Adii Pienaar

For every e-mail that gets sent, there's an inbox that probably can't handle yet another mail.

Cue the hipster trying to explain this "phenomenon": "I just get so much mail; I really can't answer all of them.", "So sorry if I missed your mail, but I get hundreds each day and yours probably fell through the cracks." or "E-mail overload is a real problem."

Duh.

See, I get it: we're all struggling to answer all of our e-mails since every Tom, Dick & Harry started sending an e-mail about everything a couple of years back. And now most Tom's, Dick's and Harry's have smartphones too (just so they look cool, not because they necessarily fully grasp the device), so they're sending you mail while on the pooper. I get it.

I also know that answering e-mail - especially lengthy one's - isn't the most pleasurable experience, nor do you feel like you've accomplished anything after you're done. I also absolutely hate waking up to an inbox with 30 unread mails, which means I've developed a bad habit of answering a couple of them on my iPhone, in the bed before I doze off to sleep. Bad habit. Yuck. But we do what we have to do.

The best part is that the more e-mails you manage to respond to, the more you are likely to receive back. Exponentially. Talk about a catch-22.

Here's the MASSIVE BUT though: None of these makes it okay for us to start ignore e-mails.

If I sent you an e-mail, I most probably did so because I would really appreciate a response (of any kind). Or maybe I really look up to you, admire your work and wanted to connect about something that might just be important to me. I also sent you the mail knowing that you are busy (just as I am), that it might take a couple of days for you to respond (which I'm okay about) and I tried to keep the e-mail as short as possible in respecting your time. If you don't respond, I don't know whether you got my mail, whether it perhaps went to spam or whether you didn't regard me important enough to warrant a response.

I'm nowhere near perfect when it comes to answering my own mail, but I try really, really hard to answer every single e-mail that pops up in my inbox. I'm slightly obsessive compulsive when it comes to keeping my inbox clean, I don't use any computer process that will "prioritize" my mail for me (just another lame excuse not to answer e-mails from senders outside of my network) and I realize that this isn't the most productive decision I've ever mind. But common courtesy is still a value that I regard highly.

So to everyone moaning about not having enough time, you can join the rest of us in that boat. We can also seriously stop playing the "my inbox is bigger than yours"-game, since that doesn't get the e-mail answered either. We all agree that the massive amounts of e-mail that gets sent is a real problem, but we're not solving it by selectively ignoring some of those e-mails.

You're not doing anything wrong when you're not answering the mail you receive. Compare it having your own home; if there's a knock at the door, it's your choice to open it or pretend like you're not there.

I for one - and I'm sure I'm not alone - have much more respect for those people that takes the 2 minutes to reply to my mail.

I'm the "business" guy / co-founder over at WooThemes. Our business has 3 co-founders and over the years all 3 of us have evolved our roles to focus on the specific parts of the business of which we're most passionate about.

When we started the company, we were bootstrapping and as a result all 3 of us were hands-on-deck & in DIY-mode in terms of being involved in the actual production of our products, as well all the business & admin stuff. But as we grew the team and hired designers, developers & a support team, our roles changed quite drastically.

So at the moment, my role within the company would be generally regarded as being the "business guy". Most of the writing on this topic tends to agree that a triumvirate of co-founders (a designer, a developer & someone taking care of the business-side of things) is the ideal mix of skills in an online startup. Even though neither of us are exclusively responsible for one part of the business, there are obviously things that I do more and take more responsibility for as a result.

My Responsibilities

This is generally what I spend my days doing:

• I do all of the marketing & tracking of the campaigns.
• I do most of the blogging.
• Exploring potential business development opportunities.
• Networking with whoever.
• Managing collaborations.
• I try coordinate all of our daily / weekly / monthly efforts to assure that we're hitting our strategic aims. I tend to take a step back from individual tasks / projects and take a more holistic look at the stuff we're doing.
• Interacting with the WooThemes community across all channels.

Not a bad job, right? :) Well, whilst this is 100% what I'd like to do every day, it doesn't come without its own set of challenges.

The Challenges

Nothing in life is ever perfect. Remember that! :) Heck, if anything was perfect, life would be pretty boring in that we'd have nothing we could improve on.

