Tao Weilundemo
I started Stop and Wonder in February of 2007. I had been doing freelance web work off and on since I was 15 and decided it was time to make it official. My first site was for a major real estate company and I used Paint to make all of the graphics. Luckily I've since renovated their site.
My father is a computer fix-it guy, and while I was growing up I would occasionally accompany him on his jobs. I was 13 when we built my first computer together and I realized years later while I was in college that the same computer had been upgraded so many times the only thing left from the original was the keyboard.
During high school and for a few summers in college I would work at my dad's store, Computer Co-op, mainly just fixing computers for his clients. I still enjoy working on hardware and I'm glad I know how to do it, but my real passion has always been what I can do with the computers themselves.
In college I started off in engineering but switched to media production after feeling creatively stifled. It allowed me to learn some advanced software and really shine. All the while I was working for different people doing tech support and web design. All in all I probably learned more marketable skills in my side jobs than in my classes.
It wasn't until I was doing humanitarian work in El Salvador after college that I decided web development was really where my heart was. While I was down there for a year and a half I read design and programming books during my spare time and worked on a few commercial sites to support my work there. Now I'm back and ready to show off what I can do.
