The story of how I went from being a junior developer with no programming background to building Imaginate Solutions.
Where it all began
In October 2012, I had just graduated from university and joined Tyche Softwares as a Junior Developer. It was my first job, and interestingly, I didn’t have a programming background. WordPress and WooCommerce were both new to me, and it was during my time at Tyche that I was introduced to these platforms and started learning about plugin development.
I come from a community where running a business is quite common, and my family has a business background as well. So while the idea of running something of my own was always familiar, starting a business around WordPress plugins wasn’t something I had specifically planned. At that point, I was simply beginning my professional career, learning new technologies, and getting familiar with how WordPress and WooCommerce worked.
Around June 2013, while developing plugins, I came across a requirement that would eventually lead to the creation of Imaginate Solutions. I had placed a few test orders in WooCommerce and wanted to analyze them. When I looked for a way to export those orders, I discovered that WooCommerce didn’t have a built-in provision for it.
It seemed like a fairly basic requirement. After all, anyone running an online store might eventually want to export their order data for analysis or other purposes. Since the functionality wasn’t available, I decided to build it myself. I wasn’t thinking about creating a commercial product or starting a business. I simply wanted to solve a problem I was facing.
That solution eventually became WooCommerce Export Orders, now known as Export Orders for WooCommerce.
From a personal requirement to a public plugin
Initially, I built the plugin purely for my own use. However, once it was working, I started thinking about making it publicly available. My reasoning was simple: if I needed this functionality, there were probably other WooCommerce users who needed it too.
I also felt that exporting orders was such a basic requirement that everyone should have access to it for free. So rather than keeping the plugin to myself, I decided to release it publicly. I needed somewhere to give the plugin a home, and that’s how Imaginate Solutions came into existence in 2013.
One of my earliest memories after publishing the plugin is receiving its first review, which happened to be a five-star rating. It was encouraging to see someone appreciate something I had initially built to address my own requirement. What made that experience even more memorable was that the same customer eventually approached me for additional contracting work.
That was an interesting realization for me. Something I had built to make my own work easier had not only helped another person but had also created an opportunity to work with them professionally. I hadn’t anticipated that when I first started working on the export functionality, but it became an important part of how Imaginate Solutions began growing.
Building Imaginate Solutions alongside a full-time job
Although Imaginate Solutions was established in 2013, it remained a part-time business for several years. I continued working at my regular job while developing and maintaining the business alongside it. With limited time available outside my professional responsibilities, I couldn’t always give Imaginate Solutions the attention I would have liked.
Looking back, this is actually one of the things I’m most proud of. I managed to keep the business running even when I had limited time to dedicate to it. It wasn’t an overnight transition from being employed to running my own company, and for a long time, Imaginate Solutions remained something I worked on in addition to my regular responsibilities.
Over the years, the business gradually started picking up. By 2019, it had reached a point where I could make the decision to leave my job and focus on Imaginate Solutions full-time. It had been nearly six years since I first released WooCommerce Export Orders, and what began as a side project had grown into something I could dedicate my professional time to.
That transition was significant for me, especially considering that I had started my career without a programming background and hadn’t originally planned to build a software business.
How Imaginate Solutions evolved over the years
When Imaginate Solutions first started, the focus was entirely on developing plugins for WooCommerce. That was the foundation of the business and remained our primary area of work during the early years.
As time went on, we began taking on custom development projects for WooCommerce stores. Instead of focusing only on plugins, we started working with businesses that needed specific functionality developed for their online stores. This allowed us to expand the type of work we were doing while continuing to build on our experience with WordPress and WooCommerce.
Eventually, our services expanded beyond WooCommerce-specific development. Today, Imaginate Solutions also works on complete WordPress website builds, alongside our custom development services and plugin portfolio.
It’s quite a change from the early days when Imaginate Solutions was simply a home for one WooCommerce plugin. What started as a plugin-focused business has gradually grown into a broader WordPress development company. However, plugin development continues to remain an important part of what we do, and Export Orders for WooCommerce will always hold a special place because it’s where everything began.
The people behind the business
While most of this story is about how Imaginate Solutions started and evolved, there’s an equally important personal side to it.
My wife Dhara and I actually worked together at Tyche Softwares. Later, as Imaginate Solutions developed, she became involved in the business as well, helping with support and marketing. She’s been my constant support throughout these years, and her contribution has been an important part of keeping things moving forward.
It’s something I particularly appreciate because she has been familiar with my professional life since the very beginning. From our time working together at Tyche to her involvement with Imaginate Solutions, she’s been part of both stages of my career.
Outside work, I’m a father of two boys, and I enjoy spending time on interests that have nothing to do with WordPress or WooCommerce. Sports have always been something I love, and I enjoy playing almost all kinds of games, particularly cricket, football, table tennis, badminton, and chess.
While much of my working life revolves around websites, plugins, and development projects, these are the other parts of my life that matter to me.
Looking back after 13 years
It’s been more than 13 years since I was first introduced to WordPress and WooCommerce, and a lot has changed during that time. I started as a junior developer who had just graduated from university, with no programming background and very little idea of where working with WordPress would eventually take me.
Over the years, Imaginate Solutions has grown from a single free WooCommerce plugin into a business offering plugins, custom WooCommerce development, and complete WordPress website development. I’ve also gone from working on the business part-time alongside my regular job to focusing on it full-time since 2019.
Of everything that has happened, I’m particularly proud of having kept Imaginate Solutions going during those early years when time was limited. I didn’t know in 2013 what the business would look like more than a decade later, and I certainly hadn’t planned all the changes that would come along the way.
When I think about where it all started, I still find it interesting that Imaginate Solutions exists because of a requirement I encountered while working with WooCommerce in June 2013.
I had placed a few test orders, wanted to analyze them, and couldn’t find a way to export them.
So I built one.