Online Friends
Yesterday is I was watching the interest and buzz grow for Aboard Entrepreneurship, I realized that a year ago it would've been impossible for me to launch a project like this. This is obviously not an exact science (as I don't have actual evidence to prove this), but if I had launched this project last year, it would've been very optimistic indeed.
During 2010, I did quite a bit of traveling and speaking at quite a few international conferences, which means that I got the opportunity to meet quite a few awesome people. It was specifically my trip to the States (New York & San Francisco), as well as Vienna for Schnitzelconf, where I met so many incredible people, most of which I consider my friends today.
Along with actually meeting these great people in person, WooThemes continued to grow exponentially, which means that I had some proper entrepreneurial experience and knowledge to bring to the conversation. So these inspiring relationships were very much mutually beneficial I believe.
Friends in high places.
So back to Aboard Entrepreneurship... You'll see that we already have quite a few amazing people on there and the thing that excites me so much on a personal level is that many of those contributors are my friends. So whilst I haven't seen their contributions yet, I just know that it's gonna be good.
The other benefit of having these friends is that they've been able to introduce me to other people within their awesome networks, many of which I would not have been able to reach out to without their help. So this is here where we'll be announcing some exciting news in the next couple of days, as we manage to add some very well-known contributors to the project.
Considering that I'm based in Cape Town, South Africa, it would just never have been possible for me to make the connections needed to launch such an ambitious project as this.