Author Archives: Elayna Fernandez ~ The Positive MOM

Liquid Web – WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

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Liquid Web is an innovative company that has been serving the WordPress community for years! We’re ecstatic to have them join us as a WordCamp DFW Sponsor!
Liquid Web was started by a 17 year old in Lansing Michigan, from his garage. No joke! He built it on customer service, that is why we are the company we are today. We took his vision and how they put customers in the forefront of everyone’s mind and we still live like that today. Customer loyalty and service is what we are known for and we take great pride in that fact.
Lindsey Miller, Managed Applications Partner Marketing Manager for Liquid Web has loved working with Liquid Web.
I got into WordPress by marrying into it, I know it sounds funny, but when I started dating my now husband it was a natural fit to learn something new. I immediately fell in love with the community and what WordPress is all about and have loved being a part of it since that introduction in 2009. Oh my, that means 10 years for me in WordPress! Liquid Web has always served as a host to the WordPress community by offering top of the line servers and customer service that can’t be beat. Seriously, their NPS score is up there with Apple and Zappos (!!), in the last 5 years they have created a Managed WordPress and the very first Managed WooCommerce hosting platform in existence. The innovation around doing Managed WooCommerce is what gets Liquid Web a lot of attention these days and it keeps our teams happy to be working on something that is so new and exciting.
WordCamp DFW is not a first for Liquid Web! They are a very active part of our “family”.
WordCamp DFW is one of the can’t miss WordCamps for the Miller Family, as we are from Oklahoma it is just a quick hop over to DFW. I might have to do the math, but we have been to…well…a lot of them. Cory has spoken and keynoted several times and I was the keynote on Sunday last year. Our son is going to take part in kids camp this year, his first one! Liquid Web always has a strong presence at DFW. Chris Lema attends and has spoken several times as well as AJ Morris, Ani King and others.
Liquid Web Logo WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor
Liquid Web has an amazing story. They offer service that is like no other!

For over 15 years, Liquid Web has been delivering products, services and support designed specifically for mission-critical sites, stores and applications. Known for our high-performance services and exceptional customer support, we own and manage our own core data centers and provide a diverse range of fully managed hosting offerings, including Managed WordPress, and Managed WooCommerce Hosting. Our recent acquisition of iThemes continues to evolve our service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of our web-reliant, professional customers.

Liquid Web has a dedicated team of WordPress professionals who have been actively involved in the community for years. Beyond contributing code to the WordPress project, they’ve also been speaking at WordCamps, participating in WordPress-related groups and meetups, and creating open-sourced plugins that are used by WordPress users around the globe.

As an industry leader in customer loyalty, we’re known for our secure, reliable, fast, hassle-free hosting, backed by the Most Helpful Humans in Hosting™ (24x7x365 by phone, chat or ticket). At Liquid Web, we power content, commerce and potential for SMB entrepreneurs and the designers, developers and digital agencies who create for them. Everything we do is about being that partner you can trust.

We’re also excited because there will be quite a bit of surprises at the Liquid Web booth this year!
We stepped up our swag game a little this year. We will have our branded towels, stainless steel straws, camera covers and of course pens and stickers.
Liquid Web loves the WordPress community because of our togetherness.
WordPress is one of the few communities I have personally been a part of that everyone is so thoughtful and inclusive. There is chatter online and at events of all the activities that organizers, volunteers and attendees can do to make everyone feel welcome and supported. Even when I go to a WordCamp and do not know many people there is always a group that makes sure I feel comfortable and welcome. Fast friends are keywords when you go to a WordPress event and that just can’t be beat.
We are so grateful to have Liquid Web with us at WordCamp DFW 2019! Make sure to find them and enjoy some great conversation!
Liquid Web is a Platinum Global Sponsor, this was an investment we were happy to make in the WordPress community and we wanted to support WordPress in this way. Going to WordCamps like DFW, supporting organizers, meeting people new to WordPress and seeing old friends are only a few of the things that make us happy.
Give Liquid Web a shout out on social media @LiquidWeb – and tag @LindseyMillerWP, too!
We’d love to see you at this year’s WordCamp DFW!  Get your Tickets here!

Kinsta – WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

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Joining us this year, we have Kinsta as a WordCamp DFW Sponsor! Yay!

The WordPress community is awesome and we love interacting and meeting our clients face-to-face. Without the community, our company wouldn’t exist.

