Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies, exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson.
Lee:
In a world where developers post on ThemeForest, one man. That’s right. One man chooses a different path. All right, I can’t keep this up. But on today’s episode, we’re talking with Andre from Project Huddle. What a flipping brilliant product is Project Huddle. Try and say that sentence really fast. I kid you not, last night I tried to do the intro for this podcast like 20 times and just got tongue twisted. So I had to sleep on it and come back to it. Here I am, Andre from Project Huddle. Don’t even get me started on his last name. But this guy is a legend. And he’s also got experience being a theme developer on ThemeForest. So his products have been on ThemeForest since 2010. So we get to talk to him about that. His experience is there. His thoughts, his feedback. Especially on the way things are going over at ThemeForest. And also what people’s opinion has become about ThemeForest themes. So great insight there. But also great insight as well into his development of Project Huddle. It’s been a two year cycle of product launch and evolving the product based on user feedback, etc. Fascinating episode if you’re either interested in being involved in the ThemeForest community or if you’re thinking of launching some sort of product with WordPress. Guys, sit back, relax, enjoy the ride. Please keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times. Welcome to The Conversation.
And this conversation is with André Gagnon. I got that right, yeah?
Andre:
Yeah, perfect. Nice.
Lee:
That’s like French, like you said. It was really funny, guys. When we were talking about, how do I pronounce your name? And he said, like, you can either pretend you’re a French or you’re really entitled. Because it sounds dead posh when you say it, Gagnon.
Andre:
Exactly, yep.
Lee:
It’s genius. Right. If you don’t know who André is, he is from Project Huddle, a phenomenal WordPress plugin that I’ve been using for my agency now for about three months. And if you’re a member of the Facebook group, you’ll be aware I did a video on how it is really shifting the way we work as an agency. So we’re definitely going to be talking about that. And he’s also got an amazing history, which we’ll also unpack as well as the profile ThemeWitch on the Envato market in ThemeForest. So that’s my introduction, mate. But would you just like to say howdy doody to everyone and just give us a little bit of background about yourself?
Andre:
Man, awesome introduction. Thank you. Maybe we should just wrap up the show right there. That makes me sound really good. So, yeah, like we said, my name is André Gagnon. I’ve been doing WordPress themes for the past, I’d say, maybe six years now. And recently have made, in the past year, Project Huddle leap into plugin development. It’s been very interesting, rewarding, and quite different from coming from the theme world, especially being on the ThemeForest marketplace versus selling my own. Some interesting experiences there.
Lee:
Cool. And what do you like to do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?
Andre:
Well, I just had a little girl in December. Awesome. So my hobbies right now are taking care of a baby, which is rewarding, for sure, but tiring at the same time. So if I sound a little tired, that’s probably because I didn’t sleep last night.
Lee:
Dude. The struggle is real. I feel it. I mean, Ella is 10 now, but yeah, I can remember it. I can remember it well, the sleepless nights.
Andre:
Really? I’m hoping to forget the sleepless nights, but…
Lee:
Oh, no. You’ll never forget. You’ll just be grateful. That’s the difference.
Andre:
I am now very grateful. I will never forget them, but I’m super grateful.
Lee:
But you’re probably already in the phase now, I imagine, then, like you can’t actually remember what you did with your life before babies.
Andre:
Exactly. It’s so weird. You know, I’m still a new parent, and it’s like, what did I do with my time back then? Obviously nothing. I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.
Lee:
You’re actually going to become a time lord now? Because I’ve actually found as a parent that we actually managed to look after children, but still managed to achieve amazing things, like loads and loads of work. So I’m convinced that we’re all related to Doctor Who and somehow we’re all just time lords.
Andre:
Yeah, that was surprising to me. Because I assumed I’d have less time, and I certainly do, but productivity hasn’t stopped at all. I don’t know how I’m doing it, but it’s just an adjustment, I think.
Lee:
Well, that’s interesting, because we just did a podcast recording just with Brad Miller, who was last week’s episode. And we were actually talking afterwards about him starting a podcast where he talks to people in business who’ve got young families, and how do you manage time? Because I don’t know either. Somehow we manage, but I’d love to unpack some sage wisdom and truth. Maybe I’ll have to connect with Brad after the show.
Andre:
For sure.
Lee:
So that we can talk about that. For sure. Obviously, I couldn’t do it without my wife, too. She’s an integral part. You know, right now she’s taking off of work and staying at home with the little one. So I’d be dishonest to not mention her at least once.
Andre:
You scored good points there, man. That is good wife points. Top marks.
Lee:
All right. Well, back many moons ago in 2010, a young man with a full head of hair signed up for ThemeForest and picked the name ThemeWitch. Yeah. I believe that was you. Can you just tell us what were you up to just before then and what led you to enter the marketplace on ThemeForest?
