For the next couple of weeks, Mondays will be "Bootstrap Mondays" on the blog & I'll try to share some insight into how we've bootstrapped WooThemes to the size & significance it is today.

Way back in 2007 (2 November 2007 to be exact) when I first released the original product that lead to me meeting my co-founders and us launching WooThemes, I wasn't thinking about bootstrapping nor any type of VC investment. Not that I hadn't come across either of these terms / activities before; it was just a case that neither was very relevant: I was generating revenue from Day 1.

Years later, having established a 17-person, strong team, 130 000+ customers and a multi-million dollar revenue business, I look back fondly on how we managed to bootstrap our business and grow it organically to the significance it is today.

The irony is however that we never made a conscious decision to bootstrap the business, yet this probably ranks as one of our finest decisions to date. Our ignorance in this regard is probably somewhat down to our relative inexperience in terms of running a startup back then, but I'd like to think it was mostly down to one thing: we had revenues (and thus profits) immediately after launch, which meant we didn't need to figure out a way in which we would fund the growth of the business.

Revenue: Impossible

I hear you reading the above and thinking "Well… That's all fine & dandy, but being revenue-positive from day one isn't possible for all businesses or business models." And I agree with that.

I was able to release the first product based purely on my own skills. I also managed to launch it via my own blog, where I'd built up quite an audience (many of whom would be the target audience for my first product), which meant I had no marketing costs.

This left a little bit of hosting costs and the opportunity cost of my own time & energy. The latter theoretically being "free" or at least it didn't require a cash outflow.

The result was that once I had enough revenues to pay for hosting, the residue had two destinations: 1) re-investment into the business; or 2) my pockets.

Sooner is better

Not every new startup will be able to switch revenue on from day one, but there's one reason you should aim to do so sooner, rather than later: revenue generates momentum.

Ask any startup founder what it is like to start a new business and they'll likely you that it's a tough, rollercoaster-like journey.

This phenomenon will always be present in startup-life, but I've found that having momentum is key in negotiating the highs & lows that you will inevitably face. Momentum means you get through the low times much quicker and you can leverage it to go even higher on your highs.

Momentum runs on validation (knowing that your startup is doing the right thing) and excitement (knowing that you are making progress towards your vision). Early revenues creates both of those.

I've previously written about equal (50-50) partnerships in startups and this is something that I hold close to my heart. I have however developed a slightly different view on equal partnerships...

I recently read Jason Cohen's post on sacrificing your health for your startup and thereafter I read his wife's response. I could've potentially had quite a few, valuable take-aways from those two posts, but the thought that kept lingering in my mind was: I probably wouldn't have gotten very far in my professional career if it wasn't for my wife. Let me explain...

My priorities have changed. With a 2-month-old baby in the house, I've had my routines ripped to shreds and my previous priorities questioned. My life has changed, for the good.

During the last 2 months, I've continued to work and have been working on some of the most exciting stuff that I've ever been part of. I haven't been as productive as before and I've had no work routine. But I've generally managed to get things done, with the to do lists ticking over on a regular - albeit slower - basis. There is however no way that I would've been able to do this without my wife. 

See: my wife is amazing. This isn't me playing to gender stereotypes either. She's taken charge of our baby, sacrificed her own job (Jeanne has her own, boutique legal firm) and on top of that, she's managed to "indulge" me during my more difficult times on this startup rollercoaster. When I've been irrational or impulsive, Jeanne has had the time / patience / wisdom to slow me down and knock some (proper) sense into me. She's also been there to celebrate my victories along the way. And most of all, she just "gets" me and understands the awesomeness & challenges that are linked to being an entrepreneur.

She's done all of this whilst in the background there is an actual needy baby that has required so much more of her time & energy.

