Starting a theme selling business from zero

Admin Note:
While I originally figured I'd just give this forum member a warning, because his guide on here seemed legit and helpful, it turns out, that he was, just like sooooo many others, trying to promote and sell his services through here, without doing so in the market place. That violates our selling/advertising terms. He also admits knowing about this further down below in other posts. And just to add that final cherry on top.. while you may like his writing skills.. its not his. He hired a copywriter, or is just copying it in general, and has posted the SAME story/guide on other forums. Its very likely other forums will allow this, but I won't tolerate it. Because its deceptive and it makes it tough for us to handle fraud/scammer issues later on if there are any. Plus, we don't charge you guys a dime to read and post here, but if you're going to advertise and sell on here, pay the measly fee we charge for it. Its lower than any others. And our forum member buyer quality is unrivaled. Some sellers here really do make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year or more purely from selling quality services/products through our marketplace. Its threads and people like this guy here, that force us to become more and more strict about our terms, rules, and enforcement. It is what it is.


I have been working in the web design business for 2 years now, and just recently switched to it full-time.

I am right now more interested in creating and selling digital products (in this case HTML and WordPress themes) than doing client work.

I will make public my process, my goals, and everything else that I feel will have an impact in the number of sales I receive.

Theme #1
I'm working right now on an all-purpose theme, which has a name that I won't share with you just yet. When I'm done designing, I will first submit the PSD to ThemeForest and, if it's accepted, I will move onto creating the HTML version of it, and then the WordPress one.
Goals with this theme:
• Earn $500 from it (sum of the sales for the PSD, HTML, and WP versions). Which is indeed very low but right now I'll settle for it.
• Make a mailing list of 100 people interested in website themes.
• Learn how to make a high quality and easily customizable HTML and WP theme, regardless of how much time it takes me to reach this level.
• Apply some creative marketing tactics in order to boost sales, which I will share with you in this thread.
• Get used to the Take No Days Off approach, which means that social life and any other distractor / time-waster are off, and the entire day is spent exclusively working on my business. Also, the day ends when I crash, and the TNDO period ends when I reach my goal.

Follow me in this journey!
I'm not writing this thread for myself. I mean, I kind of do, since hopefully some of you will get interested in my themes, but that's not the idea.

I'm writing this for anyone trying to start a product-selling business from absolute scratch. So if you want to know what I'm going through, follow me:
• Subscribe to this thread


Hopefully you'll find this stuff useful and maybe it'll turn into an Enlightened area thread.

First day in.

Actually, it's not the first day. I've been working on this for over a week now, but only last couple days I worked 12h+/day.

The theme starts shaping up, although I'm not completely happy with it, and I will keep working, doing my absolute best until I'm 100% satisfied with the result and I say to myself "Eduard, you are one hell of a designer, and handsome too!".

Take note: I have just contacted the top 10 theme authors on ThemeForest and asked them for feedback on my design. Hopefully at least a couple of them will be willing to give me some tips on how to improve it, 'cause these guys are insanely skilled.

Other than that, it's been a good day. I'm sucked of all my creative juice and can't do anything in Photoshop anymore today, so right now I'm sketching layout variants and working on my marketing.

Marketing before this thread
I haven't done much marketing for my themes (or even my web design studio), other than having an account on 3 big forums and trying to help people with web design-related problems. My activity has been low anyway.

I also made an account for the studio (it will include the theme-selling side of it) on LINK REMOVED and LINK REMOVED. And by the way, follow / like me and I guarantee to give you some free stuff, as soon as I actually have products to give away.

Noteworthy: On Twitter, I have made an account and I'm sending a few tweets a day about entrepreneurship / marketing / startups / anything like this, because this is the target market for my themes: a small business or just an entrepreneur who wants to get a cost-effective site for his business / product, and look professional to his clients.

The Twitter account has been up for - I think - 2 weeks, and the use of hashtags and quality of the tweets LINK REMOVED has got me a decent number of followers (238 right this second).


