people tasked and, you know, with just maintaining the stuff that they already have, and they’re typically operating in a very lean manner, uh, yeah. To optimize profitability. So it’s very difficult for them to expand into new areas. That, that seems like a really smart approach.

[00:32:43] Konrad Keck: Yeah. And I think that, uh, as you said, you know, WP Engine was one of the first that recognized this. Um, and here you see the change in the industry is that they are charging $30 for the smallest package. Mm-hmm. $30 was a yearly payment for highest packages back in 29, 20 2009. So that, that’s one of the things that.

[00:33:04] Konrad Keck: Changed drastically. But they are having success because they are addressing customer’s, uh, needs much more accurately. They, they, they recognize that customers just need something more sophisticated and are around their WordPress and this is how they can succeed. And this is what we want to enable with Pan Alpha through those, uh, providers.

[00:33:23] Konrad Keck: Um, so again, I, as we’re, we’re posting is slow. We are. Expanding with Pan Alpha Alpha, but we are not li like saying no to them. It’s just like, uh, okay. You have your take your time, implement it, and in the meantime we’ll be expanding in, in, in different areas as well. Um, and also address your, um. Uh, you mentioned about, uh, the P engine again, is that, um, those guys were able to build it mm-hmm.

[00:33:50] Konrad Keck: Because they had some funding. Mm-hmm. And it took them some time. For smaller, medium sized providers, it’s not that easy. Um, and building such a platform is. Like, forget about it. So, so here, here, we, we have provided a solution for that. 

[00:34:06] Ken: I, I would suggest that the vast majority of hosting companies, even mid-sized hosting companies, cannot afford to hire software developers and to, uh, maintain products.

[00:34:16] Ken: It’s, it’s one thing to. Create the first version of something, but it’s quite another issue when you have to maintain it for years and years, you know? Oh yeah. Half of the effort of, of operating a service, uh, a software as a service is simply upgrading your infrastructure to the next version of Kubernetes or whatever.

[00:34:35] Ken: Uh, I not mention that 

[00:34:38] Konrad Keck: if you don’t have any idea how to build software, you’ll fail. Yeah. Trust me, it’s not gonna be Absolutely. It’s not 

[00:34:44] Ken: going to work very well. Yeah, that’s absolutely true. I think, um, now, okay, let’s, let’s, uh, bring, bring the conversation right up to the very present day and even looking into the future, uh, you know, ever since.

[00:34:58] Ken: Uh, the release of chat GPT, uh, at the end of 2022, uh, the world has changed, right? Uh, all of a sudden we have the ability to speak to computers, uh, like they were humans. They can understand us, they can take actions. Uh, a lot of, uh, software companies are embracing generative AI within their products to do stuff.

[00:35:20] Ken: What is your view? Uh, on how generative AI could affect the products that you offer. Uh, has your team been looking at Gen ai? Have you been experimenting internally? Uh, what’s your perspective on this new emerging area? I. 

[00:35:38] Konrad Keck: Yeah, so definitely it is, it’s exciting. It helps a lot in terms of be more productive in many ways.

[00:35:44] Konrad Keck: I’m, I’m not gonna lie, I, I use chat g bt on every single post on LinkedIn or, uh, you know, it helps with, uh, with, uh, interviews or, or articles or, it, it’s, it’s saving such a huge amount of time. Um. That it’s, you know, it changed everything. Um, in terms of us playing with, uh, chat GPT, we, we, we had some ideas and we still have some ideas on, on improving our products.

[00:36:13] Konrad Keck: Uh, we focus more on the automation, so it’s ni like not I. Um, I see the biggest potential in addressing the end customer’s needs. Um, but for example, with WordPress and Pan Lafa, we don’t get into WordPress directly, and there are solutions that are doing this. So we are kind of like integrating with those, uh, with those, uh, functionalities.

