A WordPress Theme That Brought a Couple to Marry? Kyle Wakefield Full Interview

Last updated on September 26, 2017 @ 3:54 pm

We all love WordPress, it’s the kind of CMS that brings developers, designers and marketing experts all together, after all, it powers almost 100 million websites worldwide!

Now if you’re really into WordPress development, you’ve probably heard of the ThemeForest marketplace and have used the X theme, which is crushing it on the Envato leaderboard and broke an all time record of being the leading weekly item on Envato just in last April.

leading weekly item on Envato

We even have proof!

Kyle is the founder of Themeco, which recently held a community summit in Las Vegas and brought an enthusiast couple in matrimony. Now that’s a whole other level of a record breaking! Besides building the leading X Theme and taking it offline with the recent summit, Themco has a vibrant community and leading customer support. The team are always coming up with new features and additions to the theme which is just great!

I’m positive that Kyle has great insights and plans for the future, so let’s dig in:

Kyle, how did it all started? A short ‘About’:

Themeco officially started in 2012, however the beginnings of it started years before in Las Vegas, Nevada of all places.

I had never been and had been invited to attend a ClickBank event. Upon my arrival and essentially not knowing anyone there, I decided to turn around to the gentlemen behind me and say hello. Come to find out, we lived very close to each other back home, we were in virtually the exact same internet marketing vertical (just promoted our offers in different places), and had a great deal more in common both from a personal and professional point of view.

Scott went on to become a very good friend, and we spent the next few years looking for opportunities to work together. I owned a network of sites that I was thinking about selling so I mentioned it to Scott. Instead of him buying it outright, we settled that he would buy into the business and we would launch a new company with one focus: to build the absolute best WordPress theme on the market :]

kyle themeco

Introducing Themeco


Why did you choose ThemeForest from all places?

I chose ThemeForest because I’m a big believer in channels. One of the biggest challenges to any business is finding buyers. We had an opportunity to build something that, if approved (that’s a whole story in and of itself), would be in front of millions of targeted buyers. We had been affiliates for years and knew how to setup and run those sort of campaigns with several key relationships with people already in the industry. You could say we were uniquely positioned to do it on our own, however at the end of the day, we wanted to get our product in front of as many buyers as possible.

We chose the ThemeForest marketplace to be our distribution channel and have been very happy with that choice. To be sure, selling in a channel means you lose control over very key aspects of your product distribution, however the tradeoff for access to qualified buyers is significant. In a way, I view the relationship different then most. Yes, they charge a hefty premium of 30% or more to sell with them, but if you think of them as the affiliate, it makes a lot of sense. In my affiliate days, merchants would pay me 70 – 100% of the up front sale to get my traffic. They did this because they knew (or expected) the lifetime value of that buyer to be higher than the upfront transaction.

envatoFor our business, I view ThemeForest as an affiliate of sorts. You are happy to pay your affiliates a percentage of each sale they provide. While there are still tradeoffs in this particular arrangement that are not the norm in your standard merchant/affiliate relationship, this is one way to view it. Thankfully, as time has gone on and I’ve had the chance to get to know many of the fine folks who work at Envato, I’m even more glad we made that decision. It is give and take, but there is a genuine concern on their end to see their marketplace (authors and buyers) succeed, and I’m proud to work with them towards that end as we want the same for our customers.

NOTE: WBI Editor’s Note: Envato’s affiliates are currently getting 30% commissions for first time referral purchases, which is considered considerably low in the industry. This started quite the debate on the community forums.

There are plenty of CMS options, why WordPress?

The WordPress software has played a key role in my business virtually from the beginning in 2005. Seeing a community of people come together to work on something together that is greater than anything each could do on their own was inspiring. I have always valued community and nurturing relationships (with business in general being a real passion of mine) so putting the two together was a natural and enjoyable prospect. Related to the ThemeForest being a channel, I see WordPress in the same manner.

When you can work in an ecosystem that is diverse, thriving, and built around a network of people coming together there is great power in what can be accomplished.

Good ol’ WordPress

In a way, WordPress is the ultimate channel for our business. The philosophy was, if we can create truly remarkable products, serve our customers in the highest order, and continue to innovate both on the development and relationship front, we felt confident in our ability to grow a healthy business. As WordPress grows, so would we. As ThemeForest grows, so would we. This symbiotic relationship is immensely powerful and few things can bring those opportunities together like technology and the internet.

We heard the Themeco Summit in Las Vegas was great! What was so special about it?

We are a people company first and foremost. We love software, and we love technology, but people and relationships drive us. We also have been fortunate enough to learn from great people along the way, and we realized that customers come to Themeco for so much more then just the best WordPress theme on the market :] We wanted to provide value to them far beyond the theme. In doing so, we hope to create our ideal customer. If they succeed, we succeed.

We wanted to put our money where our mouth was and invite people in the community out for an intensive few days of meals, networking, and learning with the sole purpose of growing their business by 2X.

themeco summit nevada

Themeco’s Summit 2015

It was an incredibly powerful time, and something I can’t wait to do again. As great as technology is, it can never replace human to human interaction. Being a people first company, this sort of an event speaks to our heartbeat and what we strive to be known for: a company who loves and serves our customers well in all ways and at all times. It was also extra special to finally meet in person many of the people we had only known via email. You can see pictures and highlights from the event over at our blog.

