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Marc Gratch is the budget and lead wrangler for this year’s WordCamp DFW.

I fell into development.

In 2010 I and two others had been running a brand management company for three years. We had lofty goals of planning and executing integrated marketing campaigns; selling websites was an easy way to find clients. At this point in my life I knew nothing about code, even though a majority of our business was based on building .NET websites.

After some internal turmoil; our company found itself missing a partner, some clients (and expected revenue), equipment and mostly our pride and sense of stability. Frankly, we weren’t prepared. Suddenly we had to manage the remaining .NET projects that we had no clue how to handle. Uncertain how to proceed, our SEO guy introduced us to WordPress.

With about 30 plugins, a poorly made custom theme, some glue, scotch tape and a lot of luck, we became a WordPress shop.

Skip ahead to 2013; I was now working independently building custom themes & plugins for small businesses. Essentially everything I knew about coding the WordPress community taught me. The problem was, I never actively chose this path for myself. I enjoyed coding, but unlike my first business, this wasn’t planned. In fact, I was generally unhappy. I was working too much and getting paid too little, if at all sometimes. Something had to give. In 2014, I fired all my clients.

My wife and I were expecting our first child and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself. I knew I wanted to write code and I knew I loved working with WordPress, but I felt certain I was done with client work. First and foremost, I spent my time letting my distractions lead me wherever seemed most intriguing. I read everything I could, about WordPress, coding, physics, Spain…? I truly allowed my mind to wander. I would find myself uselessly refreshing my newsreader for new articles during the day so I turned my attention to podcasts and WordPress.tv, which quickly brought my attention to WordCamps.

In the summer of 2014 we decided to have our last child-free vacation; we were headed to NYC. Where I would also go to my first WordCamp.

I can only describe my first WordCamp experience as transformational. I was hooked. The first person I met was THE ONE AND ONLY Andrew Nacin – I caught him unaware getting his morning coffee, poor guy didn’t see the fandom coming. He was very gracious, and though he may have been trying to get rid of me, he introduced me to some other amazing folks, that I had been following for years. When I returned to Fort Worth I was on a WordPress high, I wanted to share as much as I could about WordPress and the community. I got home and applied to speak at WordCamp DFW, where I spoke for the first time about WordPress.

At my very first WordCamp (WCNYC2014) I learned so much that this blog post simply could not do it justice. But the most important lesson I walked away with was: The WordPress community is (mostly) virtual and volunteer based. The best way to succeed is to get involved, get noticed, and don’t suck. This stuck with me. I now speak, volunteer, and (occasionally) sponsor WordCamps all over the country as well as help organize WordCamp DFW and the Fort Worth WordPress User Group meetup.

In the time since WCNYC2014 I get to consult, teach, build products and work on some very interesting yet challenging projects. All the while getting to travel, network and discover great WordPress friends –which are more aptly described as great friends. And by discovering the WordPress community and amazing people who have helped me grow my business acumen, refine my focus, strengthen my connections and become a better developer than I had thought possible.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event, speak at the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Michael Gillihan is the After Party and Print Wrangler for this year’s WordCamp DFW.

My WordPress story? I don’t have one, but I can tell you a bit of my story and how I came to work with WordPress.

After my first daughter was born, I joined the U.S. Army and spent several years in the service. It was during my second 15 month deployment that I decided it was time to hang up my spurs, so to speak. My daughters had given too much for as young as they were and deserved to have their father be a larger part of their life than a garbled video chat could provide.

I came home to Fort Worth in 2008 as the markets collapsed. I found my job prospects had quickly dried up. A strong will to stay in my home town and a fruitless job search found me looking for other means of making an income. Having built a few websites in 90’s, I began digging into the web and looking for opportunities.

My renewed interest in tech combined with a lifelong love for the outdoors led me to create an outdoor product ecommerce shop. I spent roughly a year working on it only to realize how much I dislike running ecommerce shops. However, while I quickly grew to dislike the actual business, I fell in love with development and found myself pouring through books and learning more and more about Yahoo’s weird RTML.

This was also the time when I found WordPress. I added a blog to my shop and it was so dang easy to customize compared to Yahoo. Eventually, I abandoned Yahoo, moving to PrestaShop and then to WooCommerce.

“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” ~ Meister Eckhart

Sometime in late 2009, I was asked to create a new website for a local church’s Child Development Center. This was the first site I completed that was 100% WordPress and it sure lit the fire. After that site, I got a referral for a paid gig and then another. It started becoming clear that I could make decent money doing something that I enjoyed.

