DradCast with Adii Pienaar of WooThemes

The guys at DradCast (hosted by the awesome Dre of Sucuri and Brad of WebDevStudios) are continuing their awesome interviews and perhaps the best intro ever was created last night via Adii Pienaar, one of the founders of WooThemes:

So I’m been waiting for my invite and this opportunity for bloody ages, and I had to wait up until episode 11 to finally get it. I know, I was appalled as well. I guess that’s however, it’s indicative of how an ex-rockstar is treated these days, like a fucking ghost.

That said, the greater WordPress ecosystem has taken notice of a new ghost on the block, unlike the D-list ghost that I have become, this Ghost is completely A-list. Heck, perhaps I’ll just launch a Kickstarter campaign to kickstart my reputation and the old rockstar moniker again, I’m Adii Pienar, and the DradCast starts now!

Is there anything else to really say? Give it 60 minutes of your time and you won’t regret it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CnBxdaPtzLQ

Rock on!

It’s worth noting that if you want to actually get to the “meat,” it really starts at 7″50.

Here are some interesting things shared and some top-level notes:

1. Backstory of WooThemes via Adii, where it all started.
2. 27 total employees at WooThemes.
3. High point of 125 total themes available that was cut to 80 or so.
4. Started with a design agency.
5. 2008 was a “magical” year in the WordPress world. This was the year and rise of WordPress businesses. The “original rockstars.”
6. Where did “woo” come from? In 2007 the word on the internet was “Woot!”
7. WooCommerce came out of a need for eCommerce-based themes.
8. Andrew Nacin almost was a part of the original WooCommerce product.
9. Early 2011 was when the convo really began and for those that remember, the Jigoshop vs WooThemes controversy was brought up as a topic.
10. WooCommerce is a significant part of WooThemes, and even “bigger” than the theme line! This is pretty interesting to know.
11. Discussion about extension market place.
12. Working on a distributed team model. They have started to use less tools to manage the team. They have left very popular tools like Basecamp via 37signals. You need to “trust in the people you hire.”
13. WooTrip video! Watch video on that page.
14. DradCast are a bunch of “pussies.” LOL.
15. Local gatherings and global summits are healthy for teams.
16. Ghost – John O’Nolan (and Co)’s new baby. Forking WordPress, making an admin system, a theme, or an entirely different CMS and platform built on Node.js, currently running on Kickstarter. WooThemes is sponsoring it and going to create themes for it.
17. John is building it through his experience of WordPress and Adii believes it will “kickstart” some innovation in the WordPress ecosystem. Adii believes there hasn’t been much innovation as of late and our community needs it.
18. Brian Gardner’s Revolution theme, WooTheme’s admin panel are such examples of innovation.
19. Brad: WordPress should not run 100% of the websites in the world, competition is good.
20. First-ever Dradcast Live on WordCamp OC!

That should be it. Enjoy my friends.