Storefront Themes craft beautiful, feature packed themes for the WP e-Commerce plugin. They have donated 5 developer bundle packages of all themes and plugins that will be up for grabs at WordCamp, as well as a special wordcamp release theme for all attendees.
Tell us a bit about your business. How do you use WordPress?
I was working for a company that went under during the recession right before Christmas in 2008. I struggled looking for freelance work for the next 8 months until I took on an eCommerce site for a local businessman. Once completed, I realized there was a hole in that market at the time, so I made my first Premium eCommerce theme and started selling it on ThemeForest. Luckily it took off and less than a year later I opened Storefront Themes in August of 2010.
We use WordPress for just about everything…obviously our themes are developed exclusively for WordPress and the WP-e-Commerce plugin, but also our system itself is designed on top of WordPress. On our site, when you purchase a theme, you get instant access to your theme files and artwork, video tutorials and support forums. We’ve integrated the older version of bbPress and use a great plugin called s2member to perform all the magic in between. It’s a completely integrated system where each customer has access only to the files and forums that they have bought. It’s pretty cool!
As for the themes, we try to take advantage of all the bells and whistles that WordPress gives us, including custom menus, custom post types (for sliders and carousels, etc) and even using built-in WordPress search to create a very flexible Product search function.
Why WordPress?
I was a complete non-developer before WordPress…I basically could only adjust a few things in the theme files to change the styling. I loved that part enough to keep me coming back and eventually just got better and better. WordPress essentially taught me how to code well.
Why did you decide to get involved and sponsor WordCamp Cape Town 2011?
Really when Ashley asked me I didn’t really know about it. 2 things really made me want to do it…
- A few of our friends in the WP-e-Commerce world are going and sponsoring the event (Dan Milward at GetShopped and Tokokoo)
- We just went to our first WordCamp in August, WordCamp San Francisco. It was an awesome time and as a result we ended up sponsoring and I ended up speaking at our local WordCamp just last weekend. We’re hooked! We think WordCamps are awesome and would love to sponsor some more.
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?
A lot of great WordPress development has come from South Africa. I’ve been a huge WooThemes user myself from back when I did freelance work just after they opened up shop. We’ve learned a lot from their business and even customized their control panel for our own themes (with permission from them of course! ;-). I’ve probably used other South African developers’ work as well, but if Woo is indicative of the kind of community there is, then it’s on the right track.
What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?
Unfortunately I won’t actually be able to attend since I’m several thousand miles away so I look forward to watching a lot of the sessions on WordPress.TV later in the month!
Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?
I’m inspired by a lot of people for different reasons…I’m inspired by Woo for their business model. I’m inspired by Dan Milward because he takes a lot of undeserved crap when in reality they’ve made the best product. I’m inspired by Jason Caldwell with Primo Themes because s2member is in my opinion the greatest plugin ever built. It’s completely free, has MASSIVE capabilities and uses all WordPress core functionality with no new databases. I’m inspired by Chris Coyier for CSS stuff…genius. And I’m inspired by a lot of the theme designers, both on the marketplaces and the ones that have their own shops. Without a great looking theme, no one cares about your content.
What is the most exciting improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?
I really like the new admin panel better. Other than that, it’s custom post types.
Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?
Mobile development will play the biggest factor. Will sites opt for a responsive theme or a dedicated theme for mobile that gets switched at the plugin level like WPTouch. Obviously both will be in play, but it’ll be interesting to see which gets more action.