[00:36:33] Konrad Keck: Like guys from Tify did a great job of, of getting this extra, um. Onboarding process of, of, of customers and, and, and, and create some, some help with creation of the content. Like Wars itself is now also providing some ai, uh, functionality around it. So, so, so working directly on the website is not our goal, and that’s something that’s already solved within Warper ecosystem, so to say.

[00:37:01] Konrad Keck: And we just try to integrate with, uh, any tools that can help with this. Um. But also looking more broadly in the, on the web hosting industry, like looking at what GoDaddy is doing and with the Arrow I’ve been playing with this for, for, for a little, and it, it is one of the directions that I think many providers should consider is AI enables you to do things faster on the website and.

[00:37:28] Konrad Keck: As a hosting provider, if you think can take care of that, like GoDaddy, you can have much more advantage compared to those guys that are, that are not following. Um, so it certainly opens a lot of, uh. A lot of opportunities to help customers succeed on the, with their website. Yeah. 

[00:37:47] Ken: The way I, I, I gotta say, the way I see it helping in the web hosting industry is, is to help the end user get stuff done.

[00:37:53] Ken: Like right now, if you have a website, you know, if you’re like a restaurant, you know, you gotta call up your, uh, your web guy to get something done every time you wanna change something on the website because the average person’s not going to learn how to edit. HTML or even markup. I mean, it’s too, it’s too complicated.

[00:38:14] Ken: Uh uh, however, if you could chat with a, uh, an AI assistant and say like, I need to change the price on the menu for a bottle of red wine to $63 or whatever, and it just goes and makes the change, or I need to, you know, I’d like to put a picture of a beautiful roasted Turkey on this page and it just generates it for you.

[00:38:34] Ken: I can see that kind of thing as being really, really popular. Oh yeah. In the hosting industry. 

[00:38:40] Konrad Keck: Exactly. Yes. So, so, so, so thinking more about automation of the, of the result for the end customer is, is certainly something to be 

[00:38:51] Ken: addressed. Yes. Now you created your own news source on the hosting industry, uh, called web hosting today, uh, just this year.

[00:39:01] Ken: Now I have to admit, but that I had not heard of web hosting today until I was researching for this podcast interview. What can you tell me about it? Need to catch up with marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so what is web hosting today? Why did you create it? Uh, tell us about it. Absolutely. 

[00:39:22] Konrad Keck: Yeah. So, um, it’s also a funny story because I, I, um, we were talking a lot about Modules Garden, but one of the things that worked out well, well, for me is that I, I’m no longer operationally involved with Modules Gardens last year.

[00:39:37] Konrad Keck: Hmm. I took a few months break and, um, and then I got, I guess, bored or, so, you know, I, I wanted to engage in something, uh, that I didn’t before, and, um. I, uh, because I, I co-create this portal with my friend, uh, Avi with whom I’ve been working. Uh, he al he’s also very well and, um, very deep into the web hosting industry.

[00:40:02] Konrad Keck: And, uh, we were talking that actually there’s no,

[00:40:10] Konrad Keck: maybe news, news portal is, is, is too small. We were thinking about what, what if we create something. Like a community hub for the industry. There’s nothing like this out there. The only thing that may be used is, is web hosting talk. Yeah. You know, the old forum, but the, that forum looks like it was great back in the 2010 or, or something.

[00:40:36] Konrad Keck: It was, it’s looking 

[00:40:37] Ken: pretty dusty. Yeah, exactly. I agree. 

[00:40:40] Konrad Keck: It’s no longer the modern way of approaching the community and, and forums are really the, the echo of the past for me. Mm-hmm. And, and people are not looking into it. So we were thinking about. You know, what, what could we do? And, well, actually, we were making some research and there’s no news [00:41:00] platform for web hosting other than, uh, some sites that are just posting, uh, press releases from the customer.

