mailto 附帶附件
In 2014, my friends and I set out to build the best possible web design tools. We built UI kits, Admin Dashboards, Templates, and Plugins. We’ve always tried to create products that are helpful in the development process, and that we ourselves would use for building websites for clients.
在2014年，我和我的朋友們著手構建最好的網頁設計工具。 我們構建了UI工具包 ， 管理儀表板 ， 模板和插件 。 我們一直試圖創建對開發過程有幫助的產品，并且我們自己將這些產品用于為客戶構建網站。
From a revenue’s perspective, if we don’t take into consideration the Black Friday sales (which doubled the amount that we made in November 2016), we are grossing around $22,000 per month. Part of that goes toward paying our affiliates’ commissions, collected VAT, payment vendors’ taxes, and other expenses. We end up netting around $17,000 each month.
從收入的角度來看，如果不考慮黑色星期五的銷售(這是我們2016年11月的兩倍)，我們每月的收入約為22,000美元。 其中一部分用于支付我們的會員傭金，收取的增值稅，支付供應商的稅金和其他費用。 我們最終每月凈賺大約17,000美元。
In this case study, I’ll share exactly how we built our products and grew our business. You’ll hear all about:
在本案例研究中，我將確切分享我們如何構建產品和發展業務。 您將聽到所有有關：
What motivated us to start our startup, Creative Tim, and how we built our initial product
是什么促使我們啟動了我們的初創公司Creative Tim ，以及我們如何構建初始產品
- How we got our first users 我們如何獲得第一批用戶的
- Marketing strategies we used to grow 我們過去發展的營銷策略
- How our business model works 我們的業務模式如何運作
- The story behind our revenue sources 我們收入來源的故事
- Biggest lessons we’ve learned so far 到目前為止我們學到的最大的教訓
1.是什么促使我們開始使用Creative Tim，以及我們如何構建初始產品 (1. What motivated us to get started with Creative Tim and how we built the initial product)
We started out as a two-person agency in Romania with no funding from third parties. We didn’t have enough cash to rent an office — even desks at a co-working space —so we just worked out of a Starbucks. We were barely able to pay our daily living expenses by doing work for clients.
我們最初是在羅馬尼亞成立的兩人代理機構，沒有第三方的資助。 我們沒有足夠的現金來租用辦公室，甚至連辦公室的辦公桌都沒有，所以我們只是在星巴克工作。 通過為客戶工作，我們幾乎無法支付日常生活費用。
Creative Tim was a side project that we thought would come in handy to web developers like ourselves. We noticed that we were always “reinventing the wheel” when working with clients, and creating the same items over and over again for their websites. So we wanted to create a few standard components, like login and register modals, calendars, wizards, headers, and footers.
Creative Tim是一個輔助項目，我們認為它將對像我們這樣的Web開發人員派上用場。 我們注意到，與客戶合作時，我們總是在“重新發明輪子”，并為他們的網站一遍又一遍地創建相同的項目。 因此，我們希望創建一些標準組件，例如登錄和注冊模式，日歷，向導，頁眉和頁腳。
Over the span of a few months, we dedicated our time to implementing the platform and a few freebies (alongside the agency work). In the beginning, we didn’t have any Twitter followers, Facebook fans, or email list subscribers. We posted a lot of stuff about our freebies on various design forums and we used the “stalk web developers on Twitter” technique to spread the word about our products.
在過去的幾個月中，我們投入了很多時間來實施該平臺和一些免費贈品(以及代理工作)。 最初，我們沒有任何Twitter關注者，Facebook粉絲或電子郵件列表訂戶。 我們在各種設計論壇上發布了許多關于免費贈品的內容，并且我們使用了“ Twitter上的跟蹤Web開發人員”技術來傳播有關我們產品的信息。
2.我們如何獲得第一批用戶的 (2. How we got our first users)
At first, nobody really understood what we wanted to do. They didn’t understand the value we could provide by helping them improve their businesses. We decided that it would be better to create a more complex product that would help people understand what we were doing ?
