Hi mates,
first of all sorry if you don’t like my English. Please forgive me.
I’m a web designer with great passion on template design and wordpress coding.
I’m very good at designing usable/clean an professional themes for wordpress.
Currently I do client projects + releasing themes on themeforest.
before now I’ve done various projects such as “Psd to html/wp”, blogging, making websites for sale, working on niche ideas and etc.
I was relatively successful in some of them for example my “psd to wordpress” company which I suddenly decided to sell it and some of my blogs.
And currently I’m making around 2K(usd)/month making themes on themeforest and doing a few clients works.
I’m thinking about a business model that I can grow it and finally outsource most of it. This is the reason I created this thread to hear your suggestions.
One of modes that I really like is what Elegantthemes & Woothemes are doing right now. Wordpress themes club. But I’m really worry about starting one from scratch when these big companies exist. Is it safe to focus on this model?
If you’re good at what you do and you have the knowledge to do what you’re thinking of, I say go for it. If you’ve got the means to make such a company/business model and think you can do it, why not? It’s always been people thinking they can’t do something that prevent themselves
If you can regularly release great Wordpress themes, then following the subscription route of Woothemes and Elegant Themes could definitely be an option.
As you noted, though, these subscriptions also offer other things such as well staffed support forums (both have helped me numerous times!), so it may be a lot of work to go it alone. Do you know any other web developers with similar capabilities to yourself that you trust and could partner up with? Or even know people who would help you out with support for a small(ish) fee?
The actual setting up of the subscriptions would be quite easy, and if you are already making good themes regularly then you’re off to a great start. Support is a big one to think about though - both helping users get started (who often know very little but like the look of your themes), and keeping all your themes up-to-date with the latest technologies and security fixes. Elegant Themes have their ePanel, and WooThemes have their Woo Framework to make updating all their themes a little easier - this could be something to look into.
That’s not a good foundation for building a business. I would recommend that you choose a business that think you’ll enjoy building, are good at, and won’t get bored with.