Adii Pienaar

Tweets like this makes everything so much more worthwhile. :)

We've just hired our 10th member of the WooTeam: Ryan Ray who will be our new Community Manager.

For me, this has been a natural progression of having a community that now exceeds 45k registered users and also reinforces our belief that community and user interaction is of the utmost importance. In comparison with most other online companies of our size (in user base, revenue and the scope of our operations), our 10 member team is relatively small and we've basically just been hiring new members organically and as we really need them.

There's a couple of reasons why this position specifically is so special and much-needed in my opinion:

• Continuous & real-time interaction with a community is a full-time job, especially when your product is not hosted.
• We'd become efficient in dealing with the massive demands placed on our interaction resources - especially e-mail - and the focus had shifted to efficiency and not delivering a WOW! experience. Whilst we've always been trying our best to give users the best-ever experience, it's simply impossible without the appropriate resources.
• Tech is becoming more and more generic in established markets, which means that user loyalty and community interaction is a massive competitive advantage.

So hell yes, I'm excited about Ryan joining the team and look forward to reporting back positively here. :)

A couple of quotes from this which I loved...

Some things are just a pain and never ever change. The industries that can be hipmunked are ones that you repeatedly ask yourself "Why hasn't anyone made this better?"

One of the best ways to make a product enjoyable and easy to use is with an interface that is simple+clean. Give the user what they want, the bare essentials, and make the information easy to digest. It's not about being the prettiest either.

Don't be afraid to call out your competitor and wage war. You should be respectful of course, but it's okay to stir the pot.

I'm incredibly excited today to announce that Aboard Entrepreneurship's 55th contributor is investor and entrepreneur, Brad Feld.

Brad's addition to the contribution team - along with Mark Suster's (which we announced before) - represents a massive coup for our team and the project in my opinion. Here's a couple of reasons why I'm so excited to have guys like these involved in the project:

• This project is about entrepreneurship and empowering upcoming entrepreneurs do be better entrepreneurs in the future by teaching them skills and inspiring them via the shared knowledge and experience of all of our contributors.
• Guys like Brad & Mark have been there, done that and got a cupboard full of t-shirts. My dad always told me that there's no replacement for experience (I suspect he also used this - when I was younger at least - to keep me in my place) and the absolute wealth of experience that Brad & Mark will provide is immense. Heck, I can't wait to read there contributions!
• As investors, Brad & Mark, have worked with so many different entrepreneurs on different businesses in different situations. In my mind there's no way that most of us can replicate that kind of exposure to multiple businesses & entrepreneurs, which means they're in a great position to be able to suggest that entrepreneurs that does A, B & C tend to be more successful than those going with X, Y & Z.
• They're both great writers. If you're not reading their respective blogs, you'll probably have no idea why I'm as excited as I am to announce this...

We're fast approaching the second-phase of the project (a complete Kickstarter campaign with all of the appropriate details), but in the meantime sign up to our newsletter and we'll keep you updated.