I don't think the nitty-gritty is important and it's even less important for me to figure out how Jeanne (and other women / wives) do this. All I know is that without Jeanne, I'd mostly be Adii Flopstar. Somewhere within our marriage & relationship, we've found a very unique blend of a partnership. If I had to formalize that on a shareholders agreement of sorts, it would probably look very similar to an equal partnership as we mostly know it.

At the very least, 50% of my success can be contributed to my wife's super-human ability to support, encourage, listen, understand, challenge and coach all at the same time. And then she probably deserves an extra couple percent for being a mom and the CEO of RockstarHQ on top of that.

(If I had to pick another title for this post, it could've been "An Ode to my wife".)

I'm contemplating doing more mentoring for startup founders, entrepreneurs or anyone else in our space, who feel that they could benefit from my experience in setting up a new business. I think I've got a lot to share and I'd love to be in the position of helping out other entrepreneurs if I could.

So I've got the idea of running a workshop of some kind, where I would sit down with a handful of smart people and cover a couple of applicable topics in a session of a hour or two. Depending on how much time I have to develop content for the workshops, I'd expect a whole "course" to run across 3 / 4 weeks, with one session a week (in the evenings most likely).

Workshops to be held in Cape Town only.

If this is something you'd be interested in, please drop me an e-mail on adii[at]radiiate.com or using the contact form above. (I'm just trying to gauge interest before moving ahead on this.)

As we'd all expect: having a new baby changes your life. I guess that bit was expected for me and I kinda settled into my own comfort zone of perceptions during Jeanne's pregnancy last year. What I didn't expect is how this would completely change me.

I'm typing this with Adii Jr strapped to me chest in his sling; "we" (it took me a little while and 2 cups of coffee longer) have been up since 5:30 in what has now become our default morning routine.

If you told me before Adii Jr's birth that I'd be waking up at 5:30 / 6:00 every morning - without the option to sleep in every now & again - I would've scoffed at you. I've always been an early riser, because I love the first 2 / 3 hours in the morning for productive work, but being my own boss I also had the option of sleeping in if I needed or wanted. 

The thing that has however surprised me is how these couple of hours every morning have become one of the most special parts of my day and if I didn't get that time to spend with Adii Jr, then I feel a little bummed throughout the day. There's just something special about peering down to my chest to see a beautiful baby peacefully sleeping, whilst I catch up on everything that I didn't get to work through the day before.

These are new emotions & experiences to me and what it's made me realize is that my work-life balance has been mostly crap in the last couple of years. It always felt that I needed to run from the one to do, to the next and it even sometimes felt that "time at home", "go out with friends" etc. felt like to do's rather than stuff that I wanted to do.

I'm slowly learning that sometimes it is okay for me to just spend time with Adii Jr: no computer, no iPhone, no TV. I'm learning that slowing down is a good thing and that I don't need to compromise on my ambitions & dreams to be able to do that.

Every now & again, it's okay to just take a moment, spend it with someone special and truly cherish it without having to worry about the next item on the to do list.

In the past, I've been very critical of (some / most, but not all) South African startups that tend to work on ideas that are either a poor man's version of an existing (international) product / service or just completely lacks any kind of quality. Stumbling onto new startup, MoneySmart, has restored my faith in my fellow countrymen.

I've not even got to the point where I've signed up and used the product, but everything else just oozes quality: the design on the sales page looks quality, the sales video is nicely done and previewing bits of the UI via the feature tour makes the product look mightily inviting. If it wasn't for the .co.za domain or the fact that they just support South African banks at this stage, I wouldn't have known it is a South African startup. This is actually something that I might use myself.

This has always been something that I've tried to do with WooThemes: create an internationally recognized product, whilst still being proudly South African. Fact is that I designed & developed the first product (which eventually lead to the creation of WooThemes) from my small apartment in Stellenbosch whilst I was studying. Yet very few people - and I'd bet a fair chunk of change that 99% of WooThemes customer - know that we've been born & bred in South Africa.

So what's the lesson here? Make quality shit and always aim to be on par internationally with the quality of your design & code.