What goes into the process of developing, acquiring, starting, and maintaining a WordPress plugin?

In this episode, Gaby and Mark talk to Cristian Raiber, CEO of WPChill, a company that offers the Download Monitor, Strong Testimonials, and Modula plugins.

WPChill is a WordPress development studio located in Romania. Currently, WPChill’s products power more than 600,000 online businesses and have been downloaded over 5.8 million times.

Episode Highlights and Topics

• 2020 Year in Review: Cristian shares numbers, graphs, and future plans for WPChill.
• WPChill: Started with WP theme shop and switched back to agency work to survive.
• Modula: WPChill saved up enough money in one year to buy and acquire first plugin.
• What and Why: Build on products that help people, solve a need, and solve a problem.
• Partnerships/Collaboration: As WordPress matures, there’s more money and players.
• User Feedback: Customers tell companies not what they want, but how to fix a problem.
• Freemium/Premium Models: Depends on financial support to build user base/feedback.
• Plugins: Data need to be collected, analyzed to understand user experience, personas.
• Platforms and Plugins: SaaS solutions moving into WordPress space for convenience.

Resources/Links:

• Cristian Raiber on Twitter
• WPChill
• Download Monitor
• Strong Testimonials
• Modula
• 2020 Year in Review
• Liquid Web
• Freemius
• MailChimp
• WP Rocket
• Spotlight WP
• WooCommerce
• Castos
• RebelCode