I gave this talk at last week's WordCamp Cape Town and thought that I'd post some of the details here (a video of my talk should be up soon).

As an introduction to my talk... I've been making money with WordPress for many years now and WooThemes is almost 4 years old with 45k paying customers. And lately I've been thinking a lot about how WordPress mimics other industries worldwide and how it has thus become ripe for the picking for entrepreneurs

Here's some of the highlights from my talk:

• Slides 6 - 18: I believe that WordPress as a community, should instead be seen as an ecosystem with its own economic principles applied. And within this ecosystem we currently have many money-making opportunities (custom services, themes, plugins etc.)
• Slide 15: I think we're going to see more hosted, SaaS-like apps appearing for WordPress in the very near future. See my previous post - WordPress + SaaS - for elaboration on this.
• Slide 19: There are so many opportunities left for entrepreneurs to fill the gaps and monetize their proposed solutions. Considering that the latest stats reveal that WordPress powers something like 15% of the whole web, there are millions of users out there looking for specific solutions.
• Slide 20 - 22: I also see an alternative view to this WordPress ecosystem. There are multiple companies that have built loyal customer bases comprising of thousands of users, which in their own right becomes a niche market. Take WooThemes as an example: we've got 45k-odd customers, which is a pretty considerable niche opportunity. Could you develop something that specifically targets these 45k WordPress & WooThemes users? I think there's a bunch of very attractive opportunities out there for this.

I published a complete overview tour of the new WooThemes dashboard experience earlier today, and since this project has been my little baby (more like a ten ton gorilla, but let's leave it at that), I wanted to share some of the thoughts that went into this major overhaul.

At the forefront of the reasons for the overhaul is experiences. Not just a slick-looking UI, but also an interface and environment where users enjoy spending time. An environment where users can find help, find value & find happiness.

So with this in mind, we created a new experience that is consistent with our brand & personality throughout. In the past, we had little gaps in the holistic experience, where mini-experiences just weren't great even though the overall opinion and feedback from users were massively positive. Still it wasn't consistent and the awesomeness didn't extend to every corner of Woo.

We're not a hosted, web app and thus most of our users' interaction with us happen away from WooThemes.com. This doesn't mean however that users shouldn't be coming back to our website. Often.

With this redesign we wanted to build an experience that would ensure that our users spent more time on the site. We also didn't just want them to waste time either (we're not in the game of compromising on our own or our users' productivity), but instead wanted them to find reciprocal value within the time they spend with us. We want to enhance their overall experience, from first contact to purchase to every single support ticket thereafter.

And we've done this, because we believe we can monetize that increased / improved interaction that happens when users are having fun & finding more value. We're aiming to grow our business based on incredible experiences.

Obvious answer: we had no money and probably didn't know enough or think far enough to consider outside funding (not that I think we would've gotten it had we look for it).

But seeing this post - Ten Highly Successful Bootstrapped Startups -  over the weekend though, reminded  about the feature WooThemes got on 37Signals' blog last year and that made me all tingly inside again about our journey thus far.

See, I honestly think that we didn't have many options when we started WooThemes. We had no experience of running a business or fundraising, so we did the only thing we knew: work hard & make money.

From day one, we were profitable. We worked hard, charged for our work, made sure we were making money and we put that money in our own pockets. Seeing the immediate gratification (spare cash in our pockets), meant we worked harder, were more ambitious and built a profitable & sustainable business.

We never made an explicit choice to bootstrap WooThemes. We did make a choice to work hard, make money and grow our business organically. Today we can boast more than 43 000 paying customers and a team of 15. Not bad for 3-odd years' of work.

I don't really believe in titles within company context much and to this extent we've avoided using titles over at WooThemes. But I recently realized that sometimes a title of sorts does become valuable.

In the last couple of weeks, I've been speaking to loads of WooThemes customers (an extraordinary amount compared to a general weekly average) due to vulnerabilities in our products or issues with user accounts relating to our new user dashboard. Chaos management basically.

During this time, I took it on myself - as co-founder - to handle most of the incoming mail, because I wanted to know exactly what was going on. So I also started doing something different and started to sign my e-mails as "Adii (Co-founder)" instead of simply "Adii" like I used to do. I did so, because I wanted to reassure our customers that their issues were important & significant enough that one of the co-founders of the business took the time to help them out, explain the issues and clarify what we were doing to fix.

What I found was that even the most vehement e-mail could be diffused with a kind response and due partly to the fact that I, as co-founder, answered the e-mail. Many users actually noted this specifically and expressed their surprise that they got an e-mail from a senior member of the company. So by adding my "title" to the e-mail, I was also adding weight to the response.

I don't propose the widespread usage of titles in a company now, because I still think that they're mostly useless. When dealing with customers though - especially difficult customers - I think a title communicates a certain level of reassurance & trust to the customer, which greatly influences the outcome of that conversation.

 

In the last couple of days - more so than ever before - I just realized again how much I've grown up as a person, entrepreneur and also as the co-founder of  WooThemes (where we're releasing our 100th theme tomorrow). This brings about a reminiscence and a reflection of the journey that has lead me to where I am today.

