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9seeds Founder Jon Brown Sponsors WordCamp Phoenix

WordCamp Phoenix Grows Open Source Community

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Last month 9seeds Founder Jon Brown attended WordCamp Phoenix, witnessing the growing WordPress community in Arizona. Held at a co-working space named Galvanize, the open venue offered plenty of seating and was a natural space to gather as WordPress users.

WordCamp Phoenix was smaller than expected at under 200 attendees (another larger version is planned for February 2018), and only showcased a single panel of speakers. Initially this seemed odd, but it meant that each speaker benefited from a larger crowd and that each attendee had exposure to new topics. The successful format illustrates that bigger isn’t always better.

WordCamp Phoenix attendees included a wide mix, with sponsors and advanced users mingling with beginning and intermediate users.

A beginner workshop was held alongside the speaker track on Saturday morning speakers for several hours, in the large co-working room. After the workshop concluded, speaker presentations and panel discussions could be heard and seen virtually in the extended space. It was a different approach, but seemed to be welcomed.

Session topics included the REST API, Business, Poetry, Data and Analytics, Security and others. You can see the schedule here.

Held the weekend before Halloween, the WordCamp Phoenix After Party turned into a costume party. The After Party was combined with local AIGA members who finished up their own conference that same weekend. All in all, WordCamp Phoenix proved to be a great way to grow the open source community and we are happy to have been able to attend the event and make many more friends in Phoenix.

 

9seeds dual store news

9seeds’ WordPress Theme Store Launched

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We are super excited to announce our 9seeds has completed the move of Web Savvy Marketing’s theme store and forums over to 9seeds.com!

Everything theme related from sales to support now occurs over here at our Theme Store. If you are an existing customer of WSM or 9seeds and ant to get to your existing account history it’s here at My Account and the support forums can be directly accessed via this link.

As many of you know immediately after the acquisition was announced Robert and I took over providing support but were doing so on WSM’s forums. We felt that would be the best way to intimately understand the running of the store and support forums. We also started making a plan on how to bring all that was there over to 9seeds.com.

Are two WordPress e-commerce stores better than one?

We considered merging the two stores for a long time. WSM’s WooCommerce installation has a long order and customer history selling Genesis Child Themes for over 5 years. Our site had an equally long order and customer history selling WordPress plugins for over 5 years, however using Easy Digital Downloads with software licensing and subscriptions.

In the end, we determined it was just way to much unnecessary work and far too likely to have bugs and issues that would cause customers grief.  So, we did what we tell our custom development clients all the time, “take it one step at a time.”

WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads or Something else?

For now, we have two storefronts on one domain: one for themes and one for plugins. You’ll notice a “Theme Cart” and “Plugin Cart” up in the top menu. That might be a little confusing to some but we suspect it’s extremely unlikely any of you are going to try to buy one of our themes and one of our plugins at the same time, at least in the near term.

A lot of you are probably wondering since we’re now working with both if we really like WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads better. The answer is no, we like them both and more. Really. We remember a time when the only e-commerce solution for WordPress was WP e-commerce. In fact, we even built a couple of commercial plugins for WPEC many years ago, one was sold to another maintainer and the other we still actively sell.

In fact, these days there are several great options for e-commerce on WordPress including not just those, but iThemes Exchange and Freemius and a bunch of others.

We may settle on one solution to rule them all at a later date, but for now, we don’t want to give up EDD’s Software Licensing and updates for our plugin sales. Nor do we don’t want to give up WooCommerce’s follow up email system and cart experience.

We will share more on this in the coming months as things evolve, rest assured one of our aims continue to be to make things painless for all our existing and future customers.

A Smooth Transition for Customers

We think we’ve got all the kinks worked out for now. If you notice anything amiss, please let us know and we’ll get it fixed up right away. We want your experience at the 9seeds theme and plugin store to be the best possible.

Of course, I also know many of you want to hear news about new themes and plugins. Those are coming very soon and are in final testing now that the store/forum merge is behind us that the store work is behind us, so stay tuned!

9seeds Improves WordPress as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

Supporting WordPress Locally as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

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We love watching the WordPress community grow as well as help facilitate that this year as WordCamp Los Angeles sponsors. Attending the camp this year, we were pleased to see record numbers of attendees in workshops, sessions and conversation. The WordPress community has developed quickly in the last decade. We are grateful to have watched and contributed to that growth.

Although our donation, as WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors, builds community in California, it also benefits WordPress users globally. Were you aware that each WordCamp forwards excess, unused sponsorship funds to the next camp? That means that our sponsorship changes lives in Los Angeles and also benefits newer camps, such as WordCamp Ahmedabad in India. How amazing is that?!

9seeds is dedicated to supporting open source software and are grateful that WordPress makes it easy to do.

It is gratifying to watch a community grow. Through years of WordPress involvement we’ve witnessed many individuals start new, build knowledge, contribute and emerge as leaders in their local WordCamps. We’ve seen it happen all over the world.

This happens because WordCamps deliver to the needs of every skill level. This year WordCamp Los Angeles offered two half-day workshops, a pre-camp Beginner Day and an Advanced Development Track. An on-site networking after party concluding the first full day of the camp, which gave attendees a chance to further discuss topics on all levels and connect informally.

