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Each month, we recognize one of our Most Helpful Humans in Hosting®.
Meet Ken Wallace
Liquid Web’s Product Innovation & Marketing Manager Ken Wallace got his tech start in college by building websites. He soon entered the world of web development and has spent the last twenty-two years working in the tech industry.
Previously, Ken was the GM of WP Sandbox, a Stellar brand brought into the Liquid Web Family of Brands with the Events Calendar acquisition. In his current role, Ken is part of two teams at Liquid Web: Product and Marketing.
Why did you join Liquid Web?
I joined the Liquid Web family of brands to shepherd the Go-to-Market of the replatformed WP Sandbox, a solution that allowed agencies and developers to create temporary demo WordPress websites.
After helping to relaunch WP Sandbox and see it become stable, I was brought into the Liquid Web Product Team to help our Product Managers more effectively communicate with customers and colleagues about our wide portfolio of products.
What draws you to the hosting industry as a career?
I didn’t choose the hosting life, the hosting life chose me. 🙂
First and foremost, I love learning about unique customer businesses and finding ways to help them grow.
For over twenty years, in my agency days, my team and I worked hard to dig deep into customer businesses, ask tough questions, and help customers bring their custom web-based solutions to life. In this chapter of my career, helping customers grow their businesses means: 1) Making sure we have the right mix of hosting products, education, and support to ensure customer sites are stable, fast, secure, and robust and 2) Making sure we’re doing our best to help our customers, colleagues, and prospects have the clearest understanding of how our products and services help real businesses.
What’s your favorite part about the company culture at Liquid Web?
In our internal conversations, there’s a concerted effort first to assume good intentions. In a remote company where so many of our interactions are written and asynchronous, it would be easy to cast a cynical pall over things that, at first glance, might otherwise appear confusing or concerning. The culture here takes a stance against that very human tendency, and we remind one another gently that everyone is doing their best to help our customers grow their businesses. It fosters a culture of giving a measure of grace to one another whenever we can.
In your eyes, what’s the difference between Liquid Web and other employers?
As an employer, Liquid Web stands out as a company that goes the extra mile to care for its people. There is a sincere focus on employee well-being and continued professional growth that is missing in too many other companies.
What is the biggest milestone you’ve accomplished?
Helping to bring WP Sandbox to market was an accomplishment I’m really proud of here. We learned a lot as we brought it over the finish line. The whole experience was challenging, exciting, and rewarding.
What are you known for at Liquid Web? What do people specifically come to you for?
At first, I was the WP Sandbox guy. Since joining the Product Team, I have led the effort to organize our internal product roadmap, lead our Product Lunch & Learn video town hall sessions, and lead video live stream workshops that share techniques to help our customers grow their e-commerce stores.
Work aside, what are some of your hobbies?
I have too many hobbies to list.
First, I’m a dad and a husband. Much of what I do revolves around whatever the family needs. As a family, you go through seasons where you alternate between having less time or ample time for personal hobbies.
Among my traditional hobbies, you’d find backpacking and hiking, trumpet playing, sailing, cooking, podcasting, container gardening, yerba mate, and all things related to coffee. I have a growing collection of Stanley vacuum-insulated products. I’m currently planning a long-distance backpacking thru-hike, and to that end, I’ve been spending more and more time on area trails building up miles and endurance.
A continuing passion of mine is online entrepreneurship. In my personal time, I keep very involved in launching SaaS startups and eCommerce businesses. I founded an online community dedicated to helping online SaaS startup founders get candid feedback about their businesses in small peer groups. I’m helping a community of sailboat owners relaunch their online community. I have an eCommerce site selling freshly roasted, ethically sourced, whole-bean coffee for SaaS startup founders. I’m currently working on a mobile app for espresso drinkers and a web game for people who seem to have a bad habit of collecting too many domain names.
I keep busy.
What is your favorite TV show?
I’m not sure if you’d count a YouTube channel as TV, but this deserves mention: I have been watching Sailing SV Delos on YouTube nearly every Friday for over a decade (since 2008). Also, I love watching Survivor and old episodes of Farscape.
What is your favorite app?
AllTrails
If you could have dinner with one famous person [dead or alive], who would it be?
Frank Lloyd Wright.
You can find Ken at Twitter and LinkedIn.
We hope you enjoyed our series, and stay tuned for the next Helpful Human profile.
