BionicWP Launches Enhanced Platform
Bigger, better, and faster than ever! Oh, you didn’t think it was possible. Well grab some popcorn and grab a seat as you are going to want to read this!
(nice, the Michael Jackson Thriller gif is always a goto!)
It’s a big day today for BionicWP.com - we have completely changed our infrastructure - why?
Well, let’s start from the beginning.
Over the last year we have built a platform (front end team), server solution (back end team), support team (client-facing team), and then a 24/7 support team. With over 30 team members around the globe, it’s been a full time operation round the clock for nearly two years. Apart from the emotional cost (it’s ok, my hair was already fleeting when I started this business), building this platform has cost us over $615k. Yeah… A LOT has gone into this platform from the ground up.
As our baby grew so did our efforts marketing & selling to new agencies. We have been pretty successful in this aspect and now have over 2000 sites on our platform! Pretty incredible and whenever I mention this to anyone they are completely shocked. To the point some major players have asked me how we have done it, but they don’t like the answer. With amazing service and support.
Like most agencies struggling to get started, part of the previous leadership in place at BionicWP did not have 1 profitable month. This was a complete shock to me as this is the complete opposite of the agency Brittany and I run, 51Blocks.com which has never had an unprofitable month. If there’s one thing the two of us do well, it’s creating a vision and watching it come to life successfully. In July, we stepped back into Bionic and we (figuratively) blew the entire infrastructure apart (gently of course) and dove deep into areas of improvement for customers and for sustainability.
The Lessons Learned
One thing I learned over the last couple of months (and to be honest, there has been a lot and my eyes have been open to a lot) overall the cost to run and maintain 1 single site was costing us way too much. So over the last 2-3 months, I have jumped head first/all in/knee deep talking/testing/talking/evaluating/talking/emailing/testing/testing/testing … Did I mention testing? Yup did that and more of that.
What was I able to find? I found a solution that was actually faster (specifically faster TTFB - time to first byte - than the current solution) and we are also now able to offer 100% fully redundant network and infrastructure. In terms even your mom can understand, if your site goes down for any reason, it will automatically direct traffic to a new server never leaving the site offline.
What does all of this mean?
I thought you’d never ask! This means we’re now offering 3 incredible solutions.
Google hosting (previous solution)
New! Bolt Plans with 100% Uptime and a failover infrastructure
3rd Solution - if for some reason our new bolt plans platform doesn’t work we have a 3rd solution that we can offer to those more resource-hungry sites.
So far the rollout has gone smoothly! While the process of moving over 2000 sites is not exactly what I call an exceptionally fun time, we have already migrated over 500 sites to these 2 new solutions and have been extremely happy with the TTFB (time to first byte) and we have yet to have a downtime event due to any network/infrastructure issues.
So you might say, ok Michael, great...how much more is this going to cost me? This is actually something I kept in mind as I built out this new solution. Turning BionicWP into a profitable company wasn’t going to come at the cost of making expenses higher for our partners. The price to host a site is actually coming down and will be less if you choose from our new Bolt plans.
Better… and it’s cheaper?
What can I say? I just love you guys that much. :) But really, because our costs have come down by rebuilding our infrastructure we were able to offer more competitive pricing in the managed WordPress space (I promise you’re still special too). We also have streamlined a number of things on our side to provide a better customer experience which helped reduce costs as well.
So we are not like other companies (especially phone and internet companies), our current clients can get this pricing as well. We just need to migrate your site to our new solution and you can request that here.
Hopefully, you enjoyed that bucket of popcorn with butter or at least some juice fruits as we described this major release. While not much will look different inside the solution (this is what we will focus on in Q1 of 2022 there is a significant positive change for our hosting solution.
In all seriousness, if anyone would like to jump on the phone and discuss anything around this major shift please let me know!
Onward and upward!