And just for some good measure… Metal Muppets!

2008 has been an active year

Almost 3000 commits of code to the official WP source code repository

11 Releases this year

Shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes to upgrade your WP blog

3 new developers on the project this year

11.1 million downloads of WP this year - up from a couple million a year ago

Wordpress.com is seeing over 35 million posts per month

5 billion spams caught by Akismet - 99.925% accuracy

There have been 18 WordCamps so far and average btw 50-350 attendees each

Features this year:
3 major releases
New release every 4 months
Less focus on waiting for big features and more focus on releasing good stable code regularly
2 - 3 months dev and 1 month dedicated testing
Focusing on polished features since they can let plugin developers focus on cool experimental stuff

iPhone app has been downloaded 100,000 times so far with cool new things on the way with the next version

Comment moderation coming to the iPhone app in next version

Stats are coming as well

A little less about posting and more about managing your blog remotely

New theme repository coming to help making it easier to find solid themes

Theme designers can’t use the same systems and interfaces as developers. Need to upload via a ZIP file which will get sucked in, double checked, and posted

Wordpress is also trying to focus on theme update messages when things change

Working on a one-click integration of whole theme repository inside of the base WP package

Wordpress Usage
6 million wordpress.org blogs in use
4 million of those are WP multi-user installs

Plugins
A free market of features
Poll plugins are becoming very popular and seem to generate more comments
Automatic upgrade and cache are super popular since they make stuff alot easier
Plugins really do make everyone’s WP very custom and unique
Average user has 5 plugins installed

Heavy focus on the core of Wordpress - keep it stable, lean and boring and make sure plugin developers have what they need to innovate.

WordPress 2.7 - What’s Next?

Dashboard redesign - revisiting the Happy Cog version of the Dashboard

The redesign was nice but they missed validating the changes with users and test the impacts of the changes.

Interface was prettier but not as efficient

New Dashboard redesign fully based on proper user testing, eye tracking studies, etc.

Admin UI is a lot more customizable now that you can drag palettes around and lock in the ideal UI for the individual user

Accepted that all users use the tool very differently

Admins can activate and de-activate all elements of the posting interface. This is super useful for client work where you can hide all the features they will never need or use. - very cool!

Almost as if the admin acts like widgets now - sort of…

Inline “quick edit” capabilities on post list page in admin

Adding a new comment API - part of iPhone app development and useful for other desktop apps, etc.

New inline reply when you are reviewing comments - much easier to interact with users

Keyboard shortcuts

All available in November

Themes for 2009

Upgrades - gotta make them easier!

Has been very hard to get an official upgrade system into the core - still relying on plugins for now.

Security - gotta lock it down and keep it safe

Lotsa US Gov agencies using WP and that scares Matt into wanting it to be as secure as possible.

Media and gallery management - video, audio, photo management refinements

Multi-modal - focus on micro-blogs, and other versions of what a blog can be.

Wordpress as a hub - we are putting a lot of data into the cloud and we don’t control what others do with it. WP could help with this.

Feed data from other services into WP as a way to act as a repository

BuddyPress is well on its way - Social Network powered by WPMU - social networks as easy to setup as a blog.

Lots more testing integrated into core Wordpress development - low tolerance for mistakes that should have been caught

2009 is the year of the theme… Prologue and others can really change WP into something new

Wesabe came out of a desire to help people deal with the stress of dealing with their money.

Huge problem for most people and if you can make 1% of people feel better about money then you are really helping.

“Business for Geeks”

Do the idea that will not leave you alone. Channel that energy.

Only work with the people you like and respect. Test the waters before hiring people and partnering with people you don’t like or respect.

A cool idea is not a business; a great need is

It is important to build trust within your community

The best way to get investment is not to need it at all. Many many startups get funding b/c they cannot handle the demand of their product and need to be bailed out. The second best (and more powerful) pitch is to kick VC’s out of the office. Not needing money keeps you in control of your destiny when you do choose to take money more on your terms.

No means maybe; yes means maybe. The only yes you can get form a VC is “yes the wire transfer is complete”. Until you see actual term sheets and real money, everything is maybe and not a sure bet. Don’t get overly zealous.

