Speaker Interview: Nik Vimal

Tim: What’s your WordPress “origin” story?


At 13 years old, I wanted to start blogging and find a simple way to create my websites. Eventually, that got me into a WordCamp where I was inspired to do more with WordPress and even had a few people help me learn PHP, Javascript, CSS, etc. Since then, I’ve been developing and eventually launched my business, TechVoltz LLC.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. Gravity Forms – Best way to create Complex forms and one of the best APIs that I have used. So many options to manipulate form data and many possibilities for creating only a single form
  2. Easy Digital Downloads: Simply one of my favorite ways of selling things. The API is amazing and I really enjoy the features bundled and really the simplicity of getting setup with it.
  3. Yoast SEO: Pretty common, but yet another great plugin I would recommend for anyone with a site or a blog on WordPress. It really gets the SEO job done right.”

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?


I’ve been a WordPress core contributor for a few releases.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?


By day, I still go to High School. I’ve also already interned at some big companies in WordPress such as Rocketgenius, Pods, and iThemes. I’m also big into the startup community, even releasing a non-WordPress product this past summer (thezweekly.com). I also have made contributions to PHP.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.


Ambitious

I consider Nik a friend and I’m excited that’s he’s speaking in Hampton Roads. I heard him speak at WordCamp Minneapolis earlier this year, and you won’t want to miss his talk on the WordPress REST API.