I first heard of the Thesis WordPress theme in November of 2009. I first used it for my Mom’s art history site in December 2009. Shortly after that I developed what’s now known as a thesis skin for this site to get a feel for how things worked under the hood, outside of the basic options in the design panel. Not long after that, I sold my first premium Thesis skin.

I figured now would be a great time to share the back story of how I built the business, and what I learned along the way. Some good lessons, some tough lessons. All stuff I’ve been able to apply to the new local business marketing company I’ve been building for the past month.

My First Steps

After launching this site with WordPress and Thesis I decided to share a few of the lessons I learned along the way. I wrote what I’m pretty sure were some of the first 3rd-party Thesis tutorials, which you can still find online here. As an interesting side note, I still pull in several hundred visitors from search traffic each month 2 years on for those pages. In the short term though, I got A LOT of emails and comments from folks asking for help with getting things up and running on their personal sites.

Turns out this is a lot of work…

After a while I decided to do my best to help people who left comments, but anyone who emailed me got a polite note pointing them towards the comments, or letting them know I would be happy to make myself available for hire. I was kind of scared after sending that first email. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that people would actually pay me to work on their sites. After all, in 2009 what did I know? I was working on projects in my dorm room in between the 6 senior classes I was taking. The whole thing felt very tenuous. I didn’t really have an option though. Either neglect the people who contacted me and work my school job, or see if I could pick up a client or two to cover my expenses.

I don’t think I ever heard back from that first person I emailed, which was a bummer, but it didn’t take long until I had my first paying client.

Whoa!

Time Management Skills Anyone?

After the first client, I was eager for more work. I did a small project for that first person, who seemed happy with it. A pretty decent percentage of the folks who contacted me ended up becoming clients, which rocked. But boy did I quickly realize how much work it took to run a business.

I was spending about 4 hours every night from when I got home from class, until I just couldn’t keep my eyes open working on the actual client work. Then, when I woke up at 6, I would get right to the laptop and handle the client management stuff. Sending emails, responding to clients, putting out fires, etc… You know? The fun stuff. Hoo-ray.

I knew innately that something needed to change, since I was already at my maximum capacity, but more requests for work. That’s when I came up with the idea to sell Thesis-specific website templates.

Next Week on As the World Turns…

So that’s it for the first part of how I started my business. Next week, I’ll discuss the evolution of the Print is Dead thesis skin and what I learned from that.

As always, comments are appreciated.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out the great articles my business partner Dave has been writing, stop reading this and go checkout the Meta Hipster sales blog. Seriously. I’ve been sitting about 5 feet away from him for the past 10 days watching him develop the sales process and materials for our local marketing company, and it’s been incredible. In fact, after two and a half days of cold calls, both in person and via phone, we’re up to 5 appointments.

Just about 1 out of every 10 people he talks to agrees to a meeting. Wow.

Not many sales people can boast that kind of rate. And because of that, we needed a CRM app. Bad. Keeping track of people he’s contacted, had success with, and gotten turned down by is quickly becoming too much work for the humble Google Apps spreadsheet. Especially when we’re trying to manage that in coordination with the VA we hired to identify possible leads.

Available Customer Relationship Applications

In looking around for a solution, there were two key choices we had to make…

1. Cloud based CRM, or self hosted?
2. Free or Opensource?

In the interests of keeping our operation costs as low as possible, and to give me a chance to learn the workings of a new app, I decided to go with vTiger CRM, which is both self hosted, and open source. I feel pretty confidant that I made the right decision, but we shall see in pretty short order. My next big project for tomorrow will be to integrate the vTiger lead-gen forms with the main Meta Hipster site. This way any leads that come as a result of the website end up in the CRM, complete with information about which source generated the lead.

Long Term Lead Gen Strategy

Once the lead forms are integrated between WordPress and vTiger (and expect to see a tutorial on how to do this, since I couldn’t find anything useful out there. Heck, maybe even a plugin if people are interested in paying for it!) we plan to aggressively design and develop landing pages for PPC campaigns. In addition, we plan to work in a lot of the video marketing techniques we’ve pioneered over at ThesisReady to increase conversions. That plus a soon-to-be-released feature of the WordPress video manager plugin will allow for pre and post-roll overlay forms right on top of the videos.

That means we can display the forms at key interaction points during the video, so we’re sure that people filling it out will be really interested in hearing from us.

My To-do List

So with all that in mind, here’s a quick run down of my tasks for tonight and tomorrow are thusly…

• Make the crm forms work, and replace the current Meta Hipster forms.
• Link all of my current web properties together to capitalize on the huge amount of traffic several of the sites are getting on a daily basis.
• Start planning possible landing page topics
• Design a couple of mock up landing page layouts and figure how we can make content creation for them scale.

Wish me luck!

Heh. I’m on a role with cheesy cliches after this post title. Nice.

Here’s my daily update on the new business. Yesterday Dave went out on his first round of cold calls to local businesses to drum up some possible clients. While it ultimately netted zero sit-down meetings, it was a big day in that we hit our goal to have everything launched and ready for the public by then. If you want to learn more about the actual process of cold calling, and how we’re doing sales, check out his sales blog.

