Episode 61: Chris Hufnagel

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Introducing Chris Hufnagel

Chris Hufnagel is a creative freelancing dad of two. He geeks out about solving problems using design and code. Chris stumbled upon WordPress seven years ago and has been freelancing ever since.

Show Notes

Website | Chris Hufnagel
Twitter | @chrishufnagel

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions, and our guests share their stories, ideas and perspectives.

Liam: And now the conversation begins. This is episode 61.

Tara: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Tara Claeys.

Liam: And I’m Liam Dempsey. Today, we’re joined by Chris Hufnagel. Chris is a creative freelancing dad of two. He geeks out about solving problems using design and code. Chris stumbled upon WordPress seven years ago and has been freelancing ever since. Hey Chris, welcome.

Chris: Hey, Liam and Tara, how are you?

Tara: Hi, we’re good. We’re glad you’re here. Thanks for joining us, Chris. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Chris: Yes, I’m a freelancer. I live in Florida. I have two kids and I build things with WordPress basically.

Tara: Okay. I love that you define yourself first about where you live and that you have kids, that’s important information for one, definition of oneself. Let’s hear a little bit more about what you do with WordPress and why you do it? How you found it and what your background is?

Chris: Yes, I have kind of a very varied background. I got my start into website development back in high school, way too long ago to go into, and I hated it. I had like a web design class that I was required to take and I just hated it. I think it was more the teacher and the teaching style but anyways, 15 years later, that’s what I’m doing for a living. In between all that, I manage restaurants and I did computer forensics for a while. I actually taught pre-school for two years and just done a lot of different things. Eventually, I started making websites on the side and was making more money doing that on the weekends and I just was like, “I should freelance.” That’s what I started doing.

Tara: What is computer forensics?

Chris: I got into that– I did a lot of government contracts where if somebody commits a crime using a technology device, we would be finding ways to get the data off of the computer, the phone, the camera, whatever. Even if it was deleted or they had emailed it to somebody. And use that information to be able to either prosecute them or find more information on the next person that needs to be found.

Tara: That’s fascinating and quite topical in the world today. Did you learn how to do that yourself? I’m really curious about how one chooses that or finds that themselves on that career path for doing that job.

Chris: Yeah, I’m really good at triage and finding information very quickly and knowing what is the most important information when looking at something really quick. I used to create classes around it and teach. We did a lot with NATO and so we would teach them how to look at a phone real quickly and even if it is an operating system they haven’t seen before, nowhere to look for the information that they needed right then, to be able to figure out where to go next. I started working there just as a general manager of some of their employees and I found out that I was really good at the triage part.

Tara: Okay. So you were working for a company that did that?

Chris: Yes.

Tara: Okay, I see, interesting. Do you utilize those skills as a web developer, any of them?

Chris: I do. It was all research-based. I got my start into WordPress because they needed a website and I was like, “Oh, I’ll take a look.” I just kind of stumbled upon WordPress and loved that every time I googled something, somebody else had the same problem and there was an answer. I kind of just taught myself along the way and kept going from there.

Tara: Interesting. You also have an affinity for design from what I’ve seen on your website and how you described yourself as a creative. Where does that fit into the picture? You have a good mixture of code and tech with design? Is that true?

Chris: Yes. I don’t know, I don’t really consider myself a designer. I just have always been very minimalistic and goal-focused so I’ve always found that if I just stay really, really focused on what the website is, the design comes out pretty good anyways. That’s always been my motto, just to stay simple and focused and it’ll look halfway decent.

Tara: That makes a lot of sense. You work directly for clients building websites?

Chris: Most of my work is for other agencies so I’ll take over some of their overflow and try to do my work that way.

Tara: I was going to say that a lot of times that if you’re working directly with clients, I find sometimes that they want things to be busy, and fancy, and moving, and doing all that kind of stuff and sometimes it is a challenge to talk them into that sort of clean simple idea, I think so. Your agencies that you work with, they’re responsible for communicating that to the client?

Chris: Yes. Most of them come to me with a design, some of them I do the design work for as well. But most of the time– there’s always a battle somewhere on how big the logo should be or what size the font should be and all that. But you just got to pick your battles.

