Devrims #TechTalk 073: Taco Verdonschot Interview

Meet Taco Verdonschot, the WordPress generalist turning website maintenance into a win.

Taco Verdonschot is one of those rare people in tech who can speak both code and customer. From his early days as a developer at Yoast to becoming a trusted voice in the global WordPress community, Taco has built a career on curiosity, connection, and versatility.

Now, as co-founder of Progress Planner, he’s on a mission to make website maintenance less of a chore and more of a game. Whether he’s speaking at WordCamps, organizing events, or helping users level up their sites, Taco brings energy, empathy, and a generalist’s superpower: making complex things simple.

We caught up with him to talk about building products, growing communities, and why being a generalist might just be your biggest advantage in tech.i

Devrims: Thank you for joining us today, Taco. You describe yourself as a “generalist on the web” who knows a little about everything. How has this generalist approach shaped your career path and influenced your various roles in the WordPress ecosystem?

Taco: Thanks for having me! As you said, I like to know “just enough” about everything. A few decades ago, when I was still a young boy, my parents bought an old encyclopedia. I can’t say I’ve read all 26 books from cover to back, but I did spend a lot of time looking through them. When I started learning about the web, I kept that broad interest. From hardware, like assembling my own computer and building computer networks, to learning how to write basic software and websites.

Initially, I joined Yoast in 2013 as a developer. I had some coding experience and they were looking for a junior developer. We quickly learned that I wasn’t the best fit in that role, but wading through the plugin’s code for a couple of months did help me tremendously when I then switched to a role in customer support.

Having a basic understanding of everything allows me to explain to developers what I’d like to see, while it also prevents me from speaking so much jargon that customers can’t understand what I’m saying anymore. And so, I can bridge the gap between two groups who typically have trouble understanding each other. 

My job at Emilia Capital and Progress Planner oftentimes gives me a seat at very different tables. From C-levels at internationally renowned companies to solopreneurs, I enjoy having conversations with all of them equally. Having a broad understanding of their realities really helps there as well. 

So yes, I can safely say being a generalist has shaped my career and journey in WordPress!

Devrims: Your current focus is building a brand with Progress Planner. What inspired this product, how is the journey going and what are some of the challenges that you are facing?

Taco: While we (most of the Progress Planner team is former Yoast) were at Yoast, we saw people spend a lot of time, energy and money launching their websites. Every image, every piece of content was carefully curated until they finally launched their site. And then…. Nothing.

In my view, a website is like a garden. Once you’ve finished building it, you can take a seat, relax and enjoy all the work you put in. But after a few days, you’ll need to start watering the plants. A week later, there’s some weeds you need to remove, you have to mow the lawn, and by the end of summer, it’s time for pruning and raking leaves. You need to get your hands dirty. Basically, you’re never done.

The same goes for your website. It needs that same love and care. You can’t stop caring after it’s been built. But that means doing oftentimes boring, tedious tasks, like updating plugins or reviewing your site structure. Typically, it’s not the fun part of being a website owner.

And that’s where the Progress Planner comes in. We help you identify the crucial tasks that need to be done on your website, and bring fun to completing them! Working on your website makes you earn points and badges. The more problems you resolve, the more badges you collect! 

So, we help you identify what you need to do, and motivate you to do it. What else do you need to keep your website up-to-date?! 

But, as you said, we do have some challenges. Before people start using Progress Planner, they first have to understand and admit they have a problem. We need to show them their website could be so much better, and conveying that story takes time. And so, the growth of our free plugin isn’t as fast as I’d hoped for… And that’s a real challenge!

Devrims: What’s one unexpected lesson you’ve learned from transitioning from Yoast to co-founding your venture?

Taco: Being at a large company like Newfold (the owners of Yoast after its acquisition in 2021) has taught me a lot about processes and running a large business. It’s allowed me to grow in ways impossible in a smaller company.

But the transition to Progress Planner showed that I’m a much better fit to a smaller company. I love to take on a thousand very different tasks, and have a direct impact on the company’s results instead of having to “fight” processes. So, I’ve learned that being in a smaller company plays to my strengths much better.

