Matt Mullenweg

Just like Mark Zuckerberg, he became very successful at a very early age after dropping out of school.

Matt Mullenweg’s Journey to Stardom:

On his blog, he revealed that, seven years ago he never even dreamt of all the glory, fame and friends that he has now. His initial ambition was to be a jazz saxophonist but somehow, he got into taking pictures and blogging in Washington. He dropped out of school (University of Houston) in 2004 after two years to begin Automattic, the start up behind WordPress.com, and today he is worth about $40 million.

Because of his success at that time, he was recruited by CNET in October 2004 to work on WordPress and other related new media activities. His passion for full control however brought him back on track. In October 2005, he left CNET to begin his own company.

Sure, he made sure the table was set before he decided to leave CNET. Soon after he left, he announced Akismet on October 25 (a few days after) and Automattic in December, 2005.

One peculiarity among young millionaires/entrepreneurs like this is their initial focus on the user experience of their portals. This obsession seems to always set them apart.

Note that Matt Mullenweg began the development of WordPress since 2002 but did not have a company to commercialize his services (Automattic) until August 2005.

Today, WordPress is the leading platform for bloggers. A  report on New York Times revealed that, WordPress still ranks high (in spite of the present Social Media craze) among other prominent blog platforms including blogger, Tumblr, LiveJournal, etc.

Matt Mullenweg’s Business Life:

Apart fromWordPress, he was involved in founding many other Web services/portals including Poll Daddy, Akismet, Gravatar and many more under his start up Automattic.  Particularly, he acquired Gravatar service in October, 2007.

His company Automattic, which started six years ago (in August 2005) focuses on commercializing WordPress products. He explained that his motivation is working with great people to democratize the World Wide Web.

In 2010 alone, he hired 28 more people to join his startup making them a total of over 70 on the team handling several things including graphic design, coding, media research, usability and more. He calls them Automatticians. Up from a team of 5 in January 2006, they rose to 18 in January 2008 and 35 in January 2009.

Matthew Mullenweg's entrepreneur characteristics are he is dedicated, creative and smart. The opportunities that Matthew Mullenweg was, to be the lead developer of automatic principal and Mobius Ltd. The risks Matthew might have been trough to start his business are, Competitors, Liability, Loss of revenue, Research and development costs, loss of popularity and affected by the economy.