I have some pretty exciting news that I've been waiting to share for a while now. Back in June I released the User Analytics extension for Ninja Forms. That was definitely the start of my entrepreneurship but there is another aspect of being an entrepreneur that I've been looking forward to. Back in November I used the commissions from my extensions to purchase the rights to another developer's plugins so I can resell them as my own. And now I really feel like an entrepreneur!
The Plugins
I took over three different plugins:
- Pushover Notifications – to send admins notifications when forms are filled out.
- Freshbooks – to automatically add users to your Freshbooks account
- Mad Mimi – to automatically add users to your Mad Mimi newsletter lists
It took me a while but I audited, updated, and rereleased each plugin.
Why Buy Someone Else's Plugins?
Contrary to popular belief it takes a significant time investment to build and maintain plugins. In this case the developer wasn't interested in investing that much time in maintaining these plugins. It doesn't make much since split up your time among totally different projects since each one has it's own learning cost. I'm already committed to Ninja Forms with my other extensions so making the same changes I made to MailPoet over to Mad Mimi isn't too much additional time so it makes sense to maximize that time investment.
As an additional perk I noticed some differences in code styling, conditional logic, user interface elements, and broad programming structures. Looking over all of this has been pretty great and there's a couple minor updates I plan to make to my existing plugins.
Where Do I See This Going?
I honestly don't know where I'm going. I rarely do. As with just about everything else in life I tend to just dive in and go where the current takes me. 🙂
I do know that I'm very happy with this decision. I like building up a repertoire of plugins that users can use to get more value out of their site. And I like having a wealth of knowledge that I can use for other development projects. Should another opportunity like this come up I plan on taking it.