Check it out. Today we’re interviewing Paul Suntup, the founder of Zel Creative, an Orange County-based agency. Paul is originally from South Africa, but moved himself to California in 1994. Paul has always been an IT guy, his first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 that you plugged into your TV to use. Don’t you love how computer people always remember their first machine?

Paul started Zel Creative as his third business, after 20 years working as an IT and Systems person. His first company was a comic book store at age 20, the second was a sales organization that didn’t speak to his soul, but when he started his web development business, and discovered WordPress, things seemed to take off naturally for him. Today, Zel Creative builds websites and brands for some amazing organizations. You can check out their portfolio here.

In Paul’s Own Words:

“Zel Creative is a small web design and development shop specializing in building WordPress websites and plugins. I still like to keep things fairly small so I can give personal attention to my clients. I take what I do seriously, and the same principles that allowed me to grow the business from its very humble beginnings, are still true today, and that is to focus on delivering a quality product, with excellent service. I feel really lucky to be a part of this industry!”

Now onto Paul’s answers!

When was the first time that you really got excited about WordPress and at what point did you decide to make it your career?

I think maybe when I realized you could do so much more than just make a simple blog. And I don’t think I ever decided consciously to make it my career. It was more along the lines of WordPress making that decision for me. Sort of like, “You do this, it’s for the best, trust me.” and it was right!

Where do you go first to get your WordPress news, insights, and updates?

I try not to inundate myself with too much information because there’s so much out there. So I basically keep things relatively simple and watch the WordPress.org blog and Twitter. Also make.wordpress.org.

What WordPress consultants deserve more love than they get? Who should we be paying attention to?

Well, let’s see. In terms of who I’ve had the pleasure of working with recently, I’d start with Nick Ohrn. I can’t say enough great things about Nick. He is one of the most professional and gifted developers I have worked with. A class act. Also, Andy Adams has really impressed me. Like Nick, he takes pride in his work, has an amazing work ethic and is an incredibly talented developer.

What performance tips would you give to other pros (as related to speed, scalability, security, plugins, backup, etc.)?

I think the pros would have a handle on this already, but in terms of the very basics, I would say things like doing daily malware scans, choosing the right web host, being selective over the plugins being used and having a backup and restore plan that works. If I take on a new client who already has some sort of shared hosting in place, I usually recommending some sort of hosting “upgrade.” This may seem obvious to state it, but server performance has so much to do with the overall speed of the site, and we shouldn’t neglect that.

Confess to us your biggest moment of WP fail?

I don’t have any. Everything has been running perfectly. Of course, I’d kidding. I think maybe we’ve all had our share of meltdown situations. I’m actually trying hard to think of one, because I might have blocked them out of my mind. There was one time when we updated an e-commerce plugin on a high-volume site and it ended up preventing visitors from being able to check-out using their credit cards.

Then the epic saga continued when we deleted one of the previous versions of the plugin during cleanup, which by the way was actually inactive at the time, and that resulted in wiping out all the custom shop settings, from default currency to shipping and tax settings to payment gateway, everything. It was bad. Actually, I’m feeling light-headed just thinking about it, so let’s move onto the next question…

If you were going to spend this weekend creating a plugin that doesn’t exist, what would it be?

I’d build one that could make me a protein shake every morning.

Do you use Themes & Child Themes, Roll your own, or both?

We tend not to get involved with customizing existing themes. It’s not because I feel there’s something “wrong” with using themes, it’s more along the lines of what is best for the client, and doing what I enjoy, and I don’t always enjoy tweaking a premium theme. There are times when we do it based on the client’s needs and it’s mostly when there isn’t a huge budget for the work. So ideally, I like to build the site from scratch. Design it in Photoshop, then code into a fully functional WordPress website.

What’s your favorite theme or theme framework? Why?

