Adii Pienaar

We live in a time where we are always trying to work more, be more efficient, increase our productivity. We strive to do more, so we get involved in more projects & take on tasks & To Do's that aren't that important.

Heck, everyone has a side-project these days.

I guess we've become so used to diversification. "Don't put your eggs into one basket." says your investment manager. So instead of putting more money into AAPL (which has made you good money until now), you find lesser stocks just for the sake of diversification.

This works for financial investments, but not for investments of your time.

In the past 2 years, I've made this mistake twice.

First up, I decided that it would be a good idea to diversify my interest (both financial & personal / passion) in WooThemes by creating a new entity, Radiiate (R.I.P.). I wanted it to be an incubator for my other ideas and had a bit of spare cash to invest into that pursuit. I couldn't keep up though and the mental drain I experienced was just too great. I lost $250k instead.

Then, in the last couple of years at WooThemes, we've become really good at saying "Yes!" to new ideas / feature requests and generally just doing more. We justified it by saying that people wanted these things and we would be able to diversify our interests (I mean - things might just tank one day). This however created such a burden & financial overhead (supporting legacy products that never amounted to much), which has meant that it's taken quite a few months to cleanse ourselves of that baggage and the bad habits it installed.

The thing is that focus trumps most things in any given situation. We may think we're good at multi-tasking, but it will never be as efficient / productive / successful as it could be when you focus on doing just one thing. When you're clear about what you're working on & what you're working towards, it becomes exponentially simpler to execute on your vision & plan.

This mindset also has an interesting application within WooThemes: It's the nature of our business to have multiple products, so we won't ever just have the one product. But we have however changed our strategy to double-down on the products & revenue channels where we see most traction & growth. So instead of creating more, we're just doing more with what we already have.

Avoid the "Jack of all trades, Master of none."-mantra, as this not only defocuses & complicates your execution, but it most definitely decreases the quality of your work / products / services.

If you'd like to chat to me about this or get advice on something similar, feel free to give me a call.

A few recent happenings has gotten me thinking about my initial motivation to switch my blog to Svbtle a couple of months ago. On the surface this would seem to be an odd decision on my part, considering that I'm CEO of one of the biggest WordPress product companies around and a switch of platform (away from WordPress) wouldn't make loads of sense.

I first fell in love with Svbtle when Dustin first previewed the UI, which I felt would be perfectly suited to clutter-free idea generation & writing (something which WordPress isn't doing so well these days).

But most importantly, I wanted into Svbtle because of the exclusivity. The fact that Svbtle was invite-only made we want into the action so badly. I wanted to be part of the crowd where the cool kids hung out.

And I don't think I'm the only one... Immediately after Svbtle's launch, there was a self-service copy created. And over the last couple of months, we've also seen a verbatim copy made for WordPress, along with a proper, inspired-by-Svbtle project as a fork to WordPress.

To me that suggests that there were others that loved the look of what Svbtle was, but hated being on the outside of the walled garden.

Exclusivity breeds demand.

Consider all of the material stuff that you'd like to own; most of those things are likely either high value items (that most of us will never be able to afford) and / or are highly exclusive.

This applies even more-so to experiences. Want to see the SuperBowl live? Well, only a finite number of people will be able to do that every year. Want to go to space? Sure - maybe when it's affordable in 2085.

The exclusivity and lack of availability / accessibility doesn't however deter our want or need for these things. Instead it has the contrary influence and I believe that this just makes us want it even more.

Maybe it's partly down to us being jealous and we want to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe it's ambition and we're simply striving towards that next goal.

Regardless though, if you want someone to buy something you're selling, don't make it easy for them to get. :)

Looking at Svbtle and the exclusivity that surrounds it, I can draw many comparisons to the person who I perceive Svbtle-creator, Dustin Curtis, to be.

I say perceived, because I actually don't know all that much about Dustin. I've known that Dustin Curtis is a superhero ever since I first stumbled onto his "The Life of Dustin Curtis" design.

This isn't saying much of course, as I've not met Dustin in person. But for most other people that I'd like to know about, I can find much more than this online.

Yet I hold Dustin in the highest regard. I think he's a super-talented designer and that he's a thought-leader. He's very mysterious and obviously has loads of self-confidence (which borders on arrogance, which I love).

But I can't really proof any of this.

That's exactly the point though: similar to the exclusivity of a product / service, Dustin Curtis has put himself out there just enough to intrigue others. I know that I'm unlikely to ever work with Dustin, but I have this belief that he'd be an awesome person to work with / have on my team.

Subtle?

As an enthusiast photographer, I've recently been fascinated with film photography. In the past 2 months, I've started using my Polaroid SX-70 & Canon FTb on more occasions (instead of relying on my DSLR or iPhone to capture moments).

