I Was Using WordPress Before It Was Even Called WordPress

Back in 2000, I was still working in film—first assistant director on national commercials, coordinating chaos with directors like Errol Morris, Nigel Dick, Chris Applebaum and Jessie Dylan and running everything from talent to timing. I was nominated for a DGA award that year, but quietly, I had my eye on something else: the web.

I wasn’t looking to become a web developer. I just had a problem I wanted to solve.

The internet was taking off, and I had an idea to create a resource site for filmmakers—somewhere production crew could connect, no matter where they were in the world. So I bought a domain name and built a film industry resource site – assistantdirectors.com.

It was static HTML, all hand-coded in Dreamweaver. I stitched it together with CGI scripts, custom forms, and directory software from a company called Gossamer Threads. I even hired my neighbor to help input tens of thousands of film-related listings scraped from the Open Directory Project.

I had no business model. Just curiosity. The site had 5,000 members globally. And I had no idea what I was doing.

Funny story: my friend Brian, a cinematographer, was working on a commercial shoot in Kyiv. He walked into the production office and saw the production manager sitting at a computer—browsing my site. They were using AssistantDirectors.com to find local crew. That moment blew my mind. Somehow, this scrappy little site I’d built in Dreamweaver had gone international.

Later in 2004, Brian invited me to Moscow. He’d been recruited by a group of Russian investors to open a production company—Red Square Films—after a string of successful shoots in the region. He flew me out to build their website, which we did in Flash because, well, it was 2004 and that’s what he wanted. But the real mission? He was trying to convince me to stay and produce commercials for him full time.

Now look—Moscow is a fascinating city. Visually stunning. Intellectually electric. But between the constant presence of private security details, military escorts, and the general oligarch energy pulsing through every neighborhood… I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to plant roots.

So I built the site, said my thank-yous, and flew home—landing just in time to vote in the 2004 presidential election.

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The Problem That Changed Everything

Dreamweaver was great for visuals, but terrible for managing dynamic content. I needed to show updated listings and news on a homepage without rewriting the code every time.

I’d built this Frankenstein’s monster of HTML templates, RSS feeds, CGI scripts, and .shtml files just to make content appear “fresh.”

And then one day in 2002 or early 2003, while building a site for a small indie music label, I stumbled onto a quiet little project called b2/cafelog.

It wasn’t WordPress yet—but the DNA was already there.

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The Day I Met WordPress (Even Though It Hadn’t Been Named Yet)

The music label had a blues band (BB Chung King & The Buddaheads) and a couple other acts. They needed to post news. I needed a way to output RSS from a CMS and show it inside a static HTML homepage.

b2/cafelog let me do that.

It was simple, lightweight, and it worked. I could create posts, manage content, and output updates dynamically—without rebuilding the whole page.

That moment? That was my gateway into WordPress.

When WordPress.org launched in 2003, I was already there. By 2004, I had rebuilt AssistantDirectors.com with WordPress in a subdirectory. I added a blog to cover news and editorial—and unintentionally took my first step into SEO.

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When It Became Real

By late 2003, I launched my first paid WordPress project—FindBliss.com, a wellness and lifestyle site that would eventually grow into a full-blown brand. At the time, WordPress was still new, rough around the edges, and barely more than a blogging engine. But it worked. We stitched together a homepage using early theme hacks, a little design finesse, and a whole lot of persistence.

That site led directly to my next client—a referral from FindBliss. Career coach Daisy Swan needed a website of her own, and we launched her site in early 2004. That was my first experience of what would become a constant in this business: do good work, and the next project usually finds you.

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My First E-Commerce WordPress Build

My niece introduced me to her boss in LA who needed a website for his vintage slot car business. He was a collector, a hobbyist, and a true enthusiast. I didn’t know much about e-commerce at the time, but I knew how to make things work.

I built the front end with WordPress and glued it together with Zen Cart, because WooCommerce didn’t exist yet (it wouldn’t launch until September 27, 2011). It was janky, but it did the job—and that site, electricdreams.com, is still live today.

No logo files. No contracts. Just hustle, FTP, and a willingness to figure it out.

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From Passion Project to Full-Time Business

After that, people started asking: “Can you build me a site?”
So I started saying yes.

I launched my first business under the name Topanga Surf Company—because I lived in Topanga, I was “surfing the web,” and I thought it sounded cooler than “Lennie’s Web Design.”

By 2006, I rebranded into a real business with real clients. WordPress was evolving fast. So was I.

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The Genesis Years (And the Time We Might’ve Inspired a Theme)

Somewhere in the mid-2000s, I started working with Genesis—Brian Gardner’s legendary WordPress theme framework. It let me build more structured, scalable sites, and I loved how clean the codebase was.

One project—Find Bliss, a lifestyle and wellness magazine—needed a homepage that didn’t look like a blog. So we hacked Genesis’s homepage shortcodes, rebuilt the layout, and created something slick.

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When SEO Clicked (And Rankings Were Almost Too Easy)

Somewhere along the way, I figured out that if I structured my content right, added some internal links, and published regularly, I could rank on Google. And back then, ranking was easy.

I had a site—Free Market Media Group—that made it to page one for “WordPress website.”

That’s when I realized WordPress wasn’t just a platform. It was an SEO engine—and the database gave me full control of how pages connected and content flowed.

Every time I clicked “publish,” I imagined sending a little shiver up Google’s spine.

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The Stack Evolves (But WordPress Still Wins)

Over the years, I cycled through stacks:

• Dreamweaver → Genesis

• Genesis → Jupiter + WPBakery

• Jupiter → Elementor

Now, we build fully custom sites with Elementor as our core builder. It’s fast, flexible, and empowers small business clients to update their own content without breaking the site.

Yes, I’ve built on Shopify, Wix, Squarespace—even OpenCart and Zen Cart back in the day. But none of them offer what WordPress does:

• Total design freedom

• Custom functionality

• SEO control

• Massive developer community

• Ownership of your own content and data

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So… Why WordPress in 2025?

Because WordPress is still, unequivocally, the best content management system on the planet.

It powers over 43% of all websites, including everything from food blogs to Fortune 500s.
WooCommerce runs nearly 30% of all online stores.
It’s maintained by over 50,000 contributors, constantly evolving, improving, and pushing the platform forward.

It’s open-source. It’s flexible. It scales from solopreneur to enterprise.

And it still lets me do what I love most:
Build beautiful, strategic websites that help real people grow their businesses.

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WordPress Timeline: My Journey

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Final Word

I’ve been using WordPress since before most people knew what it was. Not because I had some grand vision—but because I had problems to solve, and WordPress kept showing up with answers.

Twenty years later, it still does.

Over 500 sites launched—from scrappy side projects to polished platforms for clients across industries (and across the country). And every single one of them rooted in the same philosophy: build something useful, make it work, and keep learning.

WordPress gave me the tools. I built the rest.