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The Capitalist in the Co-Op: The Art & Science of the Premium WordPress Business

The document discusses the complexities of running a premium WordPress business within the open-source community, emphasizing the need for a solid business model and the importance of recurring revenue. It highlights the advantages and trade-offs of participating in marketplaces, while also stressing the significance of customer support and community engagement in sustaining growth. The conclusion notes the stability and continuing demand within the WordPress ecosystem, encouraging adaptability and strategic planning.

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The Capitalist in The Co-Op The Art & Science of Premium in the WordPress Open-Source Community @justlikeair #wcsea
A WordPress PoweredPowered WordPress Company Hi, I’m Shane & I run a company.  
AN EVENTS FRAMEWORK TO HELP YOU KICK ASS (and a lot of awesome free plugins)
A COUPLE OF OUR FRIENDS (some people call them clients) http://tri.be
WORDPRESS PREMIUM BUSINESS CALLS FOR A NIMBLE APPROACH 1.  The Wild West 2.  The Marketplace Debate 3.  Going Solo 4.  Platforms & Solutions 5.  Code Is Support 6.  Conclusion
WELCOME TO THE WILDwest Welcome to the wild WEST
Figure out THE WHY The ONLY reason to be in business is to have the life you dream of. Make sure that you have a solid vision for where you want to go. Then pick your business model.
Why Pay in a World of Free? “ (Paraphrased) I Would Pay Money for A Plugin I Could Trust. Scott Berkun: “WordPress in 2020” (WordCamp SF 2010) from 27:00 – 32:00 http://bit.ly/berkun2020
COMMODITIZE YOUR BYPRODUCTS
WORDPRESS.ORG IS A GIFT Test your Ideas & Build a Market for “FREE”
SHOTGUN RIFLE
How I Made 80k With a Single Plugin “ (Paraphrased) With growing plugin popularity, one thing was inevitable – increased support and feature requests. This was just one out of 20 free plugins I’d developed, so the amount of day-to-day work responding to users was ridiculous, greatly exceeding my free time. Author: Vladimir Prelovac Date: March 8, 2012 http://bit.ly/80kplugin
ONE WORD FREEMIUM Adoption rates for FREE WordPress themes & products is huge and when converted into paying customers seem to outstrip club / private sales. (via presstrends.io)
Code Canyon We Joined a Marketplace & ECP Became their #1 Grossing Plugin You need recurring revenue Fast. Easy. Powerful.
THE MARKETPLACE DEBATE Welcome to the wild west
ADAVANTAGES OF A MARKETPLACE •  Drive customers & sales. •  Provide the e-commerce engine. •  Fastest way to get started. •  Low barrier to entry. •  Awesome venue for low cost / value products. •  Unified location for buyers.
TRADEOFFS OF A MARKETPLACE •  Lose a cut of traffic you personally drive. •  No control of the user relationship. •  Business model is often pre-defined. •  Lack of transparency into visitor stats. •  No support for licensed managed auto-upgrade. •  Expose your fans to your competitors.
Can You Make REAL MONEY?
TheEnvato Marketplace Envato Marketplaces 8,700 products. 45 with no sales Pretty much everyone makes money 215 grossed $75,000+ 50 passed $200,0000 12 broke $500,0000 2 new Millionaires
Revenue via Code Canyon 2010/2011 We released 5 Products on Code Canyon about the same time and one had a free .org version with a genuine following. Guess which one? According to PressTrends, the most adopted premium themes have free lite versions available. WordPress.org drove 22.4% of all visitors to tri.be this month
GET ACCESS TO YOUR USERS * Validate legitimate buyers to control support costs. * Gather genuine feedback to drive development. * Selling to your raving fans requires find them. Newsletter Signup | Support Forum Signup | Social Media
A Single Purchase Does Not Entitle A Lifetime of Servitude FINDYou need recurring revenue WAYS TO GET RECURRING REVENUE TO: Code Canyon “Adios Sydney, Australia Amigos” (thanks for all the fish)
GOING SOLOto the wild west Welcome & SELLING DIRECT
WHAT DO YOU NEED? •  Design and implement a store. •  Define the financial model. •  Member management and migrate user base. •  Integrate an auto-update engine into products. •  Integrate commerce with the support forum. •  Create an email list / newsletter. •  Develop affiliate support.
Plugin Update Engine (Darren Ethier) pluginupdateseng.in/ Plugin Update Engine (Brandon Dove) github.com/brandondove/plugin-update-engine (I’ve heard of others but nothing I could hunt down) Welcome to theSolutions Auto-Update wild west
You Don’t Need A Traditional MARKETING PLAN When You Launch
Banner Ads: #FAIL Ads YouMarketing Plan: Banner need recurring revenue The very best return we saw converted $350 of sales for $700 spent on ads.
ADWORDS Have Not YET Converted Profitably We focused on high volume (expensive) topic relevant searches like “WordPress Events Calendar”. Definitely worth experimenting more, so we are…
Niche recurringPages?Pages Landing Landing Marketing Plan: Niche revenue You need Create a host of very focused landing pages and point long-tail ad words.
DRIVE SALES WITH AFFILIATES So we heard from a lot of shops. We are almost done setting up a private partner-only program.
A / needA/B Your Key Pages B Test Testing revenue You recurring Did making the business license button GREEN increase higher value conversions?
