We did it.

Fifteen years ago our company built and launched a website builder based on WordPress v1.x that allowed anyone to quickly launch a site with rudimentary managed services like automatic backups and upgrades. With only a few dozen paying customers and not knowing exactly what we had — it sat in limbo for a year or two.

Twelve years ago our company went all in on launching what is now known as Managed WordPress when we introduced Page.ly (domain hacks were cool back then) to the world. Managed WordPress has now become a multi-billion dollar channel and Pagely is the recognized leader therein.

Today Pagely serves hundreds of billions of monthly requests, from the most mission critical websites, owned by the world’s biggest and most recognizable brands. When your site outgrows every other hosting provider, or when your business actually matters, you then become a Pagely customer.

Scale, Durability, and Legendary Support are our calling cards. After a total of 18.5yrs in business, we are proud to announce we are moving on to the next
phase of our journey: we have agreed to the sale of the company to GoDaddy.

“But wait, Strebel you serious? GoDaddy!? What?”

Crazy, I know. And…

If you know Sally and me, you already know why we did it. TL:DR; To help more people. If you don’t know us, nice to meet you, and I’ll walk you through it briefly.

We built a successful company that took the uncompromising position that employees and customers came first.

This has allowed us to focus exclusively on the needs of those stakeholders. Never competing on price, only on quality of service. Creating a robust and performant hosting platform and industry leading NPS and CES scores for our efforts.

We did it our way, and It worked.

It worked so well that one of the largest internet brands in the world, GoDaddy, wants us – to help them – to be more like us. They’ve put their cards, and cash, on the table and are serious about serving a wider segment of the market, with better quality products and top class service, to ultimately; help more people succeed.

Sally would like to add: “Our beloved conference, Pressnomics, may look a little different going forward, and will remain a Pagely hosted event with the same mission as always: to elevate and connect business owners in the WordPress Ecosystem. I already have a theme in mind for the next one. Stay tuned.“

So what are our mission goals?

1. We will be working closely with the amazing team of WooCommerce experts from SkyVerge (previous GoDaddy acquisition) on the GoDaddy commerce team to deploy a world-class WooCommerce SaaS aimed at powersellers. If you want all the sanitized corporate PR goodness here you go – Else let me just say, we’re coming in hot.
2. Double down on everything you know and love about Pagely. Sally and I would not have done this deal without the confidence that Pagely will not just continue, but greatly expand, it’s presence as the Enterprise hosting leader in the WordPress Ecosystem.

Back to our story…

We did it our way. We put our employees and customers first, and for many of the early years took our share as founders last.

This strategic M&A transaction has minted new millionaires not just named Josh and Sally. It has also set many others up for major long term financial success. Not a single one of them was an “investor”.

We proved to ourselves that we could win the game by sticking to a simple set of values summed up as “Business is personal”.

I can’t say it will be business as usual as we go forward from here. Why would it be? I hope we can do more of the things our customers love, and less of the things their customers don’t.

This partnership with GoDaddy was entered into with our customers’ needs top of mind and you all had a primary virtual seat at the bargaining table. We will continue to deliver the world-class product and support you’ve consistently rewarded us praise for and is a key feature of this deal that GoDaddy will continue to support.

Like in all plans, there may be a few hiccups along the way as we execute them, however you’ll always get the transparency and fairness from us when navigating through them, together. The Pagely team and product suite isn’t going anywhere, and each will continue to be supported by the core values and drive to service excellence that we have stood upon since our inception.

Sally and I have always been and remain so incredibly grateful to be able to work in service to our team. Your concerted attention to excellence all these years and the joy and ease in which you have all set about making this dent in the universe together — to be a part of this team, has truly been one of the great honors of our life. Thank you.

Our new partners’ stated mission is to support and serve the current and next generation of entrepreneurs and business owners. It’s very much in line with our own.

As of today, we begin working together to do just that.

Let’s. Fucking. Go.

—

Joshua Strebel
– Co-Founder and former CEO of Pagely, Inc.