I am looking for feedback on what you, my site readers, think about the Membership idea. Is this something you are interested in joining? If so, how much would you be willing to pay per month?
Please see the Membership page for info.
Genesis and WordPress Tutorials
I’d be interested in joining! I’d be really, really excited if you created an organized educational path of video tutorials to teach Genesis development and design to newbies. A fee of $10/month sounds about right to me, with maybe a yearly plan discounted for $100/year or something. I appreciate what you do, and I’d feel great about being able to participate.
That sounds good. Although the pricing pundits would say 9.95 or 99.00 per year 🙂
Hi Sridhar
I have learnt so much from your tutorials in the past and many of my sites have followed multiple tutorials from you on ‘how to get the desired effects’ for the sites I was working on.
The bonus is that these were free tutorials and although Genesis has a dedicated community; I have always preferred your input. We appreciate you keeping up with the FREE once-off tutorials and I really hope they keep coming.
I am not a coder (although I am improving). Having access to membership platform will be of interest to me. The South Africa currency is not very strong and I do hope you take similar factors into consideration when deciding on your price.
Good luck with your setup, I am looking forward to finding out more.
Kind regards,
I think it’s a wonderful idea. Sridhar, I have been familiar with your “how to’s” , videos and assistance for quite a while, and I’ve often wondered what would happen if we didn’t have access to you.
It’s a win-win solution for all of us. I think you should set your own price first, because you know what it’s worth in terms of your time needed to create this content and answer questions. You’ll see, “what the market will bear” and you can offer discounts and specials if cash flow slows down.
I’m happy for you to make this change, it insures us that we’ll always have access to you, and that you won’t burn out too easily.
Warmly,
Pam
Hello Sridhar,
You bring so much value to the Genesis community and have provided it freely and generously. I too have learned much from your tutorials and come to your site when needing help doing something with a Genesis theme.
The membership options sounds wonderful and I would want to join.
I’m not that great no pricing, though, so perhaps others can offer you some solid guidelines for pricing.
Looking forward to this!
Hi Sridhar, remove the guarantees of one theme a month and 10 questions support. Just state that you will support questions related to your tutorials at a reasonable pace and level of complexity. That if someone feels that this membership is not a good value they can ask for a refund of the previous month’s membership fee at any time for any reason. This protects you and us (because we want you to be less stressed and producing a wonderful site for us). If you make these changes feel free to delete this comment. You need to trust that people know you are ernest and generous and hard working. Also, quality themes sometimes need more time. Give yourself that freedom. Give yourself freedom to take this site into new directions. Let your reputation and your past work be the thing that makes people follow you and let them go with you wherever you go. — Sheryl
Hello, although i have not implemented much of your tutorials, but one time i used your advise and it was great. I`m really interested in a membership site.
Also Sridhar… One idea for you to add value. I love the way you help improve sites, but I don’t want to be a copy/paste programmer. When you post some code, I often take time to study up. This is not a complaint. You inspire me. But if you are looking for ways to enhance the site for members, I’d love to see a sidebar box with links to more about the coding concepts involved. And a discussion are for those, like you, who want to grow their skills.
Hello Sridhar,
A membership fee is fine with me, you are a gem in the Genesis community. I’m thinking about up to 15 USD per month. Also yearly payments or lifetime memberships are welcome. As Sheryl stated… no restrictions on support question looks nicer to me. Think of your audience as freelancers / small business owners who are in need of some handy tips to get things going in Genesis. We won’t bother you until we really get stuck with our coding efforts.
You may need to differentiate between regular support questions (e.g. tweaking Studiopress themes) and making complete tutorials.
E.g.: http://ozzyrodriguez.com/tutorials/dynamik-for-genesis/psd-to-dynamik-for-genesis-part-1/
Would love to see some series of these kind from your hand. Am willing to pay some extra money for these comprehensive tuts (especially Dynamik Website Builder).
Think also of people who are knowledgeable and willing to become a forum volunteer to help you keep things going while you are writing tuts / resolving problems.
Best regards, Milan.
Hi Sridhar,
I love your tutorials and posts and I would pay a small fee for continued access to your tutorials but in agreement to what others are saying, the limit of support questions does not sit well with me. The appeal for me is that many of your tutorials can apply to other themes with tweaking of the code but if I am to pay for membership, I would also expect my questions to be answered (reasonable questions regarding how I can apply the code to the theme I’m using). I don’t suggest that you are a go to support for unrelated questions, but as it relates to the post you are writing, I would expect that much for a fee. Thanks for your genius 🙂
Sridhar:
This is a brilliant idea and I’m ready to sign up now. Your tutorials are the best and you’re unquestionably an asset to the Genesis community.
