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I’m really excited to finally debut the new WPStartBox.com. It’s been a couple months in the making, but it’s finally here.

Before I get too far, though, I should tell you that it’s not quite finished. There are a few more parts that need a bit of work before I can turn them loose to the public. Sit tight, they’re coming

New Homepage

With the new design the themes take center stage. Directly beside the themes are many of the benefits and features that you’ll receive as a StartBox Developer’s Club member.

New Navigation

Now that there are so many important sections of the site, it was time for a refresh to the navigation. Members (and StartBox users) will find pertinent links under the Members menu. Inquiring minds will find details about the new Developer’s Club on the Join page. Want to see the themes or StartBox features? Just use the Themes menu.

New Themes Pages

Now you can easily click through and browse all of the incredible WordPress themes in the StartBox collection. Click through on any given theme to see specific details pertaining to that theme, launch a live demo, or create your own demo.

Wait. Create your own demo, how does that work? I’m glad you asked!

Introducing the StartBox Playground

With many thanks to Ben Gillbanks on the assist, I’m happy to present to you the StartBox Themes Playground. Here you can register your own site and take any of the themes for a test drive. You’ll have 36 hours to put each theme through its paces before your blog is automatically deleted. Need more time? No problem, just register a new site!

Improved Documentation

This actually launched a few months ago, but the rest of the site wasn’t ready yet, and I never announced the change. I’ll be writing about this more in depth later, but for now let me just say that the new StartBox Docs are powered by MediaWiki, making them far more community-driven and codex-like.

Check them out, help make them better!

Better Theme Demos

This also launched a couple months ago, but I forgot to say anything. I’ve made it a lot easier to flip through the demos of all the official StartBox themes. Just hit up demo.wpstartbox.com to check them out.

Training & Tutorials – Still to come…

Not yet ready for release is the new Training section of the site. This will house demo videos, detailed tutorials with downloadable examples, comprehensive walkthroughs and more. Stay tuned for this, it should be ready in just a couple more weeks!

Almost Ready: New Members Area

This is also a little ways away. The new Members Area will be FAR better organized than the current version, with clear access to the themes, PSDs, tutorials, and bonus content. Sit tight!

I think that about does it…

I’ve got a few more surprises on the way, but what do you think of everything so far? Do you like the new design, or is it a pretty boring change? I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments. Seriously, tell me what you think.

Finally, after many, many months of preparation, I am excited to introduce the StartBox Affiliate Program. Affiliates can earn a generous 33% commission from every referral.

Learn more and apply today!

At WordCamp Chicago 2011 I presented on “Developing for Success -or- Any Fool Can Do This”. The talk encompassed how I took a leap of faith and launched StartBox and all of the challenges that come with that. Slides and resources are below.

(click here to watch on WordPress.tv)

You Can Do This!

Starting and running a business is easier than you think, but there are a lot of overwhelming challenges that can really break you down if you don’t have a plan or perseverance. My goal in the presentation was to inspire others to realize they already have the tools and resources they need to get started today and succeed.

An important caveat is that you must define success for yourself. If you chase after someone else’s definition of success (or your perceived version of what they think success means) you will always fall short. Another important reminder is that you cannot define success by specific attainable goals. Those are goals, they are not a living definition of success.

How I Define Success

Personally, I define success as: Spending most of my time doing something I enjoy, while generating more revenue than debt, in positive and meaningful ways.

If I’m missing any one of those three components I’m not succeeding because I’m either spending most time doing something I don’t like, generating more debt than revenue, or doing negative or meaningless work. Bleh!

My Presentation Slides

My presentation slides are available at SlideShare.

Resources

Leverage the resources that are available to you, there are plenty:

• Community
• Just look around, the WordPress community is filled with helpful people
• Search the internet: there are billions of sites and people in the planet, surely one of them has experienced and addressed the problem you’re having
• Codex, Tadlock, Jaquith, Otto, Ozh, Nacin: One of these guys will probably have your answer
• Our community is Open Source, stealing is encouraged
• But ask permission, and give credit!
• Books
• Don’t Make Me Think
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• Rework
• The 4-Hour Workweek
• Think and Grow Rich
  (more about determination than anything)
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
• Digging in to WordPress
• Professional WordPress Plugin Development
• Blogs
• http://spencerfry.com/ – Spencer Fry of Carbon Made
• http://adii.me – Adii of WooThemes
• http://unicornfree.com/ – Great advice for solo entrepreneurs
• Search the internet, there are millions of good blogs out there
• Free resources are plentiful, and many (not all) paid resources are worth the investment. Do your research, learn all you can for free first, then pay for sources that seem most highly regarded.

I am happy to report that I am shaking things up today.

StartBox 2.5.2 has been released and is available for immediate download in the members section and via automatic update within the WP Dashboard. Along with it come a couple new features, a bugfix, and several minor updates and improvements. Believe me, it’s nothing to write home about, except for one note:

StartBox is now 100% FREE!

Not free as in, “Get StartBox Free (when you buy a theme)” or “This is free if you sign up for this special offer.” No. 100%, it’s yours to have an use however you want, doesn’t cost you a penny, free.

