In five and a half years Avada has become one of the most popular WordPress themes in the world. Today, it has sold over 400 thousand times on Envato’s ThemeForest. In this article, Luke Beck, co-founder of ThemeFusion, the creator of Avada, tells its story.
As I think back on our time with Envato, it all goes back to August 16th, 2012. It was an exciting day, the day we submitted Avada to Themeforest for review. The excitement was purely from the fact our new theme was complete, approved and ready to be sold. Every author who submits items on the marketplace knows and understands this feeling. A feeling of accomplishment and pride in what you have created and a little apprehension because you don’t know if all your hard work is going to pay off. Little did we know how quickly that excitement would change into complete awe, with a little bit (technically a lot) of chaos thrown on the side.
Avada sales picked up very quickly. I can recall refreshing the item page many times an hour and seeing the sales jump by several numbers. It was incredible to watch! We had no idea what was starting to happen … a customer base was growing at a rapid pace. Suddenly, we realized that we had something very special, and more importantly that we needed help! While there have been many speed bumps along the way, I cannot imagine it being any different and wouldn’t change it for the world.
Fast forward 5 and a half years and we now have over 400,000 sales, 20 team members and the most active, helping and thriving customer base anyone in the industry could ask for.
Currently our 20 team members are spread across the globe, each working in their own remote location. We have always strived to have a family atmosphere even though everything is online. Open communication, collaboration and dedication to the team as a whole is something each of us have and it makes a real difference. Everyone on our team understands the importance of their own personal responsibility because they know if they do their job well, collectively we succeed as a team. We have a lot of fun while working, and spending work time with each team member has been one of my own personal favorite things to do. Every day brings new challenges for all of us and we love it.
Our team is split across 4 departments: development, support, design and documentation. We have a Senior Team with myself and 2 managers to help organize individual projects and oversee everything on a daily basis. Our team members are incredibly intelligent, very unique, strongly opinionated, and diverse. This always makes for interesting meetings and collaborations, which in turn provide us with better solutions for whatever current problem we are trying to solve.
Markus our Development Manager and Michael our Support Manager have both been with us for 5 years and are tremendous assets to ThemeFusion. We’ve become very good friends and I recently asked them to share a few thoughts about what it’s like working with ThemeFusion and Avada in celebration of our 400,000 sales.
“What you’d usually expect in such a statement is direct praise for the company, the working attitude, the team and of course the products beyond compare. And you expect that because you’ve read it probably a hundred times and because each company expects to hear it! So, how exactly is ThemeFusion any different? I’ve been working at ThemeFusion for 5 years now and can proudly say that we put our efforts and energy daily into a product and a customer base that speak for themselves. You don’t have to simply trust our words. You can check out Avada yourself and find out why it has been the #1 selling theme for over 5 straight years and why over 400k customers love to use it. Our creative play instinct is what drives the constant innovation in Avada and our complete commitment to our customers are what make us do what we love and make us love what we do!”