Below you can see a timeline of some of my entrepreneurial projects, which have mostly been focused on founding software start-ups and consultancy. As part of consulting I also do joint venture work which is not listed here. If you’d like to connect, please tweet me at @woodyhayday, or connect on LinkedIn.
2024
June 2024
Project Pages
Project Pages is a WordPress plugin which helps you log and present things you’ve made through your WordPress website.
It’s sort of like a portfolio maker, but more opinionated.
- Document the journey
- Give context to your work
- Connect with people
Burnout Nutrition .com
I had two bad burnouts in my life, both times diagnosed as CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).
I have had great help from my nutritionist, and wanted to make an easy-to-digest website listing the common supplements used in reducing symptoms or where possible, beating burnout.
Click here for my full post on Burnout and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
March 2024
January 2024
Build Profit.io
Once back from my sabbatical I was looking for a new place to have an impact. Reading lots and lots of my peers posts and tweets I noticed that there was a common thread of talented software engineers who were making cool stuff but struggled hard when it came to marketing it. Given my background, blending engineering and business, I decided to capture everything I’ve learned, (and continue to learn), about marketing software which might be useful to other ‘craft’ software engineers.
2019
Zero BS CRM
Zero BS CRM, (now Jetpack CRM), is a free WordPress plugin which adds CRM (Customer Relationship Management) functionality into the WordPress admin user interface.
I built ZBSCRM to solve a pain point my father’s small business was having: how to effectively manage customer relations without all the boiler plate or cost.
After 2 years growing relatively fast, we sold ZBS CRM to Automattic.
December 2019
2015
April 2015
EverClients
EverClients was a web application designed to collate freelance job opportunities from a large number of job boards and provide a filterable feed and work notification system for beginner freelancers.
EverClients took me ~6 months to build, and my launch was a moderate success. Over the course of the following 6 months it garnered a few hundred paying users, which mostly left.
I believe this app & community would have flown, had I been in a better place. For now, it rests on my servers 🙂
2013
SAM
SAM was a startup focused on assisting news media in constructively filtering social media posts. I joined as CTO/Co-founder for six months but had to move on because I realised I wasn’t the right fit for the product.
April 2013
2012
June 2012
Choosefest
ChooseFest was a web app designed to match you to a music festival via your favourite artists, and those of your friends.
I started an ran this business for almost two years, failing to find product-market fit.
Social Gallery Plugin
When a freelance customer asked me to build them a ‘social-media like’ image viewer plugin for WordPress which promoted social interaction with a websites galleries I saw that it’d be very resell well to the WordPress market.
I offered to build it for less than cost on the terms that I could resell it 80/20. I did so and the plugin went on to produce significant revenue.
January 2012
2011
March 2011
Freelance Developer
Before the days of making software for a living I started out by freelancing. I built websites, checkout systems, apps, games, and scripts; serving a mixed audience of connections and users of PeoplePerHour.com, (which has since massively dropped in quality).
As of 2024 I am now doing consultancy again, but this time it’s higher level stuff only.
2009
250 Site SEO Empire
What started out as an link-building network, soon became an addictive side-project. My intention with this network was to bolster the SEO of a portal website I was making to compete with AutoTrader in the UK. While the SEO skyrocketed, the service didn’t reach product market fit and was ultimately shelved.
The network of car related sites remained for almost 10 years making significant money each month with minimal input from me. This allowed me to travel a lot and learn coding and writing skills which prepared me for bigger projects.
December 2009
2007
December 2007
Wheels-near-u
Wheels-Near-U was a car classifieds marketplace web portal and my first real business. We pivoted several times including into dropshipping, dealership websites, and printing. Ultimately this project was the breeding ground for all of the key skills which helped me in future businesses.
As part of learning how to dominate SEO for WNU I built a 250 site empire, which went on to generate revenues for 10 years thereafter.