EnglishThemes launch phase begins
My second theme shop is in the starting blocks and will be available in a few weeks. The launch phase of EnglishThemes has begun and I would like to write a few words about it here in my blog. Further information is then available at EnglishThemes.de .
A new theme shop
Regular readers of my blog have probably noticed that I've been working on a second theme shop for months. As is so often the case, my planned schedules were a bit unrealistic and the planned start at the end of 2018 could not be kept.
But now the time will come soon.
In the meantime, nine blocks for Gutenberg and five business themes have been completed and the time has come for a first release. Basically I have only implemented a fraction of my ideas and planned features, but it is time to collect initial feedback on the market. In the next few months, the portfolio of themes and blocks will be expanded significantly.
Focus on Gutenberg Blocks
The main product is actually less the themes, but flexible layout blocks for the new Gutenberg editor. Despite all the construction sites, I am absolutely convinced of the immense potential that blocks offer and wanted to get involved in this area from the start.
As a result, most of the time and work went into developing the blocks, not least because getting started with JavaScript and React involved a lot of learning. But now I feel very well equipped for the future of WordPress.
Even if my new project should fail, the work of the last few months has been worth it. For OneTheme, a switch to the new blocks is ultimately also imminent. This is where phase 2 by Gutenberg becomes particularly interesting when widgets are transformed into blocks.
For the German-speaking market
With OneTheme , all my themes are listed on WordPress.org and WordPress.com. The majority of the traffic and sales therefore come from these marketplaces, which creates a certain dependency. With the entry of new providers and the mass of themes, competition there becomes more intense, even if the model is still working well.
For my second mainstay, I quickly wanted to set up my own platform and market the shop myself. With the abandonment of Themeforest and WP.org, the acquisition of customers will be much more difficult, but in the long term I see many advantages in terms of branding, customer loyalty and the stability of the business model.
My new shop is initially very focused on WordPress products for small and medium-sized companies in German-speaking countries. Hopefully, the niche focus will make marketing easier. For later, I can definitely imagine expanding the offer (e.g. themes for wooCommerce) and internationalization.
Out of this focus the not too creative, but very appropriate name arose:
The launch phase of EnglishThemes
It will be a while before EnglishThemes is launched. The themes and blocks are almost ready, the main thing missing is the actual shop website.
For this, the following tasks are still on the program:
- Custom theme for EnglishThemes.de
- Setup of the online shop with Easy Digital Downloads
- Configuration of the license system and automatic updates
- Set business model and prices
- Create all texts and documentation
- Creation of product demos for blocks and themes
- Testing testing testing
There is still a lot of work to do before we can finally start. I think it will take a couple of weeks and EnglishThemes will go live sometime in March.
Subscribe now and don't miss a thing
The first coming soon page, the newsletter and profiles on Twitter and Facebook are now online. The launch phase of EnglishThemes is now officially initiated. The Theme Killer blog is supposed to provide mostly useful WordPress tutorials and plugin reviews, so I will make further information and announcements, especially via the shop's channels.
You can follow the start of my new shop on Twitter and Facebook . There will be bigger updates via newsletter , so it's worth subscribing.
You can also find all the information at EnglishThemes.de
Hello again. You have a lot to do there. I have a slightly different opinion on one point, namely on the subject of the Gutenberg Editor. Just wrote the second part about my Gutenberg experiences. In the first part I wrote about the "Why?" (Problems with other plug-ins, such as surveys, not being able to process (with source code or in normal mode) of some blocks ... The intention is not bad - unfortunately the result is even more so Comments, which are left in the source texts, inflate the code even more. I wish you a pleasant evening and send my best regards!
Hello Martin,
I can fully understand your opinion. The new editor still has some "teething problems" and bugs; usability definitely needs to be improved. But I am quite confident that these problems will all be resolved in the long term and that the concept of blocks will prevail. Let's wait and see what improvements the upcoming updates bring.
Many Greetings,
Brian
Thanks for the contribution, the information, the insight and outlook. I think this openness is great, rather seldom in the German-speaking WordPress area, I think (at least as far as business is concerned). I wish you a lot of success and I'm looking forward to your products 😉
I am currently far from being a "Gutenberg friend", often doing the opposite on many days, sometimes walking up the wall (!) ... But since the Gutenberg plug-in was released sometime in 2017, I have been playing and I try out the "thing" every week, and a whole bunch of Gutenberg or block plugins. I've always liked the basic principle - widgets were basically the ancestors. And widgets have always been a specialty of WP. I think it takes a long time for the whole thing to mature - but the current pace of Core and Gutenberg development is poison for that.
So far, many theme and plugin developers have ironed out what has been going wrong in the core since Gutenberg. But this cannot go on forever. It takes more togetherness and listening to each other, also and especially in the direction of core devs, users, developers, agencies etc. should listen better.
In any case: Thank you for your work, good luck for the launch, the business, etc.! I'm really excited to see what's coming! 😉
Hi David,
Thank you for your comment and the great feedback, I'm really happy 🙂
You are addressing a lot of good points here. In fact, it was and is difficult to develop for Gutenberg. The pace is rapid, there were constant changes and the APIs were anything but stable. Like so many in the community, I wasn't enthusiastic about the project management and the early release in December, even if in retrospect it went surprisingly smoothly. All communication really needs to get better.
When it comes to widgets, I'm really excited about the upcoming conversion from widgets to blocks, and how themes can register different areas for blocks. Together with block templates, this is the feature for me, which will probably completely change the development of themes. I think the really profound changes are still ahead of us when blocks are gradually rolled out across the entire website.
Many Greetings,
Brian