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Meet Efrain Lemus of The Designer Developer in Aurora

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Efrain Lemus.

Efrain, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
This whole journey started when I ran into a Shopify ad on Facebook that said I could be my own boss and make $1000/day from home by watching their webinar. I was 19 so I thought that would be awesome. Now that I got introduced to this idea that I can make $1000/day online, I can’t get it out of my head. As the days went by, I was going deeper into the rabbit hole of an online frenzy that had been going on for years.

After trying to figure things out on my own, and getting familiar with some terms, I knew I had to learn about SEO. And after a few Google searches and calling almost every SEO agency in Denver, I found an internship! From here, I got a thorough understanding of how SEO works and how websites show up on Google and what steps are required to do that. But most importantly, I got introduced to coding. Not fully, because we used, Uncode, a WordPress premium theme but using that theme helped me understand how websites work, without overwhelming myself by having to learn everything at once.

Little by little, I started learning about different coding languages like HTML, later on, CSS and seeing how beneficial they were to creating websites. And after a few months, I saw myself submerge and fascinated by coding, even more than SEO or marketing, which is what I wanted to learn in the first place. After taking a few Udemy courses, especially one about WordPress theme development by Brad Schiff, I felt like I had found the golden nugget to development. It really helped me understand how to build websites better, faster and more efficiently in terms of future maintenance.

Knowing how to build my custom themes, allowed to build websites where the client can do almost all the maintenance and updates themselves. Now, I’m a partner with a few other agencies here in Denver, helping during the development and following my dream of working on websites all day long and working with really cool people. It’s truly a dream come true, and although I’m not making $1000/day, I’m certainly on the journey there and enjoying the process.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was definitely not a smooth road, haha but it was worth it. The biggest struggle I had was having a clear idea of what my place was in the marketplace. At first, I tried finding clients on my own, like cold-visiting and cold-calling businesses to see if they needed a website. That didn’t work very well, and I soon started to get frustrated and desperate because I couldn’t find any.

After, I joined Catalyst Shift, managed by Nick Guenther. He helped me connect with a few web agencies who were looking for freelance developers. That helped me stay afloat but I was still having a hard time financially because I was barely scraping by every month.

For a moment, I was starting to lose hope and thought that development wasn’t a lucrative career after all, that I’d be better off getting a construction job if I wanted to make a decent amount of money. And although it’s not about the money, because I love coding and working on websites, at the end of the day, it is about the money and I was having to face that reality.

Please tell us about The Designer Developer.
My company, The Designer Developer, specializes in front-end development. My company is mostly known for providing website building and maintenance services, to clients and as an outsource solution for other web agencies.

What sets me apart from others is that I have good customer service experience and know-how to communicate with people in a way that they understand the technical problems about their site and how to solve them.

And I bring personality to the workplace, let clients know that I’m just a regular guy that likes using computers. That’s one of the biggest parts about this business, to let people know you’re not a know-it-all computer geek, and that you won’t make fun of anyone for not being one.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I have a few, but my favorite is when I did a kick-flip on live TV while the skateboarding community was growing in the country (Honduras). At that time, it felt like being the coolest kid on the block.

Pricing:

  • $35/hr

Contact Info:

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