Having held leadership positions in companies like Cold Stone Creamery, Bank of America, and Jamba Juice, etc., Ray Flores has immense experience to share with us. But what’s really interesting is that he has over 15 years of experience with WordPress – yes, since the early days of the CMS.
Ray now helps his customers build and customize WordPress websites, and no matter what challenges he faces, he knows how to tackle them.
Without further ado, let’s get started with our interview so we can all learn a thing or two from Ray Flores himself!
Cloudways: Hi Ray, Thank you for your time. I will kick off this interview with a traditional question: Can you give our readers a brief overview of your career so far?
Ray: From moonlighting in web development (mostly HTML) since 2001 to the freelance hustle to working for a large corporation in 2004, WordPress has been the foundational CMS that I have built my career around.
I started buying and selling domains and even created landing pages for those same domains. In order to make them more presentable than the next guy, I had to learn how to build a website and everything that goes with it. And since eCommerce has come in the picture, I have been providing custom web development services revolving around WordPress and WooCommerce.
Cloudways: When did you start working with WordPress? How has the experience been so far?
Ray: I’ve been working with WordPress since around version 1.5 before it was even considered a CMS. If I could change one thing about my journey with WordPress so far, then I would have taken the ‘all-in’ leap much sooner. Instead of dabbling in it with one or two projects here or there, I would have devoted all of my resources much earlier in my career.
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Cloudways: You currently work at U.Group. What are your responsibilities there? Could you share any interesting stories?
Ray: At U.Group, I am a Senior WordPress Developer and I build and maintain high-profile websites for the government, mostly. U.Group is a combination of a couple of companies under one roof. One special project currently under construction includes AI, VR, Professional Sports, and personal fitness all in one!
Cloudways: What was the first project you built? Is it still alive?
Ray: The first project that I built from scratch was for a college football teammate. After his career in the NFL, he was training up and coming quarterbacks to help with their recruitment. Since he’s fully retired now, he no longer needs the website and has taken the project offline.
Cloudways: In your opinion, what are some exciting projects in WordPress/WooCommerce space? Have you contributed to any? What are the challenges you face and how did you deal with them?
Ray: The Gutenberg project looks really exciting to me. I thoroughly enjoy learning new things, and Reactjs, in my opinion, is a pretty neat js language that can be used in so many different ways within the Gutenberg project itself. Quick adaptation is a challenge for me as I am not in a space where I am solely using Gutenberg to go ‘all-in’ on Reactjs quite yet, though.
Cloudways: What are your views about WordPress freelancing? Should people leave the 9 to 5 for a freelancing career?
Ray: I believe in the hustle. I believe that if you put in the work, you will be rewarded kindly. Once you have this mindset, you can then begin to work on your quality and start to raise your own prices as it fits your demand. However, full-time freelancing is not for everyone. To be a full-time freelancer, one must be knowledgeable in all facets of business in my opinion. From vision to marketing, sales to execution, and from delivery to accounting, it truly is a multi-tasking operation. If anyone is willing to handle all of that, give Freelancing a go and you won’t regret it.
Cloudways: You live in Wake Forest, North Carolina. What are some local WordPress/WooCommerce meetups you like? Would you like to mention any WordPressers to be interviewed next?
Ray: I typically wait for the WordCamp US to attend in Tennessee. And WordPress is such a great community with much more talented WordPressers than myself, so there are too many to mention. 😉
Cloudways: Would you agree that web hosting drives the internet? What are your thoughts about cloud hosting, and how do you compare/contrast it with traditional shared hosting for businesses?
Ray: 100%. I think that cloud hosting allows scalability that all start-ups should look for. Shared hosting is often capped or throttled at a certain bandwidth and that is reason enough to go for Cloud hosting.
Cloudways: Let’s leave all the things for a while and talk about your personal life. How do you usually relax and unwind?
Ray: I go fishing! NC offers some of the best outdoors in the country, so just going outside and enjoying the great outdoors with my family is relaxing for me. If I can sneak in a cast or two, even better! 😉
Cloudways: Okay, so here’s your chance to freestyle. Write anything you think could be interesting or useful to our readers.
Ray: Put in the work now to reap the rewards later. Play the long game of life, and you will find yourself building a legacy and making memories instead of memes 🙂
Cloudways: Can you please share images of your workstation?
Ray:
Saud Razzak
Saud is the WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways - A Managed WooCommerce Hosting Platform. Saud is responsible for creating buzz, spread knowledge, and educate the people about WordPress in the Community around the globe. In his free time, he likes to play cricket and learn new things on the Internet. You can email him at [email protected]