Andre:
Man, five years ago. So I’m from Madison, Wisconsin, which is sort of a mid-sized city in the middle of the state of Wisconsin. And I worked for a small agency right out of college doing just print stuff. And at one point, we had a client looking for web things. And the agency decided, okay, we’re going to do it and we’re going to pay to learn on the job, which is perfect. I got to do my first website. Of course, it was terrible. But I got to learn from each site we did and sort of learn for free and get paid for it, which is kind of neat. At some point, I ended up getting fired from the company, which was actually one of the best business things that’s ever happened to me. At the time, it felt like, oh, man, what am I going to do? I got to go off on my own. I got to find a job. Luckily, the freelancing community here in Madison was awesome. And I had a lot of designers just sending me web work and kind of doing my client stuff then. But at the same time, you know, when you first get fired, you don’t really have a lot of clients. So I found myself looking out the window, going on walks, calling people, you know, just standing idle. So I decided, hey, let me try my hand at making a theme on ThemeForest. So I made my first theme. And I really think I just got in at the right time. Because at that point, nobody was really doing it. And it seemed like everything I made, I just put out there and it would just start selling. Didn’t have to do any marketing. It was like the sweet spot, right? And then I’ve been doing that for, I would say, six years or 2010, right? Seven years now. It’s going quick. So that’s been really cool. And there’s really nothing like building products for people. You know, it’s sort of like you can dream up whatever you want, make it happen. And people are like, oh, I love this too. It’s like the best feeling. Recently, though, I think a lot of people have caught on to ThemeForest. There are a lot of great products in there, a lot of great themes. Getting super saturated and it’s becoming hard to compete, you know, unless you have like a team of people. So like originally when, you know, a lot of us started on ThemeForest, I think everybody else started hiring people, building their business. Because they were thinking, wow, I just release a theme. It sells like crazy. I think the more themes I release, the better I’ll do. So I think that’s what a lot of people did. In my naivety, I thought, oh, I just like doing this. I’m just going to do this for a while. I have my leisure. It’s great. You know, I like building stuff. And now all these people have huge teams and they’re releasing a million features. And, you know, it’s becoming a lot harder to compete just being a one-man show. So that was sort of my segue into Project Huddle.
Lee:
I’m impressed, though, mate. I mean, you’ve had 22,000 sales over the last seven months. Yeah, man. That is epic. I mean, I know people have had a million sales and all that, but who cares? I mean, you’re a guy on your own and you’ve created amazing products and hit 22,000 sales. So this is like virtual high five to you. I am well impressed. And we were having a conversation, guys, just before this interview. And I was going through his profile and suddenly I saw this theme. And I was like, no, it’s not, is it? And it was a theme I must have bought, I don’t know, three or four, maybe five years ago. I think it was five years. I’m really tempted to say five years ago. I’m going to go with that. You created it in 2013, though. So is that five years or four?
Andre:
That’s four years. We’re good at math.
Lee:
I’m terrible at math, mate. Absolutely awful. If you put me on this butt with math, I just crumble and cry. Anyway, it’s Gridstack. I’ll put a link in the description of the show notes, guys, but just check out Gridstack because this has powered an agency I used to work at and still powers it to this day. It was a phenomenal, one of the first ThemeForest plugins, sorry, themes, sorry, mate, that I ever bought. And I think it’s, again, a testament to the real clean code that you did. And I think that kind of set you apart for me and our agency that I was working at amongst everyone else. A lot of people are kind of bundling in very, very power hungry, as it were, page builders. I’ll mention no names. And just too many features, whereas you created a theme that was very specific. You filled in the blanks. You had a nice-looking portfolio that worked really well and was responsive. And, like I said, to this day is actually still running the agency website. I’ll put a link. It’s elliotyoung.co.uk. If you want to go ahead and check that one out, guys, that’s an agency I used to work at, which I think we’ve mentioned a few times on this podcast. But still running Gridstack, the original theme. There you go.
Andre:
Man, that’s crazy. Boom. What was happening five years ago? I feel like that’s so long.
Lee:
I know. It’s insane. But, I mean, it still stands the test of time. I’m looking right now. I’m still logged in. It says my support has expired. So maybe I should renew the support at $32.38. It’s given me a special offer for six months. That’s an interesting question, actually. So, I mean, you’re still there. You’re still in ThemeForest. It’s not like you’re going away. You’ve still got the products up there. You’re still selling. So, when they introduced the support aspect of things, has that kind of reinvigorated the revenue for you guys?
Andre:
It’s not really a revenue source at all. I mean, ThemeForest takes a good share of support for whatever reason, even though they don’t provide any. But at the same time, it’s good because it limits support. Before that, it was sort of the Wild West. And it’s like, oh, you get lifetime of support and updates, which is not sustainable for any type of business. So, it sort of puts a limit in a definition of what support is. So, everybody kind of plays by the rules.
Lee:
That’s good. Yeah, because I think I remember that as well. You know, you’d made the purchase. You could, in theory, download it forever. Never pay anything ever again. And I think a lot of people as well, I’ve seen a lot of themes that have been purchased once for one website. But I can see they’ve been used in multiple places as well. So, that’s kind of always bugged me as well about what people can get up to with ThemeForest. So, I think as well, ThemeForest does get a bad name nowadays in the industry. And I’m intrigued. I mean, I presume you’ve heard that people speak negatively against ThemeForest at times. Have you any thoughts as to why that might be?