Right now, Wesabe is very close to being able to say “we don’t need your money” and although they are not there yet, it’s attainable. Hard, but rewarding.

Loves that he has a product that makes a tangible difference in people’s lives.

Has been doing 43Folders since 2004

Was originally an Adaptive Path guy

All started with wanting a place he could write about topics that he was interested in

*NOTE - Merlin is hilarious *

Really started the site as a means to document notes to himself. Wasn’t really serious but it turned into something very real.

Feels lucky to have a partner who sells ads on his site and it generates a decent amount of revenue

Feels that if you are awesome and passionate about what you are doing you have a chance at success. You might not be rich, but if you are passionate and trying to server your users/customers you have a good chance.

Throwing youself at something 100% gives you a great chance at succeeding more than those who are not at 100%. The challenge comes when you have to do other stuff.

Long terms he’s looking to evolve his blog into just one part of his portfolio. Speaking and other engagements would be great.

When you are a small startup you have a clock ticking and you need to get things done. In order to make that happen you need to put aside petty issues and many of the things that tend to slow down larger organizations.

You need to find ways to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit in every employee.

People who are anal about the right things can really help you get things done. You need to get the mix right.

Culture starts to emerge from even the smallest startup.

You want to find people who solve issues, rather than just push bits.

Multi-talented people who can work together are an important key. Smart people who can communicate are important.

If you do choose to grow your business, make sure it grows into something you want and feel good about. Growth just for growth isn’t always a great idea.

Working on a side project that gets traction - what next when they make it a full time gig?

Legal protection, money management, accounting, etc.

First thing to do is look at legal situation with current employer - do you own what you created? IP ownership is a HUGE issue.

You should assume that if you are at a large company, any IP you create while working for the employer is owned by the employer.

Later when you are faced with an exit even, the last thing you want is your old employer coming back to haunt you.

You also need to investigate none-compete situations.

If you handle these issues early they cost a lot less money. Struggle between spending money early (when you don’t have it) or later when it is much more expensive.

You should at the very least form a basic company and spend a couple thousand dollars early to setup the basic documentation and make sure you can move ahead safely.

For many, an LLC is a simple and easy first step.

The LLC is becoming the default of choice b/c it’s very flexible. Each situation is different, but it works for many.

When you start to get some volume and you feel like you can feel the future coming, you need to start thinking about the team you want to work with and start to get your “ducks in a row”.

When figuring out your finance and legal situation, it can be very helpful for a small organization to find lawyers, accountants, etc. who have worked together previously.

In many cases, taxes and tax options may inform your decision - especially if you are not profitable yet.

When you want to start hiring people, you need to get it right up front

You need things like workers comp, pay taxes, social security, basic HR stuff, etc.

You can always start out with contractors, but governments prefer you have actual employees because they want to collect taxes.

The panel cannot over state how important it is to make sure you own what you create. Don’t do side projects on your current employers hardware, etc. When in doubt, check with a lawyer.

Also consider - what would happen to my company/idea if my current employer took away my laptop without notice?

When you are building your company and starting to dole out equity and shares you need to make sure you are thinking long term. Having lots of minority share holders can be a big pain when you get to your exit event in the future.

HR issues can be tricky. Need to watch out for discrimination.

If you have a bad employee you need to talk to them and give them a chance to improve. If they still suck you need to document the lack of improvement and give them one last chance to improve. If they fail the third time you can fire them. You need to paper it and have something to fall back on that you did everything possible to give the employee a chance to improve.

When you do fire someone make sure you have a separation agreement. This might even mean you need to pay them in certain cases.

You cannot do it all on your own. At the very least find people you can leverage to help with this sort of thing. You’ll be much happier in the long run. It never hurts to ask, and in many cases you can get pretty far along without having to go to a large legal/finance firm.

