If you are anything like us, you like two things: 1) Apple; and 2) learning from other great companies & entrepreneurs. So when we came across this post about Apple’s recent success (and their strategies in this regard), we figured it’d be a great idea to latch onto that and explain some of our strategic decisions in the last year.
Taken from Jason’s post, here’s how we have applied some of those strategies in a very similar way…
1) “You don’t need to be first.”
You should know by now that we have a “release when ready” mindset with regards to putting out new stuff, which means that sometimes things simply take longer to see the light of day. We also love innovating and pushing unique awesomeness your way, but we have never tried to be the first to market with everything.
This is probably most evident in our recent real estate theme – Estate – which most definitely isn’t the first to market. We’ve been more than happy to bide our time and develop something that will blow your mind, instead of trying to rush a product simply to be first. Quality takes time; sometimes you’ll be first, other times you won’t.
2) “Often the first to get it right.”
After years of working very closely with our user base (a diverse bunch we may add), we have a great idea in terms of what will & won’t work within our community. New WordPress theming companies that continue to pop up may be able to bring something unique to the table in the functionality they offer, but they often don’t have the experience to be perfect in providing what the WP users really want and need – specifically not at the first go.
When working with thousands of users on a daily basis – each within unique environments – the experience we have in solving UX / UI enhancements to our themes has become invaluable. Maybe we haven’t gotten it perfectly right in every single time, but we’re damn close to hitting that sweet-spot on most occasions. 
3) “Benefits are primary, features are secondary.”
So many of you have noted that we haven’t been releasing as many new themes in the last 6 months, say in comparison to 2009. But we’ve spent a lot of time optimizing our themes, adding more value and increasing your (theme) choices. We have also avoided a strategy where we simply feature bloat every single theme (causing massive code bloat) and have preferred a balance where we can release niche themes targeted at doing one or two things really well.
The main benefits currently almost go unnoticed because our users have taken them for granted: The WooFramework is constantly updated to be more stable, optimized and provide you with more enhancements to your WordPress + WooThemes experience.
4) “Be as proud of what you say no to than what you say yes to.”
We don’t implement every single feature request that is thrown our way, but when we do, that implementation is neat and of real value.
In our opinion, we need to exercise some “control” over what gets added to our themes and what doesn’t. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander; and sometimes custom development is a better option for an individual, instead of bloating a theme for everyone else.
Hopefully this helps explain the WooStrategy in releasing themes a little better.
16 Responses to “Our “Apple-like” Strategy”
Hey Adii,
Many thanks for the reference and awesome post. I think these are four great examples of what WooThemes does like Apple. WordPress themes were certainly done before, but Woothemes was the first to get it done right. Ironically, I’m in the middle of writing another article right now called “The WordPress Economy”. Keep up the great work (Andres is the woothemes account holder from Cloudomatic
)!
Thanks for commenting here; I really enjoyed your article!
And hopefully we get a few mentions int he new post…
Cool post, but not too sure if the timing is great given the media mopping up the antennagate problem and the subsequent dodgy press release form Apple..
Apple isn’t a perfect company for sure and the post wasn’t necessarily intended as a homage to Apple in any way. Instead we used their strategy as an analogy of explaining our own & hopefully sharing some value with you guys.
I’m with Nick. Currently, Apple’s stock is very low. Quite frankly they are quickly becoming the new Microsoft with their DRM iTunes, Adobe hating, format-locked devices.
Maybe a Google like strategy instead?
I just checked Apple’s stock prices and it seems to be soaring!?
Be 1) open minded & honest; and 2) learn from other great companies & entrepreneurs
And yes, learn from Apple. Don’t lock your users into a closed loop. http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/RM-2008-8.pdf
IT’s the ‘benefits’ that woo provides that has me loving woo so much. Your theme’s are so much more than just a nice design. Actually in my mind you guys are really on the cutting edge when it comes to wordpress themes.
I know the average customer will never appreciate what goes on behind the scenes but your technology is quite impressive. So far this year alone you have provided us with.
1. Woo framework — The heart of the entire system. The code is fully documented and separated out into components which makes modifying and extending the framework a piece of cake. It’s actually a pleasure working with the framework as when I want to add a panel I know exactly where in the code base to go.
2. Woo nav — later became wpnav. Needless to say this is a HUGE improvement and has really attributed to wordpress becoming a more fully featured cms
3. city-guide — Geolocation of any post type is now incredibly simple. Even the additions to city-guide over the past few months have been outstanding.
4. estate — The search feature is revolutionary for wordpress. I know most people are going to see a search and say ‘gee that’s nice’, not realizing just how powerful and extensible it really is.
There is no way I could have ever hired a coder to build this for anywhere near the price of estate. And to hear that the search ajax functionality has been bumped to the top of the feature request list has more than made my day. Once again, a feature that would cost me thousands to have custom-built is being worked on and it only costs me my monthly fee… man what a deal
In my mind Woo has solved the one fundamental problem with every other theme company out there. They all release cool looking theme’s but seriously lack in functionality and extensibility.
Woo not only gives me professional looking templates to work off of, but also provides me with a set of tools ‘functions’ that allow me to take the themes to levels I had only dreamt of building.
I love your philosophy at Woo, keep up the outstanding work!
WOW! Thanks for the kind words and providing a great overview of what we have done this year.
I think it’s some of the less visible improvements (like every time we update & improve the WooFramework) which goes unnoticed that separates us from the rest of the theme providers in the community. We really spend a lot of time figuring out how to improve every WooUser’s value & experience with WooThemes.
like that
How about another theme this month guys? You have released 1 theme this month which was very niche.
I signed up for a subscription and you said there would be 3 themes a month?
How about that “strategy?”
As the pricing page currently notes, the club promises 2 themes every month, which is what we aim for and then we throw in the odd extra theme if time permits.
Second theme for this month – Unite – should be live later.
You should add more and more apple-like. It’s better to know that I’m very interest in apple-like ones, … nice design WooThemes …
I really love this Apple Like strategy of yours, this is exactly something that builds on MOMENTUM. Most businesses are into a rush of delivering as much content and as much features as possible, simply because they’re trying to be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE, which as a matter of fact, you can’t be
So its really important to strike out a perfect balance between what you’ll do and what you won’t, and develop a core operating principle which you stand for consistently. Because when you stand for something, you quickly find a lot of other people who will support you for your stand.
But when you stand for nothing (trying to be everything to everyone), you’re bound to be doomed.
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