In the past, we haven't posted much beyond releases and change logs, but we've decided to start writing more and reach beyond our comfort zones. I don't think anyone on our team loves their writing skills, so we'll also have a bit of guest blogging from those who actually write well.
Most people don't know much about our team or who we are. We are all self-taught with help from a mentor. We've learned that anyone who tries web development and enjoys it can learn it well and be successful.
Where I started
My success has been a result of my passion for development and seeing others succeed. But you know what? I haven't always been a developer. I worked as an RN (Registered Nurse) for 4 years in a hospital, a nursing home, and finally pediatric home health. Nursing is a rewarding career, but is also high-paced and high-stress. Despite the schedule and pace, I enjoyed it and planned to continue with it, but God had other plans.
A couple of weeks into maternity leave with my first baby, I didn't know what to do with myself. I spent a lot of time holding my baby girl. I found I could even use two hands to play World of Warcraft if I put her on top of a Boppy on my lap with a bottle propped in her mouth. That could only entertain me for so long and I wondered what else I could do to pass the time.
An unexpected mentor
Then along came my cousin Blair Williams, author of Pretty Link, Affiliate Royale, and MemberPress. At the time, he had several Ruby on Rails contracts and was desperate enough in his search for subcontractors that he was willing to recruit anyone who had HTML experience or an interest in web development. Honestly, I had neither. But my husband Steve had learned a bit of HTML in high school, and was interested in learning more. So Blair gave us a small training session on how to set up a local computer to work with Ruby on Rails. I tagged along as a potential cure for my boredom, with expectations of it going way over my head.
After attending the first training session, setting up my Windows PC, and a memorizing the HTML tags on w3schools.com, I started on my first Ruby on Rails site for my sister. There was no database connection and other than a dynamic header and footer, the whole site was static HTML, but that project showed me I loved it and I wanted to learn more.
Blair handed me more and more work accompanied by pay raises. From Franklin Covey HTML email templates, to an attorney that needed a full site (that has rightfully been rewritten on WordPress since then), to managing a project with a single developer, I kept learning. I was determined to make the deadline on the project I was managing, and I'm sure the developer was less than thrilled with my aspirations. My deadline was slipping away, so I took matters into my own hands. I dug into the code and went after the least-daunting of the bug list in our Ruby on Rails app. And I fixed it! So I tried another, and another. My exploration came hand-in-hand with increasing confidence from Blair.
Pressure makes things happen
Enter personal life. Steve took an "exciting" job in San Diego at this time since it was such a "great opportunity." Right? Not so much. The company didn't have the investment they claimed so we came back to Utah two months later, desperate and frustrated, with $200 to our names and a mortgage that wouldn't back down.
Now that we were both unemployed, we hit Blair up for more work and he passed it right over. Steve took a huge risk and turned down his sole job offer in a down economy, and I still wasn't ready to leave my 7-month-old to go back to work. Turning down stability was a risk that we deemed worth taking. Steve started learning HTML and CSS, and I got my hands into a new, large-scale Ruby on Rails application for a start-up company.

Who could leave this face?
An introduction to WordPress
After some time, we started taking on our own clients. A college buddy of Steve's contacted us looking for cheap development on an existing WPMU site (now WordPress multisite). We bid out the job and agreed to a flat rate. We made it clear this would be a learning job as I started into the unfamiliar territory of WordPress and PHP. I wrote a single, 2000+ line file with no organization, and tried to retreat back to the comfortable organization of Ruby on Rails.
Luckily, a platform as incredible as WordPress won't be ignored. We took on more client sites. Steve created the themes while I wrote the plugins. Formidable started in here somewhere too, but that's another story. WordPress came knocking from every side. Our main bread-and-butter client decided to convert their large-scale Ruby on Rails site to WordPress and later hired us in a joint CTO position.
Taking the plunge
Aside from my CTO responsibilities, Formidable monopolized all my days and nights off. A year after its launch, we took the plunge: away from a stable paycheck, away from the office politics, away from the stress of a lame CEO, and towards independence. Next week marks the three-year anniversary of being completely free of client projects and micromanaging bosses. For me, that is the dream. I'm not so great at being managed, as my husband would readily confirm.
