Mark ForresterWebsites I’ve found that deserve a mention
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.
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.
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.
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!
In November 2014, from Cape Town to San Francisco, I was miraculously upgraded to fly first class. For free. 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…)
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.
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.
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.
David Blaine explains what it took to achieve his goal of becoming the Guinness World Record holder for holding his breath the longest.
One of my favourite TED presentations.
Got 10 minutes to spare? Even if you don’t watch this video – shot and narrated by photographer Zack Arias. A story with a much deeper message than just the struggles of a photographer comparing himself to others.
As Kyle Steed wrote:
I came across this video this week and it inspired the crap out of me