PHP Sevilla

Twitter is the kind of place that burns your time but at the same time sometimes gives you the opportunity to meet interesting people. I was lucky to meet Asier Marqués and find that we both were looking to expand our network and meet new people. We found that we were working with PHP, and it could be a good idea to connect with other professionals.

Asier has just moved to the city, and after a couple of beers, we came up with the idea of creating a community; why not? It will be great to build a local community and connect with more PHP developers.

Asier had already experienced organizing events, but for me, personally, it was a completely new world. I was not used to speaking in public, but it was something that I wanted to change. I had my own business, and I was scared whenever I needed to pitch ideas in front of people. So, this was the perfect opportunity to stretch myself and leave my comfort zone.

We created a Meetup account and shared our idea on Twitter. A few weeks later, the first event was already organized.

Leading by example, I decided to give my first talk, and I must admit that I was completely terrified at the thought of speaking in front of an audience. I talked about managing dependencies with Composer, as this was something I was using with a private client, and I needed to manage dependencies with a private local instance, so I was going really deep into this topic.

After the event, we all went to a bar to have a drink together and do some networking.

Key learnings from this experience

• Surround yourself with people who inspire you. Thanks, Asier, for partnering with me on this adventure.
• Do not be afraid of trying new things and failing; this is the way to push yourself to the limits and grow.
• People appreciate it when you also care about them. When building this community, we created a place for PHP Developers to connect with each other and share knowledge. This is the first and only goal of organizing this.