Alternate Theme Business Models

[Ryan]

An extension of Conorp's idea, would be to have everything free for the first few weeks, then have advertising appear on the users site. This way they could keep using the theme if they wanted, but they'd have to deal with your advertisements appearing on their site.

[small potato]

by "don't know if it's possible", i meant i don't know if the users would put up with it.

[developdaly]

There's a lot of ideas here that are certainly plausible and could have varying degrees of "success", however I'm not sure why we're including non-GPL themes in this discussion. Otherwise, we might as well not pay attention to any other legal bindings or ethical business practices.

I didn't start the thread, so I guess I don't make the rules, but I'd really like to see all of the money-making theme ideas at least adhere to the GPL. Sure, if the GPL weren't an issue we would all be selling theme downloads. That's one of the best ways to make money from themes, but it obviously isn't a real option.

So, I'd love to your hear GPL bullet-proof ideas. A non bullet-proof idea, for example, is to offer a GPL theme for $X. It has the potential to make money, but like Premium Mod has shown, a paid theme on its own can't scale.

[Ryan]

by "don't know if it's possible", i meant i don't know if the users would put up with it.

That makes a bunch more sense then!

[Ryan]

I don't think the GPL has anything to do with this conversation. If the themes are free, then most of the qualms people have with the GPL effectively become non-issues.

[small potato]

There's a lot of ideas here that are certainly plausible and could have varying degrees of "success", however I'm not sure why we're including non-GPL themes in this discussion. Otherwise, we might as well not pay attention to any other legal bindings or ethical business practices.

I didn't start the thread, so I guess I don't make the rules, but I'd really like to see all of the money-making theme ideas at least adhere to the GPL. Sure, if the GPL weren't an issue we would all be selling theme downloads. That's one of the best ways to make money from themes, but it obviously isn't a real option.

So, I'd love to your hear GPL bullet-proof ideas. A non bullet-proof idea, for example, is to offer a GPL theme for $X. It has the potential to make money, but like Premium Mod has shown, a paid theme on its own can't scale.

i don't want to turn this conversation into another gpl and ethics battle ground. gpl or not is besides the point of selling themes (digital products), in which i think is a little short-sighted considering the number of alternate monetization methods and long term benefits of being the leader in free themes.

[Ryan]

Can I flip this question around then and ask what your own opinion is Small Potato?

You were one of the first to launch a theme club and you seemed to do fairly well out of it in the end by selling your site. But we never got to see whether the business model itself was sustainable since you sold it so soon after launching the club.

[small potato]

Can I flip this question around then and ask what your own opinion is Small Potato?

You were one of the first to launch a theme club and you seemed to do fairly well out of it in the end by selling your site. But we never got to see whether the business model itself was sustainable since you sold it so soon after launching the club.

Looking back, I think Wpdesigner was me trying to figure out how not to get stuck selling themes / digital products, dealing with piracy, and premiummod.com type sites. The price wasn't important to me. I didn't care if the club cost $1 or $5. The most important thing was to get to the top of the wordpress themes mountain, which requires consistency, not one-hit-wonder theme designs.

I wanted to gain the power to influence the themes community and loyalty to my brand was more important than temporary pay-offs because loyalty and influence have much more long term benefits. I guess you could look at it as trying to make your competition irrelevant.

In Wpdesigner days, I had a vision, but didn't quite know how to get there. If I hadn't sold the site due to personal problems, would I have gotten to the top of the mountain? Who knows. But looking back, I was missing something...

- I wasn't aware of the difference between free and something that costs 1 cent. I should've started a free themes club instead of a $5 themes club.

- I focused too much on design when code was equally important. Also, the level of details that I've been putting into some of the latest designs weren't there in the themes club days.

- I was working by myself when I should've partnered up with someone to share the load.

Right now, I think anyone trying to get into WordPress themes should start where I left off. Find ways to make the competition irrelevant, aim for long term benefits from digital products, and test those money making alternatives.

And to do that, I think you have to revisit the idea of free themes.

What I'm saying is for WordPress themes only. It's not a knock on products like Gravity Forms. Plugins and themes are two different beasts.

[Mike Smith]

I think that the free themes are definitely a great way to gain attention on a more massive scale (ie: lots of bloggers talking about it, linking to it, ect) and think that creating high quality free themes as well as paid themes is a perfect solution. Get the free theme visitors and show them that there is more - and also promote the paid themes at the same time.

This is something I plan on doing with GIANTthemes - I'll be launching with 1 free theme and 1 paid theme. Every month I'll be releasing one of each (possibly more if time is free'd up from the sales to stop taking on client work and focus solely on the giant themes site).

[andrea_r]

Sure, if the GPL weren't an issue we would all be selling theme downloads. That's one of the best ways to make money from themes, but it obviously isn't a real option.

Um, I think the people making a living on premium themes see it as a real option. :) And I don't want to get into the GPL debate either, but I will point out the big theme shops are not really in the business of selling themes. They are in the business of providing support. Huge difference. And it is definitely GPL-theme friendly. :)

Above it was stated consulting doesn't scale - some would argue it does. I'm not one of them, because the more you outsource your dev work, the less of a consultant you are and the more of a project manager you become.

Also, y'all are looking at single options. You can consult, AND sell a few products (not just one) AND offer support.