Tara: Yeah. Working with agencies and with your background sounds really interesting. I’d be curious to talk to you a little bit about what success means to you. Going back to your introduction of yourself and how you define yourself as being the parent and living in Florida, as your first part of your definition, how would you define success in terms of your personal life blended in with what you do for a living?

Chris: I’ve always tried to combine the two because whenever I’ve tried to separate work and life, I’ve– that whole work/life balance thing has never really been something I was very good at. I find that when I combine them, I do a little bit better. I work from home, my kids are home 95% of that time. My wife works from home as well, part-time for a company. My kids are always around and I like that my life is built that way and that I have that freedom to just take lunch for an hour and go and have lunch with the kids or make them something, or get up and start the day by reading books with my kids. We travel a lot so even with the kids we go all over and just bring them and work from different hotels, different parts. That’s kind of how I’ve defined it and I think I’d define it that way because it’s who I am and I get to say that I’m successful. But I think when we started to talk about having kids, that was how we wanted to build our life, so we built it in that direction.

Liam: The travel aspect of that is interesting to me. You said that you travel a lot. It sounds like you travel for the sake of travel and not necessarily to travel for work or you’re traveling to this family function, but you take the family and go here or go there. Is that stay for the period of time, is it just a vacation? Or you go live in the northwest for two months, you go live in the south for a month, you go up here for three weeks? Tell us a little bit about your travel?

Chris: Yes. In 2013, we sold our house. It was just my wife and me and before we had kids. We packed our Honda Civic with whatever we could fit and we traveled for about seven months and we just traveled up the northeast. My family’s from Boston so we visited them. Her family is in Philadelphia so we visited some of them. We both had remote positions so we just worked along the way, went to see what we want to see. It got more difficult as the kids came along. My son is almost four and we traveled for at least two months out of the year, I believe, every year since he’s been born.

Liam: Consecutively or you’re just adding up two months of travel over 12?

Chris: At least a month consecutively and then we take a lot of little vacations. It’s tough, starting to get tougher actually. He’s starting to want to be home with his stuff, his toys. You can only fit so much to bring with you. I’m just going with the flow at this point. I don’t know how much travel we’ll have in the next few years but we will certainly see.

Tara: Do you find that being in a new environment and working remotely, truly remotely, not even from your home being remote, does that increase your productivity and focus? I know sometimes people say, “Go work somewhere else. Get out of your office and get a fresh environment.” If you’re traveling like that, how do you maintain productivity or is that a benefit of travel?

Chris: I don’t know that it makes me more productive but it makes me more creative, I guess, getting out to different places. I think that it’s just the balance and getting into– even though it’s not always the same place that the routine happens but I kind of have the same routine throughout the day of what I do and when I do it. It doesn’t matter where I am, it’s still the same stuff that I’m doing.

Tara: Okay. Is that hard to do when you’re in a new place, having the same routine?

Chris: It’s not. It’s more of like, I have a certain time each day that I check my emails, and that I’m on Slack, and available for questions for my clients. I have a certain time of the day that I do– if I’m doing my design work, that’s my due design work. I have certain time that I do code. This changes, it’s not like I have this on my calendar from now until 20, 30. It’s more like a weekly thing. I just kind of, “This worked really well last week so I’ll do the same thing next week.” And that plan sort of works.

Tara: That’s great. What would you say is your biggest challenge that you have in your work life as you have it set up right now with your children and working remotely and traveling, what’s your biggest challenge?

Chris: I would say it’s still imposter syndrome. I’ve been freelancing for seven years and I still, every time I submit a design or submit some code or release something, I’m terrified somebody’s going to be like, “This is all wrong. Where did you figure this out?” I think it stands from being self-taught. I never went to school for this. I kind of just kept it all up and as I’m working with bigger agencies and starting to now work with teams which I really enjoyed working with other creators and other developers and designers. I’m assured that one of them is going to be like, “You’re doing this all wrong.” And it all just comes crashing down.

Tara: I hear you. Yeah, that’s a big challenge. How do you overcome it or deal with it if you’re not overcoming it?

Chris: I don’t really overcome it. Still, every single time I send a proposal or I send an email, I just wait and hope that I do actually know what I’m talking about and I guess it’s just knowing that every time that happens, it still all works out. Keep believing, I guess.

