Twenty Thirteen

Written by Mark Forrester on December 31, 2013 Blog, News.

2013-woo-review
As we count down the hours to 2014 and most of the WooThemes team enjoy some much deserved time off, we reflect on a monumental year.

The year of growth

Our mission for 2013 was to double-down on the products & revenue channels where we saw most traction & growth and concentrate on creating long lasting relationships with our existing customers through our platform offering. With our flagship product WooCommerce gaining huge momentum it took us 629 days to reach 1 million downloads, and only 184 days to reach 2 million. Over 150,000 sites are now using WooCommerce to power their shopfronts and all data suggests we are one of the fastest growing eCommerce platforms online. Needless to say we found ourselves with a lot of new customers.

Whilst we place significant emphasis on WooCommerce in our growth strategy, the long tail has been very effective in driving and acquiring new customers. WooThemes has had a massive year in terms of theme and plugin releases. We’ve re-factored a lot of code and removed a lot of bloat from our themes – replacing in-built functionality with a heap of free plugins. We’ve optimised our site, both visually and technically. Powered by WooCommerce in 2013 there was just shy of 100,000 transactions processed on our site, and whilst we may not be the biggest store in terms of product numbers, we’re even more confident WooCommerce can power a shop of any size with the right hosting infrastructure.

With this kind of growth, we’ve experienced a year of much change in terms of organisational structures, new policies, stricter targets, deadlines, as well as increased and improved communication through product and support hangouts, p2 messaging and the implementation of Hipchat. The whole team now even has Fitbits and help encourage each other to step away from the computer and exercise – from the other side of the world.

Team highlights

When I asked the team what their highlights were of 2013 the common theme was our team get-togethers, namely the WooTrip, as well as WordCamp Atlanta where our stateside team met and WordCamp London were some of our UK team congregated. The long lasting effect these get-togethers have is immeasurable, but the relationships they help build between remote team mates is very tangible. We look forward to more meetups in 2014.

WooTrip 2013. Edited by Ryan Ray.

For our chief happiness officer, Mike Krapf, personal highlights were our much anticipated theme updater and new docs site, as well as new support ninja recruits to help ensure customer happiness and accomodate our growing support strains.

2014 teaser: Expect more community support resources & possibly events too.

What the team had to say:

WooCommerce 2 million was definitely huge but my favorite moment at work was the company dinner and fireworks that followed at WordCamp Europe / WooTrip 2013 – Scotty Basgaard

Everything about WooTrip 2013 was incredible as always. I’m really excited for the plans and strategies that were laid out this year to come to fruition in 2014. Our leadership is on key – Ryan Ray

WooCommerce 1M and 2M, WooTrip 2013 (the whole trip!), WooSlider growing up (2.0.0) and many more. Favourite theme of the year would have to go to UpstartMatty Cohen

Definitely the growth of WC, hitting 1M and 2M downloads. WooTrip is always the highlight of the year, meeting everyone again (or for the first time) – Coen Jacobs

The moshpit at WCEurope – Magnus Jepson

More tomfoolery on WooTrip 2013. Filmed & edited by Remi Corson.

Overall, WooThemes has matured as a business and overcome some big obstacles. We’re a constant work in progress, but have some very specific goals set for the new year that we are going to strive towards together. We look forward to sharing more with you our community soon.

Bring on Twenty Fourteen!

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12 Responses

  1. Jeff
    December 31, 2013 at 5:53 pm #

    Hi there, looks like you guys are having fun! I’m a new customer here at the end of 2013 and enjoying Canvas so far.

    Question 1: What floating social sharing plugin are you using on the left side of this post?

    Question2: How do you get the author image to appear above it?

    Thanks and good luck in 2014!

    • Ryan Ray
      January 2, 2014 at 6:42 pm #

      Hi Jeff,

      Thanks for jumping into the WooCommunity, Canvas is a great way to start. 😛

      Our social sharing area is all custom coded, it’s not a plugin currently. Some fancy HTML/CSS to make it work and look as it does. The same goes for our author avatar. We’re using each author’s profile to pull in their Gravatar and then some HTML/CSS to place and style it.

  2. Scott
    January 1, 2014 at 9:05 pm #

    Hi,

    When will the Photography extension be available please?

  3. Johnny
    January 2, 2014 at 12:16 pm #

    Congratulations on the achievements in 2013 and I’m looking forward to see your products (especially the improved vendor plugin) and services in 2014! All the best!

    • Ryan Ray
      January 2, 2014 at 6:45 pm #

      Thank you very much Johnny. 2014 will be a great year of products from us. 🙂

      • Johnny
        January 3, 2014 at 10:46 am #

        Great to hear, looking forward to it!

  4. Kyle
    January 3, 2014 at 2:40 am #

    Really looking forward to the Photography Extension!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

  5. DNK
    January 4, 2014 at 1:46 am #

    Wanted to buy a couple woo commerce plug in’s and was wondering if you guys are having a sale or anything for the new year? Thanks!

  6. binhang
    January 19, 2014 at 7:15 am #

    Hi, Mark Forrester. I like your article. It is very informative so it is very useful for my job. Thanks for sharing this post. Hope to read more helpful information from you. Have a nice day!