From cleaning hacked WordPress sites to running a 7-person security plugin company, Robert Abela never planned to become an entrepreneur. But when he discovered a critical gap in WordPress security logging, everything changed.
That led him to build WP Activity Log, which grew from a hobby project into Melapress. The company has developed some of WordPress’s most trusted security plugins, including WP Activity Log, WP2FA, and Melapress Login Security.
In this interview, Robert shares how he built his plugin business through organic marketing and community relationships. He also reveals the lessons he learned scaling from solo developer to leading a growing team.
“The difference between the best plugins out there in each category… is always maybe that 10%… we always go that extra step.”
Robert Abela – CEO & Founder of Melapress
Keep reading to learn how Robert Abela built one of the most successful WordPress security plugins on the market.
📣 This is our series, #MyWordPressStory, which brings you insights from some of the most successful leaders in the WordPress industry.
If you’d like to be featured in our interview series – whether you’re a plugin developer, founder, or SEO expert – feel free to reach out and let us know through our contact form.
Or you can use the links below to see what we covered in the interview (and more):
- Robert Abela: From Systems Engineer to Security Authority
- WP Activity Log’s Creation: The Initial Challenge
- Expansion Through Community Engagement, Not Just Marketing
- Plugin Distinction: Valuing User Input and Exceeding Expectations
- Melapress’s Growth: Managing Several Plugins and an Expanding Team
- Key Takeaways: Robert’s Revised Strategies for Today
- Concluding Remarks and Where to Discover Robert’s Projects
- Additional Material: Top-Tier Resources for WordPress Protection and Plugin Creation
Introducing Robert Abela: From Systems Engineering to Security Expertise
Robert Abela’s journey didn’t begin with plugin development or WordPress entrepreneurship.
For more than ten years, he was a systems engineer at different software businesses, concluding his tenure at Acunetix, a developer of web security scanning utilities.
“Approximately 13 years ago, I left my corporate position. I had consistently worked for software firms, typically startups.”
Robert Abela
His departure wasn’t due to dissatisfaction with his work; he simply felt it was time for a shift. His knowledge of software security and systems engineering would be extremely beneficial in the subsequent stages.
When Acunetix required a blog in approximately 2009, they chose WordPress. This marked Robert’s initial encounter with the platform that would ultimately transform his professional path.
WordPress security was quite different at the time, and Robert’s experience provided him with an insightful understanding of the platform’s weaknesses.
Robert’s experience as a systems engineer allowed him to interact with all areas of software companies, including marketing, sales, development, and research & development.
This cross-functional experience gave him insights into how software businesses actually operate. This knowledge would become crucial when building his own company.
“You get a good understanding of the inner workings of a software company, what should be done and not.”
Robert Abela
After leaving his corporate role, Robert began freelance work cleaning hacked WordPress websites, combining his security expertise with his growing WordPress knowledge.
He didn’t realize it at the time, but this work would help him expose a gap in WordPress security. That gap would later define his entrepreneurial path and lead him to create Melapress.
🔧 Building WP Activity Log: The Problem That Started Everything
Website cleanup work in the early days of WordPress was challenging. Robert found himself constantly dealing with hacked sites, trying to understand what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again.
That’s how he got the idea for WP Activity Log.
“There was no sort of logging… you need to see what happened before it got hacked. Was the plugin maybe updated? Maybe a user installed something? Maybe a user was created? And yeah, there was nothing like that.”
Robert Abela
This wasn’t just a minor inconvenience. It was a fundamental gap that made security work unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming.
The business side of website cleanup also presented its own challenges.
“It wasn’t very scalable and it was a very difficult job… there were prices like people were cleaning websites for $99, and sometimes it could be a job which takes a couple of days,” Robert explained.
In these early days, Robert was competing with many other cleanup services in a race to the bottom on pricing. It was clear this wasn’t a sustainable long-term business model.
But Robert saw an opportunity to solve the underlying problem rather than just treating the symptoms.
The logging capability that WordPress was missing could help both professionals and site owners understand and prevent security issues.
There was one small problem, though: Robert wasn’t really a developer.
“I’m not a developer per se. I can read and write code but something that I can do in a week and a proper developer can do it properly in one day… It took me a few months playing around and breaking things basically…”
Robert Abela
Despite the learning curve, Robert kept trying. He developed the first version of WP Activity Log as both a solution to his professional needs and a way to learn coding skills.
“It started as a hobby,” Robert said. The first year brought in around $1,000 in revenue, hardly life-changing money, but enough to suggest there was real interest in the solution.
