11 October 2012 ~ 19 Comments

How To Make $10,000 A Month With A WordPress Business – FA118

Audio Interviews


The WordPress Ecosystem Is Filled With Opportunity…
Grab Yours: Themes, Plugins, Services, Hosting & More

Today’s special guest is John Turner of SeedProd.com, shares with us how he found a profitable niche within the WordPress ecosystem and how you can do so too.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • overcoming the inevitable setbacks and frustrations that come with becoming an entrepreneur,
  • how going to a mentor can accelerate your success,
  • where the opportunities lie within WordPress for you to build a successful company,
  • and much more.

Join us in this discussion and see if creating a niche business in the WordPress ecosystem is right for you, because if it is you too might be able to make $10,000 a month.

Enjoy your Foolish Adventure,

Tim “Hand Pressed” Conley

PS. The new FAU Entrepreneurship Program is open. If you want to take what you learn in this episode and turn it into a successful business, then joining FAU is for you.

FA118 – Create A Successful Business In The WordPress Ecosystem




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  • http://webcontrolroom.com/ Dan Norris

    Hey Tim, good stuff. I would love to John more about monetisation and marketing. Would you be ok with me stealing him for my show?

    One thing, I had thought about the WordPress ecosystem for Web Control Room but it’s hard for me to imagine building a legit sustainable business there. And John admits himself that his business model isn’t sustainable. I think when software used to be something you could put on a shelf then one off payment made sense but for web based software that needs to be supported for life I think it’s short term thinking. I know there are a lot of people making decent amounts of money doing it, I’d be well happy with $10k a month but where is the business? Unless you can continue providing something in return for money to these customers then all you are doing is increasing your support burdon for no long term revenue.

    Your examples of hosting are different because it’s a recurring model but it’s not based in the WordPress ecosystem. It’s pard of it but it’s not software that gets installed within WordPress (and who’s code is available to all).

    Everyone talks about the people who start these plugins and then ultimately cave under the weight of the support burdon. But they keep following the model. What is the plan? Who out there has managed to turn one off product downloads into a sustainable customer base and how have they done it? This would be the real story that I would love to hear.

    BTW I’m not saying it’s not possible and I’m not having a go at your interview or at John, I think the plugin rocks, I use it for my site it’s very impressive and I paid for it without thinking twice.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Dan, I’m sure John would love to keep promoting SeedProd on as many podcasts as he can.

    I think companies like Wishlist Member and Gravity Forms (mentioned in the show) are sustainable businesses. Then you have people like Joost de Valk who has built a small service business empire around giving away fantastic plugins.

    I think the point we were trying to get across, but I think I failed at as an interviewer, is how abundant and diverse the WordPress ecosystem has become. Anyone can make things that go into WordPress, change its look and function, support it and service it.

    Something that should have been mentioned, but wasn’t, is how plugins that are one-time fees will go under are an opportunity for someone to make a better version and change an ongoing fee (monthly or annually).

  • http://twitter.com/Lheithnar ilias diamantis

    Hey Tim and Dan wasup ?

    I think plugins that bloggers use all the time like gravity forms are better suited for a recurring fee.

    As great as John’s plugin is, I don’t think that someone will use it more than once a year. So it will be difficult for him to charge more than once.

    He could add an another functionallity , that we use frequently, repackage and charge in a monthly/annual basis. You know this stuff way better than I do . :)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    I would say most users who buy this product will use it several times a year and some who may use it monthly. The big thing with plugins is that if they aren’t updated then they eventually stop working.

    Power users will pay an annual fee to make sure the product continues to work and get new features added.

    Also, John can do like Gravity Forms and add different plugins that increase the functionality of his original plugin and sell those too.

  • http://johndturner.com John Turner

    Hi All,

    Thanks for the comments. Had a great time on the show.

    I have been testing various suport licenses, 1 year, unlimited mix and match etc. Right now both licenses are 1 Year. I really haven’t seen it affect my conversion rate, but need more data.

    I agree, unlimited is not a business model. I do think the WP marketing is big enough to support one time sales as long as you limit your support. But most people will upgrade because WP changes and the plugin wil need to keep up with the core. Plus if you are solving a real problem for someone they have not problem re-uping.

    My target audience is web developers and most of them use my plugin on every project they start. So it is used more than once. I’m adding a landing page feature to give the product value after the launch as well.

    My ultimate goal is to fins a SaaS base service around a WordPress product. That’s where the real money is at. :)

  • http://webcontrolroom.com/ Dan Norris

    I can understand building a service business but a lot of software developers don’t want to build a service business (myself included). I think the annual fee for multi site makes sense, I could see a lot of agencies going for something like Coming soon pro, great opportunity to promote your agency and build the client’s list while working on the site.

  • http://webcontrolroom.com/ Dan Norris

    Hey John do you have any examples of companies that are doing this? The Saas based service?

  • http://www.alaininternetmarketing.com/ Alain Guillot

    Five month ago I decided that I needed a change in my life, so I bought a WordPress book. Soon after, I started creating WordPress sites for my friends. Now, in spite of my little experience, I started creating WordPress site for individuals who are not my friends. Today I got my first client.

    Thank you so much for all the encouragement. There is light at the end of the tunnel

  • reggiepaq

    Awesome Podcast Tim and John. A lot of people are talking about software these days and the recurring income it can bring. Definitely inspiring and got me thinking!

    P.S. I’ve been looking for a “coming soon” and “under construction” solution for some time now. I will for sure buy seedprod when I need to use it next!

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    That’s awesome! Keep it up and you’ll have to turn away clients because you’ll have too many.

  • http://johndturner.com John Turner

    Thanks Reggie!

  • http://johndturner.com John Turner

    Good for you and good luck in your journey!

  • Dee Copeland Patience

    Just wanted to chime in to say that John provided great support to me when I was having problems with my wordpress theme conflicting with his plugin. Prior to reaching out to him, I wasted about 3 hours messing with a coming soon WP theme and it was horrific. After I realized that I’d need to spend all day learning how to code my own site, I emailed John and he responded right away.

    The launch page looks really rocking and I feel better that I have a really cool looking coming soon page that captures leads.

  • Dee Copeland Patience

    You should go for it. I used it today and it worked after John helped me. I uploaded it via FTP, so had lost functionality. Once he fixed it, my site looked great.

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  • Nitesh

    Hey Tim,

    It was good work calling John on board for this interview. But I’ve to say that you missed out on digging further on how John was doing his seedprod thing.

    I know John from micropreneur, and I was discussing his success with “coming soon” plugin with few of my friends & our consensus was that he hit a jackpot & its not replicable.

    Now, after having this consensus, I stumbled upon this interview thinking you’ll make John talk about how he planned this plugin, how he marketed it, how one sells its plugin on wordpress….how freemium model works on wp etc..etc. But unfortunately it wasnt there.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    That’s a fair critique. There was a lot of things I still wanted to ask, but didn’t have time to cover.

    As far as not being replicable, I don’t see how you could come to a consensus without having tried to replicate his model. Seedprod isn’t the only coming soon solution on the market. Seedprod is currently unique, but it won’t be forever as someone else will replicate its functionality.

    Also, the plugin market has a lot of room for creative developers to come in and make their own “jackpot.”

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