3 ms·

Show HN: Marketplace for Bootstrap themes and templates

62 points by cgimmer 12y ago

arfliw 12y ago
Alexa 94,000. It would seem this site has been around for awhile. Methinks some people are taking advantage of the Show HN renaissance...
- cgimmer 12y ago
  The site has been up for about 2 months now. We wanted to polish it up and get a few authors on board before sharing it.
  - arfliw 12y ago
    Congrats on that much repeat traffic after only two months. Unless your Alexa is way off.
    - cgimmer 12y ago
      We did a blog post listing 12 great sites to get free stock photos and it did VERY well. I suspect this is part of the really good Alexa rank.
- dang 12y ago
  I think we can adapt the ordinary rules and say that if a project hasn't had significant attention on HN before, putting up a Show HN is fine. (Assuming, of course, that the guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html all apply.) The project itself doesn't have to be new to count as "hacker news". There used to be a used-clothing store where I live called "New To You". :)
heyimwill 12y ago
Nice work! But why should I use this instead of https://wrapbootstrap.com https://wrapbootstrap.com?
- cgimmer 12y ago
  Unlike most marketplaces, we're offering high payments for authors who don't sell exclusively with us. We're seeing a lot of high-quality theme shops opening up who want the option to sell on their own platforms but still utilize marketplaces for additional exposure. While wrap has done a great job building up a user base and getting first mover advantage, we're always reading complaints on social media and forums that their support is lacking and that the site has not been updated. We wanted to give designers a better option and give great support to both buyers and sellers. Once we increase our sales and following, I'm confident that authors will want to switch over. Right now we're on page 3/4 of Google hoping to move up to page 1 very soon. Our goal is to grow a great community around the marketplace. We've already started doing this with our blog and tutorials. We will be adding more features in the near future.
  - ansimionescu 12y ago
    Then don't say you're "a marketplace for Bootstrap themes & templates", but "jump" at your visitors with what makes you unique and/or better. Btw: I really dig the smaller thumbnails, they make me feel I have a better overview over what's going on. Edit: wait, that's just on the first page. Sigh. I don't really like large-ish thumbnails á la [0], especially in the retina age. 0: https://wrapbootstrap.com/ https://wrapbootstrap.com/
    - cgimmer 12y ago
      That makes a lot of sense. I think there's a few adjustments we can definitely make. [Edit] Just modified our homepage text. Hopefully this communicates our value proposition a bit better. Thanks again for pointing this out.
      - heyimwill 12y ago
        I'm seeing lots of themes that are also available at other theme stores, what safeguards are in place to stop people from selling themes that aren't theirs to sell?
someguy1233 12y ago
Just a small fix, my work blocks Google fonts, and your fallbacks don't work, so everything goes times new roman. Please add sans-serif as a fallback.
- cgimmer 12y ago
  Thanks for the heads up, fixed!
thehodge 12y ago
Just a heads up, eBay have been a bit legal-y for ecommerce things ending in Bay previously..
- sandGorgon 12y ago
  this. I came here to post the case between Foodiebay (now Zomato) and ebay [1]. They had to change the name. I really recommend moving away from the *bay name... unless you want to scratch that particular itch. [1] http://techcorplegal.com/Blog_Technology_Law_Business_Research/2013/07/02/law-for-startups/ http://techcorplegal.com/Blog_Technology_Law_Business_Resear...
  - cgimmer 12y ago
    Wow good to know. Hopefully they don't come after the small fries...
lalwanivikas 12y ago
Awesome work cgimmer! Would be great if you can add some more basic (one pager maybe) free themes. Anyway, you've done a great job already :)
- cgimmer 12y ago
  We're definitely going to release more free themes along the way so make sure to check back.
techaddict009 12y ago
Good work. Will surely publish my own theme under construction. Saw your alexa it is 90K~ great job that too in two months. Whats your daily traffic count? Reveal only if you don't mind.
- cgimmer 12y ago
  We wrote a blog post on great places to get free stock photos and shared it on StumbleUpon. We ended up getting 17,000 visits that day and it just went crazy somehow, even though our domain rank was non-existent. We were getting 10,000+ visits for about a week because of that blog post. After the dust settled a bit on that post we were getting over 1,000 visits a day (still a lot from StumbleUpon) and now we're creeping over over 2,000 a day and slowly climbing. Obviously, a lot of that traffic was not highly targeted but it still gave us a huge boost and our Google rankings have shot up lately. We're now on Page 3/4 for "Bootstrap themes" and getting more organic traffic which is great.
manishsharan 12y ago
I wonder why Zurb Foundation does not get as much love from HNers? I use Foundation and I have really no need for a themes market . SaSS and Foundations' media responsive layout enable me to create new themes easily and painlessly even though I am am a back-end programmer.
- hcho 12y ago
  Bootstrap made a lot of ground by being associated with Twitter early on. There's now a huge community of plugin and theme developers for Bootstrap. Foundation does not have that sort of backing.
- thejosh 12y ago
  Honestly I see Foundation and bootstrap having two very different markets. Foundation is still very very popular, but I find it much nicer for custom built websites compared to bootstrap.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  You're missing the entire point of buying a bootstrap theme. >SaSS and Foundations' media responsive layout enable me to create new themes easily and painlessly Yes, anybody can do that with Bootstrap as well. People who buy themes don't even want to waste that time on customising it. I already have 2 clients who bought a theme on WrapBootstrap because they wanted to have a UI-in-a-box for an internal tool.
- capex 12y ago
  There's Foundation Made[0], which seems to be operating for about a year now. [0] https://www.foundationmade.com https://www.foundationmade.com
  - rschmitty 12y ago
    1 year and that is all they have (and not very diverse) says a lot about the Foundation market.
wilsmex 12y ago
What's the back end stack? Frontend looks similar to other theme sites. Is it a custom cms, or did you use a framework ect?
- cgimmer 12y ago
  It's built with PHP and a custom CMS. There's still some dev work to do but we wanted to get it out there.
billiumx 12y ago
Clean and simple! How long did it take you to build?
- cgimmer 12y ago
  It took about 2.5 months but we're not 100% done yet. We still need to implement theme editing.
liquidcool 12y ago
I note that if you're using this for SaaS (paid subscription site, etc.), you need a premium license, which is 50X more expensive. http://bootstrapbay.com/licenses http://bootstrapbay.com/licenses I think that's a consideration for a lot of people here. And this is not the case with wrapbootstrap.com. (edit) I originally said Themeforest had the same restrictions as BootstrapBay, but it appears they have changed their license description significantly and it only affects you if you're distributing it in a sold product. But don't take my word for it: http://themeforest.net/licenses/regular http://themeforest.net/licenses/regular
- liquidcool 12y ago
  Sorry, I was wrong about Themeforest (or originally correct) - if the end user of the site pays to access it, an "extended license" is required, also at 50X the cost. As that's often $2500-3000, I'd rather find a good free theme and pay a designer/UI person (perhaps the one who created it) to customize it for me or my client.
- cgimmer 12y ago
  According to wrapBootstrap, you also need an extended license for SaaS. "This license must be purchased if you intend to license, sublicense, redistribute, or resell the final product." We intentionally made our licenses on par with other marketplaces so there's no confusion for the buyer or the seller.

