Moving this to the appropriate section

I'm interested, though it depends how much it will cost

Hi Kai,

Thanks for your reply.

I few days ago I asked an estimation to Stackideas to have a template similar to their template forum.
They answered me back with an estimation of 70 hours work.

The good think is: we can have their team (the best team for EasyDiscuss or EasySocial) doing the job.
The bad think is: it’s quite expensive.

So I asked again if I can share the invoice with other’s people interested. And they reply: that won’t be a problem.

I read in the forum that so many people would like to have their template style.
So, the more interest buyers we can find the more lower will be the share invoice.

What you think? Can you spead the word?

Regards,

Sounds interesting. I'd like to know more about the cost, the template, and the ownership:

1) What's the rate per hour and is it fixed at 70 hrs?

2) Will the new template be a "productized" version of the forum on this site or different. If different can you just quickly list those things that are on this forum that won't be in the template? (If it's not exactly THIS forum, are you working with a mock-up design?)

3) What type of license will the template have for those sharing the development cost and will it also be sold separately or incorporated into future ED releases?

Thanks for the info

hehe, personally I do not want to take their time away from EasySocial and EasyBlog development, and honestly, I have found that it is very easy to modify the look of EasyDiscuss templates with CSS overrides, so I will pass on this one.

Hey guys,

Our charges ranges from $80 - $150 / hour depending on the complexity of the tasks. Like Jannik posted here, it's actually possible with just css overrides and if it's possible at all, it would be best that you guys customize it yourself (Our preferences is never to perform customizations unless you really can't find anyone else doing it for you)

Hi guys,

The offer I got from Mark Lee from Stackideas was:
"... Our customization rates are around $80 / hour... it would probably take at least 70 hours to get the template completed...."

And when I asked Mark Lee if I could share the invoice with others buyers interested Mark Lee reply’s:
"...To be honest with you, I am not really sure if they would want to share the cost of developing the theme but you could try checking it with them..."

Today Mark says the charges ranges are from $80 - $150. Don't understand. If I paid 5.600$ for an existing template alone it's normal.
But if some others guys are interested in together pay the bill, than the price became double!? Don't understand

Hello Nuno,

I think you misunderstood me :P I did not say that we'll be charging $150 / hour. My response to Eileen was that normally our charges ranges from $80 - $150 depending on the complexity of the tasks

I'll pass thanks!

I posted this in the 'voices' section:

http://stackideas.com/voices/easydiscuss/item/311

My opinion is that the current forum is an advert for EasyDiscuss and as such, users naturally want to be able to have their own site looking the same.

When they find that the only way to do this is with heavy customisation or paying $5,000 USD, one naturally feels a little uneasy.

I'm sure I'm not alone in choosing Stackideas products because you can achieve what you want without resorting to customisations. I'm not a developer and whilst CSS overrides etc are easy for some, I wouldn't even know where to begin!

If it will take the stack guys, who know the product inside out 70 hours, imagine what it would take an outsider?

I use all products except Komento and whilst I know development resources are finite, I do feel that the UI area of EasyDiscuss is due for some attention and as a paying subscriber, I feel this should be included within the subscription price we already pay.

Just to add, let's assume that EasyDiscuss has 500 subscribers. Maybe the answer is to increase the subscription by say $10. That will generate an extra $10,000 over two years. I would be more than happy to pay.

The product will be improved for all users and attract additional subscribers.

I really feel the stack team are missing a trick here, as the current theme options, whilst good, can be massively improved.

Hello Mark,

No no, don't get us wrong. We never wanted to do this customization and we never want to charge anything either but the charges that was quoted to Nuno is simply because he wanted us to work on a template for his site and we just quoted him the total cost that he needs to bear. It was never our intention to force you guys to fork out money to get things in

70 hours to build a theme like this is considered pretty fast It's not about knowing the product but it's more about writing the structure and css codes and compatibilities between all browsers.

That's fair enough Mark.

Would you consider my proposal Mark?

