One note before we move ahead. I’m making a couple assumptions.

1. You understand your business/model/market/audience, etc. (I hope this is common sense).
2. You potentially have money to put into this. (It’s a business, take it serious).
3. You have a co-founder (or two) to fill in the skill gaps you don’t have.

Let’s jump right in!

Be clear on the type of marketplace business you’re starting

I’m going to assume at this point you’ve got a good idea about your business but just to be clear, it’s important to think through this. As you think through you need to understand the following:

• How will customers be utilizing the marketplace? A mobile app or web app.
• What type of products are you selling? Physical products, digital products, services, etc.
• What’s the location? Local, national, global. This can really affect customers and vendors around payment options and payouts.

Let’s start with what makes a quality marketplace?

Before we dive into the options, let’s think through what features you’ll potentially need at a high level. These could vary depending on your business model but it’s good to see what features you can slide on and what features are must have.

For Buyers

• Easy sign-up — Reduce as much friction as you can. Sign-in with Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.
• Search functionality — In my opinion, this is vital and a must have. Honestly, it’s essential for most ecommerce sites. Not only does your search need to be quick, offer filtering options but it needs to be relevant. Make sure users can find what they’re looking for in an instant.
• Cart / Checkout — Consider how customers will need to purchase products. Will it require subscriptions? Is it national vs. international payments or both? Can customers checkout as a guest. There’s a lot to consider here.
• Review system – When you’re building a two-sided marketplace, reviews deliver a ton of value for potential buyers. Don’t shy away from negative reviews either. As long as the seller can respond of course.
• Type of Product(s) – Digital? Physical? Services? This is important to consider because this can change the checkout/cart you choose to go with. Additionally, the delivery of products needs to be thought out.

Sellers

• Easy sign-up — Just like your buyers, your sellers need a seamless way to get started with your marketplace.
• Adding products – Another crucial feature for sellers. Depending on the type of marketplace, sellers will want the ability to customize certain things as they upload products.
• Support system — Customers expect top-notch support no matter where they buy from. Having the ability for customers to interact with the sellers is a key part to offering a solid customer experience.
• Review system — It’s important to put yourself in your sellers shoes. They need to the ability to reply to all those 1 star ratings. In a lot of cases, the customers may be confused and giving a bad rating for all the wrong reasons. Offering sellers the ability to provide context helps potential buyers.
• Storefronts — Again, depending on the type of marketplace, giving sellers the ability to showcase themselves a bit can go a long way.

Choosing the best marketplace platform.

Now that we’ve gone through all the options to consider at a high-level, I think it’s worth looking at the platforms now. These could vary depending on your business model but it’s good to see what features you can slide on and what features are must have.

First off, there’s no easy way to build a marketplace. Sure, there are services like ShareTribe (I’m going to break down) but if you’re serious about building a marketplace it’s either going to take some up-front investment or you have the chops to build it yourself.

I know there’s plenty of tutorials on how to do it yourself and that’s great but not everyone can design and code. I’m breaking down a few routes you could take but don’t shy away from budgeting $5-10k to get something built. Don’t get me wrong, I’m about the cheapest, MVP possible but you’re building a damn marketplace. It takes time and you have to have the basics nailed down that we broke down above.

Let’s breakdown a few solutions.

WordPress

When we built the first versions of MOJO Marketplace, we chose WordPress and I would never go back and change it. Back then (2009), there wasn’t WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, etc. so it was essentially WP as a platform to manage all the content and all of the commerce and seller functionality was custom built.

Today, it’s so much easier with the help of WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads. Here’s a few recipes that could work depending on the type of marketplace you’re building.

WooCommerce (Learn More)

• Product Vendors (Woo Extension – $79)
• WC Marketplace (WP plugin repo + add-on’s of course)
• Shitloads of WooCommerce Marketplace Themes

Easy Digital Downloads (Learn More)

• Marketplace Bundle (EDD Extensions – $499)
• Lots EDD Marketplace Themes

Pro’s:

Both plugins have been around the block for a long time and are definitely capable of handling a marketplace. Especially if you’re just building an MVP. Easily extendable and customizable. Plenty of designers/developers to call within the WordPress community to help if you don’t have the chops.