Replying to mah friendz

Johnathan said:

I am definitely looking forward to keeping up with this, subscribed and will follow you on Twitter when I decide to make an account.


Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Jonathan.

NOTE: I'm not, however, going to update this daily or anything like that. I'll post here just when I have something new to say (if I reached any goal, how I did it, how I'm going to tackle the next one, etc.).

Second day in, and this thread has got over 100 views already, exactly as I wanted. As long as it will be seen every day by a satisfactory number of people, I will continue to update it (otherwise I'm not going to waste my time, which is so precious nowadays...).

So you might be interested through what I went today and what new ideas I got. If so, continue reading...

The Grind
I got half burnt out today, but kept pushing myself. The result was incredible. I didn't expect to finish the design part of Theme #1 until many days from now on, but I got to a point where I'm satisfied with the result (not fully, but I consider it of enough quality to be released, and I believe that more work on it in Photoshop won't be justified by the small improvements I might be able to make to it).

From a creativity point of view, I'm sucked. But that's good, because the grind kicks in now. And I'll explain you in a second.

You see, the theme selling business is made of much more than just creative work (i.e. Photoshop stuff). The layout has to be organized (I'm talking about the Photoshop layers), and theme variants should be made. And this takes time.

This means that, for a week (at the very minimum) from now on, I'm going to be busy getting the design ready for being submitted to ThemeForest.


In a nutshell
Today I have finished the layout for the theme, organized the layers (takes a hell lot of time if you have thousands of them, as I do), and right now I'm working on the demo, documentation and, indeed, marketing (tweeting and making forum accounts and being helpful in order to get people to trust me and visit my signature link).

There are a lot of marketing strategies going through my mind at the moment and I'll share them with you at the right time.


Also, quick FAQ for you guys
Here I'm trying to answer some of your questions.

• Why do you want to make just $500 of your first theme?
I plan to make much more than that, but this is the minimum that I want to get before moving to the next one for which I'll expect $1,000, and the next one for which I'll expect double this money, and so on. Based on my research of the market, I can say that it's much harder to earn $500 of your first premium theme than you think.

• Why not give it away for free?
Sales of my first theme will be (hopefully) boosted by some free stuff, and I'll tell you what it is at the right time (subscribe to the thread!).

• Why don't you stick to a niche?
Because I don't want to. I'm confident that my designs will be of high enough quality to compete with other all-purpose designs. Also, I don't care about any niche in particular, but I'm sure that you can apply my advice / findings to a niche as well, if you're going to start doing the same thing that I'm trying to do now.

• OMG you're not taking any days off?
Yes, it's called grinding, and you can learn more about it here =

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpFroMCKiuM&hd=1

I've set a goal, and I'm going to work on it regardless of what people think, say, or how I feel.

BUT OF COURSE, this doesn't mean I go full retard. It just means that I'm working harder than 99% of the people and using my time wisely. When I'm not designing I'm planning, sketching, or writing, that's the idea.

• B-b-but your health!!!
I'm completely healthy. I take regular breaks from the computer and have been working out since I know myself. My diet is clean and my eyes are fine.

• One more question: Why so arrogant?
I'm not, I'm just tired and trying to give good advice and, at the same time, motivate people.

That's it for today, folks. Keep subscribing if you want to see more of this.

If this thread gets 250 views and/or 15 comments by tomorrow, I'll give you a screenshot of the design. So share this thread because I'm not writing it for myself.

Have a great day, guys. I know I will.

Today's update comes a little earlier than you probably expected, because I really really need a break right now. So instead of wasting my time, I'm writing this. So read it.

What I've done today
• Finished organizing the PSD file of the theme
I'm talking about the main one, because I'm going to make 15 PSDs for it - it's hard, but that's what the best guys on the market to, and that's what I'll do as well.

• Replaced the Lorem ipsum with some descriptive text about the theme
Not many people do this, but it definitely attracts. So keep this in mind when you're creating your themes: Lorem ipsum says nothing, maybe just "I'm too lazy to put maximum effort into my creation". Be smart, and use it as a way to promote your product.

