This is a story of how difficulties provide valuable lessons. About achieving success in a situation that seems insurmountable. I hope you can benefit from our failures and also take inspiration from our struggle with adversity. Constant difficulties!
One thing I want to say first is that we are an independent company that lives on the backing of our incredible creative clients. We have never looked for investments or mentors and have worked and are working completely remotely from the very beginning.
So, let's begin...
Chapter 1 - Freedom
In August 2010, I decided to start a blog about web design and development. Then there was a boom in blogs and video blogs! In the first 6 months, I published three articles a day (crazy time!) And in a short space of time created an extensive library of website content. All this I did in my free time from my main work, in the evenings and weekends.
Adsense and BuySellAds revenue grew rapidly. Therefore, in January 2011, I decided to quit my job. I devoted all my time to the project and my freedom. I started to invest about 80% of my income in new authors who wrote great articles - there is always someone better than you. By that time, it was already obvious that the blog should develop further, and I began to invest in authors more than I spent on my own needs. I usually don't need much. By the way, in my daily life I only buy the goods I need to meet my basic needs. This is called minimalism, and I continue to lead this lifestyle.
Chapter 2 - The Best Idea
In 2011, I actively posted new articles, tutorials, and information about free products. The number of users has skyrocketed (up to 500 thousand users per month). In the fall of the same year, I noticed a new trend in web design - UI Kits (user interface kits). It was a hit!
I saw several designers publish their prebuilt UI elements on Dribbble. At that point, I decided to find a partner, a good designer, who would be interested in creating free UI kits for the Designmodo audience . And that was the best idea! Yes, I have some experience in design and coding, but it took a professional partner to do something really cool.
"There is always someone better than you"
I've sent ± 150 emails to various designers at Dribbble and Envato. There were several answers, one of which was positive. Together we started work on the first UI Kit, which we planned to share for free.
In early 2012, we released the first UI Kit and it was a success! We've got so many mentions, the site's traffic has increased much more than we expected. Server down, server down ... thanks, new contacts, new suggestions ... People asked for more items. We responded to this request with a paid version of the product.
We launched our first premium UI Kit for $ 19. Soon we made our first sale! But then ... the first return. What? Why?!
It turned out that the refund occurred because the client was unable to open the PSD file on their old computer. And we thought, “What? Now for EVERY sale we will have to return the money !? " Fortunately, this did not happen. Sales continued to rise over the next few days. We were interested in creating new UI kits for webpages and iOS.
Chapter 3 - Recession
In April 2012, Google released a new algorithm and Designmodo's traffic dropped from 135,000 to 25,000 visitors per week. This has had a huge impact on our sales and, even worse, on motivation and enthusiasm. I remember hundreds of websites being closed or abandoned after this update.
It was hard to believe that this actually happened. Later, I learned more about how the new algorithm works, but from everything I read, very little applied to our site. I have come to the conclusion that we have accumulated too many low-quality backlinks due to our popular free products. Over the next few months, there was a constant battle against algorithm updates, and we got 50% of our traffic back. We did not abandon the project and started working on a new UI Kit.
Chapter 4 - Inspiration: Staying Ahead of Trends
The new set of UI elements was completely different. It was the first pre-coded Bootstrap HTML Kit, and the main innovation was its Flat style (flat design was the most popular design trend over the next few years). Later that year, this trend was reflected in Apple products.
In May 2013, we released Flat UI with flat colors and icons, six months before Apple released their OS based on flat design principles. In the same year, we released a Flat UI-based Startup Framework . It was one of the first online page generators with ready-made design blocks and code.
The Flat UI and Startup Framework were very popular and allowed us to move on. Both products were huge success. More people got to know about us. The free version has been downloaded by millions. World leading publications such as Mashable , Venturebeat , TheNextWeb have mentioned our products in their news and articles. We got 15,000 stars on Github . And all this in just a few months!
The period from 2014 to 2015 was fantastic. The only unpleasant nuance of that time that did not concern sales or products was the legal problem associated with the use of the word "Startup", the name of our platform. We managed to defend the name and continued to use this name. Then we got the DMCA claim for Flat UI, for the colors we used in this set. The company (which no longer exists) stated that we used their colors to create our UI Kit. The situation went public and we were surprised at the level of support, with thousands of designers and developers joining various communities such as Reddit and Y Combinator . We won again and continued to use colors, and after this scandal, even more designers and developers started using Flat UI.
We released Slides Framework in 2015. This application has helped us work and increase sales. We introduced a new way to create static sites with a new builder and visually appealing templates. We've received positive feedback from the community and ongoing customer support from Slides.
Chapter 5 - FAILURE! @
As I mentioned earlier, from the very beginning of the project, we have consistently reinvested our earned money. So, we decided to develop a new product, this time for WordPress. As it turned out, this was not the best decision.