Did someone really get married? Care to share specifics?

Yes they did! A customer who has gone on to become a friend met his wife through Themeco (well, not entirely through Themeco but she was a client of his and he used X on her site so I like to claim ownership) and they decided to get married in Las Vegas! There is a lot more to the story, and it was planned well in advance (not one of “those” Las Vegas weddings), but we were honored to be able to attend!

We even have proof! (taken from Theme.co Blog)

We even have proof! (taken from Themeco Blog)

We loved the new 1-click-install demos you added to The X. Do you see this as a rising trend in the theme development market?

Glad you are enjoying them! We see our Expanded Demos as a big part of the future but maybe not for the obvious reasons. There are some really inspiring and engaging new designs we are working on that will continue to be made available to our customers in addition to our Extension ecosystem: premium, curated WordPress plugins available to our customers for free. Many have been built by us, but we also worked out deals with several key plugin developers to make their tools available to our customers.

What will we see next with the X? (Not the top secret stuff :] )

We have begun to spec out the 5.0 version of X, and it is nothing short of incredible (even though I’m a little biased)! From a commitment to development standards, working out of the front end, providing additional tools through things like Extensions and Demos, and a service commitment that is second to none – we will not stop until we earn every WordPress user over to X. WordPress has a commitment to earn 100% of the website building market, so we have a commitment to earn 100% of the WordPress market!

We like to keep certain features and development close to the vest, but let’s just say we are going to continue to create wonderful new products and services that will be able to help our customers in ways they may never have imagined! We’re also going to be introducing more ways our customers can not just use our products but actually make money with our products/services. The ecosystem forming around Themeco is incredible and only just beginning.

introduing the X

As an entrepreneur, I’m sure your passion exceeds only theme development, what REALLY makes you tick? Any exciting plans for the future?

There are several things that make me tick! I love business. I love entrepreneurs and working with them. I love big ideas, and I love operational plans even better. I love going to market with a product and seeing how people respond. I love taking calculated risks. I love over delivering on expectations. I love over delivering on over delivering on expectations. I am passionate about my relationship with Jesus Christ. He has changed (and is changing) my life.

My highest goal and what I would consider greatest achievement is to serve people in such a way that they desire to know Him as he truly is. I am not perfect, and I fail in big and small ways daily, but I believe that His grace is sufficient for me and that His power is made perfect in my weakness. If people see any redeeming quality in my life or work, I gladly give the praise to Him!

I am very passionate about working with the team at Themeco who are as much a family as my own, and last but certainly not least, I am passionate about my family. I would never be able to put into words the blessing they are but let me put it this way. I wouldn’t be here without them. Themeco wouldn’t be here without them. There is a tendency when people do these sort of “tell us about your success” type articles to focus on all the highlights. I am proud and humbled of those highlights, but it is the pain and failures that stick out to me more. It is in those painful moments of life where my family has supported in ways that I can never fully explain.

As a matter of fact, and I mean this with the utmost reverence and respect, nothing in my life proves the existence of a loving God to me more then my wife. All the way from how we met to the gift that she is to me on a daily basis – as I look at her and see the way in which her love for me, her way with me, her very existence challenges me to be a better person – I see a sovereign plan proving there is a God who loves me enough to bring someone so perfectly crafted for me. She is a treasure of no compare. I am also proud to be a father of four and few things bring me joy like seeing their precious faces. My office door has glass throughout, so I get to see their precious faces often.

These are a few of my favorite things :] As far as the future goes, I have an idea for a business that combines retail and technology that I can’t get out of my mind, so perhaps 2016 or 2017 will be the year to experiment with that!

Check out Envato’s latest video of Kyle and the X theme:

 

 

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed this interview of Kyle. Have you used The X? Familiar with Themeforest or the topics above? Let us know by commenting below!

Interested in the X? Visit the download and demo page.

David Brandon

David Brandon

I'm a web developer & blogger enthusiast, helping novice users with the principles of site creation.

Comments

  1. Steve

    Awesome article. I can testify that Themeco are exactly what they say. A people first community of forward thinking WordPress experts.

    I’ve tried and testing most options on the internet. With a custom HTML and PHP background I was once told that using a well-built theme is the equivalent o 10,000 hours of coding. I’ve used Thesis, Genesis, OptimizePress as well as Avada and many other multipurpose themes, I’ve developed with Bones and _S and nothing comes close to working with X.

    It’s allowed me to step back from the day to day coding on the website and focus more on the customer journey. To ensure that myself and my clients deliver valuable content and relationships to solve problems that would otherwise be spend bug testing.

    So much do I love the amazing relationship that I have with X and the team at Themeco that I have built my business around their platform offering not only my International bestselling book – http://planyourwebsite.co.uk but also my course which teaches people step by step how to create a successful website using the X theme and Cornerstone Plugin.

    You can find out more about it at https://onlinemastery.co.uk/buildyourwebsite

    and yes 🙂 I was the very lucky man who got married at the Themeco summit. I couldn’t have asked for more than to have the team join and celebrate with us. It was an honour.

    • Brendon Nugent

      Congratulations Steve! Did you fly all over from the UK to the summit? or is it just that you like the co.uk extensions? 🙂

      Ive taken a look at the X, seems appealing, yet quite complex. I guess it’s geard towards savvy developers and not first time WP users. Will surely give it a go sometime soon though.

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