Looking better with every update. Signed up for the mailing list, because I'm a sucker for free stuff.
Starting a theme selling business from zero
- Thread starter 3dyDesign
- Start date
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you need to become active on Dribbble.com I check it daily to find design inspiration and it would be a good place for you to 1) network 2) show off 3) find customers
I've been sick for the last 2 days but I'll come back tomorrow to tell you about my new plans. And by the way, tomorrow I'll have to organize a the UI Kit PSD, which has 2400+ layers, and it's gonna be fun... :|
I will reply to you guys tomorrow too, all I can say right now is that I absolutely love you and am infinitely thankful for your suggestions and feedback. Stay tuned, tomorrow I'll be back with something nice for you.
I will reply to you guys tomorrow too, all I can say right now is that I absolutely love you and am infinitely thankful for your suggestions and feedback. Stay tuned, tomorrow I'll be back with something nice for you.
Heaps of stuff to say but, well, let's do it...
What I did today
I organized the 2400-layers PSD UI Kit file, and done general social media work that I do daily (follow some new people, tweet and schedule tweets, help people on forums with web design-related issues and hope they will follow my signature link and join the mailing list for my premium themes).
But right now I'm coming back to you with some tips and other (hopefully interesting) stuff, so keep reading this...
What's next to do?
Well, I created the general design of the theme (which you can see LINK REMOVED AGAIN!!! here - UPDATED slightly, by the way), and also the UI Kit, so creating the rest of the variants for the theme shouldn't be that hard anymore (ex: page with sidebar on the right, on the left, double sidebar, contact us page, and many others that I will share with you so you know what your theme needs).
After this, I will release the PSD pack on ThemeForest and move onto coding it in HTML, release the HTML version, and then move onto WordPress.
Is it really worth it?
This is a question some of you might have, and I will re-formulate it.
Is it really worth creating 15 different PSD files and a whole UI Kit for your theme?
Probably not. Judging by the fact that the most money someone has earned from selling a theme PSD pack on ThemeForest is around $2000 and that the guy who got this money is actually a TF admin, it's not worth creating investing weeks into creating pixel-perfect PSDs just to sell them as they are.
However, what I'm going to do is to also include them into the HTML and WordPress versions of the theme, which will be an added value (that few people care about, though). So I believe it will *somehow* be worth it... somehow.
Of course, you will (almost) HAVE to offer at least one PSD with the theme, and maybe also some kind of UI Kit, but whether or not you will offer 15 as I am going to do is up to you. Personally I believe there is very little incentive in it, but I'm trying it so I can tell you what happens.
Addressing your questions
Okay, these are not all questions, but I'm going to answer them all because you guys are so unbelievably awesome and helpful.
• To the guys who said they joined the mailing list / complimented on the theme...
Thank you. I guarantee it will be worth it, and I'd be even more thankful if you kept watching this thread.
• Regarding Dribbble
This is a great suggestion. REMOVED SELF PROMO LINK just joined it today, but I'm waiting for an invitation[/URL] (*wink, wink*). I'm totally going to use it to promote my themes and, who knows, maybe get some clients too.
Thanks again for the suggestion!
• So what happens when this ends up on Warez-BB or ThePirateBay and you don't make a dime?
I have already answered this, so here is a quote of my message:
Also, I'm going to offer a free version for each of my themes, so if someone has even one drop of morality in him, he will get that one.
Done writing for today, I hope you guys enjoyed it. If not, here is a pic of the page variant with sidebar on the right.
(BTW guys, try not to hotlink an image from your own server and post it on a big forum like this... 600MB of bandwidth consumed since I made this thread. If you have a choice, don't do it.)
What I did today
I organized the 2400-layers PSD UI Kit file, and done general social media work that I do daily (follow some new people, tweet and schedule tweets, help people on forums with web design-related issues and hope they will follow my signature link and join the mailing list for my premium themes).
But right now I'm coming back to you with some tips and other (hopefully interesting) stuff, so keep reading this...
What's next to do?
Well, I created the general design of the theme (which you can see LINK REMOVED AGAIN!!! here - UPDATED slightly, by the way), and also the UI Kit, so creating the rest of the variants for the theme shouldn't be that hard anymore (ex: page with sidebar on the right, on the left, double sidebar, contact us page, and many others that I will share with you so you know what your theme needs).