• Prepared a marketing stunt
Well, maybe not exactly a stunt, but I decided to offer my first theme for free to those who give me their e-mail address.



And right now I'm trying to spread the link. I'll tell people that they'll get my premium theme for free if they subscribe, and hopefully they will. And no worries, you can get it too, just keep reading, I'll keep it for the end of this post.

Addressing some questions
• Why don't you go for Bootstrap instead of WordPress?
Honestly, I don't believe that much in the possibility that Bootstrap will beat WP anytime soon. However, I will turn my themes into Bootstrap, as long as there will be requests for it.

• What about the warez, man? THEY'LL BE STEALING YOUR CONTENT!!!
Aaand I couldn't care less about this. Warez is a fact, everyone who creates a product that's worth something will eventually face this problem. Some people waste their time trying to combat this, but I won't.

WHY???

Because those who download my theme from torrent sites wouldn't buy it anyway. I can't earn anything from those guys, so let them have it.

Now get my theme for FREE!
And now a little bit of whori... offers. But only after I show you what you'll get:

REMOVED LINKS


But enough with this now. I go keep working (starting to make the other layout variants, ex: with sidebar on the left, sidebar on the right, portfolio page, etc.). Take care, boo.

Thank you for the reply.

And I know you didn't expect me to post here again today, but the truth is that I...

Crashed
I have been warned that too much work can be detrimental to my productivity, but this time it wasn't the work.

It was the lack of planning.

You see, I've been working non-stop for the last 3 days, and I'm running out of plans. I've already finished what I have planned before I started, and now I must take a break and think of what's next. I can't just go and work blindly, it's a waste of time - so keep this in mind, brothers and sisters.

A little bit about the quality no
Without the doubt, I'm going to say that the result of my work has been, so far, satisfying, and of much, much more quality that I have ever pulled off before.

Why? Definitely not because of talent.

Definitely, definitely not.

It was thanks to the amount of work I've done in the last 3 days. Creating, and modifying, and re-thinking big parts of the entire design - it's a tough and very time-consuming process, but it's so well worth it.

So if you are going to read this thread and say "this guy has talent" (I don't, I wish I had), you'll be wrong, and lying yourself. If you use this excuse to not try and not do your best every single minute of your day until you succeed, then you are way too weak to succeed anyway.

And I'm saying this although I didn't even succeed. But I didn't succeed YET. I feel I'm going to, I know I'm going to, there is no way I can work day and night and not eventually succeed.

It might take a month, just until I finish this theme and launch it, and then get hundreds of sales who will make me rich from the beginning. But it's much more likely that nothing will happen until I put even more work into it, create more themes, work more on the marketing, sleep less, eat better, have sex faster, write for you quicker, just to gain a bit of edge over the other theme designers which are already a lot ahead of me.

So stay tuned. And subscribe to this thread. At 500 views or 25 comments I'll show you more from the theme.

I ran out of energy to work right now, and I'm writing this in my creative break which will hopefully help me push through the rest of the work I have to do today on the theme.

Just gonna answer some questions...

• Are you gonna spam my inbox now that I subscribed?
Absolutely. You are guaranteed to receive at least five promotional offers for V1agra every 8 seconds.

On a serious note, no. You have subscribed for freebies and deals, and that's all you are going to receive. I won't send you an e-mail unless I either have a freebie for you, or I can offer you an unbeatable discount to one of my products.

• (Suggestion to still make Bootstrap version)
I will, thanks for the suggestion.

• How much of a cut does themeforest take?
They are going to take 50% from it, or even 75% if I decide to sell the same theme on other markets too.

• B-b-but that's ridiculously high!
I know. I might sell some future ones on my own site, though. I don't know right now.

• How have your sales been?
The theme isn't ready. It takes a huge amount of time to create it and make it ready and flexible in every aspect. Right now all I have is the homepage with slider (that you saw in the screenshot I showed you yesterday), layout with a sidebar on the right, and right now I'm working on the UI kit (button hovers, accordion sliders, form elements, everything someone might ever need for his site).