62 points by cgimmer 12y ago

Alexa 94,000. It would seem this site has been around for awhile. Methinks some people are taking advantage of the Show HN renaissance...

cgimmer 12y ago
The site has been up for about 2 months now. We wanted to polish it up and get a few authors on board before sharing it.
- arfliw 12y ago
  Congrats on that much repeat traffic after only two months. Unless your Alexa is way off.
  - cgimmer 12y ago
    We did a blog post listing 12 great sites to get free stock photos and it did VERY well. I suspect this is part of the really good Alexa rank.
dang 12y ago
I think we can adapt the ordinary rules and say that if a project hasn't had significant attention on HN before, putting up a Show HN is fine. (Assuming, of course, that the guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html all apply.) The project itself doesn't have to be new to count as "hacker news". There used to be a used-clothing store where I live called "New To You". :)

heyimwill 12y ago

Nice work! But why should I use this instead of https://wrapbootstrap.com https://wrapbootstrap.com?

cgimmer 12y ago
Unlike most marketplaces, we're offering high payments for authors who don't sell exclusively with us. We're seeing a lot of high-quality theme shops opening up who want the option to sell on their own platforms but still utilize marketplaces for additional exposure. While wrap has done a great job building up a user base and getting first mover advantage, we're always reading complaints on social media and forums that their support is lacking and that the site has not been updated. We wanted to give designers a better option and give great support to both buyers and sellers. Once we increase our sales and following, I'm confident that authors will want to switch over. Right now we're on page 3/4 of Google hoping to move up to page 1 very soon. Our goal is to grow a great community around the marketplace. We've already started doing this with our blog and tutorials. We will be adding more features in the near future.
- ansimionescu 12y ago
  Then don't say you're "a marketplace for Bootstrap themes & templates", but "jump" at your visitors with what makes you unique and/or better. Btw: I really dig the smaller thumbnails, they make me feel I have a better overview over what's going on. Edit: wait, that's just on the first page. Sigh. I don't really like large-ish thumbnails á la [0], especially in the retina age. 0: https://wrapbootstrap.com/ https://wrapbootstrap.com/
  - cgimmer 12y ago
    That makes a lot of sense. I think there's a few adjustments we can definitely make. [Edit] Just modified our homepage text. Hopefully this communicates our value proposition a bit better. Thanks again for pointing this out.
    - heyimwill 12y ago
      I'm seeing lots of themes that are also available at other theme stores, what safeguards are in place to stop people from selling themes that aren't theirs to sell?

