Since starting Divi Nation, the official Divi podcast, there has been one guest that the entire community has wanted to see on the show. It was an obvious choice as he’s the guy behind all of the great tools Elegant Themes has been creating for WordPress users since 2008. Of course I’m talking about none other than the founder, CEO, and visionary designer of Elegant Themes itself: Nick Roach.
I’m happy to report that in this episode we were finally able to make that community request happen. Last week I visited the San Francisco offices of Elegant Themes and sat down in person with Nick to ask him the questions that you–the Divi Nation community–asked in the weeks leading up to this interview.
Community Q&A with Nick Roach, Founder & CEO of Elegant Themes
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In this interview I ask Nick around 20 questions submitted by the Divi Nation community via email, blog comments, and Facebook. I did my best to organize them so that as he answered we would get to hear his story from before Elegant Themes all the way up to the present. I really hope you enjoy our conversation as much as we did.
If you have any follow up questions, feel free to ask them below. You should note however, that the most likely questions to be answered will not be Divi feature requests, questions about new Divi features to come, or anything that would normally be covered in a sneak peek post for upcoming products. Trust me when I say, we release that information as soon as it’s ready to be released but not before.
Instead, try focusing on expanding areas we touched on in the interview or asking entrepreneurial questions that weren’t covered. Thanks for listening, hope to see you in the comments!
If you’d like to make sure you can easily watch or listen to future episodes of Divi Nation (as well as our entire archive), please take a moment and use one of the subscription options we’ve provided below.
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Your Turn (Again): Any Follow Up Thoughts or Questions?
As I mentioned above, we would love to keep the conversation going in the comments section below. So if you have any follow up questions or thoughts on the episode in generally please feel free to leave us a comment below.
Niiiiice! Been waiting for this episode!! You guys are the best, thanks for making it happen Nathan! 🙂
Thank YOU for tuning in Tim 🙂
And for submitting questions!
Wow this is soo cool. I have goosebumps. You guys are all so kind and generous and your hospitality was exemplary. It was an honor and a privilege to be there and again I thank you for that great opportunity. And listening to this after having met you in person Nick is just unbelievable. Looking forward to seeing you at WordCamp OC if you and Mitch can make it down. Thanks again for everything Elegant Themes!!!
That was such a fun day for us all Geno! I am glad we had the chance to meet each other, and I look forward to seeing you again (and the rest of the Divi crew) at WordCamp OC.
For anyone else reading this, you should definitely come too 🙂
Learned much from your sharing Gino! Comprehend little …
Merci
John Malloy
Great interview Nick! Very cool learning more about you 🙂 I look forward to seeing more on the documentation for third party applications in future.
I see third party development as one of the most important parts of Divi’s future, and you can be sure that we are thinking about ways to facilitate it. After Divi 3.0, will be focusing our on 3.1 “Developer Update,” so stay tuned for more info on that.
got to be my favourite interview yet 🙂
Thanks Craig!
Saw it from the beginning to the end… Was about to watch a movie online when I saw it come in. Awesome. So great to see and hear from Nick, his views and thoughts about his business and the future. Pity we didn’t hear when he is going to be pick up his guitar again! 🙂 Love his music videos as well!
Thanks for tuning in Jacobus!
Fabulous interview Nick, thanks for sharing your story and experience! Nathan you could have had at least 1 NDR question, like my music questions 😉
I still pick up the guitar almost ever day, but I haven’t learned anything new in a while. I just like to relax and strum the same old chords after a long day hard at work on Divi 🙂 Maybe I still have a song or two in me, we’ll see!
Thats awesome, I have no doubt you do and I look forward to it. Look forward to meeting you guys in Orange County.
Must be great to relax with music… Yes, I really like what I saw on YouTube years ago… was wondering… Great you still play!
Hi Nick,
How about incorporating some of the really good features of Harmony into Divi ?
Divi is and will be our favorite theme.
Nick, and you guys, are a great example of passion, persistence and determination.
Greetings from Sardegna – Italia
Enjoyed that one for sure!
Thanks! Glad to hear it 🙂
Nathan, this is one of your best interviews yet! I love the questions asked by Leslie, Andrew, and the rest of the community – they added a lot of depth to the discussion.
Also, for never giving interviews, Nick is pretty good at telling stories. 🙂
Thanks Mark!
I’ve a question,, when are you going to updated elegantthemes.com ? 😀
theme numbers is correct?
that Divi theme screen shot, is still ver.2
and i wish the website was responsive as i often read the blog and forums using a phone.
Thank you Nick, ET Team, for all the hard work
I am eager to re-design our site, in fact I have been working on a new design for a while now. The problem is, redesigning our own site means 2-3 months of no Divi updates, and our top priority is creating great products.