Andre:
Yeah, I mean, they seem to be neglecting their core, which is their authors. Like, as an example, they’ve launched something called Envato Elements, which there’s, if you go to ThemeForest, there’s probably a big bar at the top. It’s a try-and-bottle element. It’s unlimited themes, unlimited everything for $29 a month. So, while they say they support their authors, at the same time, they’re advertising an alternative on their site. So, I think it just rose the buyers the wrong way as maybe people have been there for a long time. Remember the good old days when they would sort of cater to authors and help them get tools and stuff. So, I can see the frustration there for sure.
Lee:
So, I mean, I saw that the other day because they’ve been emailing me about this for a while now. And is that, are they selling the themes that are already existing, ThemeForest, or have they created their own suite or something?
Andre:
I think it’s different items, but it’s still, you know, they’re competing because they’re similar items, I would say. Like, you know, in the HTML category on ThemeForest, well, there’s an HTML category on Envato Elements as well. So, you know, it’s like I could either pay the same price, download this one theme, or pay just one price and download all of these themes. So, for all these templates.
Lee:
Yeah, I see what you mean. Which doesn’t really help. It doesn’t really help for you guys because it’s the one-stop shop. I think as well, one of the problems we’ve had, and it’s actually rare, that’s why I remembered that theme the minute I saw it. I was like, oh my gosh. A lot of the themes that we have purchased as well, because a lot of agencies do rely on purchasing themes, because the cost of entry for building a website, you know, unless you’re dealing with clients that have got big budgets, the cost of entry is kind of getting lower and lower. People are having to try and sell websites for a few grand or even less than that. So, you know, agencies having to rely on themes to give them that head start is a huge thing. And I think in my experience as well, I’ve purchased a lot of themes in the past, yours being one of them, obviously. But unfortunately, there is, you know, I think there’s only about 20% of anything I’ve ever purchased of ThemeForest has actually ended up being used in the final product because of the problems that I would have experienced with it. Or, you know, I’ve never been happy with the final result. So, it has gone out, but I’ve never been happy with the final result. So, there’s only a few themes, including obviously Gridstack, that have actually stood the test of time for me. So, and I think that’s been an experience of quite a few people as well.
Andre:
That’s humbling.
Lee:
Yeah. Well, that’s great. I mean, it also kind of sucks for you as well, because those themes are giving you, you know, are giving ThemeForest itself a bad name, which means then the good developers also struggle as well.
Andre:
Yeah, for sure. I think like a lot of these themes, you know, with the bundle page builders that you touched on earlier, it’s almost built for a different type of developer.
Lee:
Yeah.
Andre:
Built for like maybe, not even, maybe developer isn’t the right word. It’s like a website builder where they’re, they kind of know a little bit about code, but they kind of, they kind of don’t. And they prefer just to use the WordPress dashboard to build the site. It’s like a different kind of entry point for somebody who wants to build websites. It’s definitely lower. But at the same time, then, you know, I think it’s less flexible and maybe lowering the price for everybody as well.
Lee:
Yeah, exactly. I think, I mean, we would term it like there’s different types. I think there’s different categories and each has their own merit, but there are people who are, I think we would consider a WordPress implementer. So they’re very good at implementing WordPress themes on behalf of clients, which is a very valuable skill set. But sometimes I think clients get confused between having a custom web built and having a website implemented for them based on existing resources out there, et cetera. But I think definitely theme forest probably is nowadays more targeted at that demographic than the developers. Because again, with, with a theme like yours, it was very easy to create a child theme over the top and hook into it, et cetera. So that was nice and easy as a developer. But again, some of these bigger thing, there’s one beginning with A’s and Avada, that’s it, the Avada theme. Like I’ve inherited a couple of websites with the Avada theme and it’s, it’s like the most popular, but it’s also like hell on earth. If you’re going to even apply and support it as, as a developer, maybe, maybe I should just embrace. The tools, but every time I try, nothing quite goes right. But anyway, yeah, I mean, even some of these tools too. I, I, I don’t know, like, I don’t know how to use Avada. You inherit a site and you’re like with, let’s say visual composer or something, or it does, doesn’t matter what it is. Some plugin and it takes you, I don’t know, a day to figure out how the plugin works. Just, just on the WordPress dashboard. Yeah. It’s almost like at that point, it’d be easier just to learn how to code and just do it from scratch. I think there’s like a promise of, oh, it’s going to save you time. And maybe it does if you’re like you, like you said, an expert WordPress implementer. But for me, it’s, it’s definitely hard because every plugin is different and they all have different settings and they all have to work together. And it’s just one big configuration nightmare on my end.