No favorite theme, but in terms of a theme framework, I’d say Thesis. I do have somewhat of an affinity for the framework because in the very early days of my business, a client at the time asked me to work on their site, which happened to be running on Thesis. I didn’t know much about it back then, but got into it out of necessity. Then what ended up happening was we got good at building sites on it, and started to get more and more referrals and people asking for it. The framework certainly played a part in the early success of the business so I’m grateful for that. We continue to build sites on the framework, and I like where Chris Pearson is taking it with the 2.x versions.

It’s funny, I think WordPress “frameworks” in general get a bad rap sometimes. I’ve seen WordPress developers being asked if they work with frameworks, and the popular response seems to be, no way, they’re bulky and I prefer to spin my own, or some variation of that. You can stretch this argument out beyond WordPress to web frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation too. As a general rule, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with a framework if they’re used correctly, and if it makes sense for the build in question.

Favorite plugin?

I’m a fan of Gravity Forms. We’ve done some interesting things with it beyond the basic contact form, and it’s a pleasure to work with.

Least favorite plugin?

I don’t really want to “bash” any one particular plugin, but to me my least favorite type of plugin is one that hasn’t been updated in a long time, and sort of just sits there way beyond it’s shelf life. On a very basic level, when it comes to deciding whether to install a plugin or not, I look at the date it was last updated, and how many downloads it has. The reviews also offer some indication as to the viability of using it. I’d just stay away from old plugins. There are a handful of plugins that we end up using on almost every site, but we also lean toward building our own anyway so it’s perfectly tailored to the application in question.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done with Custom Post Types?

We’ve done a lot. There’s one thing we’ve worked on recently, a really complex event registration system to facilitate the registration of delegates from over 100 countries for live events, each with their own set of rules. Payment processing integration was required, and a custom Dashboard interface for the site admin to manage the registrations.

What do you think is the biggest challenge that WordPress consultants will face in 2014?

I think it’s sort of an ongoing effort that involves the ability to educate clients as to why they may want to hire a professional for the job. There’s a reason one provider will price out a project at $1000 and another at $10,000. Something has to give. I think another challenge is the ability to scale up when demand increases, which I believe it will continue to do. What tends to happen when you get really busy is that the service level suffers.

If you could change one thing today about WordPress, what would it be?

More organization around the user interface, and perhaps specifically theme and plugin options. There are numerous places in the Dashboard that settings and options end up making their home. It would be nice to have some rules around this so there is more cohesiveness.

Where do you see WordPress going in the next 2-3 years?

I think wider adoption as a CMS platform particularly amongst corporations. I’ve seen an increase in medium to large size companies looking to move away from older proprietary or Windows based websites, to WordPress.

Tell us a story where you saved the WordPress day for yourself or on a client project. What made the difference for you?

You know, I’d have to say in general, it’s been where we’ve moved a client off of some legacy platform, and built a custom WordPress site from the ground up, and how they are amazed at how easy it is to manage the site’s content when compared to their previous experiences.

What’s the biggest misconception you encounter about WordPress, and how do you clear it up for your clients?

Same one we hear all the time. That all WordPress is good for is blogging. We actually do more sites that don’t have a blog than straight up blogging sites. As to how I clear this up for a client, I just show them some sites we’ve done that have no blog, and they’re usually surprised that it’s built on WordPress.

If you were interviewing another WordPress developer for a job, what is the first question you would ask and why?

I’ve learned that no matter what questions you ask, you’ll never really know how good or bad a developer is until you start working with him or her. You can certainly get a sense for their skills after asking some questions, but really the best thing to do is ask the developer to code up a small project, like a plugin or a CPT. Then look at the code and the approach they took. That’s the best way to tell. I also like to look for signs that they are excited about what they do. If they don’t love doing it, then their heart won’t be in it, and that will reflect in the work. To me, that’s just as important as their development skills.

What did I miss? Here’s your chance to fill in the blanks and add something you want people to know about you!

Well first off, thanks for profiling me and my company here. Much appreciated. There isn’t much more to say, other than I really love working in this industry, and will continue to focus on creating great looking, functional websites for our growing client base.

Thanks Paul!