From 1 comment to 41.5%. Why Matt made WordPress the gateway to the world
In January 2003, 19-year-old Matt Mullenweg was not yet trying to change the world.
What he was struggling with was a tool for writing his own blog.
He liked the software he was using, called b2/cafelog. However, the lead developer had stopped returning. Repairs and improvements had ceased, and only the world of blogging continued to move forward.
So, Matt wrote a short post on his blog.
"If things stay this way, we should just rebuild it ourselves."
The comment on that post was initially just one.
But that one comment became the beginning of WordPress.
As of July 10, 2026, W3Techs indicates that WordPress is used by 41.5% of all websites. Behind nearly half of the websites on the internet, the "I'm having trouble" and "I'll help" from that day still remain.
This is not a story about a genius who designed a massive corporation from the start.
It is a story about a young man who had just graduated high school, who didn't hide his small frustrations, received a reply from someone far away, and went on to build a gateway that people all over the world could use.
Matt was an ordinary creator who loved music and blogging.
Matt Mullenweg did not wear the label of "entrepreneur" from the start.
He grew up in Houston, Texas, loved jazz, and played the saxophone. In high school, he attended a school for music and the arts. He was familiar with computers from an early age and would sometimes build websites for his music teachers.
What is important is that his starting point was not "I'm going to build the world's greatest company."
"I want to make the things I like a little bit better."
The starting point was just that small.
The official WordPress book, 'Milestones,' writes that Matt built a site for his music teacher in high school and had also touched upon a programming language called PHP. In other words, he was not someone who suddenly built an amazing company, but someone who gained strength while fixing the problems of those around him.
Try to imagine it.
Building a school festival website. Fixing a club's contact page. Making thumbnails for a friend's video. Such small acts of help might not look impressive enough to write on a resume.
However, there are things you can only learn there.
Where the other person gets lost.
Where the things you create actually break when they are used.
For Matt, a blog was not just a diary. It was a place to put photos, a place to write down thoughts, and a place to connect with people. That is precisely why the blog tool stopping was like his own desk suddenly wobbling.
"Well, it's hard to use, but I'll just put up with it."
Most people stop there.
Matt took just one step forward at that point.
Instead of just complaining, he wrote in a public space that he "might be able to rebuild it."
This small difference becomes significant later on.
The stalled b2 gave Matt his first question.
Before WordPress, there was blog software called b2/cafelog.
Matt was using this b2. Mike Little was using it too. The two had not even met yet. They lived in different places. Matt was in Houston, and Mike was in Stockport, England.
b2 was released under a license called the GPL. Simply put, it is the idea that "anyone can use it. You can also modify it. However, you must leave the same freedom for the next person."
This is also an important concept for students.
If a classroom notebook were locked inside one person's desk, no one could read the continuation on the day that person was absent. However, if it were a shared notebook that everyone could see, someone else could write the continuation even if someone was absent.
b2 was close to that shared notebook.
However, the central development stopped.
The software was usable. But the future was not visible. Security repairs and adaptation to new Web trends were difficult to advance.
The official WordPress book describes this period by saying, "b2 was no longer evolving." The world of blogging was moving forward, but only the tools were being left behind. Matt and the others were standing in such a place.
At this time, what Matt did was not flashy.
He didn't go to meet investors.
He didn't start a company.
He didn't hold a massive launch event.
Instead, he wrote a post on his blog titled "The Blogging Software Dilemma."
In it, he mentioned that b2 was GPL, and wrote that the code he created could remain in the world even after he was gone. He then considered the possibilities of a new tool that didn't even have a name yet.
This is the interesting part.
Matt didn't release a "finished product."
He released a "question."
How can we make this a better blogging tool?
Would anyone like to work on this with me?
What would be a good name for it?
You don't need to have the perfect answer to pose a question.
In fact, it is precisely because it is a question that people can get involved.
In a place where everything is already decided, there is little room to help. But in a place that is open, saying "I'm having trouble here" or "I want to do this, but it's still a work in progress," someone else's input can find a way in.
Let's bring this a little closer to our own daily lives.
For example, suppose class announcements are always scattered and hard to find. If you release a site saying, "I made a site to organize announcements. It's finished," people might just look at it and say, "Oh, okay." But if you say, "Club schedules and assignments are mixed up and hard to find. I thought a table like this would make it easier, but is there a better way to organize it?" the reaction will change.
"Homework should be in date order."
"I want to see club activities by day of the week."
"It's too wide when opened on a smartphone."
Those kinds of voices will start coming in.
Questions do not make a work look weak. They create an entrance around the work.
Matt's brilliance lies not in having the right answer from the start, but in placing his own problems in a way that others could enter.
Matt's blog post was the same.
Mike Little commented on it.
"If you're serious about forking b2, I'd like to help."
That single reply crossed the ocean.
One comment became the first bridge to nearly half of the world's web.
The first partner of WordPress was not a co-founder decided in a conference room.
It was one person from far away who appeared in the blog's comment section.
The official WordPress book writes that Matt's post had only "a single comment" for a long time. Today, many people visit that post on its anniversary. But back then, almost no one paid attention to it.
