 Let me take a deep breath. We often hear the phrase self-made, but I always believe that somehow something or someone gave you a chance. I want you to think when that moment was or when that opportunity was for you. I'm Jan Kavin-Bowis. I'm a product designer at Automatic. I'm also an illustrator. I'm also a mom to a very, very active little girl. She's currently 17 months old. She'll be two on New Year's Day next year. I'm really excited to be here. I have been at Automatic for almost four years. I feel very fortunate to be working with the smartest, most passionate, and most talented people in this industry. But how exactly did I get here? So let's hop into this time machine for a moment. So I was born and raised in the Philippines. I lived in the central part of the country in an island called Cebu. Ever since I was little, growing up, I've always been into drawing and illustration and cartooning. I think I was influenced by my dad, who is a great illustrator. But I don't think I'm half as good as him. But my dad is a computer engineer. So growing up, I somehow was molded into becoming an engineer or probably working a job in the medical field. But my parents weren't exactly tiger parents. They're kind of like at least borderline tiger parents. And when I graduated high school, I had to go to college. I applied at a university. And I picked nursing as my chosen major. And unfortunately, the test results came out the next day. And I didn't quite make it. Of course, my parents were disappointed. But I was like, yes, I didn't pass. Because I didn't want to be a nurse. But of course, it's a great job. But it just wasn't what my heart desired. And so I applied at the, I still needed to go to college. So I applied at the same university at their engineering campus, which was at a different location. And the applications were almost due. And the night before its due date, my dad said, you know what, you got to pick your major. And I had no idea what to do. So he said, you know what, I'm just going to write you down for computer engineering. And I said, OK, I didn't really have much of a choice. I had to just accue us to whatever he said. And I wasn't fond of my major. I took up computer engineering. But I loved computers still. I loved tinkering with computers. I loved drawing on MS Paint, the internet, that sort of stuff. And when I was in college in the early 2000s, I had an idea. I wanted a place online where I could share my illustrations. And there weren't that many options for me. There was GeoCities and some other site builder. I can't even remember its name. I picked GeoCities. And I remember on the home page, I remember explicitly that I wrote, I want this to be a place where I could share my illustrations online in a shared effort where I could improve my own skills and help other people improve theirs. But then I wanted to name this doghouse as a tribute to a family dog that passed away. But this name was already taken. So I just couldn't come up with a better alternative. So I just named it doghouse, D-I-W-E-G. And I wasn't happy with the templates that GeoCities had to offer. I didn't know any code. I didn't know how to customize anything. I didn't know where to ask for help. So I couldn't take this idea any further. And so it basically died. And college took over my life anyway. And one day, my mom found a school, a small school outside of the university that I was at that taught, they said it taught animation. And that got me really excited. And the course package offered HTML, CSS, and MySQL and that sort of stuff. But I couldn't really be bothered by any of those because all I could think about was animation. And I was like, oh, finally, I'll be able to learn what I've been wanting to all these years. But it turned out that the animation that they meant was actually the HTML marquee tag. So I was really frustrated. It wasn't what I expected. But I already paid the down payment. So I'm just going to go ahead with it. But I fell in love with it by accident. I learned the basics of building a website. I felt really empowered. But it didn't really dawn on me that I could actually make a career out of it. And it didn't help that one of my college professors, he said that these web designers, they don't really have, they're pretty much worthless. You should learn other languages like Java, C++, assembly. So I still kept on going. I chose to do that because it made me really happy. I continued doing it because out of pure enjoyment, really. And then my last year in college, I bought my very first domain. At that time in the Philippines, owning a credit card wasn't a really commonplace. So at first, I didn't know where to get one. But then fortunately, I found a small hosting company just in the city where I could make in-person payments. So every month, I would commute and make payments for my domain. And then eventually, I graduated college. I applied for jobs. But in my city, there weren't really that many jobs available. And it didn't help that I didn't really have any experience. I didn't have anything to show in my portfolio. So nobody wanted to hire me pretty much. And then a lot of my classmates in college, they took on jobs at call centers because hiring for those was really hot, even up to this day. And I actually consider that. But then it wasn't really what I wanted to do. It wasn't what my heart desired. So I thought maybe for a little while, I'll work for free or for really cheap. And I posted ads on Craigslist so I could get more projects. And as you can see, there's very affordable web design services, or $100 web design services, or really cheap web design services. And I had a few different alternatives