--- title: "Early open-source champion & entrepreneur in Austin: chapter 2 of Kyle Ledbetter’s story" description: "In 2003 Kyle Ledbetter moved to Austin, Texas, and started his own web design firm, Pixel Praise (2003-2010), pioneering Flash websites. He then led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites." canonical_url: "https://kyleledbetter.com/agent#austin" last_updated: "2026-10-11" llms_txt: "https://kyleledbetter.com/llms.txt" --- > Markdown version of https://kyleledbetter.com/agent#austin. Index of every agent-readable file on this site: https://kyleledbetter.com/llms.txt # 2. Early open-source champion & entrepreneur in Austin Chapter 2 of 6 in the story of Kyle Ledbetter, co-founder and CTO of Dreambase. - **Chapter:** 2 of 6, Entrepreneur - **Years:** 2003-2010 - **Place:** Austin, Texas - **Roles:** Partner, lead UI developer and designer at Pixel Praise; UX lead at Joomla - **Organizations:** Pixel Praise, [Joomla](https://www.joomla.org/) - **Robot part on the 3D site:** right leg - **Read on the web:** https://kyleledbetter.com/agent#austin In 2003 Kyle Ledbetter moved to Austin, Texas, and started his own web design firm, Pixel Praise (2003-2010), pioneering Flash websites. He then led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites. In Kyle’s words: In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise. I ran it until 2010, and in those years I pioneered Flash websites, back when Flash was the bleeding edge of the web. At Pixel Praise I wrote the business plan, ran sales and built the sites, and I introduced one- to two-week design sprints well before sprints were commonplace. Then I went into open source. I’d been building on Mambo before it became Joomla, and Pixel Praise grew into one of the premier Joomla development firms, with products of our own: JoomlaPraise themes, TapTheme for mobile, the AdminPraise admin app and the ProjectFork project management suite. Eventually I led UX for Joomla itself, back when “UX” was a new term to a lot of people. Joomla was the second-largest open source content management system in the world and powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites. Like a lot of enterprise software, it had been designed by engineers. I redid the whole admin UI and UX and reworked it for accessibility, responsiveness and productivity. I talked about those years on the [Tech People podcast](https://soundcloud.com/method-matters/tp008-kyle-ledbetter). The Joomla work is also what brought me to eBay. **Highlights** - Moved to Austin in 2003 and started his own web design firm, Pixel Praise (2003-2010) - Pioneered Flash websites while Flash was bleeding edge - Ran one- to two-week design sprints before sprints were commonplace - Led UX for Joomla when it powered about 3% of the web - Redid Joomla’s whole admin UI and UX **Numbers** - **~3%** of the web, millions of sites, ran on Joomla > “Back when ‘UX’ was a new term to many people, I led the UX innovation for Joomla, the second largest open source content management system in the world.” > > Kyle, on leading UX for Joomla **Related** - Talk: [Building Angular Material Enterprise Web Apps](https://kyleledbetter.com/agent#talk-tech-people-podcast) On the 3D site this chapter is the robot’s right leg. Its popover reads: “Started Pixel Praise in Austin. Led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web.” Its panel reads: “In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise, which I ran until 2010. I pioneered Flash websites, then led UX for Joomla, which powered about 3% of the web.” The full story: **Pixel Praise** In 2003 I moved to Austin and started my own web design firm, Pixel Praise. I ran it until 2010, and in those years I pioneered Flash websites, back when Flash was the bleeding edge of the web. At Pixel Praise I wrote the business plan, ran sales and built the sites. I introduced one- to two-week design sprints well before sprints were commonplace. **Open source and our own products** Then I went into open source. I’d been building sites on Mambo before it became Joomla, and Pixel Praise grew into one of the premier Joomla development firms. We made products of our own: JoomlaPraise themes, TapTheme for mobile, the AdminPraise admin app and the ProjectFork project management suite. We ran an online template club and an open source project management software company, and we offered a web app design service to small and medium-sized businesses in Austin. **Leading UX for Joomla** Eventually I led UX for Joomla itself, back when “UX” was a new term to a lot of people. Joomla was the second-largest open source content management system in the world, after WordPress, and powered about 3% of the web, millions of sites. Like a lot of enterprise software, Joomla had been designed by engineers. I redid the whole admin UI and UX and reworked it for accessibility, responsiveness and productivity. I talked about those years on the Tech People podcast. **From Joomla to eBay** The Joomla work is what brought me to eBay. eBay ran a large internal Joomla site for its data analytics, and in 2011 I joined as head of design for its entire internal technology division. - Previous chapter: [1\. First graduating 3D animation class in Louisiana (College)](https://kyleledbetter.com/story/louisiana.md) - Next chapter: [3\. Head of design for eBay’s technology team](https://kyleledbetter.com/story/ebay.md) - All chapters and facts: https://kyleledbetter.com/agent.md