An interview with Angry Creative founder Jimmy Rosén

I spoke to Angry Creative’s founder Jimmy Rosén to learn more about how it all started, what he wants to achieve and what he thinks lies in the future for Angry Creative.

This interview with Jimmy was part of my background research into the Angry Creative brand for upcoming strategy work with our marketing. It turned out to be quite interesting so we decided to write it down and publish it. Keep reading to find out how Jimmy was inspired by old Swedish coins, why he thinks we should all be more like Roman soldiers, and how his childhood playing SimCity got him ready for business.

Why do you do what you do?

I want to build a company that stands for sustainable open source and practices it. I believe that open source software is a good thing, it’s a powerful incentive for humanity, the whole concept is valuable.

I want us to get paid for everything we do. That means staff and business. Open source often has the expectation that the work is free, but you have to be able to pay the bills too.

Originally, it was about doing high quality work. Open source is transparent in a way that you can’t get away with doing bad things because people will be able to scrutinise you, which in turn means that open source evolves.

When I first started working on the web, I could see a lot of code that was non-standard, generated by proprietary software. So I rebelled against using these proprietary software that had poor implementations of standards. That by proposing open source and helping people understand that open source can be valuable, that it can bring a lot of business value.

Why websites?

Because they were available to me with the knowledge I had then and I could take it in. I wanted to make money from installation art but it turned out that this would be almost impossible while building websites was profitable and in demand.

I then discovered that many websites were poor so it was easy to make a difference to other people. I was already passionate about open source and now had the ability to help clients and use my creativity. The money just made it sustainable.

Why WordPress?

A coincidence. It was there and easy to get started with.

I still use it because it has a lovely and vibrant community with lots going on all the time. It’s not without its problems but that’s true of everything. It has its own gravity now so you won’t be able to escape it.

Why focus on e-commerce?

Marketing is fluffier. Marketing Automation makes it easier to measure things and eCommerce is even easier because you can see the actual money coming in. Seeing the money coming in means the results are more tangible and people like to see tangible results – it makes it easier to assign value. Attribution for marketing is a big grey area.

What I want to do with Angry Creative is to create the SaaS feel without using SaaS. The biggest question with open source is “who is responsible”. The answer is “everyone and no one”, it makes it very difficult to assign responsibility. This is the whole idea of our management service. We take care of everything so that customers can trust us. We make sure we are accountable.

The CMS work started well but when the market got flooded it became a race to the bottom and only some clients were sophisticated enough to make non-price based decisions on partners. Angry Creative wants to be in the middle ground, where we can look like heroes. We need to have expertise and experience so that we look good to our clients. Some people want to work with clients who are always pushing the boundaries, but they are expensive to work with because you jump from project to project. So we have to sell more “boring” services to make sure we are sustainable and have the resources to do fun things for ourselves.

Ultimately, we realised that in order to maintain standards, be able to live up to our responsibilities and deliver increasing value to our customers, we needed to productise what we offer. The natural process is what became Qala which is our enhanced WooCommerce platform. The word “Qala” means “Start” in Zulu.

What kind of business do you want to run?

I want a company with strong standards where everyone is focused towards the same goal and we work as a company with strong opinions on how things should be done.

A company that people can look at and see that we are giving away things that benefit the little person. We want all of our work to be open source except for enough “secret sauce” to ensure our business success. It’s always a difficult balance to strike.

If we can deliver projects quickly and profitably for both us and the customer, we can win many customers. By reeling in customers, we can then generate revenue to fund our internal R&D that makes us look ever more awesome to customers and society.

What does Qala mean?

What it should be is the “right” way to build ecommerce with WooCommerce. When it’s stable, it’s nice and you can share the best things about the WordPress community. Basically an open source SaaS that lets people own instead of rent.

Doing things the “right” way is the best way to deliver value to customers. It’s about pride, honour and heritage. The same reason Roman warriors fought for the Empire. For the common good.

What is public good for you?

Helping people create a sustainable future for themselves.

Why is it important to you?

The foundation of our society is to solve problems and do our part. I am very Lutheran in that I have a strong sense of duty and honour above all. Old Swedish coins had “duty above all” engraved on them and this had a big impression on me.

What is your outlook for the future?

I would like Angry Creative and our people to have a big say in what happens with WordPress core and the internet. To have that power, we need to grow. To grow, we need to do a great job for our customers, build a nice organisation, and be able to nurture the best of our team to become ‘politicians’ who influence the future of the web in positive ways and advocate for our values. To do this, we need to be an international brand.

You’ve talked about good values but so far you haven’t mentioned money. Is money not important to you?

I want to have a really comfortable life but beyond that, money does not make me happy. Money will turn into freedom. Running a business can be extremely stressful and I would like to suffer less at work in the future.

If you had 10 million in passive income per year, what would you do then?

Stop taking a salary, work on the things I love to do – e.g. monitoring the product and helping customers. I would work remotely, somewhere warmer, buy a nice house and be a family man. I’d work maybe 4 hours/day (instead of 12!) and spend a lot more time playing sports and being out in nature. But I would still work to create the best possible WooCommerce experience because it’s a pretty fun challenge. It’s important to be challenged mentally and physically.

I would also love to set up an ecommerce incubator where people would give me part of their business in exchange for me and my team working for free to get them out of the startup pit and then build up an empire of businesses that we co-own.

Reflecting on all this, what is your personal goal?

To build a creative company that helps customers create sustainable features for themselves with open source.

As a kid, I could play SimCity for days. Running a business is like playing SimCity but in reality the stakes are higher. I love creating a system and seeing if it works. That’s why Angry Creative has rules and strong opinions about how things should be done. Because when we see that something works, it becomes a rule. The rules help us win the game.

Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share?

If you’re a small to medium-sized business that wants a SaaS-like experience but with open source technology that’s easy to use, feature-rich, and delivered with a world-class team of experts to help you get the most out of it. Then we are here to help you on the road to achieving your goals, contact us today.