A Community That Transcends Labels

WordPress has changed my life in so many ways.

This is the story of how I discovered WordPress and used it to build a business that gives me financial freedom and a flexible lifestyle. 

It’s the story of how the unique nature of the WordPress community has allowed me to achieve my dreams, without the obstacles and prejudices which are common in other industries. 

It’s the story of how I haven’t achieved this “despite” being a woman founder and a mother. And how it wasn’t “because of” these things either. Instead, it was because of the incredible WordPress community which transcends these labels. 

The Beginning – Building a Career Without a Goal

I’ve always been extremely motivated and hard working, getting top marks at school and University. However, as a child I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. 

Everyone around me seemed to have specific ambitions to work towards. My sister wanted to be a doctor. My Mum had always wanted to be a doctor too. My Dad had always wanted to be a TV producer. And surprise surprise, they all achieved those goals. 

But I was different, as I had never seen a job that I wanted to do.

It felt like there was something wrong with me.

Careers advisors tried to force me into a category. This was normally very basic, for example: “You’re good at writing, you should be a journalist” – regardless of the fact that I obviously didn’t have the right personality type for that. 

However, it didn’t really matter because I was hard working enough to do well at whatever I tried, and I didn’t feel I needed a specific purpose – whatever other people thought. I chose my favorite subjects to study at University (English Literature and Philosophy), focussing on the skills it would give me rather than what career it would lead to. And when I graduated in 2002, I applied for a range of jobs where I felt like I had the required skills. It took about 20 attempts, but eventually I got a job offer. 

I didn’t enjoy my first job, which was being a Technical Writer for a software company. After that, I got a job as a Trainee Manager for a relatively small company – and that’s when things started to get interesting. I discovered that by being enthusiastic and showing my potential, I could mould the job around my skills rather than the other way round. I’m good at research and writing, so the company gave me responsibilities in those areas and let me take over the company newsletter, communication and marketing. 

Since then, every role I’ve had (including at Barn2) has evolved around my skills and experience. This makes it much more interesting, as well as more useful to the company! I realised that you don’t need a specific career goal. Instead, you can just focus on what you’re good at and where your interests lie, and everyone benefits. 

The Drive to Do More

When I started my career, I absolutely did not have the skills or independence to start my own company. The UK education system does nothing to encourage budding entrepreneurs, or even to acknowledge entrepreneurship as a possible career option. My path had always been to go to University and then “get a job”. 

However, it was the early 2000’s and the world was changing. I could see the internet taking the world by storm and creating opportunities that had never existed before. I enviously watched people who were becoming successful by building innovative online businesses. I didn’t just want their success – I wanted the flexible lifestyles that they were achieving by working for themselves. 

My husband Andy and I talked endlessly about how we wanted to stop working for other people and start a business together.

However, neither of us were big risk-takers or “big ideas” people. As a result, we stayed in our jobs for the rest of our 20’s, feeling more and more fed up and longing for more freedom. 

Discovering WordPress While Becoming a Mother

Eventually, in 2009/10 we agreed for Andy to quit his job to start a web design company. The plan was for him to do the technical work, while I would do the marketing, content and SEO alongside my main job. My salary was just about enough to support both of us through the early days, so while it was the biggest risk we had ever taken, it wasn’t a huge gamble.

While Andy was a Senior Software Developer, he had to teach himself web design and PHP. We chose to start a web design business because it felt like an easy market to enter, and would nicely combine his technical abilities with my business and marketing skills. We didn’t have the confidence to start a business that required large upfront investment or a higher level of risk. 

While our initial focus was designing websites for small local businesses, Andy discovered WordPress during our first project. He immediately realized that it was the best way to build any type of website. I remember being sceptical when he first told me about it because it sounded like a template-based blogging platform, but he was absolutely right! We used it for all our clients’ websites. 

In 2011, our daughter Sophia was born.

Surprisingly, being a mother actually helped me to build the business.