In The Mean Time…

While Dave is out doing sales stuff, I’ve still got plenty to do. In fact my to-do list for today looks something like

• Create a wire frame mockup for an eCommerce client.
• Write a new small business marketing blog on Meta Hipster’s site.
• A few miscellaneous design and development tasks for current clients.

I also want to start developing some thesis skins again. I’ve got a few great designs in the bag, but no time to work on them…

Gratuitous Request for Feedback

Since I’m making my first real attempt at chronicling my business ventures, I’d love to hear from you about what exactly you want to know about. Nothing is off limits (that I can think of right this second…) for the inner workings of the new company, so ask away in comments.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, starting up new companies, testing product and services ideas, and gaining customers can happen inside of a month. Madness, right?

There has been a lot of discussion about lean startups, and minimum viable product, so I won’t rehash too much of the philosophy behind that. Rather, I want to share my nuts and bolts experience with the process on my current (primary) venture – local business marketing in Lafeyette, CA. You’ll notice the site isn’t quite up yet. Well… that changes at about lunch time today.

Anyway, let’s discuss a few lessons learned so far.

Having A Partner is Infinitely Easier

I’ve been doing freelance webdesign since 2009. In that time, the majority of the work was solo. My first site (this one) was designed and launched by me as an experiment in WordPress development. I went on from there to write a few tutorials about a popular theme framework which gained popularity within that community, and shortly there after I developed and launched my first product (thesis skins for those who are curious).

It was tough. Bleh.

Convincing myself to work 12 or 14 hour days sucked. There was no one there to tell me to quit watching netflix and get back to work.

Now though, I’m 2 feet away from my business partner Dave all day long, so neither of us can get away with not focusing. Because of that, I was able to design, develop, and launch a new site in a few days, and he’s been able to write about 10,000 words of website copy in about the same time.

Perfect is The Enemy of Done

Whoa, now. Talk about a cliché phrase. It’s true though. In fact, I know there are things on the new site that I’m not 100% in love with, but I also know that I’m not about to do something like spend several thousand dollars of my own money to get something printed, which means I can tweak it later on. If I decide I can’t live with something, I can change it. No harm done.

The  other upside to this, is that by putting hard deadlines on myself and this project, I’m improving my ability to product under pressure. After all, anyone can be a master if they have a lifetime to dedicate to a single work, but those who can produce consistently and quickly are way more impressive. At least to me anyway.

So that’s all for now. I’ll be sure to keep you updated with more next time I have a few seconds.

Well… that was a nice nap.

Just kidding. Of course I’ve not just been sleeping for the past year and a half. I’ve been busy with a combination of side projects and mountains and mountains of freelance work. (Which I am very thankful for!)

As you’ve probably noticed, the site here is looking a bit (a lot) different. I am throwing myself back into the freelance market at full force… and I wanted the site to be all shiny and new for everyone. With that in-mind, please head on over to the services page and see if there’s anyway that I can help you out. I just know there will be something I offer that you’re in need of… and my work will only help your business grow!

If you’re looking for something a little less expensive (but a little more high-maintenance on your end) please check out my other business which sells pre-made thesis skins.

That’s all for right now! See you soon.

Long time no post! I’m sorry about that. I’ll hopefully be able to turn the silent-streak around in the coming days and weeks.

I just quickly wanted to let everyone know that ThesisReady.com relaunched today! I’ve totally overhauled the payment system to allow more flexibility and cleaned up the skin information pages. In addition to the infastructure changes, there will be a lot more content, a lot more often.

Please got check it out and let me know what you think about it. If you have any questions about signing up or buying a skin, don’t hesitate to email with questions!

Thanks!

-Adam

After a long time spent searching for a great magazine-style skin for Thesis, I finally gave up and built my own. I’ve decided to keep the styling pretty basic for now, though making changes is easy (and upgrade-proof) by means of a skin-specific external stylesheet. In addition, it’s got a ton of great features, perfect for any magazine site.

And did  I mention configuration is super easy? Set a few variables and you’re good to go! No need to dig through the code.

Features

• Free Product Support
• Easily configurable front page
• Built in social media links
• Author pages
• Full width custom-template
• Fully widget-ready footer
• Breadcrumb Navigation
• Super SEO friendly – no extra plugins required
• Upgrade-proof design – don’t worry about losing customization for version 2!

You can see the skin in action at http://printisdead.adambarber.tv/ and buy it at http://thesisready.com/skins/print-is-dead

UPDATE – I’ve just released a new skin called “ThesisReady Pro” which can be found at http://thesisready.com/skins/thesisready-pro/. If you’re looking for a great, stylish skin with an awesome options panel, check it out.

I spent the afternoon working out a few ideas I wanted to use in my next Thesis build. As a result, I came up with a super-simple skin free for you to use, called SimpleOrange! I did include my Thesis affiliate link in the footer though, so I do ask that if you do use my work, you keep that in there.

