My Departure from 9seeds

So, as the title states – I’m stepping away from 9seeds.

These types of things always get people wondering what happened, how did it happen, what went wrong and who hates who. I want to make it clear that none of those apply. The guys at 9seeds are the best and I love them all like brothers I never had. 9seeds is successful and doing great things, and in no way do I want my departure to reflect anything negative about the company because that’s simply not the case.

This decision is bittersweet as I’ll miss the team at 9seeds terribly but I’ll also have more time to focus on myself and my family, as the time I am able to be involved with them has diminished over time and I need to get that back. This is not to fault 9seeds in any way, people deal with situations differently and this is how I’m dealing with mine. At this point in time I feel this is the right decision for me and my family.

I have nothing negative to say about 9seeds, it’s just that I need to focus my efforts in different areas – people change and so do circumstances.

I will be freelancing again until I figure out what it is I want to do when I grow up! I won’t say that I won’t seek employment at some point or start something new, but for now I’ll be on my own.

I’ve enjoyed and value all of the friendships I’ve made while being part of 9seeds and hope to keep all of those in tact during and after this transition.

So, with that I’ll say goodbye to 9seeds and wish them all the success that I’m sure they’ll achieve – they’re brilliant guys.

 

New Site, New Blog

So here it is…new site, new blog. I thought for a while about importing all my posts over to this new site, but I just decided to start it fresh 100%!

So, with that I’ll do a short wrap-up of what happened this past year and we’ll go from there.

January 2009, I go to Las Vegas for WordCamp and speak on WP Ecommerce. There I meet John Hawkins and Todd Huish.

June 2009, I go to Raleigh, North Carolina for WordCamp and you guessed it…speak on WP Ecommerce. I left from Raleigh and headed to NYC for a family vacation.

The rest of the summer was fairly uneventful..just normal stuff.

September 2009, I go to Los Angeles for WordCamp and again, speak on WP ECommerce. Seeing a trend here…but while I was in LA, I again met up with John Hawkins and Todd Huish and had some interesting conversations.

The following week, I go to Portland, Oregon for WordCamp and talk about our old favorite, WP ECommerce and again meet up with John Hawkins and do some more talking. This will start making sense soon, I promise.

October 2009, John, Todd and myself decide to start a new business venture which becomes 9seeds, LLC. See? I told you…makes sense. So 9seeds is born and we’re on our way.

November, I go to NYC for WordCamp. John does a presentation there and I hang out in the Genius Bar answering WordPress related questions…good times.

The holidays were pretty normal…and busy. 9seeds is doing well!

So that brings us to the present, and as I’m writing this I’m preparing for my presentation at WordCamp Boston on January 23rd, 2010. This time I will be speaking on how to edit/manipulate code for WordPress themes and plugins to get it to do what you want. I am self-taught so I thought a presentation on how I learned what I did would be good for others trying to accomplish the same thing.

This year is already shaping up to be pretty exciting, so check back often and see how things are going.

I love your opinions and comments, so don’t forget to leave me one below.