Tara: Yeah. Something I find, too, is when you are doing any kind of mentoring or teaching, that sometimes that helps you realize how much you know. I think that sometimes helps a little bit. What’s your involvement in the WordPress community?

Chris: It’s very little, unfortunately. I knew that there was a WordPress community of developers because I’d constantly be googling, ‘white screen of death’, and all those same errors that you’re googling all the time. So I knew that there was other people that use this platform but I really didn’t know how big it was. And then last year, I met the StudioPress team and started doing some work with them. And they invited me to go out to WordCamp and hang out with them while I was there. I remember walking into WordCamp and was just fascinated. I couldn’t believe that all those people were there for WordPress. I’ve been amazed ever since. I’ve been trying to get more involved, it’s just there’s not much for a WordPress community around where I live.

Tara: Good, I’m glad you made it to WordCamp US. That was a great event. When we go back to success and your idea of success, what is the most important thing that you do everyday sort of to work toward that idea of success?

Chris: You guys ask tough questions. [laughter] I’d say I just keep doing it. I think that’s the big thing is I just keep waking up and I keep doing it and keep putting stuff out there. It’s really easy to just wake up and not create anything, not write any code, not make any designs. But to me, it’s just to keep trying because the first ten– I was just going through my portfolio and looking at designs I made just two years ago. I can’t believe the progress I’ve made since then. Just keep creating. Never give up.

Liam: Yeah, I think that’s a good way to address a lot of challenges and a lot of things in life is that we’re never going to get any better if we don’t do it.

Chris: Exactly.

Liam: Even the most talented athletes or the most gifted designers, they put in the time and the energy and they’re doing it. Rarest individual who never has thrown a football and steps up and suddenly wins the NFL Superbowl or something like that. So I like that, I like that approach. If keeping at it, keeping going, keeping trying, keep working is the way forward, what’s your favorite thing to do? You’ve talked about design, you’ve talked about development. You talked about working with StudioPress of late. Talk a little bit about that? What’s your favorite thing to do in the office, wherever that office may be?

Chris: My favorite thing lately has been working with other freelancers that are just getting started, and helping them fine-tune their process and getting their first couple of clients and figuring out how much to charge. I really enjoyed working with other people that are starting their businesses. I wish I had more of it.

Tara: Where are you doing that and how did you discover this forum or wherever that’s happening?

Chris: Yeah, I’ve just been doing it through Zoom meetings, setting up coaching calls with different people that have just reached out to me and ask questions.

Tara: So it’s a service you’re offering through your business?

Chris: Yeah. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed it until I did the first couple and then–

Tara: Does that help with your imposter syndrome then?

Chris: No. [laughs]

Tara: Oh, darn.

Chris: It almost makes it worse where they’ll ask me a question and I feel like I should know the answer and I don’t. I wish that it did, but it makes me feel good that I get to help other people, but I don’t think it solves the imposter syndrome completely.

Tara: That’s funny.

Liam: That is pretty funny. So you had mentioned that you’re doing work with StudioPress. Does that mean you’re using the framework? Are you working with the organization itself? And you said they invited you to attend WordCamp US, who is they and tell us about that relationship? That sounds interesting.

Chris: They had themes that they released so they had reached out to me, they being Rafal and Brian, reached out to me to do some development for something with themes so I’ve recently been doing those. We released Authority and Essence, and we have some other ones in the works.

Liam: Well, that’s exciting. How did that relationship come about? That’s interesting. Thinking about a freelancer and certain StudioPress and Brian Gardner are not a half-hearted effort at running the WordPress shop. Speaking of imposter syndrome, if you get an email from Brian Gardner saying, “I want to do some work.” How long did it take you to get off of the floor after you read that?

Chris: Pretty much. I’ve been using Genesis pretty much since I found WordPress. And I kind of always just hid in my corner of the world and did my own thing. I actually left a comment on Rafal’s blog about something. He must have read it and started looking into me and then he reached out to me. Yeah, that was pretty much the story of it, and then we just started talking about building things. We’ve had a few other interactions a few years ago, design-type stuff. Just kind of always putting yourself out there, I need to do more of that.

Tara: Yeah, that’s a great team to have experience working with. I can understand having imposter syndrome, more now that I know that you’re working with folks at StudioPress, they do great things and Rafal’s very highly-regarded in the design world especially. I’ve learned from him, too, from his templates and things he shares. He’s great about sharing resources.