I dug in and spent the next several years freelancing and learning CSS, HTML, PHP, JS, etc. I sat through about a billion courses on Treehouse and other sites, obsessed on all things CSS-Tricks and eventually ventured out to our local WP meetup where Carrie Dils was giving a talk and let us know her current rate. I was blown away. I went home that night and mentally doubled my rates.

October 2014 rolled around and with it came my first WordCamp. I was hooked. Compelled by Cory Miller to “Click Publish”, admonished by Paul Clark to yet again raise my rates, and inspired by my wife, Sheryle Gillihan, as folks got to share in a little bit of how awesome she is during her Project Scoping talk. My cup was full.

In the 3 years since, I’ve continued growing my business and pivoted to focus my work on doing some good in this world. I’ve developed platforms that serve continents while promoting civil society, launched national initiatives that help our youth become financially literate, and played a part, however small, in helping children who have lost loved ones cope with their grief. I have attended WordCamps all over the place and other WordPress related conferences like PressNomics and CaboPress. I’ve even crashed other meetups like the New Orleans WordPress Meetup where they gave me Wapuu pins, too cool. Almost every person I have met has made a positive impression upon me.

The WordPress community can be addicting. It fills you up and when you need more it’s there welcoming you back.

If someone were to ask me why they should attend WordCamp DFW, I wouldn’t tell them to come learn how to build a blog or that they can discuss REST API’s to their heart’s content. I wouldn’t say that they will leave rejuvenated and full of ideas about their next project. I would simply say “To fill your cup.”

This November, you should come visit and break bread with like-minded people in your community. You should share your own story and knowledge so that you might empower others and you should allow them to empower you!

I’ll be at WordCamp DFW this year. Come find me and let’s have a chat!

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event, speak at the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Stefanie A. Newton is the design and website wrangler for this year’s WordCamp DFW.

WordPress has enabled me to combine my technical and creative sides into a business that allows me to build comprehensive website solutions, due largely to the vast amount of available knowledge and assistance generously provided by others.

WordPress is open source software, you don’t have to pay anything to use it, and that fact helps drive the spirit of giving back that is so prevalent and why I’m glad to help organize this year’s WordCamp DFW. But how did I come to use WordPress?

My career with computers goes back a long way. Back to my senior year of high school working as a data entry clerk (at a time when you had to hire someone to “run the computer”). I worked my way up from there over the years to the level of software development, working with Pick BASIC, SQL, and VBA.

I started working on websites by creating my own, writing HTML in Notepad. Then I made a few for others the same way. Meanwhile, I had transitioned away from software development and was trying other types of work, but what I really wanted to do was work from home. I decided to start my own company, which at first focused on editing and proofreading, but quickly shifted to creating websites.

I needed a way for my clients to work with and maintain their own websites, so I tried one of the all-in-one hosted website builder options. While that was much better and allowed my clients to enter their own content and make some site changes, there were still drawbacks, such as frustrating interfaces and builder branding being inserted into the free versions of the user websites.

I started researching and comparing website frameworks and liked what I saw with WordPress. I was able to quickly learn from all of the tutorials, forums, blogs, and other resources available. After creating my own themes using the component libraries of Bootstrap and Foundation, I discovered the Genesis Framework by StudioPress. Now I create website solutions as nerdworker.com and work exclusively with WordPress and Genesis as my preferred tools.

As someone who considers themselves extremely introverted, I was slow to connect with the WordPress community, but eventually got up the nerve to attend our local Fort Worth Meetup. It was a great decision and I connected with welcoming and knowledgeable people there and also online through Twitter, Facebook, and Slack. While not without its share of drama at times, I can honestly say that you would be hard-pressed to find a group of people more welcoming and generous with their knowledge than the WordPress community. So, don’t be afraid to reach out and connect.

WordCamps allow you to take those connections to the next level. My first WordCamp was New York City 2014. It was exciting to be among so many others who also loved WordPress and spend two immersive days learning new things. It was also a chance to see so many people in person that I had only read about or corresponded with online.

Since then I have attended all of our rebooted local DFW WordCamps: 2014 through 2016. I have also participated as a volunteer and sponsor, as a way to give back to the community and help ensure that these events continue to be a helpful resource for everyone. In the future, I hope to attend WordCamps in many other regions as well.

This year, it’s exciting that we have expanded to a two-day event. I hope to see many familiar faces and new ones as well. Even if you’re new to attending, don’t miss this opportunity to learn from, and connect with, the larger WordPress community and say “Howdy!” to WordCamp DFW 2017.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event, speak at the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!