Tag Archives: Acquires

Awesome Motive Acquires Sandhills Development

[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, there were a number of acquisitions in the WordPress space. Awesome Motive acquired Sandhills Development, the company behind Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, WP Simple Pay, Sugar Calendar, WP Simple Pay, and the Payouts Service. Meanwhile, LearnDash joined StellarWP and Liquid Web’s growing family of brands. Beyond that, the new update on the WordPress core editor makes it easier to add a title to a group of blocks and allows you to group any block. We also have a lot of news, tutorials, and roundup posts for you as usual. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link

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Keanan Koppenhaver Acquires WP Pusher and Branch – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WordPress developer Keanan Koppenhaver announced today that he has acquired WP Pusher and Branch from Peter Suhm. WP Pusher, a product we have covered for the past six years, allows users to deploy plugins and themes from popular code hosting services like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. In 2018, Suhm expanded his offerings to include Branch, a Docker-based continuous integration service for WordPress. Both products were selected for the TinySeed Startup Accelerator, a remote accelerator that funds early-stage SaaS founders to live for a year and focus full-time on their startups. “I raised money from TinySeed and a few angels to build Branch, but wasn’t able to find enough traction to get it to a point where it would be sustainable,” Suhm said. Earlier this year, Suhm began working on reform.app, a form builder. He described Branch as a “set it and forget it” product that didn’t require much support, as he had closed it for new signups. WP Pusher also required minimal support and had been stable for years. “It wasn’t really the time that was a problem for me, it was more the mental overhead of having the responsibility,” Suhm said. “I quickly realized that Reform probably aligned better with my goals and wanted to focus 100% on starting that business. Selling WP Pusher and Branch allowed me to work on Reform, without needing to necessarily raise money or have a job.” In contrast to the rash of smaller WordPress product companies getting scooped up by larger ones lately, WP Pusher and Branch will retain their “indie” status. The products are being transferred from Suhm’s one-man company to another. “I knew Keanan because we had been working on getting his agency on Branch awhile back and knew he was a great guy,” Suhm said. “I wouldn’t sell WP Pusher to whomever, because it’s basically what I’m known for in the WordPress space and its reputation means a lot to me.” Koppenhaver had been searching for a WordPress product to acquire when he happened to be tagged in responses to Suhm’s tweet. He didn’t have the free cash so he spent some time fundraising to make the deal happen. Who’s buying WordPress plugin businesses these days (at mid 5 digit ARR level)? — Peter Suhm (@petersuhm) May 16, 2021 “I’m looking forward to integrating GitHub Actions with WP Pusher, focusing pretty heavily on tutorials and content for both products, re-opening Branch for new users and getting the Billable Hours podcast going again,” Koppenhaver said. When asked if he has any pricing changes planned for WP Pusher, he said, “Not at the moment.” Existing customers can expect no changes for now and may even see some improvements to their current plans. “I definitely want to focus on filling in any gaps that the current users see in the product and especially adding value to the higher level plans,” Koppenhaver said. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Awesome Motive Acquires Sandhills Development – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Awesome Motive, the company behind OptinMonster, WPForms, MonsterInsights, and other popular WordPress plugins, has acquired Sandhills Development. The deal includes all of the company’s WordPress products and services: Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, WP Simple Pay, Sugar Calendar, WP Simple Pay, and the Payouts Service. The majority of the development team will be joining Awesome Motive to continue supporting the products. In a personal farewell to the WordPress community, Sandhills Development founder Pippin Williamson confesses he lost his passion for WordPress and the web: In the last few years I discovered a truth about myself: I had lost my passion for the web and building software products. I used to absolutely adore WordPress and building plugins to extend it and power businesses. That passion helped create amazing platforms that have helped tens of thousands of businesses grow, succeed, and thrive on the web, and I am so immensely proud of that. But when the passion is gone, the drive and motivation to build great things leaks away as well. It has been several years since I last felt truly inspired and motivated to build something with WordPress. Sandhills Development has created an iconic and beloved suite of products with more than 100,000 users. Its Payouts Service paid out over a million dollars to affiliates in May and is on track to pass $2M this year. The service has more than 6,500 individuals and businesses registered and able to receive deposits and more than 1,350 businesses setup to pay their affiliates. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed but Williamson has always been transparent about Sandhills’ financials. In last year’s summary he disclosed that the company brought in $4,331,814.12 in revenue from plugin sales, affiliate agreements, services, real estate, and payout processing, with a net profit of $232,201 after heavily investing in new projects and payroll increases. Many of Awesome Motive’s products use EDD, so the company has a vested interest in the product’s future, alongside others in the WordPress ecosystem who depend on it. Williamson explained in his announcement why he selected Awesome Motive as the new home for his products: Awesome Motive has been an innovator in WordPress for more than a decade and during that time they have built infrastructures, processes, and a level of polish rarely seen in the WordPress industry. The learnings and strategies that have made Awesome Motive so successful will be applied to the whole suite of Sandhills products, making the products better than ever before and at a pace previously unseen by our customers. Despite Williamson’s professed confidence in Awesome Motive, multiple sources inside Sandhills Development expressed reservations about the deal. The company was called to an all-hands meeting where employees were given the option to jump ship or continue on with Awesome Motive. “Well the thing that made this the most frustrating was that there was little room for discussion, or choice,” one source said. “We were given a very short heads-up (2 weeks), and no opportunity to discuss employment terms. Basically it was ‘in two weeks, you’re working for Awesome Motive, or you are out of a job.’” Awesome Motive currently employees more than 200 people across 36 countries. For years, the company has been known for its aggressive sales tactics and upsells in the WordPress admin. These concerns, along with the change in culture from Sandhills, gave some employees reason to pause when considering the change. “Given AM’s questionable business practices, such as using screen recorders on many employees’ laptops, trigger happy firing tendencies, and incredibly aggressive non-competes, it felt like we were being coerced to work for a company that was so, so far from the fundamental values that brought us to Sandhills in the first place,” one source within the company said. Despite this criticism, the same source said they believe “every product acquired will become considerably better,” with Awesome Motive’s investment. “Going into the meeting with Syed, I’d describe the prevailing sentiment as cautiously optimistic,” Sandhills’ former Director of Operations Kyle Maurer said. “Obviously none of us were involved in this decision; that was Pippin only. We didn’t ask for this and didn’t know what to expect. But our many questions have been answered and at this point everyone is wholly on board. Syed’s excitement and enthusiasm are infectious and, along with his team, he’s done a tremendous job welcoming and accommodating us. It feels like new energy has been injected into the organization and I’m personally very optimistic about the future.” Awesome Motive Founder and CEO Syed Balkhi confirmed that in the past the company has used time tracking software on its employees but “shifted away from doing so as the vast majority of our employees are on full-time salary now.” “Many people may think of AM as one large company, but I always see us as a collection of over a dozen small companies,” Balkhi said. “Each product team operates independently and will continue to do so.” Balkhi confirmed that no pricing changes are planned for the products. He said Awesome Motive also plans to share several internal tools the company has built for EDD to help scale the business. Acquisitions are ramping up in the WordPress space, with major players like Automattic and hosting companies scooping up smaller businesses and plugins to create a suite of products tailored to their users. Some question whether this is a healthy part of a maturing ecosystem or a trend that may stifle the unique range of diverse, smaller products that have always been available to WordPress users. “I know that our goal is to help small businesses grow and compete with the big guys, and our growth is a result of us living true to our mission,” Balkhi said. “We never set out to become investors. “As you can see the products that join AM — the founders have been around for a long time and they know of us already. Founders choose to join us because we are an independent bootstrapped business not some big PE /venture-backed corporation.”

