Welcome back to “Osom To Know”, where we dive into the world of indie development and community involvement.

➡️ In this episode, we sit down with Carlos a WordPress enthusiast who has focused on plugin development for the past 12 years. He enjoys the initial stages of bootstrapping a plugin project and providing direct support to users. He actively contributes to the WordPress community through translations and helping in community events. He divides his time between Porto, Portugal, and Italy.

From discussing the intricacies of selling plugins to exploring the future of WordPress development, Carlos shares valuable insights into his journey as an indie hacker. We delve into the dynamics of pricing models, the impact of community engagement, and the evolving landscape of plugin development in an ever-changing technological world. Join us as we uncover the insights and experiences of Carlos Moreira in this engaging and enlightening conversation.

You can also listen on Spotify or Apple Podcast!

Carlos Moreira [00:00:00]:
Even if you’re not a developer, you can still do it. If you have an idea and the the WordPress plug in repository helps, you can create a minimal viable product, something that works. You can put it there, and you will see if people are interested or not. My income comes, only from plugin sales. I have been a plug in developer for 12, almost 13 years now, and it all started very in a very simple way. I was working in the company and

Maciej Nowak [00:00:35]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Maciej Nowak, and welcome to the Osom to Know podcast where we discuss all things WordPress. My today’s guest is Carlos Moreira, an indie plugin developer and also WordCamp organizer. I was talking with Carlos about his path of developer, and where it got most interesting for me was when Carlos was talking about how he sold his 2 plugins to investors. If you don’t want to miss new episodes and keep learning about WordPress, subscribe to Osom to Know newsletter at osomstudio.com/newsletter. This is osomstudio.com/newsletter. If you watch this on YouTube, give us a thumb and subscribe to the channel. This means a word to us.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:13]:
Without further ado, please enjoy my my conversation with Carlos Moreira. Hey, everyone. It’s good to have you here. We’re glad you decided to tune in for this episode of

Lector [00:01:31]:
the Awesome to Know podcast.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:34]:
Hello, Carlos. Thank you very much for joining the podcast.

Carlos Moreira [00:01:38]:
Thank you for inviting me, Matti.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:41]:
Yeah. This is this is great that you were able to join. We met, during one of the work camps. I think it was work capital. Correct.

Carlos Moreira [00:01:51]:
In Milan. Yes.

Maciej Nowak [00:01:53]:
Yes. Exactly. And, you know, I’m curious because we now we we met then we met then, at WordCamp, and now I hear you’re, helping organize not 1, but 2 WordCamps. Correct?

Carlos Moreira [00:02:07]:
Correct. So I’m, helping you with the WorldCamp Europe, which is the big one in Europe. We expect around 3,000 people. And I’m in part of one of the teams. I’ve been volunteering the past, and now I’m volunteering in the organizing team. And I’m also the lead developer for the local World Camp in Porto. It’s a smaller local word camp, but we expect around 300 people. And it’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun because I like this part of the community side of, WordPress.

Carlos Moreira [00:02:38]:
I think it’s important to give back also by helping with these events. I really enjoy it.

Maciej Nowak [00:02:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. Great to hear. And, you know, I I had the recently recorded, a podcast with organizers of a WordCamp Europe, but, I would love to know more about, you know, why again, because this is very interesting because you commit your own time and this is, like, question number 1 for me always. You know, why why did you decide to spend your own time doing this?

Carlos Moreira [00:03:05]:
I think the community has always been part of my own journey as like an independent plugin developer. And it kind kind of grows on you. You start going to local meetups and you know those people. They become your friends. And then you wanna take it to last next level, you go to work camps, like, a bigger reunion, and it’s great for networking and learning. And then you find yourself wanting more and you go to a World Cup Europe, then that means you’re gonna travel abroad. And and then you make friends. You’ll learn a lot.

Carlos Moreira [00:03:38]:
A lot of my own, my own career has been influenced by the people I met either by the conversation, finding out tools, finding out solutions. And I learned so much that I think this kind of events should keep on happening, and I think they are important for WordPress. So and it’s part of, like, giving back to the project. Maybe I’m not giving back by solving bugs in the WordPress core, but I’m helping I can help in the organizations of of these events. And, it’s it’s easy when you enjoy what you’re doing. So I enjoy the community side and, so it doesn’t take, it’s tiring, time consuming, but in the end of the day, you’re you feel good about yourself.

Maciej Nowak [00:04:32]:
Yeah. So it’s like in the saying that if you find a job that is what you love, you don’t have a job. Right? And you don’t you you never work anymore. Right?

Carlos Moreira [00:04:40]:
Correct. So for right now, it’s volunteer work, but, I mean, it’s volunteering for something for the like a bigger I’m on I don’t wanna say cause, but volunteering to this WordPress ecosystem that also gave a lot back to me and to others.

Maciej Nowak [00:04:57]:
Alright. So since we are talking about Worldcoms, how is it going, you know, for Worldcom portal and Worldcom Europe? And, I know leaks or interesting facts or, you know, challenges you face right now. Mhmm.

