Browse: Home / commercial
WooThemes To Go Back To Their Roots

WooThemes To Go Back To Their Roots

By Jeffro on April 5, 2011

woothemes logoIn a interesting business move by WooThemes, the commercial theme company has announced that they will be re-focusing their efforts to be a WordPress centric theme company, again. Another example as to how time flies, it wasn’t too long ago when WooThemes began releasing themes for Expression Engine, Tumblr, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento. This was a move to diversify their business and expand into different markets but after a year into the experiment, it turns out that there is more to it than cranking out themes.

  • We have no knowledge of these platforms, which meant we had to partner with collaborative developers to help us expand onto these other CMS’s. We luckily found brilliant partners passionate and committed to their niche CMS strengths. Collaborations have their own little intricacies and our experience with these platforms & development processes was just never the same, as it was with WP.
  • We realized that we had no knowledge of these communities, which meant that it was hard for ourselves to get a firm foothold there. Our roots are firmly in the WP community and as a result we always tried to replicate our WP ideas in these other communities, but we eventually realized that we had to tailor our approaches accordingly. The decision to focus our attention on WP instead is simply due to team capacity, budgets & priorities.
  • In our hearts, and without trying to step on anyone’s feet, we could never get as excited about a new Drupal or EE theme in the same way we do before every WP release. Passion is always important.

It’s great to see that WooThemes is taking measures to ensure that their non WordPress platform customers will be taken care of by the end of April. So is it a risky move by WooThemes to reorganize into a one platform theme company again? Of course, but it’s not like WordPress is going any where and it doesn’t seem to be crumbling down anytime soon. How long WordPress continues to be king of the hill remains to be seen but I’d venture to guess it will be at least a couple more years. Hopefully longer.

Posted in | Tagged , , ,

So Many Commercial Themes – So Many Theme Sorters

So Many Commercial Themes – So Many Theme Sorters

By Jeffro on March 29, 2011

I’m not sure if you noticed as much as I have but there seems to be a commercial theme sorter popping up on every corner. At least, that’s the impression I get as I’ve routinely been receiving emails lately from people letting me know about the launch of their theme sorter. The newest one to launch which has over 500 themes from 19 sellers listed with a goal to reach over 1,000 by this summer is called ThemeSorter. ThemeSorter provides different ways to browse through their listing such as color, specific niche, ratings, styles, etc.

Talk about an easy business model. There are so many commercial themes being developed by established companies with brand new commercial theme businesses opening shop every week that it makes sense to create a directory of sorts to try and make sense of everything. The directory has to be easy to browse, contain affiliate links to their respective theme authors and hope people go through you to purchase the theme. Special deals from those sellers wouldn’t hurt either.

The question I have about all these different theme sorters is which one will gain critical mass? That is, which one will end up having a community of people or users that rate and review themes similar to customers reviewing items that have purchased from Amazon? Which one will be the go-to place that has the largest and most legit listing? I’ve heard many people request that there be a place similar to the WordPress.org theme repository but for commercial themes and these theme sorters seem to fit the bill although they don’t contain any files to download. They are informative only.

If nothing else, these commercial theme aggregation sites make for a good place to get inspiration or find out what the latest designs are from the commercial theme ecosystem surrounding WordPress. How many of you have actually used one of these sites to purchase a commercial theme?

Posted in | Tagged , , | 8 Responses

Headway Configuration Panel

Review Of Headway – Where SquareSpace Meets WordPress

By Jeffro on August 20, 2010

At A Glance:

Headway is a WordPress theme framework that makes it easy for both end-users and developers alike to create killer websites. Headway is no ordinary framework however as you’ll soon find out. The theme is split GPL licensed where as the PHP code is licensed under the GPL v2. If not otherwise stated, all images, cascading style sheets, and included JavaScript are NOT GPL, and are released under the Headway Themes Proprietary Use License v1.0 unless specifically authorized by Headway Themes. Elements of the themes released under this proprietary license may not be redistributed or repackaged for use other than those allowed by the Terms of Service. The Headway personal option costs $87.00 while the developer option costs $164.00.

