I’m Gary Smith. I’ve been involved with WordPress and Magento for the past several years.

Here are some of my past roles:

eCommerce merchant

In 2002, I was in the embroidery, screenprinting, and imprinted products business. I was asked to create an online store for a membership organization. This turned out to be the first of a few online projects for membership and employee stores. Along the way I was introduced to Magento. I discovered Liquid Web during these days as a great option for Linux hosting. I sold this business in 2009 to one of my vendors, and worked for them for another five years or so. The development agency that I had hired along the way was expanding, and I got a chance to work with them in operations.

Agency background

For about four years, I worked with that development agency, Jamersan. I started out in a consulting role and became their COO. This put me much more into the world of the Magento community, which I found to be extremely welcoming. This agency became a Magento partner during my tenure there. I was introduced to Nexcess during this time, and we partnered with them.

Consulting

For about a year after leaving the agency, I did freelance business consulting and a little WordPress development. I’ve used WordPress (and before that, Moveable Type) for blogging and simple company sites. I have worked with a number of clients on accounting, sales, and operational matters.

Partner Channel Management

I sometimes joke that for quite some time in my career, I’d never gotten a job with anyone without being their customer (i.e. giving them money) first. The first time I got an expense reimbursement draft from Liquid Web (Nexcess’ parent company), I thought it was a hosting bill and couldn’t understand why it was so high. But my time at Nexcess was great, because it pulled together all of the previous roles I’ve described above. I enjoyed being able to work with some of the greatest WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento agencies out there and helping them go to market.

Helping Businesses with SaaS software

(Or – back to consulting, sorta) – I took a break from going alone. I made pretty good money. But I’m really more interested in helping small businesses – maybe, in the words of the Agile manifesto:

early and continuous delivery of valuable software (or maybe just – results)

The Agile Manifesto

Check out what I’m doing over there at Nectar Bridge.