ThemeForest author to sell more than $1million in WordPress stock themes

http://notes.envato.com/milestones/kriesi-first-to-1000000-on-the-marketplaces/

by csomar • 15 years ago

105 23 15 years ago

notes.envato.com

ryan-allen• 15 years ago

I think the title should be changed. One million dollars of what? Maybe it should be 'Web Designer/Developer generates over $1M of residual income selling WordPress themes.'

Disclaimer: I work for the company that owns ThemeForest!

wmboy• 15 years ago

Yeah I agree, it sounded like it was some VC deal. Nevertheless it was an interesting article (worth reading).

csomar2• 15 years ago

Changed it ;)

spking• 15 years ago

So what's stopping him from striking out on his own and building something like WooThemes to pocket an extra 30% from each sale?

energytonic• 15 years ago

The marketing, advertising, customer service, sys admin work, more complex tax laws, etc. that comes with running a business. He could start hiring people to do all that stuff for him, but then that extra 30% quickly starts dwindling.

csomar2• 15 years ago

It's 0% if you bring the buyer. Makes complete sense to me.

joelhaasnoot2• 15 years ago

Not surprised, there's some very nice themes on there... We've used a couple for projects, it's hard to sort through the crud, but at $10-$25 for a base design it's a steal.

bravura• 15 years ago

I find it easy to sort through the crud: Sort by popularity and review the 100 most popular results.

Once you get past the first ten, they generally look fresh. Sometimes the first ten are great themselves, for sub-categories. Regardless, after you customize the colors and logo it looks even more fresh.

joelhaasnoot2• 15 years ago

Some of the themes awful and look straight out of the 90's or 2001, yet have lots of sales though. But yes, that generally is a good thing to look at.

vinhboy• 15 years ago

I wish they would just provide a screenshot of the theme, so its easier to browse, instead of the weird promo icon setup.

Andrenid• 15 years ago

Agreed. I use the site lots and the most painful part is previewing themes. Need to click each one, then click to load the demo (or screenshots), just to see a rough idea of what it looks like. The preview thumbnails are completely useless since the authors use it as an ad space.

ed209• 15 years ago

Great story, certainly a tempting thing to do - having some stock design sitting there earning money (also providing support). Curious about what it means in take home pay though. Seems the money you take from a sale can go as low as 30% and they keep 70%. More details here: http://wiki.envato.com/selling/getting-paid/payment-rates/

Edit: and I wonder what the cost of support is, here is his forum http://www.kriesi.at/support/ he seems to have a few support staff on there.

pi18n• 15 years ago

Yeah, I think once you pass the $50,000 mark maybe it's time to switch to your own distribution channel.

alexfarran• 15 years ago

Sounds like Envato is a good marketplace to be in. The GPL hasn't been much of an obstacle to selling themes and plugins. I'd like to know more about how that works.

codelust2• 15 years ago

There was this famous spat in 2009 when one of the popular themes was being distributed under a different license: http://wordpress.org/news/2009/07/themes-are-gpl-too/

As long as the themes and plugins are GPL-licensed, it should be fine by the community is my understanding. Selling, by itself, was never an issue.

Wordpress.org itself showcases some of these commercial themes: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/commercial/

krogsgard• 15 years ago

You're correct. There's no issue to sell under a GPL license. The commercial section of WordPress.org are all GPL providers, but many of the largest commercial theme providers are listed there.

ThemeForest actually uses a split license, wherein the templates within the theme are GPL, but the CSS, images, or non-WordPress dependent things in the theme are "protected" under a different license.

GPL has essentially turned into a non-issue for commercial WordPress entities that have gone that route. This doesn't mean they don't get copied and stolen, because it happens all the time - just like non GPL products. But the business models are well beyond selling a template and forgetting about it. Support, updates, reputation, code quality, and other factors are a driving force as to why someone would buy a theme from the actual provider rather than a "legally" ripped version for a fraction of the price.

forbes• 15 years ago

Former Envato employee here. I helped build ThemeForest with my buddy, and lead-dev, ryan-allen (who has already commented) and a bunch of other cool guys.

The $1M story is amazing but I think it is even more important to note how many authors are making a good living on the Envato marketplaces, not just the super-success stories. There are many, many authors who are making a good side-income or even enough to quit their day-jobs. The barrier to entry is super-low and making money is much easier than marketing your own wares on your own site. Have a look at the top sellers pages for the past month, or quarter, and do the sums. The money is excellent.

Their latest marketplace, Photodune is growing rapidly. It has very good payment rates compared to competitors. Worth trying out if you are a good photographer.

Also, if you are a Ruby dev in Melbourne, they are ALWAYS hiring. It is a great place to work.

End of unpaid commercial. I could go on forever.

hartror• 15 years ago

Funnily enough I have a mate working for them and he also says it is a great place to work. So much so I have finally bit the bullet and last month started learning Ruby so I can apply to work there. Being a Python guy for a decade I feel like I am crossing to the dark side ;)

ErrantX• 15 years ago

I think the real advantage of Envato is that it can help upcoming creative types with product validation.

I finally convinced my brother to submit some of his music clips to AudioJungle and he was thrilled when they actually sold.

Ok, so as a composer $60 for a few clips isn't much (when you really want commissions in the $1000+ region :)) but it was validation that people were interested in his work.

Great stuff :)

noodle• 15 years ago

> The barrier to entry is super-low

Watching someone go through their design submission process recently, I heavily disagree. It seemed purposefully arcane and difficult.

Edited to put a little bit of substance:

- They don't make all information you need public. You'll only find out about the not explicitly stated rules/policies/guidelines after you're rejected for not following one.

- They provide minimal to no feedback on rejections.

- They made many statements that were demonstrably false about various things.

And other things. It didn't seem to be a very pleasant experience.

tucson• 15 years ago

Is envato.com sending customers to ThemeForest and taking 30% of the revenue? Is there a difference with using ClickBank?

markstahler• 15 years ago

Very cool that they had that ring made for him

ThemeForest author to sell more than $1million in WordPress stock themes

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