Con’s:

WordPress open source (also a pro) so it will require you to stay up to date and be sure to protect yourself security wise. Also, WP is very database intensive so I’d be prepared to experience some performance issues if you’re not careful. This can be costly in the future. Lastly, buying so many plugins can be annoying and you can open yourself up to conflicts and security issues with so many plugins.

ShareTribe (Learn More)

I personally have not used ShareTribe. From the site it seems to have a lot of the features you’d need. My only issue with the service is the customizability. From what I can see, the example sites or other sites I found using it seemed really boxed in their templates. Again, I haven’t used the service but I’d love to see them go into more detail about the custom options.

Pro’s:

Easy to get started as it’s essentially an out of the box solution. Pricing seems reasonable, plus you get a free 30 day trial. Not too shabby. They also have a pretty impressive list of features for any advanced marketplace. This could serve well for an MVP solution.

Con’s:

It feels a little “boxed” in and only ideal for a few use cases. Meaning, if you have anything specific needs for your marketplace or business model, it may be hard to pull off. Pricing right out of the gate for testing a business model is a bit steep especially if you have FREE sign ups as the pricing is by users.

Stripe Connect (Learn More)

I could put this under the “Custom” section but it’d be pretty easy to get a few pages designed and hire a developer to integrate Stripe connect to start testing out your idea. I like Stripe connect for obvious reasons (it’s Stripe) but for short-term and long-term you have the flexibility in the world it just may take some engineering/dev chops to get you rolling.

Pro’s:

I love how it gives you the ability to serve any use case. This is huge if you’re idea has specific needs or you’re looking to differentiate yourself. Additionally, you have some big flexibility in payout options which is big when it comes to recruiting sellers or vendors for your marketplace.

Con’s:

Like I mentioned, it’s going to require some dev knowledge or hiring someone that can build this for you.

Custom

If you’re a designer/developer or  little cash lying around I’d personally recommend this route. I’d most likely use Laravel PHP for the backend, REACT for the frontend, Stripe or Braintree, spin up a server on AWS and go to town. You can keep the front-end super light and control the technical debt from the get go.

Pro’s:

Ideally, you can still get something launched quickly if you stay focused and keep the first iteration small. Additionally, you don’t run the risk of being boxed in and you freedom to extend the product as you wish. You also have the power over the speed and performance based on your infrastructure and code base.

Con’s:

Time. Money. It takes a lot of time and some money to get you there. If you have the chops as a team to build this, that’s awesome but it does require your time and energy. If you don’t have the skills to pull this off, that’s ok. But it will take money and someone with the ability to strategically layout what you want built the right way.

—

There you have it. Like I said above, I’m assuming you’re trying to validate your idea or build a business. I realize nowadays it’s cool to be an entrepreneur but anyone that’s been down this road know’s it takes time, money, limited sleep, stress, patience, hustle and everything else in between. I hope this series helps you get a few steps closer to what you’re trying to build.

Next up, chicken or the egg problem.

The post Choosing your marketplace platform — #marketplace #002 first appeared on JR Farr.

Create not consume.

I figured it’s a new year and it’s time for new goals. Now that we’re over a month into 2018 I’m excited to say I’ve stayed true to this motto. I have plenty of things brewing that are being executed as I planned.

Last year my motto was “The time is now.” and it was fitting for 2017. I felt like I executed on everything I set out to do last year but for some reason this year feels different. I’m ready to take on more and raise my bar to the next level. And just like everything in life, things change and it’s time to adapt to the new year. I am fired up to use everything I’ve learned over the last few years and putting it into building, making and creating again.

And let me clear, as you create it’s not always some new shiny product, new business, etc. Simple things like pushing more content on YouTube or using those extra hours at night to work on that project. Not everything has to be some big ordeal or announced to the world. Just be honest with yourself, your goals and go out there and just do.

Expect to see my blog fill back up with new content on my progress, finishing the “How to build a Marketplace” series, thoughts on business and everything else in between.

What about you?

If you want something better when it comes to what you do everyday, steal this motto this year. Stop waiting or watching. Just do. There’s no secret or one moment where it all changes. It just all adds up after you finally decide to start. Here’s to creating, not consuming.

What are you going to create in 2018?

#createnotconsume

The post Create not consume. first appeared on JR Farr.

Where do you start first?

How do you gain traction?

Do you focus on the consumers or suppliers first?