This fact gives us a little courage.
You don't need 1,000 likes from the start.
You don't need to be discovered by a celebrity from the start either.
What you need first is one person who truly receives it.
Matt and Mike created a new branch based on b2. In the software world, creating a different path from the original code is called a "fork." It doesn't mean a dining fork, but rather that the path splits.
On April 1, 2003, Matt created a new branch on SourceForge. The name became "WordPress," which his friend Christine Tremoulet thought of.
And on May 27, 2003, WordPress 0.70 was released.
Looking at it now, it's a small number.
0.70.
It hadn't even reached the "1.0" of completion.
But they released it anyway.
There is an important lesson here that young readers can emulate.
The first version doesn't need to shock the world.
You just need to make someone's problem a little easier to handle than it was yesterday.
For Matt and his team, that 'someone' was themselves. They wanted to write their blogs more comfortably. They didn't want their tools to stop working. That urgency resonated with others as well.
There is also something to be learned from the number 0.70.
If you think, 'I'll release it once it hits 1.0,' it's hard to get moving. There are still features missing. It doesn't look polished. You might be laughed at by your friends. While you're thinking about all that, time just slips away.
But you can release it at 0.70.
This doesn't mean 'releasing something sloppy and unfinished.' It means that once you've built it to the point where it's more useful than before for the people using it now, you put it out there.
Once you release it, you see problems that weren't visible while it was just on your desk.
A button you thought was easy to understand might not be found by others. It might have worked on your computer, but it might break in a different environment. You might have thought it was intuitive enough to use without reading instructions, but some people might get stuck on the first screen.
That is not a failure.
It just means you've found the next thing to fix.
Big dreams don't need to look big from the start. Initially, 'I'm fixing this because it's a problem for me' is enough.
From there, WordPress gradually spread.
It's free to use.
It can be customized.
You can own your site as your own.
This philosophy reached not only those who write blogs, but also those who want to open shops, showcase their work, or deliver news.
As of July 10, 2026, W3Techs reports that WordPress is used by '59.2% of all websites whose content management system we know, and 41.5% of all websites'.
A tool that began with just a single comment became the gateway to the web for the entire world.
Of course, it was not the work of Matt alone.
Mike Little was there.
Michel Valdrighi, who created the original b2, was there.
There were the thousands and tens of thousands of contributors who followed.
That is why this story is not a 'hero's journey' of one person.
It is a story of 'friends gathering around an open question.'
Just because it is distributed for free does not mean it cannot be a business.
Here, a question usually arises.
If it is software that can be used for free, how does it become a company?
WordPress is open source. Anyone can use it. If you prepare your own server, you can install the software for free from WordPress.org.
On the other hand, Matt founded a company called Automattic in 2005. It is a company that owns WordPress.com, Akismet, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and more. The official Automattic page explains that WordPress powers over 40% of all websites, that the company has been working primarily remotely since 2005, and that there are 1,449 Automatticians around the world.
Furthermore, Automattic explains that while they release much of their work under the GPL, they generate annual revenue on the scale of $500 million.
What we can learn here is that 'free' and 'valueless' are different things.
For example, you can walk in a park for free. But the work to keep it clean has value. You can read books in a library for free. But the work of selecting, organizing, and protecting those books has value.
WordPress is similar.
The software itself can be used freely.
However, there are people who want to pay for a place to run it with peace of mind, mechanisms to prevent spam, features to build online shops, and operations that support large sites.
What Matt built was not a 'company that locks things up to make money,' but a 'company that provides support around a free tool.'
Of course, it is not all just sunshine and rainbows.
The relationship between WordPress and Automattic has been debated many times throughout its long history. The open-source community and the growth of the company sometimes pull in opposite directions. Conflicts surrounding WordPress have also been reported recently.
Therefore, what I want to say in this article is not that "everything Matt does is right."
What is truly important is the initial choice.
Instead of locking it away in your own private box, release it in a form that the next person can use.
Rather than controlling it perfectly, leave room for others to participate.
Because of this choice, WordPress spread beyond the company.
I do not want to be misunderstood here; this is not a simple story about "let's make everything free."
What you can take away from Matt's story is the attitude of looking at "who became free" before talking about price. By using WordPress, you can create your own page even if you are not a designer. You can have a website for your shop even if you are not a large company. You can have your own space without relying solely on massive services from the English-speaking world.
When tools become free, the number of people who can create increases.
When the number of people who can create increases, ways of using them that you never imagined are born.
And around that, work is also born. People who make themes, people who make plugins, people who fix sites, people who write, people who run online shops. There are not only WordPress itself, but also people who have changed their lives through WordPress.
So, when you create something, I want you to think about it this way.
Are you making this a shortcut just for yourself?
Or are you making it a path that the next person can also walk?
It is the same for a small template, a manual, or study notes. If you shape them so that the next person has an easier time, a simple personal memo becomes a small public asset.
You can do the same thing at school.
Turn notes that only you can see into a format that your friends can use.
Fix a template that only you use so that it can be used by the whole class.
Leave behind procedures known only to club officers so that the next grade can read them.
It is small.
But what is opened reaches people you never expected.
