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My 7-Year WordPress Product Journey -- Success, Failures & TBDs
Cory J. Miller shares lessons learned from seven years in WordPress products, highlighting key successes like BackupBuddy and challenges in hosting and services. He emphasizes the importance of understanding core audiences, continuous innovation, and remaining focused on strengths while investing in future opportunities. The document provides insights into market dynamics and strategic approaches to product development within the WordPress ecosystem.
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My 7-Year WordPress Product Journey -- Success, Failures & TBDs
- 1. Lessons Learned from 7Years in WordPress Products Cory J. Miller iThemes @corymiller303
- 2. @corymiller303#WCMIA Share Success, Failure, TBDProduct Stories • The Goal(s) - why we did it • What worked • What didn’t • What we learned, are learning
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- 4. @corymiller303#WCMIA What Got YouHere, Might Not Get You There • January 2008 • One of the first commercial theme providers • Goals: Help people build sites; make money, establish the brand, business for what’s next • Kept innovating but hit a wall • Market became saturated, ultra-competitive (i.e. Theme Forest) • (Design) Talent + Execution was key
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- 6. @corymiller303#WCMIA Miserable Failures Lessons •2009 & 2012-2014 • Hosting - wanted recurring revenue & control of server environment • Services - additional revenue line + value add to customers • If you or team isn’t interested / passionate about it, it’ll likely flop but mostly suck • Became distractions & drains to what we & our customers cared about more
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- 8. @corymiller303#WCMIA Grand Slam HomeRun • March 2010 • Came out of our own disaster(s) and loss(es) • First to nail it backups, restores, migration • Hit every customer and market; natural upsell • Customers said, “Shut up, take my money” • Insider said, “Oh, I wouldn’t do that …” • Utility - save money, effort, time
- 9. @corymiller303#WCMIA Getting Back tothe Plate • Sometimes a product gets more brand love than the company (i.e. BUB, Gravity Forms) • Keep iterating for the customer (i.e. BUB 6.- & Deployment) • Take chances - uhm, rather make investments - in new, innovative products • Helping fund the next things
- 10. @corymiller303#WCMIA The Future Our Next3 Investments
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- 12. @corymiller303#WCMIA Better WP Security •December 2013 & changed name in March 2014 w/ big release • One the most popular plugins in WP (600K+ sites) • Found it (and ChrisW) because I needed it personally • Challenge: Take freemium & establish sustainable business model on it (i.e. make money helping people)
- 13. @corymiller303#WCMIA Batman’s Robin • Perfectcompliment to BackupBuddy • Huge user base (headstart & established) • Security becoming huge need / topic in community • Appeals to almost all of our customers • Security + free WP plugins are sometimes brutal • Very promising present and future in many ways
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- 15. @corymiller303#WCMIA The Centerpiece • November2013 • Solution for core customers: freelancers/builders • Integrating all our products together • Recurring revenue / glue • 6K users / 34K sites and growing • Optimistic about short-term and long-term
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- 17. @corymiller303#WCMIA “Hey, let’s tacklethe biggest, most expensive project we’ve ever done … with entrenched competitors … oh, and give it away for free.”
- 18. @corymiller303#WCMIA Ecommerce is HARD •June 2013 • Make ecommerce easier; Plant a flag • Tried eating the entire elephant (Never-ending roadmap) • Core audience is vastly different • Fundamentally changed & improved how we work
- 19. @corymiller303#WCMIA My Key Takeaways •“Be everything to someone” — Know and serve your key/core audience better than anyone; lead, guide, iterate for them, EVERY day • Know who you are, what you’re good at, passionate about … and DON’T stray from it • Be early • Don’t make it harder than it needs to be • Always, always, always be investing in the future • It’s only failure if you don’t learn and grow
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