Adii Rockstar

So… My last post on here was more than a month ago and in the few weeks prior to that I wasn’t overly productive (in terms of writing at least) either. The question thus begs to be answered: Why have I been so quiet here, as well as on Twitter, Flickr and everywhere else that matters online.

Simple answer: I’ve been busy.

They say that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going & to a large extent I believe that has been the case for me: I’m getting married in 2 weeks’ time, I’ve sold almost a 1000 copies of my book on pre-order, I’ve been working extremely hard with WooThemes, radiiate & Rockstar Foundation (significant updates on radiiate & Rockstar Foundation soon) & have had quite a few speaking gigs of late (with a few more coming soon). So this kinda means that blogging here completely falls off of the radar…

In addition to all of that, I’ve been blogging *a lot* over on the WooThemes blog, which means that even after everything else that I’ve been working on, I kinda feel drained when it comes to producing content (on here, Twitter or Flickr) that is not necessary at this time.

So there you have it: it’s not because I want to lay low or that I don’t have something to say… In fact, I have a lot to say, I just don’t have as much time…

So following up on this tweet about my upcoming international travels, I have to say that there’s only two words to describe my current emotion: surreal & blessed.

At the beginning of the year I set myself the goal of speaking at, at least 3 international conferences. Up until now I’ve spoken at:

• DIBI, Newcastle
• NetProphet, Cape Town (local, but international in quality & size)
• EECI2010, San Francisco

I will however soon add the following conferences to this list:

• SchnitzelConf, Vienna (September 2010)
• WordCampNL, Utrecht (November 2010)
• TBA, Las Vegas (December 2010)

Couple that with the fact that I’ll also be visiting Corfu (Greece), London, Barcelona, Madrid & Lisbon on honeymoon with Jeanne in October and you’ve got yourself a jet setting line-up there.

So I’m being paid to see some amazing cities across the globe and I’ve far exceeded my goal of 3 international conferences, which really is a surreal experience (considering that there are awesome people that want to pay me to hear me speaking). Consider this as a thanks to all of you that have in any way made this possible! :)

I love challenges (read: if you want to motivate me, challenge me), but I hate it when someone else’s thoughts on a topic challenges the decisions / strategies that I have made. Especially - if that is only recently so.

Also - if I didn’t love Spencer Fry so much, I’d be totally mad right now after reading his latest article on writing. Why? Because it challenges the goals that I set myself a few weeks ago…

The Decision (prior to Spencer’s article)

Whilst I had been enjoying my blogging on here (and it has to be noted, that I do publish longer pieces here, amongst the snippets), I’ve been thinking of ways that I could go back to more “traditional” blogging if we can call that.

I killed my previous (self-hosted, WordPress) blog in favour of moving to Tumblr, because I wanted something that made it easier - and not more difficult - for me to create content on a regular basis. So with regards to that, Tumblr is perfect as it allows me to publish anything of any size anytime that I want.

But Tumblr doesn’t really add “credibility” to me as an author, because the medium seems much less sophisticated (with the perception probably being that it is more a sharing platform, than a publishing one). If you have a look at Paul Graham’s writing for example, you get a sense of authority, credibility and experience. That’s what I wanted.

So the first attempt at moving in that direction was to publish my first book - Rockstar Business. But I couldn’t write a book every week / month, so that wouldn’t enable my passion for writing sufficiently.

I thus decided on a strategy where I will continue to Tumblr here, but also - from time to time - publish a compilation of articles on a specific (niche) topic which would be presented in a separate, unique way (i.e. not here). The plan was also to package those in more convenient formats (PDF, iPad, printed copy?) and sell it accordingly; thus creating another income stream too.

Not a bad idea, right? But then Spencer came along…

The Decision (after Spencer’s article)

My Tumblr now feels insignificant:

I think that in a way blogging is dead. I don’t consider spencerfry.com to be a blog. It’s a collection of essays. Blogging in the traditional sense — snippets of your thoughts on X, Y, and Z — has been replaced by Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. 

I don’t feel that this is your average Tumblr blog, since I do combine longer articles with the snippets that Spencer refers to here. But as mentioned above, it’s almost like the medium (and note: I do love Tumblr) isn’t conducive to the goals mentioned earlier.

Also not overly sure about selling my content anymore…

Information is meant to be consumed. It’s meant to be free. It’s meant to reach as many people as humanly possible, shared, and discussed. A wall around content — paid or otherwise — is destined to crumble. You need look no further than Jason Calacanis who when he really wants to get his voice out there re-posts his newsletter to his blog.

