WordPress Topanga Meetup. Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges

WordPress Topanga, California Meetup Presentation.

Transcript

1. Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges
2. R E A C H M E
3. My personal journey with WordPress The WooThemes story as a pioneering in the WordPress business space. I want you to hear the potential for WordPress to impact business and society. (but by no means a road map) WooCommerce, using WordPress to Sell online and lessons I’ve learned in Business Development at WC What I’d like to Cover
4. My Background -From a town called Moorpark -Entrepreneur -Gadget geek and former website hack -Passionate about social justice and helping others -Worked in sales and in the oil industry while studying in the US before heading off to South Africa at age 23 (7 years ago) -Basketball coach
5. Why South Africa?
10. How did I end up at Woo?
11. ColorProducts.co.za
12. The Quick Story
13. Premium Themes, Plugins & eCommerce for WordPress.!
16. Bootstrapped Community Driven Industry Specific Beautiful Themes = Incredible Growth
17. Enter a Free WordPress shopping cart + open-source - free to do anything with it + community developed 200+ contributors + backed by a respected company + support in every timezone + rapidly growing user base + hundreds of extensions
 ______________________ = DREAM COME TRUE for Many People
18. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L What can you do with WooCommerce?
19. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Publish Your Products
20. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Publish Your Products
21. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Shopping Cart
22. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Checkout
23. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Manage Orders
24. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Payments
25. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Shipping
26. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Reports
27. Extensions Payments Shipping Fulfillment Inventory Management Reporting Accounting Subscriptions Marketing
28. WooCommerce 1.0 0 downloads 1 x free theme 6 x official themes 9 x official extensions Sept 2011 Oct 2011 14,000 downloads 10 x official themes 20 x official extensions WooCommerce 1.4 45,000 downloads 16 x official themes 52 x official extensions Jan 2012 310,000 downloads 24 x official themes 145 x official extensions 30+ 3rd party themes 30+ 3rd party extensions Major Revenue Increases Sept 2012 June 2013 WooCommerce 2.0 1,000,000 downloads Dec 2013 WooCommerce 2.0 2,000,000 downloads Today WooCommerce 2.1 3,605,389+ downloads
29. Monitoring Product Growth and Market Growth Creating Relationships with Integration Partners Introduce Woo to companies we want to work with Co-Marketing The triple dip of partnerships My Role Grew organically
30. Challenges with Growth Monitoring in Open source Downloads, Purchases and Traffic Data are not enough
31. Growth Monitoring Mechanisms builtwith.com allowed us to see how many actual sites are using WooCommerce & WooThemes for the first time ever.
33. Country Specific Lists
34. Understanding our Sites Verticals
35. Understanding our Sites How & Where WooCommerce is Being Used
36. Team Growth
37. Scaling the Team
38. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Challenges with Growth Team Communication Company Culture Support Product Updates Working with 3rd Parties & 3rd Party Competitors Customer Education Sustainability and Change Band of Copy Cats
39. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L Community Driven Community Form WordPress.org Meetups Dev and Language Contributions Development of Free Products
40. W O O C O M M E R C E I N I S R A E L in ?
41. Destinations santamonicapier.org/
42. Clothing californiarepublicapparel.com/
43. Wine californiafruitwine.com/
44. californiadrummer.com Drum Products
45. pedegoelectricbikes.com Electric Bikes
46. Learn More
49. Thanks!