Posted by Barry Holland - 4th March 2018
Here is a brief history of LaravelUK.
pre-LaravelUK
Having worked in a number of unrelated industries, @symfonycoda had always had a passion for computers, and all things tech, but these had always remained a hobby. A little tinkering with HTML here, and quick graphic in Photoshop there, but nothing too serious.
Then, after conversations with family members who worked with Internet Security and Servers, a decision was made to learn take things more seriously and learn to code properly.
First up was the Symfony framework (hence the name), but unfortunately, with a lack of knowledge and experience with OOP and PHP, the learning curve was too steep.
After a short break to learn more of the basics, there was a second attempt, and watching a youtube video by Codecourse lead to the discovery of the Laravel Framework.
He knew that this was the way forward, especially as he immediately felt welcome in the Laravel community, and discovered how many learning resources were available.
In a matter of a few weeks, he knew that this was exactly what he wanted to do, but all the Laravellers he had been talking to had been in America, and he wanted a community that was closer to home
LaravelUK Beginnings
So the idea was to bring a few people together (maybe 30 or so) to be able to network, and to be able to help each other with coding problems if they got stuck
Some of @symfonycoda's earlier years in promotions were in nightclubs, and he remembered times when he had brought new people into a club night, who then became friends or partners, and in one case a couple got married!
He wanted to be able to bring strangers together and allow friendships to begin here as well.
On Feb 4th 2017, the LaravelUK Slack group was opened with 4 people, invited through chats on Social Media. And it remained 4 people for several days. Then a few more invites and a few more joined. One evening, there was a bit of discussion about a piece of code, and @symfonycoda asked if they could write a piece of Laravel “code” together that could be put out on social media, that would suggest that people should join the community. This is what they came up with:
On the 1st of March 2017, that piece of code went quite viral (for such a niche market) and another 20+ people joined in 48 hours. Then it was time for the big one… March 8th 2017!
The Growth of LaravelUK
Just 7 days after sending out that tweet, it was time for the first ever LaraconOnline with around 4000 worldwide attendees, and its own Slack rooms, divided into geographical locations, including a UK one. A couple of well placed links to the signup url, and we suddenly had over 100 members!
The community then started to grow organically, partly through word of mouth from our members going to conferences and meetups and inviting people they knew, and partly through social media. The original ethos of making people welcome as they joined spread through the community, and when a new member joined, they were welcomed by multiple members.
Everyone was getting involved in the #helpneeded channel, and questions that had previously been answered within a couple of hours as people came online and noticed them, were now being answered by multiple people in real time!
As others began to join, it wasn't just people wanting to learn Laravel. There were PHP devs with years and years of experience that began with PHP3, people who had used Laravel since the early days, Business owners, Conference Speakers, all willing to help each other out. These users all started to trade their experience and knowledge. Symfonycodas marketing and promotional background became invaluable to a member who wanted advice on getting new customers. This member was able to help another member who was setting up his first business. The new entrepreneur had been a Lead Developer and could advise somebody else who wanted to move into that role, and everybody continued helping each other with their programming queries.
The community has continued to grow, and after the LaraconOnline in 2018, it reached 500+ members.
At the start of 2018, there has also been a big online event, conceived by one of our members @lee.crosdale, who decided he wanted to set up an online 48-hour hack for Laravel users. This was used as a way to celebrate the 1st Birthday of the LaravelUK community, and lead to teams from all over the world joining in. There are now plans for future LaraHack events.
Quite a while in the planning was a LaravelUK website, for our members to blog, promote their own products and services, and store resources away from the Slack group, amongst other things. This has also been started and is progressing nicely. Some of the well-known faces people from the Laravel community have even contributed to the project, along with a number of our members.
The Future of LaravelUK
TBC
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