Chris: Yes, he is.

Tara: Yeah. Let’s talk about people who have mentored you or advice that you’ve received. You say that you like mentoring other people and you’re self-taught. I imagine there are people along the way who have shepherded you and shown you some things as well. Have you received any advice when it comes to running a business or living life or development, any advice that you’ve received that’s been really meaningful to you that you think about a lot?

Chris: Something that I saw recently and I wish I could remember where, but basically, it’s just a little quote that ‘if it’s not a heck yes, it’s a no’. It’s been something I’ve been trying to do more of is saying no to some of the projects where I’m like– as a freelancer, you kind of want to say yes to everything, especially if there’s a check at the end because you have bills to pay and mouths to feed. It’s really, really tough to start saying no. Just in last year and a half, I started to say no a little bit more and I realized that leaves the room to do the bigger things. I have a whole poster with that in my living room to try to remind me that it is so hard to say no but it’s a necessary thing.

Liam: Yeah, it’s a process: Isn’t it? Learning to say no. I suppose it’s a building process as well to be able to plan ahead to the point where we can say no. It’s one thing if it’s us and we’re willing to eat beans on toast for a few months, but little ones, they need proper nutrition and fresh clothes and clean diapers and the like. Yeah, that’s a challenge, but once you learn to say no, that’s an empowering feeling. Tell us about that.

Chris: I’m still terrible at it and I still get myself in situations all the time where somebody tells me about a problem they’re having and my immediate response is, “Yes, I can help you with that.” And then I go back and I start looking a bit more and while I can help them with that, it may not move me forward in any way. It may move me backwards even. I tried to, instead of saying yes or no right away, just trying to understand everything involved before getting a response. It’s been a process and it still definitely is.

Tara: When I first heard you say that. I was actually thinking about it from the other side, which was if someone doesn’t say, ‘heck yes’ with excitement to me, what they really mean is no. That’s how I heard it and I was thinking, gosh, I wonder if you’re selling a proposal to the client or something and they’re kind of like, “Heck yes.” Are they not really for you? I heard it that way, which probably is not at all– that doesn’t make any sense when you say it that way, when you turn it on its head like that maybe. I don’t know, what do you think?

Chris: Yeah, I never actually saw it that way but I guess it works that way, too. Because basically, it’s not a ‘heck yes’ for them so it should be a no if it’s not a ‘heck yes’ for both people.

Tara: Yes, we’re seeking out the ‘heck yes’ from others as well as giving them ourselves, that’s a high bar to meet at times.

Liam: I think your interpretation, Tara, is more imposter syndrome inducing.

Tara: You are right, sorry. I was trying to help with that, now I’m just going to get it worse. But there’s me revealing my own grips. [laughs] How do you like living in Florida and tell us a little bit about why you’re in Florida?

Chris: I don’t love living in Florida. It’s too hot, it’s too busy. I’m originally from Cape Cod, Massachusets and it’s beautiful there but really expensive to live so I moved down here and I ended up meeting my wife and that’s why I’m still here because most of her family lives here. But that is pretty much– yeah, I’m not a big fan of Florida.

Liam: You’re North Florida, South Florida, Central Florida, Panhandle?

Chris: I’m near Tampa.

Liam: I love all kinds of weather and it can never be too hot or too humid for me.

Chris: Yeah, it’s gross.

Liam: I get that but I absolutely love it. I don’t mind it at all. Tell me a little bit about freelancing there. You talked about some of your bigger clients and I imagine those– certainly StudioPress, I’d call them a national agency if you will. But did you historically just start working with other freelancers, or companies, or agencies in and around the Tampa area, or how did that come about?

Chris: I had actually had three clients total my entire freelance career in Florida.

Liam: Was that to a circumstance or did you bump into them at 7/11 and heard them talking about–?

Chris: It just happened to be that they were in Florida. I got my start, I went on Elance way, way back and I got my first client through there. He actually happened to be in Florida and lived three towns over. We met and he said, I want to give you a full-time position.” And I was like, “Well, I have a job right now but I’d like to just build your website.” We started doing some work together and that was about it.