We always try and connect with the growing community as much as possible. Throughout 2019, Kinsta will have sponsored 25+ WordCamps along with a multitude of local WordPress Meetups happening around the globe. Our team attends these events every chance we get and as we continue to grow it’s something we plan to get even more involved with.

Kinsta had its start half-way across the world from our Texan community. They’ve come a long way!

Kinsta was started in 2013 by Mark Gavalda and three other individuals in a tiny apartment in Budapest, Hungary. Previously the founders were involved in website development and design work for clients on a contractual basis. Many of the websites were already built with WordPress, so learning the CMS came out of necessity. It was also easy to use and develop.

While working with clients the team discovered they couldn’t confidently recommend or find any high-quality WordPress hosting. Building an awesome website is pointless if it doesn’t load fast and provide a good user experience. Remember, this was over six years ago, and the industry was very different back then. 

Because of this, and the attraction off moving into a SaaS business model, they decided to start Kinsta. Their focus from the beginning was the desire to provide fast support from actual WordPress developers paired with lightning-fast speeds. Fast forward six years, Kinsta is now a US company with a team of 80+, and one of the fastest-growing managed WordPress hosts in the industry!

Kinsta Logo WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

They also have strong values and ethics when it comes to hosting.

Kinsta was created with a desire to create the best WordPress hosting platform in the world. We are veteran WordPress developers who realized that reliable WordPress hosting built on cutting-edge technology with a focus on speed, security, and stability was not the industry standard. We decided to change that.

We have never been a follower and beating the competition or convincing users to switch over was never our goal. We simply focus on what we believe in and this has resulted in attracting like-minded clients who were looking for a better hosting solution.   

This focus involves the following three objectives: 

  • Customer-centric: No matter the task at hand the team at Kinsta always puts the client first. We’re proud to build lasting relationships with our customers while actively listening. Their feedback, in turn, fuels our innovation for developing the best-in-class hosting solution.

  • Quality driven: We don’t do anything subpar and believe clients deserve the best! That’s why we take a hands-on approach at Kinsta and create all of our systems in-house. Our development, marketing, sales, and support teams all work closely together, while contributing and sharing ideas, so that nothing is left to chance.

  • Community focus: WordPress isn’t just a job for us, it’s a passion. From contributing to WordPress core, to sponsoring and attending WordCamps like WCDFW, the Kinsta team tries to give back whenever we can. We want to be a part of taking WordPress to that 50% market share.

Kinsta has an abundance of resources to find out what type of hosting is just right for you! Talk to them at their booth for more information.

Kinsta provides managed WordPress hosting (powered by Google Cloud Platform), with a focus on speed, security, and high-quality support. We host all types of sites, from small blogs up to Fortune 500 customers. We’ve worked some of the biggest names in the industry, such as GE, Intuit, Drift, Freshbooks, and Buffer.

Our auto-scaling and container technology allow for complete isolation of resources, ensuring your business stays online during traffic surges and is secured like Fort Knox. We provide 24/7 support 365 days a year from our team of expert WordPress engineers. 

We are developers ourselves and therefore are happy to offer support for complex installations such as Bedrock, reverse-proxy configurations, with access to tools such as SSH and WP-CLI on all plans.

One achievement our entire team is really proud of is the fact that we bootstrapped Kinsta from $0 to a 7-figure business. This has come with its own set of struggles and unique challenges, but it has also given us the flexibility to build the platform we envisioned from day one. Most of the features we add today come directly from user feedback, not solely because it impacts the bottom line.

“We are not smarter than anyone else. Success really all depends on you and how much you want to succeed.” – Tom Zsomborgi, CFO at Kinsta

Another thing we are proud of is that we were the first managed WordPress host in the industry to exclusively use Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Now many of our competitors have followed suit. This reaffirms that we made the right move. It also means that our support and sysadmin teams have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to GCP infrastructure. 

Sponsoring WordCamp DFW was an obvious choice for Kinsta! They were thrilled to get involved and we are grateful to have them.

Being a distributed company, location and team availability are always two things we have to consider when choosing which WordCamps our team can attend. 

One reason that sponsoring WordCamp DFW was a no brainer for us is that our Chief Customer Officer, Tom Sepper is located in Dallas, and our Head of Support, Jeff Paul, is in Oklamaha. So it’s a pretty short trip and our team is excited to meet everyone.

They have some special treats prepared for our WordCamp DFW attendees this weekend!

We’ve written a 160+ page book titled “How to Speed Up Your WordPress Site.” In it, we share everything from beginner tips to advanced strategies on how to scale your WordPress sites (from blogs to dynamic ecommerce sites) and get better performance. We’ll be giving away free copies of the book along with other various goodies at our Kinsta swag table. Make sure to stop by and say hello! We’d love to meet you.