Carlos Moreira [00:05:12]:
So I’ll start with the with Comp Europe, which is a big machine. There’s a lot happening. It’s a very big team. I’m on the volunteers team. So we are responsible for kind of recruiting volunteers to then help in the event. And, so we hope to have around 2 100, 250, volunteers in the event.

Maciej Nowak [00:05:38]:
Wow.

Carlos Moreira [00:05:38]:
So that’s almost 10% of the attendees are volunteers because it’s such a big event. We need volunteers in small tasks.

Maciej Nowak [00:05:46]:
It’s the number of people you a little bit less than what you are expecting in Porto. Right? So this is like the, it’s an army, right? Army of people, army of volunteers. Where do you get them?

Carlos Moreira [00:05:58]:
Yeah. So then the word goes out. WordCamp, needs volunteers. I was a volunteer in the past. I recommend it. It’s a great experience also to meet people, and you have a little bit of access to the, like, backstage of, Worldcamp, so be as big as Worldcamp Europe. And we we received hundreds of applications. We need to go through them, 1 by 1 to vet them to see if they are real people and if they are not breaking any rule or something in their social just to make sure they are good applicants.

Carlos Moreira [00:06:34]:
We vet them individually and then, yeah, we have so it’s a bit of a laborious task to go through that, but it’s important. And, we are a good team. We’re handling it. We need a lot more volunteers. I don’t know when the podcast is going out, but hopefully, if it’s soon

Maciej Nowak [00:06:52]:
Before June. Let’s hope. Before June.

Carlos Moreira [00:06:56]:
And yeah. And so and also, that’s on the World Cup Europe, and I’m the lead organizer for World Cup Porto. And, what I decided, to be a lead organizer taking the foot on the footsteps of other people that have been organizing for almost 10 years, WorldCamps in Portugal. And, you know, WorldCamps Europe was in Porto a couple of years ago. And they it so the the team that was before they started with meetups, world camps, and until organizing world camp Europe here. And so I’m kind of the and some of them retired. They need a bit of after so much work, and I kind of came in. And I’m helping and as the lead volunteer of Worldcamporto.

Carlos Moreira [00:07:42]:
And right now, we are in the phase of, speaker submissions, volunteer submissions, and a lot of most importantly, sponsor submissions because it’s the sponsors, that help make the event possible. We are all volunteers. We have kind of the support of, like, a WordPress community team, but, we need to make it happen with sponsors. Right now, we are maybe 5th the event will be in May 17 18 May. Everyone is that is listening is invited. And, right now, we are maybe 50% into sponsors, what we need from sponsors. We are, getting the speaker submissions that we will start reviewing in 2 in 2 weeks and volunteers. And, yeah, it’s a little bit of managing a big team, which is also an experience, something new for for me.

Carlos Moreira [00:08:41]:
It’s not so easy sometimes because we are humans. We make mistakes. But everyone is, committed, and, we hope the outcome is is great to World Cup. And I recommend everyone to show up and, and come and learn something in Porto also. And then fly to Italy a couple of weeks later.

Maciej Nowak [00:09:01]:
Exactly. Yeah. For for for for the big one. Anything particularly challenging for organizing, Worldcamp, in Portugal?

Carlos Moreira [00:09:11]:
So I think, one of the main things or the most addicts, they come from, gathering and venue. If someone’s listening this and they want to organize word camps. If you get these two things, everything else is very smooth, because catering for, it’s like a wedding in the in the end because it’s 300 people. It’s and then we have dietary restrictions. And then, today in the world, it so the it’s very volatile. I mean, things are changing with wars and suppliers, and prices change. And when we’re handling, suppliers which use the venue and the capturing and and prices are not fixed, we don’t know how much we’re gonna spend. So that’s one of the challenges.

Carlos Moreira [00:10:02]:
When that is solved, if you have a good team, it should be it should be smooth. I have a great team. But since we are all volunteers, none of us is getting paid to organize this. Sometimes it’s it’s hard to find time where everyone is available, find the level of commitment that we would like. It’s different levels each one. Maybe one person has half an hour a day. The other one is 1 hour a day or 1 hour a week. So it’s trying to put organize everything, together.

Carlos Moreira [00:10:38]:
So that’s a a challenge also. Sometimes, if the organizing team, they know to each other for many years, it will be easier. In our case, in Porto, there was a team that was a much smaller team that they were organizing for many years. But now this year, we’re trying to include new fresh blood, new organizers, and we are a larger team, but unexperienced. So this is only my second experience organizing a WordCamp. Last year, I was just helping in a smaller role. So there’s a lot of inexperienced in our team, but everyone is committed to make the best work comp possible.

Maciej Nowak [00:11:23]:
Perfect. Great. Alright. Good luck with the organization and

Carlos Moreira [00:11:27]:
Thank you.

Maciej Nowak [00:11:28]:
Rising. I’m I’m very curious how how will it how will it go? And and changing gears a little bit, you mentioned you are, plugin developer. Can you tell me a little bit how did how did all, you know, start? For you, you know, what’s your history with plugin development? There are so many plug ins out there for WordPress, and I mean, you know, you are one of the contributors to this huge, plug in database. I’m very curious to know how how it started, How is it going? Can’t you know what’s in the future for you?

