Topic: Why we started SimpleCMS in the first place...
I was working as a freelance graphic designer, with no knowledge of anything much more technical than standard HTML (read HTML as 'Dreamweaver') and I was asked to build a website for my client... and they wanted to be able to edit their content easily and whenever they felt like it.
Having never done anything like that before I decided to Google for something that could do the job easily and quickly. Two weeks later, after installing and subsequently uninstalling very comprehensive (but complicated) content management systems like Joomla and Drupal, I was at a loss of what to do.
Should I create a blog with Wordpress and call it a site? Not possible - even 'posts' were too complicated for this particular client, and it didn't look exactly as I (a little perfectionist) wanted it to.
This client also wanted to edit their content by simply going to their website and using "Word-like" icons to make things change. Nothing like this existed. I just wanted to give up.
So that's what I did. I quit my job as a designer, found myself an amazing developer (Simon) and together spent the next 2 years creating the holy grail of simple content management systems... and we called it SimpleCMS, just to keep it simple.
We created a CMS that enables any designer to easily click-to-define the areas where they want their clients to be able to edit ... and the editors (your clients)...? Well they can view and make changes to their site exactly whilst looking at something which looks just like their page. Strangely enough, if you ask your clients, it's something they feel they should have been able to do with their own website anyway.
And because you can brand our system with your company's logo and colour scheme, and allow your clients log in from your website, they will never know that you didn't spend hours and hours of your valuable time trying to make their life easier.
They say that necessity is the mother of invention - It certainly changed my life when I quit my career to create SimpleCMS. It would be great to hear your career-changing stories!