What it also taught me is that personal reputation doesn’t mean a lot when you’re building a new business. Despite knowing a lot of people in our industry, it’s still very hard work to promote a new product! Much harder than I anticipated, to be honest.

Devrims: You’ve spoken at numerous WordCamps worldwide. How has being a speaker and organizer contributed to your professional growth and understanding of the WordPress ecosystem?

Taco: To deliver a valuable talk, and not just a business pitch, you need to be well-versed in the topic you’re presenting on. So far, every presentation I gave was also a learning experience for myself. I had to dive deeper than ever before into the topic, in order to be able to explain valuable concepts in layman’s terms. 

Doing that well really helps you build and enforce your (brand’s) reputation. 

An even better learning experience for me was being an MC at various WordCamps. That required me to dive into a topic I had absolutely no prior knowledge about, to make sure I’d be able to properly introduce and highlight the speaker. It also allowed me to personally connect to a broad range of amazing experts. 

The same goes for being an organizer. As an organizer, you have to work with a large number of volunteers, speakers, and suppliers. I can’t imagine a better training for your communication skills, organizing skills, and negotiation skills. And, it requires you to acquire valuable event organizing skills, like budgeting, communications, leading volunteers, and many more.

So whichever way you’re involved in organizing community events, there are always valuable lessons to learn! 

Devrims: Let’s do some quick rapid-fire questions: 

Favorite Movie/book	Ice Age
Favorite WordPress Plugin	Progress Planner
Classic editor or Gutenberg	Gutenberg

Devrims: With your extensive experience in the WordPress ecosystem, how do you see the role of managed WordPress hosting in growing a product?

Taco: There are many people who need a website and will build it themselves. They’re not necessarily web development experts. A good managed host will do the hand-holding those customers need to make their online presence a success. 

But even beyond the DIY group, properly managed hosting can take away many headaches from professionals. Not having to worry about many of the absolute basics frees up time to spend on the more sophisticated areas of the website build.

So in my opinion, managed hosting is adapted to a specific target audience to help them thrive online. 

Devrims: You’ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of SEO through your work at Yoast. What’s a common SEO myth that you’d love to debunk?

Taco: A myth I’d love to debunk is that SEO is all about publishing large volumes of content. It’s not. Search engines try to answer their users’ questions, which means they need to be fed quality information. So instead of trying to publish as much content as possible, think about how you can add value to the web.

Your main question when writing or reviewing content should be what value, like unique opinions or insights, you can add that will establish you as a subject matter expert.

Devrims: What changes have you noticed in the WordPress community over the years, and where do you think it’s headed next?

Taco: If I’d be able to predict where we’d be going next, I’d be filthy rich. Spoiler alert, I’m not. For years, many people in our industry have been saying “what got us here won’t get us there”, when talking about the growth of WordPress. Looking at the flattening of WordPress’ growth, it feels like we (finally) may have reached that point. 

In the end, people, businesses and organizations need an online presence. I hope there will always be a good open-source solution to help people achieve that. Ideally, that open-source project would be WordPress.

Devrims: Can we have a glimpse of your workspace? 

Taco: Absolutely! 

Devrims: In your experience, how can being a generalist be a superpower, especially in tech and digital marketing?

Taco: Being able to talk to everyone, and to quickly identify what you don’t know are the super skills of a generalist. In today’s day and age, being able to adapt to unique circumstances and quickly learning what’s needed to move forward are essential skills. 

I’m convinced that generalists are uniquely qualified to do that.

Devrims: Lastly, from the community, who are the top three people that you would recommend us to interview next?

Taco: Naming a top 3 in a space as large as WordPress is about as evil as asking who my favorite child is. My daughters are quite different in pretty much everything, and yet I love them equally. The same is true for the WordPress community, it consists of so many absolutely amazing people!

However, when you’re looking for people with an interesting story to tell, I can totally recommend checking out Yoast’s Care Fund. The community team at Yoast has curated a list of amazing contributors to WordPress, who each have a story to tell.
So please go check out the amazing recipients of the Yoast Care Fund!