Hmm, now that I see more of the background conversation I think I get it. @Jannik I'm with you on my personal preference vis-a-vis Stack Ideas product roadmap priorities but it appeared that something else was planned and I might be interested. That was hinted in the third question I raised about the resultant license to the theme. I think it's settled that "non-code" elements like CSS, formatting markup, images, etc. are just data and may be licensed non GPL. If that was the case then the old-fashioned "profit motive" might encourage others to participate, irregardless of their desire for a new theme

Meanwhile, like most everyone else here, I'm patiently awaiting 1.3, 4.0, and for those of you in the US, always also 411.

Hello Mark,

Do you mean increasing subscription prices? I am not really sure if that would be a good idea though because users are actually complaining about "steep prices" when they want to buy our products. We're actually still discussing this internally as to whether or not we should be increasing the price vs reducing the subscription tenure.

This is something that we have noticed, our support takes up almost 3/4 of our time and judging from the support requests, almost 70% - 80% are questions that involves "customizations", be it minor or major. With the time spent dealing with monkey patches / tricks / hacks, the time spent could be used in other meaningful resources such as this.

Please no price hikes or reductions in subscription tenure. If anything increase the subscription tenure. The fact that you spend 70-80% of your time on support is an absolutely wonderful thing. I personally would suggest keep doing what you are doing, because you guys are wonderful. If I were to suggest one change to the business side of things. I would focus on scale, if you had a bigger team, you could diversify your product portfolio (aka increase profits and sales) and dedicate more time to development, while still offering world class service. I don't believe it ever should be a question between product development/evolution vs support. With a team as good as yours, I see no reason as to why you couldn't grow your business to make sure you have the resources to achieve the standards you seek in both development and support.

That is just my two cents.

Oh and P.S. we should empower this community to create and share templates for ES, ED and EB. There is enough talent in this community, to be able take a load off of Stackideas. Mark maybe make a template directory for your three components and provide instructions on how to create a new template. With basic CSS we can make some wonderful templates. Basically, we should take a play out of the open source community playbook.

I would even consider creating a few themes for the community in my spare time. I am no php/js expert, but I can do wonders with CSS :P

Jannik Laursen wrote:

Oh and P.S. we should empower this community to create and share templates for ES, ED and EB. There is enough talent in this community, to be able take a load off of Stackideas. Mark maybe make a template directory for your three components and provide instructions on how to create a new template. With basic CSS we can make some wonderful templates. Basically, we should take a play out of the open source community playbook.

I would even consider creating a few themes for the community in my spare time. I am no php/js expert, but I can do wonders with CSS :P

+1 This is definitely the way to go and I would say that in contrast to say phpbb and vbulletin, this is one of the wrongheaded approaches of Kunena (and I've donated to the project). They've made it difficult and discouraged 3pd to get involved instead of facilitating it. I don't develop templates or extensions for sale but I don't like the fact that if someone even mentions a theme for sale on the Kunena forum that they smack you on the hand with a ruler. This is a close-minded approach that aside from not being in the spirit of open source software, is self-defeating. In the long run having an active base of 3pd involved and supporting them, enlivens your community and helps to develop a better overall product. I think Kunena would be much more developed had the project taken this approach from the beginning instead of building a moat and castle walls... I'm not just knocking Kunena though, just the approach. I have issues with EasyDiscuss which I've brought up with Mark and am disappointed in how its development has been given ugly step sister status.

I also agree with Mark H stating that the forum here is essentially an advertisement and there is almost a dishonest element to that. I don't believe it is intentional, but it is essentially false advertising.

Hasn't anyone seen the big beautiful Welcome Mat stack has placed outside their doors? What has worked in the past is to do it yourself if you can or go to the 3rd-party developers and make the case for them to invest in the ES related development work you want. This has worked in many cases before, including ones I've been involved in (i.e. YooRecipe with Saun from the forums too). Go to your favorite Joomla template developers if you can't do it yourself and make the case for them to develop ES themes. If nobody does this, well then there's the opportunity to provide the market need and create your own templates, or pool your resources, get some made, and sell 'em

Seems to me that Mark and the team have done everything imaginable to support a thriving and rich developer community with an Application generator, rich API and supporting documentation, an extensive array of custom template positions, Mark making his e-mail and Skype available to assist and nurture Joomla extension developers with assistance in their integration work. They have, probably from "idea stage day 1" planned to be accessible and a beneficial environment for 3rd party's.

