Recurrent Ventures owns some of the most recognizable media brands in the world — Popular Science, Futurism, Outdoor Life, and The Drive, to name a few. Each came with its own legacy systems, outdated codebases, and unique publishing challenges.

The mission: modernize fast, without losing each brand’s voice.

The answer: WordPress VIP.

Recurrent’s portfolio included sites running on everything from custom-built CMSes to code written a decade ago by developers long gone. Scaling, innovating, or even maintaining these platforms had become increasingly inefficient and risky.

“A lot of them came to us with custom tech stacks or with code that’s been written by this one guy 10 years ago… That’s why we decided to go to WordPress VIP. We needed to bring these sites into the modern era — lean, efficient, scalable.”

– Aaron Segal, Principal Product Manager, Recurrent Ventures

The challenge wasn’t just technical debt. It was about enabling growth. Recurrent needed a unified, flexible platform that could handle migrations at speed, reduce costs, and empower both developers and editors.

In 2022, Recurrent standardized on WordPress VIP. The team leaned into WordPress’ block-first approach, giving each brand its own editorial voice while maintaining a consistent architecture across the portfolio.

“It was important for us to make a CMS that didn’t suck. Every site got a light redesign, the blocks they wanted, the systems they wanted — and then we could iterate.”

– Aaron Segal, Principal Product Manager, Recurrent Ventures

With reusable blocks, a component created for one brand (like a high-performing newsletter signup on The Drive) could be cloned, rebranded, and deployed instantly on Popular Science or Outdoor Life. What once took weeks of development now takes a fraction of the time and effort.

• Seven migrations in eight months, each streamlined by WordPress VIP tooling.
• Faster site redesigns, including a full rebuild of Task & Purpose in just two weeks.
• Centralized architecture that reduces technical overhead while increasing editorial freedom.

The results are both operational and audience-facing:

• 14% increase in time on site.
• 16% decrease in bounce rate.
• 14% increase in session duration.
• Commerce and editorial content more engaging, easier to produce.
• Developers freed from platform firefighting to focus on innovation.

“A migration is always an opportunity to improve. We’ve not only solved tech debt, but also built a foundation for interactive tools, subscriptions, commerce — whatever comes next. And WordPress can scale with that.”

– Aaron Segal, Principal Product Manager, Recurrent Ventures

Today, Recurrent’s teams can move faster, pivot quickly, and focus on what matters most: delivering meaningful, engaging content to millions of readers worldwide.