My WordPress Story.

I had to go back in the archives to confirm this but I started this site 2004!

I started writing with a lot of nonsense about a lot nonsense and I’ve archived just about all of my old posts because of this.

Something buried in those posts is a journey from Movable Type, closed software that I couldn’t comprehend the language it was built on; to WordPress, an open-source “project” that allowed me to easily learn and extend.

My WP Developer Story.

I continued to play/learn/develop with WordPress and in 2005, I released a bunch of themes and one of my first plugins named Search Everything.

Search Everything ended up being surprisingly popular, and something I was proud of creating. For the longest time if anyone googled “WordPress Search” it would be at the top. Lorrelle linked to my site. It was awesome!

After that, I wanted to be part of the WordPress community, and I tried to involve myself a bit more. I was at the first WordCamp in San Francisco and I worked on contributing back to the project.

I learned a lot during this time! The biggest thing I learned was that I could make my hobby a job.

Making money with WordPress.

To kick off my freelance web development “career” I started Sprout Venture in 2008. Over those years I was lucky to work with a lot of talented designers and developers at Modern Tribe and manage clients on some outstanding projects.

One of those projects was Smart eCart (formally Group Buying Site), a Premium WordPress Social E-Commerce plugin that we had developed and supported from ’09 – ’14. This project (amongst others) provided me with some great experience in premium products and made me determined to build Sprout Invoices on my own.

6 Years of Sprout Invoices

Sprout Invoices was built because of the many frustrating years using invoicing services Freshbooks and Harvest. With my experience in building and supporting premium WordPress products for clients, I made the decision to start Sprout Apps in mid-2014.

While running Sprout Invoices it was never a company full of staff. I did just about all of the development, support, marketing, and janitorial work for 6 years.

In early 2020, I decided it was time for me to stop holding Sprout Invoices back, I was tired. Luckily for myself and the many customers, I found an excellent home at InMotion hosting.

What am I doing now?

A lot at the moment:

  • APAZED!
  • Starting to work with WordPress product owners to grow their products into a business.
  • Coaching my son’s baseball team.