Mark ForresterCo-founder of WooThemes. Makers of WooCommerce - acquired by Automattic.
Mark is a husband, dad, early stage investor, photographer, gadget geek and sports fanatic. Proudly based in Cape Town, South Africa.
Last week I sat down with a good friend doing fantastic work in the SME space in South Africa, Marnus Broodryk.
Marnus convinced me to join him on his SME.Africa podcast. 4 years since our acquisition I enjoyed reminiscing over our journey and the learnings, however distant and fuzzy some parts feel. We also spoke about what keeps me busy these days.
Despite having a voice for print I enjoyed the interview.
Listen to “The Founder of WooThemes & WooCommerce [EP10 S2]” on Spreaker.
Last week we got featured on Apple’s official @instagram account! “We” actually referring to my son – I just snapped the photo. He choreographed it.
It’s kind of mind bending to quantify a feature like this. The world’s largest company featuring a photo I took. On a social account they only post one photo a day. To an audience of 13,5 million followers. 🤯
It was a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into how these monster media accounts are managed. And of course the lives of InstaCelebs and social behaviour. So far the photo has had nearly 250k likes.
A howling south easter made this year’s 109km cycle tour a rather challenging one.
It was however a much more enjoyable one having done a little more training than for previous attempts. Less focus on cramping muscles, and more on the beautiful peninsula views.
A road bike, and cleats were also game changing additions…
Today we officially welcome Bebo – WordPress 5.0.
Having used this software since version 1.5, way back in 2005, it’s monumental to think how it has matured, and how it has impacted my life in so many ways.
To experience a new publishing interface today, after a WordPress auto-update completed last night, and to see the download counter closing in on 2 million downloads in less than 24 hours demonstrates significant scale, creativity, complexity and code innovation.
A massive round of applause to Matt Mullenweg for championing this evolution, and all of those open source contributors who have shaped such a noteworthy gift to the internet.
What a month August was. Driving Audi R8 spyders around the South Tyrol region. An Audi experience tour that included German autobahn, the Italian Dolomites and some of the most beautiful Austrian Alps mountain passes.
A trip I shall never forget, and roads I hope to return to… in a more family friendly wagon.
Most of us default to retweets and quick shares on Twitter these days, but for posterity and future reference I’m going to blogroll a few articles I found particularly interesting this month.
Most founders dream of building a product that eventually becomes a household name and sells for a billion dollars, but chasing that goal comes with some downsides. We chose a different path.
Chris Savage & Brendan Schwartz – Founders of Wistia
I’ve followed the @wistia team with keen interest for many years – @woothemes was an early user. This chapter is a fascinating and important read for any business owner contemplating future growth and how much control they are willing to sacrifice for it.
While there is much written about growing a startup, there is far less written about being acquired, successfully integrating a startup or scaling within a large company. In retrospect, I wish I had been better prepared and more knowledgeable, and hope my lessons learned below can prove valuable to CEOs and founders everywhere.
Todd Sacredoti – Founder of BrightRoll
🤯 So many parallels, so many I wish we’d knowns. A hugely insightful read for business owners about the lesser spoken acquisition process.
This really terrifies me as a dad – seeing my 6 year old, and even 2 year old boy, falling victim to these dangerous rabbit holes of deep, dark YouTube. A must watch for parents…
TL;DR Keep your kids away from YouTube.
On July 9th 2008 we launched @WooThemes.
With the benefit of youthful business naivety, the serendipity of meeting co-founders online, the scale of open source and through the power of sequence & hard graft we found our 10 year “overnight” success!
Happy Birthday @WooCommerce 💌
via Twitter
I love how much creativity oozes from my new home office desk, designed and built by Frankie Machine. Inspired to build – I just wish my skills translated from pixels….