Just like the one comment left on Matt's blog post.
He made it a tool to keep fixing, not a tool that never fails.
The reason WordPress was strong was not because it was perfect from the start.
It was because they chose a system of continuous improvement.
The official Automattic page displays the number of weekly deployments and support tickets handled. On the page viewed in July 2026, it showed 931 deployments and 9,218 support tickets handled in that week alone.
Deployment means releasing the changes you have made to the actual service.
In other words, Automattic does not just 'fix' its massive tool once a year; it fixes it in small increments, many times over.
The official WordPress book also describes Automattic's culture as one of 'breaking things down into small pieces and delivering them to users immediately.' By May 2010, there had been over 25,000 releases, averaging 16 times a day.
For middle and high school students, this is a very practical lesson.
There are few essays you can write perfectly on the first try.
There are few songs you can play perfectly on the first try.
There are few people who can build a powerful app on the first try.
But you can fix things.
Make the second attempt tomorrow better than the first attempt today.
Show it to a friend and fix the parts where they stumble.
Reduce the number of difficult-to-use features by just one.
This 'just one' is important.
The larger the tool, the more problems you see. The screen is hard to read. The text is too long. Loading is slow. You don't know how to use it. If you try to fix everything at once, you won't know where to start.
So, pick one.
Today, fix only the first screen.
Today, fix only one line of the description.
Today, fix only the name of the button that confused your friend.
Keep making those small repairs over and over. Even a project as large as WordPress cannot escape this accumulation. In fact, precisely because it has grown so large, the ability to make small fixes is essential.
The history of WordPress is a collection of this humble work.
What is interesting here is that Matt loved jazz. Major WordPress releases have been named after jazz musicians. Names like Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, and Duke Ellington line the history page of WordPress.org.
Jazz is not music that just follows a score.
You listen to the other person's sound, respond a little, and change it again.
The way WordPress grew is similar to that.
Someone uses it.
Someone has trouble with it.
Someone fixes it.
Someone uses it again.
Through that repetition, the tool became robust.
If it had been 'release only after completion,' it probably wouldn't have reached this speed.
Because it was 'release and then fix,' people were able to join in.
Three things you can start imitating today
It would be a waste to end Matt's story as just 'a tale about a great person from the past'.
There are things you can start imitating today.
The first is to properly put your troubles into words.
Don't just end it with "it's kind of inconvenient."
Where exactly is it inconvenient?
What would make you happy if you could do it?
Who else seems to be struggling with the same thing?
Matt put his dissatisfaction with his blogging tools into words. Mike Little responded to that. If you don't put it into words, you won't get a reply.
The second is to show the process, not just the finished product.
Whether at school or in a hobby, if you try to show something perfect from the start, you'll get stuck.
But you can share things like "I've made it this far," "I'm stuck here," or "I want someone to think about this with me."
Showing the process is not showing weakness.
It is creating an entrance for others to join in.
The third is to cherish the first person.
On social media, the larger the number, the more important it seems. 1,000 people, 10,000 people, 1 million people. When you see those numbers, your own one like or one comment feels small.
But the beginning of WordPress was one comment.
The one person who replies to you in earnest is not just a number.
That person might be the one to help you build the next step together.
If you are currently building something, I don't want you to treat the first reaction lightly.
"This part is hard to use."
"This is interesting."
“I might be able to help.”
In those few words lies the next path.
There is one more thing I would like you to try if possible.
When you get a reply, do not immediately argue back.
Getting feedback on your work can be a little painful. You want to say, “I know that,” “I didn’t have enough time,” or “I actually planned to make it much better.” But swallow those words, and first look at where the other person got stuck.
A reaction is not an attack on your work.
It is a map sent to you by the person who used it.
When Mike commented on Matt’s blog, if Matt had closed the door by saying, “No, I’ll do it myself, thanks,” the story might have turned out differently. Because he accepted the reply and built the path together, the next step was born.
What a creator needs is not just strong self-assertion.
The openness to receive a reply is just as important.
To you: Even just one comment is enough to start.
Matt Mullenweg’s story looks dazzling when viewed backward from his massive success.
41.5% of all websites.
A remote team of 1,449 people.
Annual revenue on the scale of $500 million.
Looking only at the numbers, it feels too far from where you are.
But when you return to the first scene, the view changes.
A 19-year-old youth was struggling with his favorite blogging tool.
He wrote an idea that didn’t even have a name yet on his own blog.
And one person replied to it, saying, “I want to help.”
That was all it started with.
So, there is something you can do, too.
Write down one thing that is bothering you today.
Fix it just a little bit.
Even if it is halfway done, show it to someone.
If you get a reply, read it carefully.
If you don't get a reply, it is not a failure.
Try showing it to a different person. Try shortening your explanation by one line. Try using it yourself again the next day. Even the time without a response is important material for a creator.
A single line fixed during a quiet moment might invite the next reply.
Creators do not overlook those small changes.
You don't need to power nearly half of the world's web.
First, just make things a little easier for the person right in front of you.
That small repair might reach further than you think.
What is something you think is a bit inconvenient right now? Please let me know in the comments.