[00:41:06] Konrad Keck: Uh, from the, yeah, from the companies. Uh, hey, we have a new, um. Uh, some in, um, some data center somewhere. Open a new location somewhere and that’s it. And you don’t even know what it is and what it is about. And it, nobody reads that, I think, I don’t think it’s, it’s really popular. So we thought, what if we can create a portal that is [00:41:30] actually bringing some useful information about what’s happening?

[00:41:33] Konrad Keck: And another thing was that, well. I would learn about web hosting much more, and I’ve learned much more in the last six months than I’ve got in the last 10 years, uh, on, on how things work and, and, and, and also we wanted to cover more business. Cases and, and learn about, you know, why some companies have made some decisions, right?

[00:41:55] Konrad Keck: Um, we, when we have some requests from companies that they wanna announce something through us, we are gonna, we are answering them back. Uh, well, we are not going to publish your press release. It’s boring. Nobody will read that. Give us a little interview. Why have you implemented some technology or why have you expanded?

[00:42:15] Konrad Keck: What’s the business behind that? Uh, what do you want to achieve? So, so getting a better perspective on, on the business side of the industry was, was our goal. Mm-hmm. Um, and that’s how it all started. And, and, and in the meantime. Let’s make a podcast. Uh, yeah, why not? That was another idea. Um, uh, which is also something completely new to me.

[00:42:37] Konrad Keck: I’ve been listening to podcasts for, for many years, and I thought, okay, this is a cool idea. Actually. It would be nice to have one. Um, and, and, um, yeah, that’s, that’s how it all started. 

[00:42:48] Ken: I mean, if you’re looking for a podcast guest, you know, I, I could do that, I guess, you know? Yeah. Let’s, let’s talk about this.

[00:42:55] Ken: Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, speaking about podcasting, um, I never would’ve thought of starting a podcast, you know, but I noticed that I was, I, I subscribed to YouTube Premium so that I could download shows and then listen to them as audio. I started listening to interviews that are recorded on YouTube, uh, when I walk the dog or when I have to go Oh yeah.

[00:43:24] Ken: To the grocery store or whatever. Uh, and the thought occurred to me like, this is kind of a new way that people want to learn, right? They just want to hear people talking about a topic. Uh, that might be new to them, to, uh, gain some insight and, and honestly for a new kind of entertainment. Uh, and, uh, and so I had this idea for creating a podcast where I talked to the people that I would be talking to anyways in the industry, uh, and, and putting it up there for, uh, enjoyment and educational purposes.

[00:44:00] Ken: And it’s been a great experience so far. I’ve had so many interesting conversations, uh, and I really hope that people are. Are listening to this while they’re walking their dog and going to the grocery store as I do, 

[00:44:14] Konrad Keck: yeah. I, I have my own, when I, uh, drive a car, it’s Right. 20 minutes per day. Yeah. Getting some insights and I use it more as a.

[00:44:24] Konrad Keck: Inspiration in many ways, if you, if I listen to something related to business, it’s always just giving you another point of view that you can use in your own mm-hmm. Uh, business. That’s the, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to get with, uh, with my episodes as well. So it’s, uh, but you know, again, as a host, you probably have the same feeling that you learn from the guests.

[00:44:45] Konrad Keck: Uh, it’s, it’s self educational at the same time, 

[00:44:48] Ken: so it’s, it’s a great experience itself. I gotta say, I think one of the things that most people don’t realize, if they’re, if they aren’t an entrepreneur, one of the things they don’t realize is how much, how stupid you feel as an entrepreneur the whole way through.

[00:45:06] Ken: You know, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been doing this since, uh, 2001 and, you know, this is my, my second company, um, since 2001. Actually the third, there was one in the middle. But regardless the whole way along, no matter how much I’ve learned, I just kind of feel more stupid with each passing year. I don’t know if you have that experience as well, but it’s almost like the more that you learn, the more that you realize how little you actually know.

[00:45:33] Ken: Uh oh. Yeah. And I feel like I’ve just gotten more and more humble. Over time, and it makes me wonder about the really successful people, like the famously successful people, and, and I wonder if they wake up in the morning and just feel like the dumbest person who ever lived, you know? 