Carlos Moreira [00:12:02]:
Yeah. So I I develop my income comes, only from plug in sales. I have been a plug in developer for 12, almost 13 years now, and it all started very in a very simple way. I was working in the company and they needed something, for a WordPress site. And, I I I built it. It was a maps, map kind of visualization thing. And, there was none there was no plug in in the market to do that. I did that for the company.

Carlos Moreira [00:12:44]:
It’s fine. It was done. And then when I left the company, I remember, okay. But there is a I learned how to do that. There was no plug in. I’m gonna try to see if I did I developed a solution for that particular case, but then I wanted maybe this is gonna have a broader reach. So when I was outside of the company, I built, a new plug in based on what I learned, and, it went very well. After 3 or 4 months, I was able to just focus on that.

Carlos Moreira [00:13:18]:
But, also, it’s important to say that 13, 12 years ago, the WordPress ecosystem was very, very different. It was easy for us to develop a product and easily, sell it because there were not many solutions in the market. There was less competition. But, anyway, that’s how my career, let’s say, kick started. After that, plug in, I developed a few more. And it’s been like that ever since. I always worked alone. I come from a a design background.

Carlos Moreira [00:13:53]:
I was not a I’m not a, like, engineer. So I had trouble even programming, but WordPress is is is more or less easy. And there’s a lot of documentation. There’s a lot of examples online. So I was able to find all the solution, make everything work, learning how to code better by each time. And I built 3 or 4 plug ins in the first phase, let’s say, of my career, and those plug ins were doing good. And then there’s, like, the second phase of my career, which it coincides to when I started attending meetups and getting more involved in the community, and the WordPress ecosystem itself was changing. Doing a product was not enough, or doing a product that was just premium was not enough.

Carlos Moreira [00:14:43]:
And I saw that using, the freemium model was much better as the the ecosystem was changing. And I knew from other plugin develops developers their experience with this model. So I decided my new plugins would follow this model. And, so let’s say 5 years ago, I started this second batch of, plugins using this model. And, it’s been it’s been doing great. I did I’m gonna tell a story of one plugin I did by chance. I was helping a friend, doing, a website. I usually don’t do websites.

Carlos Moreira [00:15:27]:
I was doing for my friend, and they needed something very simple, which was a contact form in DV that one of the fields was a date picker to select the date. And there was nothing for DV Builder. And I thought I can do this in couple of hours. I took a JavaScript library, loaded into a a plugin that would convert that specific field into a date picker. And from that, I thought, okay, I’ll do this as a plugin also. I did it. So something I did in 2 hours, I put it in the repo as a free plugin. It started getting a lot of feedback.

Carlos Moreira [00:16:09]:
I published a blog article explaining how to to use it. I was getting a lot of feedback, a lot of feature requests, and and I thought, okay. This has it’s such a simple concept, but it has potential. And putting it on the repository meant it it brought it more attention. It’s, the support requests and feedback also helped me know where the plug in should go. And I thought, okay, I need to have a a paid version so it’s sustainable. I did. And a few months after, it was doing not so much money, but some.

Carlos Moreira [00:16:49]:
And, but since I have other projects to focus, okay. I think I prefer to give this to someone else. I I put it for sale in a plug in business platform. And, there were people interested and and I sold. So that was like my first it was very small project, but it was my first, like, payout thing. Yeah. That’s that’s

Maciej Nowak [00:17:14]:
very that’s very interesting that you have created something, then it grew a little bit, and then you you thought, okay. I I don’t need this. But, hey. It turned out that, you know, you can sell everything, nearly everything. And there was a customer that wanted to buy something he wanted to dump. Right? Because you didn’t want to do you didn’t want to, you know, continue this project. Right?

Carlos Moreira [00:17:38]:
Yes. Correct. And that’s part of, maybe my profile that I prefer to stay, like, in the early stages of the plug in product development. And when it grows, more and it maybe needs more marketing, maybe SEO, to to have bigger sales. I’m not very comfortable with that. I I I don’t have much interest in that part. So this experience was was good. But also there’s the dark side of that this experience that happened, which the person that bought it, it was a different mindset.

Carlos Moreira [00:18:19]:
They were outsourcing support, outsourcing development. And I saw that then the ratings of the plug ins started going down, because their attention to the product was not, as much as I was giving. And I like, you know, to give support. It’s like 1 on 1, answer fast, detailed. And then I think it’s one of the dangers when we sell the plugin to someone else is if they are gonna keep this, this thing. And, it it wasn’t the case initially. I think now it’s a little bit better. So that’s one of the bad sides.

Maciej Nowak [00:18:57]:
Mhmm. If I may interrupt, I’m thinking about totally different models, like, totally different business models you and the sell and and the buyer had because you are, let’s say, in the creative on on the creative part. You are on a mission to fix a problem you had when when building that that part of the website for your friend, and then you had a very close relationship with your customers. And this was dragging you. I mean, this was this was the problematic part. It was taking too much of your time. Now the buyer was thinking about not making it all easier for the for the users, but rather making profit on that investment. For for the sell for the buyer, it was an investment.