With that being said, I’ve been thinking of sharing what I’ve learned along the way. I wanted to share my experience in building marketplaces. For one, anyone looking to start down this path I’m sure would have loved this content. Secondly, I’m finding as I write my thoughts down, I’m finding new inspiration and clarity in what I’m working on.

The good and the bad of Marketplaces.

The bad. There’s a reason why most marketplace ideas never take off.  It takes patience, timing, a good platform and creative thinking. You have to build trust in two audiences and you ultimately serve two masters.

The good. There’s also a reason once they reach a critical point they are hard to break down. It’s an entire ecosystem that doesn’t just crumble over night. Look at one of the first – Craigslist. It’s atrocious to look at but there’s an ecosystem there that’s living and breathing.

Why listen to me?

If I’m being honest, I’m a jack of all trades and master at none. From design, front end dev, marketing, conversion testing, product management, etc. I have a tendency to want to execute on all fronts so I’m never slowed down. With that being said, this series isn’t meant to show you how to literally build the tech for starting a marketplace. Or how this design layout is going to triple your business overnight. It’s just not that easy. I’m going to share real examples, trial and error and experiences I had whilst building a marketplace business.

When it comes to marketplaces though, I have found a way make my own luck and I would say I’ve been successful in my attempts with start-ups and new ventures without raising millions in VC money. For the last 10+ years of my professional life, I’ve built (with a team) several marketplace businesses, including MOJO Marketplace, which today boasts over 5 million users. The two I have built were both acquired. Plus, this is free advice so if you don’t like it, I get it.

I’m going to talk about a few key things in this series that could increase your chances of having a successful marketplace.

Marketplace building series…

This will be an ongoing series but I’ll keep an update list of the series below to summarize the series.

• What platform to build on top of?
• Chicken or the Egg
• Defining your MVP for launch
• Features vs Value
• 6 ways to create quick traction with your marketplace
• And more…

Interested?

If you are, hop on the email list below so you don’t miss a post!

The post How to build a Marketplace Business – #marketplace #001 first appeared on JR Farr.

I spent a lot time during last years Holiday to reflect on my personal career journey. As I thought about who I was, where I’ve been, what I’ve accomplished it made me want to essentially “find my voice” again.

I’ve been so heads down for the last 4 years of my life.Reflecting on what’s next.

I’ve been quiet. Just working, grinding and hustling. I’ve also been failing, losing and learning.

This year I’ve been focused on a few things. A big part of that focus this year will be on producing content. Sharing advice, thought leadership and more of what’s next for my journey. I’ve been producing more content on this site as of late and it feels damn good to get my thoughts down. I plan to continue that trend. I’ve quietly been working on a series around building a successful marketplace that I think people will really find some good value from.

Additionally, I’ve been producing massive amounts of content on the MOJO Marketplace blog. There’s going to be a lot more where this came from when it comes to MOJO.

In addition to writing content for MOJO, there’s close to 10 videos about to drop for a new series titled “#theprep” which will catapult me into a brand new YouTube show called “The Climb” It will be my show for the entrepreneurs and the doers out there. #seriousteaser

A reflection on my journey here.

As I’ve been working on producing more and more content it’s been a long process. You have to be creative with your thinking on what to produce next. During this whole process and working with Colby from Steadfast Films, I feel like I’m starting to find my niche of where I can produce the most valuable content. It also helps have a dope videographer. With his talents we were able to create a pretty amazing reflection of my journey so far.

If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t want to share this. It took a few close friends (thanks Tim) to push me over the edge to just push out content. I didn’t realize how much I was letting the thought of failure and what people might think outweigh the value this could bring. Especially for anyone looking for a little bit of inspiration.

Expect more from where this video below came from. I’ve got a lot more coming. I’ll continue to work my ass off, stay humble and remember in time it all pays off.

The post My entrepreneur path so far. first appeared on JR Farr.

I didn’t know much of anything because I hadn’t been smacked in the face by the market yet. Just like most of us when we start out, you just don’t know what you don’t know. Along the way you find out this idea of yours is harder than you thought. No one cares that you launched your product. It’s a different story trying to get people to pull out their wallet. Driving sales and revenue takes hard work, patience and determination.

The worst part is, all the cynical bastards love to rub it in your face.

