[ad_1] Here is Katie reading her own story aloud. 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
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