The thing about both of these camera's are that they were produced in 1972 & 1971 respectively. The technology is old & not as streamlined or easy-to-use when compared to our digital alternatives today.

Playing around with these manual, film camera's though got me thinking about how that experience compares to digital photography, where we can take a photo and immediately see the results. Instant gratification.

This got me thinking about the way we run our businesses online these days. We're focused on iterating in the most agile & efficient way. We implement tweaks that aim for small, daily victories. We monitor our key metrics in real-time (and across multiple platforms) to make sure that we can react on-demand.

And when we implement a new decision, we want to see the result immediately. Instant gratification.

I think - as entrepreneurs and startup people - it's in our nature to not be satisfied by only seeing the cogs moving. We want to see the vehicle moving as well, because that's how we know that we've set the cogs up correctly.

But there's a contradiction & a flaw in that mindset for me: most things that I can implement in my business today, will only have an obvious / noticeable effect much later. I think that the requirements for building a company that can scale & be sustainable in the long-term, means you're sometimes making decisions in the blind, with no immediate validation of whether that decision is the correct one.

Maybe it's a case of building a business based on your gut-feel & intuition.

For me that experience relates exactly to taking a photo on a film camera. I need to trust that my theoretical knowledge (in terms of manually controlling the exposure, aperture & focus of the camera) & intuition ("Will this subject and the composition thereof make a good photo?") will result in a great photo. There's no way for me to take a photo, see the result immediately, iterate on my assumptions / actions & take a new photo. Rinse & repeat.

Building a great business strategy is about vaguely knowing in which general direction you need to move to build a long-term sustainable business. That general direction will move a few ticks left and then a few ticks right on a daily / weekly / monthly basis, but unless your pivoting completely, the general direction stays the same.

No amount of instant gratification & short-term validation will unfortunately make you feel less insecure about whether your business will come out well on the other side.

So when building your business, trust in your knowledge (of the problem you're solving / your business / customers / industry), your passion for your solution and your intuition of pursuing your long-term vision successfully.

Snap.

A year ago my son was born. Today I get to have the privilege of celebrating the last year and this really significant milestone with him & my wife.

To say that it's been an epic journey would be an understatement. I'm sure most new parents would attest to the experience feeling similar to jumping into the deep-end of the pool and learning to swim on-the-go.

For me though, this year has been about rediscovering myself in all facets of my life: as a new dad, as a husband, as a family member, others' friend, an entrepreneur & business owner. Just discovering who the heck this Adii guy really is.

You would've seen me write about balance quite a bit recently and that's been a direct result of this journey of rediscovery that I've been on. A couple of months ago, I had to admit to myself that deep-down I was very unhappy (even though everything on the surface of my life seemed to be perfect) and that I had just become incredibly efficient in hiding the unhappiness and finding workarounds for it.

My son - "Little Bear Man" - effected that change. The influence he has had on me in the last year has been profound. No conversation that I've had with a friend, advisor or mentor in the past comes close to effect that my son has had on the way I see myself & perceive the world around me.

I've learnt the value of time. I've learnt to cherish those fleeting life moments by just being in them. I've learnt to be more patient and love unconditionally. I've learnt that sometimes a smile - regardless of the circumstances - is just the easiest way from point A to B. I've learnt that my life is bigger than just myself. [1]

Today, I'm a better man because of Little Bear Man's influence on my life.

Happy birthday my boy!

[1] Special thanks needs to go to my wife, for not only being patient with me and allowing me the space to figure this out, but also for being such a great mom, which enabled me to grow into the dad that I want to be.

Yesterday, during a little video interview, I was asked what WooThemes meant to me. Initially I was a little stumped, but then said "WooThemes is about opportunities."

My personal perspective & experience was my go-to when I said that, as WooThemes has created so many opportunities for me:

• I have the opportunity of working on something I'm passionate about & building a business around it.
• I have the opportunity of earning a good living and supporting my family.
• I've had the opportunity to travel, speak at conferences and meet loads of awesome people (some who've become really good friends, mentors & advisors).

And that list can go on.

As I was thinking about all of this though, I realized that opportunities were at the very core of what we were doing at WooThemes too: we were giving our customers the opportunity to build better websites, quicker and more cost-efficiently. Our customers have the opportunity to build their own businesses around that and in that way, they experience the same personal opportunities that I've had with Woo through their own businesses.

I've always been a firm believer that a company that enables others to build businesses end up being recession-proof, as your products / services becomes an integral part of how others are earning a living. And that is what we've been striving to do: WooThemes Helps Build Businesses.

Today I can take that one step further and say: WooThemes Creates Opportunities.