After the release of the Startup Framework, people asked for a WordPress theme based on it. Sounds good, right? We thought and decided: "We need to do it!"
We hired several WordPress developers and started work on the Startup WordPress theme. The first release failed, but we still had profits from previous products, so we decided to continue working on the theme and improve it.
We covered all expenses through sales for several months, but then revenues began to fall.
And what did we decide to save the project? - "Let's try failure again!"
We've started work on a WordPress plugin (again!) Called Qards . And here, too, defeat awaited us.
In 2016-2017, we stopped developing WordPress products and started paying off debts accumulated to developers. We continued to fix bugs in previous products and offer customer support. We paid off our debts every month for a year.
We continued to publish articles and guides, offer support, and fix bugs. We had to cut most of the project budget, but we continued to post new content to the site.
We lived off savings. We have lost part of the team. There are only three of us left: Sergei, Edward and me.
So where did we go wrong? Here is a list of our failed decisions:
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- WordPress, WordPress .
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6 – ?
We had a huge audience; almost a quarter of a million Twitter followers, 150,000 email newsletters and 100,000 Facebook! But we had nothing to offer them. There was no inspiration or motivation. "Where is the freedom that we have longed for?" - we thought.
In 2017, sales were still falling. We didn't have the fuel to promote new products!
We were falling ...
What's next? Looking for investors? Sell a project? After team discussions and months of uncertainty, we came up with a new plan.
We didn't have enough money to invest in new product development. But what if you find a team that would be willing to work without payment at first, for a portion of future profits? Would anyone agree to this? It turned out that yes. We found developers and designers who agreed to work for a percentage of future sales.
We started to form a new team, with new people to work with and create something cool for our audience. After a few months, we finished assembling the team and started working on the Postcards, Startup and Slides projects.
In February 2018, we relaunched the project.
Chapter 7 - A New Beginning. The past is forgotten
After a large-scale redesign and presentation of a new logo, we focused all our efforts on developing new products. This time, we decided to offer access to our apps by subscription only. The previous products remained online and customers could freely access them, but the new products required a subscription to use them.
We redesigned Slides and Startup, and also released a new product - Postcards . These applications now form the backbone of Designmodo's business; we update them frequently with new features. With the dedication of our team and the profitability of the apps, we have entered a stable growth mode.
What do you think we did with the money that started making? We continued to invest, investing 70% in the business.
Chapter 8 - What We Learned
The past 10 years have been an incredible journey. Here's what they taught me:
- If you really believe in your business, invest your profits and your heart into it.
- No matter how daunting the situation may seem, there is always a solution if you are creative and learn from failure. This can mean developing a new idea or abandoning an old one. Perhaps collaborating with new people. Just don't let setbacks lead you astray.
- Building a loyal audience can pay higher dividends than you might imagine.
- Focus on what you know. Innovate, of course, but don't try to enter a new market if you don't know what you are doing.
- Do not rush to bring all ideas to life. Take time to decide which ones are worth pursuing and which are not.
Chapter 9 - Present and Future
We are currently working on updates for Slides, Startup and Postcards. Later this year, we plan to release a major update for Postcards, as well as several new features and updates for Slides and Startup. Our small team strives to make all applications ready for use without touching.
A month ago, we redesigned the first Designmodo page and posted it on ProductHunt - and entered the top 3 products of the week!
Something else? Yes!
We are working on three new parallel projects related to:
- Website builder without code for designers
- Email Marketing
- Hosting
We plan to release all three products this fall. They are different from what is currently on the market. I really hope you enjoy them. The future is encouraging.
Chapter 10 - Team
Building a cohesive team is one of the most important stages of product development. You can start doing something yourself, but if you want to grow or quickly turn your idea into reality, you need a good ambitious and motivated team. The team must have professionals with good self-organization and the right skills. Each team member must contribute to the development of the project without being reminded from the outside.
"During the existence of Designmodo, I have seen how a team can break up in the most extreme situation, but I also watched how a team can become strong and start going forward again."
There are excellent professionals behind Designmodo. Some of them don't like publicity, so let's not name them! These are people from different parts of the world: Moldova, Spain, USA, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and other countries.
You can be a good professional, but if you cannot work in a team, you will not achieve your desired goal. Remember: you must grow with your team. Keep up.
And the last
I want to thank our entire community for making a special part of this journey from small blog to SaaS business. These years have been full of hopes, mistakes, lessons learned and happy moments for our team, and we are truly grateful for all the support and trust you have given us throughout this time. It may sound trite, but without you, your support, the development of Designmodo as you know it today would not be possible. We appreciate this more than you think.
I would like to know what you think of our trip or receive any comments from you about Designmodo in general. I'll wait for messages!
See you online!
Adrian