Andy and I had felt comfortable reducing our income to one salary, but it was much scarier for us both to quit our jobs. After all, that was the point where our finances would be completely reliant on the business. 

Fortunately, becoming a mother eased this transition because my income naturally reduced during my year’s maternity leave. My parents were amazingly helpful while Sophia was a baby, giving me the opportunity to breast-feed every couple of hours while working on the business in between (and often at the same time!). It was also nice having Andy working from home, which meant that I got more help and felt less alone with the baby than if he had to go out to work. 

It wasn’t easy. When Sophia was little, I always felt that she was different from other babies but when I raised my concerns, people told me not to be silly. At 6 months old, it became more obvious and she was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood epilepsy along with a lot of uncertainty for the future. I have never been so disappointed to be proved right! Sophia was given strong medication which made her very ill. Luckily the medication worked, but it was a terrifying time. 

Sophia’s illness made me realise how important it is to have flexible work that can fit around your lifestyle.

While Andy and I did less work during this period, we still kept moving forward with some projects. I remember discussing one client’s website in a hospital waiting room! This helped to take our mind off things, while also helping to pay the bills. I’m not sure how we would have copied if we had traditional jobs where we were expected to be in the office.  

When it was time to finish maternity leave and return to my previous job, I wanted to quit and stay with Barn2 full-time, but was still too scared to make the commitment. Fortunately, ‘fate’ made the decision for me because my employer decided to withdraw all their family-friendly policies with no notice. They refused to allow me to work part-time, while at the same time trying to downgrade my role and reduce my salary by about 40%! To make a long story short, this created the perfect opportunity to jump head first into the business, which I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do otherwise. 

After that, the web design business grew quickly. We grew a name for ourselves as one of the only UK companies specializing in WordPress, and had clients all over the world. You can read about this in more detail in my previous HeroPress essay, “Building a New Life”.

The Switch to WordPress Plugins

True to form, after a few years of building a successful client-facing web design agency, I wanted more. Client work was very demanding in terms of time and commitment, and it was difficult to take time off work. I hired freelance designers and developers to help with the workload, but was managing more projects than I could handle. 

In 2015, Andy and I took a month off work to travel around France in a motorhome. It was the last chance to do this during term time as our daughter Sophia was about to start school. One of my freelance project managers looked after our clients and I tried to switch off for once. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out and I returned home to a lot of unhappy clients! One project completely imploded while I was away, and I remember responding to some very stressful emails by the pool at one campsite. 

As owner of a WordPress agency, I was very familiar with a range of WordPress themes and plugins. I watched the big product companies with envy, such as Gravity Forms, The Events Calendar, and others. I could see that selling WordPress products would bring even more lifestyle benefits than client work. 

After spending a year trying and failing to get a theme accepted onto ThemeForest, we decided to start building plugins.

We figured that plugins could be simpler and more defined than themes, and were therefore more realistic for a single developer to build. We looked around for ideas, and found them in a range of places. 

Our first plugin was released in March 2016 – WooCommerce Protected Categories. We had seen on the WooCommerce Ideas forum that there was demand for a plugin like this, and at that time nothing like it existed. It was relatively straightforward to develop and because it was so niche, I felt confident in how to market it. Despite this, we were still amazed to get our first sale a few days after launching. It actually felt like maybe we could build a product business after all! 

Tables, Tables, and More Tables

The second plugin was Posts Table Pro, which was a more advanced version of a plugin that we had built to list a client’s blog posts in a table. We had released it as a free plugin, which was an excellent opportunity because people started sending us feature requests that we could use to build more plugins. This directly led to the development of WooCommerce Product Table, which has turned over more than $1,500,000 since its launch, and our current bestselling plugin Document Library Pro. 

All of these plugins are similar in that they list information from the WordPress database in a searchable table with filters. However, people use them for radically different purposes and each plugin is tailored to a specific use case. 

We never planned to become a table plugin company – it just happened over time, as a result of adding one free plugin to wordpress.org.