最初，沒有人真正了解我們想要做什么。 他們不理解通過幫助他們改善業務可以提供的價值。 我們認為最好創建一個更復雜的產品來幫助人們了解我們在做什么？
We launched the Get Shit Done Kit, a UI Kit based on Bootstrap. It was featured on Designer News, and it was quite popular. We got over 11,000 users from that source, which was a huge spike for our business.
我們推出了Get Shit Done套件 ，這是一個基于Bootstrap的UI套件。 它在Designer News上被精選，并且非常受歡迎。 我們從該來源獲得了超過11,000個用戶，這對我們的業務來說是一個巨大的增長。
Then two weeks later our startup was featured on Product Hunt. That gave us another spike with over 5,000 users. After that, the situation was stable, and we graduated from 0 users/week to a consistent 2,000 to 3,000 users/week.
然后，兩周后，我們的初創公司在Product Hunt中成為特色 。 這使我們又有了超過5,000個用戶的高峰。 之后，情況穩定了，我們從每周0個用戶升級到每周穩定2,000至3,000個用戶。
A couple of months later, motivated by the success of free Get Shit Done Kit, we released Get Shit Done Kit PRO the premium version of GSDK, with more components and ready-to-use example pages.
幾個月后，受免費的Get Shit Done Kit成功的激勵，我們發布了GSDK的高級版Get Shit Done Kit PRO ，其中包含更多組件和易于使用的示例頁面。
Initially, we only made a few sales. The product was generating about $200/week, which was not nearly enough to sustain our business. At the same time we were working on a web project for one of our clients.
最初，我們只進行了少量銷售。 該產品每周產生大約200美元，這不足以維持我們的業務。 同時，我們正在為一個客戶開發一個Web項目。
Then in December, we got published on Bootstrap Expo, the most popular gallery for showcasing websites created with Bootstrap. This was another important spike for our business. Since all of the people who go to Bootstrap Expo for inspiration already know Bootstrap or have previously worked with it, they were the perfect audience for our business.
然后在12月，我們在Bootstrap Expo上發布了出版物， Bootstrap Expo是用于展示由Bootstrap創建的網站的最受歡迎的畫廊。 這是我們業務的另一個重要高峰。 由于所有去Bootstrap Expo尋求靈感的人都已經知道Bootstrap或曾經與Bootstrap合作，所以他們是我們業務的理想受眾。
Later, we discovered that getting traffic on your website is not enough to create a long term relationship with your users, and most of them forgot all about us after their first interaction. We did some research and discovered what most marketers probably already know: people forget things that they aren’t reminded of. Then we implemented the “Remember us email system” following the rules from the forgetting curve.
后來，我們發現在您的網站上獲得流量不足以與您的用戶建立長期關系，并且大多數人在首次互動后就忘記了我們的全部信息。 我們進行了一些研究，發現大多數營銷人員可能已經知道：人們忘記了他們沒有想到的東西。 然后，我們按照遺忘曲線中的規則實施了“記住我們的電子郵件系統”。
We wanted to give our users a reminder that we still existed and that we’re a valuable resource for their projects or their clients’ projects.
我們想提醒用戶我們仍然存在，對于他們的項目或客戶的項目，我們是寶貴的資源。
Currently, we send emails at the following schedule:
目前，我們按照以下時間表發送電子郵件：
- After 3 days from their first download, we send an email with other recommended products. 從首次下載開始3天后，我們會發送一封包含其他推薦產品的電子郵件。
- On day 10 we send an email requesting feedback and asking if they need help. 在第10天，我們發送一封電子郵件，要求您提供反饋并詢問他們是否需要幫助。
- On day 15 we remind them that they can upgrade to PRO. 在第15天，我們提醒他們可以升級到PRO。
- On day 30 we ask them again for feedback and offer to promote something they’ve built in our gallery and social media. 在第30天，我們再次要求他們提供反饋，并提議推廣他們在我們的畫廊和社交媒體中構建的內容。
- We send a final reminder on day 60. 我們會在第60天發送最終提醒。
3.我們過去發展的營銷策略 (3. Marketing strategies we used to grow)
Most of our marketing strategies consisted of submitting our content to different communities like Reddit, Product Hunt, Designer News, Hacker News, and GitHub. Some important subreddits that work well in our area include /r/web_design, /r/html5, /r/frontend, and /r/webdev.