Today I realized something. After being smacked in the face over and over. Being told no again and again. Falling short on my revenue projections. And a million other failures on top of that, I haven’t changed. I’ve realized my biggest strength after all of it is staying naive. I still believe I can change whatever world I’m in and I’m 100% serious when I say that. If anything, I have more confidence and belief I can do even more now after going through all of that. I won’t let the scars change who I was when I first started.

Call me crazy but I prefer to be called naive.

The post Naive is the new black. first appeared on JR Farr.

“Are we still doing this 1 on 1?”

“Oh yes, let’s do that. I was looking forward to zoning out for the next 15-30 minutes.”

“Ok so here’s the agenda. I did x,y,z and we grew X and we’re going to focus on this next week to make sure we’re on pace for our targets.”

And blah, blah, blah. And more blah.

Traditional 1 on 1’s are archaic.

Why are we doing this? It’s just another meeting to throw on the calendar. Let’s waste more time talking about what you did in the past and want to do in the future. There’s nothing real happening. It’s all wasted energy that could have been used on executing something meaningful.

And worst of all, both of you didn’t get anything valuable out of it and even if you did, the value wasn’t equal.

I’m here to ask you to stop. Please.

We live in a world now where reviewing your “weekly progress” can be sent in a short email. Status updates on a project are sent in automated reports from your project management software. Sharing a google doc outlining your quarterly plan for the future can be collaborated at the same time and in real time.

All of this can make the age old 1 on 1 become extinct.

Connect personally. Close the gap. Get to what’s important.

That’s exactly what I do in my 1 on 1’s. My goal is to close the gap.

I want to share what I do with my company, MOJO Marketplace. When it reached a point where I felt like I couldn’t have my hands in everything I started something called “MOJO Minutes“.

Essentially, every month I have 10-15 minutes scheduled with every MOJO employee. Yes, everyone. Sometimes it’s in my office, a couch or a walk to grab coffee but I try to keep my calendar open for things that are important and to me my employees are the most important before anything else.

The MOJO Minutes looks something like this if it’s their first one.

“The stage is yours. I want to spend the next 10-15 minutes getting to know “Mike”. I want to know what makes you tick. Let’s get to know each other personally, what do you need from me and what are we not talking about that we should be at MOJO.”

The goal here is simple. I want to connect personally, close the gap between the two of us and get to what’s important.

What happens next is where the real magic lies.

I keep mentioning “close the gap”. This is the most important part.

During traditional 1 on 1’s there’s no substance. There’s no connection. You’re creating “YES” women and men. They are just wanting to please you, take notes of what you want and get out alive. You never get to the juicy parts of what’s on their mind.

In short, your employees are your soldiers, usually on the front lines and they can give you the feedback to make the slight adjustments to stay successful. The problem with your agenda driving 1-1 is you’re widening the gap between you and your most important part of your company. Your employees.

By getting to know each other personally, you create a connection that brings you closer together. You’re closing the gap. You start to learn what motivates them. What their strengths are. More importantly, with a connection the questions start coming out as you gain trust and they become comfortable with you.

“I’m concerned about this issue, can I share what’s going on?”

“Why do we focus on X?”

“Do you want us working on this or that?”

“Do you need anything from me?”

You’ve connected personally and closed the gap on figuring them out and vice versa. They start figuring out what’s important to you as they feel more comfortable asking questions. You’re getting to what’s important.

There can be value in 1 on 1’s.

I’m not proposing if you have a company of 500 employees you need to personally meet with everyone. You can teach this method of 1 on 1’s with your leaders to get more out of your employees. Connect personally, close the gap and get to what’s important.

Drop the agenda. Lose the status quo. If you’re managing people and you implement this strategy it can make your team feel like they have a sense of purpose, feel respected, feel acknowledged and more motivated then when they walked in. You will have effectively closed the gap and in return you’ll both reap the benefits.

The post Rethinking the 1 on 1 meeting. first appeared on JR Farr.

New MOJO services dashboard

Partly because the past 7-8 months we’ve been working towards launching what we’re calling V2 of MOJO Marketplace. With our existing product being more of an integration we haven’t focused as much as we wanted on our actual brand and product – MOJOMarketplace.com. My mind has been focused on crafting the perfect product for our users. Being a two-sided marketplaces where you’re trying to please both buyers & sellers, the task is even harder.