Maciej Nowak [00:19:52]:
So to justify the spend and to, you know, get have a return on on the investment, they had to change something. What was traveling queue, they have outsourced, to, you know, somewhere, and, you know, the quality dropped of of the customer care. Yeah. So this is I this is also something people are saying when there is a great SaaS platform, it gets it gets sold, and then, you know, the support deteriorates, for example. So there is there there is that inflection point when the business got gets sold, and this is when you as the customer has to pay more attention if everything is going as good as it was before. Mhmm.

Carlos Moreira [00:20:38]:
Yes. I think, I mean, from the buyer perspective, like, if someone is buying the plugin, I mean, the user, sometimes they see, oh, it’s a company behind this. I’m sure they are good, and sometimes it’s not the case because they are also outsourcing support, etcetera. Sometimes they say they see, oh, it’s it has the name of the developer. Oh, this is just one guy. Maybe it’s not worth to spend the money here. Maybe this guy disappears. But sometimes it’s it’s it’s better because you will get 1 on 1 support with the plugin author, that a lot of the independent plugin developers like myself, they actually enjoy the support.

Carlos Moreira [00:21:18]:
I I was enjoying I enjoy giving support and having this direct relationship with the client. And sometimes they would be even surprised. Oh, I’m talking to the person who developed this. This is, so good. And good support gives you good ratings, and it’s all related. It’s all related. I could give be giving support when I was traveling in the camper. And but if I write good support messages, they think I’m in the office, or with a tie.

Carlos Moreira [00:21:49]:
You know? And

Maciej Nowak [00:21:50]:
It it all boils down to the quality of the support, not to know integration.

Carlos Moreira [00:21:55]:
And now there’s the the third phase of, my career, let’s say, is that I redevelop a new maps plugin based on one that I did 10 years ago. I made it more modern, and this was just before the pandemic. And, I launched the pro version in January 2020, so 2 months before. But, actually, it kick started my the plug in because it was maps. And during COVID time, a lot of people were using maps to show infection rates. So this coincidence actually helped the plug in have have more installs. It it also grew a lot, and a few months ago, I also decided to put it for sale because it was too much. I already had a friend helping me, but, I think the plug in grew so much.

Carlos Moreira [00:23:00]:
It was it would be better in the hands of a bigger company that maybe they were having a marketing team, SEO team, person dedicated to support and developers. And, I did. I’m right now, I’m in the middle of a transition. I sold this much bigger plugin, and I’m working with a new team to, like, teach them all the the things about the plugin and the support team. And it’s it’s going very well. And now I’m entering again the phase of I need a new product to repeat to the cycle. Now I’m working with a friend, which we he’s an engineer. So together, we hope to develop new products.

Carlos Moreira [00:23:48]:
To go to the cycle through the cycle again of,

Maciej Nowak [00:23:51]:
making the

Carlos Moreira [00:23:53]:
plug in go.

Maciej Nowak [00:23:54]:
There there are so many labels, like, to name you, like, there is, indie hacker, solopreneur because this is, you know, this is your one man a one man business. What else can I, can I think of? So developer developer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you feel about all of those labels? We know them because I I have a feeling they all apply and, you know, have you thought about it?

Carlos Moreira [00:24:22]:
They’re I think they’re all positive labels. I could also we can also add, like, some, like, community manager because of my work with the community. I think it’s okay, and I think it’s a good I mean, the lifestyle, I I am, I’m a family man. I I only work, like, maybe 4 hours a day. I like to pick up my school my kids from school early. So this this work situation allows me to have a more relaxed, let’s say, lifestyle that I wanna keep. I think if I grew a company, if I would keep the all these products, I will need to grow a company. And it would be mean less time, more stress.

Carlos Moreira [00:25:15]:
I don’t know. And more having to do more things that maybe I wouldn’t like. So all those labels are good. I I didn’t reach the CEO label or those more, financial roles that I can I don’t I don’t need them? It’s

Maciej Nowak [00:25:36]:
They envy the freedom and, you know, the amount of free time you have. So

Carlos Moreira [00:25:41]:
Yeah. I mean, it but because family also takes time and, a lot of stuff take time. And I think it’s important for also your own mental health to feel good and have free time and

Maciej Nowak [00:25:54]:
And let’s unpack those elements you have mentioned right now. So let’s talk about selling the the plug in. But also, you know, we’ve set we’ve we’ve the sale. There’s a price to, you know, to come up with, you know, for how much I’m happy to sell my product. And then, I would love to talk about, you know, the whole starting the the whole cycle again. Right? So let’s tell us, how do you go about selling your plug in? So it it was initiated, as I understand, by you. Right? So you put the the plug in on sale, on a platform. Correct?

Carlos Moreira [00:26:33]:
Correct. So right right now in the digital world, even WordPress world, there are some platforms where you can put your product for sale, your your business for sale. So it’s relatively easy to to do that. And I learned a lot from the first sale, to be more prepared for this bigger second sale. The buyers so okay. So first, why decide to sell is I talked a little bit. It’s when it it grows to a point that you either create a company, you hire more people, or you give it to some company. And that’s what happens.