我們大多數的營銷策略都是將內容提交給Reddit，Product Hunt，Designer News，Hacker News和GitHub等不同社區。 在我們的區域中工作良好的一些重要子建議包括/ r / web_design ， / r / html5 ， / r / frontend和/ r / webdev 。
We also paid between $100–200 for newsletter campaigns a couple of times. Even though the ROI ratio matched the amount we invested, the campaigns did not meet the expectations. (Maybe this was just in our case, that wasn’t profitable and it works better for others.)
我們還多次為新聞通訊支付了$ 100-200。 盡管投資回報率與我們投資的金額相符，但廣告系列并沒有達到預期。 (也許這只是我們的情況，沒有利潤，對其他人來說效果更好。)
Then we paid $400 for Get Shit Done Kit PRO to appear in the Sidebar.io newsletter, a curated list of the 5 best design links made by Sacha Greif. This was a very rewarding newsletter for us, generating about $1,500 in sales.
然后，我們花了400美元購買了Get Shit Done Kit PRO，該廣告出現在Sidebar.io時事通訊中，該通訊是由Sacha Greif制作的5條最佳設計鏈接的精選清單。 這對我們來說是非常有意義的時事通訊，產生了約1,500美元的銷售額。
Then we purchased the “Review + Newsletter” package ($550) from eWebDesign. There were about 5,000 users who participated in the giveaway, and the total sales amounted $2,800.
然后，我們從eWebDesign購買了“ Review + Newsletter”軟件包(550美元)。 大約有5,000位用戶參加了此次贈品活動，總銷售額達2,800美元。
We also thought about different places where we could find web developers who could use our products, and we realized that hackathons were exactly what we needed.
我們還考慮了可以找到可以使用我們的產品的Web開發人員的不同地方，我們意識到黑客馬拉松正是我們所需要的。
Subsequently we started talking to people that were organizing hackathons to offer them free licenses for our “premium products.” We sponsored over 20 hackathons in different cities around the world (you can check them here).
隨后，我們開始與組織黑客松的人們進行交談，為他們提供“高級產品”的免費許可證。 我們在世界各地的不同城市贊助了20場黑客馬拉松(您可以在此處查看 )。
All the developers were happy to get free licenses, which made us happy that we could help them create better projects faster and they also found out who we are, so a win-win situation.
所有開發人員都很高興獲得免費許可證，這使我們感到高興，因為我們可以幫助他們更快地創建更好的項目，并且他們也知道我們是誰，所以是雙贏的局面。
Critically, being physically present at some of the hackathons also gave us a lot of information about how the developers were using our products and how we could improve them in order to make them more user-friendly.
至關重要的是，親自參加某些黑客馬拉松比賽還為我們提供了許多有關開發人員如何使用我們的產品以及我們如何改進它們以使它們更加用戶友好的信息。
In March 2015, we finished the agency’s contracts and we switched from “Agency mode” to “Startup mode.” With some revenue in the bank and a few monthly sales, our team moved to working full time for our startup. As we put everything together and constantly launched new products, our sources of traffic and revenue grew.
2015年3月，我們完成了代理商的合同，并從“ 代理商模式 ”切換為“ 啟動模式” 。 有了銀行的一些收入和每月的少量銷售，我們的團隊開始全職工作以啟動公司。 隨著我們將所有東西放在一起并不斷推出新產品，我們的流量來源和收入都在增長。
4.商業模式如何運作 (4. How the business model works)
We realized that the best business model for Creative Tim was freemium: we create high quality freebies that help web developers build great websites, then release the PRO versions for those freebies, which contain more elements, sections, plugins, and example pages.
