Devio Digital - Web solutions for the cannabis industry

Devio Digital

It’s taken me three tries to sit here and begin writing this blog post. I’ve put so much of myself into my work these last six months that I am feeling something unique to me; pride in myself and my work.

Over the last few years I’ve been living off of the income generated from various websites I was running, but I never felt connected to the work. It was always just what helped me survive, and I lost interest in it.

On my birthday last year I made a promise to myself that I’ll be moving forward in a new direction, giving back to the open source community that helped me survive and provide a somewhat decent life over the last decade.

#opensource saved my life

I began working on how I would go about doing something that I was happy with and give back, thinking through the various angles I could take.

First, I thought about blogging to give advice on how to build sites you can make money from. But that didn’t feel right.

The thought of writing about something I was no longer interested quickly made me realize I had to jump in a different direction.

So instead of any clear plan, I released the Clean Blog WordPress theme on August 7th 2015, and at that point there was no going back.

That pretty much sums up my life though, flying with my eyes closed and never having taken a flight lesson before.

I’ll figure it out when I get there 🙂

Why WordPress?

I run pretty much all of the sites I’ve built over the last decade on WordPress.

So it was only natural that I’d look at extra ways of working within the WordPress community. The same community that saved me, even if they didn’t know it.

After releasing the Clean Blog theme, it was like a breathe of fresh air hit me and I was ready to take on the world.

But again, I didn’t know where I going exactly, so I just kept plugging away at life.

There was the MNML theme release, Peddle, which is a WordPress theme that works with Easy Digital Downloads and a couple of bootstrap landing page templates.

I released the Leafly Reviews WordPress plugin as an attempt to help the cannabis community build better websites, and integrate their Leafly reviews directly on their own sites.

Giving the power back to the independent business owner was my driving force when I began and it still is.

That’s why after I built the Leafly Reviews plugin I created and released the WP Dispensary menu management plugin for WordPress for free.

After 6 version releases since it’s initial launch, the WP Dispensary plugin has pushed me farther than I had thought I’d ever go … and it’s only been six months since it’s first release.

Where Devio Digital comes into play

First some backstory.

I created the name Devio Digital because the word Devio (dev-E-oh) is a combination of two last names that mean a lot to me. So no matter what, those names are now connected forever through the name of the company.

It’s also a unique word that I hope will help set me apart from more generic names, like Envato and Google have done with their names.

As WP Dispensary has grown, and now has additional add-ons and themes being built for it, I felt the urge to jump in and help dispensary owners learn the power behind owning and operating their own website.

Leafly cut it’s API off and stopped the Leafly Reviews plugin from being functional, as well as various other projects that developers were building to help the Leafly ecosystem grow.

Who’s to say they won’t cut you off in other ways as well?

We’ve seen it happen before when free hosted solutions completely shut down in the past, and when Blogger removes blogs because Google doesn’t like them.

I’m sure there are more specific reasons than ‘I don’t like your blog’, but it’s still their website you’re using for free and they reserve the right to cancel you at any time.

It’s the same thing as relying on Instagram as your only source of online communication with your patients, and Instagram closes your account down for some random flagged violation.

Why leave the power of your business’ professional online presence to rest in the hands of a company that’s not your own?

devio digital michigan marijuana dispensary business development

Devio Digital is my attempt to not only earn a living from the work I am doing, but also to help dispensary owners build solid businesses and elegantly display your menu for your patients.

What can I do for you?

If your business is suffering from a bad website, or even if you don’t have one up currently, I am here and happy to help you push your business to the next level online.

The cannabis industry gets a bad wrap, and my goal is to help you present yourself professionally and help end the stigma around your business.

You can read more about my current offerings on the Devio Digital website.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog posts here.

I know your time is valuable, and I respect that.

Hopefully you find the things I write and build to be worth it.

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