It’s always been a passion of mine to write and I love sharing my opinion in the hope that it sparks someone else’s mind into action. So in that regard, it’s important for me to have a well-trafficed and well-read blog, considering that I also use it as the pillar of my online presence. By thus putting part of my content (arguably my best content, as that would make “business sense”) behind a paywall, I’m not achieving those goals anymore.

Pfff… Which way to go? Wish I was as clever as Spencer Fry.

So the local media radar (in South Africa) has been something that I’ve found relatively hard to crack, which has been somewhat surprising considering the success of WooThemes, which I helped to co-found. This is even more surprising if you consider that there aren’t many tech startups originating from South Africa and making a global impression. But hey - maybe your local market is the hardest one to crack after all…

Whilst I’ve been featured in the odd business-focused magazine here (as the representative of WooThemes’ success), nothing overly extravagant or mainstream has come my / our way. Until recently when I was nominated for Men’s Health’s Young Gun of the Year.

Considering how mainstream Men’s Health is, it’s an absolute honour to have been nominated and then also voted for as one of the three finalists for the award.

As anyone with an ambitious & competitive edge, I’d love to win this award (I don’t even know what I’ll win, but the kudo’s would be more than enough) and I‘m thus unashamed to ask you to vote for me. :)

Recently I’ve been pretty addicted to running (which isn’t this type of “business” addiction that I normally exercise) and I can’t get enough it. I completed my second half marathon over the weekend and since I’ve started running at the beginning of this year, I’ve been a much healthier & happier person.

Anyone else experience how such a change just has a knock-on, positive effect on other aspects of one’s life?

I recently stumbled onto the Second Startup Syndrome article by Ben Horowitz and whilst reading it I realized that I was going through exactly the same thought processes, emotions & ideas as was described in the article.

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been working on getting my original company - radiiate - out of hibernation, since I didn’t want the brand or the initial TLC that went into the company go to waste. My biggest problem though has been to find the time to devote to what can essentially be called a startup all over again, as WooThemes was still taking up the majority of my time, whilst The Rockstar Foundation was also beginning to demand more and more of my mental energy & ideas.

So during the last 6 months I have taken shortcuts. I didn’t trust the same, bootstrapping advice & strategies that I blog about here and didn’t apply the same thinking as we did when building WooThemes so successfully.

In fact, this only recently changed when I came to the realization that I needed to be less idealistic about what I wanted for the company and almost needed to go back to square one if we wanted it to succeed.

The 6 months also didn’t get wasted, because as a team we learned a hell of a lot during this time and if we only learned one thing, it’s that there are models & ideals that we definitely won’t be exploring in future… :)

I’ve often wondered whether anyone else considered why I would be involved with a charity such as The Rockstar Foundation, as perhaps the business / entrepreneur persona versus the charitable / giving persona weren’t as obviously aligned. So I figured that I’d share a few reasons for my (personal) involvement in the Foundation…

1. I have an absolute passion for kids and helping out kids that are talented, are willing to work extremely hard & as a result have the ability to become the leaders & game-changers of tomorrow.
2. Every time I get to see Mariana & Okuhle (this doesn’t happen often), my faith & investment in the Foundation gets confirmed. I love these two, amazing girls to bits and since joining the Foundation they’ve done incredible work.
3. South Africa is an amazing place, but the country needs every little bit of help it can get to eradicate the not-so-great things. I believe that education is a great way of enabling a better future for all South Africans, which is why we are targeting such talented girls to be history makers going forward.
4. I’ve been incredibly blessed as an entrepreneur & as an individual. I have so many great things going for me in my life (on all levels) and the Foundation is a way of giving back and saying thanks for all the privileges that I have been allowed thus far.
5. I also share the exact same passion, ambition & drive for the Foundation as I do with my business ventures. For me, the Foundation also represents a challenge & a massive learning curve; both which I love embracing as I continue to evolve & develop as an individual & entrepreneur.

So I’m 25 years old now and one thing that will probably never change, is that fact that my first instinct is to act on my natural impulses, instead of taking my time, thinking things through and acting conservatively. That’s just how I am wired.

In business I’ve learned that this approach that this approach as just as many upsides to its downsides, and whilst the upsides are great, the downsides are equally shitty. As a result I’ve seriously considered trying to change my ways and become more conservative, but that really contradicts who I am as a person.

So I’m embracing it instead & will continue being impulsive for the foreseeable future. :)