Adii Pienaar

I've always been a firm believer in supporting companies and brands based not on the mistakes they make, but on the way they rectify those mistakes. That in my opinion has always delivered that lasting impression which gets my brand loyalty & commitment going.

Well-known publisher, GigaOM, had a case of e-mail blues today as they sent out truckloads of the same newsletter to subscribers (or in some cases, non-subscribers). I got 40-odd copies of the same newsletter.

It turns out that MailChimp is their newsletter provider and the issues GigaOM were experiencing was a result of a deployment issue on MailChimp's side. It would be easy for MailChimp to hide in a situation like this; if they didn't put up their hand and claimed responsibility, then nobody - except them - would've known that they were at fault. Instead they post a very public apology, pulling no punches in acknowledging their mistake and also rectifying the underlying issue ASAP.

That in my opinion is the magic stuff that great companies & brands are made of: transparency, honesty & accountability. I'm not a MailChimp customer today, but if I were ever to switch away from CampaignMonitor, MailChimp's actions in this regard would've greatly influenced that move. Kudo's to MailChimp for impeccable customer service.

Celebrating the birth of my son, obviously hasn't brought enough "newness" to my life lately with a bunch of exciting things happening elsewhere too. Heck, when it rains it pours.

One of my ambitions this year has been to step up my angel investing activities and literally just get a couple of toes into the water; mostly to learn and just expose myself to more startups (preferably in various industries). In addition to this - and acknowledging that my investment budget is still very limited - I decided to find startups where I could offer value as an advisor (something which I'm also publicly advertising here).

On both these fronts, I have some exciting news to share and would like to introduce you to three new startups that I'm involved in... 

Dress Rush

I was first introduced to Dress Rush a couple of weeks ago when I saw their amazingly designed investor pitch deck. From the very first moment I interacted with the brand, business & ideas, I knew that I wanted to be involved. I subsequently reached out to the team and a couple of weeks later (having been made to jump through hoops to get funds transferred internationally), I'm now officially an investor in Dress Rush.

Two things make me specifically proud about this: 1) Jeanne & I made this investment together, as she was just as keen - if not more keen - to get in on this action; and 2) I get to experience a whole different industry and business model.

Having also got married a little more than a year ago myself, I could've most definitely used something similar to Dress Rush. I bet I would've saved a lot of time and even more money.

Buffer

I've been using Buffer for a couple of months now and have actually been an early user since the first time I stumbled onto Joel Gascoigne's, one of the co-founder, blog. Having found Buffer to be incredibly valuable to my own workflow and online activities, I'm honoured to be joining their team as an advisor.

I love the idea behind Buffer and I see them going from strength to strength.

PressTrends

PressTrends is a little closer to home and is already something we're trying out at WooThemes. Considering how big the WordPress ecosystem has become and how many people are buying themes, I believe PressTrends fills a massive gap for developers in giving them crucial data & analytics to fuel proper, data-driven decision-making.

I'm advising the PressTrends team and even though these are early days, they've already laid the platform of a very exciting business. These guys will be adding a very valuable component to the WordPress ecosystem.

And in addition to all of this, I might be working on a little side-project of my own that should see the light in Q1 2012. All I'll say for now is that the project was one of the ideas that remained after Radiiate was closed down earlier this year.

Finally, if you wanted to get in touch with me on any of these fronts, feel free to have a look at my AngelList profile or my startup services.

I first signed up for Path a little more than a year ago (on 23 November to be precise), after it was lauded as an "app to watch" being the brainchild of long-time Facebook employee, Dave Morin (heck, Google apparently tried to acquire Path for $100m back then). Path sounded good, so I gave it a try... A signup and one "status" later and I didn't see how Path would fit into my current social (networking) landscape.

Fast-forward to today and everyone is raving about Path V2. Like any pretend-hipster, I can't resist the urge of having a look at the new version; so I install a new copy on my iPhone (because I obviously deleted it after the useless experience last time around).

First impression: Shit, this looks really great! I love the UI, the interactions and everything is just so beautiful. I want to spend more time with this.

Second Impression: Wait. This now means I need to maintain yet another - separate - network. Mmm, unlikely. 

Having thought about this in more detail, I'm really unsure why Path are trying to create a whole new network, when there's so many great networks out there already. Surely it would've made sense to tap into those, since this would lower the barrier to entry (assuming that the user's time to maintain multiple networks is the constraint) for so many users?

Path is being billed as "A diary for a mobile and social world" and I actually think that - at the heart of the app - they accomplish this incredibly well. I can imagine myself scrolling through screens and screens of beautiful data, looking back at exactly what I did in the last year. That's not my problem with Path, in fact I love that about them. But as is the case with most things in life: "shit in, shit out", meaning that if I want that lovely reminiscing experience, I need to get the data in there.

I guess it would've been easier for me to use Path if they were aggregating my social data from elsewhere. Why not take my photos from Instagram? My check-ins from Foursquare / Gowalla / Facebook? And how nifty would Spotify or Rdio integration have been for music?

Had this been there, I'd likely have been a very active Path user... As things stand though, I've already deleted Path from my iPhone.

Whilst spending time with my newborn son in the last 48 hours, I realized that it's possible to draw a lot of comparisons between how founders act within their startups and how parents do with their newborn babies.

The one comparison that particularly jumped out at me, is how new parents (any parents?) believe that their baby is just the most beautiful baby in the world. I've yet to meet a parent who doesn't believe that their baby is the most beautiful in the world and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I have the same feeling about my newborn son.

I don't care that rationally this might not be the truth. I can even accept the fact that I'd never be able to prove this or that with 6bn-odd people on the earth, that this is statistically very improbable. This doesn't matter though, because I believe this to be the truth.

And this is how I believe startup founders should view their own businesses: in their eyes, it should be the best in the world. Founders need to have the kind of conviction & determination to make their startups succeed, even if all rationale odds indicate to the contrary. In most cases - and especially in the early stages of a startup - the rationale stuff doesn't matter; instead it's about chasing that burning fire called passion and working hard to execute your idea(s). It doesn't matter whether a sexier startup exists out there.

Your startup will flourish with the kind of love & attention you'll direct to it if this were your mindset.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my personal ambitions on how so many revolves around being an entrepreneur and being involved in business(es). In my attempts of figuring out why entrepreneurship is such an integral part of who I am, I realized that there's one aspect of being an entrepreneur that greatly appeals to me: the sky is the limit.

I believe that in business (and as an entrepreneur) that everything is possible that we're only driven by our own passion, ideas, hard work & ambition. Stumbling blocks or supposed limitations are only challenges that entrepreneurs need to face (and find creative solutions for) along the way.

This appeals to me, because I'm a naturally ambitious person who doesn't like to be put in a box. I simply love the fact that I'm able to have this never-ending journey from project to project, business to business. The sky is the limit.