Just before WordCamp Europe in Basel, Switzerland, I sat down with Bluehost’s new CEO about the shake up at Newfold Digital and Bluehost’s new ecommerce products.
Bluehost are one of the best web hosting providers and specifically one of the best WordPress hosting options. The changes promise to bring more power, features, and simplicity to millions of users.
In this interview we talk about how Sachin came to his position as Bluehost CEO, what the future holds for Bluehost and Bluehost customers, and talked about how Bluehost deliver on their promise to customers.
Congratulations on your new role as CEO of Bluehost. Can you please tell me a little bit about your journey to this position?
My journey to becoming CEO of Bluehost has been shaped by a deep commitment to customer success and a passion for building innovative solutions. I began my career in sales and marketing, working directly with customers to help them leverage technology in meaningful ways. This hands-on experience instilled in me a customer-first mindset that has guided my approach throughout my career.
Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working with leading technology companies–including HP, StubHub, McAfee, and WP Engine–across both B2C and B2B environments. These experiences have given me a broad perspective on leveraging data, driving growth, and adapting to rapidly evolving markets. Most importantly, they reinforced the value of truly understanding customer needs and building products that empower users.
This focus on customer-centricity has been the common thread throughout my professional journey. Alongside this, I’m passionate about giving back to the community–sharing insights on privacy, digital transformation, and the evolving landscape of ecommerce. This blend of customer focus, innovation, and community engagement is what brought me to Bluehost, and it continues to drive my vision for the company.
There’s a bit of a shake up happening at Newfold Digital. What’s exciting about it and what does it mean for Bluehost and Bluehost customers?
Newfold’s recent organizational changes have created a dedicated focus for Bluehost, and I am honored to lead this next chapter. This new structure enables us to channel our energy and investment into developing solutions that go far beyond traditional hosting. Our vision is to evolve our platform in line with what customers value most today–AI-driven innovation, simplicity, and seamless commerce.
We are committed to making Bluehost more intuitive and accessible, integrating our tools to deliver a unified and performant experience that empowers customers, particularly SMBs, to achieve exceptional performance without the scale or resources of large enterprises. Our customers are already experiencing the benefits of these enhancements, especially within our ecommerce offerings. Moving forward, we will continue to embed AI-powered simplicity and a relentless focus on performance and customer-centricity into everything we do.
One of the key features of the previous iteration of the ecommerce plans was inventory integration across platforms. Have any features been sunset and what do you think are the key new features?
Absolutely, platform integration remains a core focus for us. One of the primary needs for SMBs and content creators is the ability to launch their websites and online stores quickly and efficiently. Our philosophy is to streamline and accelerate this development process, reducing complexity wherever possible.
While WordPress offers an unparalleled ecosystem and flexibility, the sheer volume of 65,000 available plugins can be daunting. Our aim is to make commerce creation truly frictionless – leveraging the strengths of open source and WordPress, while removing barriers for our users.
Discovery is the next critical step, and it is rapidly evolving with advancements in large language models (LLMs). We are investing in cutting-edge tools, such as augmenting traditional robot.txt with standardize LLM.txt, to ensure our customers’ sites are easily discoverable online.
We are also enhancing seamless integrations for campaign management, promotions, discounts, and email marketing. Features like single-click checkout and integrated payment solutions are central to reducing friction and maximizing conversions.
Our product roadmap is centered on the entire commerce journey, from creation and discovery to conversion, and you will continue to see these innovations reflected in our offerings moving forward.
What else is new about the ecommerce platform?
We are continuously enhancing our ecommerce platform to deliver a more intuitive and streamlined experience for our users. This includes integration of essential tools for campaign management, promotions, and email marketing, all designed to work together effortlessly.
A key focus is minimizing friction throughout the customer journey, particularly at checkout. Features such as single-click checkout and integrated payment solutions ensure a smooth and efficient purchasing process.
Our overarching goal is to provide a cohesive, AI-powered platform that supports our customers at every stage, from store creation and discovery to conversion, enabling businesses to thrive in today’s digital environment.
In the traditional sense when you think of an ecommerce store you think landing page, inventory, and checkout but influencers are now having a much bigger impact on buying decisions and places we shop online. What are content creators to Bluehost and how are the ecommerce plans designed around them and our new ways of shopping and selling?
Commerce is increasingly influenced by influencers, communities, and content creators. Reputation and trust are increasingly built through endorsements from these key opinion leaders, a trend amplified by advancements in large language models (LLMs).
For content creators and influencers, the natural next step is often to start selling their own products or services, or the products they endorse. These are typically small teams that may not have all the technical skills needed to build and manage an online store. That’s why we’re focused on providing a fast, easy, AI-powered platform with low-code or no-code options. This approach enables creators to launch products quickly and offer their audiences a seamless, impulse-friendly purchasing experience. Features such as single-click checkout and integrated payments are specifically designed to support and empower this audience.
You’ve mentioned solving problems for users, how did you identify the challenges of your customers?
With over 5 million WordPress users, and 13 million Yoast active installations globally, we benefit from a large and highly engaged user base that provides continuous feedback. Our support organization is deeply involved, offering customers direct access to support agents worldwide. Insights from support interactions, behavioral data, and customer surveys are regularly shared with our product team to inform development.
Many of our employees are also active users, building sites and engaging with the community, which fosters a strong sense of empathy for our customers’ needs. By triangulating feedback from users, support teams, and industry opinion leaders, we’re able to identify emerging trends and develop the right tools for our customers. In today’s market, speed and responsiveness are more important than ever.
400k monthly visits is a lot for a monthly plan on shared hosting (and especially for less than $20/mo). What performance can users expect at this level and how can plans scale with Bluehost to adapt to the demands of growing online stores?
Our shared hosting plans are designed primarily for SMBs and content creators who want to get online quickly and may experience spikes in traffic. Our plans are powered by cutting-edge, global cloud infrastructure, offering the speed, reliability, and scalability modern businesses demand—from anywhere in the world.
For businesses with high-scale ecommerce needs – such as those with extensive product catalogs or millions of concurrent users – shared hosting may not provide the level of performance or security required. For these scenarios, we offer advanced cloud solutions with 100% uptime SLA, robust security, reliability, and custom coding capabilities.
Our goal is to make hosting as seamless and scalable as possible, allowing customers to grow and adapt as their needs evolve. The 400,000 monthly visits figure serves as a safety net for our shared hosting plans, but for consistently high traffic or more demanding requirements, our cloud and advanced hosting solutions are the ideal choice.