I’ve implemented several of your tutorials across our portfolio of sites and have never been disappointed.
Take my money!
I’ve already told you what I think, but I’ll say it here – I think a membership site is a tremendous idea and one that will benefit people who want to learn more. I don’t know how you find time in your day for all the tutorials you churn out, but I’m definitely willing to contribute each month to continue accessing them! You have no idea how many times you’ve saved my butt on a project. 🙂
I just recently found you on the web and I am impressed with the all the help you provide to the Genesis community. I would definitely consider a membership. I particularly would love to see a series of tutorials on how to build a Genesis child them from scratch.
First of all thank you for all you provide for free on this site, and I just wanted to say that I’d be willing to pay a small monthly fee for access to this type of thing. $10 per month/$100 per year is something I’d pay. Also I am with Sheryl about wanting to learn, not just cut and paste code, so an explanation of concepts would be something I’d personally really value. Thanks so much for the opportunity to chime in.
I’d subscribe to support the sustainability of you and your site and in appreciation for all you’ve shared with the community. It would be nice if it was the cost was around $60 per year. I’m not expecting themes for that, and am fine with the 10 support questions per month, beyond that I’d think you’d be risk being overloaded with questions that are difficult or impossible to keep up with. If someone has a need beyond 10 questions, possibly they can pay for extra support, and you can take that on depending on your availability. Certainly you need to take a vacation now and then.
I’ve learned a lot subscribing to your posts. Your concise tutorials give me confidence I can customize Genesis child themes to fit my client’s needs. Thank you!
Sridhar, as a noob to Genesis, at times I find myself lost in trying to understand it’s ways and have found your tuts to be quite helpful. A membership site to have access to you is a fab idea and one I would support. As for what to charge…I would think $10 per quarter would be appropriate.
You could have two levels of membership:
* “Entry Level” where I get access to the content and discussion with other members, around that content
* “Concierge Membership” where you offer your personal advice on my particular site, (within reasonable limits, we don’t expect you to move into our living rooms!) for a higher monthly fee, via email.
* “One off” for members only – I can get XX minutes of your personal time for $YY, via Skype.
Those that need a little more hand holding, I’m sure, are willing to invest in their own education and compensate you for it.
Definitely interested. My area of interest would be basic beginner’s tutorials for someone like me – who is used to one framework (not genesis) and wants to understand the “logic” of Genesis. I’m also not a coder – so I’d love to understand the scope of what I can do without knowing a lot of code.
Great idea – would love to be part of this new community
Hi Sridhar,
I would definitely be interested in the membership.
Releasing a child theme each month isn’t necessarily something I would be looking for, however, a “behind the scenes” video series on creating different child themes from scratch would be of particular interest.
I would also love a series on customizing the different themes that are available on Studiopress.com
Just my 2c.
Thanks again for all you do!
I would definitely join and gladly pay!!! 🙂
Would love to see you continue your great tips and training. I like the idea of 2 levels of membership…..maybe a standard level to see your regular posts with limited questions…..for $5/mo or $60/yr and then a premium level with more access to you etc. for $10/mo. or $120/yr. Also, maybe the option of 6 month or 12 month memberships.
I think that it’s a great idea to give more value to the content that you put on here and I would be willing to pay in order to become a member.
Your site provides great value, and you deserve to profit from the time and effort that you spend generously creating content for the Genesis community, but before I rollout a membership site, I would consider a more prominent and assertive donation based approach.
Maria Popova’s site http://www.brainpickings.org/ is a successful model and so is community radio and NPR. I’m sure there are plenty of others. It’s not that $5 or $10 per month is expensive, but when you factor all the little $5 and $10 per month hits that people are already spending each month for the myriad web services on the market, this stuff adds up after a while.
I have donated to you in the past, and will donate again, but I would prefer to do so on my own terms and budget. I’m sure there are enough people in your subset of the Genesis community who would donate to you on a regular basis and totally concur with my point of view.
I’m not a big fan of exclusive membership sites.
Agreed. (A true “me too” post.)
aka +1, like, follow and all that jazz.
Hear, hear!
Its a fantastic idea. But remember that the only people that are ready to pay for your services, are the ones that got to know you and your extensive knowledge through the services you have been providing for free. I would keep it open to public because it builds your status in the industry 🙂
Agreed. I wouldn’t mind paying a monthly amount and having all the content on the site be free to everyone. Maybe members get some extras, but I like sharing solutions from this site and, in part, my support would be to keep that resource available.
Have tiers of service.
1. free area for easy stuff and get people to know you and your capability – explain how, don’t give the answer.