After this, I will release the PSD pack on ThemeForest and move onto coding it in HTML, release the HTML version, and then move onto WordPress.
Is it really worth it?
This is a question some of you might have, and I will re-formulate it.
Is it really worth creating 15 different PSD files and a whole UI Kit for your theme?
Probably not. Judging by the fact that the most money someone has earned from selling a theme PSD pack on ThemeForest is around $2000 and that the guy who got this money is actually a TF admin, it's not worth creating investing weeks into creating pixel-perfect PSDs just to sell them as they are.
However, what I'm going to do is to also include them into the HTML and WordPress versions of the theme, which will be an added value (that few people care about, though). So I believe it will *somehow* be worth it... somehow.
Of course, you will (almost) HAVE to offer at least one PSD with the theme, and maybe also some kind of UI Kit, but whether or not you will offer 15 as I am going to do is up to you. Personally I believe there is very little incentive in it, but I'm trying it so I can tell you what happens.
Addressing your questions
Okay, these are not all questions, but I'm going to answer them all because you guys are so unbelievably awesome and helpful.
• To the guys who said they joined the mailing list / complimented on the theme...
Thank you. I guarantee it will be worth it, and I'd be even more thankful if you kept watching this thread.
• Regarding Dribbble
This is a great suggestion. REMOVED SELF PROMO LINK just joined it today, but I'm waiting for an invitation[/URL] (*wink, wink*). I'm totally going to use it to promote my themes and, who knows, maybe get some clients too.
Thanks again for the suggestion!
• So what happens when this ends up on Warez-BB or ThePirateBay and you don't make a dime?
I have already answered this, so here is a quote of my message:
Also, I'm going to offer a free version for each of my themes, so if someone has even one drop of morality in him, he will get that one.
Done writing for today, I hope you guys enjoyed it. If not, here is a pic of the page variant with sidebar on the right.
(BTW guys, try not to hotlink an image from your own server and post it on a big forum like this... 600MB of bandwidth consumed since I made this thread. If you have a choice, don't do it.)
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Some split-testing
Today I realized that I didn't pay enough attention to something: the subscription box for my mailing list through which I'm going to offer my themes for free for a few days, before submitting them to ThemeForest.
More exactly, I built the whole "this is a unique secret link which allows you to subscribe" in just one afternoon, without paying enough attention to details and without making the viewer curious enough to want to join.
Hence I only got 10 subscribers in about two weeks.
So today I took several hours away from my theme designing time to replace this:
With this:
NOTE: You can find this at the same link as before, but you might need to refresh the page in order for it to look right, if you viewed it already.
Difference, huh? Hopefully it will attract more people.
So moral of the story: don't half-ass something as important as your subscription box. If you need subscribers, make sure you do your absolute best to attract them.
Working on theme variants
Right now I have finished 5 out of the 15 PSD files that I will offer together with the theme.
These are:
This is actually pretty fast, since I already have all the graphics I need in the UI kit I made. I just need to put them together.
And yes, I will tell you what all the files in the theme will be, so you can have the same ones (or more? or less? it's your decision) in your own themes.
I'm also close to reaching 500 subscribers on Twitter, but I'm not going to tell you to follow me.
Instead, I would like you to subscribe to this thread, comment to ask me any questions you might have, or offer feedback. I'm trying to make this thread as informative as possible, but I need your input too so I know what you need.
I will be back as soon as I have something interesting to write about.
Today I realized that I didn't pay enough attention to something: the subscription box for my mailing list through which I'm going to offer my themes for free for a few days, before submitting them to ThemeForest.
More exactly, I built the whole "this is a unique secret link which allows you to subscribe" in just one afternoon, without paying enough attention to details and without making the viewer curious enough to want to join.
Hence I only got 10 subscribers in about two weeks.
So today I took several hours away from my theme designing time to replace this:
With this:
NOTE: You can find this at the same link as before, but you might need to refresh the page in order for it to look right, if you viewed it already.
Difference, huh? Hopefully it will attract more people.
So moral of the story: don't half-ass something as important as your subscription box. If you need subscribers, make sure you do your absolute best to attract them.
Working on theme variants
Right now I have finished 5 out of the 15 PSD files that I will offer together with the theme.
