Matt Mullenweg was on the same path as most college students, he picked a subject field that seemed interesting to him and just went for it. He had no idea what he wanted to do or would end up doing. He studied Political Science, but dropped out of college to work for CNET. He then quit that job to devote his full attention towards his new company, a company that began from unlikely beginnings.
Mullenweg used a website called b2/cafelog to upload photos from his trip to Washington DC. But he did not like some of the functions concerning the picture editing program. Even though he had no experience with computer programming, he tweaked the program to make it better suit him. He then started working on his own version and a few years later Word Press was born, a program that powers 28% of the internet.
What is incredible about Mullenweg is that he did not do anything extraordinary. He found a product to be unsatisfactory, so he made improvements on it, then he realized that he could do a much better job and made his own business to sell it. In this case his product was the internet. Well, at least the blogs and websites on it. He went to college for Political Science, but had the discernment to realize that he did not need to be tied down to that career path. He is impressive because he recognized that he had a great idea and had the initiative to pursue it.
There are two actions that help describe Mullenweg. The first is that he was able to recruit one of the executives at Yahoo to be his CEO back when he only had four employees. This shows that not only did he have a good idea, but he knew how to market it and make other people think it is a good idea. The second is the organizations that he donates money to. None of them are well known charities and some of them are not what some would consider ‘ordinary’, meaning they do not support ordinary things like poverty, but all of them are important. As he says, “These are the charities or organizations that I support in a way that is significant to me”. He is not afraid of what the norm is. But rather will do what he wants. Both of these are vital traits for an entrepreneur.
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