Author: Mark Forrester

Co-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.

Categories
Tech

Video conferencing gadgetry

I’ve recently become a little obsessed over my video conferencing setup and the quality of my streams. I spend quite a bit of my week in online meetings with the various teams I work with – usually on Zoom, Google Hangouts or FaceTime .

I thought a couple of my recent gadgetry additions might be worth sharing…

  • RØDE NT-USB Microphone – This has actually been my trusted desk companion since 2015. It provides crispy clean audio. Alongside online meetings I’ve tried to ensure I capture sporadic audio snippets of conversations with the kids as they grow up and their voices evolve. For posterity.
    (I recently bought the studio boom arm to clear more desk space as it’s a fairly chunky unit)
  • Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam – I’m still on a 2014 5K iMac. I still love it. But the webcam is awful. And especially terrible in low-light. The C922 provides much better HD quality, focus and control. There are better webcams out there, but this is a notable improvement for me. I’m quite keen to explore the Elgato Cam Link 4K (to use an SLR as a webcam)
  • Elgato Key Light Air – I’m a pasty pink human on screen. I also have an office space that provides an abundance of backlight. The Elgato light provides great foreground lighting – with much flexibility over light intensity and color balance.

Categories
Link Worthy

Disrupt Africa interview

A recent interview with Disrupt Africa covering:

  • Life as a 🇿🇦 early stage investor…. after bootstrapping @WooCommerce
  • My growing curiosity in social impact investing & low-income markets
  • The startups I’m backing to succeed + what an “active” investor role means to me
Meet the Investor: Mark Forrester

Categories
Link Worthy Personal Ramblings

SME.Africa podcast

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.

Categories
Personal Ramblings Photos

InstaFamous

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.

Categories
Personal Ramblings

Cape Cycle Tour 2019

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…

Categories
General

Cape Town 7s

Categories
General

The Crossing

All the warm fuzzy feelings 🇿🇦
Categories
General

Five point zero

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. 

Categories
Personal Ramblings Photos

Supercars in the Dolomites

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.

Categories
Link Worthy

July bookmarks

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.

How an Offer to Sell Wistia Inspired Us to Take On $17M in Debt

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.

Part #2 — $100M to $1B+: Non-obvious Lessons Learned Selling to Yahoo!

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.

The nightmare videos of childrens’ YouTube — and what’s wrong with the internet today

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.