Liam: That’s awesome. I’m going to swing towards one of our signature questions here and ask you about advice. We’ve talked about mentoring, we’ve talked about sharing but maybe you can have a think and share with us what’s been the single most valuable piece of advice that somebody has shared with you that you have successfully implemented in your life? It can be either personal advice, professional advice, but basically, something that somebody said to you, maybe struck a chord and you now live by that or you live by it for a period of time and it really brought value to your life in some way?

Chris: Just the ‘heck yes’ thing, I wish I knew who said this, or the exact wording. I know who said it. This is by Steve Jobs and he had said that, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Once you realize that everybody that’s creating something is just another person and you can do the same thing as them, the whole world opens up.” I know I’m completely butchering that, I’m sorry. But basically, that told me that when I see things, they’re made by other human beings and I can teach myself to do the same thing and to not just think that they had some special thing about them that allows them to do it. I can do that too.

Liam: Yeah, that’s really insightful in a sense– and I’m going to loop back again because I keep going back to imposter syndrome. Realizing that even a spaceship that goes to the moon, at some point, somebody just broke out the rivet gun and put the rivet and bolted the one thing onto the other. That wasn’t the only bit of work that went into it but if we break the work down, break the process down, break the learning down, you don’t have to learn how to make an entire website. You can learn how to add content, change a theme, customize a theme, build a theme, and so on and so on. Yeah, I like that. I think that’s humanizing the challenges in front of us is very helpful. Chris, you’ve talked about working in design and working in development. You’ve talked about how as you look back over your designs from two years ago, that you’ve made great strides and gotten better at it. And I would imagine that if you looked into your code and the way you approach things, you’d be pleased with that as well. But what do you really prefer to do if you had to, and I’m going to put you on the spot with this question, but if someone were to say to you, “Look, for the rest of your career, you can design or you can write code. You can design or you can develop. Certainly, you can talk to the other half and weigh in on the arguments in the conversation.” But if you only could do one, where would you go, at least where would you go today, and why?

Chris: I think it would be design. I don’t actually do as much design as I do development but I think– that’s a really tough question. I’ve never actually thought about it because I’ve always just considered the two the same thing. I’ve always looked at them as a combined skill set. I think I’m a good designer because I understand the code and I think I’m a good developer. Because I understand the basics of design. I think that the two combined have been why I’ve been able to do what I do.

Tara: In your development process, in your development work, you said that you work mostly with Genesis themes. Are you still doing that or have you looked at other things like page builders and things like that? What’s your process for that?

Chris: I use Genesis because it’s really secure, it’s really well-built. Like, a lot of websites I built six years ago are still going. I think a lot of that is just how clean the Genesis framework is and how unbloated– I build stuff without any sort of frameworks, without WordPress, sort of back-end, I’ve done all that. I like WordPress and I like working with Genesis because it gives clients the ability to make the changes themselves without having to hire me or another developer every single time they want to adjust their phone number, change the copy on their website. That’s why I always worked with WordPress.

Tara: Yeah. What do you think about– I’m not sure we should get into this here but what do you think about the recent change with Genesis becoming a part of WP Engine?

Chris: I think it’s exciting. I think that– I don’t know if you can include all this but I think that it gives them the opportunity. As Genesis developers, we know there’s a very bright future for Genesis. That’s what excites me is I know that they now have a bigger team to help continue supporting it. I don’t know.

Tara: That’s a whole podcast in and of itself, but since you work with them and use Genesis still and have used it for so long, I’m curious to know if there will be a change there.

Chris: I’m not sure that there’ll be much of a change. I think the core people are still there and I think that’s more of– yeah.

Liam: I think I’d agree with that. StudioPress and Genesis framework has an absolutely rock solid reputation. Having the structuring systemization of a WP engine behind it is likely to lead to further and perhaps even greater success.

Chris: You said it better than me. [laughter]

Liam: Thank you. With that, I think we are very close to running out of time and I don’t want to do so without, Chris, thanking you for being on the show and asking you to share with us where people can find you online?

Chris: Thank you for having me. You can go to my website, it’s just Chrishufnagel.com and I hang out on Twitter, just @chrishufnagel, and same on Instagram. Same username, pretty simple.

Tara: Thanks, Chris. Thanks for being here and for sharing your story.

Chris: Thanks for having me.

Liam: Thanks, Chris. We’ll see you soon. Bye-bye.

Tara: Bye.

Chris: Bye.

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