In May 2007, I wanted to share my M.Sc. thesis.

Last week, WordPress.com turned 20. I signed up in May 2007, when WordPress.com was about 1.5 years old, before I joined Facebook and Twitter later that year (I think).

I signed up because I was looking for an easy way to share my M.Sc. thesis. Dropbox and Google Drive didn’t exist yet, and WordPress.com was one of the easiest ways I could do so. While I had this site — and because my MySpace was no longer active — I started using that as my personal place on the web.

In 2010, after a much too lengthy and too complex launch of a Christian youth platform with Typo3, my good friend Philip and I started a self-hosted review site, called Cultuurshock — our YouTube page is what’s left. This site was not on WordPress.com, but it was my first exploration of the vast opportunities of WordPress.

Four years later, I found myself looking for a new job in Cape Town, and through my friend Joel, I heard about WooThemes. Suddenly I wasn’t just working with WordPress, I was working in WordPress. Nine months after that WooThemes was acquired by Automattic, and suddenly I found myself on the other end of WordPress.com; not just as a customer, but as support engineer.

In that time, I’ve not just supported WordPress. With guidance of my colleagues, I’ve contributed to Woo core, WordPress core, and WordPress meta. I’ve been a speaker at WordPress-related events, and even helped organise some.

Back in 2007, I made the first step towards what would become a big part of my life.