We’re excited to welcome back to WordCamp Sofia the Chief Product Officer of Human Made and long time WordPress contributor Noel Tock. Some of you perhaps remember Noel’s 2013 and 2015 lectures on building a WordPress SaaS and Publishing trends. Some of you might have shared a drink or ten with him at the after party or talked to him in the hallways about the nomad lifestyle, running a WordPress business, building products or helping the community. Those of you who haven’t – look him up on November 11th and make sure you say „Hi“. Here’s a short interview with Noel to get you started:
Noel Tock at WordCamp Varna. Picture by Vladimir Kaladan Petkov
Hi Noel, welcome back to WordCamp Sofia! Would you introduce yourself for the people that might not have had a chance to meet you in our previous editions?
Thank you for having me! I’m one of three partners at Human Made, originally from Switzerland but have been nomadic for the past 4 years. My work is quite simple – I love building cool stuff with amazing people, pushing ourselves to continuously innovate.
You’ve been with us at WCSofia before, what makes you come back to the city?
The day starts with a small coffee on Vitosha, then co-working with friends and colleagues, followed by lunch at Little Things. Once the sun starts fading, grab drinks at Friday Bar and finish with Mimas in the early hours. And that’s day one… Sofia is a growing city full of energy, and I always feel at home 🚀
What has changed for you professionally since the first talk you gave at WordCamp Sofia – „Less is more: The Journey of Happytables as a WordPress SaSS“ in 2013?
Four years is an eternity when you’re passionate about the web. Everything revolves around product in my work – the art of starting and building something that improves our own lives or those of others. Happytables grew and took an investment round, but then we realised it was too far from us as a company (Human Made), so we stepped back and are just investors/advisors in it now.
This means that I’ve double downed on Human Made, running everything related to product, marketing and business development. We want to remain innovative and competitive, but also need to be able to react to the growing needs of the market. The CMS industry has grown way beyond themes and plugins, and we’re constantly evolving to be of value to enterprise clients.
What’s the thing that gets you most excited about WordPress these days?
In my opinion, WordPress is a means to an end, the cumulative expression of a lot of ideas and strong decisions. I’m not much of a developer, so for me everything is about community – Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. These are the parts of the world where WordPress excites me, seeing how it changes peoples lives and getting a chance to be a part of that.
Can you share some of your most important lessons learned from your years in the WordPress community?
– Go to the events, you’ll meet people there – maybe someone you even build something together with. Many WordPress businesses have started like this.
– Contribute in your own way. It doesn’t have to be to the project itself, you can run your own events, write helpful plugins, etc. Diversity and bold ideas make the community stronger.
– Find time to help others in the community. Not everything has to be a transaction. A bit of advice/inspiration, a different viewpoint, reviewing someone else’s code quickly – it can be a small thing for you, but will mean a lot to them.What’s the thing we didn’t ask you that you’d like to share with the WCSof crowd?
Come to the afterparty and say hi if we haven’t met yet!
WordCamp Sofia 2017 is on November 11 and 12 in Arena Movie Theater, Sofia. Grab your ticket. Follow WordCamp Sofia on Twitter and Facebook.