A WordPress Theming Service For Designers Only

In this post, I want to introduce you a soon-to-be-launched productized service. It helps designers to convert their beautiful work into a fully functional but also light-weighted WordPress theme.

I know it doesn’t sound that charming, but if you are a designer who’ve ever sworn you’ll never purchase from any theme shop again, please read this up, I might have something for you.

What’s wrong with those WordPress theme shops?

I know there are people, myself included, built their websites with a ready-made theme purchased from theme shops and lived happily ever after. But I also know people who suffered a lot with them.

Everyone has a different story, in the case of designers, they are just so frustrated to choose a design they love. This is pretty understandable since who knows the style better than the designer herself?

Even when they find one barely meet their standards, after installing it, the custom WordPress admin dashboards let them feel like they’ll be pushing the nuclear button or something.

The learning curve may not be a serious issue, but it’s just not a pleasant experience when using it.

What can you do about it?

As a developer, I can’t help designers to find a theme with the design they love, that’s for sure.

But makers all share the same symptoms, and when we couldn’t find an ideal solution, we build ours. Sometimes we even prefer to build it from scratch.

Take me as an example. I tried all eCommerce plugins in WordPress but couldn’t find one worked with my client’s workflow, so I rewrite one based on Easy Digital Download.

I tried all newsletter plugins in WordPress but couldn’t find one that fit a client’s edit flow, so I created one with zero lines of code borrowed.

For my lovely designer fellows in web industry I’d say with the time you use to shop, survey, search, test all the theme candidates, you’ve created your beautiful design already. And maybe even finished the front-end work by yourself or your go-to front-end developer.

If you’d rather use your time creating the designs you love, then it’s time my service can weigh in:

I will build you a WordPress theme that’s light-weighted (with only features you need) and 100% based on your design.

What’s the difference between your service and other WP developers?

As I’ve said at the beginning of this article, this will be a productized service. You may have the following questions now:

1. How can you productize a custom service that converting designs into WordPress themes?
2. I can get WP developers on Upwork (or hmm, on Fiverr) for this. Why should I use your service?
3. What does it look like when we work together?

Gosh, I love those questions! Let’s check my answers to them:

How can you productize a custom service that converting designs into WordPress themes?

Because I’m targeting designers’ personal websites or sites for their side projects, I suppose there are just 3-5 layouts (pages) in each website. I’m pretty familiar with the elements for such sites and know how to convert them into features in WordPress, that I can do it in 5 days or so.

I can get WP developers on Upwork (or hmm, on Fiverr) for this. Why should I use your service?

In fact, I would encourage you to do that before considering hiring me.

The package I’ll be offering for this service starts from $999 (USD). While I do have discounts for people who show interests in working with me, it’s still a good amount of money for some of the designers.

(At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a form to enter your email address. You’ll get notified when I launch the service and also discounts in it.)

The best scenario I can make you happy to pay for it is when you realized the value of solving this pain worths more than $999.

So the not-so-magic equation is like:

Your hourly rate x the hours you spent on making the dreamed theme work.

Typically to outsource such jobs goes like:

1. 1-2 hours to write a brief to explain your needs so you can post your job or send to your candidates later.
2. 2-3 hours on the job board sites and find a few developers for converting your front-end work into a WordPress theme. Or you just post a job and wait.
3. 2-5 hours to figure out which candidate can work best for you. (Online chatting, back and forth emails, gut testing you about should you hire him/her, etc.).
4. 1-2 hours to walk your developer through everything you gave him.
5. 1-4 hours for back and forth communication. One of you may want to check if feature A should work as sample A or feature B will be better if it follows sample C.
6. 2-x hours to finally get the theme installed on your website and start testing it with your real content. If you’re unlucky, the x might be almost like infinity.

Then if the number you get out from the equation above is greater than $999 (USD), I really think you should give both of us a chance to live happier and just hire me.

What does it look like when we work together?

It looks like you find your BFF in the WordPress world and you will never let me go. No kidding.

Ok, I’m sold. Just notify me when you launch the service

Really? Are you sold that easily? I doubt it but even if you’re just curious about it, put your email below, and you’ll hear back from me soon about my first productized service – I Code Your Design. Later!