It’s been 19 years & 3 months (February 2007) since I made the decision to go out on my own as an independent consultant. In that time, I found my calling in teaching & mentoring developers in the SharePoint and Microsoft 365 ecosystem. I co-founded an in-person training business (Critical Path Training, 2009-2013) with a successful exit. I then launched Voitanos in 2017 which I’ve been dedicated to for the last 9+ years.
In the last few months, SharePoint celebrated its 25th birthday, ironically just a few days after I completed my 50th trip around the sun.
The years approaching that milestone birthday made me more reflective than I expected. I ran the math differently. Not morbidly, but practically. How much time do you have accomplish what you want to do? Five years? Fifteen years? More? What do you want to do?
For the purpose of this article, I’m sticking with the work/career reflections and will keep the personal & family stuff to myself.
When you reach that point, what questions will you ask yourself? I keep landing on the same questions:
Was I hungry enough?
Did I push myself, or did I settle into a comfortable orbit around my limits without ever testing them?
When I look back, will I have regrets?
Will I wonder what if?
Call it a midlife crisis if you want… I won’t argue. But the questions were real, and I didn’t love some of the answers I told that person in the mirror.
After spending most of my career building, teaching, and writing about Microsoft 365 development, I’m hungry for a new challenge.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. There are things I’ve wanted to do my entire career: be part of building something bigger than myself, work on a product, ship a product, be on a team of wicked smart people. I’ve tried to fit some version of that into my work prior to and in Voitanos a few times over the years, but it just never quite fit.
Running a solo training and education business pulls in a different direction. You’re the product, the marketing, the support, the operations, and the engineer all at once. There’s only so much room left to build something new on top of that. Not to mention, it’s a lonely role.
Years ago I accepted that reality and doubled down on Voitanos. I’ve invested a lot of capital and time into leveling Voitanos up the last 2 years… rebranding, launching a new website, moved to a new platform, and was about to launch a membership program in early April.
But, the universe acts in mysterious ways.
Why Voitanos is closing after 9+ years
About 2 months ago, an opportunity crossed my path when I wasn’t looking or even thinking about a future where I wasn’t working on Voitanos. It’s with a company I have a lot of respect for, run by people I’ve known for years and whose work in this industry I admire. The more we talked, the more I realized this was the opportunity and challenge I’d been wanting for a long time.
Last Monday night, the night before delivering a full-day workshop in Cologne, Germany at the ECS 2026 conference, I accepted an offer for a full time position. I’m excited to share that today is my first day as a Principal Software Engineer with AvePoint!
From the moment I learned about this opportunity, through every conversation since, there hasn’t been a single moment where I’ve doubted the decision. Not one.
People say when you’re making a change like this, you should look in the mirror and ask yourself: “Are you running away from something or running toward something?”
I can tell you with all the confidence in every bone in my body: I’m running toward something. The training and education business has been good to me, I’ve enjoyed it, and I’ve had a great run. This isn’t about getting out. It’s about getting after what’s next.
But that also means I’m shutting down Voitanos after 9+ years.
That’s a sentence I genuinely didn’t expect to write just 2 months ago.
Thank you
To my customers: the developers who enrolled in my self-paced courses, who showed up for live workshops and live accelerators, who brought me on site to deliver private training for their teams, and the coaching clients who trusted me in a guiding and mentorship role with their engineers. None of this happens without you. Every one of you put your time, and in many cases your company’s investment, into something I built. I will never stop being grateful for that.
To the community and my peers: the friends, the folks who’ve acted like mentors when I needed it, the people who’ve shown up at conferences and in DMs and on GitHub issues over the years. You’re the reason any of this has been worth doing.
To my contacts and customers at Microsoft: thank you for the work, the collaboration, and for putting up with my constructive criticism more times than I can probably count. To the teams who’ve hired me to create training materials, write documentation, and teach the world about Microsoft 365 development: it’s been an honor.
There are many more people I owe thanks to… too many to list, and I fear I’ll unintentionally omit someone. You know who you are.
What Happens to Your Voitanos Courses, Workshops, and Support
If you’ve purchased a course or enrolled in something with Voitanos, here’s the short version: your access runs through the last day Voitanos is in business — September 30, 2026. Nothing changes for you today.
My promise on one-time course purchases has always been access while Voitanos is in business. That doesn’t change. What changes is the date Voitanos is in business through. After October 1, 2026, Voitanos Learn no longer exists as it does today.
You’re a developer, so let’s speak our shared language:
- May 11, 2026 (today): Voitanos & Voitanos Learn deprecated
- No changes… this is just an announcement.
- October 1, 2026: Voitanos & Voitanos Learn is retired & reaches end of life.
- Voitanos Learn (
https://learn.voitanos.io) will redirect you to a landing page with the status: closed. - All sales will stop.
- Voitanos Learn (
Here’s what that means in practice:
- Self-paced course access continues through September 30, 2026.
- Accelerator enrollees keep full access through September 30, 2026.
- 2026 workshop alumni have access to all recordings restored through September 30, 2026 — no need to ask, it’s already there.
- Support channels (Voitanos Learn Q&A and lesson comments) stay open through September 30, 2026.
The full breakdown is on the closing page: support response times and what may happen to course content after October 1, 2026:
Voitanos closes October 1, 2026. Here's how the wind-down affects your course access, accelerator enrollment, workshop recordings, and support.
https://www.voitanos.io/pages/closing-voitanos-2026/
Enroll in Voitanos Courses Before They Close
Good news: you can still enroll at a deep discount. Right now: 50% off everything, increasing to 75% off on September 1, 2026.
- enter the code VOITANOS-BYE-50 for 50% off any self-paced course or workshop recordings
- enter the code VOITANOS-BYE-75 for 75% off any self-paced course or workshop recordings (valid September 1, 2026 through September 30, 2026)
The caveat: anything you buy now only gives you access through September 30, 2026, the same end date as everyone else. If you can absorb the material on a faster timeline, this is the cheapest these courses will ever be.
Conclusion
I’m not disappearing from the Microsoft 365 development, SharePoint Framework, Microsoft 365 Copilot, or Microsoft Teams development community. However, this is a big career change and change in my primary focus going forward. I’m genuinely excited for this next chapter!
Until next time, I’ll see you out there. ✌️
Microsoft MVP, Full-Stack Developer & Chief Course Artisan - Voitanos LLC.
Andrew Connell is a full stack developer who focuses on Microsoft Azure & Microsoft 365. He’s a 22-year recipient of Microsoft’s MVP award and has helped thousands of developers through the various courses he’s authored & taught. Whether it’s an introduction to the entire ecosystem, or a deep dive into a specific software, his resources, tools, and support help web developers become experts in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, so they can become irreplaceable in their organization.