These are:
- Home page (with slider)
- Page with sidebar (on the right)
- Page with sidebar (on the left)
- Page with two sidebars
- The UI kit
This is actually pretty fast, since I already have all the graphics I need in the UI kit I made. I just need to put them together.
And yes, I will tell you what all the files in the theme will be, so you can have the same ones (or more? or less? it's your decision) in your own themes.
I'm also close to reaching 500 subscribers on Twitter, but I'm not going to tell you to follow me.
Instead, I would like you to subscribe to this thread, comment to ask me any questions you might have, or offer feedback. I'm trying to make this thread as informative as possible, but I need your input too so I know what you need.
I will be back as soon as I have something interesting to write about.
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I don't feel like doing any design work today (although I totally should), so instead I'm working on my marketing and sharing some (hopefully) helpful stuff with you.
Please note that I'm a complete newbie in regards to what I preach, so use my advice only if it makes sense to you.
Files your theme MUST have
I'm not only talking about the PSDs you must offer, but also about the page types that MUST work properly inside your theme so that buyers won't have trouble creating a certain kind of page.
Here is the list:
How I plan to promote my themes with Pinterest
I have recently joined Dribbble and Pinterest. For Dribbble, I still don't have an invite yet, but I managed to get a Pinterest account (and you should too).
I've read some stuff about Pinterest on teh internetz and this is how I'm going to try to get followers and also make more people sign up to my mailing list for free themes / special offers / kangaroos...
Strategy
See how this looks HERE. It's pretty much like this, but you'd better see it live:
That's pretty much it. As you can see, I'm trying to build audience from 3 main sources (and a few secondary ones): Twitter, forums, and Pinterest (follow your brother... eventually).
And alsooo...
And now you guys go work on your own stuff. Good luck.
Please note that I'm a complete newbie in regards to what I preach, so use my advice only if it makes sense to you.
Files your theme MUST have
I'm not only talking about the PSDs you must offer, but also about the page types that MUST work properly inside your theme so that buyers won't have trouble creating a certain kind of page.
Here is the list:
- Home page (preferably with image slider included)
- Simple page with sidebar (on the right, on the left, and on both sides)
- About us page
- Team page (preferably with team members having some kind of "vcard" on the page, a short description about them, and links to their social media profiles)
- Hiring page (with a contact form, maybe)
- Pricing page (with one or two types of pricing tables for the buyer to chose from, "Sign up" button, and maybe also a little signup form)
- Blog page (posts, sidebar, page numbers, stuff like that)
- Single post (sidebar, comments, share buttons)
- Portfolio / Image Gallery
- Single portfolio item (quite optional, but good to offer)
- Page with a minimalist footer (instead of 3 columns with content, make it just a "Copyright" and maybe a small website navigation and "go to top" button)
- Whatever else you think someone might need. Think for yourself. Because this isn't exactly a blueprint, and I don't have enough experience for you to follow me too closely, I'm just trying to help.
How I plan to promote my themes with Pinterest
I have recently joined Dribbble and Pinterest. For Dribbble, I still don't have an invite yet, but I managed to get a Pinterest account (and you should too).
I've read some stuff about Pinterest on teh internetz and this is how I'm going to try to get followers and also make more people sign up to my mailing list for free themes / special offers / kangaroos...
Strategy
- Make a Pinterest account (seriously, did I really have to mention this?...)
- Create a board called "Themes" to upload screenshots of my upcoming themes. I also made sure to arrange all my boards so that this is the first one, and it has a link to join my mailing list in the description of every screenshot I pin.
- Also created a Portfolio board right next to the Themes board, because why the hell not.
- Create various boards related to your industry. I made Websites, Logos, User Interfaces, Illustrations, Business Cards, 3D, Flyers, Icons, and a bunch of more boards.
- I'm gradually uploading pics of my Passia theme in the Themes board, maybe one pic a day or even less.
- THIS IS WHAT I DO DAILY: Repin 10 images from various people to my Websites board, and 5 to each of my other boards.
- I also leave 10-20 comments a day to some of those who I repinned, telling them that I love X about their pin and I repinned it to my X board. This attracts people - hopefully.
- I also (daily too) follow roughly 100 people, but NOT at random. I look for those who follow more people than they have followers, so that they will most likely follow me back. Don't look just after having followers while not following anyone if you want to promote yourself!