我們意識到，Creative Tim的最佳業務模型是免費增值 ：我們創建了高質量的免費贈品，以幫助Web開發人員構建出色的網站，然后發布這些免費贈品的PRO版本，其中包含更多的元素，部分，插件和示例頁面。
At this moment, we have 8 premium products, each of which have their own freebies. Their prices range from $19 to $599, depending on the license and archive type (HTML, HTML + PSD, HTML + Sketch). The freebies appear everywhere on different communities, blog posts, newsletters, and social websites — and they are driving all of our traffic.
目前，我們有8個高級產品，每個產品都有自己的贈品。 它們的價格從19美元到599美元不等，具體取決于許可證和存檔類型(HTML，HTML + PSD，HTML + Sketch)。 這些免費贈品出現在不同社區，博客文章，新聞通訊和社交網站上的任何地方，它們正在推動我們的所有流量。
Our business model: create high quality freebies that help web developers build great websites, then release the PRO versions for those freebies which contain more elements. ??
我們的業務模式 ：創建高質量的免費贈品，以幫助Web開發人員構建出色的網站，然后為包含更多元素的那些免費贈品發布PRO版本。 ??
The basic idea is that those freebies are always appearing on top 10 lists in these big communities. Each post that’s in the top 10 (depending on how big is the community) gives us between 1,000 and 15,000 targeted users in one day. You can imagine how much that would cost if you wanted to do a regular targeted marketing campaign. ?
基本思想是，這些免費贈品始終出現在這些大型社區的前十名列表中。 每條帖子排在前10位(取決于社區的規模)，一天內可以為我們提供1,000至15,000個目標用戶。 您可以想像一下，如果您想進行定期的有針對性的營銷活動，將花費多少。 ？
Some examples:
一些例子：
Paper Kit — 380 upvotes on Reddit
紙套件— 在Reddit上有380票
Material Kit — 560 upvotes on Reddit
資料套件-Reddit上的560贊
Light Bootstrap Dashboard Angular — 210 upvotes on Reddit
輕型自舉儀表板角度-Reddit上的210贊
Material Kit — 180 uvpotes on Hacker News (peak position 9 with over 14,000 users coming to our website in 1 day)
材料工具包— 黑客新聞上的180個uvpot (峰值位置9，在1天內有超過14,000個用戶訪問我們的網站)
Material Kit — 860 upvotes on Product Hunt
物料套件-860個在產品搜尋中投票
- etc… you got the idea 等...你有主意
5.我們收入來源的故事 (5. The story behind our revenue sources)
直接產品銷售 (Direct Product Sales)
Here we have the regular sales that are done on our website, which are worth about 24% of our overall sales. This doesn’t include the Big Bundle.
在這里，我們可以在網站上進行常規銷售，這些銷售占我們總銷售額的24％。 這不包括大捆綁包 。
What is this Big Bundle, and how did we create it? We noticed that some of our users were downloading all our free products. (When I say all, I literally mean all of them in about 2–3 minutes after they have created an account.) We also noticed that some of our clients were purchasing all the products that were premium.
這個大捆綁包是什么，我們是如何創建的？ 我們注意到一些用戶正在下載我們所有的免費產品。 (當我說全部的時候，我的意思是說所有的人都在他們創建帳戶后的2-3分鐘之內。)我們還注意到一些客戶正在購買所有優質的產品。
So we decided to test a new product called the “Big Bundle” which gives you access to all our products with huge discounts (over 60%). This big package was getting around 6–8 purchases per month. Since the prices for this Big Bundle is $299 (instead of $500) for the personal license and $669 (instead of $2,127) for the developer license, it’s a good source of revenue and a great deal for the web designers and agencies who are using our products for multiple clients. It’s a win-win situation.
因此，我們決定測試一種名為“ Big Bundle ”的新產品，該產品可讓您以極大的折扣(超過60％)使用我們的所有產品。 這個大包裝每月大約可購買6至8件商品。 由于此大型捆綁包的個人許可證價格為299美元(而不是500美元)，開發人員許可證價格為669美元(而不是2127美元)，因此這是一個不錯的收入來源，對于使用我們網站的網頁設計師和代理機構來說，面向多個客戶的產品。 這是雙贏的局面。
會員銷售 (Affiliates Sales)
We’ve created an affiliate network, and our affiliates are very happy because they get 50% to themselves from each transaction. For example, one of our most important affiliations is done through a very popular GitHub Repo: Bootstrap Material Design (17,000+ stars on GitHub). Currently, affiliates account for around 25% of our overall revenue.