At the time of this review, the purchase page for Headway themes has two options, Personal and Developer. Further down on the page is a section on what you can and can’t do. The what Can’t You Do section screams anti-GPL but I’ve followed up with Grant Griffiths who has notified me that that particular page will be be updated to reflect the licensing changes that have occurred recently.

The theme version which I’ve reviewed is 1.7 Beta. The current as of August 19th stable version of Headway is 1.6.6.

Configuration And Use:

I’m really happy to see that Headway Themes is at least split licensed GPL now because this theme needs more exposure. Configuration of Headway was a breeze and contained the usual selection of options such as the Feed URL, favicon location, etc. Headway also has a comprehensive search engine optimization configuration panel where if you were to use something like AIO SEO with Headway, it might be over kill.

Headway Configuration Panel

What do you notice missing from the following screenshot? Most themes have options in the back-end that allow you to configure the number of sidebars, which side of the site those sidebars will appear on, header uploader, etc. That’s all missing from the Configuration page of Headway because this particular framework contains a Visual Editor. The visual editor has taken the place of the visual display options normally configured from the back-end of WordPress allowing the configuration page to be strictly tied to the behaviour of the theme. This is a great way to solve the dilemma of hundreds of options to configure for the theme.

By far, the visual editor is the bread and butter of Headway. The only thing I’ve seen that I can compare the visual editor to is SquareSpace and the editor they provide for creating designs.

Amazing Visual Editor For Headway

For at least the past two years, I’ve talked about the idea of being able to visually design a WordPress theme with something like a WYSIWYG type of editor. Drag a content box here, drag a sidebar there, etc. I’m really excited to see this idea see the light of day thanks to Headway. After going through the editor wizard which allows me to select a default layout e.g. sidebar right content left or sidebar left content right, color scheme of the major elements of the site, the ability to upload a header image, I’m then ready to start editing the various elements that comprise the site. I could go on and on about how awesome the visual editor is and what it entails you to do but the following video illustrates it much better than 1,000 words can.

If that type of versatility is not enough, welcome to Leafs. Leafs are sort of like widgets but more powerful and flexible. For example, Headway ships with a Text/HTML/PHP leaf that is like a WordPress Text Widget on steroids. Leafs are content boxes that exist between the header and the footer. For example, in the following screenshot, I’ve created a new Content leaf.

Content Leaf In Headway

Instead of the default mode of a Page or single post, I’ve selected the option to use a Custom Query. This allows me to use filters and configure additional options that take the default content leaf to new leaps and bounds. This also illustrates that the developer types can have fun with the visual editor as well. Speaking of developers, Headway contains something called Easy hooks. Headway Easy Hooks provides you a simple way to add content to your site that would otherwise be impossible (without hacking, of course).

Easy Hooks For Developers

Headway has done a great job of modularizing aspects of the design such that things are broken up to the point where you can export configuration settings for specific sections and import them into another site using Headway. Among the various items that can be exported are the Headway Configuration options, SEO Settings, Visual Editor: Header, Footer, Navigation, and Site Dimensions, Visual Editor: Style, Visual Editor: Leaf Templates, and a full export/backup of the configuration of the theme which does not include leafs, layouts for any pages and widgets. This is great, especially for those that purchase a Headway developers license as they have made it incredibly easy not to repeat development work such as a cool Leaf.

Headway Import Export Tools

Support:

Support for Headway is handled by free documentation available to anyone who wants to read/watch it located here. Highly recommended before playing around with the theme. There is also a support forum available to members only. Also note that in order to receive automatic updates of Headway, you’ll need to have a valid registration which includes a Headway Username and Password.

Conclusion:

I was head over heels when Builder by iThemes was released because it brought me closer to the concept of the WYSIWYG apporach to building a WordPress theme. However, Headway has made my vision a reality. In fact, Headway makes it FUN to design a WordPress theme/skin. Instead of editing CSS, dealing with FTP to over write files, etc, the visual editor approach that Headway provides is something I would love to see WordPress in the future get a grasp of for a default theme instead of the same old approach. I’d also love to see the Headway visual editor or something like it to end up on WordPress.com.