- Repeat everyday until rich, and regularly advertise your own stuff (but not TOO regularly).
See how this looks HERE. It's pretty much like this, but you'd better see it live:
That's pretty much it. As you can see, I'm trying to build audience from 3 main sources (and a few secondary ones): Twitter, forums, and Pinterest (follow your brother... eventually).
And alsooo...
THANKS, MATE! You also happen to be the best member of WickedFire right now.
And now you guys go work on your own stuff. Good luck.
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I decided to make some changes to my strategy, and I'll explain them to you right now.
10 PSDs instead of 15
Why? Because I just don't feel they are important enough to make a PSD for them. Sure, they should exist in your theme demo (I'm talking about the HTML, WordPress, and whatever others may be), but it's useless to create a special PSD for each because all the elements already exist somewhere else.
Red stuff must die:
• But Eduard, I really feel like I need to make a separate page for each thing you told me to forget about
Then make it. Simple. You don't have to follow what I say, pick up just what you think it's good for your business.
Find a niche
I know, I KNOW (oh, just shut up!) that I have previously said that my themes will be all-purpose because I believe my design is so heavenly that people would buy it regardless of what site they want to build.
And I still believe this. I will, however, join a niche that I think would fit my themes the best. In my case, it's one-page portfolios (and blogs, which won't have just one page, but bear with me).
I kind of start believing that, even in theme building, niches beat all-purpose stuff. I have analyzed the top theme sellers and, while they don't sell themes for a specific niche (ex: fitness, restaurants, etc.), each one of their themes fits one purpose. There are almost no "this theme does everything" pieces in their portfolios, and each one of their themes appeals more to a niche than the others (photography blog, electronics store, etc.).
So what I suggest you? Well...
Pick just one of the 3 things above. Or hell, do whatever you want, these are just suggestions. After all, you know your target market better than I do (and if your target market is "everyone that needs a site"... good luck).
I will come with more ideas for you, since I had to think of lots of them before finding what appeals to me the most. I'll share my lists of ideas with you all, eventually. Just keep this thread up for anyone to see (but don't exaggerate, because the mods would probably kill my a*s for it).
That's it for today, and I really hope it helps someone. Maybe. I go work on my own stuff now, and you should too.
10 PSDs instead of 15
Why? Because I just don't feel they are important enough to make a PSD for them. Sure, they should exist in your theme demo (I'm talking about the HTML, WordPress, and whatever others may be), but it's useless to create a special PSD for each because all the elements already exist somewhere else.
Red stuff must die:
- Home page (preferably with image slider included)
- Simple page with sidebar (on the right, on the left, and on both sides)
- About us page - Because it looks like a homepage without the image slider
- Team page - Because it's exactly the same as the About us page, plus the member cards that can be found in the UI kit.
- Hiring page - Same reason.
- Pricing page - Unless you are going to make it really special, forget about it. It's the same as the others I removed, plus a pricing table that's available in the UI kit.
- Blog page (posts, sidebar, page numbers, stuff like that)
- Single post (sidebar, comments, share buttons)
- Portfolio / Image Gallery
- Single portfolio item - Not really removed, but merged with the Single post, because it's almost the exact same thing (plus comments).
- Page with a minimalist footer (instead of 3 columns with content, make it just a "Copyright" and maybe a small website navigation and "go to top" button)
• But Eduard, I really feel like I need to make a separate page for each thing you told me to forget about
Then make it. Simple. You don't have to follow what I say, pick up just what you think it's good for your business.
Find a niche
I know, I KNOW (oh, just shut up!) that I have previously said that my themes will be all-purpose because I believe my design is so heavenly that people would buy it regardless of what site they want to build.
And I still believe this. I will, however, join a niche that I think would fit my themes the best. In my case, it's one-page portfolios (and blogs, which won't have just one page, but bear with me).
I kind of start believing that, even in theme building, niches beat all-purpose stuff. I have analyzed the top theme sellers and, while they don't sell themes for a specific niche (ex: fitness, restaurants, etc.), each one of their themes fits one purpose. There are almost no "this theme does everything" pieces in their portfolios, and each one of their themes appeals more to a niche than the others (photography blog, electronics store, etc.).
So what I suggest you? Well...