Lee:
So guys, if you’re feeling low, because I feel like we’ve kind of, we’ve got serious. There’s still some great stuff on, on theme forest. And I would recommend, I’m going to put a link in here to theme, which the profile of Andre, because I also noticed whilst he was talking that there was another theme that I actually bought. I didn’t realize you made this one either. It was the district theme. I love that theme. And we’ve used that. The website itself actually went down about two months ago, as in we took it down because it was no longer needed. But we used the district theme for about two or three years on one of our event websites as well. And it worked really, really well for us on what we needed to do. So there you go. That’s two themes that stood the test of time. We’ll put a link in the show notes to theme, which, but we’re now going to kind of take the conversation on into the now, the exciting now, which is Project Huddle. This is a new program. Well, sorry, I will say WordPress plugin or application. I don’t know, whatever you want to call it that you guys have launched. So I’m not going to try. I’m not going to talk about it. I’m going to let you talk about it. Project Huddle. Tell me about that.
Andre:
Yeah. So I don’t know if anyone’s familiar with Project Huddle, but it’s a way to get point and click feedback from your clients and colleagues. And it works from anything from artwork mockups, like you have a do something in Sketch and you want to get feedback on the design or you design in the browser. You want to get point and click feedback on a live website. Handles both. So that was the goal. And one of the cool things about WordPress now, I don’t know if anyone follows WordPress news, but since the last version 4.7, there’s now a REST API, which makes it really easy to layer all types of JavaScript over the top and create basically applications using WordPress instead of just blogs and websites.
Lee:
It’s really good. Project Huddle for us essentially has become like a replacement for InVision. Is it?
Andre:
Yeah. Yeah. InVision. So I can’t remember what the monthly cost for that was, but what we’ve been doing is we’ve done the visual mockups. So we’ll export them to like JPEG or PNG, and then we’ll group them into a project and then send that out to the client and the client can comment on that. But I do love as well. And I didn’t realize you did this at first. I literally thought this was for mockups at first. So I was like, oh, this is great. Let’s get the mockups on there. And then suddenly I noticed this website option in the left-hand side. And just that’s where the point we cancel InVision, where you can paste in a JavaScript code, which is great because we can do that. A lot of those sites we are using like Beaver Builder for nowadays, because we’ve got like these sites that we implement on multi-site for clients. So we kind of support them with a builder process. And we just whack that in. And then we’re able to get them to comment all over websites and everything. It’s just a brilliant process flow. And guys, if you head on over to the Facebook group, there is a video in there. Just type into the search. That’s on the left-hand side of the group. Type in at Project Huddle. And that’ll pull up a video where I actually show you how we’re using Project Huddle in our agency. So that if you go to wpinnovator.com forward slash group, and then like I said, go in there. And we’ll also put a show note in. I’m going to get that video on YouTube or something, because I think it’s actually quite a helpful video for people to understand how useful Project Huddle is for getting, for getting client feedback and really working out what a client means when they’re saying, hey, can you move this particular item? They’re not trying to describe it or creating loads of screenshots. They’re actually clicking on the item and giving the feedback. And guys, this is not an advertorial, but I really wanted to get Andrei to talk about the product, because like I said, it’s totally like disrupting what we do in a positive way. And it’s something I wanted to share with everyone. Now, Andrei, with regards to Project Huddle, what actually led to you creating the product?
Andre:
That’s a good question. So there’s a lot of tools that are to do this. So I don’t know, we mentioned before the show, Bugherd is one of them. It’s a point and click feedback tool that lets you, you know, collect feedback on live websites. I think another one is TrackDuck, who recently got acquired by Envision. So that’s, I imagine Envision’s sort of going to do something similar. But they’re all hosted services that you have to pay a monthly fee. And I think maybe the cheapest one is like $30 a month, which is outrageous when you add up the yearly cost. Project Huddle is, to my knowledge, the only self-hosted version of this, that you pay a one-time fee. You know, you can renew after a year if you want additional support. But pay a one-time fee. It’s yours for life. And you can integrate it with all your own services. If your agency has its own support system, you can do that. You know, the code is yours to own. You’re not locked into anything that you can control. So that was sort of frustrations I had with all this third-party software. It just seemed too expensive and kind of like you couldn’t customize it to fit your needs.
Lee:
A thing that we were talking with Brad Miller about, again, that would be, I think that’s episode 75. Nope. Episode 76, guys. That’s episode 76 if you want to go back and listen to Brad Miller. He was talking about WordPress and how WordPress is no longer just a blogging platform. It is a framework to be able to develop real complex applications on. And I love what you’ve done here. You’ve used WordPress as a framework. We’ve got the administration area. So as the administration, I can use the user interface of WordPress. And yet you’re doing so much more than just creating pages, et cetera. You’re actually creating very clever integrations to allow you to embed stuff on websites, et cetera, and provide a service that the big boys are doing, basically. That kind of blew my mind when I saw this. It was actually the Devonares – if you head on over to Devonares, it was the podcast, the Developer to Millionaire podcast, I think it is.
Andre:
Yep.
Lee:
That you were interviewed on. I can never remember whether it’s called it Devonares now or if it’s Developer to Millionaire or what his name is.
Andre:
Yeah. I think he might have changed it. But he’s a great guy. Awesome guy.