“But yeah, then it’s like, maybe this can happen actually, you know?”
That moment of realization marked the beginning of what would become a six-year transition from hobby project to full-time business.
💥 Related Post: Tobias Bäthge turned a hobby project for his baseball team into TablePress, a WordPress plugin that now powers more than 700K sites. Read the full interview to see how he did it.
🌱 Growing Through Community, Not Marketing Dollars
For the initial six years of WP Activity Log, Robert allocated no budget to marketing. His approach involved cultivating a user base through genuine interaction with the community and producing relevant content.
Robert stated, “I didn’t invest any money in marketing for the first six years. It grew organically through connections and direct communication.”
Robert Abela
His marketing approach was straightforward: creating valuable blog articles, establishing a newsletter focused on WordPress security, and participating in WordPress community gatherings.
The newsletter, which provided security advice and insights, occasionally included a subtle reference to the plugin. However, the primary emphasis was consistently on delivering value.
A key moment occurred in 2013 when Robert participated in the inaugural WordCamp Europe held in Leiden. This experience significantly influenced his perspective on fostering relationships within the WordPress ecosystem.
Robert stated, “If you email someone you haven’t personally met, they are likely to disregard it. However, if you’ve met them face-to-face, the dynamic changes.”
Robert Abela
Robert prioritized WordCamps and local WordPress meetups as his primary networking strategy.
The relationships he built at these events led to collaborations, cross-promotion opportunities, and genuine friendships within the WordPress community.
💡 Do you want to expand your WordPress community?Refer to the events section of WordPress.org.
In addition to the advantages for his business, these events offered something equally vital during the demanding transition phase: a sense of community and a support network.
Robert Abela stated, “At meetups and WordCamps, I encountered others in similar situations, allowing us to exchange ideas and assist each other, which made the process feel less isolating.”
Robert Abela
Establishing a side business while working full-time can be a solitary endeavor.
However, observing other entrepreneurs navigate comparable obstacles offered both functional knowledge and moral backing during the lengthy period before WP Activity Log could fully support Robert.
This natural method was effective, though it necessitated endurance. The plugin needed several years of continuous content production, community involvement, and progressive word-of-mouth promotion to achieve considerable momentum.
However, this steady development established a strong base of users who truly appreciated the product and became its supporters.
Ultimately, WP Activity Log evolved into a leading WordPress activity log and tracking plugin.
💡 Plugin Excellence: Prioritizing Feedback and Exceeding Expectations
After years of researching successful WordPress plugins, Robert formulated a well-defined understanding of the factors distinguishing top performers from other competitors.
He elaborated, “The distinction between the foremost plugins in each field and the others… usually lies in that extra 10% effort… Instead of settling for 90%, they pursued 95 or 96% completion.”
It isn’t necessarily about groundbreaking functionalities or radically different methods.
Frequently, the best plugins within a niche are comparable to their rivals, but they surpass them in implementation, user-friendliness, and the caliber of support provided.
This philosophy extends far beyond just the software itself. Robert believes exceptional support is often what transforms a good plugin into a market leader.
“Support is really important because you can have the best software in the world. If you don’t have support, slowly, slowly, you start losing customers.”
Robert Abela
Even today, with a team of seven people, Robert still handles support tickets himself.
It’s not because he has to. It’s because staying connected to users provides invaluable insights into how the plugins are actually being used.
“Every morning I like to try just support tickets myself… because I feel that if I don’t do that, I would be segregating myself in my own world,” he said.
This direct connection to users has revealed use cases that Robert never anticipated when first building WP Activity Log.
While he designed it mostly as a security tool for tracking potential breaches, users found creative applications he hadn’t considered.
“You designed your plugin to be used for A, B, and C, but people are using it for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H… So you get these ideas.”
Robert Abela
For instance, Robert has learned that magazine websites use his plugin to monitor editor productivity and track how many articles writers complete each week.
Online learning platforms have even used it to see which students are completing courses and which are dropping off.
These insights help with feature development and product positioning. Robert uses a simple rule for prioritizing new features based on user feedback.
“We prioritize features expected to be used by approximately 80% of users. Features with an anticipated usage of 20% or less may receive considerably lower priority,” Robert explained.
Robert Abela
The dedication to providing outstanding support, coupled with a development approach centered on user feedback, fostered a robust sense of customer loyalty. This proved invaluable as Robert contemplated a significant expansion.
He transitioned his side project into Melapress, now a thriving full-time business, featuring several plugins and a continually expanding team.
