173 - My WordPress journey with David Decker

Interview - My WordPress journey with David Decker

Today is a little different from the episodes that we've been putting out of late. It's a story of one man and his journey with using WordPress.

We talk today with David Decker. You might have seen him around the WP Builds Facebook Group from time to time, and if you haven't been in there you really should as he's one of the many friendly faces who are there offering helpful advice and expertise.

I met David in on Facebook and was lucky enough to meet him in person at WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin. Was had a few chats and it became clear that an appearance on the podcast was going to happen.

He wanted to share his journey using WordPress, how he got started, how he's used it over the years and how his business relies upon it.

We talk about:

• the planning, developing, releasing, translating, maintaining and supporting of free plugins on the official WordPress Plugin Directory
• why he creates free plugins (helping users, learning to code and understanding the inner meanings of WordPress, having fun at coding, translating, marketing etc.)
• David talks about what is going on behind the scenes when a single, independent developer does free plugins. What is involved in support? What strange things happen when you get a 1-star review and/or 'bold' complains from users; or users get very demanding with you? What does that 'free plugin thing' do with you and your work, as well as to your life beyond WordPress and even with your family?

Here's some background on (written by David) for you:

- From Chemnitz, Germany (south-east Germany - was part of former “East Germany” (GDR))
- Born in 1977, married, with 2 girls
- Having my own business since March of 2000 (I don’t like the word “freelancing” for what I do, rather it is some kind of "one-person-agency")
- Working with WordPress since 2006 - exclusively
- Started coding plugins in summer of 2011, because a friend asked me for it (he had an idea and asked if I could do that as a plugin)
- My business started out as side business when I was still studying at the university (computer science & business administration, history, political science)
- In 2007 I went full time
- In June 2010 I bought Genesis Pro Plus and was engaged in Genesis community ever since, did all my sites with Genesis only
- In 2014/2015 I was some kind of "burned out" and needed a change (after 15 years in business), so accepted a day job offer for a software company in Munich (doing websites for them, some development, plus customer support), switching my own business to side business again
- End of January 2018 this job ended, and since February 2018 I had a new job for a long-time client of mine and doing web work for them, but two days of the week I do my own business, which allows me also more time for doing plugins again, which is great
- In 2017 it was time to extend my toolbox and look beyond Genesis, I started using Elementor everywhere and tried other themes (Astra, GeneratePress etc.)
- Engaging with Elementor community opened me more to the site builder communities, and their thinking. I started thinking beyond the "developer bubble" I was a bit too focused on. I consider myself more of an site builder, implementor, with coding skills

It's a lovely episode from a charming and humble man and I commend this episode to you.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://toolbarextras.com - Plugin website for David's plugin “Toolbar Extras”
https://wordpress.org/plugins/toolbar-extras/ - wordpress.org plugin page for “Toolbar Extras”
https://toolbarextras.com/addons/ - current add-ons for David's plugin
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ToolbarExtras/ - Facebook community group for the plugin
https://twitter.com/deckerweb - David's personal Twitter