Adii Pienaar

I really try to spend my time - as much as possible - doing the stuff I love. At work that means taking responsibility for the things that I'm passionate about, whilst I'm always on the look out to get involved in awesome, new projects.

This recently lead me to create an investor profile over at AngelList (to potentially become an investor / advisor in startups), as well as publicizing my availability as a startup consultant. Both of these have been in the hope that I can expose myself to new projects that would excite, stimulate & challenge me.

Since the startup space is pretty hot right now, I've had quote a bit of interest on both these channels. There's two interesting recent experiences that I'd like to share from these interacting through AngelList and with potential consulting clients.

1. An entrepreneur that I know, found my profile on AngelList and contacted me to find out whether I'd endorse their business or even consider investing in it. The business however was not something that I necessarily believed in and I just had no interest in that space at all. So I declined an endorsement or investment.

2. Another entrepreneur recently contacted me to figure out whether I'd potentially be keen to help them out with their business as a consultant. The startup was involved with the creation & syndication of content, which just isn't something that I have any experience in. Neither do I really have a passion for it. So whilst I would've love to help out, I just couldn't justify it knowing that my contribution would be below-par considering my lack of experience / passion for that industry.

In both cases, I would've probably gotten involved (if I had) not because I would've loved it, but for other reasons (financial reasons seem the most obvious). While I was contemplating the opportunities, I just realized that I do my best work when I apply my time & energy to stuff I really love; when I'm being forced to do certain things, my contribution is below-par AND I'm unhappy.

Before any other consideration, I'm picking the opportunities that I love. That's my first filter; everything else (like monetization & execution) comes in play after.

I woke up this morning thinking about how blessed I am to actually love my job. That thought process led me to think about success and how I - in the context of being an entrepreneur - define success for myself.

From the top of my head, I guess success could be defined as any (or a combination of) the following:

• Profitability or the more precisely, the extend thereof (I drive a Porsche, so I'm successful).
• The freedom of working for yourself and doing a job that you love / find challenging.
• (Alarmingly) mainstream tech media sometimes seem to believe that raising funding equals success.

Faced with the challenge of defining success for myself, I'm reminded of a quote (unattributed as far as I know) that my wife once shared with me:

The true definition of success is when you stop making excuses for yourself.

For me this has always been one of the most difficult things, because we are wired to measure things relative to each other. And that's how we measure our personal success, or are at least tempted to do so.

John Wooden gave this fascinating talk about success at TED back in 2001 and he basically says that success is only relative to yourself & whether you gave your best (paraphrasing massively there). In my mind, this thinking gets me closer to what my own definition of success may  be. 

Towards the end of last year, Chris Brogan published an article "That Sense of Overnight Success" which included this striking paragraph (as his definition of success):

Success, you see, isn’t a mansion and a yacht. Success is living the life you want and doing the work you’re best at doing with the people you know will help you reach the next level. Success means working on projects that you know will fulfill a deep felt passion within you, and yet, will feed your family. Success is knowing that you’ve built a thriving network of people who all work hard to grow each other’s capabilities. Success means finding a next angle and vectoring your efforts towards growing that out. Success means having the means and capability to make better decisions. Success means getting home in time for dinner. Success means leaving the house when I want to, and staying home with the kids when I want to, all while making a future for my family.

I  specifically bolded one line in that paragraph about coming home for dinner, because that really resonates with me. I really, really love my job (it has never felt like one) and I'm a passionate entrepreneur, always on the look out for the next big growth spurt or adventurous marketing campaign. One of my favourite things though, is coming home to my wife and an amazing home-cooked dinner.

My peers would probably / generally regard me as being successful and they'd probably base that perception on the reputed size of WooThemes, the house that I live, the holidays I take and perhaps the fact that I get to work for myself. My definition of success is slightly different though.

Success for me is having the opportunity to work on something I love and be allowed to build a business around that. There's a little bit of success in the knowledge that every decision I have to make isn't influenced by money as the determining factor. More so, money can't buy time and success to me means I have the freedom to spend my time on the important things in my life (home, my wife, family, friends). Success is the opportunity to shape my life to find the best fit for my natural personality. Success is making my own rules (for myself & the things over which I exert control) and not making excuses for those decisions. Success is the opportunity just to be me and feel content about that. (I guess too that this will soon change with a baby on the way...)

What is your definition of success?

Before going to bed last night, I noticed quite a bit of chatter & linking to this beautifully crafted landing page (also pictured above). Most of the chatter centered around what this could be, yet that seemingly quickly faded in favour of how sexy the design (erm, lady) was. This reminded me of another little project called Hipster that got 10k+ user signups in 2 days without revealing what it actually does.

Everyone hates spam and sensitivity about online privacy is probably at an all-time high, so if you are given a company your personal details (even if it is just your e-mail address), I can only assume that you are afraid to miss out. That in my opinion draws similarities with how sheep blindly follow each other, without question the validity of the group's decision.

In both these cases, I think their marketing campaigns are superbly executed and they've managed to generate loads of hype without revealing what they do. I don't have a problem with this at all. This does however give us a bit on insight on how we interact online and how we'd rather follow like sheep in fear of missing out.

Am I being harsh in my opinion? Have you given your personal details away like this before?

I'd like to share a recent exchange I had with a customer:

1. Customer notes to us that he is struggling to achieve something with our product.
2. We explain that this is currently a limitation, but immediately update & release a new version of the product to help the customer achieve their goal.
3. Customer isn't happy, e-mails us for refund.
4. [This is where I come in.] I ask the client whether the fix worked in an attempt to determine how I can help the customer.
5. Customer says they didn't try it and won't try it, because they don't want to be a guinea pig. Insists on refund, threatens with chargeback.
6. I explain that we released a fix for the problem and hence it's not about being a guinea pig; we're just doing our job & helping them out.
7. Customer ignores last e-mail, rudely threatens to publicize this and again threatens to go the way of a chargeback.
8. I issue refund and at least attempt to explain our actions in this regard & how we actually tried to help. Still awaiting response (if any is going to be forthcoming).

AirBnB just announced a whopping new funding deal worth $112 million. Sheesh. What do you do with $112 million?

I come from a bootstrapped background and I've never been close to seeing anything like that kind of money in my own business (not even on wishful projections or targets), so I have no idea how to spend $112m. If I were given a $112m investment at WooThemes right now, I would honestly not know how to spend it.

And I guess therein lies the difference... I'm co-founder of a very successful business that exceeded 40k paid users over the weekend and we are very profitable (and have been for a while). We don't however operate on the kind of level where a $100m would ever even come into a serious conversation.

Guess I have a lot to "(l)earn" yet...