• Have you marketed it outside ThemeForest?
I'm going to take this question as a "are you going to market it outside ThemeForest?", and the answer is quick and simple: hell, YES. I've seen a ton of great themes on TF that didn't make the creator money even for some beer and you know what else. And I've also seen themes inferior in almost every aspect which are in top 10. I guess the answer to everybody's obvious question is "marketing".

And I'm gonna share my marketing strategies with you, as I have already done with the "subscribe to get it for free" thing. Right now I have to concentrate more on finishing the theme, rather than marketing - which I can't wait to do!

• I want a new car, Eduard. Can you tell me how to get one?
Sure. Work hard and stop reading forums, that's all the advice I have.

• Also Eduard, I got this icky rash on my...
Didn't you hear me? I told you to go work hard and stop reading these damn forums, son.

(And I'd get that checked by a doctor if I were you, by the way.)

• Don't shoot me, but I have one more question. How did you pull off this kind of quality for the theme?
Well brothers and sisters, many of you told me it's a good-looking theme, which is flattering to hear. The answer to this question is, as to the above 2 ones, working hard. I've never done something like this before but, while I realize that it's quite good, I still want to improve it, and will do my best to make it as good as any other premium theme.

I promise you, I gotta (and I'm gonna!) be a good model for you little kiddos waving your pencils in the air and wanting to become successful creating and marketing your design products. I really will. Please keep me accountable guys, and thank you so much for your support!

Back to work now...
(Love yaaa! Also, keep this thread up. As I have said before, I'm not writing it for myself. And if someday you will convince a mod to move it into the Enlightened area, I'm gonna give you my premium themes for free for 24h, plus my daughter as your wife - well, when I'll have one...)

Not much to update today, I keep working on the UI kit (which I will show you as soon as it's finished, so not only you know how mine looks like, but also know what elements should be put in a UI kit for your theme). I also kept posting on some forums with a signature link saying (yeah, you can click it, and hopefully I don't get wiped off the forum for it, it's just for reference).

Back to work now... will keep you updated with how it goes, new strategies, etc. Hopefully I can think of some...

Big, BIG update!

I'm so insanely excited! After over a week of hard work and IRL trouble I can finally say that the UI Kit for the theme is ready!

But before anything else, let me answer your question...

What is this UI Kit that you're talking about, Eduard? What does it have to do with theme creation?
A UI Kit is a set of elements that those who buy your theme can use based on their needs. Why should you include one into your themes? Because if someone wants to put a pricing table on their site while using your theme and it doesn't fit the rest of your design, he/she will be pissed off.

You can use my UI Kit as a reference for what you should include in yours. But, for the sake of lists, it should contain:

• Navbar with hovered / active / inactive buttons and sub-menus
• Share buttons
• Slider styles (the more the better)
• Portfolio thumbnails / frames
• Many, many button types with hovered / active / inactive states
• Description / caption boxes
• Content widgets (I made a tabs and an accordion widget)
• Form elements: fields, text areas, checkboxes, radio buttons, dropdowns, submit buttons, error / success messages / tooltips
• I added a team member card as well, and you better do it too
• Tables
• Pricing chart
• Comments
• List style types (as many bullets as possible: circle, arrow, plus, minus, tick, x, etc.)
• Anything else is fairly optional

That's how it looks.
(Use it for reference ONLY. It's copyrighted.)

CLICK IT FOR FULL SIZE!



What about the marketing?

REMOVED TWITTER LINKS... AGAIN.

And I take advantage of the 2 minutes I have at my disposal to remind you that I am going to offer you and only YOU* my first premium theme for absolutely FREE (HTML, WordPress, and PSD version) if you subscribe to receive my freebies[/URL]. I won't spam, and you can use it as a great reference when you will create your own themes.

*That's what I say everywhere where I'm advertising this, because it makes people feel special. You should use this technique too to get more sales / e-mail addresses / etc. Good luck.

And that's pretty much it for today. Now go work on your own projects.