Carlos Moreira [00:27:13]:
And then the seller the the buyer, sorry, they’re gonna come with questions. And some of this, I’m not, I was not very informed. Or maybe this financial side, I was not worrying. Like, I was not worrying about how many visits the the site was having. How many, conversions were on the cart, and all these numbers. I was not worried at all about this.

Maciej Nowak [00:27:37]:
But I think you were sorry. Sorry for interrupting. But you were not worried about them, meaning you are confident in in these numbers that they are good number. There’s good number of visits, good number of downloads. This?

Carlos Moreira [00:27:48]:
Yeah. I mean, I was focusing on support, and I see that the sales were coming. So I didn’t even look at the other date data. And that’s, I think, why maybe other people like to look at the data and they know where to grow. And they’re gonna ask, well, what’s your churn rate? What’s your this and that? And for the first sale, well, I I don’t know what you’re talking about. Okay?

Maciej Nowak [00:28:11]:
Yeah. That was piece of education, right? When you have to produce that numbers and you don’t know what to produce.

Carlos Moreira [00:28:18]:
For the second, part for the plug in, okay, I I have my own spreadsheet where I would put some numbers. Not much, but just to give an idea, of the growth. And, so when the second sale were coming, I had a lot of offers, but I wanted to reach a specific, threshold or specific number like metal. I will only sell for this amount. I had a lot of offers that were 2 times the last 12 months of income. So these are numbers. I wanted to sell for 2.5 the last 12 months of profit. And, that’s the number I got for this, last sale.

Carlos Moreira [00:29:04]:
And, but there’s an a lot of variables. Are the is the profit from subscribers or one time payments, like lifetime licenses. And I see now there’s a debate about, lifetime and subscription right now. And maybe I can talk a little bit about that also. Me coming from, map plug in background, My experience was people would buy a plug in, set up the map, have maybe 1 or 2 questions in the beginning, and then the map is there. So I think in this scenario and for plug ins that are have this profile of you in yeah. There’s an initial setup and then they leave it. I think the lifetime makes sense.

Carlos Moreira [00:29:57]:
If there are plug ins that are continuously giving value to your website, either by integrating with posts or some other API or helping with sales, then a subscription makes more sense. I I did have both subscription and lifetime. And in, this big plug in, the profits were half half were from subscriptions and half were from lifetime. And this sometimes was worrying the the buyers because, you know, lifetime doesn’t mean it’s gonna keep these numbers. But from my 10 year experience for this type of plugin, lifetime, makes sense. And

Maciej Nowak [00:30:43]:
So can can I kick in with a question? So if in European one time payments were made sense, so why so many people if for 50 percent of other people, you know, of your customers were choosing to subscribe instead of to instead to pay once?

Carlos Moreira [00:31:00]:
I think it’s the price difference. So the yearly subscription was, 1 third of, the lifetime. So lifetime was 3 times yearly. Maybe they don’t have confident if the project is gonna last 1, 2, 3 years. And, maybe that’s because of that. Maybe it was just because the way the checkout process was because by default is, you know, the yearly subscription. We tried a little bit to focus on the yearly subscription. Maybe it was that.

Carlos Moreira [00:31:33]:
I don’t know. I I it’s like stuff that I don’t, I didn’t AB test to see these things.

Maciej Nowak [00:31:38]:
But I want to dig into this. Ask more questions about this.

Carlos Moreira [00:31:44]:
See, I I don’t have the answer why that’s 5050. But, I also think by experience, a lot of the websites, they don’t last more than 3 years. So having the lifetime on my side, on our side made sense to and the lifetime also caters for those needs for those, like, agencies that they wanna build a product and give it to the client without any subscription and and stuff. And whoever has kind of an ongoing project, they don’t know if it’s gonna work out or not. They go for the yearly subscriptions because they know that they can cancel anytime.

Maciej Nowak [00:32:23]:
Mhmm. So I’m thinking about that checkout process that, the yearly subscription was the sorry. Not. One time payment was was the default option that I’m I’m thinking about optimizing for something. So it could be optimizing for, like, current revenue because this would give you what the customer would pay in 3 years’ time upfront. Right? So you build a lot of, let’s say, upfront, revenue initially. On the other hand, if you optimize for the sale of the company of the plug in, more recurring revenue is more desired because this, is multiplied then by 2.5, for example, 2.5. So, yeah, this is this is curious, you know, about, you know, thinking about those numbers, you know, how is it going, you know, what’s the churn.

Maciej Nowak [00:33:19]:
Right? You know, let’s optimize, the, checkout process. Have you been also thinking about pricing in terms of, you know, what can be done about pricing? How do you change prices during the lifetime of the product?

Carlos Moreira [00:33:35]:
Not too much. Those are I did some tweaks. Those are the areas that I I don’t care so much, let’s say. I I think I did my initial study to price the product, and I I found a good balance. And it was working, so I didn’t touch. I at some point, I changed it slightly, the lifetime by but small difference. And, I juggled a little bit with the euro and USD, prices because the the there’s some fluctuation. But I didn’t experiment a lot, just simply because I was focusing on other things.

