We could go on and on about how unprecedented last year was for everyone, but by now, you’ve read that line a thousand times. Instead, we would rather list our noteworthy moments and milestones. Like everyone else, we adapted to change as best we could, still managing to meet some goals while surpassing others. Here’s a look at WebDevStudios’ review of 2020.
WordPress Core contributions
WebDevStudios (WDS) is always proud of our team and proud of our contributions to WordPress and the community (check out our Five to the Future contributions below), but when we see one of our team members receive credit for contributing to an official WordPress release, well, our hearts really swell then.
This year, Backend Engineer, Michael Panaga, received credit for contributing to WordPress 5.4, while Senior Backend Engineer, Sal Ferrarello, contributed to WordPress 5.5. Support Engineer, Michael Beckwith, contributed to WordPress 5.6.
1400+ Hours for Five for the Future
You read that correctly. Amazing, right? Pending client work, every last Friday of the month is dedicated to giving back to WordPress. These contributions range from plugin development to taking support tickets, speaking at a virtual WordCamp to captioning videos at WordPress.TV. Keep up with our contributions on Twitter, via the hashtag #5ftf.
Clients, Clients, Clients
We have the best clients! 2020 required businesses across the world to pivot and make some changes. As such, we launched new websites, redesigns, and a plethora of other client work, totaling 60 overall client projects. One of those projects was for a new live streaming service, while another saved the snow day.
Meanwhile, at Maintainn, the WordPress support and maintenance division of our company, we supported 75 clients on development projects and saw a 32% growth in our SMB website design project. We more than doubled our hosting subscriptions count from 2019, and added a new Dedicated hosting plan. Additionally, Maintainn rolled out a new Emergency Support tool and an on-call process for our 24/7/365 SLA clients. In response to the pandemic, Maintainn introduced quarterly billing options to still provide discounts while helping with cashflow.
Because relationships matter, we also saw two WDS clients transition to Maintainn for ongoing maintenance, while two Maintainn clients sought website redesigns from WebDevStudios.
Virtual WordCamps and Events
Before the pandemic hit, Frontend Engineer, Alfredo Navas, was able to volunteer in person at WordCamp Miami. That was the last WordCamp any of us were able to attend in person, but we did our best to participate in the virtual events.
For example, Engineering Manager, Justin Foell, helped with the KidsCamp portion of WordCamp Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Support Technician, Christina Workman, spoke at WordPress Accessibility Day. Director of Business Development, Jodie Riccelli, participated in CMS Philly, while both WDS C0-Founders, Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Brad Williams, spoke at WP Agency Summit. WDS and Maintainn were Bronze Sponsors for WordCamp Philly.
First-Ever WDS Virtual Camp
After booking and announcing internally the location of our annual company retreat, known as WDS Camp, pandemic reality set in and we had to postpone our in-person meetup and start fresh with a virtual event. WDS Virtual Camp took place October 1-2, 2020 and included swag, a schedule of activities, and opportunities to bond and create new memories. Somehow, some way, our planning committee made it work.
9 New Employees
Team WDS grew by nine! This year, we added three new staff members to Maintainn: Technical Project Manager, Alex Juchniewicz, Assistant Project Manager, Autry Reeves, and Support Engineer, Tanner Record.
At WebDevStudios, we added Frontend Engineer, Amor Kumar, Senior Backend Engineer, Ashar Irfan, Digital Strategist, Bret Phillips, Lead Engineer, Darren Cooney, Project Manager, Daniel Lama, and Digital Designer, Jennifer Cooley to our team of experts.
8 Lunch & Learns, 3,432 Continuing Education Hours
WDS thinks it’s important to keep our skills leveled up in order to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology. Our internal Lunch & Learn events allow individual team members to educate their peers. And, when there is downtime, our company supports staff taking classes, such as webinars on React, Gutenberg, Next.js, and project management, during company time. Everyone wins when everyone is informed and educated.
2nd Edition of Professional WordPress Plugin Development Released
Co-authored by WDS CEO, Brad Williams, Justin Tadlock, and John James Jacoby, Professional WordPress Plugin Development, is considered one of the most popular open source content management systems available today. The highly anticipated second edition was released last year.
CPTUI Hit 900,000 Active Installs
Our most popular WordPress plugin, Custom Post Types UI (CPTUI), hit 900,000+ active installations. Additionally, for the first time ever, CPTUI made it to the finals of Plugin Madness. Thank you to everyone who uses CPTUI.
27,694 Tacos!
At WDS, we integrate Hey Taco! in our Slack and use it as a rewards system to acknowledge each other’s work and efforts. We must really like one another because in 2020, we collectively gave each other 27,694 tacos, which can be turned in for gift cards, PTO, and even actual tacos.
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