Brian Jackson Kinsta WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

Brian Jackson is coming to represent Kinsta, and he can’t wait to meet everyone!

Fun fact about myself, or ironic rather. I’ve actually never been to a WordCamp! Many Kinsta team members are WordCamp veterans. But you’d be surprised how easy it is to get lost in the grind trying to scale a company and trying to push the boundaries of what is possible. But not to worry, I’ll be attending WordCamp US in the fall. And I’m sure it won’t be my last. 

Make sure to tag @kinsta and @brianleejackson when tweeting and give them a thankful shout out!

We’d love to see you at this year’s WordCamp DFW!  Get your Tickets here!

WPX Houston – WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

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This year, we’re pleased to have WPX Houston as a WordCamp DFW Sponsor!
WCDFW is the only active WordCamp in Texas (so far) and I wish my brand to be a part of it somehow so we can give it back to the community that gave me livelihood. I am one of the core organizers in the upcoming WordCamp Houston 2020 (That’s why I wrote “so far” in my previous sentence).
WPX Houston has been involved in WordCamps for several years. We’re proud to be the newest to join the roster.
I have been involved with the WordPress Community since 2015 through meetups and WordCamps. I have spoken in some meetups and volunteered in several WordCamps in India and in US.
Like other WordPress aficionados, WPX Houston has been a part of the digital and design world for quite some time.
During college days, I used to build small applications for local clients using VisualBasic and .Net. At some point of time I had to build websites and using ASP.net was an overkill. One of my professor asked me to use a CMS like Drupal or WordPress. I was not a fan of open source technology and I was not in impression to use any open source tech in anyway, so I didn’t touched either of it until after an year I had to build a Groupon-like website and I planned to use DotNetNuke (.net CMS). I wasn’t able to make it on time and had to surrender myself on using WordPress. That project was a huge fail and it made an impact on me and for a developer who earned a university level first prize building a AI driven robotic arms that was obvious. But this made me learn on why to spend time on re-inventing things and why not to focus on building what is missing. I left .net and embedded system programming forever and continued my journey of building proprietary solutions using WordPress as core.
WPX Houston Logo WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor
They are also dedicated and committed to quality, and helping their customers.
Our motive is not to be another Digital Marketing Agency or just Another Website Building company; Instead our motive is to use WordPress as an Operating System for Web that can power every nature of Web Application. The values of our brand is simple “Client Satisfaction” and no matter if we have to go an extra mile for that.
WPX Houston has grown to a team of developers and has had a long journey, but today they stand as a leader in the business.
On WordPress, I used to build & customize themes and plugins with some of the craziest ideas clients threw at me. Some of those ideas were making Group ordering using WooCommerce, Build-Your-Own IOT microcontroller kit, etc. Since the last 2 years I have had a team of developers and I lead them and I also work on some projects myself wherever needed. My biggest achievement so far is that I got to work with Toptal in 2016 which chooses the Top 3% of Software engineers to work with them.
Like any business, they are still experimenting, advancing, and trying new things. That’s one thing that makes WPX Houston unique!
The funny thing is, we make Web Applications for other people, but our own agency’s website was under development for more than an year when started in 2013. Even now our website runs on WP V4.
Visit their booth and ask questions this weekend!
We can offer a free initial discovery session with the ideas/tasks/challenges that attendees may have.
Interact with WPX Houston on Facebook – and be sure to visit their website!
We’d love to see you at this year’s WordCamp DFW!  Get your Tickets here!

DreamHost – WordCamp DFW 2019 Sponsor

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We’re so grateful to announce DreamHost as a sponsor at WordCamp DFW.

We at DreamHost are passionate supporters of the Open Web.  A web that gives voice to the voiceless using the power of open source software is the purest expression of the web’s potential to foster understanding and collaboration.

DreamHost has been sponsoring WordCamps for years. We are glad to have them with us in DFW!

It’s important to us to support the WordPress project however we can.  Sponsoring WordCamps is a big part of that effort! We speak at WordCamps across the globe regularly, and we make incredible connections with very talented content creators and entrepreneurs every time!  WordCamps tap into an energy that’s very rare to find in the tech world.

 

DreamHost logo 2019 WordCamp DFW Sponsor

 

Online collaboration and open source software are things that go hand-in-hand, and DreamHost has been using both since almost the very beginning!