Lee:
It was actually him that got me onto you. It was his episode and me going and checking that out. And it’s always exciting to see what is possible. And obviously I wanted to get you on to help people kind of hear of what it is you do. But also encourage those people who are thinking they’ve got a good idea and they’re wondering how they can actually get that idea online. And I think using WordPress is definitely a viable solution. Here is a guy who is doing it.
Andre:
Yeah. So was this a problem then that you had that you were forking out or was this a problem that you were hearing from other people for?
Lee:
It was a problem I had. But at the same time, it was a challenge, right? I had really never done other than like a short codes plugin or something. I’ve never created a plugin before. I have extensive experience with WordPress, obviously, but plugins are a whole different territory. And, you know, with WordPress changing how it is really to become, like you said, an application platform, I really wanted to see what it was capable of. And if it was possible to do some of these SaaS services or software as a service company type of model, but just using WordPress. So I think a lot of people have, I think it’s called SaaS fatigue. I don’t know how many services I was paying for monthly just to run my business. And it just seemed like too much. You know, when you sign up for an individual service, you’re like, oh, it’s only $20 a month. But then you realize you have to have 10 other services. Suddenly you have thousands of dollars a month in expenses just to run your business. It just seemed, you know, like hard to keep track of them all. And what am I signed up for? And this one increased in price and whatever. So I thought there was a benefit and I think people are looking for a different model where they don’t have to pay a monthly fee to use software. They can kind of take ownership of something like kind of like the good old days. Like the good old days when you bought a CD. You bought a CD of 2000 and you used it until eventually you bought the next version. Exactly, yeah.
Andre:
Or there are actually some people right now still using Office 2000.
Lee:
Yeah, maybe we’ll be like AOL and start sending out Project Cuddle CDs or something. That’d be brilliant. Oh, mate, that’d be fantastic. Or you start appearing on magazines, like a particular version, the CD on the front of the magazine. And, you know, you can, with a little cheeky upgrade offer if you want to get like the next level. The SaaS fatigue is something that I can totally resonate with. And, you know, like I love Basecamp 3, but I also resent the fact that there are multiple applications that are all online that I do have to continue to pay out for. And initially it was fine. It was like, oh yeah, it’s only 20 bucks here, 30 bucks there, 40 bucks here. But actually it is really adding up, you know, and we are spending a few hundred dollars now on different applications. So, you know, part of our drive was to start to reduce the amount of money that we’re paying out per month on software as a service. Because there is also the reliance on that company still being there as well.
Andre:
Yeah. You know, I don’t know that Asana ain’t going to go broke because nobody is too big to go bust. So if we can get our hands on some software like Project Huddle, which was, you know, an obvious one for us, and we’re still in the market right now for a Basecamp alternative that, you know, could live inside of WordPress. So if you’re going to build that, please let me know. Or if anyone knows of anything, let us know. Get on over to the Facebook group because I really would appreciate something like that as well. Now, you’ve come from this background where you’ve had a marketplace. And I know, obviously, ThemeForest take a ridiculously large cut no matter what you do, but you’ve kind of gone into, right, I’m going to launch this project, you know, this potential SaaS killer. I know you don’t see it as that, but here it is. Here’s an alternative to SaaS. I’ve built this amazing plugin. How did you know or where did you start in actually getting the name out there? Because you couldn’t just upload it to the existing marketplace with thousands of eyeballs. You needed to start from scratch. So how did you get started once, well, even from beginning to build? What was your plan to get exposure, to get eyeballs on Project Huddle?
Andre:
You say plan like I had one, but I really didn’t, which is not smart. I don’t say, I wouldn’t suggest that, but…
Lee:
Just pretend. I’m joking, I’m messing.
Andre:
What’s that? I was whispering, just pretend. Just pretend, yes. You know, I have to be honest. And I think there’s value in fessing up to your mistakes. There is. So you don’t make them again. And hopefully someone can laugh them up. I don’t know. But I think ThemeForest trained me to think like, okay, if I just build something cool, people will buy it. And that’s true to a point, but people also have to know about it first. And that’s the magic of ThemeForest. That’s why so many people are there. You get the exposure. They do basically the marketing end and get you in front of a bunch of eyeballs. And then if it’s a quality product, it’ll sell generally. At least that’s how it was. Going off on your own is quite different because it’s not only using or trying to think about in terms of capital, like advertising or whatever. It’s also your time, especially if you’re just one person. And the ThemeForest model, I could focus specifically on just building features and, you know, cool themes and products and things. Didn’t have to worry about marketing at all. Now I’d say about half my time is focused on, you know, outreach marketing, going on podcasts, you know, or even just helping other people out, like helping other developers out, just to try and network and get the word out there. It’s definitely been a learning curve. I have no experience marketing at all. And it’s sort of been a trial by fire, seeing what works. And it’s, I think I mentioned in John Perez’s podcast that being from the Midwest, it’s really kind of weird because I feel like I’m kind of a modest person. And I hate talking about myself. I hate talking about my products. I hate, I don’t know, like the, I always get the picture of like the guy in the plaid suit trying to sell a car, you know. And I don’t want that, that’s not me. And I feel, I just feel weird about that. So it’s, it’s been a challenge to kind of overcome that as well. And just navigating the whole marketing space. I can definitely see the value though of having a good marketer. It seems like it’s almost a bigger piece of the equation than I realized going into it.