Carlos Moreira [00:34:18]:
And this business side of, like, optimizing, and and I wasn’t so focused or worried about. And that’s where you can ask out from other agencies. You had James about the keynote here, talking about marketing and solutions, and he works for a company that does this kind of, like, optimizing. They analyze, and that’s when you’re it it’s not what developers are focused on. And, so, yeah, I didn’t get to the part of experiment, and, I hope that the new owner probably will, and there’s space to to improve that. But what picking up on what you said, it’s true. If you wanna make money, lifetime makes you quick money. If you wanna to sell, it’s more interesting to focus on the you’re just getting more subscriptions because the the potential buyer will like those numbers more.

Carlos Moreira [00:35:15]:
But then I think the balance between 2, because if it’s only subscriptions, the revenue is less on the short term. So they might get paid less. Also, Yeah. It’s a little bit depends on the profile of the buyer also.

Maciej Nowak [00:35:30]:
Mhmm. So let’s get back to the, to the investor. Now you mentioned that you were you were aiming at 2.5 valuation and that you were worried about that split, you know, that even split between lifetime and and recurring. So how does history develops? How does what’s the history? You know? What’s the base for the whole revenue or only for from calculated from that recurring revenue?

Carlos Moreira [00:35:58]:
So we when a buyer comes and, in this case, it took a lot of money, so they wanna go through everything to make sure. And I think it’s a calculated risk, knowing that half, of this revenue comes from lifetime. But then we we discussed I showed, like, historically, how these things were. And from my own experience, with other plug ins that were lifetime only in the past, that this kind of plugin works with lifetime. And the industry, although there’s a big shift, everyone is defending subscriptions, I still think there’s a place for lifetime. And, it’s a matter of, you know, making your case to the buyer that it makes sense. And, them under looking at the numbers and understanding them. But, ultimately, they’re looking at, also at other fine numbers, like the number of subscript the number of buyers if they’re if they’re rising, how many subscribers are dropping.

Carlos Moreira [00:37:08]:
They look at everything. So putting all of those things together. And I don’t know if I can make some more advertising. I’m using a platform called, Freemius to sell my products. And they do they take a small percentage of the sale, but we have a dashboard with, churn rates, subscriptions, and all this there’s a little dashboard with a lot of graphics that I really don’t care, but they are there. And this was also very helpful for the buyer. So and and they look into everything. You know? In this case, the buyer, it was a like a family business, let’s call it.

Carlos Moreira [00:37:55]:
Like, one of the brothers were more into finance, the other was with marketing. And so all of them looked into the different perspectives of of the business, and I did it worked out. We managed to find a a good balance between what I was hoping and what they could offer. And right now, we’re transitioning, and I’m also, at the same time, working on a new product.

Maciej Nowak [00:38:20]:
Right. Right. This is the this is a great story, you know, with that, you know, cycle, repeating itself. I wonder how did you come up at 2.5? You know? Because this is a number that, you know, our listeners may wonder about why this particular number? Why not 7? Why not I don’t know, 20 or whatever.

Carlos Moreira [00:38:41]:
Yeah. I wish it was 5, for example. Oh,

Maciej Nowak [00:38:44]:
yeah? Okay.

Carlos Moreira [00:38:45]:
That’s just not that I think, 3, I think it’s I mean, if it was all subscribers, no lifetime. I think 3, maybe even 4, you can aim for those numbers because they are subscribers. When there’s the lifetime in the game, I think it lowers a little bit. I still think, looking at others, talking a little bit with other product, owners, maybe some of them, they they got 4 times, but they were only subscriptions. Others less because they were only lifetime. And 2.5, actually, it it it isn’t that great because you think, why sell something that in I can keep doing what I’m doing and in 2 half 2 year 2 and a half years, I’m gonna get this money anyway. But it’s yeah. Why you decide to sell also enters into the equation.

Carlos Moreira [00:39:45]:
And in the end, 2.5 seemed like a reasonable number considering all the factors. I don’t know what’s the standard. I mean, I talked with some people and some day, oh, 2.5. That was great. It was a great business. It was good good rate. Others say, why why so little? I think, I mean, when I also had the experience of the first people that were interested. Everyone was aiming at 2 two times annual profit.

Carlos Moreira [00:40:27]:
And I was seeing, okay. So this is what the real value, let’s say. If there’s, like, 4 people that are experienced in the industry offering this, of knowing that they may be offer something lower, it means that the real value is around 2 two times. So 2.5 was the extra step to make me sell.

Maciej Nowak [00:40:52]:
Right. When when I’m thinking about this and you said that there is 5050 split, it means that you got multiple of 5 for that part that was recurring revenue, and that was very good result. You know? You know, obviously, the the new buyer would would have the income from one time sales, which were 50%. So it’s, it’s, like, muddying that picture a little bit. But, you know, if for some companies, you only can, you can only account for the recurring, excluding all of the one offs. So no one time payments. They are not exactly one offs, but the the the the the revenues happening only once, and then there’s that license forever. So can can you tell me a little bit more of what you are planning right now? How will you come up with a new idea? What is the creative process for creating a new idea for any plugin?

