7 ms·

How we grew ThemeIsle into a $50k per month business

121 points by axelut 9y ago

maldinii 9y ago
Cool to see this picked-up as a 2nd chance experiment on HN front-page. I would to answer questions about it :). Until now is interesting to see how most of the people see it as a success story while we lost 50% of our revenues few months ago.
- imron 9y ago
  What was the cause of the 50% drop?
  - maldinii 9y ago
    Hey, Our main product got suspended from the w.org repository ( in short )
  - dabber 9y ago
    They had a really popular freemium theme that didn't meet some of the requirements the WP.org imposed. Some changes were nontrivial and so they weren't made (at least in time) and this very popular theme was suspended. More here if you're interested: https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-theme-directory-300k-users-left-without-updates https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-the...
webtechgal 9y ago
No questions (at least for now) but Zerif Lite has been my personal favorite. Have used it for several client sites. Thanks for the theme and all the best. e.g. http://lamindiallo.com/ http://lamindiallo.com/
- maldinii 9y ago
  Glad to hear, right product and the right time :)
TimeToFly 9y ago
This is a great write up. Blog posts like this, open and honest help a lot for starting entrepreneurs. I recommend it to everyone who is here just for comments.
vinhboy 9y ago
What is the google SEO game like for themes nowadays? I see so much competition. It is even possible for a new player to get on the first page? I feel like all the big outfits like thememonster etc own all the real estate.
- maldinii 9y ago
  SEO game is not that difficult if you compare with other niches and is not owned by big theme players, due the how people are searching for themes is owned by blogs building collections of best xx themes. A recipe that works now is something like : release few free themes, write some great articles and continue to keep them updated.
Mz 9y ago
"Another thing we learned through A/B testing was that changing the default screenshot and the default demo of a theme, along with employing a good copywriter, makes a big difference." Yup. This is part of why I get aggravated that people are so negative about paying writers. Good copy makes money for a business.
- maldinii 9y ago
  Believe me or not our editor (more than a copywriter) earns a bigger salary than me, but yep, only in this way I can get nicely edited articles on the front-page of HN :D
  - justaguyonline 9y ago
    Do you have any idea what the career/educational path of your editor was like? While it's not a career I've ever thought of having, I've lately realized that at even a portion of that level of skill is a powerful thing to have.
    - maldinii 9y ago
      He finished a computer science university, funny enough I don't know much more about his story, I need to ask :D http://karol.cc http://karol.cc
      - vikingyc 9y ago
        Do you mind telling me how much he charges? What would be the expense for say 10-15 articles per month?
        maldinii 9y ago
        Hey! As I noted before Karol isn't only writing stuff, this is in fact a small part of his job, he is editing/managing our other writers and he get's paid on an hourly basis. The deal that we have is a bit more complex, but to get an idea we pay >$50 / hour.
clientexpert 9y ago
I feel like I had a quality business consultancy session worth top dollars after reading this. Thanks for the inspiration, and by the way, I love the Hestia WordPress theme.
giarc 9y ago
I don't know enough about SEO to be sure but I believe Google will ding you for copy and pasting from your IndieHacker article. However, since neither of these sites are your main business, maybe it doesn't matter if G drops your medium account ranking a bit.
- maldinii 9y ago
  For me this is quite old fashioned Google approach, the whole medium re-posting + HN exposure I am sure it would have done better, even if the re-posting was on our site. At least how I understand Google and I saw from some tests, he is quite smart in getting if an article/site is delivering great content or not and ignoring such issues.
j2bax 9y ago
One big take away is how much these guys just kept at it despite fiscal failure for months/years on end. This business isn't for the meek at heart. It's so easy to get so discouraged, when your livelihood depends on it.
- maldinii 9y ago
  A big lesson here is to have a good financial education, what helped me a lot was the fact that even the business started to go really well, I didn't started to spend more, I pay myself a decent salary and I try to live with it, so even if the company get bankrupt, I would probably easily find a job somewhere else. This helps to think more long term and do what is best for the company, while avoiding the extra 'personal' pressure from your wife, kids or others that rely on your income.
claudiulodro 9y ago
Well done. How heavy is the support load for themes? With plugins there is a lot of customer support involved, and this is why good premium plugins are so expensive. Is it the same with themes?
- maldinii 9y ago
  Hey, The load is quite big here too, especially considering the fact that we support free themes as well. What is challenging is to educate the users and help them understand that paying one time, upfront isn't helping them in the long run :)
  - KayL 9y ago
    What type of questions users usually asked?
    - maldinii 9y ago
      Most of the questions are about how they can customise the look of their site, unfortunately most are out of the theme capabilities.
lloydde 9y ago
I'm curious why this was posted on Medium instead of using it as an opportunity to show off one of your WordPress themes?
- pacomerh 9y ago
  Medium is its own network with visibility, its easier to surface an article through it than doing SEO.
- maldinii 9y ago
  It was a sort of the experiment to see how this will influence engagement.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
205guy 9y ago
The article is well-written and presents some interesting insight and seemingly useful advice. But there are 2 major red flags here: There are 2 fawning comments here on HN by newly created accounts. Maybe the green color of new accounts can be used to detect astroturfing. I have to assume this is on the front page in part due to such tactics (I don't know the exact HN algorithms however, so could be wrong--but the perception remains). Why risk any chance of organic interest by poisoning the well like that? Especially since the article just leads me to uncover more shady behavior. The Medium article reveals and then glosses over a sudden halving of monthly revenue. Why write an article about $50K monthly instead of $100K? The link goes to another self-promoting "transparency" report has a link to a WP ticket [1] where anyone can read that the author refused for over a year to comply with WP theme rules. And these rules were specifically in areas to reduce self-promotion and one could characterize the theme's behavior as spammy. And this lack of rules compliance created extra work for WP in enforcing those rules (in other words copy-cats). So in the end, what sounds like a nice and encouraging story now seems to be more of a whitewashing. This is sad because the ideas of WP theme development and marketplace sound interesting and perhaps rewarding as a small business opportunity, but now I tend to think success is due to spamminess, bending/breaking of rules, and astroturfing stories (and maybe reviews) on relevant sites. In this light, the business model outlined and promoted here--buying and improving existing niche products--seems more like adding spamminess for profit. In fact, I am now questioning what creative and useful code did this company actually create (since they talked about buying every single one of their profitable products), as opposed to taking products that can't stand out in a crowded market and adding spammy and sticky features to them to game those marketplaces in ways that are not beneficial to consumers. [1] https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906 https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906
- maldinii 9y ago
  On the another note, I appreciate that you took the time to leave your thoughts here, I find it useful since I mostly got positive but not many constructive messages. I am not saying this is constructive, however it helps me realising how other people are thinking about our journey, even if some of them don't say it loud.
- adventured 9y ago
notadoc 9y ago
Interesting read, I appreciate stories like this and I think they are even more interesting when the struggles, dips, failures, mistakes, etc, are included in the narrative. Often, persistence pays off. Congrats and thanks for sharing.