2. Member area – dunno $25 – $50 / year for “code snippets”.. this gets the solutions “in their hands” from #1
3. Pro area – $10 / question or ?/ month for answers to direct questions, as needed. with the in depth tutorials. As you post for free many times over. – This answer is delivered to the person that paid for the question and the “group” that subscribes.
Yes you need people to see the value in your work, you also need to be compensated for your time and knowledge.
Just a thought…
Thanks for all you do!
-Dennis
If you were to teach Genesis from start to end and explain the code used then this is something I would be willing to pay $50-100 per month. Perhaps even more. I feel there are still not really anything great out there that teaches everything in a easy step by step way.
Price really depends on the quality of the tutorials. If they are good then I would consider it an tuition fee and are therefor willing to pay for it.
Regarding the free theme then that is personally not something I would be interested in. I prefer you teaching us instead.
Hi Sridhar,
I prefer to work with code that is open so I can discuss with others without violating licenses. I think if you are going to have a members only benefit, it should center around the community.
https://pippinsplugins.com has a nice insider-benefit community you might look into.
Thank you everyone for your valuable insights. I am going to drop the monthly membership price down to $10.
I think you should have a good amount of tutorials free, and some (ok I guess so) that people pay for.
Free also means everyone has access. Pay means a select number of people have access. Your site really supports the Genesis community. What about once a week free? Or have a ads page that requires people who want to gain access to click on the 10 ads that are there and then gain access? I am just looking for creative ways to do this. Some will just pay. Others and perhaps myself as well would like a creative way to gain access. A way that could also benefit you just as well as the $10 a month.
Can you create a creative access?
Gary has made some wonderful points here. I think Sridhar should have left it at $15 as well. No one person or audience should define your value and the value of the products you produce. I’ve been working with the Genesis Framework now for a few years. And like Sridhar, there are a lot of others who write tutorials. The thing here is that, based on my own opinion and seeing how code is implemented into themes – Sridhar’s code has landed into a ton of “premium” themes that are selling for $50+ per theme. Now if someone takes an already existing “free” theme and then incorporates Sridhar’s tutorial and then they market the “free theme” as a premium theme based solely off the tutorial and code provided in it – then you know what, $10 to $15 a month isn’t too much to pay. Several developers are making a living from creating themes with his tutorials. His tutorials give developers, especially newbies, vision as to what they can do to enhance a product they might already be working on. Not to mention that although some of the code he provides isn’t directly his code – he’s writing a tutorial on how to implement that into a particular theme – more specifically a Genesis theme which as we all know, some codes just don’t want to work. There is great value in what he provides and no one should expect him to continue doing free work. We as business professionals don’t do free work, we frown on prospects asking us to do free work. So why should Sridhar.
He has a family and the amount of time he spends on the tutorials is time he’s spending away from his family. We all know that being self-employed – our work days never end at 5pm. We don’t work a typical 9-5, Monday thru Friday job and we probably continue to work on the weekends (as little as possible if we can).
We all have to sit back and think about how his information can help us in our businesses and our every day learning process. You are not only getting the tutorials, you are getting an education as well. $10 or $15 a month is nothing.
Hey Sridhar,
My partner is a Genesis Developer (that’s how I know about you) and I am a marketer. Everything I do with businesses focuses on building a mix of free and premium content so my perspective comes with that in mind. Membership sites get me excited because I have seen what they can do to help cashflow for businesses, so naturally I wanted to jump in here.
You are helping people to build their own businesses and are saving them time. You deserve to be paid well for that…and you need an entry point for people so you can build your trust and credibility with them.
lynda.com – charges $25/month
teamtreehouse.com – charges $25/month
From what I have heard their Genesis tutorials are not as in depth as yours. They are more broad training sites. You live, eat and breathe this stuff so naturally your level of expertise would run deeper.
I think $25/month is fair, with a Founders member entry point for your current followers at $10-15/month as suggested. Then after a few months I would go up to $25. From a business perspective this inspires Founding members to stay with you because if they cancel they would need to sign up again at the more expensive amount.
Yet you still need to offer free content so new people can get a taste for what you do.
Perhaps set up 2 levels:
– Basic content and tutorials for beginners for free (Reading the other comments, the newbies are willing to pay less so that is why I suggest to keep that for free.
– Intermediate/advanced tutorials for paid members (That would be your best stuff. This is where you can build your own tribe and community of more advanced developers who are at a point in their business where they are making money).
Inside the paid area perhaps section it off as follows:
– Code library
– Tutorials
– Q&A with you (you need some clear messaging here to manage expectations about average response times). Dan Noris of wpcurve.com said for him the first month is when you are hit hardest with questions from new members and that dissipates over time so you would need to account for this. Makes sense because people would join because of a pain point they need solved ASAP.
Over all, don’t devalue yourself. Good luck.