2013: The Year of the Dollar
I don’t really do new years resolutions, but I do recall in early 2013 saying to myself that this would be the year I actually make some money from the internet.
For as long as I’ve done this web development thing I’ve been working on projects that were set to earn millions. But then, isn’t everything? The sad fact, repeated over and over the past 10 years is that, no, the majority of stuff you work on amounts to nothing.
However, if you keep going regardless of the failures, at least you keep your chances alive of landing on something that does make some money. So, with that in mind I set out at the start of the year to turn my fortunes around and make some money. Instead of trying to do something cutting edge and bla bla bla, I went for something far more ordinary. I built some themes! The back story you can read here: Leaping frogs.
How did I do?
I ended the year with five themes, the newest Controlfrog, released at the beginning of December. My earnings haven’t swelled my bank account to bursting, but I have actually earned some money from the internet! In fact, since the first theme went on sale back in May, I’ve pretty much increased my earnings month on month.
Some thoughts
- The pursuit of money can become addictively unfulfilling.
- Creating, what I would deem, useful themes is hard.
- Selling something on a marketplace is hard. You have no direct communication with your customers.
2014: The year of the… ?
I don’t know what 2014 will be the year of. Obviously, I hope my themes continue to sell well and I’ll probably create a few more. Whatever else 2014 might bring, it will most likely be ordinary, non ground breaking and driven by myself.
After all, it’s that combination that has seen me well through 2013, the year I actually made some money from the internet!
7 Comments
Tom
•Hi Ben,
Its interesting when you say about “increased my earnings month on month”. I’m thinking about starting to try and sell themes. Do the frequency of sales drop as time goes on or do your themes sell a similar amount every month? It must be difficult to estimate how long to spend developing when sales are ongoing. How long would you say you spent developing each theme?
Tom
Ben Goodyear
•@Tom:
I had these very same questions myself back when I was considering starting. In the end though I just went for it. Now, a year down the line I’ve more money than I had whilst I was just ‘thinking’ about doing it. Sure, it’s not going to replace my day job, but I’m happy for the extra money.
I’ve been fortunate that my earnings haven’t really dropped since I started selling the themes. They increased to a point and have remained steady. On current earnings I’ve probably not recovered the time I invested in doing them though. But, I didn’t bother tracking the time as it’s more a case of this is the theme I want to build, so I’ll build it regardless of how long it takes.
I’ll keep making themes I find useful (and would want myself), and if one of those strikes a chord with buyers, then I’ll count myself lucky!
If I were you, and you enjoy doing this kind of stuff, then I’d say go for it! Let me know when you release your first theme!
Tom
•Thanks for your comment. I really like your documentation for controlfrog. I haven’t bought it as I’ve got some ideas in my head for building my own dashboard theme. I think if I was a potential buyer I would like to see a ‘logged in as’ bar somewhere with a small avatar, logout and perhaps user settings? I think users will always be logged onto a dashboard system.
I’ll let you know when I’ve built something then.
Ben Goodyear
•@Tom:
Thanks for the thoughts, I’ll make a note. There are many things I could do to the theme to make it more of a proper admin theme… but I’m hesitant to keep piling features in unless I see a real need for them. Perhaps eventually that’ll be the thing that holds Controlfrog back and stops it reaching it’s full potential!
Tommi Carleman
•But what about your workflow? How does your idea turn into something that passes through wrapbootstraps checkup?
What about your personal experience with their service, is it good/bad/something else?
Ben Goodyear
•@Tommi: Well, Tommi, I’m sure you’re familiar with my workflow! Anyway, my workflow wasn’t really the subject of this post. The submission guidelines are fairly basic, if you take any pride in your work then you’ll likely already adhere to the design and code related ones. I didn’t look at them until I had finished my first theme, pointless distracting myself with that stuff until I had something to submit.
My experience with the marketplace has had it’s ups and downs. Obviously, I have nothing to compare it with, so I can’t measure it against competition very well.
I had some trouble with lack of communication in the middle of 2013, I waited almost 6 weeks to hear anything about whether my newly submitted theme at the time, Shopfrog, had passed the submission checks. Sent countless emails, to multiple addresses, put on my internet stalking hat and went crazy trying to reach him.
Eventually my theme got approved, although I got no explanation of his absence. Since then there has been a marked improvement in things, although that might be attributed to my ‘auto publish’ status. But all communication I’ve had with him since has been answered promptly so I’m confident there wont be a repeat.
In general, I’m happy with the service.
Getting into the theming trade then?
Tommi Carleman
•@Ben: Damn, 6 weeks of waiting, that must have been infuriating.
Thanks for the info, it’s nice to get some knowledge about this, as it has been in my mind to at least try to sell something there (unfortunately my non-existing designs skills might not help at all).
Good luck with further sales!