SharePoint Maven is 5 years old!

SharePoint Maven is 5 years old! I started my blog this month, 5 years ago (November 2013).

Many of you ask me how I got into all this. Entrepreneurs and small business owners usually have these cool stories on how they left an amazing, six-figure job and started a business. Well, let me tell you my story.

I never had a six-figure job. As a matter of fact, I was unemployed, after being laid off from a company I just hated! I was an IT Project Manager. After unsuccessfully wasting 6 months to find decent work (ever tried finding a job in Canada, where I lived at the time?), I decided to start blogging about SharePoint, which has been my passion for quite some time. It really was just a hobby. My very first blog post on folders in SharePoint was written in a Starbucks® coffee shop in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

In just a few months I started getting questions from my blog followers and in six months I had my first client. Since that moment, I decided to turn my blog into a SharePoint Knowledge Base and my hobby into a full-time job. Since that moment, I started having a hard time explaining to my Mom what it is exactly that I do. I am Jewish, so I am sure she still secretly wishes I would become a doctor or an attorney one day. :-)

Time flies, and in just 5 short years, with your help, SharePoint Maven Blog is one of the most popular SharePoint blogs on the web. My site has also won the prestigious Best SharePoint Blog Award in 2016. And in 2017 I received an MVP award from Microsoft. But enough about my achievements.  :-)  Because it is not about me, but about you, my loyal blog followers! Without you, none of the above honors would have been possible. So a big “Thank You” from the bottom of my heart!

The sole mission of my blog is sharing of my knowledge and expertise with all of you

My approach to SharePoint has remained unchanged in the last 5 years. My business model is pretty simple. I only specialize in SharePoint out of the box configuration. No custom coding (not even a bit) and no use of 3rd party tools (ever). Just pure beauty of SharePoint and its many built-in features.

So what does the future hold for SharePoint Maven? I have no idea. I am a SharePoint guy, not Nostradamus. The only thing I can promise and pledge to you, my loyal blog followers, is that I will continue to do what I have been doing for the last 5 years and will keep writing educational posts that all of you can benefit from.

– Gregory Zelfond (also known as SharePoint Maven)