
How we grew ThemeIsle into a $50k per month business - axelut
https://medium.com/@hackinglife7/how-we-grew-themeisle-into-a-50-000-per-month-business-3e94ffe2f8e4
======
205guy
The article is well-written and presents some interesting insight and
seemingly useful advice. But there are 2 major red flags here:

There are 2 fawning comments here on HN by newly created accounts. Maybe the
green color of new accounts can be used to detect astroturfing. I have to
assume this is on the front page in part due to such tactics (I don't know the
exact HN algorithms however, so could be wrong--but the perception remains).
Why risk any chance of organic interest by poisoning the well like that?

Especially since the article just leads me to uncover more shady behavior. The
Medium article reveals and then glosses over a sudden halving of monthly
revenue. Why write an article about $50K monthly instead of $100K? The link
goes to another self-promoting "transparency" report has a link to a WP ticket
[1] where anyone can read that the author refused for over a year to comply
with WP theme rules. And these rules were specifically in areas to reduce
self-promotion and one could characterize the theme's behavior as spammy. And
this lack of rules compliance created extra work for WP in enforcing those
rules (in other words copy-cats).

So in the end, what sounds like a nice and encouraging story now seems to be
more of a whitewashing. This is sad because the ideas of WP theme development
and marketplace sound interesting and perhaps rewarding as a small business
opportunity, but now I tend to think success is due to spamminess,
bending/breaking of rules, and astroturfing stories (and maybe reviews) on
relevant sites.

In this light, the business model outlined and promoted here--buying and
improving existing niche products--seems more like adding spamminess for
profit. In fact, I am now questioning what creative and useful code did this
company actually create (since they talked about buying every single one of
their profitable products), as opposed to taking products that can't stand out
in a crowded market and adding spammy and sticky features to them to game
those marketplaces in ways that are not beneficial to consumers.

[1]
[https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906](https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35906)

~~~
adventured
> Why risk any chance of organic interest by poisoning the well like that?

You're proclaiming guilt as a matter-of-fact without any actual proof of it.
You set up your own opinion and then matched a conclusion of fraud to it,
seemingly without a second thought.

If I were to apply your framing approach to your own post, it comes across as
though you're trying to talk down the article and injure their reputation by
implying they're doing something wrong while possessing nothing more than an
opinion. That's a leap too far, throwing around such accusations without
solidly supporting them is inappropriate.

------
Mz
"Another thing we learned through A/B testing was that changing the default
screenshot and the default demo of a theme, _along with employing a good
copywriter,_ makes a big difference."

Yup. This is part of why I get aggravated that people are so negative about
paying writers. Good copy makes money for a business.

~~~
maldinii
Believe me or not our editor (more than a copywriter) earns a bigger salary
than me, but yep, only in this way I can get nicely edited articles on the
front-page of HN :D

~~~
TeMPOraL
It irks me when bosses say that to employees (happened to me in the past). The
boss works on his dream. The employee works _for money_. It's perfectly
natural for the boss of a young company to earn the least of all (at least if
you don't count various tax magic entrepreneurs can pull by buying everything
they use "for the company").

~~~
maldinii
I agree, that's why I earn less and yes, is not cool to say that to the
employees :)

------
j2bax
One big take away is how much these guys just kept at it despite fiscal
failure for months/years on end. This business isn't for the meek at heart.
It's so easy to get so discouraged, when your livelihood depends on it.

~~~
maldinii
A big lesson here is to have a good financial education, what helped me a lot
was the fact that even the business started to go really well, I didn't
started to spend more, I pay myself a decent salary and I try to live with it,
so even if the company get bankrupt, I would probably easily find a job
somewhere else.

This helps to think more long term and do what is best for the company, while
avoiding the extra 'personal' pressure from your wife, kids or others that
rely on your income.

------
lloydde
I'm curious why this was posted on Medium instead of using it as an
opportunity to show off one of your WordPress themes?

~~~
pacomerh
Medium is its own network with visibility, its easier to surface an article
through it than doing SEO.

------
giarc
I don't know enough about SEO to be sure but I believe Google will ding you
for copy and pasting from your IndieHacker article. However, since neither of
these sites are your main business, maybe it doesn't matter if G drops your
medium account ranking a bit.

~~~
maldinii
For me this is quite old fashioned Google approach, the whole medium re-
posting + HN exposure I am sure it would have done better, even if the re-
posting was on our site.

At least how I understand Google and I saw from some tests, he is quite smart
in getting if an article/site is delivering great content or not and ignoring
such issues.

------
vinhboy
What is the google SEO game like for themes nowadays? I see so much
competition. It is even possible for a new player to get on the first page? I
feel like all the big outfits like thememonster etc own all the real estate.

~~~
maldinii
SEO game is not that difficult if you compare with other niches and is not
owned by big theme players, due the how people are searching for themes is
owned by blogs building collections of best xx themes.

A recipe that works now is something like : release few free themes, write
some great articles and continue to keep them updated.

------
claudiulodro
Well done.

How heavy is the support load for themes? With plugins there is a lot of
customer support involved, and this is why good premium plugins are so
expensive. Is it the same with themes?

~~~
maldinii
Hey,

The load is quite big here too, especially considering the fact that we
support free themes as well. What is challenging is to educate the users and
help them understand that paying one time, upfront isn't helping them in the
long run :)

~~~
KayL
What type of questions users usually asked?

~~~
maldinii
Most of the questions are about how they can customise the look of their site,
unfortunately most are out of the theme capabilities.

------
webtechgal
No questions (at least for now) but Zerif Lite has been my personal favorite.
Have used it for several client sites. Thanks for the theme and all the best.

e.g. [http://lamindiallo.com/](http://lamindiallo.com/)

~~~
maldinii
Glad to hear, right product and the right time :)

------
notadoc
Interesting read, I appreciate stories like this and I think they are even
more interesting when the struggles, dips, failures, mistakes, etc, are
included in the narrative.

Often, persistence pays off. Congrats and thanks for sharing.

------
maldinii
Cool to see this picked-up as a 2nd chance experiment on HN front-page. I
would to answer questions about it :).

Until now is interesting to see how most of the people see it as a success
story while we lost 50% of our revenues few months ago.

~~~
imron
What was the cause of the 50% drop?

~~~
dabber
They had a really popular freemium theme that didn't meet some of the
requirements the WP.org imposed. Some changes were nontrivial and so they
weren't made (at least in time) and this very popular theme was suspended.
More here if you're interested:

[https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-
the...](https://wptavern.com/zerif-lite-suspended-from-wordpress-theme-
directory-300k-users-left-without-updates)

------
TimeToFly
This is a great write up. Blog posts like this, open and honest help a lot for
starting entrepreneurs. I recommend it to everyone who is here just for
comments.

------
clientexpert
I feel like I had a quality business consultancy session worth top dollars
after reading this. Thanks for the inspiration, and by the way, I love the
Hestia WordPress theme.

