The Forgotten History of PrestaShop: My Journey from the Beginning with the first USA Gold certified agency as a client

In the previous post, we stopped at my second year of university. Around 2011–2012, I was already a sophomore and a freelance specialist working on various simple content management systems and e-commerce solutions.

I never really had to search for clients. As I like to joke, I never understood or knew much about marketing, yet I always had more clients than I could handle, thanks to my dedication, hard work, and efforts to be visible.

I remained an active blogger. After my first introduction to PrestaShop, I didn’t stop exploring this e-commerce system, which has since become a leader in Lithuania and European countries. I was a highly active forum participant; you can still find my profile there.

My first login was in 2011, with as many as 520 posts, though my last visit was in 2021, and the forum has since faded from my routine. This activity, combined with my English-language blog smaizys.com, which I still update today, opened the doors to the Presto-Changeo team. This team taught me the most and was instrumental in my development. Together, we maintained the largest private marketplace for modules at the time and worked on high-level projects for the US and Canadian markets.

Interestingly, even this year, no one remembered this history when visiting the PrestaShop office. So, I proudly say that I was at the forefront of PrestaShop itself. I might be one of the very few people (even among those still working with PrestaShop today) who have been involved with this system for over a decade and remember details that most people have forgotten.

At the time, Presto-Changeo’s owner, Tomer Grassiany, was the founder of the world’s first Platinum agency, based in the US. He also reviewed and edited what was probably the first and only printed book about PrestaShop 1.3. Presto-Changeo not only maintained and created modules, which were its primary source of income, but also developed custom projects. They actively sought freelance specialists to assist with the growing workload.

When I, a young man, received an email from an American company, my first thought was that it might be some kind of scam. How could they invite me to join such a large and prestigious team with certified members and leaders in the field? I couldn’t believe it. I doubted myself and was unsure.

I still remember today that my hourly rate was about 30 LTL/hour. So, thinking the whole thing was uncertain, I proposed an hourly rate of 30 USD/hour. I thought, “If it’s a scam, so be it, but if not, I have nothing to lose.” To my surprise, within minutes, I received a reply without hesitation: “It’s all good—let’s work together.”

I couldn’t believe it. I was jumping with joy and, simultaneously, fearing the new challenges ahead—unnecessary fear. That feeling of euphoria when things work out! But the word “luck” isn’t quite right in this case. It better aligns with internet memes about how much unpaid effort you must put into achieving something.

I first learned professional programming skills here. GIT wasn’t popular at the time, so we used Subversion, which is likely unknown to new programmers today.

Working for an American company gave me an essential understanding of a polished product and how much work is required to earn money. It further strengthened my already strong sense of quality.

The work and learning process was similar to my first short-term job in Lithuania, which I’ve already written about. I had the company’s owner as a mentor who always reviewed my code and discussed architecture with me. Tasks were provided with descriptions, clarifications, and guidelines for completing them. There were no testers; you were solely responsible for your code.

This responsibility taught me to test my code—a concept foreign to some modern programmers. I understood what it meant to make mistakes and get criticized for them. Like many programmers, I disliked testing and reviewing my work, but I quickly learned it was non-negotiable. Imagine making a mistake in a module purchased by 300 customers. The time spent handling support requests would never pay off.

The same applies to project work. By learning from examples and my own mistakes, I developed my core commercial programming skills. I learned to fix my own errors and understood what it meant to deliver a complete, high-quality product to a client.

At that time, we worked with some of the largest companies in the US, generating hundreds of millions in revenue and operating across the East Coast and even the entire continent. Responsibility, diligence, and American culture became my way of life for several years.

Today, this experience gave me a clear understanding of American work culture, where excuses aren’t accepted. No one even listened to excuses. I learned not to make them, so I’m still highly allergic when employees try to justify or explain away failures.

The same American culture emphasizes working on weekends sometimes. I did, and I adapted to New York time. I learned an invaluable lesson: work done while others sleep can save a day and solve problems faster.

During my second year of university, I also encountered challenges optimizing PrestaShop for large projects and solving performance issues. The most significant impact on my programming career came from learning to create modules purchased and installed by thousands of people designed to minimize support requests.

The modules we created at Presto-Changeo stood out even compared to official PrestaShop modules. They were significantly more user-friendly, faster, and better. They offered more functionality and were backed by exceptional responsiveness to inquiries.

Even today, I tell my clients to imagine hiring someone who has created nearly all the payment modules purchased daily by hundreds of users. Consider how much thought, time, and attention to architecture, completeness, and testing are required. All of this is now applied to the projects we create for you.

This experience later proved invaluable when I founded PrestaRock , where we develop projects and are official partners for specific modules in Lithuania and globally.

In the next post, I’ll share more about how the cultural foundation laid by Presto-Changeo remains alive in PrestaRock today.