Carlos Moreira [00:41:46]:
So it’s not 12 years that I’m doing this. The ideas sometimes is recycling old ideas, old projects that worked. They just need to be modernized. And, also, I it’s also 12 years that I’m working in the, like, maps ecosystem. So, although I do have, like, a noncompeting clause because of the sale, there are some exceptions. And I will still develop plugins that are related to maps. Maps is a niche and it’s but it’s a very big niche depending on the map solution you you you create. There’s a lot of competitors also in this niche, but I think it’s great and it’s things that evolve with time.

Carlos Moreira [00:42:35]:
So one solution from app related stuff for 5 years, maybe it’s a little bit outdated now. So I will keep on the maps ecosystem, and I have some other ideas, like, to explore WooCommerce, solutions in that market also. But for people who are starting, what I can say is the most common way to have an idea is you’re developing something for a client, and there is no solution for that in the market. So you come across an opportunity. K. So that’s a bit less likely to happen now than 10 years ago, but it can still happen. Another way to get ideas for a product is integrating with something new. Like, imagine now there’s, Open AI, Integrating WordPress with OpenAI.

Carlos Moreira [00:43:28]:
So I

Maciej Nowak [00:43:28]:
have a sorry for interrupting what I have link. Everyone is doing, you know, everyone every agency that has a bench, or or, you know, people without projects is doing this right now very, very heavily investing. There is it’s a huge bet. Everyone is doing it. Thinking about the huge payout, if there is, if if the idea catches.

Carlos Moreira [00:43:47]:
Yeah. It’s true. Because, from time to time, there’s there are these opportunities to create products that, if if you’re successful, you can get big money or big implementation. For example, some years ago, the GDPR rules, the people that started doing plugins to integrate this with WordPress early on were the winners. Because now that if we see the, like, cookie law or g d b r, whatever plugins, they have thousands of installations. I I said, OpenAI now, but for sure there will be some new software product integration that that will create opportunities for for developers to to create. But right now, it’s true. It’s a rush.

Carlos Moreira [00:44:33]:
When there’s such opportunity for such a big market. There’s a lot of investment to see if there’s a big payout. So it’s a bit of a if you’re an agency and you have the resources, it’s okay for an independent developer. But still, there are other cases. Another example of imagine that I’m gonna use the example of OpenAI but something as they release an official WordPress plugin. But it’s a bit, it’s not good enough. You can always develop your own plugin. And it might be better than the official one.

Carlos Moreira [00:45:08]:
There are a lot of stories in the WordPress ecosystem of independent developers creating better plugins than than the official ones from the companies. Mail Mailchimp and, you know, similar services, or payment gateways or there’s always also opportunities to improve even if the official company has their their plug in. And who knows? Maybe they will buy you a they they will buy your products to integrate as their own. So there’s a few ways that the idea can come to you, And, it’s more difficult now than in the past, but that’s a never evolving and changing ecosystem. And, technology, might, might change. I think there’s a lot of opportunities in 3 d, a little bit in augmented reality. But, right now, how to use this inside WordPress is not very clear or there’s not a big market, but it might change. The same when Gutenberg came out to block editor.

Carlos Moreira [00:46:20]:
A lot of block libraries came out, and some are still very popular. But, yeah, I think getting back to the basics, if you need to develop something that doesn’t exist, there’s your opportunity.

Maciej Nowak [00:46:38]:
Mhmm. I love it. I love it. And I’m also thinking, you know, if anyone listening to our conversation would like to follow your path, do you have any words of wisdom to that, to that young adept of of a solo developer in the hacking?

Carlos Moreira [00:46:57]:
Don’t be afraid to explore. Even if you’re not a developer, you can still do it. I think it’s worth to if you have an idea and the the WordPress plugin repository helps, you can create a minimal viable product, something that works. You can put it there, and you will see if people are interested or not. I know right now it’s difficult to get attention in thousands of plugins. But if it’s, something valuable, it might take 1 year or something. But if you develop something that, is helpful, users will come. So if you have an idea, develop it.

Carlos Moreira [00:47:39]:
Develop a minimal viable product. Put it on the free market. Use the feedback from users, the initial users to improve and see if to validate your idea, to see if it’s worth to continue to pursue that idea or not. And, get involved in the community because you will learn a lot from others. And, and try try one time. If it doesn’t go, try the second time. I’m not saying everyone will be successful. It’s, nowadays difficult to have a successful plugin.

Carlos Moreira [00:48:13]:
But, even if you have an idea, you see that there’s already a plugin for that. Check that plugin. Maybe you can do better because there’s opportunity to to improve on on something that already exists. That’s what I would say to young WordPress indie hackers. It’s possible. There are tools. The market is big and very competitive, but there’s always gonna be the need for new products and solutions.

Maciej Nowak [00:48:45]:
Right. I I have, I think, one last question. How would you compare, you know, your path with, building products as plug ins versus, for example, building I don’t know. Where they made templates to be bought on Envato, for example. And the takes on that and differences, similarities.

