Ask HN: Questions about wordpress business(freelancing + premium themes)

6 points by wpdev 15y ago ↗ HN

Hi, HNers, I have few questions about running wordpress business.

I am sure that many hackers in here have pretty solid experience about wordpress business so any comments will be appreciated!

1. paid premium themes/plugins business For my limited experience, premium theme business seems a quite profitable business. Although from some comments from HN, the profit for this business is decling now. (tasty theme and wpreviewsite plugin), personally I still think it is the way to go.

But anyone in here had experience about promoting/marketing the premium theme and plugin?

Correct me if I was wrong, in general, these premium themes doesn't seem hard to code, some plugins, for example, gravity forms, takes time to build but still, not the rocket science. so i guess the problem is down to how to promote, do marketing, and sell these theme/plugins, any ideas suggestions?

2. freelancing Wordpress theme development

Quite often I am asked about quoting projects for wordpress theming dev work, , mainly about convert the design into wordpress theme.

But at least 8 out of 10 quote request I have, the client doesn't have very clear idea about what they want to have or the scope of the project doesn't have very clear cut.

So things bite me are:

* submitting quote takes my time, and I am not able to charge the time for quoting projects so I dont want to invest hours before I can secure the project. How do you guys handle this?

* for the vague project, if I put defensive ballpark (i.e., good buffer for the margin), the client could go away. but if I ask too much details, the client could go away either and as I said, I dont want to invest hours before I can secure the project.

* communications are expensive, i.e., if i have to confirm many details with the client during the project so not good profit in the end.

small things, for example, some clients don't have good knowledge of wordpress, it could take me another 20-30 mins to help them to setup. Do you guys charge for this kinda of tasks?

So for freelancing part, I am looking for the good process to streamline the job. So I can spend less time on crap part and focusing on deliver good service and keep the reasonable profit.

2 comments

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swiecki 15y ago ↗

Web development is a feedback process because clients don't know what they want and they ask you to build off of their feelings, not specifications. So constant communication with clients is required. If cost of this is high for you, then you may not find this service profitable.

The good thing about wordpress theming is that while not every client knows what they want, most clients will be happy with the same couple of things. For this, I recommend building a theme that could act as a starting point for all projects... I mean that has all the luxury features a client could want, so you just remove the parts you don't need later on.

Having your product set up ahead of time as I described above is one way to get around wasting time when you're working with clients.

wpdev 15y ago ↗

thanks i think the main motivation to explore the "product alike" theme is due to the frustration of costly customer support.

i am happy to drop 90% of the price for the theme as long as it can be a passive business :)