My wife and I have this deck on the front of our house that looks out on Mt. Baker in northern Washington from across the border here in Canada. The view is inspiring, and it continutes to be a place where we love to sit and dream, usually over a cup of coffee in the morning, or a glass of wine in the evening. We call it our deck of dreams.

About two years ago, as we sat on the deck, I was still trying to make sense of the many thoughts swirling around in my head after my first Laracon experience in Nashville a few weeks before. I was looking for a way to move my career forward, for a way to differentiate myself as a something more than just another developer-for-hire.

I wondered aloud about the possibilities that lie before me as I was contemplating how my career could shift for the better by embracing the Laravel ecosystem over the WordPress one in which I had laid a foundation for my freelance and consulting work. At the time, I didn’t really have a sense of how that might look yet. I had met some great folks in Nashville, and for the first time in a long time, I felt inspired about the possibilities. I wanted to be part of Laravel, somehow.

Enter Statamic

Being primarily a front-end developer, and already well-versed and experienced in CMS projects (mostly within WordPress, but not exclusively), it was suggested to me to focus specifically on Statamic first. Perhaps full-on, just-Laravel work could come later. This resonated with me, and gave me a great place to start without being overwhelmed by it all.

Within a few months, I penned this post where I discuss some reasons for going “back to basics” in a sense, choosing Statamic over WordPress for my consulting business. I started writing more about it, documenting my learning through articles here on this website as often as could squeeze something in. I had a dream about starting a YouTube channel at some point, and the focus for this became apparent to me before long.

Soon enough, From WordPress to Statamic was born, and it continues to be an avenue in which I explore ways of using Statamic for client work. My primary hope is that this can help to inspire and educate other developers interested in Statamic.

Within a couple of weeks of launching, I even had a few conversations at Laracon in Dallas with people who were already aware of my channel with its modest 4 or 5 videos at the time. Since then, the response has been positive and the channel continues to grow at a slow but steady pace.

Ambitious Goals for 2025

Coming into 2025, my goals for the year involved doubling-down on Statamic. This meant a continued effort on the YouTube channel, more Statamic work than WordPress work for my consulting business, and even starting a podcast. It all felt fairly ambitious, but not totally out of reach.

In February of this year, Talking Statamic was born, with a modest 6-episode first season. An interview-style podcast, I managed to speak with a number of folks in the community with whom I wanted to make some connection, and to continue to help spread the word about Statamic. As of this writing, I am in the planning stages of a second season, with hopes to get something out there later in the year.

As far as the business is concerned, aside from a touch of sub-contracting and follow-up work on past projects, all of my new projects have been in Statamic, with even more in the pipeline. Suffice it say, I’m pleased about this result!

Assessing the Decision

Looking back on the last year and a half as I have pursued this path, my summary is that this was a good decision. While Statamic is a niche player on the CMS scene, it appears to be large enough (and growing) such that I seem to have been able to find a place for myself and my business here.

I maintain that moving “back to basics” from the visual page-builders to something more intuitve for content editors and developers alike makese sense. Creating a great control panel experience, and being able to change it fairly easily, is a game-changer when it comes to effective use of developement time and the content editor’s mental load. They don’t have to create their layouts from scratch, and I don’t have to fight with an over-complicated template system to reproduce it in the admin sections.

One of the things I am most excited about through all of this has been the growth in my network, and seeing happy clients come through projects, knowing that we were able to leverage Statamic as the right tool for the job to get us there.

I’ve also enjoyed the light-bulb moments speaking with design agencies, showing them how the control panel in Statamic is a world better than what they’ve been used to.

Doubling Down - Again

I think it’s fairly safe to say that I’ve found (or am at the very least circling around) a niche in my work as a developer, finally. My LinkedIn tagline is even “The WordPress to Statamic Guy” which seems to resonate with client prospects so far. I’m happy with this direction.

Looking ahead to 2026, I anticipate leaning even more into Statamic, much the same way that I have done this year. I’m expecting to do even more YouTube videos, more podcast episodes, and more client work in Statamic.

Beyond that, I’d like to dip my toes even further in Laravel itself. I’ve been around it for quite some time now, even before deciding to attend the Laracon events over the last couple of years. But I’ve never really been a Laravel Developer in the true sense, as my work in it has largely been on the front-end. Perhaps this can change as I get more comfortable and familiar with it over time.

In any case, I don’t know that my own transition from WordPress is complete, but it’s certainly much more of a reality today than it was on that late summer night a couple of years ago on the deck of dreams. I love the positivity of the Laravel community, inspiring people to “just do things.” Indeed, this perspective has certainly enabled me to act more boldly and confidently than I might have otherwise done in the past.

Thanks for reading, watching, and listening!

Let know what you think!