Getting here has taken a lot of late nights and a periodically neglected family. The cost has been high at times, and the balance between work and being a wife and mother is shaky. Enjoying that work makes that balance even more difficult to pinpoint and maintain, and I have to rebalance over and over and over. I love to curl up on the couch with my laptop and a blanket and write a new plugin. Crazy? Sure. But I also love to curl up on the couch and cuddle my two-year-old and watch his favorite YouTube videos.

My family now
It's never too late to start
Discovering my love for writing code has made all the difference for me in the past seven years. I see so many well-known and super savvy developers in the WordPress community and come to learn most of them started much younger than I did. And you know what? It doesn't matter. It takes time, dedication, and probably some world-tuning-out hyper-focusing no matter when you start. But there's no reason for anyone not to start. Find out if you enjoy it, and then do what you enjoy. Then love your work to keep it from feeling like work.
Nice 🙂 Great story and inspiration for others.
All the best for you, your work, and your family.
What a beautiful family photo!
and thanks for sharing your live story with us. I think many users of FormidablePro will appreciate it to know a bit better the people behind the plugin. And it is certainly an inspiring story!
Kind regards from France
Eric
Salute for your dedication to family & works. We really inspired to do more & lead a balanced life.
Great to know about Formidable Pro teams & their family 🙂
Thanks so much for share the story behind Formidable Pro with all of us. I feel reflected and inspired for it.
Hi Steph,
You are a true mother, wife, and developer. And being a boss upon ourselves is also my dream. Thanks for sharing this story.
Thanks Steph 🙂
...and also, your writing skills are just fine, and as long as you can keep your words from getting in the way, then its all about the story anyways!
Aloha <3
Steph.. if I may be so bold, add social links to these blog posts... as adoring fans and invested developers we do want to see Formidable Pro grow and flourish. You have a motivated appreciative audience.. by all means use us, ask us to spread the word.
For the countless hours of patient, unfaltering guidance and support you have personally devoted to us.. and the baton your team has picked up and likewise run with, its the least we can do.
Your commitment to supporting your customers is unique, rare and one of the biggest additional value propositions on top of a great bit of software.
Thanks for the nudge. I just added some share links.
Since we wrote Formidable for people like us who are developing client sites, we want to help you impress and succeed with those clients, just as we would want from a product we used as contractors. Using a good product makes you look good and get more work. That is why we are here!
I totally agree with rgkeenan! Let us help you grow! I'm constantly telling people that they can solve their form problem with your plugin. I'm a superfan!!
Your story also really inspired me. I am 4 years into my development/design business and I absolutely love it. I'm small potatoes but it's nice to see that someone just like me did something so freaking awesome. It helps me to think that maybe I will so something awesome someday too. Please keep writing!!
These are the inspiring stories showing us that "soul-less" technology has a beating heart.
Very often we forgot that behind forums, contact forms, help desks, hotlines, there's more than a username with an avatar.
Behind the curtain of a firewall there are people, individuals, families, with a story to tell, a hand to shake, and a life's tale worth to hear.
Thank you for giving my support heroes at Formidable a human identity, and thank you all again for your patience and help.
From now on I will sign my support requests with "Hi Steph, thanks for the code. Say hello to Steve and enjoy your weekend with the kids".
Now I only regret I registered my Formidable license with the company name.....
It's nice getting to know your background and we fully support your team and your efforts. You're doing a great job!
Thank you Stephine, few months ago, I was wrote in your support forum, that how do I become a good web developer, that time you were so busy and was ignored my questions, so I was upset then, but now thank you to share your success story with us. It will help me a lot.
Sorry, don't mind I will renew my license as soon as possible.
Great story Steph! 🙂
Thank you Steph for sharing a bit of yourself. It is also good to "know" those that have been so helpful to me.
Thanks for that as well.
Love the story!! Wonderful family pic as well. The Formidable plugin is the best!! And when it comes to support there's none better. I'm talking it up with everyone I know on WordPress. I wish I knew about Formidable before I started with Ninja forms. Their stuff simply didn't work as advertised for the more complicated of projects, which I didn't find out until many many hours later. They were good with their support usually back in 24 hours and eventually refunded every penny. But this plug in and support is just vastly superior!!!
Awesome story , thank you for sharing 🙂