One thing I don't know if they've done, which could help, would be to have their marketing resource dedicate more time to 3rd-party "Developer Relations", managing and evangelizing theme and extension development by 3rd parties. Maybe in the future ES will run on non-Joomla platforms too and there will be more prospective template developers to make themes.

But I understand Stack is focusing on two fundamentals: getting the foundation right-sized and rock-solid, keeping customer support informing everything they do.

@Eileen O'Donnel, I've gone through those in the past and found documentation dated and obsolete unfortunately. I applaud those efforts and I'm still here because I think these guys are great, in particular the active support. That doesn't mean that you line up and stay in line and shut your mouth. I consider stackideas as a partner in business. It is in my interest to build them up not just knock them. Criticism given truly constructively, is way more valuable than obsequious fan boy cheerleading and sycophants and shills who end up driving people away in frustration and disgust. Constructively is how all of my input here is intended.

What I would like as a customer and someone who has a long history of working with startup software companies and has a good idea of what makes them successful long term, is an active way for 3pd to get directly involved not just providing an API. For example, vbulletin (commercial) has gone way downhill since they were acquired and I no longer recommend, but was once the undisputed king of high quality forum software. Their website is .com but they also provide an actually more active, .org which is for 3pd mods, hacks and styles. phpbb which is open source has similar integrated into their primary website including a tool to demo 3pd styles. SMF also has a showcase of 3pd right on their primary site with demos being linked to the author's site.

@Paul, I'd have to say most companies that endure also listen to their customers, maybe there's a causal connection there Stack Ideas doesn't yet have a playground but they do have a showcase. One active and successful 3rd party developer in this Showcase has a playground of their products in an ES demo. I'm suggesting the community of users should take the case to the template developers directly and you may find what I've seen from various 3rd parties from Techjoomla to YooRecipe to Offlajn to Nordmograph. A good case (with data if you have it) from a paying customer with the information they may not have (knowledge of the ES Showcase, Application generator, Forum of prospective customers for what results from their integration or template work) can maybe yield what you're looking for. It's worked for me.

Jannik, we spend 70% - 80% on issues that are totally unrelated to our products is pretty bad. Take for instance, I just got off with a customer last night and it took quite a bit of my time to debug his issue just to find out that his plugin is actually messing up with Joomla's modal window. If we have 50 customers that has issues with their plugins, we can't be hiring a 50 people team just to fix issues that aren't ours. Where do we even find the time to write codes

Sadly most bugs and issues in the Joomla world area a result of third party incompatibility... And sadly most developers default to blaming the other party. I cant tell you the amount of times where two component providers tell me it is the others fault and give up their diagnosis...

Customers don't have the technical knowledge to find out who really is responsible. I even have active component subscriptions to products i cannot use right now due to unsolved compatibility issues.

And i am the first to admit that you are a victim of your own success in the support scope world. Sadly due to the fact that you are one of the few ethical customer service oriented Joomla companies left. So yes, I agree that often you go out of your way to solve issues caused by other parties. But lets face it, it is that level of service that keeps us subscribed.

I understand your dilemma.. How do you balance going the extra mile and keeping up with product evolution. Especially in a community of people who want more and mote every day.

It is a challenge, but don't face that challenge by following in other developers footsteps and reducing services. Thats what makes you great... Not to mention in a world where the day a digital product is released, it shows up in pirate forums... It is the human capital behind that digital product that we choose to pay for and support.

My suggestion was not to hire 50 robots to fix issues. My suggestion was to scale your team in a balanced and natural way. So that you can keep doing what you do best. Create kickass components and provide world class support.

I know it is easier said than done... Which is why i also suggested empowering the community to help with product evolution by providing us with the tools and directores needed to share templates and plugins. Open source style in a way.

Hello Jannik,

Yep, well said Not to mention that, we're stuck in between now as some users are also complaining that they should get support for life without needing to renew. I find this amusing because it seems like people are expecting us to maintain our level of support and yet wouldn't want to renew their support subscriptions.

If only every developer / customer would be understanding, this world would be a much better place