Very excited to see the Growtheme on PH 😍
I've build this theme out of a massive pain for myself. In the past year I’ve build together with my spouse a Blog from zero to 10.000+ email subscribers. Without SEO. Without paid clicks. Without any previous experience and with just one post per week.
We focused on techniques used by big Bloggers like Noah Kagan, Derek Halpern or Neil Patel. What we noticed was that it's really hard to do the same if you start from zero. You either need to be a developer yourself, or use several plugins on a monthly basis that are very unflexible and make a complete mess out of your blog.
As I noticed that other bloggers were searching for a solution to the same problem, I decided to turn our custom made theme into a product anybody could use. (Making the first version in a 48h product challenge inspired by @amyhoy and @nathanbarry)
I know that some of the techniques (like popups) are sometimes questioned. But the truth is that they do work and can be used in an ethical way that provides real value to visitors.
Additionally if you are just starting out as a Blogger you don't have any time to loose and so much things to learn.
If you have something that takes away all the technical worries, you have more time to focus on the things that really matter for a successful blog: Writing great content and building real relationships with your readers.
AMA regarding the Product, Email List Building or Blog Growth in general. I had the pleasure to work with some of the big bloggers out their, so I am happy to help :)
@jaschaio@amyhoy@nathanbarry Great concept... while I agree with @bentossell's general sentinment, I also agree that there are a lot of themes out there that don't really offer basic methods for your users to get onboard.
My one comment would be that your main site and your demo site don't really operate as full sites, so it's hard to see how I might use your theme as a regular user. I can't see the "full site experience" and without that, all I'm really seeing are plugins disguised as a theme (thus preventing me from using my regular theme).
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This is a fantastic theme @jaschaio. I'm not a coder, 95% of all the websites I've built have been using free & premium Wordpress themes. I'd suggest a slightly more fleshed out demo though.
I get it, you're the 'only' theme focused on "GrowthHacking", but really you still have massive competition. A simple stroll over to Themeforest will result in 1,000's of different themes - competition. All of which have a very comprehensive demo, or in many cases demos. And most are priced at a third of your theme (with the PH discount).
I thoroughly dig what you've created, but understand that the people who buy themes can't usually afford custom work & can't code their way out of a paper bag. I feel it would help your sales with the theme purchasing audience if you show them the power with a better demo.
@chaseth Hey Chase, thanks for your feedback. Its absolutely true that I have neglected the demo site in favor of developing the theme further, especially in comparison with the "competition" you mentioned. For what I've seen with my current customers, is that at the moment they are a completely different kind of audience than themeforest is targeting. For the feedback I got, it seems like the landing page already makes a pretty good point on what makes this theme completely different for them. But while growing I shouldn't neglect the features of the theme as well, including a better demo and some kind of product tour. Could I follow up with you once I start working on that to get some quick suggestions? Thanks again!
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@jaschaio Thanks for that perspective. And I definitely understand that this might speak to a different audience out of the gate. There are some specific theme creators that I feel have nailed the demo, and those would be the ones I'd look to as examples. Please follow up whenever. Congrats again on a great product!
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At the beginning I didn’t had time to figure out how the different "must have“ plugins for wordpress work, what the best marketing techniques are, and how to convert the majority of my visitors into subscribers.
I didn’t had time because I was focused on writing great and valuable content (on the field that i really know and been passionate about), on getting traffic via guest posts, and on answering emails of my first couple of subscribers (that only got more since the blog got larger).
For me, the most important driver for a successful blog is publishing consistently great content. A lot of people fail after a few months. And thats sad, as its just too early. After a few months we only had around 300 subscribers and never thought it would be possible to reach such high numbers. But the second most important thing is having the right strategy. You still have to care about everything else (a good blog is a lot of work) but at least the technical strategy part is taken care of.
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Interesting product, but even if you speak English as a second language, get people to proofread your content. Loose does not equal lose
@44aman You are absolutely right, there is no way I can get perfect in writing, as this is actually my third language (after german and spanish). Anyway you make a good suggestion, I will try to find a reliable editor to proofread things before publication for the next turn around. Anyone to recommend? Thanks for your feedback!
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Having a theme that is preloaded with lots of plugins in my opinion has always been a pain.
It's always best to get a blank theme and add a plugin here and there. Eventually you have to streamline the code anyway.
Having themes that are already bloated with plugins. Makes it a lot slower, than adding the same plugins to a blank theme.
Your theme looks beautiful. If you could get the load time as low as a blank theme you have a winner 🤔
@dredurr you got a good point here. But I think there is a huge difference to other themes that come with a lot of functions. Most of the wordpress themes try to appeal to everyone, and therefore be "multi-purpose" templates. They treat every user the same, it doesn't matter if you want to build your startup page, designer portfolio, blog, event page, etc.
Thats why most of these themes come with a whole lot of functions like preloaded custom sliders, hundreds of shortcodes, custom editors, etc., etc. etc. But the average user only uses a small percentage of them. Either because they are too complicated to use, don't statisfy their needs or just because they are part of a different kind of audience. If they than go and add even more plugins, you end up with a real slow wordpress page.
This theme is different because its a single purpose theme. I've thought a lot about which functions to include and which are better taken care of by a plugin. And I've actually took that in mind as well on the code side, for example that a Mailchimp user doesn't loads the code needed for AWeber Users. Additionally the code for the functionality of the theme is found inside a plugin and the code that is responsible for the appeal of the page is found in the theme itself. This helps as well to speed up everything.
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I saw its content under your landing page. Can you give me some examples of live sites by existing users? That can give me some insights how this would appear in live site?
The Growtheme
Brutal Teardowns
The Growtheme
The Growtheme
The Growtheme