A tweet from Josh Puckett reminded me how much a single DM in December 2018 and a cold email in February 2019 shaped my entire career. If I hadn't taken those seemingly small shots at some dream projects, everything would've gone differently. So I dug up the receipts.

How it started

December 27, 2018 - Eric Barnes tweeted that he was looking for someone to convert the Laravel News website to Tailwind. I was a big fan of Laravel News, so it felt like a long shot. This was the Laravel News. Who was I to pitch myself for this? Surely there'd be hundreds of others reaching out to him. But I DM'd him anyways. We chatted for a few days, and in early January, he chose me for the job.

After finishing the initial project, I wrote an article for Laravel News announcing the move, walking through how I did it, and explaining why I loved working with Tailwind. Over the next few years, I wrote twenty-eight articles for Laravel News and implemented new designs for the site.

February 5, 2019 - I was considering a job change. I had always admired the team at Tighten, so I cold emailed Matt Stauffer. I had no reason to think he'd respond, but I figured the worst he could say was no. I told him I was thinking about a change and would love to be considered if they were ever hiring. He said they weren't but we got on a Skype call later that week to get to know each other (yes, really, Skype).

February 12, 2019 - Matt emails me with the opportunity to do a short contract project for Tighten. Working with Tighten, even in such a small capacity, was a nice confidence boost.

April 17, 2019 - I tweeted that I was open to more freelance projects and started considering freelancing full-time. I went full-time later that year.

July 2019 - I went to my first Laracon in NYC. I met Eric, Matt, Taylor Otwell (creator of Laravel), Adam Wathan (creator of Tailwind), and made a ton of other connections. If you're on the fence about going to a Laracon, go. The connections I've made at Laracons are priceless.

August 2019 - I built the first design for Taylor, a new landing page for Laravel Forge. Over the years, I built thirteen more landing pages for Laravel as a freelancer.

How it went

After that, it was all a blur to be honest. Because I had a few opportunities to work with these guys and, very importantly, did good work for them, retweets and referrals from Eric, Matt, Taylor, Adam, and others opened up doors in my career that I never thought possible.

With no prior intentions of ever freelancing, I ran a successful freelance business for six years. I worked with companies like Tailwind Labs, Tuple, Clearstream, incident.io, Try Hard Studios, and many other companies in the Laravel ecosystem.

How it's going

In the summer of 2024, Taylor asked if I'd be interested in joining Laravel full-time to build the frontend of what would become Laravel Cloud. I was hesitant at first, so we agreed to a contract position for a month. By the end of the month, I'd had so much fun working with the team that I was sold and joined full-time in September.

Take the shot

If I hadn't sent those two cold messages seven years ago, none of this would've happened — the freelance career, the companies I got to work with, the friendships I've made in the industry, or the job I have now.

So if there's a person you admire or a project you'd really like to work on, reach out to them and take the shot. A simple DM could change your life forever.