I think that’s how a lot of businesses work – you try one thing, and that opens doors to more opportunities. It’s the same as my career – I tried a few things and let them evolve in their natural direction. The most important thing is that you put yourself out there and get things done. 

Growing Barn2 Plugins, and Moving Abroad

The plugin business has continued to grow. We’ve released more and more plugins, mostly specializing in WooCommerce. We’ve built a team, which currently consists of more than 14 people.

Andy and I have taken advantage of the freedoms that we have built for ourselves. For example, last year we moved from the UK to the sunny island of Mallorca in Spain!

I work when I realistically can, and I also take time out to do fun things like hiking in the mountains, or paddleboarding in the sea. 

I try to be an active part of the WordPress community, for example attending WordCamps and building partnerships with other WordPress companies. I talk to people who run similar companies every day, and hope that I help them as much as they help me. Working together like this helps everyone to grow – the aim is to complement each other’s work rather than competing. 

Being a Woman Founder in WordPress

I’ve never had a problem being in a male dominated environment. As a teenager, my best friends were boys despite the fact that I went to an all-girls school. At a school parents’ evening, my teacher said that I had a “male mind” – whatever that means! As a student, I lived with Andy and 3 other guys. Before having children, most of my friends were men. So maybe ending up in a male-dominated industry is no coincidence.

However, I can only talk about my own experiences, and I have never experienced any issues from being a woman in WordPress. A lot of companies aim to be “color blind” and I can’t really comment on this, but I would describe the WordPress community as “gender blind”.

Sure, most of the people who run WordPress product companies are men, and so are most of the people at WordCamps. Most of my WordPress friends are men. However, I don’t think that’s due to discrimination because the community is 100% welcoming to the women who do choose to join. In fact, it is rare for people I meet to even acknowledge any sort of gender difference – even people I know well. Everyone is just treated equally, regardless of gender. 

Interestingly, the most marginalized that I have ever felt is by other women, and by people who are trying to promote gender equality. For example, at WordCamp Europe this year, another woman founder asked me if I work at Barn2 or if I’m just here with my husband! I have never, ever been asked a question like that by a man in the WordPress community. 

At WordCamp US this year, I spent almost the entire time with men and not one person drew attention to the fact that I was a different gender. As a result, I resented having my pronouns written in huge letters on my name tag! I realise this is largely in support of people in the LGBTQIA+ community but for me, it was the first time that the WordPress community had ever made a point of my gender, and felt uncomfortable and counter-productive.

Of course, most people feel imposter syndrome at some point, and I’m no exception. I wonder whether people only invite me on podcasts and to join groups because they want a token woman. Equally, I wonder if people respect me less because I’m not a developer. However, those are my own personal hangups and with a couple of tiny exceptions, no one has ever done anything to make me feel this way. 

What Does WordPress Mean To Me?

Most industries – including tech industries – demand long hours and huge levels of commitment. It’s much harder to work and have a life. For me, WordPress is an incredible opportunity to build a successful business that is flexible enough to give me the lifestyle I want. I work hard when I choose to work hard. I relax when I want to relax. It’s my choice. 

The barriers to entry are incredibly low, and you don’t need any specific qualifications to get started with WordPress. Most people in the industry work remotely, which brings a much better work-life balance for both the founders and team members. Everything is done online, which makes it easier to bootstrap a business with minimal investment. And yet despite this flexibility, the market is absolutely huge and you can find real success with WordPress. 

A lot of people think that the WordPress industry is changing due to the spate of acquisitions over the past few years.

Some product company owners feel like they will be left behind unless they join one of the big players. However, as the owner of a self-owned plugin company, I haven’t seen any evidence of this.

We’re continuing to grow and thrive. In fact, being independent has advantages because I can make decisions and move quickly, without any red tape. 

As well as the opportunities it brings, WordPress is an incredibly inclusive place to build a business. It does this in a natural, unintentional way where people can just “be”, without being judged. And that’s the best way.

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