Downloads VS Active Installs The Events Calendar 212k 153rd All in One Event Calendar 152k 195th Event Espresso 50k 215th Ajax Event Calendar 86k 341st Calendar 307k 443rd My Calendar 155k 1.3krd WP Calendar 52k 1.7kth Events Calendar 458k 4.3krd Provided by PressTrends.IO StudyMetrics revenue Your Metrics You need recurring Good data is the difference between making a profit and massive failure.
FIND A Find a PROPOSITION BEYOND CODE VALUE Value Proposition People will steal your shit, and even resell it. And they can thanks to GPL.
Raising Our Base Prices Had No Impact on Sales From $30 > $40 > $50. We haven’t found our sweet spot yet?
Since 2.0, our PRO plugin revenue has come from: 66% Personal 22% Business 12% Developer Create MultipleBuying Options Buying Options Create Multiple revenue You need recurring Help developers with a solution that allows them to easily use your product on many client sites.
GoingYou need recurringCall Financially Solo Was the Right revenue Going Indy Was the RIGHT Call Financially Our biggest month at code canyon grossed us $4,795. Our biggest month indy was $21,390.
Welcome to & SOLUTIONS PLATFORMS the wild west
Time to Go Beyond A Plugin / Theme BUILD A PLATFORM Extend functionality, reach & profits with add-ons. Provide a way for people to contribute rather than compete.
Gravity Forms Need need recurring Upgrade. You More POWER? revenue
WooCommerce WooCommerce Launched & It Is You need recurring revenue Kicking Ass Financially (and you can share it with them)
Modern Tribe So far 2 New Add-ons This Month = 148 Additional Orders You need recurring revenue
LOOK FOR MULTIPLE STREAMSIncome Multiple Streams of OF INCOME
We’ve made more $$ referring Eventbrite new customers than in Eventbrite referral plugin sales so far (launched May 2012). ONE e≠ort. TWO pay days!
Start Selling SOLUTIONS To Capitalize on Your Platform
Happy Tables Theme Shop -> Niche SaaS You need recurring revenue
ManageWP Free You need recurring revenueSaaS Repo >> Premium Plugins >> Utility
Keep Your Goals Clear AND YOUR TACTICS NIMBLE Be as agile with your business model as you are with your code. After all, it is the Wild West. Use metrics to drive decisions.
CODE IS SUPPORT Welcome to the wild west
Long-Term Revenue is Driven by SUPPORT
QUIT TRYING TO BUILD BADASS UNICORNS Users Want Stability Users want stability far more than they want the killer feature
How I usually feel when I read other people’s code.
Great Support Starts with Great Code •  Document, document, document! •  Lots of people will read your code, please be organized and indent. •  Unit tests are your friend. •  Separate branches for feature and bug releases. •  Plan hooks & filters early. •  Internationalize properly. •  Get your code reviewed for security vulnerabilities. •  Think backwards compatible. •  Run ALL the validators
SUPPORT WILL BE YOUR BIGGEST EXPENSE 40% of our costs this year came from talking to customers & QA. That does not include a single bug fix or line of code. “Support takes up about 80-90% of my time and that is with a second person helping” Brandon, owner of Epic Era, one of Theme Forest’s Top Sellers.
MakeMakeSupport Public & Searchable Your Support Searchable You need recurring revenue It is a key marketing strategy & will save you a ton of time.
Use VIDEOUserecurring revenue You need+ TEXT Documentation Video + Text Every shop I have talked to has specifically mentioned this!
Hey  Big  Buddy,   We  Hear  You.  That’s  frustra@ng.  We’ll  take   a  quick  look  at  your  site  in  the  morning  and   When  I  turn  on  your   get  you  an  answer  tomorrow  aDernoon.   plugin  my  sidebar   breaks?!?  Help!   SetYou need recurring revenue Expectations & Reply Quickly Use Video + Text
You Can BeSay your are You Can Be Right Profitable or sorry You need recurring revenue Apologize when you screw up. And when they screw up. It can’t hurt and creates a ton of good will.
Be Transparent recurringLoyal Community Be to Build a revenue You need transparant Make your customers see you as another human being on a mutual adventure.
Cultivate YOUR BRAND The experience that people have interacting with your company goes far beyond your product and it lasts a VERY LONG TIME. Make it a good one.
6. CONCLUSION MARKET PATTERNS COMMUNICATION
This is not a fad WordPress runs14.7% of the top 1 Million ranked sites & 49% of the top 100 blogs on the Internet and shows no sign of slowing. This is a huge market and it demands stability.
Jack be nimble Who knows what will happen tomorrow to alter the playing field. Expect change and you will be pleasantly surprised.
Set them up to win Provide the information, support and consistency your users will need to succeed fabulously.
Act like a business Plan Scope, Budget & Timeline
Use the community The great power of open source is available to your business.
And in the famous words of Bobby McFerrin Don’t Worry, Be Happy
Shane Pearlman, CEO Modern Tribe @justlikeair shanepearlman.com
THANK YOU SO MUCH Peter, Reid & Rob (Modern Tribe)" Joachim Kudish (Automattic)" JR Farr (Mojo themes)" George Ortiz (Presstrends.io)" Brandon Jones (Make Design)" Dan Cameron (Group Buying Site)" Daniel Dvorkin (WPML)" Adii Pienaar (Woo Themes)" Collis Ta’eed (Theme Forest / Code Canyon)