I became a member a little over 6 years ago (it was an easy decision, and that’s saying something for me). Fortunately I haven’t had a lot of issues that required support but I did have one question several years ago and Nick responded personally. I was always impressed by that. I’ve always been a fan of Elegant Themes business practices and you’ve built a great community around ET. I’ve also been a Roach and Weller fan for several years. You guys rock! Shout-out to both of you and the rest of the ET crew!
I wasn’t aware you’ve been around the ET/Divi community so long Randy, that’s awesome! You’ve been great to have as a contributor on the blog. I know I’m not the only one who has appreciated your writing 🙂
Thanks Nathan! You’ve been a great influence in my writing.
I’ve met so many nice decent people in the Divi community and so its probably no surprise to learn that the company is run by such people.
Thank you both for the insights and now I’m back to the fb divi forums!
Thanks John! As Nick said in the show, it’s been such a welcome and wonderful surprise to find ourselves in the midst of such a great community. We just want to do right by everyone and encourage more of the same 🙂
while podcasting seems pretty modern (again) i dont think its a good format for this? not searchable, not save-able… nice but not really usable as in easy “pick from an overview”. do you get me? hard to explain. its not a working tutorial format, at least not for me…
Hey Oliver,
My hope is that when we re-design the website/blog we’ll have a better way to organize all of our podcast content here on the blog. In the meantime if you want an easy way to find whatever you’re looking for in the podcast archives you can subscribe via iTunes or YouTube where everything is in chronological order and/or in easy to browse playlists.
Best,
Nathan
It’s for that very reason that I created the Divi Nation Podcast Index at divithemeresources.com, so we could have it all on one searchable page. Until you guys get around to redesigning your blog, its a pretty handy resource!
Another Great Share Nathan!
Creative genius from Nick and Team, great contributions from Gino also.
This Canadian really appreciates your top drawer creative skills. Honoured (Canadian Spelling), to be a member of the community!
Sharing poorly at Georgian Bay News. I have hope though, a brilliant and creative daughter may build better one day. That would be her choice 😉
Best
John Malloy
Thanks John! So glad to be in this community with you too 🙂
This was great. Nick was awesome and i must say I love the way the community is growing. These podcast are getting better with every episode. Keep it coming ET. Looking forward to DIVI CLOUD.
Thanks Denver!
I was starting selling templates on DigitalPoint, too. 🙂
ok. Great interview Nick! Very cool learning more about you ? I look forward to seeing more on the documentation for third party applications in future.
Great interview, nice to know Nick’s views. You’ve come a long way and it is obvious how much work you’ve put into your vision; your focus remains sharp on the road ahead. This is icing on the cake for this recent lifetime member upgrader. I was sold with the continuity of the product, the available support and sense of community that comes with this excellent platform. Keep up the good work!
Another Great Share Nathan!
Divi is the best Business WordPress theme I have ever seen.
Thanks Nilantha!
Nick, thank you for the interview. There are many ways Divi can continue to evolve – adapting to the shift into mobile, and by allowing us to build from basic elements (in similar philosophy to Photoshop, I don’t write code, but I can affect every single pixel), think of other weird stuff for the future like voice control (I use voice recognition to name my modules). My anniversary with Divi is March 18, 2015. Divi changed my life for the better, it’s more powerful than people think, and I am proud to be a lifetime member. Thanks again.
Great interview, really good to hear some more background into the way Elegant Themes has developed over the years. In the answer to the question from Rick Tolls, Nick mentioned a podcast with interviews of CEOs – would love a link to that podcast as didn’t catch the name.
The podcast is called Mixergy.
Great interview! It’s always nice to get more info about the people behind a product you love.
And all this talk about the developer update, version 3, etc. is just exciting. Is there any ETA on the next big Divi update? I’m not impatient, but just excited. I am sure it is going to rock whenever it comes! Thanks for all the hard work guys.
Brent
That was such a treat! Thank you for this. 🙂
A long overdue thank you.
Really appreciate all your interviews Nathan and this one was special with Nick as a class act business owner! Genuine and professional!
If you guys need a guide in Berlin, just let me know. I’d be happy to show the team around. I’ve been using Elegant Themes since I started my business and I never looked back. Out of the… I don’t know… 50+ websites we created, all but 2 or 3 are based on an Elegant Theme. 🙂
You guys are the Best, When I started my website almost Two years ago, Divi wasn’t like what it is today! Now it’s just Amazing and Divi 3 and the Front end Controls coming up soon!!!!
I feel like my site is Growing with Divi Growing :d
Keep up the Awesome work you guys,
Best regards
-Ismail