In my opinion, our creative team has found the perfect balance in utilizing material design into our new interface but that didn’t come without some heated conversations about design direction. More sneak peeks at Dribbble.

Google Material isn’t one size fits all.

I cringe at the site of floating action buttons being used in all types of applications and use cases. Over the past 2 years after the Google introduced material design, it’s definitely been a breath of fresh air but this has to stop before it turns into a hot mess.

Don’t get me wrong. I love material design. In fact, it’s amazing. It’s perfectly executed and thought through by it’s creators. It’s because of how much I love what material design is doing for the web that I would hate to see it become the next Twitter Bootstrap.

I’m so passionately against the FAB adoption across everything. Is it nice in specifics applications? Yes. But not everything.

— (@jrfarr) February 10, 2017

The FAB is FAB, just not all the time.

Let me explain. I’m not here to preach design principles, I’m here to make sure we’re designing responsibly if you will. I want to challenge the makers, the designers and the doers to think before your FAB. Just because we let Google do all the hard work and layout some beautiful design guide doesn’t give us the right to misuse it. Take time to read through the goals of material design.

For starters lets not have more than one FAB per screen. Again, if you take time to read through it all, it’s very well documented.

FAB’s for days

Consumption vs. Action

Lately I’ve been talking more about this concept a lot with my product & creative teams. I would argue with all the other 80/20 rules out there that same ratio has to be relevant when it comes to your users interacting with your product. 80% of the time users are consuming something while 20% of the time their taking action. Honestly, as I’m writing this, it could be 90/10.

When you’re designing your product or application think about the behavior on the screen. What is the user REALLY going to be doing inside your product? I’d bet they’re consuming more than they’re taking action.

Mobile vs. Web

This is where I feel like things are really starting to get out of hand. We’re taking these design principles from Google Material and polluting them into everyday web application.

Seriously why? I don’t get it.

Unless you’re InVision where you’re primary users are the designers pushing the web forward you have no business messing with FAB’s all over your web product.

Let’s just talk about Google themselves for second while we’re on this subject.

Let’s take one of their most popular products, Gmail.

I use Gmail everyday. While I’m working on my laptop I opt to use the web interface from Gmail. On my phone I use the Gmail app as well. With that being said, the experience from the web to mobile is drastically different.

Gmail web interface

Web app for Gmail

Gmail mobile interface

Mobile App for Gmail

I’m sure you can instantly see the difference. There’s no need to add a FAB on their web application because they understand the context of their users. If you’re using Gmail on the web,  you’re using the product a lot differently compared to when you’re using it on the go.

But what about Inbox by Gmail

Inbox by Gmail

Why the difference?

To recap, now we’re comparing Gmail Web App, Gmail Mobile App and Inbox by Gmail.

Could it be that they haven’t gotten around to implementing material design into their Gmail web app interface? I highly doubt it. Could it be that they don’t want to mess up a good thing they’ve got going on already? Not the case most likely.

My gut tells me Google created Inbox as a way to test everything they’ve learned from Gmail for their personal power users. It’s not all about Google Material design. It’s a whole concept on cleaning up the noise that email brings to each of us every day.

I truly think a company like Google understands their users, how they are consuming vs. taking action and they understand the context of users intentions.

Design responsibly & harness design trends

You know how marketers ruin everything? They ruined email, they ruined SEO, they ruined paid search, they ruined social media and will most likely ruin the next thing. Let’s try to not ruin these design trends by using them without context, without understanding their purpose or why they were created.

Think before you FAB and design responsibly.

The post Let’s not make Google Material the next Twitter Bootstrap first appeared on JR Farr.

can’t really explain why but I’m suddenly back to a time where I was so into blogging and telling my journey online. Sharing where I was going professionally. I miss the story telling. I miss those keyboard warriors telling me how hard everything is going to be. I miss the haters. I miss the support from friends all over the globe. With everything I’ve had going on, I haven’t had a desire to write openly for quite some time. Plus, since my company MOJO was acquired almost 4 years ago, me and the team have been head down building on top of what we started. Lately, however, I’ve been doing a lot of work on the vision & strategy on where I take MOJO next and maybe that’s why there’s this sudden desire.

I’m excited. I’m terrified. I’m eager. I’m all the above for the future.