[00:45:50] Konrad Keck: Yeah, exactly. Uh, it’s a, it’s a.

[00:45:53] Konrad Keck: When you think about your start and how it all, um, how, how, what decision were you making? Um, even a year ago or two years ago, or sometimes stupid and, and, uh, yeah, exactly. So, so that’s, that’s all about life, I guess. Um, but at the same time, it’s, um. It’s exciting, you know, uh, it’s, it’s never boring because you see so many new ways to approach your business or, you know, sometimes I have a lot of ideas that, man, I would want to do a different kind of business.

[00:46:27] Konrad Keck: Mm. But you are stuck with yours and Yes. Like, you know, so, but it’s pretty dynamic at the same time. So there’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s still. It, it feels like solving some sort of a puzzle and never ending puzzle that you, you really cannot 

[00:46:42] Ken: solve. 

[00:46:43] Konrad Keck: Hmm. 

[00:46:44] Ken: That’s, that’s a really interesting point.

[00:46:46] Ken: Yeah. I, I also find that there’s, um, you know, just when I think things are getting a little bit boring, something exciting happens, and sometimes it’s frightening, you know? Mm-hmm. And that, and that reinvigorates me. Um, uh, particularly, uh, you, you’ll reach a point. At which you feel like, okay, everything is under control.

[00:47:06] Ken: I think I know what’s going on here. You know, it feels really solid. And then there’s a twist in the industry. There’s a change in technology and all. Or a new competitor shows up that you’ve never seen before. A new scenario happens that you’ve never seen before. And you have to, you have to figure it out.

[00:47:21] Ken: And as much as like, I don’t like waking up in the middle of the night worrying about stuff. There are periods of time when I do, uh, I think that. If you’re not experiencing that as an entrepreneur, you’re very lucky. 

[00:47:35] Konrad Keck: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve been doing, I’ve been through this as well. I, I feel like now it’s stable, but you know, things like key employees leaving you and now you have, you don’t have any idea how to solve it.

[00:47:46] Konrad Keck: But at the same time, it’s like with, um, I have the same feeling. Uh, I have two small kids now. Mm-hmm. Uh, I mean the, the older is five now, but. I know people who have five kids. I have two kids, and I dunno how it, it’s hard sometimes and people have five kids or, or even more. But at the same time, at the end of the day, it, it, it, it kind of works.

[00:48:10] Konrad Keck: I don’t know. It’s, it’s just that things solve themselves sometimes and, uh, you know, it’s, it’s all about life. I, 

[00:48:17] Ken: I guess I spoke to, uh, I spoke to somebody who has six children. Earlier this year, and I, I, I was like, I, and he seemed like the happiest person he was fit, uh, attractive, uh, you know, looked like he was well taken care of.

[00:48:31] Ken: I’m like, how do you do that? I, I can’t even, I can’t even imagine. That’s, I, I, I’ve got three, I’ve got three kids. That’s a lot of work. Mm. Think sometimes just work out. You don’t know how Exactly. Yeah. Maybe, maybe that’s the case. Yeah. Maybe they’re all like six. Angelic perfect children. I don’t know. Yeah.

[00:48:50] Ken: Um, so okay. Looking, uh, looking towards the future, you know, where, where do you see your enterprises going, uh, in the next, uh, one to three years? Mm-hmm. What are your big, uh, what are your hopes for the next little while for Modules Garden and the rest of the, the team? 

[00:49:08] Konrad Keck: Yeah. So, um. I have one project that I cannot spell yet that may be a little surprise, uh, early next year.

[00:49:16] Konrad Keck: Um, so that’s one thing that I exciting, I can, I can mention about, um, I. But overall with the project that I’m having right now, so, um, especially Pan Lafa, easy D as well, and Metrics Cube as well, actually. Mm-hmm. Not mentioning Modules Garden, because Mods Garden is kind of like a foundation for me to work on the other projects and I’m no longer involved in operationally.

