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We are joining Automattic

Everything I’ve done has led me to this point. What point is that you ask? Let me tell you a story…

In 2006, I discovered WordPress, a content management system used for blogging, which helped me make dynamic and extendable websites.

I made my web designs on top of WordPress, and found how easy it was to build themes, so I decided to give away some themes for free, and eventually thousands of people went on to download these.

Light bulb moment! I saw an opportunity, and started selling a few themes. This led me to meet two fellow entrepreneurs online. From Norway to South Africa, we shared a common interest.

We quickly saw an untapped potential in the market, and in July 9th 2008, we joined forces and co-founded WooThemes.

We continued to dominate this fairly new premium market, and established WooThemes as a well known brand inside the ever growing WordPress community.

Fast forward to 2011, we had been giving our customers the designs and tools they needed to get online, but we were missing one piece of the puzzle. Helping our customers sell their products.

With the help of two great developers from the UK, we built and launched WooCommerce, which has not only become the most popular way to sell products on top of WordPress, but also the most used eCommerce platform in the world, with over 24% market share.

Now what?

2013 saw the exit of one of our co-founders, which pushed Mark and myself to re-evaluate or position. We journeyed to figure out what was next for Woo, and after doubling the team to a 55 people spread out over 16 different countries and hosting WooConf in San Fransisco for 320 attendees, we were definitely left with an appetite to go even further.

Being a proudly bootstrapped company, we didn’t really need extra funding, but we wanted to partner with someone who could not only help us keep, but also grow our team and market dominance.

We had talks with potential partners, including VC firms and competing companies. This led us to Automattic, who had previously shown great interest in the popularity of WooCommerce. CEO Matt Mullenweg, who is also the co-founder of WordPress, had built his company in the same distributed manner as WooThemes with a team of over 300. This was our dream partner!

The point.

After months of fruitful discussions, we’re extremely proud to announce that we’ll be joining forces – WooThemes has been acquired by Automattic!

automattic-and-woocommerce

Together we will continue to help our customers publish their content, and sell their products online!

I couldn’t have reached this stage without the unique individuals on our team, my co-founder Mark, my fiance, friends and family. Thank you.

The future definitely looks bright!

PS. You should consider working with us.

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16 replies on “We are joining Automattic”

[…] “We had talks with potential partners, including VC firms and competing companies. This led us to Automattic, who had previously shown great interest in the popularity of WooCommerce. CEO Matt Mullenweg, who is also the co-founder of WordPress, had built his company in the same distributed manner as WooThemes with a team of over 300. This was our dream partner!” Jepson wrote on his blog. […]