For those of you who don’t know about DevPress, have you been living under a rock? Seriously, it is a WordPress business I began with Tung Do, Patrick Daly, and Ptah Dunbar. All of these guys are awesome at what they do and are great folks to work with.
The main goal of DevPress was to build an awesome WordPress plugin and theme community where everyone was welcome (and a lot more!). Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned in these past six months or so. Therefore, we had to make some tough decisions. In the end, Tung became the sole owner of DevPress.
Tung described our problem best in his official update on the DevPress blog:
DevPress managed to release high quality products and tease the community of buzz-worthy ideas, but what we needed most was consistency. If success is 80% just simply showing up well then we failed.
DevPress team members were all over the place. We never had everyone on the same page at the same time. We had too many ideas and projects that started but never got finished. This is a problem when you’re trying to kick-start a business venture.
The other issue that we ran into is the too-many-chiefs-not-enough-Indians scenario. Since we were all four the owners of the site (equal ownership), each decision had to be agreed upon. For those of you starting up your own business, take my advice: Elect a single shot-caller, one person to make most of the decisions and manage day-to-day operations. Bigger decisions can be made as a team, but smaller things need to be decided upon in a timely fashion so you can move on to the next thing you need to work on.
Tung will be moving forward with some great ideas he’s had for a long time. I’m happy he’s getting a chance to see them through.
Just so you don’t get any tabloid-like ideas about “what really happened,” just know that we’re all parting as friends. DevPress is changing directions because it was the best move for the business and the WordPress community.
I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything. I feel like I’ve made three great friends who I can rely on. Don’t be surprised if you find two or more of us working together in the future.
What does this mean for me?
For starters, JustinTadlock.com is once again the home of my WordPress tutorials. You can now find all of the tutorials I wrote for DevPress in the WordPress section of this blog.
Theme Hybrid members are getting a few plugins (DevPress plugins and unreleased plugins) as well as the News theme. I’ll be keeping members updated as I continue moving stuff over to the site.
Outside of that, it’ll be the same ol’, same ol’. I’ll just continue breaking WordPress while trying to do cool things with it.
Hi Justin,
Happy to see you back at JustinTadlock.com with your WordPress tutorials and other stuff that I always looked upon.
I’m happy to be back here with my tutorials too. I don’t know what it is, but I just feel comfortable reading my own tutorials here. I guess it’s just something to do with my design.
Slightly disappointed that you are leaving DevPress but I’m probably not the only one who is glad that you will focus your attention back here and themehybrid. It felt a bit neglected recently. Not the support, that has been above and beyond as usual, but your websites.Welcome back!
Thanks. I’ve got tons of things I’ve put on hold for DevPress that I can get back to now. No more neglect!
Hey, Justin! I wanna be a Theme Designer!
Have it in your bag? ^^
It’s returning. I promise.
Well you guys certainly gave the community some cool stuff. Hopefully we’ll continue to see more coming from all of you in your own unique categories. Would love to acquire syndication to some of that -just saying. If you need to have an elected shot caller
I’ve got the plan but only two hands and know what I want. Just name your price!
To be honest, I’m happy just going back to doing my own thing for the moment. If your serious about it, I might dive into some other stuff in 2012.
Justin, Tung, Patrick and Ptah,
I have benefited from you all individually and collectively (DevPress). Most start-ups start with multiple visionaries sharing CEO duties and learn very quickly that the lead by committee approach is ineffective at best. Glad you all remain friends and I am looking forward to Tung’s work here at DevPress.
Still the best bang for $5 ever.
Glen
Thanks for the support, Glen. Tung has some cool stuff he’s working on.
Got confused where I was for a minute. Thought I was at DevPress.
Welcome back more geeky Justin!
It’s not easy being split between too many projects and not letting any one of them suffer. I’m sure Theme Hybrid will reap many benefits from this decision.
If you get too many projects, nearly all of them suffer to some degree. I’m happy to be refocusing my efforts on just my stuff and projects for Theme Hybrid members.
Nice to see it’s business as usual for you now and looking forward to more kick butt tutorials and plugins
I’ve definitely got some new tutorials and plugins up my sleeve. One great thing about working for the DevPress team is that I got to write a lot of new, experimental code that I wouldn’t have written otherwise. There’s some pretty neat stuff. At least I have some extra time on my hands now to spend polishing the code off.
Good to hear you’re carrying the stuff you’ve worked on over to your site.
Have you posted the devpress plugins anywhere for club members? I couldn’t find them since the redesign.
Thanks for all the awesome stuff you do and the seemingly impossible amount of time you spend giving support.
You’re one of the most helpful and intelligent people around.
I am not going to pretend I know what financial difference you have by running this site or being with DevPress but this site has taught me so much about being a professional wordpress developer that I cannot thank you enough.
You’ll always be in the top left corner of my iGoogle home page! hehe.
Most of the other Wp sites have “below the fold” material!
Here’s a request for WP 3.4: Why does the word “wordpress” in comments on a Wordpress site not get recognized as a properly spelled word! ha!
Good to see you back here, let the Christmas header spirit bring you all positives in the ’12!
Being a part of a similar experiment with many heads and none code monkeys is what I live in now, it has been a valuable experience what you all guys had in DevPress.
I have pointed others towards a few of your tuts that were on devpress before. I was worried when they started 404ing. So glad I found em again! Keep up the incredibly useful info please!
Not sure if you’ve covered this on your blog, but Google Knol is in the process of phasing over to a WordPress based platform. Knol pages used to rank quite highly in organic search results. Any thoughts on whether that deteriorates after the changeover?
Hopefully Tung and get things moving quickly. I am sure everyone would like to see DevPress live up to its potential. I would imagine one person, both chief and Indian, can do it!
Thanks you for your new update on this tutorial…
Hate to see the Devpress team split, but I am looking forward to more of your tutorials
Hi Justin,
Just want to say that I’m a big fan of your Hybrid Theme. Good luck on your future undertakings.
Wesley
It’s not easy being split between too many projects and not letting any one of them suffer. I’m sure Theme Hybrid will reap many benefits from this decision.
I always love your work. I’m excited about any change that leaves you making more tutorials!
I heard Dave Ramsey say something like “the only ships that sink are partnerships.” And they almost always destroy the friendship too, but thankfully you made it out unscathed. Good. Can’t wait to see what you do next!