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7 lessons learned while creating WP Plugins

Alkesh Miyani
October 12, 2019

7 lessons learned while creating WP Plugins

WordCamp Vadodara 2019 talk by Alkesh Miyani over the topic, "7 lessons learned while creating WP Plugins"

Alkesh spoke about lessons that he learned while started the WordPress plugin development journey as a product store after freelancer life. This is a real-life story to explore success and failure and balance of it. And also, he explored future visions of own plugin development store or become part of any existing plugins at wordpress.org.

Session Points that he covered during the session
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1. Brainstorming
2. Solve A Problem
3. Know Your Competitors
4. Plugin Pricing
5. Code Quality & Testing
6. Explore In Market
7. Follow Other Developers

And Bonus,
8. Convenience your clients

If you’re thinking to start your own product store as a part-time earner or business then this will be a good session to note down points before making that decision.

Ref. - https://2019.vadodara.wordcamp.org/7-lessons-learned-while-creating-wp-plugins-by-alkesh-miyani/

Alkesh Miyani

October 12, 2019
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Transcript

  1. - Alkesh Miyani… working with WordPress since 2012. - My

    Career Journey - Running my own digital agency, techeshta.com where we are doing 50% work as themes and plugins development for our clients. About me,
  2. 1. How many of you created plugins? 2. How many

    of you customized plugins for clients or while doing job at your company? 3. How many of you have approved plugins on any marketplace like at wordpress.org, CodeCanyon (Envato), TemplateMonster, etc. or on your own store too? Quick questions,
  3. 1. Brainstorming 2. Solve A Problem 3. Know Your Competitors

    4. Plugin Pricing 5. Code Quality & Testing 6. Explore In Market 7. Follow Other Developers Points we will cover today
  4. • Active your mind to get new plugin ideas from

    everywhere • Try to understand other plugins and check what’s missing? • Attend WordCamps, Meetups and live webinars to see what’s coming next with the WordPress
  5. Even, I can say that you may get a new

    plugin idea after listening my talk
  6. • Don’t copy of other plugin ideas • Don’t repeat

    same feature plugins • Don’t try to compete big market products • Follow any freelancer sites to know the problems (people are facing difficulties currently with which stuff?)
  7. Write a plugin scope first and discuss with others instead

    of making mistakes or feel that you’re on wrong track
  8. • Know your nearest competitors first • Decide whether to

    go as free or premium plugins • Make sure you have advanced planning of next version updates • What’s your customer support plan?
  9. • Ask yourself - “What’s best for me?” ❖Explore as

    free plugin / ❖Premium plugin / ❖Freemium model • See long vision (or plugin value) instead of earn money immediately
  10. First create your store with free good plugins (at-least more

    than 50+ active installs on wordpress.org) and then jump into premium plugins
  11. • Write comments with every functions, conditions and proper readme.txt

    to get approval speedy • Class based coding required for marketplace submission • Old version support - WP, PHP
  12. • Proper hooks availability with features • Do manual testing

    twice and recommend to do testing as zip upload • Better UI/UX required always • Detailed documentation with steps from zero to advanced level
  13. Think about, Your customer coming from Amazon jungle and using

    WordPress very first time with your plugin… Now!!!
  14. • Become a member of good social media groups at

    Facebook, LinkedIn where you will get your initial review • Launching offer or discounts for premium plugins • Send email newsletters to existing clients
  15. • Try to become support guy of other plugin stores

    • Become contributor of other plugins • Fork github repositories for new features instead of making complete new one
  16. • Convenience to create a separate plugin instead of lots

    of customizations with existing themes and plugins • Explore your idea to your existing clients who might be ready to invest and give you big market to earn money