Alex King’s Advice

It’s been a few days since the news broke of Alex King’s far-too-soon passing. There has been an incredible outpouring from a community he affected in such a deep way. I decided to wait a few days to write my thoughts for a few reasons, the main one being I’m not really sure what I could say that hasn’t already been said. I spoke with Alex a couple of times, once while I was interviewing with Crowd Favorite. The other was at Pressnomics 2.

I was so unbelievably nervous to meet him. This was a guy who absolutely shaped my career as a web developer. I remember reading his CSS line-by-line to see how he did things, combing his projects and seeing if I could do similar work, and checking his site several times a day to see what he posted. Both he and Crowd Favorite put out a request for remembrances, and this is what I wrote:

His work and work ethic really inspired me, and I always loved picking apart his sites and trying to figure out how to do the things he did. When I met him in 2013 (at Pressnomics), I can honestly say I was really nervous and really excited, which is pretty uncharacteristic of me. But his worked helped me becoming the web developer I am today. I’m honored work at the company that he started.

When I got the opportunity to talk to him, I had to ask him a question I always wondered: “How do you find the time to complete side-projects and still run a company, on top of everything else you do?” His answer wasn’t super profound or mind-blowing advice for how to do it all. But it was an excellent answer:

I guess when I get an idea, I have to get it done. So I will sit and take a weekend and code it up and launch it. It’s just something I need to do, so I do it.

He had to do it, so he did it. That’s something I really admired. He put out some very cool projects with that work ethic. So while I was reading JJJ’s latest blog post about his new WordPress plugin (and a friend that inspired him to put out the plugin), it hit me. I knew what I could say about Alex and how he continues to affect my life, even though we only spoke a couple of times.

I’m going to take time this weekend and pick one of my many side projects, finish one, and release it.