for the post-itals to somehow make it a little bit more attractive. And then I found my first project. This was the first site I ever built not for myself, but for someone else. This was for somebody. It was a site that I built for free for someone. It was for somebody in India. And then my second project was a school project for somebody's finals. It was really frustrating a lot of times because my rates were super, super low, but then people still ended up not paying me. At the very beginning of the project, there would be promises of payment. But then towards the end, nothing happened. But I kept applying for jobs. I blasted out my resume. I kept showing up at interviews. And then eventually, I found a job as a junior web designer at a design and development agency. I think part of the reason why they hired me was because I became that annoying applicant that they kept calling their office until it got an answer. And I have to say that this company, they gave me my wings because I learned a lot from them. I learned a lot by doing. And during the day, I'd show up for work. And at night, I would focus on tutorials and learn as much as I can. And back then, when Flash was popular, I would try to decompile this Swift files to somehow try to figure out how these animations have been put together. They always didn't come out perfect when you decompile them, but it somehow helped me still. And in 2007, that's when I first heard of WordPress. A lot of my designer and developer friends, that's what they were talking about. And a lot of the blogs that I followed, the design blogs that I followed, they were powered by WordPress. So I wanted to be one of the cool kids. So I tried learning it. But then when I tried learning it, it was a little too intimidating for me. Lots of PHP. My brain wasn't wired that way. And being my impatient self, I really wanted to roll something out. I really wanted to be part of the cool kids. So what I did was I created a fake WordPress site. It was a static HTML file site, a typical looking WordPress site with a list of posts and a sidebar. And then when you click on one of the posts, it actually links to just a static HTML file. And then it got really popular, actually. For some reason, people didn't pay attention. They was like a fake WordPress site. But eventually, I was able to convert it to a real WordPress site with the help of an old coworker. And one day, this site got featured in what used to be a popular design and development blog. I think they're still around today, called Six Revisions. But they credited somebody else. And that made me really upset. Obviously, somebody stole my site. And so I complained to the owner. And I wrote them, you know what? Like, this is my design. Obviously, somebody stole it. And the owner, Jacob, he was really nice. And he was really accommodating. And we were able to sort things out. And he asked me, would you be interested in writing a tutorial for us? At first, I was a little bit hesitant. Because first of all, it's something that I've never done before. Second, there's a lot of design blogs out there. Smashing Magazine, Web Designer Wall. So why would anyone want to listen to me? But then I wanted to stay true to what the doghouse was intentionally for. So I said, OK, I'll write a tutorial for you. So this was the first ever tutorial that I wrote how to create a web 2.0 web design and Photoshop. Surprisingly, it got really popular. It ended up on the front page of Dig. And everyone familiar with what Dig is? It's a popular, well, it used to be a popular content or news aggregator. And the Dig effect, that's when your article or your site gets picked up by Dig. And Dig brings you so much traffic that it just crashes your site. So the Dig effect crashed my site that I had to call my hosting company and have them upgrade me to a higher tier plan to be able to sustain the traffic. So somehow it got viral before viral was even a thing. But alongside its popularity, it amassed a ton of negative feedback. Probably like 98% of the comments were negative. And of course, this was the first ever tutorial that I wrote. I held it close to my heart. And then people just ripped it apart with no mercy. But then I still wanted to stay true to what the doghouse was for. So I decided to keep writing even though it was really discouraging at first. And so aside from tutorials, I also put together like texture packs to give away, like icon sets for free. And this was one of my most popular icon sets. It's the old social media, bio crown icon set. And to me, it was a really good feeling to be able to not only help designers, but help non-designers as well, especially non-designers. Because it allows them to create little customizations without the need to hire someone. And I always believe that the more you give, the more you'll get back. Blogging opened up a ton of opportunities for me. It opened up a couple of speaking engagements in the US, publication features. And the one publication that I'm really proud of was this web designer magazine where I was featured in the same page as Matt. But in 2008, I felt like I hit a wall. I wasn't growing anymore in my career. I felt like I needed a change. And there were no more companies to apply it in my city. It's either I had to go to the capital of Manila, but that wasn't really an option for me, or I had to leave the country. I had a job opportunity in Australia, but that didn't quite work out. So I decided to use freelance full time. It was a risky decision for me, because you know you don't get that steady flow of income. And so I was scared at first. But then blogging allowed me to create a pretty decent client base. So I didn't have