SimpleOrange Thesis Skin by Adam Barber

Skin Features

• Widgetized media box.
• Widgetized footer (4 seperate areas)
• Bright orange color scheme
• Simple organized layout

Installation Guide

• Download the SimpleOrange (You’ll be redirected to the signup form on ThesisReady.com – don’t worry it’s free and only takes a second)
• Download Thesis 1.5.1
• Copy the orangeskin custom folder into your Thesis directory
• Enable “custom code” for the media box on the options page
• Set column widths to 580/180/180
• Set “full width” framework

If you have questions, or suggestions, leave them in the comments below!

FOR EVEN MORE STYLE AND FEATURES, CHECK OUT…

PRINT IS DEAD

CLASSY OPERATION

DEEP BLUE

As you can see on this site, I am using Thesis hooks to insert adsense boxes both above, and below the content on single post and category pages.

Adsense above select category headers.

In addition to being able to quickly inject the boxes, I wanted to make sure I could exclude the adsense from particular categories, like anything Thesis related, for example. There are a couple steps to do this.

Step 1 – Add the following to custom_functions.php

/* Custom Adsense Insertion */
function custom_adsense_insetion(){
 if (is_single() && in_category('thesis')|| is_category('thesis') || is_front_page() )
{ }
else { ?>
<div class="adsense">
#### YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE ####
</div>
<?php
}}

So we have a couple of things to look at. In order to select which categories we want ads on, I’ve used an if statement. In my particular case, I knew I had only a few instances where I didn’t want the ads automatically inserted, so I decided to go with a negative-case setup. Within the “if” brackets, I define which pages I want the function to display nothing on. The fist is single post pages for anything in the Thesis category. The second is the Thesis category listing its self. The Last is the home page. Each case is separated by “||” which denotes “or.”

Any case in the else area will automatically get the adsense. Depending on how many pages you are applying the code to, you may want to reverse this.

Step 2 – Add actions! I decided to simply use the before and after content hooks. It isn’t 100% what I was going for, but it gets the job done for right now. You can experiment with which particular thesis hooks work best for your setup.

Copy and paste the following into custom_functions.php

add_action('thesis_hook_before_content', 'custom_adsense_insetion');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_content', 'custom_adsense_insetion');

Step 3 - The last thing we need to do is style the div to ensure the positioning is correct. I just added a margin to the top and bottom, and an “auto margin” to the sides to ensure it stays centered. The style code goes in the custom style sheet.

.custom .adsense { margin: .3em auto; text-align: center}

That’s it! If you have any problems getting anything to work, leave a comment, or follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/adambarber. And please let me know if you would like to see any particular tutorials!

The tutorial below is a quick and easy guide to adding a fancy box containing links to all of your social media profiles.

Step 1 – Open your custom_functions.php file and add the following. Make sure to adjust the links to the correct social media profiles, and don’t forget to change the name!

// Social Media Links Function
 
function social_media_links(){
 ?>
 <div>
 <ul>
 <li><a id="twitter" href="http://twitter.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on twitter</span>
 </a>
 </li> 
 
 <li><a id="facebook" href="http://facebook.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on facebook</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 
 <li><a id="linkedin" href="http://linkedin.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on linkedin</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 
 <li><a id="rss" href="##YOURRSSFEED##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>rss feed</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 <div></div>  
 
 </div>  
 
 <?php
} 
 
// Add the function to the proper hook
add_action('thesis_hook_after_multimedia_box', 'social_media_links');

Step 2 – Open your custom.css stylesheet and add the following. Look over the comments and make adjustments to fit your style, including regular and hover background colors, and the links to your icon images.

/* Define the clear div to offset the link floats */
div.clear{
clear: both;
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
}
 
/* This is the style for the container */
div.socialmedia_sidebar
{
background: #eee;
margin: -18px 0 5px 0;
/* If you are using this below the media box,
use a negative top margin to raise it up. If not, adjust accordingly */
padding: 5px 0 5px 10px;
border-top: 1px dashed black;
border-bottom: 1px dashed black;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar ul li{
float: left;
list-style: none;
text-align: center;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar span.name{
font-size: 2em;
display: block;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar span.service{
font-style: italic;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar ul li a{
width: 200px;
padding: 5px;
display: block;
border: 1px solid #fff;
}
 
/* Non-hover profile links */
#twitter{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOTWITTERICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 35px;}
#facebook{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOFACEBOOKICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 45px;}
#linkedin{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOLINKEDINICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 40px;}
#rss{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTORSSICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 45px;}
 
/* Hover profile links */
#twitter:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOTWITTERICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#facebook:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOFACEBOOKICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#linkedin:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOLINKEDINICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#rss:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTORSSICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}

Step 3 – This is how it will looks when done.

Thesis Social Media Links

Update

Check out Jhay Rocas’ updated tutorial. He fixed a couple of my original bugs and included a more up-to-date set of CSS styles.