It’s good to be Matt Mullenweg.
The Houston native says he pinches himself “pretty much every day”. He can hardly believe his good fortune.
Mullenweg is the creator of the wildly popular WordPress blogging software, and the founder of Automattic, the company that runs, among other things, a hosted blogging service using WordPress. Last year, PC World named him one of the 50 most important people on the Web.
And, having just celebrated his 24th birthday, Mullenweg is pinching himself extra-hard these days. He recently closed on $29.5 million in funding for Automattic, part of which he wants to use to do for forums what WordPress.com has done for blogging. More about that in a moment.
Although he departed Houston in 2004 to work briefly at CNet in San Francisco, he left a rich legacy behind. Many of the earliest users of WordPress in Houston — where the software was developed — have coalesced into a rich, vibrant, Web 2.0 development community. If you were to head over to the Houston Technology Center this morning for the Got Social Media conference, you’d meet a lot of them.
In a phone conversation, Mullenweg said he remembers those blogger meetups at places like the Flying Saucer (where he had to sneak in because he was underage) as good times.
“At first, none of those bloggers were using WordPress,” he said, but they eventually came around.
And some of them came around in a big way: He credits Big Pink Cookie blogger Christine Tremoulet for coining with the WordPress name.
Mullenweg is a graduate of HISD’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where his focus was music, specifically the jazz saxophone. He also attended the University of Houston, but never graduated. Instead, he quit to take the CNet job. But it was at HSPVA where he learned an important lesson.
“If you want to be good at something, you really have work at it every single day. You have to work hard at the things that are hard,” he said. “Otherwise you are just treading water.”
Treading water is not something Mullenweg is doing. His WordPress.com business hosts 2.2 million blogs, and Automattic has grown to be an 18-person company, though it’s a completely virtual company. There’s no building with the word “Automattic” on the side.
“The official address is my apartment. We get together twice a year as a team,” he said. In fact, he was speaking via cell phone from one of those gatherings — in Oracle, Ariz.
Until recently, meetings with clients were held in coffee shops and bars, he said, “and sometimes there would be a competitor sitting at the table next to us.” But one of his new investors has offices near his apartment, so he conducts his confabs there.
Mullenweg says he’ll use the new cash to fund more projects, including a new forums product. Called TalkPress, he said it will be “smaller, lighter, with fewer features but a richer customization API.”
In other words, it will work a lot like WordPress, which is a basic framework upon which users add the features they really need. Mullenweg some time ago created a forum program, BBPress, and the TalkPress service will be built on that.
“I spend a lot of time on forums, and they drive me crazy,” he said. “They haven’t changed in 10 years.”
Chances are, if Mullenweg puts the perseverance he learned at HSPVA and honed with WordPress to the task, then change they will.
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Aw… I remember those days. Matt was so young and fresh and the blogging community was small and closely knit. I organized many of those first Houston blogger meet-ups. I really need to bring back H-Town Blogs this year!
Thanks, Dwight. I had no idea that he was from Houston…..
Way to go Matt!! Thank you Dwight and thank you Matt for WordPress!
Ah, good times, good times. Matt had to come to the Flying Saucer early, before the bouncers were at the door, so he could get in. Early in the day, age doesn’t matter. We learned that one the hard way when they wouldn’t let him in one night!
I still remember him talking up WordPress, before it had a name, and telling me about all the great things it would do. He was right, and I’m glad I switched!
I remember meeting Matt out at H-Town Blogs gatherings…I couldn’t believe how young he was! We really were a much smaller community then like Cybertoad mentioned.
I was one of the earliest people who switched. I used blogger.com until about June 2003. I was really spooked by blogger.com’s security problems and couldn’t figure out the cgi parts of Movable type. I should say that installing wordpress was as easy to install back then as it is today. Thanks Matt!
*claps* Matt rocks, and so does WordPress (though admittedly I’m a bit biased saying that statement – heh). I didn’t realize that Christine coined the term (or forgot), how very cool!
If you want to meet Matt and a bunch of WordPress bloggers there will be a Dallas (really Frisco) WordCamp March 29th and 30th. More information at this link. http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2008/01/22/wordcamp-dallas/
Matt has done a wonderful job in bringing together a group of enthusiasts that built the best blogging software on the planet!
I am glad they are now going to start building better forums, the WordPress.org forum is a fine example of a horrible forum so a good case study for them with lots of room for improvement
Bravo for Matt. I could always tell he was the nicest guy at the Saucer, and now it’s clear he was one of the brightest as well.
we Houston bloggers (or former, like myself) couldn’t be more prouder of Matt and who he has become. we can all say that we knew him when!
those were the days!!!
haha, matt’s amazing.
when he tried to convert me to wp, years ago while i was still at hspva, i was still a livejournal girl. i did however grab a username just in case i wanted it later (thank goodness!); i get password change requests all the time from other users who want my awesome account name. (jess.wordpress.com) well. they can’t have it. :p
p.s. hey dwight!
WordPress is an excellent open-source project. It really capitulates on the willingness of millions of people around the world, to contribute to freedom.
Matt, himself, is a great role model for those who wish to go into open-source “business”. “Virtual company”? That’s increasingly popular.