I don’t think I’ve said a bad thing about Headway because there was very little to find wrong with the theme. The headway team should be very proud of themselves for creating such a kick ass product.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 24 Responses

The Back Story Of The Theme Foundry

The Back Story Of The Theme Foundry

By Jeffro on July 22, 2010

Drew Strojny who operates The Theme Foundry and is the author behind the Traction Pro theme which I reviewed here, has published the back story of how he came to be involved with WordPress theme designing as well as how he founded his commercial theme company. From football player to working day and night to put food on the table, Drew’s story is one of inspiration to anyone else thinking about jumping into the warm pool water that is the WordPress commercial theme market. Congrats Drew on your recent and hopefully, continued success.

Posted in | Tagged , ,

Jason Schuller And The ThemeGarden Marketplace

Jason Schuller And The ThemeGarden Marketplace

By Jeffro on June 14, 2010

Leland of ThemeLab.com has a great interview with Jason Schuller of ThemeGarden.com which talks about his upcoming theme marketplace. Of course, the licensing question cropped up again but I was happy to see Jason’s response as the following:

Leland: Part of the seller requirements state that themes must be licensed under the GPL. Will child themes (or skins) of notable non-GPL theme frameworks like Thesis and Headway be allowed to be sold on the ThemeGarden marketplace?

JS: This is a hard call for me, and I am on the fence with this requirement because my own themes on Press75.com are split-GPL licensed. That is my choice, and Press75.com will never be supported by WordPress.org because of that decision.

However, in order to provide the most exposure for a community of sellers, I believe that ThemeGarden.com needs to be 100% GPL. This will ensure that ThemeGarden.com and the community surrounding it is in line with and supported by WordPress. I would love to hear some feedback on this by potential sellers as well.

But to answer the question, as long as the child theme is GPL licensed, I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be allowed on ThemeGarden.com even if the parent framework isn’t 100% GPL licensed.

With a marketplace already in action for StudioPress, Mojo Themes, Themeforest and now ThemeGarden.com, it’s beginning to look like the people are creating smaller commercial theme repositories versus hoping that one day, WordPress.org will allow commercial themes to be hosted their. The beauty of these marketplace ideas is not only a larger selection to choose from, but the people running them are awesome WordPress community members that have earned the trust of many due to their great reputation. Another side benefit towards these marketplaces beginning to spring up is how much easier it will be for up and coming theme developers to get their work to the masses. Instead of doing it all on their own, commercial theme authors can utilize the resources that Jason or Brian provides leaving more time for quality support. It’s also nice to see more choices instead of less which will generate healthy competition. It will be interesting a year from now to see how each marketplace has developed in terms of quality, support, and number of themes.

Good luck Jason. We’ll be keeping an eye on you!

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 8 Responses

Review Of Outline By ThemeGarden

Review Of Outline By ThemeGarden

By Jeffro on April 20, 2010

At A Glance:

Outline is the first commercial theme out of the gate from ThemeGarden.com by the same guy who runs Press75.com, Jason Schuller. Outline is a stylish theme that has up to 3 columns, a full page template and nice looking typography.

License:

All themes released under ThemeGarden.com contain a dual license but are GPL compatible. The PHP code portions of these themes are distributed under the GPL version 2.0 license. If not otherwise stated, all theme images and cascading style sheets (CSS) are NOT GPL licensed, and are released under the ThemeGarden.com Proprietary Use License v1.0 unless specifically authorized by ThemeGarden.com.

Pricing Model:

The pricing structure for ThemeGarden is a bit different than you might be used to with other commercial theme providers. Themes are not sold individually but as part of a subscription plan. It’s the club model where you purchase a specified amount of time and within that time, any new themes that are released or upgraded will be available to you as well as support. The cheapest subscription plan is $50.00 and that will get you three months. However, the biggest sticking point regarding this model is the stipulation that depending on the subscription plan you choose will determine how many sites you can use the theme on. This is interesting because the PHP code within the theme can be used on any number of websites since it’s GPL licensed but you can not use the CSS or images as they are licensed separately. Without the CSS or images, it makes the theme look terrible and is most likely not worth using. Take all of this into consideration before you sign up.

Installation:

Installation was quick and easy as all I had to do was upload the theme zip file in the WordPress back-end.