You’re welcome (encouraged even) to use StartBox however you like, including to develop and sell your own commercial themes.

You can download, fork, and contribute to StartBox via Github.

Additionally, I’ve also opened a public StartBox Community Support Forum where I hope users will flock to offer helpful and useful insight for one another. The StartBox Docs were already free, and powered by a wiki that any member can update. This wiki follows the same structure and guidelines as the official WordPress Codex, so it should feel very familiar to everyone.

Why Free?

I’ve wanted to release StartBox for free since the very beginning, but I couldn’t afford it before now. My desire is to make it more accessible to everyone, especially beginners. I also wanted it to become a more practical solution for commercial devs. Even though the GPL already grants users the ability to redistribute StartBox however they like, many were still uneasy about including it with their products (or even building StartBox-based products in the first place).

What Do You Hope To Gain?

I especially want to spark a burgeoning community, one that thrives on innovation and advancement. Not only that, but I specifically want to encourage collaboration. I know for a fact that there are many developers out there more talented than myself who have a lot they could contribute to StartBox. I’m also dreadfully aware of the 30+ frameworks that are on the market right now. I would love to see a move towards integration, combining the best of each framework into something that is better than the sum of its individual parts.

How Can You Afford This?

In January I began a full-time position working with a close friend on a marketing team for a large company. I also introduced an All Themes bundle for StartBox. Thanks to both of these (and standard StartBox sales) I am now able to offer StartBox for free to those who either couldn’t afford it or were too skeptical to purchase it. That’s not all, though…

Introducing the StartBox Developer’s Club

Today I am opening the doors to the StartBox Developer’s Club. Active Club Members have access to all current and future theme releases, PSD files, detailed tutorials, and quick, friendly support. I am committing to 1 new theme per month, and 1 new tutorial per week. I’ve already got the next 10 theme designs lined up, and will be teasing them as time progresses. It will be different than it’s been before because I have learned how to work smarter, and have already begun development on many of the designs.

How Much Does It Cost?

$50 to join, $10/mo to remain an active member. I set the bar as low as I could to reduce the barrier that most beginners face when they’re just getting started, but kept it high enough to help subsidize my development, training and support costs and create a sustainable source of income.

Alternatively, for users who hate monthly expenses, or really like discounts, I’m happy to report that there is also a One-Year plan. If you pay for an entire year up-front you can save over 60% (!!) on the total cost of the subscription and only pay $100.

Learn More About the Startbox Developer’s Club →

Special Discount

This weekend I am at WordCamp Chicago, and I have on my person several discount cards good for 33% off any Dev Club Membership. Find me, and it’s yours!

But I Already Paid for StartBox!

And I thank you so much for that! Your purchase is what has brought me where I am today, and is now serving to benefit the larger WordPress community. I cannot thank you enough for that.

As an added token of my appreciation, though, I am extending and upgrading all active members to Developer’s Club accounts until July 2012. A reminder for original pre-order members: you already have lifetime accounts, so you get everything for all time

If you are really distraught or upset by this announcement, though, please talk to me. My aim is to provide as much value to as many people as possible, and I don’t want anyone left feeling cheated.

Hopes and Aims

My desire is to provide valuable solutions to as many people as possible. I truly believe in my product, but I also truly believe there is still vast room for improvement. I’ll be reaching out to many developers whom I look up to in hopes that they’ll collaborate, and I hope that many more will reach out to me to do the same. That just sounds like a fun and practical solution for everybody.

What’s Next?

Well, in the immediate future, quite a lot actually:

• New Affiliate Program, with 33% commissions
• Mark Jaquith is conducting a comprehensive security audit, so SB will be more secure than ever
• Several new themes
• Several new tutorials (both written and recorded)
• A new site design for WPStartBox.com

What Do You Think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please drop a line in the comments!

Hello everyone! Given all of the downtime the site has suffered over the past week I thought you all deserved an explanation. I especially want to restore everyone’s confidence, given the announcements coming later this week. Read on and learn more.

The Beginning

Last week Monday (7/18/11), AppSumo ran a promo for the StartBox AllThemes Bundle and dumped a ton of traffic here all at once. Well, that awesome deal overwhelmed our host and brought down the entire server! For THREE hours!!

Later in the week there were a couple more minor outages (no more than 15min long). Annoying, but not as major of an inconvenience.

Now What!?

Then, yesterday (7/26/11) the host temporarily suspended my account due to “excessive MySQL usage.” No warnings, they just turned off my account. Initially I suspected I had been running too many queries and was getting hammered with too much traffic. As it turns out, I simply had too many databases…

You see, for the past year WPStartBox.com has been running on a shared hosting account, and within even my single account I was managing several different domains. After last week I was consuming most of the server’s resources, and they were politely telling me to move.

Sweet, Sweet Resolution

So, I lined up an account on a VPS with a local hosting company and we’ll be trying that for awhile. It was a much messier migration than I was planning, due to the account being completely offline for part of the day (making it difficult to begin the export) and then being gone in the evening with prior engagements.

Aaaand, we’re back!

THANK YOU for your patience during this move! Hopefully it will be the last downtime we face for quite some time.

If you notice anything still acting fishy, please sound off in the comments.