[00:49:39] Konrad Keck: So Modules Garden is, is like a stable. Uh, Haven and then I, I have all these, uh, other, uh, project projects that I’m working on. Um, I think that the key thing that I will be focusing on is opening ourselves to a wider market. Mm-hmm. So, as I said, with Pan Alpha, we are going more into the individual use of a contra panel like [00:50:00] that, and that.

[00:50:01] Konrad Keck: Automatically opens up a much wider market for us and much more options for us to mark to, to promote the solution. Um, same goes for Easy DCIM. We want to make it more universal, make it, uh, make it for more use cases and address managed service providers, uh, or, or data centers who are not selling dedicated servers.

[00:50:24] Konrad Keck: You know, uh, one of the requests that I, that we had, um. Recently, um, uh, guys from SpaceX were considering using, uh, easy DCM and uh, that’s crazy. What, and, and, and it didn’t work out because of some technology that we were not using. Yeah, we were not using Docker. So we are also improving the technology of, of that.

[00:50:46] Konrad Keck: And so, so there are options. There are markets that we didn’t explore and we went, we definitely want to go there. And same for Metrics Cube. Is that okay? It’s a good solution for W2 Cs, but the market is. A [00:51:00] little small to scale up. Uh, and we want to get into e-commerce and offer something for, for, for WooCommerce or from Magento and reports around that.

[00:51:10] Konrad Keck: Uh, so, so, so the. Key principle is to open up and attack wider markets and, and see and, and, uh, you know, see how it goes. 

[00:51:21] Ken: I’ll give you a, i’ll, I’ll give you a hint. Uh, the, the market for SaaS business analytics tools could definitely use some shaking up. Okay. Um, there are tools out there that will suck in your.

[00:51:34] Ken: Uh, your metrics on a, on a daily basis. So like as new subscriptions come in, as you have churns, upgrades, downgrades, and that sort of thing, uh, there are platforms that take in this information and then show you nice reports about your business. Um. But they all have their drawbacks and hangups and, and, and I think that there’s a vast market of SaaS businesses to tap into.

[00:51:59] Ken: Uh, if you can expand your analytics product, uh, into that space and, and, you know, tap into, uh, feedback from. Uh, other billing systems aside from W-H-M-C-S, obviously, right? You can get web hooks from anywhere, um, and, and, uh, use it to create charts of financial performance, uh, subscriber activity. I, I think that’s a, a space ripe for disruption.

[00:52:25] Ken: Personally, I. Look, and this is exactly why you should listen to the podcasts, or it’s absolutely, yeah. I mean, I always find myself, I, we use one of the most state-of-the art analytics, uh, packages for SaaS. Uh, and I take that information and I plug it into a CoLab, uh, environment in order to make my own, uh, derivative data from it.

[00:52:49] Ken: So if I’m doing that, like there should be a product for that. It shouldn’t re I, I, you know. The, the average person’s not going to download the CS v file or, or, or interact with their API. Mm-hmm. And then chuck it into CoLab. That’s like, I only do that ’cause I’m a programmer with a, a solid grounding in mathematics.

[00:53:07] Ken: Like that should be a SaaS. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I don’t, I don’t have time to build it, but maybe you should. You know, I think that’s, yeah. I think that’s a really great space to be in. 

[00:53:17] Konrad Keck: Exactly. So that’s what we are looking for. And again, opening to wider market and looking for those opportunities because we have a solid.

[00:53:23] Konrad Keck: Platform already built based on the opportunity. Yes. And have some revenue from it that was able, was allowing us to build it. But now it’s time to get, get something bigger and and expand. 

[00:53:36] Ken: Now I have to ask this because whenever I talk to business colleagues who are. In Eastern Europe, Ukraine comes up as a topic of discussion.

[00:53:47] Ken: Mm-hmm. What is it like being in Poland with that going on next door in Ukraine? How has that actually changed things for you and your team? Yeah, so experiencing life. 

