Link Worthy - Mark Forrester

CCTV Lockdown

Today calls for a tiny celebration. It marks the official end of South Africa’s hard lockdown… We’ve now entered into a “Stage 4” lockdown, which is much the same, except we are now awarded morning exercise hours…

I helped Sentian put together a little light-hearted video showcasing some CCTV family keepsakes of the past 5 weeks, that their customers had sent in. It’s been a memorable chapter for all of us.

These are tough times, much tougher for some than others. South Africa always dishing out a fair share of perspective. Us with CCTV have the privilege of a house that requires protecting.

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

https://disrupt-africa.com/2019/11/meet-the-investor-mark-forrester/

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.

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.

Selling though storytelling

A fantastically told founding story behind Naadam, a sweater company breaking a cashmere cartel.

This video perfectly highlights the importance of good storytelling in shaping a genuine customer connection with a brand, and in turn selling lots of products.

Under one hour

It is both daunting and surreal to see what our generation can conceptualise, and in a few years from now build. To shape a future reality our children will see as quite ordinary!

The Emirates first class experience

In November 2014, from Cape Town to San Francisco, I was miraculously upgraded to fly first class. On not one, but two long haul flights via Dubai. A total of over 20 hours in a flying palace. It was an incredibly surreal and scarily opulent experience.

It was my first (and only) time flying Emirates business class, that I only just managed to justify pocketing – celebrating a crazy few months at WooThemes. Presumably Emirates were keen to impress and win some business travellers over, with a surplus of first class seats available. Only at check-in did I realise I had been upgraded.

I wish I’d documented the flight better, but only managed a handful of pictures.

A year and a half later my favorite vlogger, Casey Neistat, got the same VIP Emirates treatment and did a fantastic job of documenting the experience. The video has gone completely viral with over 20 million views in 7 days. I think Emirates can justify Casey’s upgrade a lot better than mine….

I still can’t believe I took that flight and can only imagine how much that ticket would cost today. (An absurdly, unjustifiable amount…)

Twinkle twinkle little rockstar

This week I discovered the artist “Twinkle twinkle little rockstar“. Thanks to an episode of Mr. Robot of all places.

If, like me, you are a sleep-deprived parent used to the constant soft noise of baby carousels and nursery rhymes on YouTube baby channels, then this artist is a welcomed life line.

There are some great covers to musically educate your little ones – from the earliest of ages.

https://embed.spotify.com/follow/1/?uri=spotify%3Aartist%3A3mGCLimuzOdod4Lnegny4d&size=basic&theme=dark

Table Mountain timelapse

For the last 3 years I have been exploring Table Mountain National Park in pursuit of capturing its beauty like never seen before timelapse video.

Recommended in 4K! Follow Brendon Wainwright on Instagram.

Anomaly

Great to see what is possible today thanks to the Vimeo and Kickstarter communities. Modern day filmmaking at it’s best. Well done to Salomon Ligthelm.