121 points by axelut 9y ago

Cool to see this picked-up as a 2nd chance experiment on HN front-page. I would to answer questions about it :). Until now is interesting to see how most of the people see it as a success story while we lost 50% of our revenues few months ago.

imron 9y ago
What was the cause of the 50% drop?
- maldinii 9y ago
  Hey, Our main product got suspended from the w.org repository ( in short )
- dabber 9y ago
  They had a really popular freemium theme that didn't meet some of the requirements the WP.org imposed. Some changes were nontrivial and so they weren't made (at least in time) and this very popular theme was suspended. More here if you're interested: https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-theme-directory-300k-users-left-without-updates https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-the...

webtechgal 9y ago

No questions (at least for now) but Zerif Lite has been my personal favorite. Have used it for several client sites. Thanks for the theme and all the best. e.g. http://lamindiallo.com/ http://lamindiallo.com/

maldinii 9y ago
Glad to hear, right product and the right time :)

TimeToFly 9y ago

This is a great write up. Blog posts like this, open and honest help a lot for starting entrepreneurs. I recommend it to everyone who is here just for comments.

vinhboy 9y ago

What is the google SEO game like for themes nowadays? I see so much competition. It is even possible for a new player to get on the first page? I feel like all the big outfits like thememonster etc own all the real estate.

maldinii 9y ago
SEO game is not that difficult if you compare with other niches and is not owned by big theme players, due the how people are searching for themes is owned by blogs building collections of best xx themes. A recipe that works now is something like : release few free themes, write some great articles and continue to keep them updated.

Mz 9y ago

"Another thing we learned through A/B testing was that changing the default screenshot and the default demo of a theme, along with employing a good copywriter, makes a big difference." Yup. This is part of why I get aggravated that people are so negative about paying writers. Good copy makes money for a business.

maldinii 9y ago
Believe me or not our editor (more than a copywriter) earns a bigger salary than me, but yep, only in this way I can get nicely edited articles on the front-page of HN :D
- justaguyonline 9y ago
  Do you have any idea what the career/educational path of your editor was like? While it's not a career I've ever thought of having, I've lately realized that at even a portion of that level of skill is a powerful thing to have.
  - maldinii 9y ago
    He finished a computer science university, funny enough I don't know much more about his story, I need to ask :D http://karol.cc http://karol.cc
    - vikingyc 9y ago
      Do you mind telling me how much he charges? What would be the expense for say 10-15 articles per month?
      - maldinii 9y ago
        Hey! As I noted before Karol isn't only writing stuff, this is in fact a small part of his job, he is editing/managing our other writers and he get's paid on an hourly basis. The deal that we have is a bit more complex, but to get an idea we pay >$50 / hour.

