My name is Tomasz Nowicki, and just five years ago, I was a full-time carpenter in northern Poland. I had never touched a line of code, never worked with websites, and honestly, had never even booked a hotel online myself. But life threw me a curveball when my uncle passed away and left me his small hostel in Gdańsk—a charming but outdated six-room building in the Old Town. I inherited a guestbook full of handwritten reservations, a rusty front desk bell, and zero experience in hospitality. I was scared and completely out of my depth. For weeks, I tried to run it manually, juggling emails, calls, and endless spreadsheets. That’s when a fellow hostel owner mentioned JoomlaHBS.com. I wasn’t looking to become a tech guy—I just wanted a solution. But what I found was the beginning of a journey into Website Development that would change my life.

At first, Joomla HBS seemed intimidating. But once I took the plunge and installed Joomla with the HBS extension, it was like a fog cleared. Suddenly, I had access to a complete system for room listings, dynamic pricing, discount codes, booking carts, and more—without needing to hire a developer. With some trial and error, I created a responsive, multi-lingual booking site that worked beautifully on both mobile and desktop. For the first time, guests could see live availability and book instantly. The system even handled my seasonal price changes and allowed me to close out dates when I needed maintenance or renovations. I stopped losing sleep over misbookings and started feeling like an actual entrepreneur.

Once I got a taste for it, I didn’t stop. The Joomla HBS components were so modular that I started exploring the back end more and more. I customized the search features to include tags like “bunk beds” and “private bathrooms.” I added payment gateways, and then learned how to optimize metadata and permalinks. As the bookings poured in, I started reading forums, watching tutorials, and slowly building up my knowledge of Website Development. Before I knew it, I was using CSS to adjust the design and Joomla modules to experiment with different layouts. I even integrated a blog to post travel guides for guests visiting Gdańsk, which boosted my search engine visibility. This wasn’t just about functionality—it was about branding, strategy, and online presence.

Within a year, my hostel’s occupancy rate went from 28% to 87%. The reviews on TripAdvisor praised the ease of my website just as much as the cozy rooms and helpful staff. Joomla HBS’s Guest Comments Component made collecting and displaying reviews simple, and the Booking List Component helped me track patterns in customer behavior. I learned which room types were the most popular, what times of year required promotions, and even when to prepare for last-minute walk-ins. The more I understood the platform, the more power I felt over my own business. And I wasn’t just maintaining a site anymore—I was actively growing it using the principles of Website Development.

Encouraged by my success, I started helping other local B&B owners. I offered to set up basic booking sites for them, using Joomla and HBS. It was surreal—me, a former carpenter, giving tech advice to business owners. I built seven websites over the next two years, each with its own design and modules, all powered by the same reliable Joomla HBS foundation. Eventually, I started charging a small fee and reinvested that into upgrading my own hostel’s facilities. Today, I offer bundled weekend experiences, from kayaking trips to food tours, all bookable directly on my site. My guests can choose extras during the booking process, thanks to the Extras Component, and even pay a deposit to secure their spot.

What amazes me most is how far I’ve come without a traditional tech background. Joomla HBS wasn’t just a tool—it was a teacher. Its structure forced me to understand how bookings, layouts, user roles, and databases work together. With each feature I used, I became more fluent in the language of Website Development. I started seeing websites not just as digital brochures, but as living systems—complex, customizable, and endlessly creative.

Now, I’m building a second hostel in Kraków, and I already have the website live months before the doors open. It has a fully functional booking engine, interactive maps, multi-room reservation capabilities, and dynamic SEO content. And I built every piece of it myself using Joomla HBS. People who knew me from my carpentry days still can’t believe it. But I tell them the truth: building a digital space is not that different from building furniture. You just need the right tools, a blueprint, and the courage to learn.

If you had told me five years ago that I’d be earning passive income from booking systems I built myself, I would have laughed. But JoomlaHBS.com made it real. It gave me control, clarity, and a future I never imagined. And more than anything, it gave me the unexpected gift of falling in love with Website Development.