These are the challenges of my job as the "business guy" at the moment:

• I haven't been designing or coding for ages, so if I have an idea or the team decides to put a little campaign together, I need to wait for one of the guys on the team to handle the design / code of the project before I can continue with my tasks on that project. This inevitably means that there is gaps between the conceptualization of a project and the execution thereof, which sometimes means it is tough to keep the motivation and momentum going for that project.
• There's a seemingly obvious list of priorities: bugs, products and then everything else. So guess what falls off the radar? Everything else. Guess what a big part of my job is? Everything else... :)
• As a result of the above two points, I generally have items on my to do list that takes ages to tick off. Either they're not top-most priority or I need to wait for someone on the team to "help me out". Neither is wrong, but I don't get the satisfaction of feeling that I've accomplished certain things by ticking them off.
• I obviously understand our products and wouldn't be able to market them without that intimate knowledge. But I don't understand the complexity and detail anymore, as I'm out of the development game. I don't understand why certain bugs are harder to fix and why it seems (to me) that all we do is fix bugs or upgrade existing functionality (instead of developing new, groundbreaking products). I need to take the queue from the rest of the team on this and I think we'd all agree that where communication is involved, it's always a bit of a challenge. :)
• I spend a lot of time trying to tie up loose ends & making sure everyone is on the same page. This doesn't deliver an actual "result" in itself, but does help in getting the work done indirectly.
• Some days I spend the whole day answering e-mail, yet it doesn't feel like I've been working. Self-doubt is a massive issue.

If you've read my blog you'll know that I don't mind being personal and sharing emotions - yes, emotions - in explaining my mindset and experiences as a business owner & entrepreneur. So I don't pretend to think that these challenges are the worst in the world, but I do think they're pretty significant and most co-founders in my position should share similar experiences.

What are your experiences in this regard?

Life changes so quickly...

I can finally (publicly) share that Jeanne & I are 9 weeks pregnant and expecting our baby later this year. We've known for a couple of weeks, but waited for our first doctor's appointment before sharing the news with the world.

Heck, to say that the last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind would be a complete understatement (as I still have some professional / business news to share as well). Along with the absolute joy & excitement of finding out that we'll soon be parents, it is just so obvious during times like these that one's life can really change in the wink of an eye. I do however expect that these changes will be the most rewarding experience I've been part of during my life thus far.

I don't intend for this to become a "daddy blog" during the next couple of months, but "parent" is soon another title that I'd add to my resume. So expect the odd update on how that changes my life as a "rockstar", business owner and entrepreneur. :)

I just finished answering a handful of WooThemes support e-mails and realized that one of the reasons for WooThemes' significant growth & success has been our focus on the minor victories.

See, I could've left those e-mails unanswered for a couple of answers and then Ryan (our Community Manager) would wake up and attend to those e-mails. But instead of making the customers in question wait for another 4 / 5 hours, they received a response much, much quicker and hopefully I was able to resolve their query. That's a minor victory.

In the big / significant victory is just the culmination of these minor victories. Every single time that we manage to help an user with a turnaround time of 30 minutes, instead of 6 hours (which is more than acceptable), we have a minor victory. Plus, we put that user in the position to tell the whole Twitterverse how awesome WooThemes is.

Now imagine what happens when 40 000 users experience these minor wins...

I have often wondered what defines me as an entrepreneur: Is it the fact that I've managed to co-found a genuinely successful and profitable company (WooThemes)? Or the fact that I've tried my hand at quite a few other projects and ideas along the way?

Can I be considered successful if my failures outrank my successes? At least in terms of the amount of failures I've had, versus my own - albeit very significant - success?

I've always been very critical of myself and in that vein I'm constantly tempted (yes, in that very emo way) to feel like I'm more of a one hit wonder, than a serial entrepreneur (something which I aspire to be... I think...). See, I'd love to believe that WooThemes was no fluke and that I could use the skills, knowledge, experience I've acquired via WooThemes and apply this to a new business venture in future.**

Until now that hasn't really been the case, with most of the side projects I've been involved with either stagnating or not really growing in the desired direction.

I've been toying with the idea of becoming an angel investor and at least repurposing parts of the wealth (experience, knowledge, connections, as well as financial capital) I've accumulated to diversify my business interests. I'm keen on this only partly for financial returns, with the determining consideration being that I love being involved with awesome projects. This however doesn't solve my feeling that I might be a one hit wonder... But then again, how many entrepreneurs have really gone on to found multiple companies? (I'm not talking about those that have simply become financial backers of a great idea; I'm talking about getting involved in the trenches of a startup all over again.)

Heck, shouldn't I even be concerning myself with these questions and self-doubt?

** I don't intend on leaving WooThemes for the foreseeable future.