In all honestly, I feel tiny when I have to reflect on the enormous amount of things that have happened in the last (almost) 4 years now. In fact, the enormity feels so big, my memory serves up only vague & fuzzy remnants of some of the bigger things that have happened (whereas the minor stuff seems totally inconsequential now; almost like it never happened).

Here's 7 lessons that I've learnt on this journey thus far and which I think often doesn't get the attention it deserves:

1. Everything Changes. Every 6 months.

Heraclitus once said "the only constant is change" and this would seem a pretty obvious thing to say in a post like this. Fact is, I think that the consequences of this constant change is often understated and I don't think there's much that can prepare you as an entrepreneur / founder than actually going through it yourself.

The thing that has surprised me though is the velocity of this change. Sure, I can go back 4 years and I'd totally expect things to change over time. But if I had plotted big, evolutionary changes for WooThemes in the last 4 years, I'm sure I'd see a trend where everything just changes every couple of months. This also isn't just minor changes, but it's the "throw out everything you think you know"-kinda changes.

I think the two personal skills that got the most exercise in this time, has been my adaptability and my ability to manage chaos. Its the survival of the fittest (read: most agile, most responsive, most innovative) out there and I doubt we'd come this far had it not been for our ability to adapt.

2. Milestones come & go

In four years, we've accomplished so many milestones. But standing where I am today, those milestones pale in comparison to the milestones we've set ourselves for the next year.

I've learnt that no single milestone is that important and that its importance starts fading slowly once you've reached it. In this way, individual milestones are just stepping stones to the future, whether you've got a concrete plan or not.

I don't think one can devalue the significance of individual milestones (redesigns, rebranding exercise, significant product releases, major overhauls / updates etc.), but there will always be bigger fish to fry. Every single time we've reached a milestone, it has just seemed like the most obvious thing to do would be to start chasing the  next one. Future milestones are just much more important than the one's in the past.

3. Haters will be hating

Regardless of your success or hard work, there will always be people that hate on you. If someone else has found a way around this, I'd truly love to know how. :)

I've seen this countless of times: there's just no way to keep everybody happy and more times than not, it is a small minority of extremely vocal, non-customers that hate the most. Whilst this sometimes hurts & upsets, I've learnt that I can't do anything about this and that my best comeback will always be to continue the hard work with my team.

4. Sometimes saying nothing is the best response

Adii circa-2008, got involved in way too many heated debates online. I was always the first one to pour more fuel on the flames, simply to prove a point. I loved that kind of stuff, but in hindsight this rarely had the desired effect and I did much more harm than I ever did good (even though my intentions were good).

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm definitely more mature and level-headed in approaching similar controversies. I don't get involved unless I really have to and I don't allow myself to be baited into saying things that can be turned against me. I'm by no means perfect, but I'm a lot better than I used to be. Sometimes saying nothing really is the best approach; rather let others do the speculation and  assuming, they will be the one's looking like fools.

5. Business is built on relationships

This is one of the most important lessons that I've learnt and the relationship I share with my co-founders, is one of the biggest pillars on which we've built WooThemes. I really doubt that we'd have been as successful as we've been if it wasn't for our relationship.

Beyond this, I've seen the same thing in the relationships we've built within the WooTeam and the interactions we have with each other. There's no way we would've been able to be as efficient and as good at what we do if it wasn't for this inherent understanding of each other as individuals and our respective contributions to the team.

This approach to relationships has also served me very well in making new friends and meeting / working with people that have had a considerable effect on my own life and that which I contribute to the business. Real friends are a dime-a-dozen, so cherish your most valuable relationship and make sure that you do your utmost to maintain them.

6. Branding. Branding. Branding.

The best marketing strategy we've ever implemented was all the time we've spent to personalize, humanize and build our brand. No amount of advertising spend has delivered a return of similar value & significance.

We've never been incredibly pedantic when it has come to our branding, but we've been very pretty consistent about it. We've also invested heavily in making sure that our branding reaches all the corners of our business and that the experience of our customers with our brand is consistent throughout.

This has created customer loyalty beyond belief and I think we've got some of the most passionate, understanding & helpful customers in the world.

7. Diving into the deep end is the only way to grow

We didn't know much about business when we started out. Heck, we knew very little back then and if I compare my "knowledge" today with Adii circa-2008, I'm a 1950's encyclopedia.

The reality is that all of us dived into the deep end when we co-founded WooThemes in 2008. We didn't have the skills to build a business this big (much less did we have the ability to manage a team of 15 people) and we certainly didn't know any of the lessons that I've written down here.

But we got better by doing, we learnt from our mistakes and our experiences. We said sorry when we were wrong, we changed things constantly and we tried to improve with every iteration of our work. If we never left the safety of the shore, there was no way that we could've created WooThemes and become more accomplished entrepreneurs.

[box type="info"]View my talk at NetPropher last year for some more lessons that I've learnt from WooThemes.[/box]