clientexpert 9y ago

I feel like I had a quality business consultancy session worth top dollars after reading this. Thanks for the inspiration, and by the way, I love the Hestia WordPress theme.

giarc 9y ago

I don't know enough about SEO to be sure but I believe Google will ding you for copy and pasting from your IndieHacker article. However, since neither of these sites are your main business, maybe it doesn't matter if G drops your medium account ranking a bit.

maldinii 9y ago
For me this is quite old fashioned Google approach, the whole medium re-posting + HN exposure I am sure it would have done better, even if the re-posting was on our site. At least how I understand Google and I saw from some tests, he is quite smart in getting if an article/site is delivering great content or not and ignoring such issues.

j2bax 9y ago

One big take away is how much these guys just kept at it despite fiscal failure for months/years on end. This business isn't for the meek at heart. It's so easy to get so discouraged, when your livelihood depends on it.

maldinii 9y ago
A big lesson here is to have a good financial education, what helped me a lot was the fact that even the business started to go really well, I didn't started to spend more, I pay myself a decent salary and I try to live with it, so even if the company get bankrupt, I would probably easily find a job somewhere else. This helps to think more long term and do what is best for the company, while avoiding the extra 'personal' pressure from your wife, kids or others that rely on your income.

claudiulodro 9y ago

Well done. How heavy is the support load for themes? With plugins there is a lot of customer support involved, and this is why good premium plugins are so expensive. Is it the same with themes?

maldinii 9y ago
Hey, The load is quite big here too, especially considering the fact that we support free themes as well. What is challenging is to educate the users and help them understand that paying one time, upfront isn't helping them in the long run :)
- KayL 9y ago
  What type of questions users usually asked?
  - maldinii 9y ago
    Most of the questions are about how they can customise the look of their site, unfortunately most are out of the theme capabilities.

lloydde 9y ago

I'm curious why this was posted on Medium instead of using it as an opportunity to show off one of your WordPress themes?

pacomerh 9y ago
Medium is its own network with visibility, its easier to surface an article through it than doing SEO.
maldinii 9y ago
It was a sort of the experiment to see how this will influence engagement.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

205guy 9y ago

The article is well-written and presents some interesting insight and seemingly useful advice. But there are 2 major red flags here: There are 2 fawning comments here on HN by newly created accounts. Maybe the green color of new accounts can be used to detect astroturfing. I have to assume this is on the front page in part due to such tactics (I don't know the exact HN algorithms however, so could be wrong--but the perception remains). Why risk any chance of organic interest by poisoning the well like that? Especially since the article just leads me to uncover more shady behavior. The Medium article reveals and then glosses over a sudden halving of monthly revenue. Why write an article about $50K monthly instead of $100K? The link goes to another self-promoting "transparency" report has a link to a WP ticket [1] where anyone can read that the author refused for over a year to comply with WP theme rules. And these rules were specifically in areas to reduce self-promotion and one could characterize the theme's behavior as spammy. And this lack of rules compliance created extra work for WP in enforcing those rules (in other words copy-cats). So in the end, what sounds like a nice and encouraging story now seems to be more of a whitewashing. This is sad because the ideas of WP theme development and marketplace sound interesting and perhaps rewarding as a small business opportunity, but now I tend to think success is due to spamminess, bending/breaking of rules, and astroturfing stories (and maybe reviews) on relevant sites. In this light, the business model outlined and promoted here--buying and improving existing niche products--seems more like adding spamminess for profit. In fact, I am now questioning what creative and useful code did this company actually create (since they talked about buying every single one of their profitable products), as opposed to taking products that can't stand out in a crowded market and adding spammy and sticky features to them to game those marketplaces in ways that are not beneficial to consumers. [1] https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906 https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906

maldinii 9y ago
On the another note, I appreciate that you took the time to leave your thoughts here, I find it useful since I mostly got positive but not many constructive messages. I am not saying this is constructive, however it helps me realising how other people are thinking about our journey, even if some of them don't say it loud.
adventured 9y ago

notadoc 9y ago

Interesting read, I appreciate stories like this and I think they are even more interesting when the struggles, dips, failures, mistakes, etc, are included in the narrative. Often, persistence pays off. Congrats and thanks for sharing.