WPfounders

My name is Paweł Madeja. I am the CEO of Coditive, a web development company based in Knurów, Silesia, in southern Poland. Knurów is not the first place people picture when they think about an international technology company. It is a smaller city near the A1 and A4 highway interchange, close to bigger places that get mentioned more often. That is part of the story, though. We did not start in a tech hub. There were no investors, no impressive office, no perfect business plan.

I’m originally from a city called Portsmouth on the south coast of England. From a young age, I knew that English weather wasn’t my cup of tea. I remember living in Mexico as a university student and being amazed by seeing sunshine for several years in a row. So, you could say that my early years were dominated by finding a nice warm place to live. I spent time in Mexico, Japan, Australia, and other countries before finally coming to the United States in 2004.

I was born in Ethiopia, where my grandfather had migrated in the 1970s. Later my family moved back to India and eventually settled in Rajkot, Gujarat, where I spent my formative years and completed my education. During my student years, I developed a strong interest in programming and technology. Soon after completing my studies, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to manage one of Rajkot’s pioneering institutes for IT skills and talent development.

I am Bud Kraus, formerly Buddy Kraus. My legal name is a state secret. In a previous life, I was an insurance broker in New York City, working on behalf of film (remember that?) and video producers. When I first saw the web I decided to sell my business and “do that.” I started making very primitive HTML and CSS sites and started teaching web design at Pratt Institute in New York City.

My name is Gina Gindorf, and I’m the co-founder and CMO of Loya. Originally from Germany, I have spent the last several years living and studying internationally, including earning my Master’s degree in Public Relations and Corporate Communications from New York University. Throughout my career, I’ve worked across marketing, communications, and technology, helping startups tell their stories and grow their businesses.

I’m Nizam Uddin, Co-Founder and CEO of weDevs, one of the largest bootstrapped WordPress product companies to come out of Bangladesh. I was born and raised in a rural village in Pabna. Life there was simple and, in many ways, limited. We didn’t have electricity until 2003. Still, my family made sure one thing was never limited: my education. Things started to shift when I earned a scholarship in class five and moved to Pabna Zilla School. That phase changed how I saw the world. I began to dream bigger.

I am Tommy Nguyen, and I call Nha Trang home, a Vietnamese coastal city that feels like the country’s own version of Long Beach, with white sand beaches, deep blue water, and breezy weather almost every day of the year. It’s the kind of place that keeps you both grounded and energized, which probably says something about how I try to run a business.

My name is Jason Rouet, and I am the Mediapapa plugin’s Product Manager. I was born around the same time Tim Berners-Lee was publishing the first website, and I live in Cognac, western France. And yes, it is not just the infamous Brandy’s name! I studied geography, languages, and digital tourism. At some point, building things online became my obsession, I dropped out of university, and I started freelancing. That decision turned out to be one of the better ones I have made.

My name is Muhammad Abdullah Khan. I’m a computer engineer, product builder, and the founder of SiteSkite. I am from Pakistan & currently based in Istanbul, Turkey, building products for global users. My journey into the digital world started quite early. As a child, I was fascinated by computer games. I was the kid in school who brought many small games on floppy disks and played those black-and-white games in the computer lab.

I’m Leonardo Losoviz from Argentina, but I have lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, since 2012. Indeed, I’ve been in Asia since 2007, when I started a backpacking trip for 1 year, and that turned out to stretch far longer than expected, including 5 years spent in China. I’m fully settled in Asia by now, and (as much as possible) I go back to Argentina to visit my family once every year or two.