We Make $1.7M/Year From Wordpress Plugins [Update]

This is a follow up story for Barn2 Plugins. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 5 years ago, check it out here.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?

Since I was featured on Starter Story, Barn2 has continued growing.

We have released some new plugins such as WooCommerce Product Options and WooCommerce Discount Manager. When we first started, we focussed on very niche plugins where there was no competition. As we have grown, we have successfully experimented with releasing plugins that aim to be the best on the market but do have competition, and these plugin are growing much faster than most of our earlier ones.

In 2024, we focussed mostly on adding hotly-requested features to our existing plugins. For example, our biggest feature request was to add live image previews to WooCommerce Product Options, so we build an add-on which allows merchants to achieve this. This is popular with products where the customer uploads an image, e.g. to a custom printed t-shirt or mug.

The WordPress industry saw a lot of drama and controversy in late 2024. At the same time, WooCommerce started focussing heavily on a "More in Core" policy in which they will be adding more functionality to their core plugin - including the functionality offered by several of my Barn2 plugins. While our sales have not been affected yet, these two threats have made me feel that the business is more vulnerable than it has been in the past. As a result, I decided that to safeguard the future success of Barn2, we need to expand beyond WordPress and WooCommerce.

This means that in 2025 our biggest priorities will be to release 2 or more Shopify apps, which we have recently started building. Expanding into a whole new ecosystem is a challenge and while my WooCommerce knowledge gives me useful insights, Shopify merchants have different needs and I can't assume that it's the same as WooCommerce. There's lots of learning to do and I don't know if it will be a success, but it's an interesting project. Watch this space!

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