我們已經建立了會員網絡，我們的會員非常高興，因為他們從每次交易中獲得50％的收益。 例如，我們最重要的從屬關系之一是通過非常受歡迎的GitHub Repo： Bootstrap Material Design (GitHub上有17,000顆星)完成的。 目前，聯盟會員約占我們總收入的25％。
隨機搜尋(SEO) (Organic Search (SEO))
We saw that we were also getting around 22% of our revenue from SEO. So we decided to invest more in SEO, we brought on an SEO consultant, whom we pay around $500/month to improve our products’ ranks in Google.
我們看到我們也從SEO中獲得了大約22％的收入。 因此，我們決定在SEO上進行更多投資，并聘請了SEO顧問，我們每月支付約500美元，以提高產品在Google中的排名。
其他收益 (Other revenue)
The remainder of our monthly revenue comes from Facebook, Twitter, and our newsletter. Here’s how our revenue has evolved over time, along with some historically important moments, so you can understand why it has grown in some months:
我們每月的其余收入來自Facebook，Twitter和我們的時事通訊。 以下是我們的收入隨著時間的推移而發展的過程，以及一些歷史上重要的時刻，因此您可以了解為什么它在幾個月內增長了：
And here’s a breakdown of how we burn cash:
以下是我們如何燒錢的明細：
6.到目前為止我們學到的最大的教訓 (6. The biggest lessons we’ve learned so far)
聽起來陳詞濫調，但擁有出色的產品至關重要。 (It sounds cliché, but having a great product is crucial.)
A lot of founders really struggle trying to market and sell something that people don’t want or don’t need. If your product is crap, there is no marketing strategy — and no source of investment — that can keep it alive for long.
許多創始人確實很難嘗試推銷和銷售人們不想要或不需要的東西。 如果您的產品很爛，那么沒有可以長期維持的營銷策略，也沒有投資來源。
At the moment, our products are used by over 134,000 web developers around the world. We have people from Microsoft, Ubisoft, Vodafone, Orange, Harvard University, Stanford University, and governmental institutions downloading and using them as different internal tools, and we’ve sponsored more than 20 global hackathons from 14 countries.
目前，我們的產品已被全球134,000多名Web開發人員所使用。 我們有來自Microsoft，Ubisoft，Vodafone，Orange，哈佛大學，斯坦福大學和政府機構的人員下載并使用它們作為不同的內部工具，并且我們已經贊助了來自14個國家的20多次全球黑客馬拉松 。
不要成為下一個Facebook。 嘗試解決一個實際問題。 (Don’t look to be the next Facebook. Try to solve a real problem instead.)
Every step in our development seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. Looking back at our evolution, we wouldn’t change anything. But with all we’ve learned, we could definitely do everything faster the second time around.
當時我們發展的每一步似乎都是很自然的事情。 回顧我們的發展，我們將保持不變。 但是，根據我們所學的知識，我們絕對可以在第二次完成所有任務時更快。
We’ve always created and improved our products based on our customers’ feedback, and that is the best way to develop a business. It doesn’t matter what you personally like — you need to make sure you solve a real problem for a real customer.
我們始終根據客戶的反饋來創建和改進產品，這是發展業務的最佳方法。 您的個人喜好無關緊要-您需要確保為真正的客戶解決真正的問題。
閱讀，閱讀，閱讀。 (Read, read, read.)