We Enjoy Being WordCamp Los Angeles Sponsors

2017 provided many opportunities for involvement in the open source community. In June, I personally helped organize WordCamp Orange County. Throughout the year I’ve attended and spoken at many WordCamps, as did many of our 9seeds team members. We actively participate in the communities where we live because we know that our involvement makes a difference.

We’ve learned from one another and seen how our contributions and the efforts of others have improved WordPress. We value each community member and every experience and hope you do, too.

 

 

 

Custom Theme Design Offers More Choice in WordPress

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Clients often come to us with ideas and excitement requesting certain website functionality. We believe virtually everything is possible with WordPress. Due to this, defining our scope of work is really about determining the development hours necessary to accomplish the client goals. Clients may not understand the complexity of their requests and explanation and education is required for us to work together.

We strive to provide flexible, high functioning websites that deliver maximum value.

Achieving our clients’ business goals is always at the forefront. That means that while we present options in website development, sometimes the best solutions is custom theme design, while others times the best solution may be to use an existing theme with some slight tweaking to suit.

Regardless, we start any website development project the same with the following considerations:

  • What is the overarching goal and purpose of the website?
  • What are the functional requirements to achieve those goals?
  • What is the available budget?
  • How long is the timeline?

Once we’ve determined the answers to those questions, we delve a little deeper.

  • How can we achieve the stated goals while being good stewards of the project budget?
  • Will making modifications to an existing theme deliver the desired result?
  • If so, which theme should we choose? There are 10’s of thousands but we have favorite starter themes for these types of projects.
  • Will the ultimate solution meet all of the needs of the client?

When an existing theme is not the answer, we discuss custom theme design.

Custom Theme Design – What Is It?

In a word, flexible.

Functionality, design and features are limitless in custom website development. If you can think it, we can create it. We outline the project, define the specifics, determine the cost and happily get to work putting it all together to serve your needs.

However, on a practical note, time equals money, so budget is often a reason that custom theme design may not be the answer that best meets the need of the client.

Another reason custom theme design can be challenging from a cost and timeline perspective is that we are often not using an “out-of the-box” solution for site features and functions as well. We will always try to keep costs down by leveraging existing open source software. Asking detailed intake questions is critically important as these features must be specifically determined during the project outline phase. Bespoke custom functionality can always be added, but it will increase the overall cost of the website.

If the budget is limited, it may make sense to discuss the possibility of using an existing theme to achieve a goal that closely meets client expectations.

This method can reduce the amount of time needed in development and therefore reduce the overall cost of the new website. Functionality requests may require custom coding, even when using an existing theme. However, the total hours needed are fewer than the requirements for custom theme design.

The biggest drawbacks to non-custom theme use include:

  • Theme Bloat – Existing themes may utilize less efficient code and reduce the speed of your website. Every switch and toggle a theme includes adds some overhead that can result in longer load times that affect the overall health of the site.
  • Overwhelm – While it may be possible for your website to have a switch and toggle to be adapted to every whim, it is never advisable. We prefer to keep both the code and interface minimalistic to avoid confusion and conflicting functions.
  • Limited Options – Adapting an existing theme to specific requirements can be even more work than having created it from scratch. The chosen theme may use a methodology that is not intuitive to the end user and is difficult for developers to customize.

The bottom line boils down to a satisfying end user experience and remaining within budget requirements. Our job is to deliver a website that meets the vision of our client using the best technology. When a website vision is achievable through an existing theme, we determine a workable solution. Otherwise, we move to custom theme design and guide clients through the process.

Either way we meet our clients’ business goals by providing flexible, high functioning websites that deliver maximum value to our clients. In the end, that is the best fit for all involved.

Do you want to talk more about your theme design needs?  Reach out to us. We’d be happy to talk further.

Sponsoring WordCamps like Lehigh Valley.

Sponsoring WordCamps in Leigh Valley and Worldwide

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Sponsoring WordCamps is one of our favorite ways we give back to the greater WordPress community. With so many WordCamps happening ALL around the world, we can’t sponsor them all. We generally focus on sponsoring the ones where 9seeds has someone attending or speaking. However  there are times when someone reaches out and asks us to sponsor. In these cases, we gladly pitch in.

WordCamp Leigh Valley was an example of that. Ken Kramer whom has long helped out in the Web Savvy Marketing theme support forums, and now 9seeds theme support forums. He is one of the organizers for WordCamp Lehigh Valley. He reached out to ask if we would sponsor and I jumped at the opportunity!

“We started sponsoring WordCamps when they were all “small camps,” and those are still my favorites to sponsor. First, small camps tend to have the most trouble finding sponsors, but also I’m nostalgic and miss the intimate community feel one can get at a smaller camp. ” – Jon Brown, Founder, 9seeds

Review the schedule or click on a session title to review the information shared at this special WordCamp.

We weren’t able to attend the actual WordCamp Leigh Valley, but I’m hoping to stop by their local meetup group the next time I’m in Pennsylvania visiting friends in the area.