Creating a startup company

I started my own startup company last year called WooThemes in case you didn’t notice. Before I left my day job to work full-time on Woo, I probably had the same idea that everybody has about startup companies, especially those dot-com-bubble online startup companies. They all seemed like they needed a ton of work and funding to get off the ground.

It was from actually doing stuff on the side from my normal day job, that I realized that it does not take very much effort to get your startup up and going. WooThemes has now grown into a successful business, and we have been approaced by others who are interested in buying us out. It’s tempting to want to sell what I built up in the last year, but I always ask where I would be after I sell. And the answer is that I would be without a business and with some extra cash on my bank account. Now that might sound great for everybody who is in a day job… if somebody offered me a lot of cash to quit my day job, I probably would, but as I’m already doing what I love, it would be pretty stupid to exchange that for some cash, since I’m already making a profit on what I do.

David Hansson from 37Signals, who is behind great services like Basecamp that I use every day, has hit the nail on it’s head in this great presentation about creating a startup company. At the end he answers some questions about working 14 hours a day and getting things done, where he answers that they work 4 day work weeks, at about 8 hours a day where he is probably productive about 3 hours a day. I always though I was being a slacker if I didn’t work productively for 7-8 hours a day, but I think the fact is that you can get more done if you try to focus only a few hours a day on what you are supposed to do. Anyways, watch this presentation and be inspired.