making a living with wordpress in 2009

!"#$%&"'()*&+design & development for the social web

Making a living with WordPress in 2009

Peter Flaschner (@flashlight)Lucia Mancuso (@lulula)

The Blog Studio (@theblogstudio)

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

#WCT09#WPbucks

Introductions

Lucia Mancuso

Peter Flaschner

The Blog Studio

Founded in April 2004

Observed an opportunity to reach

a global market

Grew from just me to 5 full time people in

6 months with no funding, no debt (but

also no profit)

Worked in-house (literally) for about a

Went virtual for a couple of years

Moved into our current office a year

Clients includeTurner Broadcasting

UnicefThe US political right

+ over 100 more

Positioned ourselves as a high end shop

and concentrated our expertise on project

management and service.

Specialize WordPress and Expression

Engine

Team• project manager

• creative director

• senior developer

• front-end developer

• regular freelance designers

• regular freelance developers

• p/t book-keeper/finance guy

• p/t PR

Market History

Couple of things to consider:

1. Growth of supply side

2004 there were about 10 companies

IN THE WORLD doing business

oriented blog design

SXSW 06“How to make

money with your blog design skills”

2. Growth of demand side

Growth of blogosphere

2M blogs in April 2004

State of the Blogosphere / 2008

3. Growth of our capabilities

Increased sophistication of blog

+Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Move towards standards-based

websites (away from flash)

=Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Blog designers were really well positioned

to do general web design

In other words:bigger projects

&more opportunities

4. Introduction of viable “off the shelf”

site solutions

Good looking, well designed and put together, easy to

customize via back-end

5. Fall 2008 market crash

Clients looking to cut costs

What does the market look like

Shaky AND Promising

While $$ is tight, smart companies are investing on online

Clients KNOW they need to be in this

Clients are less willing to take risks

There are lots of ways for clients to

get a site

Off the shelf

Premium off the shelf

Semi custom

Full custom

Local designer/developer

“Off-shore”

Job board (elance)

Given all of the above, how can we

blog designers make a living?

We’re going to take a look at 10 strategies:

1. Full service

• Strategy

• IA

• UI design

• development

• CMS integration

• project management

• training

• documentation

• maintenance

Pro:Can land larger

projects

Pro:Work on fewer

projects at a time

Pro:Can exercise passion

for social media, marketing,

communications, design,

development, etc etcTuesday, May 12, 2009

Pro:Can charge a

premium for single point of contact

Con:Overhead

Con:Requires dedicated

project management

Con:Risk that a single

large client doesn’t pay

Con:Give up some

flexibility

2. Develop premium themes

Pro:Work once, get paid

while you sleep

Pro:No clients!

Pro:Did I say get paid while you sleep?

Con:Support

Con:Legality

Con:Prices are coming WAYYYYY down.

Competition is global

3. Develop premium plugins

There’s a lot of room in the marketplace

for supported plugins .

Pro: the whole getting paid while

you sleep thing

Con: support & legality

Con: upgrades and updates

4. Streamline your operations

Create base themes

Organize your code library. Snippets are

your friend.

Pro: efficiency & margins

Con: takes time to actually organize

5. Specialize in customizing existing

themes

Pro: MASSIVE market

Pro: Incredibly easy to get work

Con: clients don’t want to pay very

Con: Client expectations remain very high, despite

low cost

6. Do quick and dirty design/development

(high volume)

Pro: lots of work out there

Pro AND Con: very low touch/low service

Pro AND Con: Very form-based client communication

Con: Low satisfaction client/supplier

relationship

Con: Client expectations need to

be aggressively managed.

7. Offer specialized service

Just developer

Just designer

Just plugin developer

Just project manager

Just sales

Pro: specialists can usually charge a

premium

Con: you’d better like what you do

Con: really dependent on your

partners

8. Go super niche

Just build sites for basket weaving tulip

farmers

Consider if you can reach your super-

Trade journals, trade sites, conferences,

Pro: captive market

Pro: reuse hard-won knowledge

Pro: reuse strategy/components/etc

Con: limited niche size

Con: sensitive to competition

9. Offer additional services

Hosting

Email marketing

Social Media strategy

Training

Server maintenance

Pro: can generate ongoing revenue

Con: You have to know what you’re

10. Explore other platforms (less competition)

Expression Engine

Joomla

Drupal

Yadda yadda yadda

Pro: less competition

Con: learning curve

Our hard won advice

Think beta

Trust your instinct

Learn which projects to avoid

Good, Cheap, Quick: pick two

Charge for your time (all of it)

Get your link on the footer of the sites

you launch.

Consider your qualifications, your

time, your safety-net, and most

importantly, what are you passionate

about?Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Be willing to work your ass off

In conclusion

There’s a place for everyone in the

market

Figure out what you’re passionate about and do it

Consider your client’s needs, and be

respectful of their time and money

Let’s raise the caliber for everyone

Thanks!Peter Flaschner (@flashlight)

Lucia Mancuso (@lulula)The Blog Studio (@theblogstudio)

www.theblogstudio.com

making a living with wordpress in 2009

blog studio

peter flaschner

lucia mancuso

project management

premium

market

clients

sleep

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