My job is to care
I'm Pascal Andy, the FirePress founder and my job is to care. Care about the way we communicate, care for our teams, care for our clients, and care for our products. In a nutshell, my job is to care for the things you care about.
To care as in the opposite of what I hate from some big corporation. You know — faceless — impersonal — careless — « we appreciate your call » kind of bull shit.
As I'm writing these words (May 2019), my job is to care for you, the early adopters. For you folks, thank you for being part of this journey. One day, my wish is that you will be so happy to use our products and services you will be raving about what we do here.
Only then, will I think about scaling the mission.
It started with one site
In October 2012 I decided to launch my first blog. I discovered that I loved to write and publish. At that time, my site was running on WordPress 3.xx.
While having fun blogging, I was in hell trying to optimize things and do software upgrades. Breaking the website was easy, I mean, for example, I had to re-install everything from scratch for having pressed the wrong button. Also, there were so many plugins to manage in order to have a decent website. Something was off.
In January 2014, I saw a great project on Kickstarter, it was Ghost. I followed the evolution of the project and very early on I decided to switch to Ghost (version 0.4). It was very early to blog on Ghost at this time. I loved how things were made and enjoyed the user experience so much more than on Wordpress.
Life was good. Then, a significant technology shift happened. It changed my geeky life.
In 2015, as I was reading TechCrunch, I saw a post regarding Docker. It explained this concept of deploying applications within containers and how powerful and cheap it was compared to run a VPS (virtual private server). I was hooked. Without knowing it, this was the kickoff I was waiting to kick off my next project: FirePress.
In 2016, I went all in about learning Linux stuff, operate servers at scale, DevOps practices and to understand this vast world of managing applications in containers. I mean actually doing it, not hiring other people to do it.
Today I'm proud to say that 100% of your websites are orchestrated and running in a container in Docker Swarm. You can learn about what's under the hood at FirePress and follow our evolution on our public roadmap.
2017 and 2018 were all about building the core of the platform — managing servers — deploying and updating the stack easily — taking care of the backups, etc. Hardcore coding and putting in place good DevOps practices.
January 2019, as I'm writing these words, I'm working hard toward the mission and spending more time communicating our offer.
Early days
I love software. I have always been fascinated by the power hidden behind lines of codes. I love to connect the dots that seem disparate to unveils the "big picture." I like to ask myself and solve what is complex.
When I saw the movies the Matrix... that was it. Coding is cool, coding is the shit, coding is intense and with code, we can build amazing stuff.
In 1999, I decided to study coding in college. I learned how to program in C++, Visual Basic, Cobol, Assembler, how to do SQL queries and the like. Well, I'm the typical ENTP-A type of personality.
Wondering
There is one question I can't stop asking myself:
- How can we become the default one-stop-shop, where entrepreneurs start their Mobile-First websites and blogs?
- By the same token, how can I help the 2.5 billion new people who are arriving on the Internet for the first time?
While I'm still working to find the answer, you can check out why I decided to launch FirePress.
If this makes sense
If our mission resonates with you, I believe you should host your Ghost's website with us as I'm sure you will enjoy what we built here. We offer a 10-Day Free Trial for everyone who is looking to host their Ghost website.
Cheers!
Pascal Andy — Founder at FirePress 🔥📰