to scour the web for jobs and projects, at least for a little while. And then one day I got an email from someone. He was one of the co-founders of SendGrid. Are you familiar with the company SendGrid? No. So they're an email delivery service company based out of Boulder, Colorado. They have offices in San Francisco and Irvine, and they're recently actually IPO'd. And this email, he told me that he found my site through one of the design blogs that I was featured in. And he said that we're looking for a designer. And he really liked my work, you know? And we chatted for a little bit. I vaguely remember the details of our conversation, but he asked me where I was located. So I said, oh, I'm in the Philippines. And he said, oh, would you like to move to California? And I said, okay. And I never anticipated this big of a change in my life. I've been to the US before, mainly just for conferences, but I never really thought of moving here at all. And I worked for SendGrid for about a year to a year and a half before I actually moved to California because the whole visa application process is such a long and arduous process. And of course, I had a lot of doubts and fears moving to a new country. Everything was new. I didn't have that many friends. Well, actually I didn't have any friends at all. I didn't have any family. The only family I had was in a different state. I didn't even have like a credit score. I couldn't get an apartment. Every time they ran my credit, it would not even return a number, not even a zero. It wasn't all. So it was really tough for me. But for the most part, everything just happened in a blur. And then in 2014, I found, I was actively looking for a job again and I found automatic and I applied and after a couple months of going through the trial, I was happy to find out that I actually got hired and that was really thankful for that. And now I've been in the company for almost four years and after everything that I've gone through, I feel like I'm finally back home. And so looking back, I've learned a lot of things in this journey, but the one thing that truly resonated with me was that, if you're about to do something that especially is something that's totally unfamiliar to you, then of course it's gonna be, you're gonna be scared, there's a lots of doubts and fears, but just do it as Nike says it. Don't be afraid to put yourself outside your comfort zone and online people can be quite vile and just tend to spew stuff out, but just ignore it really. Over time, I feel like my skin just grew thicker and as Dory says it, just keep swimming. So I wouldn't be here today if I wasn't given that chance. WordPress gave me a voice, a voice that allowed me to reach a vast amount of audience that otherwise wouldn't have been possible. Blogging allowed me to create a platform to be able to showcase my work. Don't downplay certain things like blogging because everyone owns a blog now, but those things can lead to positive outcomes. So I wouldn't be here today, I wouldn't probably have even met my husband and wouldn't have had my daughter if I hadn't started writing. Thank you. Anyone have any questions? Yes. I think it's when you know you, okay. What would you say most bloggers, what discourages most bloggers or makes you stop blogging? I think a lot of that has to do with not getting an audience because you keep writing and writing and then you get like a couple likes here and there and then sometimes there's zero likes so that can be really discouraging. But my advice is just keep producing quality content, content that people will wanna read because for me I blogged at least once or twice a week and then every Friday I would give out free textures for designers, so that really was helpful. I don't know if I caught it or if you said in there, what year was it you started blogging in relation to the year 2007 when the world fell off the face of the earth and all went to Twitter and Facebook? Yeah, that's really where I'm curious, when did you start with relation to that year? I started in 2007, I created that fake blog. I had a couple blog posts and then when a couple months later that's when I started blogging for other more popular sites other than my own and then I would just cross post it that helped me bring a lot of traffic to my site. Yeah, does that answer your question? Any more questions? He has a question for you. So Jan. Yes. A couple of comments right here. Oh, hi. And just keep writing. Yeah, WordPress also changed my life. So I've been sitting here somewhere under the freeway or something. But anyway, what do you think you consider the highlights of your career from being a designer to working for Automatic? What was that again? What would be the highlights of your career? I think definitely working at Automatic was a really important thing that happened in my life and that magazine feature with Matt as well was a big thing for me. Eventually I got like several publications that I wouldn't even read them anymore, but yeah. And also the other thing that I wanna ask you are you also active on social media like Instagram and Facebook? Are you getting a lot of traffic from that and they shouldn't do your blogs as well? Yes, I am active on Instagram and Twitter. Well, I used to be on Twitter, but now it's just Instagram like posting pictures of my daughter. I have to admit though that I used to blog a lot, but it kind of just tapered off over time. I think that's when after my daughter was born, it was just like a really big change in my life. So I couldn't get around to writing more stuff, but yeah. Anybody else? Anything else you wanna say? No, thank you all for showing up. Yep, thank you. Good job, James.