Interviewing Collis Ta’eed on the Envato Network

An Interview by Thord Daniel Hedengren

Collis Ta’eed is one busy Austrailian. He’s the main man behind the Envato network, formerly known as Eden, and that means he’s got some big shot sites under his belt. You’ll find heavyweights like PSDTUTS and FlashDen on the Envato rooster, as well as more recent launches such as NETTUTS and ThemeForest. In other words, Collis is keeping busy. He did, luckily, find time to do this interview about his network, the sites, and the reasoning behind them.

The TUTS network is certainly a growing one, and with marketplaces and whatnot to back it up! How many sites have you planned?
We’ve been very fortunate to have TUTS and the Marketplaces as two really growable brands so to speak, and they fit together really well. There’s certainly many more sites to come in both lines. Currently we’re consolidating the TUTS sites. Something I always struggle with is over-extending ourselves. It’s very easy to launch lots of sites, but it’s not so easy to keep them all at a consistently high quality level.

At the moment PSDTUTS is a mature site and is basically paying and holding up the other sites. As they themselves start to mature and we release Plus programs and sell adverts, then we’ll have the resources to launch another wave of TUTS sites. And then watch out!

Aside from the TUTS sites and Marketplaces, we have several other projects waiting in line - three blogs and a community site - all in the same creative/web niche that we operate in. I’m very excited about all of them, but for the moment they are just notes in my planning book.

Speaking of the Plus services, how are they working out? Charging for content online is something a lot of publishers dream about, so I’m sure any advice, numbers, or thoughts you have on this matter would be greatly appreciated by the readers.
Plus has worked out really well as a revenue source for the sites. It’s equaled our advertising income and should surpass it soon. Basically it is PSDTUTS Plus that has made the other TUTS sites possible.

I think the key success factors for us have been that the bulk of the content is free, that there is good value in the membership and that we are using a subscription system. Our plus memberships are only an addition to the regular content, not a replacement. So we continue to have a successful site and for the vast majority of people, plus might as well not exist. However for the 1% or so of our visitors who do want a bit more, we have a subscription membership. Because the site has a huge amount of traffic, it works out well.

For those people who do become plus members, they automatically get access to a dozen or so extra tutorials as well as PSD files for 150 or so regular tutorials. If they choose they can pay their $9, download the whole lot and then close the membership. We have a 100% money back guarantee so that the risk factor is lowered, since in fact if they are unhappy they can just ask for their money back too.

Because it is a good deal, almost everyone sticks around, subscriptions have a way of only ever increasing as people join and the revenue feeds back into the site to help pay for more plus content, more free content and more sister sites.

In terms of the software we use, the system is built on aMember and WordPress, so it wasn’t hugely expensive to develop. We’re now looking to upgrade our plus services to take them to the next level as well as add plus memberships for more sites. Overall it’s been a big success for the sites.

In fact, how have you planned the network itself? What is the overall strategy?
When it comes to building websites, I would describe our overall strategy as “Build as many awesome websites as possible”. I love starting new sites and I’ve learnt that the only way to get to work on new projects is if the old ones have a proper framework to keep them going. At Envato - our parent company - I am basically in charge of new projects. However by group consensus I’m not allowed to start anything new until the current stuff is under control. So I spend a lot of time thinking of ways to make everything work systematically … then I get to start new sites!

Currently with the TUTS sites we’ve been systematizing the way the management works. So now we have a TUTS Manager who oversees the Site Editors who oversee Writers and Contributors. There is also a Developer and a Designer, and we borrow Support, Legal and Accounting from the Marketplace part of the business. This is really great as it’s a nice systematic way for the operation to work, compared to 6 months ago when pretty much all those jobs were me in different disguises.

Of course all those jobs and people also mean there is a big strain on the revenue, so it’s essential to consolidate and grow the sites themselves before we extend the line any further. Still if I could give one piece of advice to bloggers looking to expand their sites, it would be to systematize how their sites operate so that other people can keep them going.

Have you experienced any growth pains with the network?
Lots and lots! We get a lot of requests for new sites in the TUTS and Marketplace lines, we also get a lot of requests (and offers) for translated versions of the sites. Keeping up with these requests is hard, but it’s a good problem to have and one I’m very grateful for, because it means we must be doing something right!

You recently launched ThemeForest, a marketplace for website themes. What are the initial response from the users?
So far it’s going well, we are closing on a hundred files and I hope we’ll be opening to the public next week. I’m very optimistic about how the site will fare as it’s been long in the planning. I just wish I had time to make some themes and templates myself. I’ve always wanted to sell templates, but there was never a site around to do it at!

Initial responses have been mostly positive, the true test will really come when we go live. Still we’ve had some sales already, so it’s looking good!

You recently rebranded Eden to Envato, for trademark reasons. How come you went with Envato, and what were your thoughts with the rebrand?
Rebranding was a tough process! After we discovered Eden was going to be really hard to trademark, we sat down and looked for domains and names. As anyone who has looked for a good domain knows, they are rather hard to come by!

In the end we found a site called Brand Bucket that offers pre-registered domains at a premium price - from about $1,000 - $5,000. Most of the domains are made up words, so we went through and each of the four company directors picked our top six names. Then we compared lists and narrowed it down to three. Then we cross referenced with the local Australian trademark database and the US one. Finally we chose Envato as the winner.

Because it’s a made up word, there’s no inherent meaning and we have the chance to - over time - give it our own brand persona. Initially the umbrella brand wasn’t that important, but over time we’re using it more and more and we have some plans for the main Envato.com domain as well, so it was critical that we got the name right. So far the reaction has been good and I’m glad we got it done. It was one of those band-aid situations, it had to happen, so best to do it in one quick action!

Where do you hope to take your network? What’s the next big step, so to speak?
In the long run, we’re aiming to make Envato a heavyweight internet brand. It’s a big aspiration, but it’s important to think big! To get there I think we just need to keep doing what we’re doing - putting out high quality sites that serve and empower our audiences.

At the end of the day, Envato is only as successful as our readers, authors and members are. If they win, we win. So understandably, our mission is to make sure they win! Whether it’s by providing great educational resources, marketplace services, or anything else, our focus is always on the people who visit our sites.

I’d like to thank Collis Ta’eed for taking his time doing this interview. Be sure to check out his Envato network, including recently launched ThemeForest, as well as excellent sites like PSDTUTS and NETTUTS.

This Interview was published on September 4, 2008 at 9:00 am • Did you like it? Subscribe!
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