Configuration And Use:

After installing the theme, I discovered that I needed to have the Simple Video Embedder plugin as well as the Yoast Breadcrumbs plugin installed in order for the theme to function properly. I have mixed feelings on this. I’m glad the plugins were not bundled with the theme because that would be a waste but on the flipside, why should any theme be developed where it depends on one or more plugins in order to function properly? I believe a theme should be able to function on its own without any plugin dependencies.

After installing both of the required plugins, I got to work configuring the theme. Like the Genesis theme by StudioPress, Outline sports one theme options page where all of the options are housed within two columns. This makes configuration quick and easy.

Here are the things you can configure:

Logo Customization – Outline provides a way to upload a custom header image. I like the way Outline does this as the upload link points to the media library where I can upload the image to. The media library also gives me the URL to the image which is what I need to copy and paste into the path box in order for the image to be displayed. Alternatively, you can use text for your header.

Tagline – This text will be displayed within the site header.

Optional 460X60 Header Advertisement – This option has a box that can contain any code related to the header banner spot. In my opinion, I think Hybrid News has the best implementation of this idea where instead of making ad boxes part of the theme options, just put a widget container where the ad would go and make the container 460X60 pixels in size. This way, you give the end user more flexibility in determining how to use that spot and it’s one less theme option I have to configure.

Featured Content – Unlike some other implementations of this idea, Outline gives you the choice of deciding which category will be part of the featured content carousel as well as the number of posts from that category to display.

Featured Categories – Next to the featured content carousel is a spot for 6 additional categories to be featured.

Post Layout Options – Outline has a built in method to either display post excerpts or the entire post.

Post Thumbnails – The ability to disable post thumbnails from displaying on single post pages.

Navigation Options – Nothing fancy here, just the ability to disable the categories menu or the RSS link that shows up at the end of the menu. However, there is a nice touch here in that if you add your Twitter id, it will add the Twitter icon to the end of the menu which links directly to your account.

Static Page Options – This will disable page title from showing up within static pages.

Footer Text – Instead of editing any theme files, this box gives users an easy way to configure the text that is displayed within the footer of the theme.

Analytics – A box dedicated to storing your Google or Woopra analytics code.

Save The Web – This is the first time I’ve seen this within a theme. The Save The Web box tells IE6 users when they browse your site that there are other options available.

Using Outline to publish content has it’s own little quirks. When compiling a post in a featured category, you’ll need to make sure that you set a post thumbnail or else it won’t be displayed in the featured category. It would be nice if this were an automated process as it adds one more step to the publishing process.

As for sidebars to put widgets into, Outline has 8 different sidebars. Each sidebar corresponds to the specific template it shows up on. For example, the home page has a home page left sidebar and a home page right side bar. Single post page has a single posts left sidebar and a single posts right sidebar. While this might seem flexible, I think it makes things a little more complicated than need be. I think that if theme authors were looking for a way to provide differentiation, one way would be to provide a widget display interface that meshed in with the standard widget configuration. This interface would enable users the opportunity to state when the widget will be displayed. For example, in Outline, the Single Posts right and Home Page right sidebars are in the same spot. I think it would make more sense to just combine them into one sidebar and allow the widget to be specified on when to show up. A good example as to what I’m describing can be found in the Widget Context plugin.

Support:

Those who register to ThemeGarden.com have access to a variety of support materials including documentation for each theme and support forums. Since the company is new, you won’t find a detailed archive within the forum but Jason makes it a point to offer great customer service.

Conclusion:

At the end of the day, I recommend Outline to those individuals who are either just getting started with a site or for those who don’t want to go through their backlog to change how their archived content displays within this theme. The theme is easy on the eyes but I think it adds a little more work to the publishing process. You must also take care to use properly sized images for assigned thumbnails or they will look terrible within the featured content area. If Outline doesn’t suit your tastes, you should give Vidley a look over.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 12 Responses

WPWeekly Episode 96 – Commercial Services

WPWeekly Episode 96 – Commercial Services

By Jeffro on April 19, 2010

wordpressweekly1This episode of WordPress Weekly featured two individuals who are in the midst of running a successful service around WordPress while the other individual didn’t quite make it that far. The round-table consisted of Joshua Strebel of Page.ly, Daniel Bachhuber formerly of CoPress, and Raanan Bar-Cohen of Automattic. During this episode, we talked about the difficulties involved with running a service around WordPress. I was especially interested in the topic of Automattic running a commercial service along side free, open-source software. Daniel was able to offer a unique perspective as CoPress didn’t end up being successful in the long run and he tells us why. Joshua gave us some insight into the business strategies he thought of before launching the service. One thing Joshua mentions during the show is that if you’re going to run a service around WordPress, make sure you’re profitable from the first customer. Another theme that developed during this episode is the lack of trust in the Freemium model. If you are thinking about starting a commercial service around WordPress, this is the episode for you.