Lee:
I love what you said about like feeling like a salesman, because I often get people on the podcast who have a product. And I love talking about the product, but at the back of my mind, I’m kind of worried that people think that I’m like trying to sell them the product and that this has become like an advertorial. Oh yeah. So I always worry about that as well. So like when I’m talking about Project Huddle, I’m like, I really don’t want people to think I’m just trying to sell them this or something like that. You know, I’m actually interested in your story and what you’re up to and also want to tell people the benefit of it. But also guys, you know, this is not an advertorial. You are perfectly free to not purchase this product as well, but also learn from, from Andre. But I like, I like that you had no plan because that kind of gives me a little bit of a better feeling in myself because I have done so many things without a plan. It’s ridiculous. And I learned along the way, like you said, learned by fire, learned what to do and not to do. How long ago did you, did you build the project, product, sorry?
Andre:
I think, let me think, officially launched, let’s see, over a year and a half ago, I think, or two years ago. Wow. Two years ago. And it was very simple. It was just mock-ups at that point. It was just sort of like a, what they call an MVP, a minimum viable product.
Lee:
Yeah.
Andre:
And what was great about, you know, a lot of people purchasing it right away was, you know, a lot of friends and other things, just giving feedback, sort of help mold the plugin to what it is today. That’s, I guess, one of the benefits of being an early adopter. You can suggest features and develop it and be like, oh yeah, it’s a great idea and put it in there.
Lee:
Do you have any plans to kind of launch out into any other projects right now or is this you for the foreseeable future?
Andre:
Yeah, it’s fine. Like, after two years, and maybe that’s a normal timeline, but it’s finally starting to get some traction, getting some regular sales, some great feedback, some, you know, great testimonials. So it’s something that I definitely want to lean into, especially because for the past two years, it’s been sort of no returns. You know, you’re putting all this time and effort in because you kind of see this vision of what it could be, but you don’t really have proof of it because maybe it’s not selling, you know, how you wanted it to. And you’re not really sure what you’re doing with marketing and it’s sort of all an unknown. But now it seems to be getting a little, you know, more traction and, you know, more useful for people.
Lee:
Have there been any moments then with this? I mean, you said it’s a two-year cycle. That’s a long time to be working on one project. And if you feel like it’s not paying for itself at some point, have you ever had that feeling of wanting to give in?
Andre:
Yeah, every day.
Lee:
Really?
Andre:
For sure.
Lee:
Well, like this month?
Andre:
Yeah. I’m not messing with you. Not recently, no, but that’s, you know, I think if you look at a bunch of startup success stories, it takes a while. And I think that’s one, maybe that’s why a lot of startups fail because they need, you know, obviously you need to eat and you need food for your table. You know, with your family and all that. But it is sort of a long lag time between getting some traction and like the unknown. And it takes some good mental toughness, I think, or at least some stupidity, maybe, I don’t know, to like make it through that part of the product cycle.
Lee:
I don’t know if it’s stupid. I think it’s just balls, flat out balls, mate. To be able to hang in. Yes. You’ve got balls of steel that you’ve managed to hang on there for two years. And it’s brilliant that it is, you know, it is getting traction. And more and more people are talking about it. And I’ve seen people talking about it who I’ve not even mentioned it to. So, and I’ve realized they’re talking about it too. So I’m like, hey, I found it. How did you find it? Which is really great. And for me, my clientele are all agencies. So obviously I’ve been talking to agencies about this as well. Some don’t have a solution, which like blows my mind. They don’t even use InVision. And they still use millions of screenshots and stuff. So this has been something that I’ve been touting on my mailing list to, specifically to agencies as well. Saying, guys, you’ve got to check this out. It’s a no-brainer.
Andre:
I appreciate that.
Lee: That’s all right. There’s an affiliate link in there, mate. So there’s a little bit of kickback for me as well. I’m happy with that. But hey, you’ve got to try and make a bit of money somehow, I suppose.
Andre:
For sure.
Lee:
So two years. There are people listening. There are people in the Facebook group as well who have talked about wanting to launch products, wanting to create products, etc. What would be your advice if you’ve got an idea for a product? You’ve kind of thought, yeah, I’m probably going to use WordPress for this because that’s a really good move. What would be your advice to someone getting started, like how to get started and what to do with their idea?
Andre:
I think two things. I think I kind of live by the mantra that, especially at first, done is better than perfect. I think you need to work and get something done and put something out there. And a lot of people get stuck in that it doesn’t have this feature or it doesn’t work exactly how I want it to or whatever. Because, and that leads me to my second point, which is your users will tell you what they want. So you kind of have this idea of a product in your head or a theme or something. You launch it and all of a sudden you get all these feedback of all these use cases that you didn’t even think about. Like, for instance, with Project Huddle, there are a good amount of users that are using this for like semi-custom e-commerce. So like, as an example, we have a t-shirt company that personalizes t-shirts. So you can go to WooCommerce, check out, and then tell them, okay, I want to change like the name on the t-shirt to this. And, you know, they check out and then they get a Project Huddle email that shows them the t-shirt, the custom t-shirt. They can make revisions, hit accept, and then they’re good to go. Just something I didn’t even think about. I was just thinking about, you know, my use case and agencies, but that’s a whole different avenue that I didn’t even think about. And so then I’m like, well, maybe I should make a WooCommerce add-on to make it like nice and simple, which is sort of in the works right now.
