Before reading the article, I want you to take a minute by visiting this page. http://elite.envato.com/
Isn't it incredible? Great goals to take action. But unfortunately, we produce excuses and get more attached to them over time.
I'm sure stmcan didn't do that.
They are earning amounts that we might not earn even if we work 9-5 our whole lives. Is it by chance? Or is it something else?
From what I have observed, designs that meet the market's needs reach good sales figures over time, bringing high income to the developer. Themes that develop according to the customer's requests become preferred by many people after a while. In other words, the more effort you put into the work, the more income it brings to you.
So how will we determine according to what we will proceed? Will we go in similar topics as the highest-selling sellers by looking at the sales figures? Or will we enter unexplored forests by going down to more niche areas, lower categories, and establish our own kingdom there? Whichever it is, their impact on success is not as much as thought.
In an event organized within Envato, developers who have made high sales here and earned good income shared their experiences in the form of presentations. In these presentations, I think they provide quite important and good examples on what those who want to take place in the market should do and how they should proceed.
Those who want to enter the market will surely start trial and error for this long-term job. Of course, you can go the way you want. But I think examining the notes here before starting will give you a lot of ideas about how you should proceed.
While watching the presentations, I took notes by interpreting what the speakers said. You can find these notes/tips below.
Chris Molitor – theMolitor
- Chris has been working full-time for this job for 7 years.
- He says no one will read the documents, so he recommends publishing the documentation online.
- He suggests setting up a help forum and combining it with the Envato API so that others do not have access to it. He says only provide support to the people you sold to. He says this will prevent time loss.
- Prepare videos related to your product, do screencasts.
- Charge for customization processes. That is, if a customer makes a special request from you, you should ask for an extra fee for it.
- Make an effort to get feedback from users.
- Use striking words within the design.
- You should control user expectations before and after the purchase.
- Constantly update/develop your product.
- Do your own advertising work.
- Hire an accountant and control your investments for the future. Do not squander your money.
- Keep your computers and software cheap. You do not need to spend a lot of money on these.
- To increase your efficiency while working at home, keep your working hours short to stay focused.
- Use an adjustable desk.
Andy Wilkerson – Parallelus
- Things you do not like to do will be difficult for you, keep doing them, they may cause you to grow in the future.
- Write your documentation throughout the project, towards the end, the work will accumulate more. You will save time in the long run and these will always be your reference source in the future.
- Set deadlines for yourself. This will also be beneficial for the next project.
- Budget your resources. Whatever you work on, have a budget for it.
- Have a work routine. Always stick to that work routine, hours. Work at certain hours and fix it.
- If you have regular working hours, you will not interrupt your work for others. If you will spend time with your family, take care of them, and work during work time. I think Andy has suffered from this.
- If you are having trouble with a job, find someone to help you with that job.
Adam Pickering & Spencer Finnel – Astoundify
- Adam Pickering resigned and started this job, like me :). He started with a church theme.
- Spencer also resigned and started freelancing 2 years ago. I think everyone should resign.
- They combined theme and plugin. The plugin was free. (We should make a free plugin and give it with our theme on Themeforest, it will contribute a lot during the approval process.)
- They made deals with other plugin developers, win-win. They promoted each other, that is, they advertised each other.
- They have made 3 themes so far. Their total sales are currently: 7400. They made purpose themes, not multi-purpose. (Not general designs, that is)
- They chose plugins that would empower the theme.
- Do not be afraid to make designs that also meet your own needs.
- Make the work you need for yourself.
- Make niche themes. For music bands, churches, charity sites.
- Themes made for a specific purpose can be very popular.
- Themes and plugins form very powerful combinations. Plugins create a strong sales popularity.
Jake Caputo – Designcrumbs
- After working for a year in a regular salaried job, he resigned 🙂
- His first theme was approved in June 2011.
- In December 2011, he left his last freelance client.
- Don't be white noise (white noise, like the ants on old TVs). Do not get lost in the crowd. He means, do not dive into the same category where everyone is making themes and get lost in between.
- Use promotions.
- Aim to be permanent.
- This can be called a real success story. Because his theme was rejected 26 times before entering the market (that is, it was not accepted)
- It is easy to get lost in large categories. Do not get lost in between. (he says again)
- Some of his successful themes were in categories with few themes. These include political and Cart66 categories.
- I checked out of curiosity, their total sales are: 6093, they have 17 products. (01/08/14) Some of their products are WP themes, some are HTML templates. They later converted the template ones to WP.
- Create a special support system. Make sure your customers enter there. He says it was the best move we made.
- Use Microsites for promotions. We made microsites for the designs we made and achieved high traffic. That is, make a microsite for each product.
- Be social, use Twitter, go to Wordcamps. Hang out on Envato.
A few links I recommend you to follow.
- http://tutsplus.com/authors/baris-unver (someone from us is conquering the castle from within)
- http://themeforest.net/user/stmcan/portfolio (impossible designs?)
Ways to be successful on Themeforest and other Envato markets