Over the past 7 years of running MOJO, I have experienced ups & downs. I hope by recapping and writing the next phase of that journey it may help me process my thoughts. Hopefully along the way I bring value to someone in the same boat.*For all those entrepreneurs looking for some motivation

Before we talk about the future, let’s recap.

I referenced the last 4 years but there’s so much more to the story than the last 4 years when it comes to MOJO. Here’s a quick overview of what I’ve been doing with MOJO since it all began.

2008

It all started when I registered WordPressThemeMarketplace.com. The concept was more of “Etsy for WordPress”. Along with this idea, my brother Clayton and I thought it would be cool to register WebHostingReviews.com, among others.

How did that end? We let them expire. Oops, big mistake. Haha.

After a little under two years of playing around with concepts it turns into MOJO Themes as a project to sell premium WordPress themes.

2009

Towards the end of the year MOJO Themes pivots for the third time into a buy & sell marketplace for themes.

Why a marketplace instead? I didn’t feel like I had the chops to design & develop the best themes. The last 5 years had been spent working at an ad agency where all I did was work with Google, learning adwords, SEO, affiliate marketing, conversion testing, etc. and I was damn good at it. I knew using those skills I could help other talented creative professionals sell their work on the marketplace.

I pitched Brady Nord at coffee shop about the idea. He joins as co-founder of MOJO, the glorious little green monster comes to life and the entire marketplace starts being built from the ground up.

2010

MOJO Themes finally launches to the world. Little did I know, I just entered the internet with the worlds hardest business model and we were tasked with building a two-sided marketplace.

How do we solve the chicken or the egg problem?Oh shit moment…

It was a long, drawn out process and the formula was simple. Wake up, work hard, sell potential designers & developers on why MOJO, wash, rinse, repeat.

One thing we did before launching in March 2010 was we developed a marketing campaign around the new and upcoming Apple product we all now know as the iPad. We called the campaign “March Padness” and put together enough cash to buy 3 brand new, shiny iPads. The top 3 sellers who uploaded the most items for the launch of the marketplace would win a brand spankin’ new iPad. Within just a month, we had close to 30 items on the marketplace and we were ready to open the doors.

In 2010, we launched, built the first designer and developer collaboration system called Joint Forces, released an affiliate program and we were close to hitting our first 10,000 users. We also had Isaac, Nick, Mike and Will join as an integral part of the team who are still with MOJO today.

2011

Swinging into the new year and fresh off our very first annual Cyber Bundle we were feeling pretty confident about what we had already accomplished in the last year. We decided to take the money from the previous years bundle and use it to hire Brian Hoff to redesign the entire marketplace. Boy oh boy, was the final design gorgeous.

In 2011 we grew by 612% year over year.We were doing something right

It’s one of those decisions where if I were asked 100 times to do it, the answer would always be yes. It created a lot of buzz for us and we finally launched V2 of MOJO Themes in April 2011 along with our first Anniversary Bundle. The next 10,000 users came on board within just another 4 months. We of course ended with our second annual Cyber Bundle and capped off another great year.

2012

Like the year before, we hit the ground running. By the middle of the year we had already hit close to 50,000+ users on the marketplace and things were moving along as we planned. As good as this year ended there was a hard lesson we also learned.

Understand your ultimate goal and make every decision based off that. It doesn’t mean you can’t pivot but stay focused. Here’s what happened to us.

For starters, the team had decided to explore building some SaaS and application based WordPress products. We built one of the first drag and drop builders, we launched a theme for affiliate marketers that ended up selling over 5,000+ times in 7 days (oops), we were signing up beta users on our first version of Managed WordPress Hosting for marketers, we bought ProPhoto Theme from 8bit, we were building an event based WordPress theme, we launched a few content/tutorial sites around WordPress & Magento. Oh and we launched our second marketplace, MOJO Code. Meanwhile, we were running one of the largest WordPress theme marketplaces along the way. I say all of this, not because it’s some great accomplishment but I think if everyone on the team could go back, we would choose to stay focused on initial vision. We got sucked into a lot of other product launches and ideas that took us away from our core.

With all that being said, this was also the same year we were approached by GoDaddy and Endurance International Group about an acquisition. By the end of the year, we had tripled revenue year over year and went through a full acquisition with EIG and signed News Year Eve. It was an exciting time for all of us and we were eager to get started on the next phase of the company.

