Munir Kamal – Founder of Gutenberg Hub

My name is Muhammad Munir Kamal, the founder of Gutenberg Hub and CakeWP. I live in Karachi, Pakistan where I did my graduation in Commerce. I am a father of a beautiful 5-year-old daughter.

At CakeWP, we build WordPress plugins, themes, and provide WordPress-specific development services.

The Journey Began

Before my digital career, I worked as an accountant. The journey began when I started a data-entry job to cover my personal expenses. There, I met “Essa Mamdani.” He was learning web development at that time and was passionate about this field. I worked there only for a few months, then I switched my job but kept my friendship with him.

I did a few different jobs in between and finished my graduation during that period. But on the other hand, Essa was following the path of learning how to earn money online specifically by creating websites. He gained a lot of knowledge and started working as a freelancer.

Long story short, he asked me to join him and taught me the basics and HTML/CSS, and introduced me to WordPress as well. Since when I worked with WordPress, it got my attention, and I started exploring working with it and then started learning how to create WordPress themes & plugins. I must thank Essa for where I am today.

Munir Kamal with Essa

It’s almost 10+ years now I am working and earning with WordPress. So grateful for this platform and the amazing WordPress community.

I have done a lot of client work, white-label development service, and built many WordPress plugins & themes.

The Need for Gutenberg Hub

Gutenberg Hub Logo

I started following the Gutenberg project since Matt announced it first 3+ years back. I started a blog GutenbergHub to keep the WordPress community and myself updated with everything happening around Gutenberg.

Since then, I have followed almost every Gutenberg plugin or theme and its progress with development and API. I saw many block plugins popping and practically every plugin was bringing a similar set of custom blocks with features limited to their blocks that is fine, but I found an issue by adding new custom blocks for things that can easily be done with Gutenberg core blocks.

There are already enough blocks to create the most general content or page layouts. The only thing missing was styling features that WordPress users get from other page builders and that is required to create beautiful and modern websites.

I started working on Gutenberg-based themes, with a philosophy of extending Gutenberg with features and blocks that are missing and needed to create modern websites.

Today, builder.gutenberghub.com offers many different features to all the core/default blocks that make Gutenberg Editor more powerful. Such as,

• Styling Options (Typography, colors, background, border, box-shadow, etc.)
• Animations
• Custom CSS Editor
• Blocks (only those are missing from the core)
• Icons (you can insert icon anywhere)
• And more.

Gutenberg Builder

I’ve already made a few other Gutenberg-related plugins that have already been mentioned. Gutenberg Hub is my latest creation for Gutenberg. Therefore, I didn’t face any worst challenges because I am familiar with the Gutenberg API, and it was much more stable at that time than earlier.

The worst experience was with the “Gutenberg Forms” plugin and the “Block Slider” plugin that I started developing in Gutenberg’s early days when their API was not stable later, had to re-code these plugins when they stopped working due to significant API changes/updates.

I’ve built quite a lot of stuff, but only mentioning some of the latest ones.

• Editor Plus
• Gutenberg Forms
• ACF Blocks
• Divi Sumo

I have built many paid single-purpose plugins for Divi that are exclusively sold via “Elegant Marketplace” and I am happy to say that Andrew Palmer, the founder of Elegant marketplace is now a good friend of mine and a great mentor. I launched my first plugin with them. He guided me on different occasions.

Here you can check all my Divi plugins.

Myself with my Brilliant Team

Team Gutenberg Hub

I lead a team of fellow developers at my home office. Just to make it clear, whatever you see me producing is a team effort, not a one-man show.

Would like to mention & thank all my team members here who helped me with all the fantastic products I delivered.

1. Ather
2. Zafar
3. Salman
4. Farhan
5. Muneeb

Advice for Business Owners

If you want to start a WordPress business, Now is the most significant time ever IMO. WordPress is making a massive shift towards Gutenberg, opening up all the new opportunities for beginners.

You should jump in with Gutenberg-focused products that are future-oriented but do not merely make the products that are already available. You should know what the needs and problems are there. This rule applies to any business you want to start.

WordPress & Beyond

I have been with WordPress for over ten years. To be honest, only now I am able to gain some recognition and start seeing success (like this opportunity to get featured on WPfounders, so grateful to you). So for me, it took a lot of time. I must have been doing things wrong. Now, I can say that I’m doing something good for the community and will continue to do so.

I see a great future for WordPress as well as the whole Ecosystem around it. WordPress took a significant step with the Gutenberg project and planned to keep it great for many years.

Besides this, I have plans to get into the SaaS business, but I may again link it with WordPress somehow, as I am just too passionate about WordPress.

My Love for the WordPress Community

You may be surprised that I never attended a WordCamp or a meetup, not even locally. But now I realized that I should have done that.

This may be one of the reasons why it took me that much time to get recognized in the WordPress ecosystem.

How I Keep Myself Updated

I always try to keep myself updated with all the happenings in the tech industry (not just WordPress). One resource is “Product Hunt”, I browse it daily to explore new products, which keeps me updated in many ways. Besides that, I follow different tech-related groups and people on social media to keep myself updated.

I Have a Life Other Than the Work

Although Gutenberg Hub and CakeWP are my main focus and I really enjoy it, it’s definitely important to have a life outside of “work”. So aside from this, I really enjoy traveling and eating out at nice restaurants with friends/family. Having said that, I must spare more time for family and health.

Connect With Me

• Website | Facebook | Twitter