Lee:
No way. That’s a great idea.
Andre:
Yeah. And that’s just from listening to user feedback.
Lee:
Yeah.
Andre:
And they’ll tell you, it’s not like, especially if you provide support for your product, even if you’re not making any sales, just giving it to people to try out. They’ll give you feedback. Yeah. You know, that’s, I think, more valuable because then trying to figure it all out yourself. Obviously, you have to take a lot of it with a grain of salt and think about the bigger picture. But, you know, it’s definitely something that you couldn’t really do. You couldn’t really envision before you launch. So I think you really just need to get something out there first.
Lee:
Yeah. Done is better than perfect. And the user will tell you what they want. So as you get it out there, so get it out sooner and you’ll start getting that feedback sooner. I think I sent you some feedback. Like I had the product for a couple of days and I was like, hey, it would be great if you could actually relate a task directly from a website to a user inside of the backend of WordPress. And you sent a lovely message back saying it’s actually something you guys are considering putting in at some point.
Andre:
Yeah, it’s in progress. Nice. So coming soon. Coming soon.
Lee:
Now, something that’s really bothered me throughout this entire podcast, and it’s nothing to do with WordPress, but what is your accent? Are you from Madison? That’s been bothering you? Because you sound like you’ve like I keep hearing either. I can’t decide whether you’ve got like a Boston accent or like a Canadian accent.
Andre:
Yeah, a lot of people say Canadian. Yeah. So, and it’s something that’s kind of weird for me just being on podcasts because I’m not used to it. Hearing my accent. And it’s like, oh man, I sound like that. Man, I sound like I’m on that movie Fargo or something. But from Wisconsin, we kind of have a similar accent to people from Canada, or I guess parts of Wisconsin. So I grew up in Green Bay, which is, you know, the Packers that kind of locates it. But we all kind of have this long O that we say, similar to people in Canada, A.
Lee:
At least you don’t say A all the time.
Andre:
Yeah. Just with me for life.
Lee:
So we just have to deal with it.
Andre:
Yeah. It’s not really been bothering me, but I was kind of curious. I was like, I just never quite heard the accent before. And I get a delicious range of accents on this podcast. We have people from like Germany. We’ve had people from Australia, South Africa, you name it. We’ve had a podcast guest on, and I’ve never quite pinpointed your accent before. I’m actually Canadian. You wouldn’t be able to tell.
Andre:
Oh, you are?
Lee:
I am. Yeah. But I’ve lived in England so long now, from the age of four, that I am completely 100% bonafide Brit. So no A’s and anything at the end of your… It’s all gone. I don’t even say Abu. I lost it all. So, you know, you mentioned the… Sorry. All right. So back on. Sorry. That was a total tangent. People know. I do this a lot. It’s like last interview I did the other day. I was like, what’s your favorite? Like, we were really deep into it. And I was like, what’s your favorite Star Wars movie? And it was like, what? Okay. And then we went off on a little tangent about Star Wars and what the best version was and about the prequels and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, I think it’s my ADHD. I don’t actually have it, but I am self-diagnosing myself right this minute. It can’t be all serious. Come on. You gotta… You gotta lighten up.
Andre:
Yeah. Things get too serious sometimes. Make fun of Andre’s accent a little bit. That’s allowed.
Lee:
Yeah. That was a low-hanging fruit, man. Man, it’s like, of all the accents you can have, I feel like I have the worst one. You’ve got a great… Can I trade mine in or something?
Andre:
You’ve got a great accent, man. I love your accent.
Lee:
Oh, dear. Although people, you know, sometimes when you hear, like, Texas accents, they’re my favorite, you know, like, they kind of know the droll. And I was like…
Andre:
Here in the States, we like people from England the best. We think you guys sound the most sophisticated, and it’s basically, you’re all James Bond.
Lee:
Yeah, we all like, what was it, vodka martini chicken not stirred, I think it is.
Andre:
Yeah, exactly. See, that was sexy right there.
Lee:
Oh. Hey, this is a first. I’m being hit on. As you know, we were having a conversation right before this podcast, and I said I’d actually poured a shot of whiskey ready for the end of this podcast. I have to confess, it’s all gone.
Andre:
Oh, nice.
Lee:
Yeah, I know. So that’s the Britishness in me here. It’s the allure of the whiskey. And I’ve been drinking. Only a few sips. Anyway. Only a few sips. Yes, only a few sips. Well, they’re tiny shot glasses. They’re ridiculously small. It’s a little Christmas present I got from my wife. You know, the little Tumblr games you get, little drinking games? But the actual cup that comes with them are so small that a tiny shot of whiskey, it’s all right. Takes the edge off.