Why did we stay after getting acquired? It hadn’t even been a full 3 years since launching our brand. We had reached a lot of our goals but now being part of a company like EIG, we were more than excited to take the brand to whole new level and we were of course incentivized to do so.

2013

Entering our first year post-acquisition, MOJO Themes becomes the first and only recommended WordPress Theme Marketplace on the homepage of WordPress.org.

At this point MOJO Themes is well over 100,000+ users but our focus quickly turned to how we figure out how to navigate EIG’s house of brands and how we integrate our platform and community into it. We would ultimately launch the new brand of MOJO, now known as MOJO Marketplace. The new name allowed us to expand to more than just themes and would be the name to take us into the future of the brand and platform.

Within the first year, we integrate with Bluehost and various cPanel brands.

2014

By year two, our next goal was to integrate into the second phase of the brands by launching MOJO Marketplace across another set of brands. We would eventually launch across another 30+ brands including iPage, FatCow, Domain.com and more.

We also launched a new product line with WordPress services for our customers. These would include basic setup services to complicated site migrations for WordPress customers. We also started the first version of the MOJO Marketplace WordPress plugin in preparation of launching the marketplace natively inside WordPress itself.

2015

Now onto our third year, we had another challenge of further integration. This years being none other than HostGator.

We would also kick off the future of development of the platform API’s in preparation for improved integrations into the brands. We would see the WordPress micro services explode into a big part of the MOJO business this same year.

2016

Ah yes, year number four. We’re actually getting pretty close to the time of this post at this point which is October 20th, 2016.

At this point, we’ve integrated into all the brands, we’re managing all of the 1-click installs, installing close to 200k+ WordPress installs a month, over 1M+ monthly active users on our WordPress marketplace, what was the plan for this year?

Along with all the success, it has come at a price and another hard lesson learned. With all of our efforts focused on integrating into to other brands, we let the MOJO brand sit by the way side.

All in all though, 2016 was the final year of head down work in preparation for everyone to see what MOJO has grown to be. We may not have talked a lot about what we’ve been working on or invested as much as we should have in the MOJO brand itself but we needed to lay the foundation. We still have a lot to show for it and now we’re coming into 2017 like a Mike Tyson punch.

Today, MOJO Marketplace is a leading marketplace with 5.5 million users. The platform connects buyers to 7,500+ digital goods and services from designers and developers across the globe.

2017

So to recap the recap, we’ve gone from little green monsters, “oh shit” moments, Mike Tyson, and now we’ve entered the future. I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am to start sharing what we have in store for MOJO Marketplace.

We have had so much focus inside of the EIG brands and let the MOJO direct brand become almost stale. That’s enough of that. There’s so much we’re wrapping up as we head into 2017 and I’m so excited for the team to see all the hard work and patience payoff.

Anyway, who’s got their MOJO back after reading this post? I know I do.

The post The MOJO on MOJO – 2016 Edition first appeared on JR Farr.

Recently, I was at a business conference and I gave a presentation on what I’ve learned since having my latest business acquired. Once I got off stage, I had so many new friends to connect with and asking further questions. It was humbling and caused me to reflect on how I had got to where I am today.

I thought a lot about the struggle. The late nights. The second guessing. The this way or that way. The excitement. The hard things we had to face that no one on the outside would ever know.

But what I remember most was thinking about giving up right before everything came together.

When you’re in your late twenties, have a mortgage, 3 kids to take care of, you can only go so long (years) before the pressure starts to become too much. Luckily, I never doubted what I was set out to do and fought through the desire to get another job or raise more money. We took on the hard things head first and came out stronger.

The rest is history. Keep going.

The post Keep going. first appeared on JR Farr.

As I look back at what we’ve built with our business and community within MOJO, I see our successes come from just putting our heads down and staying focused on what we originally set out to accomplish. There’s no doubt this clear path and vision led us to be where we are today.

At first, this new venture we were building was not pretty, wasn’t flipping out cash and the community was just our small, humble team. Brady (my co-founder) and myself would give ourselves constant reminders, “We just have to stay focused and be consistent with this and it will pay off.” And it did.

We stuck to it and were determined to stay focused.