- Create themes for something you are interested in / know would sell well / there aren't many themes for (ex: fitness, churches, animals, educational institutions, web hosting companies, forums, weddings, whatever the hell you wanna make).
- Focus on a specific type of theme (vCard, ecommerce, CMS-specific themes, photo galleries, responsive designs, minimalist sites, etc.)
- Experiment. Make each theme of yours appeal to a specific niche.
Pick just one of the 3 things above. Or hell, do whatever you want, these are just suggestions. After all, you know your target market better than I do (and if your target market is "everyone that needs a site"... good luck).
I will come with more ideas for you, since I had to think of lots of them before finding what appeals to me the most. I'll share my lists of ideas with you all, eventually. Just keep this thread up for anyone to see (but don't exaggerate, because the mods would probably kill my a*s for it).
That's it for today, and I really hope it helps someone. Maybe. I go work on my own stuff now, and you should too.
You might considering making themes for a more niche platform where there are fewer choices for buyers in the marketplace. Vbulletin, Prestashop, PHPFox, etc.
Also, if you stick to platforms where the user had to pay (like Vbulletin), you know they have a buying history.
Releasing a really nice free theme for one of these platforms can help establish a good reputation quickly as well.
Also, if you stick to platforms where the user had to pay (like Vbulletin), you know they have a buying history.
Releasing a really nice free theme for one of these platforms can help establish a good reputation quickly as well.
Finished my work for Theme #1
Haha, lol, of course not. I only finished the 10 PSDs. That's how it all looks:
I still have to re-check them all to make sure they are right, and write the documentation for them. Which is probably going to take a while too, although I'm using a template for it (it's the template offered by ThemeForest, you can download it if you have an account I believe).
And then I will submit it to ThemeForest.
• But Eduard, you said almost nobody buys the PSDs, and that anyway you will make it a single-page theme. Why are you putting so much effort into the PSDs?
1. To show you how it's done.
2. I will support all the various types of pages in my one-page WordPress and HTML versions of Passia. So don't misunderstand me: The user will be able to choose between the theme being single-page or multi-paged. I will just focus on the "one-page WordPress theme" part to appeal more to those who want a theme like this. That's my niche. Find your own.
3. I will include the PSDs into the HTML and WP versions of the theme to add more value, and I suggest you to do the same.
Ineffective marketing
I stopped at 11 subscribers for my newsletter of theme giveaways and freebies. And the worst thing is, I can't really figure out why.
Twitter followers stopped growing too (600 right now), Pinterest followers are growing but slowly. I will just believe that it is just a bad time and keep working on my marketing.
And, of course, you should too.
And alsooo...
This is a very good idea, but I believe I have picked my niche already (although I understand that I might be very, very wrong). Readers of this thread should, in my opinion, keep this in mind when choosing the audience for which to build their themes.
But, for now, I'm off to work. Will be back as soon as I have something interesting to say.
Haha, lol, of course not. I only finished the 10 PSDs. That's how it all looks:
I still have to re-check them all to make sure they are right, and write the documentation for them. Which is probably going to take a while too, although I'm using a template for it (it's the template offered by ThemeForest, you can download it if you have an account I believe).
And then I will submit it to ThemeForest.
• But Eduard, you said almost nobody buys the PSDs, and that anyway you will make it a single-page theme. Why are you putting so much effort into the PSDs?
1. To show you how it's done.
2. I will support all the various types of pages in my one-page WordPress and HTML versions of Passia. So don't misunderstand me: The user will be able to choose between the theme being single-page or multi-paged. I will just focus on the "one-page WordPress theme" part to appeal more to those who want a theme like this. That's my niche. Find your own.
3. I will include the PSDs into the HTML and WP versions of the theme to add more value, and I suggest you to do the same.
Ineffective marketing
I stopped at 11 subscribers for my newsletter of theme giveaways and freebies. And the worst thing is, I can't really figure out why.
Twitter followers stopped growing too (600 right now), Pinterest followers are growing but slowly. I will just believe that it is just a bad time and keep working on my marketing.
And, of course, you should too.
And alsooo...
This is a very good idea, but I believe I have picked my niche already (although I understand that I might be very, very wrong). Readers of this thread should, in my opinion, keep this in mind when choosing the audience for which to build their themes.
But, for now, I'm off to work. Will be back as soon as I have something interesting to say.
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