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StellarWP Acquires Learning Management System LearnDash – WP Tavern

[ad_1] StellarWP announced today that it acquired LearnDash, a learning management system (LMS) for WordPress. The product allows educators to create online courses, quizzes, and dynamic content. LearnDash will continue to operate autonomously, keeping its team intact. In May, Liquid Web launched its new umbrella brand, StellarWP, alongside its acquisition of Impress.org and its flagship product, GiveWP. iThemes, The Events Calendar, Restrict Content Pro, and Kadence WP are included in this family. Each of the brands operates independently. Essentially, StellarWP functions as a “branded house” but is very much a “house of brands,” according to Chris Lema, who will be switching roles and taking the General Manager position for LearnDash. The LearnDash acquisition is StellarWP’s largest to date, but the company did not provide a specific dollar amount. The LMS market size grew to $10.84 billion in 2020. It is projected to increase to over $13 billion in 2021, according to Fortune Business Insights. However, when asked why the company was jumping into the space, Lema talked about the vision. “The way I think about things is less about the bottom line and more about the larger vision,” he said. “At Liquid Web, we believe that things will continue to get more abstracted for customers. They will want, less and less, to deal with the complexities of hosting. They don’t really want ‘managed’ hosting or even ‘managed WordPress’ hosting. They want a hosted solution. In other words, they want a solution that works. If they need it hosted, great. If they already have a host, great. So we’ve been focused on building a solutions-orientation toward folks who are doing digital commerce or are building digital commerce solutions for their customers.” He said that LearnDash fits perfectly into that vision for the company. In some ways, the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020 may have hit the fast-forward button in many online sectors. The landscape shifted for small and large businesses. More people have had opportunities to take online courses or even create their own. “Yes, we saw a dramatic increase in the take rate on online learning platforms across the entire space,” said Lema. “Last year saw a COVID dip for many, but for online learning, it was a bump. That said, I think we’re seeing the numbers drop back down a bit into a more normal but elevated range based on what happened last year. And most importantly, more people than ever have tried their hands at online learning, and I don’t think that’s going to stop.” Now that Liquid Web and StellarWP have built a library of multiple products, one question is how the company might begin to tie them together. There are some easy wins with cross-product integration that would fit into the vision of selling solutions. “Yes, we think so too,” said Lema. “RCP and LearnDash, GiveWP and LearnDash, LearnDash and Nexcess, and more. I think we’ll see a lot of collaborations across the StellarWP brands. But to be clear, each brand runs independently, so for LearnDash, we’re still focused on all sorts of other integrations, from chat to testimonials to CRM to better Zoom integration.” While he did not offer any specifics, it is likely in the cards in some form. Each of these is robust a product that, when used together, can provide a powerful toolset for building commerce-based websites. Lema wrote a more in-depth post on his personal blog about integrations being a vital strategy for business growth. He shared a riddle that he likened to the WordPress ecosystem. “I thought about it because it’s a bit of a parable for how I see so many product owners in the WordPress ecosystem build their plugins – as if there’s no one else in the world, building anything else that a customer might use with their product,” he wrote. We will have to wait to see what sort of integrations LearnDash might have in the future. For now, the team is working on the roadmap for its updated course grid and version 4.0 feature release. The update should include dynamic learning paths. “The reality in online learning is that students don’t move in a linear fashion through material like the instructor always hopes,” said Lema. “Or maybe an instructor wants to support an almost choose-your-own-adventure approach. I know in my coaching, I don’t move everyone through the same lessons in the same order. So we’re excited to innovate in this space.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Automattic Acquires Social Image Generator Plugin, Plans to Integrate with Jetpack – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Automattic has acquired the Social Image Generator plugin, a commercial product that automatically creates social share images for WordPress content from a set of fully customizable templates. The plugin launched in February 2021, with a starting price of $39/year but is now closed to new sales. Daniel Post, the plugin’s creator, is joining Automattic to continue developing it as a new addition to Jetpack’s social media tools. Automattic is always on the prowl for companies that are doing something interesting in the WordPress ecosystem. The Social Image Generator plugin expertly captured a new niche with an interface that feels like a natural part of WordPress and impressed our chief plugin critic, Justin Tadlock, in a recent review. “Automattic approached me and let me know they were fans of my plugin,” Post said. “And then we started talking to see what it would be like to work together. We were actually introduced by Chris Coyier from CSS-Tricks, who uses both our products.” The Social Image Generator plugin has always been a commercial-only product, which tends to limit a plugin’s reach within a market that has been so heavily trained on the freemium model. Its acquisition