I was never a fan of business coaching. Paying someone who studied business, read about other people’s businesses, and collected case studies along the way, but who never ran a business themselves, was never something that I found helpful. It’s a bit like a Catholic priest telling you how to raise your children when he doesn’t have any of his own.
I’ve been running Melapress (in different shapes and forms) for around 10 years. Today we are a team of 8 people from 8 different countries, fully remote from day one, and I’m the sole founder. So I’ve had plenty of years of doing this without any coaching, and it went fine, or so I thought. I network as much as I can, I connect with other founders, I ask questions, and I learn. That always felt like enough, until the market started changing.
The start of business coaching, or better, mentoring.
Some time last year I read a blog post on Marieke van de Rakt‘s website about the business coaching she was offering. As far as I know, she no longer offers it, so this is not something you can act on.
Marieke is the former CEO of Yoast SEO, and the wife of Joost de Valk, who founded it. If there was anyone I’d take advise and business coaching from, it was those two. They have done it all; same industry, same type of business, and at a scale most of us never will.
I booked a few sessions and within a few weeks I was sitting down with Marieke and Joost, discussing several aspects of the business, from products to business, strategy, marketing, the team, and more. They invested a lot of time in looking into Melapress and what we are doing, and how, and then discussed what should we be doing differently. This also happened during a bit of a low point in my Melapress career, and those sessions were a blessing. They have put me and the business on a new trajectory. Nowadays, Marieke, Joost, and I are all doing different things, but they left a mark on me and Melapress.
As a solo founder it can get lonely, so a mentor helps!
Earlier this year I went to the Checkout Summit in Sicily – kudos to Rodolfo, what an event that was! That’s where I met Matt Cromwell. Matt built his own WordPress business, GiveWP, and sold it after a few years. We got talking and he told me about Roots and Fruits, which he runs to help product founders with their business.
As much as I was on a new trajectory, and new found energy, I still wanted to start working with Matt. Running a business is still “new” to me, it is a constant learning curve. Also, with AI and so many things changing in the market, having a mentor feels less lonely. So I booked a few sessions with Matt, and they were eye-opening. Matt’s approach is different from Marieke and Joost’s. Neither is better or worse, they’re just different approaches for different things. I learned a lot from both.
Here’s what came out of my mentoring experiences.
1. Focus on the outcome, not the process
I’m the sole founder, and as the company grew over the last few years, letting go of things was very difficult. And when I did hand something over, I wanted to know every little detail, also known as micro management. Who’s doing what, how they are doing it, and how it all works.
Through my mentoring sessions I have learned to focus on the outcome instead. You build a team you trust, you hand something over to someone you trust, and then you talk about what you expect to come out of it, not how they’ll get there. More leads. A feature that does X and Y. The processes and the how’s are owned by the team.
We’re currently designing the new interface for WP Activity Log. I was in the first meetings and involved in the main design decisions. Everything after that, the follow-up meetings, the details, finalising the design, implementing it, sits with John, who designs our interfaces, and with my collegues Lucian and Matt, who work on the plugin. (A different Matt.)
Marketing is the same. I used to want to know which campaign we’re running, how it works, and what the return is. There’s no point in me being at that level of detail, especially when you recruit someone like Bram, who is way better at marketing than I am. Not that I am good, but I have a basic understanding at least, or so I think. When I come across a new idea, a campaign, or an influencer, I tell Bram about it. Then it’s his. We discuss a budget, we discuss the high level things and ideas, then it is up to him.
That freed up a lot of my time, which allowed me to focus on what I should be focusing on.
2. Trust people, then hold them responsible
This goes hand in hand with the first one. When you give people trust, the right things to work with, and the space to do what they think is best, they own the project. And when people own something, they feel more responsible and they’re more committed.
People also notice when they’re trusted, and they give you better results back. Yes, they will definitely make mistakes that will cost us resources like money and time. But even I did a lot of mistakes along the way. I can write a series of books documenting all my mistakes. Making mistakes is ok, they are lessons.
3. It brought back the joy in my work
The last few years were difficult for Melapress, like they were for most other WordPress and IT businesses. I was stuck in the grind. I wrote in detail about this in my 2025 end of year post; In 2025 nothing exploded, but a lot changed for me.
Talking to people who’ve been through it, having things explained, and freeing up time changed that. I started focusing on what I should be focusing on as a CEO. We changed a few things in the team, and a few things in the way we do things as a company.
We’re not out of the woods yet. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel: the plugins are growing again and we’re on a very good trajectory.
4. You feel less crazy
I’m an impulsive person with a lot of ideas. New products, new features, and plenty in between.
Having someone to bounce ideas off at least helps me confirm I’m not that crazy. When you get an idea, it can sound too big, or too good to be true. Discussing it with someone who’s been there, who knows what it means to put in endless hours on something nobody else can see the end of yet, helps you validate whether it’s worth chasing.
5. Somebody showing you how it is done
This might be the highlight!
Melapress started as a hobby. Then it became part-time, then full-time, like plenty of other businesses. I have friends who planned their business from the start, did the work, and the plan worked. I never planned to have a business. It started for fun, and until last year we were still working the same way: this sounds like a good idea, this looks interesting, let’s do it. Marketing, product, campaigns, events, that’s was the way we were doing things.
That’s expensive. Not only in money, but in resources and time. We renamed the company three times in the early days. We renamed WP Activity Log plugin once, and Melapress Login Security twice.
Thanks to the mentorship I received, we started planning. New campaign, new idea, whatever it is, we plan it, we flesh it out, and we discuss it before we start. It doesn’t guarantee success. But when things are planned and organised, the work is easier and you’re less likely to make the kind of stupid mistakes we’ve made in the past. And hopefully we won’t be paying later to correct what we’re doing now.
It wasn’t coaching, it was mentoring
Looking back at all of it, I didn’t have business coaching. I had mentoring. That’s the part that changed my mind.
What I like about it is having someone available, someone who has been through it, someone who understands you, someone who can guide you. When I have some crazy question, when it gets too lonely, or when it simply gets too much, there’s someone I can go to and talk it through.
It’s not something you need to do all the time. But checking in with a mentor from time to time, someone who can actually help you grow, and show you alternative ways of doing things, I can’t recommend it enough.
Between Marieke, Joost, and Matt, I’m a very different person and a very different business person than I was a year ago. Melapress is different too: much more stable, growing, and the future is looking very bright.