To all my friends, family & colleagues,

Today, I’m proud to announce that Reinet Fund has just invested $20 million into SynthaSite, securing our future and enabling us to continue to build our business model and product offering. This is a massive vote of confidence in SynthaSite. I have attached the press release for your benefit – there is also an article on TechCrunch today about the announcement: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/17/synthasite-gets-a-20-million-boost-for-simple-website-creation-software/

When we began building SynthaSite from our humble base in Cape Town, we sought to create a company whose product would change the lives of millions of people by giving them a voice online. We wanted to provide the opportunity for anyone anywhere to build a website that would achieve their unique goals, from starting a small business to showcasing their achievements.

In 2007, we raised $5 million in venture capital and moved our headquarters to San Francisco (where I am now based fulltime), keeping a good portion of our technical team in Cape Town. Since then, SynthaSite has grown from just a handful of people to more than 40 individuals across both offices, supporting over one million users and growing rapidly.

I’m unbelievably excited about the future of SynthaSite and look forward to building on our success in helping you and many others reach their potential online. These past 15 months have just been the beginning…

Now say what you want but to get an additional $20 million funding is a massive achievement – not for a South African but for anyone trying to get venture capital in Silicon Valley. As most know, there is an economic recession right now and people living in the Valley are simply not able to get any money.

Startups are closing down, VC is drying up and larger Internet players are retrenching staff at a rate of between 10% and 50%. I don’t know how Vinny did it but this is the biggest news out of Silicon Valley all year IMHO.

Vinny’s success is testament to his hard work and dedication and I’m extremely happy that he’s a real South African success story. I can’t wait to see what he has in store with SynthaSite over the coming months and years.

Paul is an ex-Googler who was the creative genius behind Gmail, AdSense and suggested the company’s now-famous motto Don’t be evil. He left Google in June last year and is now an angel investor and founder of the startup FriendFeed.

The context of Paul’s post stirs up a couple of interesting issues, namely;

• Will you make more money working for a startup?
• Does money make you happy?
• Love what you do – even if you are in a 9-5 job.

There is a lot more to his post but these are the core points of interest I took from it.

Many will argue that money is an object that, while making life a little easier, doesn’t or can’t buy happiness – my view is slightly different and I think I’ve had enough education in this regard.

Here’s my take, in the simplest form:- when I had money life was never better and when I didn’t have it I couldn’t cope with life.

I think it’s very easy to say money isn’t important when you’ve got a lot of it but when you haven’t got it, it’s the most stressful part of living life. Financial burden is the #1 stress in the United States and I would imagine that South Africa is not far off that.

I do subscribe to the notion that money isn’t everything but I also believe that it is a major, critical facet of life today. If we can take the need for money out of our life’s equation then we will be free to live life as it’s meant to be lived but as long as it remains a means for survival nobody can tell me money isn’t important or doesn’t create an immense amount of unhappiness and stress.

Financial freedom = Happiness