will undoubtedly get it into the hands of more WordPress users. “I briefly considered building a freemium plugin but I decided to focus on paid licenses to make sure I could provide great support to all users and, frankly, to see how well it would be received compared to a freemium plugin,” Post said. Current customers will be able to continue using the plugin “without any changes in the near term,” according to the announcement on the Jetpack blog. Those who have strong opinions about the long-term future of the plugin are encouraged to schedule a session with Jetpack Customer Research to open a dialogue. “I look forward to the future functionality and user experience improvements that will come out of this acquisition,” Jetpack General Manager James Grierson said. “The goal of our social product is to help content creators expand their audience through increased distribution and engagement. Social Image Generator will be a key component of helping us deliver this to our customers.“ I would not be surprised to see this plugin available on one of Jetpack’s paid tiers in the near future, alongside the Publicize module’s other paid features (scheduling social media posts, tracking and viewing sharing history, and re-sharing existing content). Social Image Generator makes WordPress content more engaging on social media, has built-in support for WooCommerce, and can be extended for use with other plugins. It’s a strategic acquisition where Automattic gains an engineer as well as a new way to make Jetpack subscriptions more compelling. “We are still figuring out our exact approach, but the initial plans are to integrate the Social Image Generator features with the existing Jetpack social tools like Publicize,” Post said. “The ability to see exactly what your social media post will look like before publishing it right from your WordPress site is incredible, and a big reason why I’m so excited about this acquisition.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Weekly WordPress News: Automattic Acquires Frontity

[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, Automattic acquired Frontity, an open-source React framework for WordPress-powered websites. The Frontity founders will apply their expertise to the Gutenberg project full-time. Beyond that, WordPress 5.8.1 release candidate is out and available for testing. This release features 41 bug fixes on Core, as well as 20 bug fixes for the Block Editor. We also have a lot of news, tutorials, and roundup posts for you. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link

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Automattic Acquires Frontity, Founders to Work Full-Time on Gutenberg – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Frontity co-founders Pablo Postigo and LuisHerranz Automattic has acquired Frontity, the company behind an open source framework for building WordPress themes with React. The acquisition comes more than a year after the company raised €1M in funding in a round led by K Fund, with Automattic covering 22%. Frontity co-founders Pablo Postigo and Luis Herranz and their team will no longer be developing and maintaining the framework. Their new focus will be on contributing to the WordPress open source project and improving the full site editing developer experience. “After a series of conversations, Automattic offered to sponsor our team to work directly on the WordPress open source project,” Frontity’s founders said in the announcement. “In particular, to contribute our expertise in developer experience, frontend tooling, performance, and UX to the WordPress core itself, instead of doing so only for an external tool.” In a separate FAQ document, Frontity clarified that this acquisition does not mean the framework will be merged into WordPress, nor does it mean the team plans to bring React into the WordPress PHP or full site editing themes. The founders intend to apply their expertise to the Gutenberg project full time: Even though Frontity is a React framework, it doesn’t mean that we are going to push React to the WordPress frontend. We will look at the Gutenberg and full site editing space to identify those areas in which our work could have the most significant impact, and work closely with the WordPress community to help improve its developer experience. WordPress is already the best content platform on the web. We want to help it become the best development platform on the web. In addition to putting the Frontity team on improving developer experience, Automattic is also investing in other ways that expand its support of the Gutenberg project. The company has recently hired a new head of developer relations who is building out a team tasked with improving the developer experience with Gutenberg and full-site editing. Birgit Pauli-Haack is a new member of that team and Automattic is also sponsoring her curation of the Gutenberg Times publication and the Changelog Podcast. Frontity Framework Will Transition to a Community-Led Project As the result of the acquisition and the team’s reassignment to working on Gutenberg, Frontity’s founders are transitioning the framework to be a community-led project. The team has prepared to leave the project in “a stable, bug-free position,” with documentation regarding what features they were working on. The framework is used by many companies and agencies, including high profile sites like the TikTok Creator Portal, popular Catholic news site Aleteia, and Diariomotor, a popular Spanish automotive publication. “As far as we know, Automattic is not using Frontity Framework in any of its products,” Frontity CEO and co-founder Pablo Postigo said. “But we know there are a lot of Automatticians who have been following our progress closely.  “We are aware that WordPress VIP does recommend Frontity for decoupled solutions, too. We are sure our experience and knowledge might be of help for this team as well.” The departure of Frontity’s founders and team introduces some uncertainty into the future of the framework. When asked if it can survive as a community-led project, Postigo was optimistic but not certain. “We still think that Frontity Framework is the best way to run a decoupled WordPress site with React and that this will be the case for a long time,” Postigo said. “It is still too early to know what will happen. Frontity has a great community behind it, there are a lot of great projects which are using the framework in production, and there’s also a nice group of really active contributors. We feel really positive about the future of the framework.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Termly Acquires GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner, Turns Free Plugin Into a Commercial SaaS Product – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Company A sells its plugin. Company B picks it up and moves forward with an overhauled version that looks and feels much different than the original. Users are outraged by the changes. It seems to be a repeating theme in 2021, almost as a rule rather than an exception. Last month, Termly announced its acquisition of the GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner plugin. The plugin was a simple tool for adding and styling a consent banner for the front end. It is now a SaaS (Software as a Service) product that requires a Termly account to operate. According to the team’s blog post, such changes were necessary. “Termly’s products, including the cookie consent management platform, are designed to cover the EU GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, UK GDPR, and the CCPA. These laws require more than just a cookie consent banner to be compliant. Termly can help you build a privacy policy, create a Data Subject Access Request form, and comply with other privacy law requirements.” In the past couple of weeks, users have taken to the WordPress.org review system, handing out 21 of the plugin’s 29 total one-star ratings. The project has over 200,000 users, so more should be expected if the general consensus is that this was a poor move by the company. One of the complaints from users is the commercialization of the plugin. In the past, it was completely free to use. While there is still a free tier, users are limited to a mere 100 monthly unique visitors on a single domain. After hitting that limit, the banner will stop collecting consent records. The next level up costs $15 per month if paid annually. New pricing options for the Termly service. As Pattaya Web Services pointed out via Twitter, “GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent Banner for #Wordpress has been purchased by #Termly and will now cost most website owners $180 per year.” Termly must get a return on its investment. The company has developers to pay, and they have families to feed. But, I suspect the average user will not warm up to the so-limiting-that-it-is-free-in-name-only introduction level. Having to pay for features that have been free for years will not sit well with many. Of course, there is always the option of using the old version, but Termly has no plans of maintaining it or ensuring that it meets compliance. The only alternative for small site owners who cannot afford to pay is to opt for another solution. “I guess GDPR Cookie Consent banner, now operated by @Termly_io didn’t learn anything from [the] fiasco with WP User Avatar plugin reported by @wptavern earlier this year,” wrote user Gennady Kurushin on Twitter. I believe they did. There are differences, and Termly’s handling of this showed a willingness to be transparent. And, I cannot stress this enough: the new plugin is not an entirely different one unrelated to its core purpose. It was overhauled and turned into a SaaS product. At the end of the day, it is still a cookie consent management plugin — just different and costs a lot more for most users. Unlike Dark Mode and ProfilePress, Termly did not make the changes in the dead of night. At least the company was upfront about everything. The team included an announcement in a point release two weeks before sending out the overhauled version. It disabled automatic updates so that users would not accidentally upgrade without being aware of what was coming. It even published a public blog post detailing what was happening. Prior notice of upcoming changes in 3.0 and disabled auto-updates. If anything, Termly took just about all the necessary steps it could have taken to prepare its user base. If a “right” way existed for a complete and utter makeover of a plugin, the company did as much. That level of honesty is a bit more than we have seen in the past. The changes may still leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many users, but Termly should at least get a few points for making them in the light of day. The result may be the same: fundamental changes in how the plugin operates, but users had a chance to ditch it or continue using the old version before anything went into effect. For some users, it may not be much, but that’s worth something. I won’t be breaking out my pitchfork today, but I do not use the plugin. As more and more users upgrade to 3.0+ and realize they are essentially on the line for $180 per year, the reviews could get ugly. