
ThemeForest author to sell more than $1million in WordPress stock themes - csomar
http://notes.envato.com/milestones/kriesi-first-to-1000000-on-the-marketplaces/
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forbes
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.

~~~
noodle
> 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.

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

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joelhaasnoot
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.

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

~~~
Andrenid
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.

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ed209
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
Yeah, I think once you pass the $50,000 mark maybe it's time to switch to your
own distribution channel.

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alexfarran
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.

~~~
codelust
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
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.

~~~
codelust
If ThemeForest uses a split license in the manner you have specified, it falls
well within what the Software Freedom Law Center's interpretation of the GPL.

Themes get stolen and copied all over the place. I often have a hard time
advising clients to not do that just because it is available. Most of the
redistributed versions often contain hidden links and other security issues.

For that and all the points you have mentioned, the price of these themes are
nothing compared to the service a good theme developer provides you.

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

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

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

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markstahler
Very cool that they had that ring made for him