someguy1233 12y ago

Just a small fix, my work blocks Google fonts, and your fallbacks don't work, so everything goes times new roman. Please add sans-serif as a fallback.

cgimmer 12y ago
Thanks for the heads up, fixed!

thehodge 12y ago

Just a heads up, eBay have been a bit legal-y for ecommerce things ending in Bay previously..

sandGorgon 12y ago
this. I came here to post the case between Foodiebay (now Zomato) and ebay [1]. They had to change the name. I really recommend moving away from the *bay name... unless you want to scratch that particular itch. [1] http://techcorplegal.com/Blog_Technology_Law_Business_Research/2013/07/02/law-for-startups/ http://techcorplegal.com/Blog_Technology_Law_Business_Resear...
- cgimmer 12y ago
  Wow good to know. Hopefully they don't come after the small fries...

lalwanivikas 12y ago

Awesome work cgimmer! Would be great if you can add some more basic (one pager maybe) free themes. Anyway, you've done a great job already :)

cgimmer 12y ago
We're definitely going to release more free themes along the way so make sure to check back.

techaddict009 12y ago

Good work. Will surely publish my own theme under construction. Saw your alexa it is 90K~ great job that too in two months. Whats your daily traffic count? Reveal only if you don't mind.

cgimmer 12y ago
We wrote a blog post on great places to get free stock photos and shared it on StumbleUpon. We ended up getting 17,000 visits that day and it just went crazy somehow, even though our domain rank was non-existent. We were getting 10,000+ visits for about a week because of that blog post. After the dust settled a bit on that post we were getting over 1,000 visits a day (still a lot from StumbleUpon) and now we're creeping over over 2,000 a day and slowly climbing. Obviously, a lot of that traffic was not highly targeted but it still gave us a huge boost and our Google rankings have shot up lately. We're now on Page 3/4 for "Bootstrap themes" and getting more organic traffic which is great.

manishsharan 12y ago

I wonder why Zurb Foundation does not get as much love from HNers? I use Foundation and I have really no need for a themes market . SaSS and Foundations' media responsive layout enable me to create new themes easily and painlessly even though I am am a back-end programmer.

hcho 12y ago
Bootstrap made a lot of ground by being associated with Twitter early on. There's now a huge community of plugin and theme developers for Bootstrap. Foundation does not have that sort of backing.
thejosh 12y ago
Honestly I see Foundation and bootstrap having two very different markets. Foundation is still very very popular, but I find it much nicer for custom built websites compared to bootstrap.
sergiotapia 12y ago
You're missing the entire point of buying a bootstrap theme. >SaSS and Foundations' media responsive layout enable me to create new themes easily and painlessly Yes, anybody can do that with Bootstrap as well. People who buy themes don't even want to waste that time on customising it. I already have 2 clients who bought a theme on WrapBootstrap because they wanted to have a UI-in-a-box for an internal tool.
capex 12y ago
There's Foundation Made[0], which seems to be operating for about a year now. [0] https://www.foundationmade.com https://www.foundationmade.com
- rschmitty 12y ago
  1 year and that is all they have (and not very diverse) says a lot about the Foundation market.

wilsmex 12y ago

What's the back end stack? Frontend looks similar to other theme sites. Is it a custom cms, or did you use a framework ect?

cgimmer 12y ago
It's built with PHP and a custom CMS. There's still some dev work to do but we wanted to get it out there.

billiumx 12y ago

Clean and simple! How long did it take you to build?

cgimmer 12y ago
It took about 2.5 months but we're not 100% done yet. We still need to implement theme editing.

liquidcool 12y ago

I note that if you're using this for SaaS (paid subscription site, etc.), you need a premium license, which is 50X more expensive. http://bootstrapbay.com/licenses http://bootstrapbay.com/licenses I think that's a consideration for a lot of people here. And this is not the case with wrapbootstrap.com. (edit) I originally said Themeforest had the same restrictions as BootstrapBay, but it appears they have changed their license description significantly and it only affects you if you're distributing it in a sold product. But don't take my word for it: http://themeforest.net/licenses/regular http://themeforest.net/licenses/regular

liquidcool 12y ago
Sorry, I was wrong about Themeforest (or originally correct) - if the end user of the site pays to access it, an "extended license" is required, also at 50X the cost. As that's often $2500-3000, I'd rather find a good free theme and pay a designer/UI person (perhaps the one who created it) to customize it for me or my client.
cgimmer 12y ago
According to wrapBootstrap, you also need an extended license for SaaS. "This license must be purchased if you intend to license, sublicense, redistribute, or resell the final product." We intentionally made our licenses on par with other marketplaces so there's no confusion for the buyer or the seller.