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Automattic Acquires Pocket Casts – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Automattic has acquired Pocket Casts, a popular podcast listening, search, and discovery app for Android and iOS. Australian co-founders Russell Ivanovic and Philip Simpson are staying on to continue leading Pocket Casts as a part of the acquisition. The app allows users to keep all of their podcast subscriptions together in one place and sync between platforms. Previously a commercial-only app, Pocket Casts has been free since it switched to the freemium model in September 2019. Its creators have been monetizing the app through its Pocket Cast Plus tier, which gives users access to desktop apps, cloud storage, watch playback, and themes and icons for $9.99/year. In May 2018, Pocket Casts was acquired by public media organizations NPR, WNYC Studios, WBEZ Chicago, and This American Life. BBC Studios also held a small ownership stake in the platform prior to Automattic’s acquisition. Despite being widely regarded as one of the best podcasting apps available, NPR’s financial statements and auditor’s report from 2020 shows a net loss of more than $800K. The board governing the company met in December 2020 and agreed to sell Pocket Casts. No financial details of the acquisition were disclosed but Automattic may have gotten a bargain on Pocket Casts if its other owners were also losing money. After acquiring Tumblr and Day One, Automattic is starting to gain a reputation for buying up apps that people love to use and giving them a fighting chance at financial stability and longevity. The company has also demonstrated a growing interest in podcasting-related technologies with its recent investment in Castos and partnership with Spotify’s Anchor podcast creation platform. Acquisition announcements often include assurances of no changes for current customers but Automattic’s post made no promises and did not share many details regarding its plans for Pocket Casts. Integration with WordPress.com may be on the horizon but it’s currently in the exploration stage. “As part of Automattic, Pocket Casts will continue to provide you with the features needed to enjoy your favorite podcasts (or find something new),” Automattic’s Head of Apps Eli Budelli said. “We will explore building deep integrations with WordPress.com and Pocket Casts, making it easier to distribute and listen to podcasts. We’re thrilled that we can continue to give our users a multitude of ways to tell and engage with stories that matter.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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Awesome Motive Acquires SearchWP – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Awesome Motive, the company behind MonsterInsights, OptinMonster, WPForms, and several other popular products, has acquired SearchWP, a commercial plugin that enhances WordPress’ search functionality. No changes have been announced for the plugin and Awesome Motive CEO Syed Balkhi says it will be “business as usual” for current customers. “We have built a lot of internal tools to improve our website search that I’m really looking forward to sharing with the WordPress community,” Balkhi said. “We will be combining Jon’s vision with our own experience, so you can literally have the best search plugin in the industry without the high costs.” In 2013, when Jon Christopher launched SearchWP, he quickly carved out a slice of the WordPress search market among early competitors. The freemium model was already popular in those days with plugins like Relevanssi, but Christopher chose to launch SearchWP as a commercial-only product. “There was already freemium competition, and I felt that the pricing model (which is the same today) was stronger given the product itself,” Christopher said. “I saw the pricing model as something that would help SearchWP stand out, and I also wanted to avoid opening the doors to overwhelming amounts of support requests right from the start. “I had no idea if SearchWP would be successful given the landscape, I built it first to scratch my own itch while knowing that even if no one bought it, I would 100% use it in my own work, and use it a lot.” His gamble paid off and the plugin has been used on more than 30,000 WordPress sites. Christopher had one support contractor but otherwise had been running the business alone for the past eight years. WordPress’ growing market share has made one-person plugin businesses difficult to maintain once they become very popular, as seen in the recent sale of ACF to Delicious Brains. “I was looking ahead and considering what would be best for SearchWP’s customers,” Christopher said. “I want SearchWP to live as long as it possibly can. If I’m by myself it’s a bit of a risk to continue that way as the business continues to grow. I know that I prefer to build things from the ground up, and I also know that I’m not the guy to build (or manage) a team, it’s not my strong suit. Given all of those pieces it was clear to me that it was a good time to consider selling.” Christopher described the 2013 WordPress ecosystem as more “scrappy,” as developers launched product businesses and worked to figure it out along the way. “There are pros and cons to an environment like that, but it was fantastic from my perspective,” he said. “Over time that feeling went away as companies grew, matured, and playbooks began to take shape. That cycle has continued over time and especially in the last 18 months we’re getting a look at where WordPress is headed – lots of big players in a really big space.” For those who are jumping into the waters with a new product business, Christopher underscored the need for strong marketing. “I think that a lack of serious marketing will in fact be a limiter in today’s WordPress economy,” he said. “Products that have been around a long time have a natural momentum that’s really tough to beat, but that momentum doesn’t come without friction. In order to keep up with where WordPress is going, I do feel like you need assets (and capital) aimed directly and solely at marketing for the long haul.” Balkhi did not elaborate on Awesome Motive’s immediate plans for the search plugin but said the company will be executing on a 12-month plan to make it easier for beginners and non-technical business owners to set up in less than 10 minutes. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link

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