On the flip side, looking back over the last three years I’ve seen plenty of directions moved, forks in the road, twists and turns we took to stay aggressive and innovative. We took risks to keep us at the forefront. This approach has led to our success as well. We weren’t afraid to add something new and unknown to what we were building. These decisions were uncomfortable, risky and some of them were complete failures but we learned from these experiences.

If that new or old idea we were trying didn’t work, we weren’t afraid to leave it behind.

Stay on Track but be Agile.

The point I’m trying to make is it’s not a bad thing to change the course of your original plan. At the time you were creating your new idea or your new business, there were a lot of unknowns.

Once you enter the market and introduce your product, you will see your business start to take shape. It’s important to listen to your community/customers and have the ability to look further into the future. More importantly, make sure you take quick action on what you learn. It will bring innovation to your business and you will find out what makes your business work.

There are more times than I can count when we had a tough time staying focused and when we change directions. Hopefully, as I share a few examples, you can see how having this philosophy can help you in the long run.

A few Real World Examples.

I’ll give you two. Two big ones. I think both of these examples are the same ones everyone faces so I thought these would be most helpful.

Redesign & Rebrand.

EXAMPLE #1: Shows how we made a choice to adapt and go a different direction.

When we first launched MOJO, the designs were playful, colorful and heavily illustrated. We took the same approach with the copy on our site and kept the welcoming feel throughout the content. We found that first time users loved the look of the site but there were some issues that we could slowly see developing. The biggest and most important issue was our conversion rate.

We religiously ran conversion tests and started seeing results, even months where we were doubling our revenues. Yet, we knew we could do better. It wasn’t some easy decision to move away from our original brand because even though our site conversion rate was slowly increasing with conversion testing, we knew that if we could take a fresh approach to our brand and site design it would help us in the long run.

We were about to hit our 1 year anniversary and release our Anniversary Bundle all while growing at an incredible rate. With that, we chose to take a leap and also re-brand and re-design the marketplace. I found this side by side comparison on WP Candy (screenshot). It was a huge risk for us because you really shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken.

We immediately saw a huge impact with the new look and all of our metrics from new sign ups, new sales, new uploads, etc. increased. In fact, as we approached the summer, a slow season, we experienced month over month growth at the same rate from the first and second quarters.

At the time, this decision was extremely delicate, uncomfortable and risky but ultimately moved us into a better position that we are in today.

Web Application Platform.

EXAMPLE #2: Originally choosing WordPress to build this has had it ups and downs but we stuck to it.

From the start, Brady and I wanted to build our marketplace on top of WordPress not just because of our passion for WordPress but more to show everyone what you can do with WordPress. Remember, this was in 2009 when we started working on this and WordPress was not being used for what it is today, 3 years later.

For the first year or so, the MOJO application did the job for the most part and we built quite a bit of custom functionality on top of WordPress to make it do what we wanted. At the same time, the growth we were experiencing was really impacting the efficiency of the site. Not only speed and performance issues but sellers we’re requesting new features and we knew it wasn’t the best idea to just hack something up. Even admin tasks we’re getting out of control. At this point, for us, MOJO Themes was too big to handle the setup we had. Load times we’re hitting record highs and it was really hurting the overall experience on the marketplace for everyone.

We had a tough choice to make. Do we really try to re-build everything we had done on a new platform like Ruby? Or do we stick with WordPress and make it work?

In the end, we decided it was best to get back to the core of WordPress. We needed to take our hacks, re-think them and utilize WordPress for what it does best and then optimize it for things it doesn’t do best. Part of our decision to stay with WordPress was to help us launch our new marketplaces more efficiently. We use the same application (framework) for all our marketplaces, like the new MOJO-Code.com. After four months of work, we finally released version 3.0 of the marketplace.

Looking back at the last two months since we launched, sticking with WordPress was undeniably the best choice we could have made.

Learn to Know the Difference

Don’t get me wrong. I believe staying focused, being consistent with your business and sticking to what you do best plays a huge role in creating a successful business. But taking risks can also pay off big time.

As time goes on, it’s important to learn the difference between staying focused on something that has potential and bouncing the same ball against the same wall and expecting a different result. Listen to what is happening within your market, customers and product to make sure you’re moving in the right direction.

If there’s potential, put 100% of your focus on that and you’ll find success.

The post Balance of being Inconsistently Consistent. first appeared on JR Farr.