Smashing Book Contest:

Week Two Winner - jb510

Want to win a copy of the Smashing Book and a chance to participate in our wrap up episode on April 24th? Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.

We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.

If we get over 500 participants in the contest, before the wrap up show, we’ll also give away one copy of Smashing WordPress to one participant after the last episode!

Ad Copy:

This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that brings together expert speakers on a given topic exploring that topic from different angles. While they recently had a WordPRess Workshop, the next event will be a UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com

Stories Discussed:

The Pharma Hack
WordPress Not At Fault

Relevant Links:

Case Studies In Freemium
EditFlow
Edit Flow Project
A Case For Innovation In College Newsrooms
Eyeballs Still Don’t Pay The Bills
The Cost Of Support

Announcements:

The last part of the series will be held on Saturday, April 24th where we encourage everyone to send in their feedback or be part of the live show to discuss what you learned throughout this series.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Saturday, April 24th 2P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 13 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode96.mp3

Listen To Episode #96:

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 2 Responses

WPWeekly Episode 95 – Commercial Plugins

WPWeekly Episode 95 – Commercial Plugins

By Jeffro on April 11, 2010

wordpressweekly1In this episode of WordPress Weekly, Jake and I chatted with three commercial plugin authors. Two of which are in the middle of maintaining a successful business while the third was just getting started. The panel members consisted of Carl Hancock of Rocketgenius, Jonathan Davis of the Shopp e Commerce plugin and Ronald Huereca of Ajax Edit Comments. We went from the ground up in terms of questions regarding each persons business. Jake and I had large shoes to fill based on the feedback of the commercial themes round-table episode but I think we pulled it off. Thanks to everyone who showed up in the chat room during the show.

Ad Copy:

This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that excels at getting experts together in a given topic and then exploring that topic from different angles. The next topic to be handled is the UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com

Related Links:

During this episode, we talked briefly about the topic of selling GPL licensed software. To put the issue to rest on whether folks are allowed to sell GPL software or not, please view this link which was passed along during the show. Selling Free Software

Smashing Book Giveaway Contest:

Congratulations to JeremyOLED for winning a copy of the Smashing Book courtesy of Jacob Goldman. If you want to put yourself in the running to win week two, here is what you need to do.

Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.

We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.

Announcements:

Part 3 of this series will take place on April 17th with the Services Round-table featuring Joshua Strebel of Page.ly, Daniel Bachhuber – Formerly of CoPress, and Raanan Bar Cohen of Automattic

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Saturday, April 17th 2P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 28 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode95.mp3

Listen To Episode #95:

Posted in | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Responses

WPWeekly Episode 94 – Commercial Themes

WPWeekly Episode 94 – Commercial Themes

By Jeffro on April 4, 2010

wordpressweekly1This episode was the first in a series discussing the commercialization of WordPress. Within this episode, we talked with three commercial theme authors who are in the midst of maintaining a successful business. Joining us on the round table was Jason Schuller of Press75/ThemeGarden.com, Brian Gardner of Studiopress, and Cory Miller of iThemes. Considering the commercial theme market will be red hot this year, this episode gives those new guys or aspiring commercial theme authors plenty of food for thought. Also, Matt Mullenweg made a surprise appearance near the end of the show to ask some questions he had to the members of the panel. Jacob Goldman did a great job asking some meaty questions that were really business focused and I feel that just about anyone who listens to this episode will be able to learn a thing or two about the business of commercial themes.

Smashing Book Contest:

Want to win a copy of the Smashing Book and a chance to participate in our wrap up episode on April 24th? Help us publicize the special WordPress Weekly series on commercialization! Just follow @WPTavern and guest co-host @jakemgold on Twitter, and Tweet a message mentioning us both with a link to the most recent episode. We’ll randomly pick one of our favorite tweets right before the next show.