[00:53:58] Konrad Keck: Yes thing. Things have certainly, uh, calmed down, uh, recently and things like more stale, not much is happening. The front front is not moving and, and, um, there’s much less dynamics.

[00:54:13] Konrad Keck: Um, I think that the biggest disruption was. Oh man. I think it was 2021, right? It started 2021 or 2022. Uh, I think it kind of 

[00:54:21] Ken: started boiling up in the, in the very end of 2021. And then the invasion happened in February, 2022. Yes. Yes, exactly. If I recall. 

[00:54:28] Konrad Keck: Yeah. So, so, so when this happened and, and all the people were, were migrating, um, because we are located in, in je it’s a city.

[00:54:36] Konrad Keck: It as the biggest city close the border with Ukraine. Hmm. And the most, uh, refugees that were running away from war were coming through our city. So that was a little mess. Um, and, and, yeah, I remember we were actually some preparing some packages from, for, for these guys because they, they were like millions of people coming through our city.

[00:54:56] Konrad Keck: Our, our city is like 200, 250, um, uh, people. And, and suddenly like one and a half million people came through the city within a month or two. Wow. I think something like that. Uh, so, so things were very, very, um, concerning. And also I remember that I, I often drive to my father, uh, with the kids and, and, uh, through one of the biggest roads, um.

[00:55:27] Konrad Keck: Um, and, and next to the, the big road were huge missile launchers, just standing there and pointing to Ukraine. Wow. So that was terrifying and like something that you cannot even think of, uh, when we are living in relatively peaceful time and, you know, things like that happen. Or, or, you know, another thing interesting was that, uh, the US president came to visit, uh mm-hmm.

[00:55:55] Konrad Keck: Uh, our city, which I, I guess in us, it’s not common that US President got, gets to every city, especially that, that, that has like 200, um, people. So that was, uh, also interesting. Um, but yeah, things have calmed down. Not much is, uh, happening in terms of there’s not much disruption nowadays, but you hear, uh, hear or there that, uh.

[00:56:20] Konrad Keck: You go to a cafe and, and there’s a Ukrainian working there, or you go to some, some shop. So some, so these guys have adapted, but we are not that much different in terms of, um, culture. Um, except language you wouldn’t really recognize if someone is Ukrainian or Paul. There’s uh, so, so, so we kind of integrate it as a society together, and it’s going pretty 

[00:56:46] Ken: well.

[00:56:46] Ken: Wow. Oh, that’s amazing. Yeah. The, the thing, the thing that this war has, uh, has driven home for me is the extraordinarily kinetic nature of warfare. Uh oh yeah. It’s so fast. Uh, yeah. When they talk about these missiles, um, hitting Ukrainian cities, I mean, they’re flying at hypersonic speeds. The ballistic missiles come down so fast.

[00:57:09] Ken: Uh, the video is, is terrifying. And just the thought of, yeah. Driving past those missile launchers. They’re ready to launch. Like yes. They’re not just sitting there at any moment. It could, it could launch missiles into the air to defend Poland against an invasion. Yeah. I just really, yeah. Terrifying the 

[00:57:27] Konrad Keck: level of, or uncertain.

[00:57:30] Konrad Keck: Yeah. Like, wow, you didn’t even know that. 

[00:57:35] Ken: Things like that happen unbelievable times. Um, yeah. It’s been so wonderful talking to you, Conrad. Uh, thanks. Thanks for spending the time with me. Uh, I do look forward to being on your podcast soon. Absolutely. Um, and I talk about it soon. Yeah. And, and I, and I look forward to, uh, seeing how things evolve in your, in your various businesses and what, uh, new things you have coming around the corner.

[00:57:59] Ken: Uh, it’s very exciting. I’m sure we will be hearing a lot about, uh, your businesses, uh, for many years to come. Thank you, Ken. It was a, it was a pleasure.