2014 Business Review

  1. Blogging for Hippo
  2. Schedule Sales with WooCommerce
  3. The Problem with Focus
  4. Give Thanks
  5. Be Thankful for the People Who Inspire You
  6. Give Yourself Space
  7. Build Resources From Support
  8. How Hard Can Membership Be?
  9. Adding Social Media Icons to WooCommerce Product Pages
  10. How to Export WooCommerce Subscriptions
  11. Upgrade Your Contact Form With Ninja Forms
  12. Why I Write
  13. Blog Comments Policy
  14. Content Marketing Works – Even with Furnace Filters
  15. Making Email from Your Website More Reliable with Email Delivery Tools
  16. A Happiness Podcast?
  17. Podcast Compensation
  18. Wishlists Done Right
  19. Enable Free Shipping on a Per Product Basis
  20. Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor
  21. Tell Users What You're Doing
  22. 2014 Business Review
  23. Mind Your Own Business
  24. Think Different to 10x Your Business
  25. Let Projects Die
  26. Maximize Your Creative Energy
  27. Use Git Bisect to Find Bugs in Your Codebase
  28. My Personal Value of Remote Work
  29. Don't Spam Email Receipts
  30. Make Your Own Luck
  31. Cold Showers and the Power of Challenges

One of the most important things you can do is to look back from time to time and review where you are. Where did you start this year? Where did you end? Are you on the right path?

I did this last year after just getting into doing commercial plugin development and a lot has changed and my end of the year numbers (below) are very different.

Plugin Sales

Last year I had 6 premium plugins on the Ninja Forms site. This year I added 3 Ninja Forms plugins (PDF Form Submissions, White Label Forms, PopControl) and 1 WooCommerce plugin (Popup Terms & Conditions). The revenue difference between this year and last year is massive and part of that is that the 6 plugins I already built had a whole year to attract buyers. The other part is that I had two plugins (PDF Form Submissions & WooCommerce Popup Terms & Conditions) that did particularly well.

Client Work

I had a few people reach out to me for client work but I've found that my limited time is better spent working on products.

Affiliate Marketing

I tried doing some affiliate marketing this year. I only had affiliate deals with Ninja Forms, Codeable, and Easy Pricing Tables. I had several other offers but I wanted to start by dipping my toe in the water. I'm careful not to recommend things just for the sake of earning a few bucks.

My affiliate numbers are pretty dismal right now. Part of that is that some affiliates wait for minimum payout amounts. So I might not get paid until I get $100+ dollars in commissions. Another affiliate and myself are having some technical issues which should be resolved early 2014. Technically I was only paid $5.80 in affiliate commissions this year but if you include the payments I haven't yet received it's probably closer to $100.

This Blog

This blog has grown considerably in the past year. It doesn't have a direct role in making money but it is a space where I can announce new products, gather information on new products, collect e-mail addresses for my newsletter, and have a discussion with other members of the community.

Here are my 2014 numbers on this blog.

Newsletter

I started my own newsletter this year after reading Authority. I'm mostly using it to promote my upcoming WooCommerce book. Newsletter growth has been steadily increasing. I grew my list from 0 to 212.

Mailchimp Newsletter Growth

The growth of my newsletter each month

The Numbers

The numbers are the good stuff. The numbers provide the context that makes everything prior make sense.

2013

  • Units sold: 30
  • Revenue from plugins: $465.62
  • Number of client projects: 2
  • Revenue from clients: $851
  • Total revenue: $1,516.62

2014

  • Units sold: 472
  • Revenue from plugins: $8,311.69
  • Number of client projects: 0
  • Revenue from clients: $0
  • Revenue from affiliates: $5.80
  • Total revenue: $8,317.49

As you can see this year and last year are very different. My revenue has grown almost 2,000% which is impressive and I think there will be another big jump next year.

4 thoughts on “2014 Business Review

  1. Ditching client work to create – scary, but apparently worth it! Congratulations buddy!

  2. This is great Patrick – congrats! I’m finding plugin development (as opposed to client work) to be a lot more fulfilling too. Good luck for next year!

  3. Well done, Patrick!

    I’ve found that having more products gives you a multiplying effect because each gives exposure to the others. That bodes well for you as you continue to create good plugins.

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