When DreamHost first began in 1997, open source software formed the basis of our hosting platform.  In those early days we understood the promise of online collaboration that leads to successful open source software projects, and we embraced it wholeheartedly.
Early open source web apps reflected the best of the web and what it could become.  One thing that became very clear early on was that the community around WordPress was welcoming, passionate, and extremely talented.  Many of us ran WordPress ourselves for our own personal projects. We watched for years as more and more of our customers started running WordPress on their accounts; it was clear this was something big!
Make sure to visit the DreamHost booth to find out more about the hosting experience, and DreamPress!
DreamHost provides one of the best WordPress hosting experiences on the web.  From shared hosting to advanced VPS hosting to our managed WordPress hosting solution, DreamPress!
DreamPress provides a custom-built hosting environment designed from the ground-up with WordPress’ unique server needs in mind.  It frees website owners from having to worry about the technical side of running WordPress, and lets them focus instead on building their audiences.

They are (almost) as excited as we are to be here. Let’s give them a warm, friendly welcome!

The WordPress community has been consistently supportive and helpful.  We love coming to WordCamps to hear everyone’s stories – and there are a lot of them!

Open Source is really important to DreamHost, so be sure to gather up your questions. We’re sure they’d love to help you out.

One of our eight core values is “Embrace Open Source.”  It’s a code that we live by!
Make sure to tweet at @dreamhost or give them a shout-out on Instagram during the conference!
We’d love to see you at this year’s WordCamp DFW!  Get your Tickets here!

How To Charge What You Are Really Worth with James Bullis

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We’re so happy to welcome James Bullis as a speaker at WordCamp DFW. In this talk, “From Volume To Value: How To Charge What You Are Really Worth,” James Bullis will share with you how he went from trying to sell $300 websites to selling $24,000 packages.

When technicians go out on their own, they usually have a hard time understanding what they are worth. They probably learned their skills in school. Hopefully, they have some hands on experience. Then they typically go out on their own in order to experience more freedom. Then reality sets in. They get afraid because it seems like everyone is competing with them. They probably think that the best solution is to charge a lower price. They can always work harder. What they typically experience is no freedom at all. They start wishing they had their old job back and they fail.

James Bullis’ goal is to stop this cycle. He has been on this same journey and over the last few years, and he’s had to take his time to understand the right mindset that it takes to run a business.

During this time, I also developed a process to make it easier to run my business. And finally, I found some tools that help me stand out no matter what I charge for my services.

Even though he’s never spoken at any WordCamp, James Bullis loves to teach and share what he has learned over the last 20 years with other people in the WordPress community. That’s why he helps organize his local Meetup. He’s even planning on bringing a WordCamp to his city!

How To Charge What You Are Really Worth with James Bullis

James Bullis has been working with WordPress for about 12 years. He was working as a web manager at an agency, and they had a developer that was responsible for setting up WordPress for clients who wanted a blog.

One day, he was out of the office and we needed to set up WordPress. I had heard that it was easy to set up. About five minutes later I had it up and running. I started realizing how powerful it could be. The agency would spend almost a year cutting up and designing websites in tables. We quickly figured out how to use WordPress as a CMS and bring our development time down to just a few days.

Today, they use WordPress exclusively and design and build over 100 websites each year. They’ve built over 1000 websites on WordPress!

One of the main reasons why I am so loyal to WordPress is because of the community. I had my first real experience at WordCamp in San Francisco in 2010. It was during that conference that I met many of the other rockstars from the community, including Matt Mullengweg. I really began to understand that the community behind WordPress is what will keep the platform alive. I have made many friends online simply because of the amazing WordPress community.

We know you will benefit from James Bullis’ expertise. He was recently attending another WordCamp and more than once the speaker asked people in the room whether they were contractors, freelancers, or employees.

No one asked if they were business owners. Being a business owner is a different mindset and changes the way that you position yourself to your prospect. The audience should learn some of my secrets on how to better position yourself so that you can get paid what you are worth.

James Bullis is also passionate about reminding others that “our health is our wealth.”

Last year, my family and I realized that we needed to take better care of ourselves. We stayed on a pretty strict diet for over a year. My wife and daughter each lost 80 pounds each. I was able to lose over 135 pounds. Unfortunately, I had some health issues that required me to stop my diet and regained a lot of the weight. I’m excited to get back to living a healthy lifestyle once again.

We believe that his talk will inspire you to make empowering decisions for your life and for your business.

