WordPress burnout when you want to quit & look beyond with David Decker – SWC 50
September 19, 2019 September 19, 2019 /
Are you bored, tired, and that burnout feeling while trying to find space in the WordPress ecosystem? This is real, happens to a lot of professional but unfortunately rarely gets talked about.
Are you feeling the heat of not achieved or earned enough in the WordPress ecosystem? David Decker shares his story of WordPress burnout, aka that feeling “I want to throw it all away”.
01. WordPress Crisis in professional life
- Can you share about “WordPress Crisis” that happened in your professional life of building things in the WordPress ecosystem?
- Was this also connected to financial goals? Meaning, activities in the WordPress ecosystem not bringing enough money for survival.
- Was getting the job a quick escape from this WordPress Crisis in your professional life?
02. Boxing in one corner of WordPress
- I started my WordPress journey with official WP themes, followed by revolution and Genesis themes. I remained in Genesis ecosystem in almost 4-5yrs, which was fantastic for sure. But now when I look back, I felt I boxed myself into one small ecosystem within bigger WordPress ecosystem. Do you have a similar story?
- Our journeys sound so similar after Genesis came Beaver Builder ecosystem, which was like fresh air. I believe you discovered Elementor ecosystem. Would it be correct, exploring new ecosystem did bring new motivation and kick to do more in the WordPress ecosystem?
03. Building products for WordPress
- I believe you have made 42 WordPress plugins, out of which 25 plugins are still active. How did your passion of plugin making was affected with your changes in more or less love of what WordPress ecosystem was throwing at you?
- Are all your plugins free or you did offer paid / pro versions of the same?
04. Looking back at WordPress burnout
- Now looking back on your burnout and wanting to quit the WordPress ecosystem. Could you have done something different to avoid this altogether?
- Someone going through a similar downtime trying to build professional life within the WordPress ecosystem and struggling, what would be your advice to that person?
David Decker’s ToolBox
- Elementor page builder is used on every website build now.
- The most used app includes one password to manage all logins.
- Love using Mozilla Firefox web browser for all browsing needs.
About David Decker
The World Wide Web has excited me since my first contact with it: that was 1994 in my school in computer science lessons. Our school was one of the first in my region with Internet access. It was a completely new world, and I was like tied up in it. To this day, it never lets me go.
A few years later, I studied at the Technical University in Chemnitz (south-east Germany), the second German university with Internet access in the student dormitory. It was fantastic. Since I needed money during my studies, the alternative was to go into business for myself, which I did – of course with Internet services. So I started with simple HTML websites, I even used frames… 🙂
I left the university behind and went full time with my business. For a few years, it went like that, but there were signs of fatigue. I wanted a change: When I discovered WordPress, it was exactly what I needed. In autumn 2006, I built a website for a small non-profit organisation. A great experience.
After that, I decided to work only with WordPress from 2007 onwards. But then my search for the “right” theme began. That’s what I found in 2010 with Genesis. It brought me into this awesome community, a big family, to which I still belong today, recently even as a member of the “Genesis Shapers” board.
Genesis brought me together with many new people and customers because I was one of the first Genesis users in Germany. And, also because I contributed the German translations to the framework (to this day). If you like to give, you get a lot back. I met a friend in 2011 who asked me if I could make a plugin. I did, and the rest is history: I released 42 plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory, 25 of which are currently active. Plugin development has brought with it a much deeper understanding of WordPress – in all areas. This has professionalized my work and was all in all an absolute gain for my professional and personal development.
After my “WordPress crisis”, I accepted a job offer in 2015 and transferred my business to a side business. I also used this change to revise my “toolbox”. That’s how Elementor became a central part of my daily work – for me an awesome tool“. Additionally, in the theme area, I now use other themes beyond Genesis like Astra and GeneratePress, for example. That brought a lot of new inspirations. So the desire grew to start again with plugins, which was the initial spark for the “Toolbar Extras” project, which could already win 17,000 active users since April 2018 – I believe this is absolutely incredible for a niche plugin for administrators.
More: David Decker / Toolbar Extras / Twitter
