The slides for the presentation part of my Business of Premium session at MODXpo 2013 in Cologne, Germany. Unfortunately a large part of the session was live demos, for which there are no recordings. In this upload I corrected some revenue numbers based on information provided after the session.

1. THE BUSINESS OF PREMIUM
A poorly rehearsed story about a developer building a new
business that 7 months later is really only just starting.

2. I LOVE MODX AND WANT
TO WORK ON IT
but that doesn’t pay the bills

3. FREELANCE
DEVELOPMENT
lots of potential revenue but
!
1 hour work
=
1 hour paid

4. ONLY 24 HOURS IN A DAY
which are easily filled with freelance work
and project-related activities and sleep

5. THERE’S NO TIME LEFT
for MODX and Open Source

6. COULD THERE BE A
SOLUTION?

7. MORE THAN JUST EXTRAS

8. WHAT MODMORE IS NOT
•
Commercial Marketplace
•
Open to All
•
Short Term / Quick Bucks
•
The only right answer
•
Boring
🚫

9. INSTEAD MODMORE IS
✓
•
Premium Brand
•
Open Source Supporter
•
Developer Collective
•
Only just getting started
•
More than just Extras
•
Awesome

10. TIMELINE
What if..
Let’s go for it
MARCH
2012
Launch!
JUNE
2013
2013
2013
Today
2014
MAY
2013
Invite-only Beta

11. NO DIRECT COMPETITION
(AT THE TIME)
•
Start of modmore (March ’12):
•
SimpleCart
•
MDxThemes
•
June 11th: SimpleDream
•
June 18th: modmore launch

12. •
E-commerce plugin
•
Bert Oost
•
Only 1 product
•
Distributed via Provider
•
Launched 2 years ago
•
150 users, estimated
revenue €10k

13. •
Configurable themes
•
Mangesh Yadev
•
4 themes and counting
•
Launched a years ago, only
actively being worked on for
about 6 months.
•
100+ downloads, estimated
€3k revenue

14. •
Commercial Marketplace, but
also free packages
•
5 (commercial) developers
•
36 packages, 13 commercial
•
Launched June 11th
•
Distributed via Provider
•
650+ downloads (includes
updates), revenue ~ €2k

15. •
Premium Extras
•
JP DeVries, Mark Hamstra
•
3 commercial packages
•
Launched June 18th
•
Distributed via Provider
•
402 downloads, exact
revenue € 7086,26

16. MARKET DEVELOPMENT
(ACTUAL-ISH TO DATE)
7000
5250
3500
1750
0
2011
2012-Q1
2012-Q2
2012-Q3
2012-Q4
2013-Q1
2013-Q2
2013-Q3
2013-Q4

17. MARKET DEVELOPMENT
(TOTAL RANDOM ESTIMATE)
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
2011
2012-Q1
2012-Q2
2012-Q3
2012-Q4
2013-Q1
2013-Q2
2013-Q3
2013-Q4

18. CHALLENGES
•
MODXers are not used to paying for Extras or
Themes before this year
•
Providing right level of support and documentation
•
Reaching MODXers all over the world / Marketing
•
Risk of Extras being pirated and missing revenue

19. WHY PAY FOR EXTRAS?
•
Support the Developers making a living
•
Get access to support
•
Revenue stream ensures development continues
•
Better quality (typically)

20. RIGHT LEVEL OF SUPPORT
•
Primary focus on Email Support (Tickets). Easy for
users, no real time communication/demand, easy to
organise.
•
Did a poll on support. 67 responses:
•
37% were happy with just email support
•
44% would like a community forum for support
•
16% would like live chat support

21. MARKETING MODMORE
•
Focus on meetups and events (like MODXpo!)
•
Creating buzz by teasing about future awesome
stuff (primarily via social media)
•
Let the Extras sell themselves, they are awesome

22. ANTI-PIRACY MEASURES
•
Packages are encrypted, and decrypted during install/
reinstall/uninstall on modmore server
•
Broken within 6 hours of launching closed beta, after
spending a week on encryption
•
Users that want the source, will get the source.
•
Enough anti-piracy to make it seem not worth it

23. RESULTS: REVENUE
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
June
July
August
September
October

24. RESULTS: AVG INVOICE
70
52,5
35
17,5
0
June
July
August
September
October

25. RESULTS: USERS
•
Total # of Users: 337
•
Total # of Users w/o purchase: 186
•
Signed up through Affiliates: 32

26. RESULTS: SITES
•
Total # of Sites seen: 614
•
Active Sites: 265
2.2.8: 57
2.2.9: 82
2.2.10: 104
2.3.0: 4
!
•
New Sites: 160
2.2.8: 20
2.2.9: 50
2.2.10: 79
2.3.0: 3

27. REDACTOR
The better Editor for MODX

28. MOREGALLERY
Putting galleries where they belong

29. SIMPLEAB
Native split testing made easy

30. ?
SECRET
The secret project I have been teasing about

31. VISUALCONTENT
Rich content, without the Rich Text Editor

32. TIME FOR DEMOS!
Which one do you want to see?