How To Charge What You Are Really Worth with James BullisWhen James Bullis first started out on his own, he felt like he had to compete and he believed (like many people) that the only way to compete was on price.

I was so wrong. Over the last few years, I have learned that there is more than enough good-paying work for web design businesses. That’s why I want to share what I have learned so that other people can make a good living with their business as well.

Tweet during James Bullis’s talk using #WCDFW and ask him about being born in Long Beach California to 16-year-old parents.

My parents didn’t want me to grow up in the gang environment so my dad joined the Army. My first memory was meeting him in Germany. I ended up growing up in Germany and only spoke German until I started school.

We’d love to see you at this year’s WordCamp DFW!  Get your Tickets here!

Learn WordPress, The Automated Way, with Michael Perrin

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Michael Perrin’s mantra is “No manual clicks whatsoever in the web interface for deploying a WordPress project!”

He’d like to help WordCamp DFW attendees understand the benefits of a fully automated deployment process and discover some tools that can be really useful to developers in their development process, such as Docker, WP-CLI, Makefiles, and an additional one that he has developed to manage data.

Automation can be useful when several developers work together on a project, or when several environments are used. Michael Perrin will show the benefits of setting up such a workflow.

Michael Perrin - WordPress, the automated way

Michael Perrin says he’s always enjoyed the ease of use of WordPress and created several blogs with it as it has always been one of the most convenient solution.

I would say that my story with WordPress is almost a love and hate affair…! Spoiler alert, love came later!
However, as a full-stack web developer specialized in PHP development with the Symfony framework, WordPress was quite frustrating from a developer perspective as I got used to the latest best practices and features like code quality, testability, advanced design patterns, and many high quality libraries. I had the impression that WordPress was a little bit left behind and not embracing enough all the latest developments that the PHP community has introduced.

When he decided to WordPress a try again for developing websites, he was amazed by how WordPress evolved both on a technical point of view and from a user point of view as well:

The REST API that got introduced a few years ago is really clean and very handy to use, and makes WordPress very easy to integrate into other systems. The Gutenberg blocks, with the use of React, really convinced me that WordPress is moving in the right direction. They have a huge potential and introduce a new way to develop and extend websites.
On top of that, I am very much amazed by the quality of the plugins that are developed for WordPress. They provide an unrivaled ease of use to users thanks to the extensibility WordPress provides.

In the end I got quite surprised that I ended up loving WordPress again!

Michael Perrin and his wife publish a blog on WordPress.com, of which he says it’s a great way to share their experience in Texas and the US with her friends and family!

The user interface is really nice and easy to use and WordPress is a perfect fit to share our stories.

Besides of that, the introduction of WordPress at the company he works for has been a success. All the available plugins makes it very easy to integrate new features into the company’s websites.

I was quite amazed that I could easily develop some specific extensions for the needs of the company. Developing customized blocks is much easier that I thought, and that allows our editors to easily insert dynamic content into the website.
I developed for instance a reusable Gutenberg block that allows to insert a filtered list of products that the company sells on any page or blog post. I intend to develop more blocks like this one to allow our editors to create many more interactions in the website. I was glad I managed to easily integrate the React library into my WordPress theme to to create dynamic interactions like product or blog posts filtering for our visitors.

Michael Perrin has not had an extensive experience with the WordPress community so far as WordCamp DFW will be the second WordCamp he’s attending and speaking at (after WordCamp Vancouver).

I chose to come at the DFW WordCamp as I saw all the interesting topics from last year, and that is being held in Texas! I also really liked how welcoming the community is, and that first time speakers were encouraged to apply. I really like to see that the community is not only a developer community but with many other profiles as well. The community is full of designers, developers, people working in marketing, and so on. I could see topics that are not only related to development on the wordpress.tv website open the mind. I also really like that there is a strong focus on diversity in the community.

Michael Perrin says he may have a slightly different approach of development with WordPress due to his past experiences with other technologies like the Symfony framework. This is why he introduced some tools that may be a little bit less common and that the tries to automate all things in WordPress.

When I introduced the tools that I have used in my projects to my colleagues, I realized that they found them interesting and that what I found out could be shared and used (or even improved) by the rest of the community!

We are so excited that Michael Perrin is sharing his knowledge, perspective, and expertise with us!

Tweet @michael_perrin during Michael Perrin’s talk using #WCDFW and ask him about his love of traveling by train.

I have traveled by train in the US (including coming back to Houston from San Francisco or Detroit where I attended conferences on PHP).

Have you gotten your WordCamp DFW tickets? Act fast – we’re getting close!