🚀 Scaling Melapress: Multiple Plugins and a Growing Team
After WP Activity Log achieved substantial success, Robert began exploring the possibility of developing additional plugins.
Depending solely on a single product for all revenue felt precarious. His background in security also provided him with numerous ideas regarding other problems he could address.
“I was never comfortable with the concept of relying on a single plugin as the sole source of income,” he stated. “It’s prudent to have multiple products and revenue streams as a safeguard.”
Robert Abela
The subsequent opportunity arose from an internal requirement.
Robert began collaborating with guest authors and required them to implement two-factor authentication. However, the available 2FA plugins were designed by developers, with a focus on developers, not typical WordPress users.
Consequently, he developed his own solution.
The initial version of WP 2FA offered the same fundamental functionality as other 2FA plugins. However, it also incorporated a straightforward setup wizard and intelligent enforcement policies, simplifying the onboarding process for users without technical expertise.
Today, WP2FA is one of the most popular 2FA plugins in the WordPress plugin repository.
☝ NoteFurthermore, we can confirm the effectiveness of the plugin. It is, in fact, our preferred method in our guide on implementing two-factor authentication in WordPress.
Melapress has grown since then to encompass other offerings such as Melapress Login Security and Role Editor, with additional plugins planned for release.
However, the core philosophy is consistent: recognize a genuine requirement, develop a superior solution, and thoroughly evaluate it.
To sustain this expansion, Robert also started recruiting staff, being mindful of the qualities he sought in new team members.
Whether concerning marketing, testing, design, or development, Robert prioritizes collaborative input over mere task completion.
“I want people who actually… with whom I can have very very good discussions… People who come in and say, ‘This could be better,’ and bring in ideas I haven’t thought of.”
Robert Abela
That approach has enabled Melapress to become a flourishing company with seven employees, which is continually expanding by heeding user feedback and emphasizing quality above all else.
💥 Are you interested in gaining further insights from accomplished WordPress entrepreneurs? Check out our full interview with Nicolas Lecocq, the creator of the OceanWP theme and the founder of DigiHold.
🎯 Lessons Learned: What Robert Would Do Differently Today
Robert’s progression from freelance work to establishing a company was not linear, which contributes to its relatability.
For the initial years, Melapress (originally WP White Security) developed through iterative testing, rather than a predetermined strategic plan.
Plugin concepts were pursued based on intuition. Systems were created (and occasionally redesigned) as the business scaled.
That initial method proved effective. However, looking back, Robert suggests a more deliberate strategy if starting anew.
“In retrospect, I would plan more thoroughly, conduct additional research, and prioritize well-informed choices over impulsiveness.”
Robert Abela
Without careful planning, initial choices sometimes resulted in technical or business liabilities that needed later correction.
“After a few years, you might realize the need to undo earlier actions.”
Despite this, Robert values the evolutionary journey that brought him here, viewing it as essential for learning.
“My path was unplanned; it evolved organically through experimentation and positive results. Growing into a full-time role was unexpected but welcome.”
Robert Abela
His journey underscores the value of action, especially when combined with curiosity, user input, and sustained effort, even with planning.
💭 Final Thoughts & Where to Find Robert’s Work
Currently, Robert manages a flourishing plugin enterprise, maintaining connection with the users who fueled its expansion.
He continues to review support inquiries and respond to plugin-related emails. He firmly believes that direct customer interaction distinguishes exceptional businesses.
“Some users are surprised by my replies, saying, ‘I didn’t anticipate a personal response.’ But we actively monitor our emails.”
Robert Abela
This dedication to customer satisfaction has propelled Melapress from a personal side venture to a recognized authority in WordPress security, relied upon by numerous website owners and supported by a dedicated team.
If you’d like to learn more about Robert’s work, you can check out the Melapress website. Or feel free to reach out via their contact page.
🌟 Want to learn more about the state of WordPress security today? Check out the results of the Melapress annual security survey — it’s full of interesting and up-to-date statistics.
📚 Bonus: Expert Resources for WordPress Security and Plugin Development
Want to follow in Robert’s footsteps and build your own successful plugin business?
Whether you’re just starting out or scaling your next product, here are some hand-picked CanadaCreate resources to help you grow:
- 🔐 The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide – Learn how to harden your site and avoid common vulnerabilities.
- 🧪 How to Add Your Plugin to the WordPress Plugin Directory – Step-by-step guide for getting your plugin in front of millions.
- 📈 WordPress Career Options – How to Make a Living With WordPress – Explore different ways to turn your skills into income.
- ✍️ How to Learn WordPress for Free (in a Week or Less) – Perfect if you’re just getting started.
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