Accidental Success

Doing all the right things for all the “wrong” reasons

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. More accurately, I’ve always wanted to be my own boss. Even more accurately, I’ve always wanted to be my own boss doing something I love doing.

For the past 5-and-a-half years, I’ve been fortunate enough to do just that with my web development company. In a little over a week, I am closing up shop and going to work for another company, but that’s another story for another time. We’re going out on a high note,and I’d say that this little company of mine has been quite successful, especially measured against my goal of being my own boss and doing something that I love.

I graduated from high school in 1997 and started working on a degree in electrical engineering that fall because I happen to be pretty good at math and science. By the time I was a junior in college, I realized I didn’t really enjoy engineering, but I completed my degree because I also didn’t like being a student and switching majors would have meant extending my time as a student by a few semesters. Whatever. Don’t judge.

My freshman year, I built my first website. It wasn’t much more than a tacky background texture and a bunch of animated GIFs (soft “g”), but it was enough for me to fall in love with web design and development. I spent the next couple of years honing my skills with free 5MB web hosting at Anglefire.com. If I recall correctly, I think I called it “The Webb Page” because that’s how I roll. Don’t judge.

I graduated from The University of Texas in 2001, and I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do (I didn’t think there was any real money in web development. I know, stupid, right?) so I took an engineering job at a large computer company based in Round Rock, Texas. I did that for a couple of years and decided I needed an MBA, so I went and did that for a couple of years.

I worked my way through graduate school at a small software company, and I was tasked with building the company’s website because of my aforementioned love of web development. In researching for the project, I found a little open source content management system called Mambo and instantly knew it was the right tool for the job.

I continued to toy around with Mambo on side projects because I really enjoyed the power that it afforded me, and I loved learning the ins and outs of the system. A couple of years later, that little project had grown and was eventually forked to form a new project called Joomla. The entire development team behind Mambo was part of the fork, so naturally I followed them to Joomla.

All this time, this whole web development thing was still a hobby in my mind. I was constantly buying new books to learn new things. I had built a few websites here and there for myself or for friends, but I always felt guilty charging anyone for doing something that I loved doing.

In the spring of 2006, web design gallery websites were all the rage and a huge source of inspiration for me. I noticed that there weren’t any galleries for Joomla-powered websites, so I created one just for fun. It was an instant success, and I was soon busy featuring Joomla websites that I thought were well designed and that used valid HTML and CSS.

It was through that website that I met a guy who was running one of the larger Joomla template companies at the time, and he asked me if I was interested in doing some contract work on the side. What? Get paid to build websites? Sure, sign me up. This marked the first time that I had ever gotten paid any kind of real money to build websites, and I was loving it.

That fall, I started a blog to write Joomla tutorials for a few reasons. First, I spent a lot of time in the Joomla forums answering the same questions over and over again, and I thought it would be more efficient to write tutorials and just point people there. Second, I loved Joomla and the community, and I wanted to give back. The site grew steadily over the years and eventually included multiple bloggers. It never really made me any money, but it was a go-to learning resource in the Joomla community and I was happy to have a way to give back.

I was still working for that small software company I worked for while pursuing a MBA, so I couldn’t really devote much time to this new side job of building Joomla websites. Within a year of starting contract work, I had built several sites and made a lot more money than I thought was possible building websites. I had finally found what I wanted to do so that I could be my own boss doing what I loved doing.

In the summer of 2007, I went to a Joomla boot camp down in Austin to spend a day learning from the lead Joomla developer. I didn’t go into that day looking for business contacts. I just wanted to learn a few things, and I genuinely enjoyed meeting people in the Joomla community and developing relationships. Some of those relationships, it turns out, resulted in landing several large clients years later. Go figure.

By the end of 2007, it became clear that it was time for me to quit my job and go out on my own as a full time web developer. I honestly didn’t know what that meant or what that would look like, but I knew it was time. In February 2008, I had officially quit my job and started Cory Webb Media, LLC.

Things were going great. I had a big client that helped me keep the bills paid, and I was building a name for myself in the Joomla community through my efforts in the forums and through my tutorial website. In the summer of 2008, I got an unexpected email from Wrox Press asking if I’d be interested in writing a Joomla title for them. I jumped at that opportunity, and in April 2009, my book, Beginning Joomla Web Site Development, was published.

It was at this time that I really began traveling and attending Joomla Days all over the United States, speaking about various topics related to Joomla and web development in general. With the release of my book, I had become established as a legitimate name in the Joomla community, and my business soon took off. I was getting more work than I could handle on my own, and I hired my first employee in July of 2009.

To make this long story short (or less long than it could become if I were to keep rambling), the business grew to 4 people, and we have had the privilege of building websites for the UN Foundation, eBay, Demand Media, The University of Texas, Michigan State University, and many more great organizations and companies large and small. I was lucky enough to see consistent revenue growth each year as I forged ahead being my own boss and doing something I loved.

If you look at each step along the way, it might look like I made a series of strategic moves to get me to where I am today. But the reality is, I was just doing things that I loved doing because I loved doing them. I studied and taught myself web development because I loved it, and that led to an unexpected career. I built a Joomla gallery site because I loved it, and that gave me my first big break in becoming a professional web developer. I started a Joomla tutorial site because I love Joomla and its community and wanted to contribute in some small way, and that in part led to a book deal that I hadn’t even considered pursuing, which lent to my name and credibility in the Joomla community and helped grow my business.

I realize this entire story is pretty self indulgent, but I can’t help but feel that my story is instructive in a lot of ways. I know that I have learned a lot along the way. You could look at specific things that I did and take those as good steps toward a goal, but I think there are bigger lessons here.

Do what you love doing and strive to be the best you can be at it. Build genuine relationships, not for the sake of building your network (although that will happen) but for the sake of getting to know and care about great people who will know and care about you. And find a way to give back to the community that has made it possible for you to do what you love. I can’t guarantee that success will follow, but I’m pretty sure it will be a great ride.