Mikey De Wildt: How to survive people discovering your plugin

Mikey talks about his plugin 'WordPress Backup to Dropbox' and the issues he has had to overcome as it grows in popularity. He also talks about 'extensions' as a viable way for plugin developers to make a little bit of money while keeping open source values.

Transcript

1. How to survive people
   discovering your plugin
   @michaeldewildt
   

   View Slide

2. Who has had their blog
   hacked?
   

   View Slide

3. Three options
   1. Move to a new host that provided it
   2. A premium WordPress plugin
   3. A free one that worked and was secure
   

   View Slide

4. Keep it simple stupid
   

   View Slide

5. Kept it simple stupid
   

   View Slide

6. People love K.I.S.S
   

   View Slide

7. All the numbers
   • 82,008 connected
   Dropbox accounts
   • 278 Facebook shares
   • 485 tweets
   • 215 Google +1’s
   • 15 languages
   

   View Slide

8. Growth
   is
   awesome!
   However...
   

   View Slide

9. Free software ain’t free to support
   The hidden costs include:
   • Software and hardware to code
   • Internet
   • Web servers, because it’s not
   going to sell itself
   • Support services, email just didn’t
   cut it
   • Coffee and beer, a lot of it
   

   View Slide

10. How can a free plugin
    cover its costs?
    

    View Slide

11. Research yielded three options
    1. Premium support => Neglects a lot of users
    2. Advertising => Tacky
    3. A premium version => ...
    

    View Slide

12. A premium version
    Status quo => Poor user experience
    

    View Slide

13. Why not
    sell
    extensions?
    

    View Slide

14. And make them easy to install
    Just as simple as installing a plugin:
    1. Purchase
    2. Download
    3. Configure
    All from within the WordPress admin!
    

    View Slide

15. View Slide

16. Can an approach like this
    work?
    

    View Slide

17. The answer is YES!
    http://nuttybeaver.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/van_damme_dancing.gif
    

    View Slide

18. Goals achieved
    Not only have my costs been covered,
    beer has been too!
    

    View Slide

19. So, how do you survive?
    1. Hold onto open source values
    • Keep your core product free
    2. Listen to your users
    • No matter how obscure their issue may be
    3. Make it viable
    • But don’t break the first two!
    

    View Slide

20. Question time
    @michaeldewildt #wpb2d
    http://wpb2d.com
    michael.dewildt@gmail.com
    Images purchased from iStockPhoto.com
    

    View Slide