Andre:
Nice.
Lee:
I don’t know why. It seems to have become a tradition on podcasts, because I don’t really drink it. I don’t, like, sit down and choose to drink a glass of whiskey or anything, because it’s not actually the most tasty thing in the world to do. But sometimes there’s this therapeutic thing about having a chat with someone and kind of making it personal by having a little bit of whiskey with it as well. It sounds like I’m sitting with a mate and having a conversation, and I prefer it. So it’s something we’ve been doing a little while now. So I am…
Andre:
Interesting. I like it.
Lee:
Yeah. There you go. That’s my excuse, mate, and I’m sticking with it. I like it. So, right, guys. You can check out Project Huddle, obviously, in the show notes, but head on over as well to wp-innovator.com forward slash Project Huddle, and you can go and check that out. I’m also going to put a link to the video in the show notes. And don’t forget as well, if you are in the market for a WordPress theme, check out Theme Witch. I’ve been since January 2010. So, you know, that’s some prestige there. And the two recommended themes I’d recommend you take a look at is Gridstack and District. The reason why I’m saying that is because I own both and used them both for many years and literally did not realize until 10 minutes before this podcast. So that was really, really cool.
Andre:
That’s awesome.
Lee:
That’s the Theme Witch profile as well. Now, mate, I’ve got a couple more questions, and then I will have to let you go. And feel free to not answer this, but now you’ve had Project Huddle going for two years, and you’ve also got the business over in Envato. Has Project Huddle kind of started to take over from, like, the revenue generation? Is that becoming your main business, or is Theme Forest still kind of one of the biggest contributors?
Andre:
I would say it’s like 50-50 right now. Yeah. It’s kind of at that tipping point. You know, I’m still focusing on both, obviously, but I see more of a future in Project Huddle in kind of that direction, or at least I want to explore it in the immediate horizon. Yeah. But for sure, all the themes are still getting updates and support. Everything I do every day. But as far as, like, real, real active development and future features, Project Huddle is sort of like my little, my newest toy, I guess you’d say.
Lee:
Your new toy. Your two-year-old new toy.
Andre:
Yeah. Exactly.
Lee:
Mate, it’s been an absolute pleasure just to find out more about your product, find out more about you and what you’ve been up to, and obviously your backstory as well. You are a legend, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where Project Huddle is going in the future. Obviously, I have a vested interest because I’m actually using it now as part of our workflow. So, dead excited to see the ability to link users from the front end because that will, again, increase our workflow even more. Speed things up for us. So, definitely excited to see what you’re doing. Guys, if you want to have a conversation about what your project workflow is, head on over to the Facebook group. That’s wpinnovator.com forward slash group. Hopefully, we can tantalize and tempt Andre to come and join the group as well and come and meet some of you guys. And if you have any questions for him, Andre, what is the best way of people getting in touch?
Andre:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think I’m on the group, actually. I think I might have joined, I don’t know, maybe months before we even talk. But Twitter would probably be the best. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll put my Twitter handle on the post somewhere. If you don’t, it’s at A-J-G-A-G-N-O-N, my last name.
Lee:
All right.
Andre:
That’d probably be the best. We will get you on that. Anyway, I just want to thank you again just for having me. Man, every time I talk to you, I feel like a rock star. You’re always, I guess, pumping me up and telling me about my products. I’m like, oh, man, that makes me sound awesome. Oh, this is great. So anytime you want to talk, I’m happy to.
Lee:
No worries. I guess I’m one of those people that when I find a product that solves a problem, I just get excited about it. And I’ve got a Christian background. I’m a Christian. I’ve been to church. So I guess you could say I’m very evangelical when I find something that I feel like works for me. And then I’m telling everyone. And obviously, it’s not meant to be for everyone. But I kind of talk like it is. I’m like that with WordPress as well. WordPress is the best thing. Everything should be on WordPress.
Andre:
It is. On WordPress. I’ll agree with that. Cars. WordPress. All right. Because it can do anything. But anyway, that was awesome. Mate, you’re a legend. Thanks so much for your time. And have a wonderful, you’re mid America. So afternoon. I think you’re afternoon now.
Andre:
Yep. Afternoon.
Lee:
Have a wonderful afternoon, mate.
Andre:
Thanks, Lee. Take care. Bye.
Lee:
Bye. If you want to check out Project Huddle, head on over to WP Innovator dot com forward slash Project Huddle. And also there is a coupon code. Probably should have told you about this at the beginning. But there is a coupon code. If you use WP Innovator as your coupon code, you will get 15% off Project Huddle. But that’s only if it’s for you. But that’s only if it’s for you. Also, be sure to check out the show notes for his profile on ThemeForest. Now, I’m literally about to interview Leah Hamilton. Next week about terms and conditions. So I have no idea how this is going to play out. This could either be super boring or this could be super amazing. So guys, wish me luck. See you in the Facebook group. WP Innovator dot com forward slash group. Have a phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal day, day. That’s called cheap sound effects, by the way. See ya. Bye.
