How Was Torque Born?

Torque recently turned two. In its first two years, Torque has grown into a must-visit, top ranked destination for WordPress news and views.

Today, Torque grows up even more—we’re proudly launching a full redesign of the site to better reflect its maturity, its impact in the market, and its focus on the WordPress community.

Two years ago, the genesis for Torque came from the thought, “How could we as WP Engine give back to the WordPress community?” We wanted to create a place to share knowledge across the community. What better way than to launch a digital magazine on WordPress, the digital platform democratizing publishing! The site would be editorially independent, meaning anyone could contribute, and it would be geared toward creatives, businesses, developers, and anyone who uses or has an interest in WordPress.

But that site needed a name. It came to me in the shower (Isn’t that where most of the best ideas come to us?!) WP Engine powers amazing WordPress sites, and torque is a measurement of force specifically referring to the amount of turning power, or “to twist.” We wanted to create our own “twist” on WordPress news, and so Torque became the perfect fit.

So we revved our engines and went to work. We ideated. We storyboarded. It was incredible to see our small team (at the time, WP Engine was just over 50 employees) rally around this project. And a month later, in July 2013, we lifted the curtain on Torque to ring in the start of WordCamp San Francisco 2013. Torque was an instant hit, and we couldn’t be prouder of its impact as a must-read source for WordPress-focused content and community!

One of the added benefits of Torque is that it also provides an invaluable sandbox for WP Engine. The site gives us a place to experiment with our technologies and innovations—to drink our own juice, if you will. We can test our own products and try new things on Torque and learn from that. For example, Torque runs on the beta of our upcoming Mercury platform, and leverages WP Engine GeoIP. Torque operates as a WP Engine customer, helping us stay in touch with the WP Engine customer experience. It gives us great insight into how we can better serve our customers and illustrates the power of WordPress as a democratizing publishing technology.

Running Torque has truly been an eye-opening and rewarding experience. It’s been a blast working with this great team–a number of amazing people make Torque possible. Seeing it take shape from ideation to launch has been a fun ride, and we’re just getting started.

As always, if you have an idea for Torque or thoughts on how we can improve, don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected]. Happy birthday Torque!

A 25-year tech industry vet, Heather is passionate about building high performing global teams and businesses. When she’s not at WP Engine, Heather’s in the Bikram hot room or experiencing the world in tandem with her two amazing daughters. Follow Heather on Twitter @heatherjbrunner.