Carlos Moreira [00:49:09]:
So in the early days, I would say they were very similar. I also sold in, in in Vato, my first plugins. And I still have them there. I still maintain them. And developing a plugin in the theme, Maybe the theme would require more design skills, but in the end, it was PHP code and templates and, CSS. So similar to a plug in in a way in the technical aspect, but without the the plug ins wouldn’t require maybe so much design. So in the early days was similar. And then it started shifting apart a lot because also in the early days in Envato, in ThemeForest, the theme already came with all the features coded in without even without using plugins.

Carlos Moreira [00:50:04]:
It was like you need a WordPress site for a booking platform. Just install this theme. Everything is kind of built into the theme, the booking system. And but that was kind of not the idea of WordPress. The idea was to separate design and functionality. And now the the the theme paradigm changed completely, and the themes were also kind of fashion not fashion, like tendencies. So there was a tendency for flat designs many years ago, The teams that were implementing this design. So the teams are like a a peak of sales and then they will drop unless and then they will

Maciej Nowak [00:50:51]:
They are so so reliant on the current, let’s say, design trends. Because they are so design oriented.

Carlos Moreira [00:50:59]:
Also and and then, the multipurpose, themes showed up. Like, Divi, Avada, and these mega themes that they could do everything. So, then these specific themes, they started dropping, and this Divi, Avada, and others started growing. While with the plugins, it was always the same because we’re providing functionality. So that was a little bit of the difference in the the the themes market. I think that the themes market were more competitive. You would get money a lot of money faster, but then you will need to think of another project always kind of, unless you would develop a mega plugin, a mega theme. And with plugins, the functionality was still required.

Carlos Moreira [00:51:42]:
And, yeah, and then the page builders came, and they dominated the market. And before that, the sliders plug ins were dominating the making a lot of money. So there’s a little bit of, trends also in the plug ins industry. But the new block editor also kind of destroyed the need for a lot of this small utility plugins. And, yeah, it’s an ever evolving market. And for now, if you wanna be a theme a theme developer, it’s a bit strange. I’m a bit outside of this right now, but I think you don’t develop a theme anymore almost. You kind of develop temp, like the patterns, and and you offer the patterns as as a theme.

Carlos Moreira [00:52:36]:
So the the paradigm changed so much in the way theme developers were doing things in the past and right now. And, and with the plugin developers, it’s a little bit different. Things have changed, but not so much as in the theme world, I would say.

Maciej Nowak [00:52:54]:
Mhmm. And, earlier, you mentioned that there is that battle between proponents of onetime payment versus subscriptions. Subscriptions are defending themselves. Recently, there was a new product, launched totally built from scratch meant for, one time payment, and it’s called you know, it’s it’s once, and it’s it’s coming from, Jason Fried and, 37 signals. So it’s a Slack replacement you can run on premise on your own server for, the the the the promise is $5, you know, hosting environment for 10,000 users, concurrent. So this is peanuts, and this is $300 for, you know, once. You pay once. And, you know, this is crazy that you can develop nearly 100% Slack replacement and have it for 300 dollars and run it for $5 a month.

Maciej Nowak [00:53:55]:
So this is mind blowing.

Carlos Moreira [00:53:59]:
Yeah. I think it is. I didn’t know this project, but it’s there is space for the lifetime. And at least when you start an idea, it could also help your business. You need more money fast, and maybe then after some time you’ll change your strategy. So there’s a lot to discuss in this topic, and it depends on on the product. Maybe it’s a single use product that you only need to run once. So why is it a subscription? And maybe so if you’ve mentioned they are offering the hosting, maybe that’s the the recurring that they they will get.

Carlos Moreira [00:54:41]:
No? Maybe you so one time advance payment for something, but then and then a residual smaller payment, but that’s the long term, gains.

Maciej Nowak [00:54:51]:
The whole thing you can you can you can choose. You know? So they they sell you only the software package, and this is this is crazy. Yeah. But I I appreciate the take. And, Carlos, thank you very much for, for joining the pod. I really like the conversation, especially about, you know, the pricing, the the product. This was super interesting and I think unique because this is, no no one wants to talk about numbers and to know what were the, you know, tiny details of the transaction. You know? So I really appreciate your openness here, and and this was very interesting conversation for me.

Maciej Nowak [00:55:27]:
Thank you.

Carlos Moreira [00:55:28]:
Thank you for inviting me. Cheers.

Maciej Nowak [00:55:30]:
Thank you. See you see you see you in Italy.

Carlos Moreira [00:55:33]:
Hope to see you in Portugal. You’re invited also.

Maciej Nowak [00:55:36]:
I still I’m still thinking about this. All right. Take care, Carlos. If you like what you’ve just heard, don’t forget to subscribe for more episodes. On the other hand, if you’ve got a question we haven’t answered yet, feel free to reach out to us directly. Just go to osomstudio.com/contact.

Lector [00:55:58]:
Thanks for listening, and see you in the next episode of the Awesome to Know podcast.