Sadly, this is not about how I made my first million dollars, but rather a short story about how a project, I poured my heart soul and time into, got to 1 million downloads and helped thousands of people, all over the world, learn and build Drupal applications.
My personal experience with the Drupal Console can be summarised in two words: Collaborator and Location.
Collaborator
Often being a good collaborator is as impactful as being an innovator. I didn’t come up with the Drupal Console, but I saw the potential to make an impact from very early on. So I joined the team to learn and contribute my two cents. Despite the high pressure to come up with a high-quality technology solution, you always felt the satisfaction of contributing to something bigger than yourself. This solution was going to help a community, and you could feel it in every line of code, conversation, and fix.
Location
With the focus and spotlights aimed at Silicon Valley and all the other major tech hubs, developers located outside feel alienated and look at location as a barrier to make technological breakthroughs. Sure, being located in these technology hubs can facilitate a lot of things, and the concentration of talent is a boost. However, personally, the Drupal Console project eliminated that mental barrier. Creating and leading the project from Latin America proved that your location does not determine the quality of the job; we live in the same world, same internet and most importantly, opportunities to innovate and make an impact are open to everybody.
Today I look back, and I’m happy with all the time and effort I poured into the Drupal Console. I take solace in the fact that so many people's lives are more comfortable because they chose to use the Drupal Console.