We’ll be giving a book away for each of the episodes (excluding wrap up). You can participate each week. Each contest starts at 2pm on Saturday with the show’s recording, and ends the following Friday evening. You may participate if you’re outside of the contiguous United States, but will be asked to cover shipping expenses.

If we get over 500 participants in the contest, before the wrap up show, we’ll also give away one copy of Smashing WordPress to one participant after the last episode!

Ad Copy:

This episode is also sponsored by EnvironmentsForHumans.com This is an organization that brings together expert speakers on a given topic exploring that topic from different angles. While they recently had a WordPRess Workshop, the next event will be a UX Web Summit on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (CT). This event will teach people how to improve their websites so that they are more responsive to visitors as well as making this more usable. If you’re interested in this summit, visit UXWebSummit.com

Stories Discussed:

WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 Was Released Friday Evening

Announcements:

Part 2 of this series will take place on April 10th with the Commercial Plugins roundtable features Carl Hancock of Gravityforms, Ronald Huereca of Ajax Edit Comments and Jonathan Davis of the Shopp plugin.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Saturday, April 10th 2P.M. EST

Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: Click here to subscribe

Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 12 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode94.mp3

Listen To Episode #94:

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 15 Responses

Interview With Brian Casel Of ThemeJam.com

Interview With Brian Casel Of ThemeJam.com

By Jeffro on March 31, 2010

Since this Saturdays show of WordPress Weekly will be focusing on commercial themes, I thought it would be a good idea to interview someone who is just getting their feet wet in the market. Brian Casel is a freelance web designer based in New York City. He’s the founder of ThemeJam and CasJam Media. Brian loves to talk about freelancing and WordPress on Twitter @CasJam.

There is almost a WordPress commercial theme store on every corner, why have you decided to jump into this market?
No doubt about it. This market is extremely saturated. But I actually think this is a *good* thing. Healthy competition shows there’s a thriving market for quality WordPress products and support. I was inspired by some of the great theme companies (Woothemes, Press75 /Theme Garden, Obox-Design, to name a few) and felt this was a good space to put my skills to work. As a freelance web designer specializing in WordPress, this was a logical next step for me.

Since you’re just getting started, what are some of the biggest walls that stand in your way to becoming successful?
I’d say the biggest challenge would be marketing a new brand in a saturated market. The challenge is to find new ways to get the word out about ThemeJam, other than the traditional methods, where most of the competition is. My hope is to slowly build a strong following based on personal recommendations from customers.

What does your company/themes offer that makes you different than the other guys?
One way we’re differentiating ourselves is by offering private 1-on-1 consultations. For the month of April 2010, every theme purchase comes with
a free 1 hour consultation. Details here. I’ve had success in my freelance web design business by providing great support/consultation and I’m hoping to translate that personalized approach over to ThemeJam. We offer matching site templates and email templates to go with our WordPress themes. The idea is you can easily have consistent design/branding across all aspects of your web presence.

In terms of pricing – we don’t have a “single” or “developer” package for our WordPress themes. One price, unlimited use, lifetime support, and they come packaged with the PSD.

Do you think there is room for a few more WordPress commercial theme companies?
I do. I believe as long as a company is willing to invest the time and effort to produce quality products and support, it’s possible to make it work. You’ve got to really be passionate about it and ready to work hard. You can’t half-ass it or be unresponsive because this will show in the quality of your product.

When analyzing the marketplace and the competition, what are some of the things you discovered that you could capitalize on with ThemeJam?
I wouldn’t say that I look for shortcomings of other theme companies or aim to bring down the competition. I love keeping tabs and seeing what others come up with. It’s inspiring and keeps things interesting.

I think there’s something to be said for choice when talking about design. Just as designers have varying styles, customers have varying tastes. WordPress themes are a very subjective thing. One person might love one particular theme, while another scrolls right past it.

In the end, it’s all about the design. Flexibility and options are important, but ultimately the design has to be just right for the customer’s website. So I just try to develop my own style, design themes that I think could work for a variety of customers, and provide the best support possible.

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 1 Response

Page 2 of 5123...5...Last »