In the past three years, I’ve read more than I’d read in my entire life, and this makes me feel great. Here are some of my favorite books, which I recommend to everybody:
在過去的三年中，我的閱讀量超過了我一生的閱讀量，這使我感到非常愉快。 這是我最喜歡的一些書，我向大家推薦：
How to Win Friends and Influence People — Dale Carnegie
如何贏得朋友并影響人們—戴爾·卡耐基
Zero to One — Peter Thiel
零對一-彼得·泰爾
The Hard Thing About Hard Things — Ben Horowitz
關于困難的事情的艱辛—本·霍洛維茲
Law of Success — Napoleon Hill
成功法則—拿破侖·希爾
Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill
思考并成長致富—拿破侖·希爾
Good to Great — Jim Collins
從優秀到優秀—吉姆·柯林斯
The Lean Startup — Eric Ries
精益創業公司-埃里克·里斯(Eric Ries)
The Charisma Myth — Olivia Fox Cabane
魅力神話-Olivia Fox Cabane
Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster — Alistair Croll
精益分析：使用數據更快地建立更好的啟動— Alistair Croll
I really do think that the secret weapon is to deliver great products combined with a great user experience and a great customer support.
我確實認為，秘密武器是提供出色的產品以及出色的用戶體驗和出色的客戶支持。
The best decision that we made was to put our customer in the first row, and make sure that they were receiving a great UI kit/Dashboard that really solved their problems. That guided us through the whole journey. Our secret weapon is that we deliver great products combined with a great user experience and great customer support.
我們做出的最佳決定是將客戶放在第一行，并確保他們收到了能真正解決他們問題的出色UI套件/儀表板。 那引導了我們整個旅程。 我們的秘密武器是，我們提供出色的產品以及出色的用戶體驗和出色的客戶支持。
一切皆有可能 。 (Everything is possible.)
We are living in a world where anybody can become anything they want as long as they want to invest the amount of time that is needed. I’m saying time, and not money, because we all have time. I want to recommend two books that talk about this: Karaoke Capitalism by Jonas Ridderstr?le and Kjell Nordstrom, and Zero to One by Peter Thiel (a PayPal co-founder).
我們生活在一個世界中，只要有人愿意花費所需的時間，任何人都可以成為他們想要的任何東西。 我說的是時間，而不是金錢，因為我們都有時間。 我想推薦兩本書談論這件事： 喬納斯·里德斯特拉(JonasRidderstr?le)和凱爾·諾德斯特羅姆(Kjell Nordstrom)撰寫的《卡拉OK資本主義》 ，以及彼得·泰爾 ( Peter Thiel) (PayPal的聯合創始人)的《從零到一》 。
At this point, there are no limits. You can go anywhere on the planet and you can talk with whomever you want just by contacting them through social media. Today an ordinary person can achieve more influence than the president of a small country. Think of those Instagram accounts with millions of followers. If I — a regular guy from Romania — can build a profitable business in 2.5 years that is making 60x my country’s monthly minimum monthly wage, then boy, just about anything is possible.
在這一點上，沒有限制。 您可以走到地球上的任何地方，也可以通過社交媒體與他們聯系，與任何人交談。 今天，一個普通人比一個小國家的總統可以發揮更大的影響力。 想想那些擁有數百萬粉絲的Instagram帳戶。 如果我(羅馬尼亞的一個普通人)可以在2.5年內建立可盈利的業務，??并使我的國家的月最低月工資達到60倍，那么男孩，幾乎所有可能。
謝謝閱讀！ 如果您有任何意見或建議，可以在這里找到我： (Thanks for reading! If you have feedback or suggestions, you can find me here:)
Official Website: http://www.creative-tim.com
官方網站： http : //www.creative-tim.com
Our Blog: http://blog.creative-tim.com
我們的博客： http : //blog.creative-tim.com
Email: alex@creative-tim.com
電子郵件： alex@creative-tim.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/axelut
臉書： https : //www.facebook.com/axelut
Twitter: https://twitter.com/axelut
推特： https : //twitter.com/axelut
Also, here is my IndieHackers interview that I based this article off of.
另外， 這是我根據本文撰寫的IndieHackers訪談 。
I Hope this motivates you to start your own business. Just drop me a message if you have any questions — I would be glad to help you!
我希望這能激發您開展自己的事業。 如果您有任何疑問，請給我留言-我們很樂意為您服務！
翻譯自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/growing-a-side-project-into-a-17-000-month-business-46024d2aa87f/
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