Originally started a small CD ROM company

Learned early that you need to start projects and finish - don’t start 30 projects you never finish

Started Pyra to build and release Blogger

Blogger was a roller coaster of a business - was all happening around the boom/bust

Pride and fear kept him going - mega optimism in the dark times

Almost need to blindly believe that everything is going to work out

Struggled for 4 years before Google came around

When Google showed up there was fear and uncertainty about the future of Blogger

Sold b/c he wanted to ensure the success of Blogger - saw it as the best long term option for the health of Blogger

After Blogger he fell into Odeo

Odeo was supposed to be the democratization of radio

Odeo was a pioneer of podcasting and early in the business

Odeo more or less failed when Apple entered the podcast business

Is very hard to embrace failure - based on his public discussion of his “screw ups” with Odeo

Twitter flowed out of Odeo

All of his companies seem to morph into new things

Ideas started to bubble as SMS became mainstream

There was no justification for doing as part of Odeo, but is was just too compelling

It is very common for you not to deliver the product you originally start out with. You need to find a way to embrace these anomalies

With Twitter is was hard to make the move to restructure due to existing staff, board of directors, angel investors

Had to rebook Odeo in order to reform a company around Twitter and sell off Odeo

The most major screw up on the Twitter side was technology

Symptom of being a side project and not originally being super serious about it at the start

They never caught up form that initial proof of concept stage b/c it got too popular too quickly

Have invested in a larger engineering team to solve the scaling problems

Bought Summize b/c it fit perfectly with where they are going and they had a great team with a great cultural fit - Ev is still nervous and cautious of aquisitions

Doesn’t worry too much about the competitive landscape since his products tend to be first movers

Blogger and Twitter both had first mover advantage

In an emerging area when you have competitors follow it more or less validates you are on to something.

Matt Mullenweg - Wordpress

Started working on Wordpress at the young age of 19

Was bored and blogging on the B2 open source blogging platform

His blogging software was not being updated and he decided to take the open source B2 code and began to turn it into Wordpress

At the end of the day he just wanted a better blogging software

Started to reach out to the other B2 forks and tried to start an official “continuation” that would do justice to B2

On the internet no one knows you are a 19 year old kid in Houston and you can do amazing things

Felt right to give back to Open Source

Wordpress was slow organic growth - very incremental

Automattic currently has about 26 people employed around the world

Global collaboration worked well and the first staff members were the ones who originally contributed to B2

Competitive market made it hard to hire everyone from Silicon Valley - looking globally made it easier/affordable to find talented people

Is very hard to socialize when you are distributed - they need to get together a few times a year to help build bonds and company culture

They like to break down projects to very very small projects

Important to find people who absolutely LOVE what they are doing

Need to setup ways to help people work in their best possible way

Important to try and not let people fail too badly

Most of his ideas come out of his personal frustration - wants to make his life better and as simple as possible

Was originally going to make Wordpress a non-profit organization and just take a small salary

Are really focused on staying small - felling that 25ish people is the perfect size and does not feel the need to grow rapidly

Focusing on being a little more proactive - tracking the growth of plugins and considering putting the most popular plugins into the core

Starting to look at experimenting with social features - funding the Canadian guy who is building BuddyPress

Mena Trott - SixApart

MoveableType started as a personal thing

With her husband they literally worked together out of their apartment during the dot com bust

Had a personal commitment to keep MoveableType going - had to finish what they start and would not just drop it when they got bored

Felt lucky when it took off and became a job for them

Started as an LLC b/c they did not want to investors - funding was too scary and troublesome for them.

Originally started to make money doing custom installs of MoveableType - $40 for an install and $20 for a donor key. Keys lasted up until 2004.

Had a lot of anxiety - especially around launching TypePad the hosted service. Expectations and pressure was very overwhelming.

For the first few years they really didn’t do anything other than work but kept on going b/c at the end of the day they did really like what they were doing.

Were very ambitious and that is what pushed them to end up taking funding later down the road

Currently SixApart is about 200 people

Have re-invented themselves 3 times already

Focusing on failure can paralyze your company - need to make mistake, acknowledge your issues, and move along

There are a lot of ideas floating around and the really important part is execution. You can do things in stealth mode but at the end of the day a small and agile team can move a lot faster than bigger organizations

YouTube - Andre Making Breakfast