How I earned 1 million rubles in the Marketplace 1C-Bitrix
Last week was remarkable because the millionth ruble fell to my account in the Marketplace 1C-Bitrix ! Thus, I earned from replicating my decisions 1,000,000 rubles in just a little more than 1 year.
I am very pleased with this fact and decided to share this success with the professional community in this article. And I want to draw the attention of fathers to this new and wonderful direction.
')
In the article I will give a maximum of personal experience and recommendations + a little history of the development of the direction.
How it all started
Not long ago, I was mainly engaged in selling my watches on outsourcing to metropolitan studios and developing custom websites. But, both directions had a number of significant drawbacks for me:
Being engaged in outsourcing, even if your level grows and the cost of an hour grows, sooner or later you come to the conclusion that after the delivery of the next project you have nothing left - there are no assets other than experience. In addition, in our business you need to constantly learn, and the time for this is sorely lacking - Customers have little desire to pay for our pumping. Money comes only when you code, and when you don't code, money does not flow accordingly. And before you code, you need to be able to sell your time dear. Well, thousands of other problems that you know about. Attracting hired labor solves them a little + adds new ones. For example, an employee, with all the desire, will not work out more than 132 hours per month, there are restrictions on the cost of an hour - that is, there is always a certain ceiling in income. And with the departure of the employee, you lose all his knowledge and experience, lose important competences - which is essentially the only asset of the company. Fathers, I don’t want to convince anyone, but my opinion outsourcing is not the best business ...
Website development is still worse. The market is oversaturated. Dumping is huge. Every new project has to start all over again. Again consulting, again you explain that it is better to draw the logo on the left (I exaggerate) and so on. You have been developing an Internet project for years, and now you just cure almost all the cockroaches in the customer’s head and bring the site to a decent level when you can finally start doing what something really interesting and non-trivial, and then bam - the customer’s business didn’t go, or the business went, but the customer has reached his comfort zone and doesn’t want to develop further, or there is no budget for the implementation of your features. You take a step back and start all over again - a new customer, again wants a logo on the right, etc., etc. Groundhog Day ... It is clear that all this is not so much a problem as there are problems that are solved and many work well and with pleasure in this market, and yet ...
For these reasons, I was constantly thinking about some kind of replication of my experience, maybe creating my own project. Preferably without offline sales and marketing. Looking around, we see that there are two main trends for realizing this today: Marketplace (AppStore, GooglePlay, etc.) and SaaS. And if the second requires serious investments and super ideas, then the first is implemented fairly easily and with a minimum of costs. After all, the Big Brother - Vendor takes on a lot: creates the entire infrastructure and ecosystem, comes up with the rules of the game common to all, is engaged in marketing, develops the framework, and we can only generate ideas and implement them.
3 years ago I started selling my first craft components right on the Bitrix forum. And I remember that I was immediately showered with tomatoes ... There was a whole dispute about the admissibility of selling their decisions to fellow developers, about quality issues, about security, and also - “why is this all necessary?” But I showed perseverance and created a separate group in blogs. I called it the “Market” and began to lay out my developments there, and also provided this opportunity to other developers.
Gradually, the number of decisions in the group exceeded several dozen. Separate sites with collections of modules began to appear. The need and initiative were noticed and 1C-Bitrix created on its website a separate section in which it was possible to lay out its module. The sale and shipment were made by the development partner in manual mode.
The automated processing center for receiving payments was launched later, just a year ago - in August 2011. From the same day, the site keeps sales statistics, a screenshot of which I published at the beginning of the article.
The main advantages that I see in the Marketplace
1. The possibility of self-realization. You do what you want, and you decide how. At the same time, if you did something to your liking, it is likely that someone else (from more than 50,000 site owners on the CMS 1C-Bitrix) will like it.
2. Passive income. You can suspend production for a while: calmly explore a new technology, change developers, and go on the same vacation. Even if you do it for a while, sales will continue anyway. And it gives a certain peace and confidence in the future.
3. Accumulation of assets. Workers come and go, but the modules remain with you, they are sold, their number and turnover from sales grow.
4. Sale of goods, not services. We can talk about this for a very long time. The difference is colossal!
For example, you are not so dependent on a particular client when there are not tens, but thousands ...
5. Marketing and technological support for Big Brother. For example, at 20:00 in Krasnoyarsk, I sit at a club and sip a cocktail, and at this very moment a seminar is being held in Moscow, at which, among other things, they advertise my modules. Isn't it great?
6. Experience in developing, promoting and selling their own software. This is a unique opportunity to try at the lowest possible cost. Sin is not to take advantage!
7. Professional growth of developers. When producing their own modules, developers have to develop the architecture of the program, write their own classes, query the database, etc., as adult programmers do. Growth is much more intense than when simply stretching the design templates on the CMS.
Actually experience ...
One of the first modules I developed was the Kiosk.
Customers who wanted an online store, but for whom the cost of the editorial Small Business ($ 24,900) was too high and its functionality was excessive, often contacted the regional Internet agency Yenisight. They were not going to open eldorado.ru, they just wanted to try what it is online trading. One such client I wrote the simplest online shopping cart in the evening. And I saw that in the 1C-Bitrix editions there is an acute lack of such a revision - im for beginners. After spending one more evening and having packed the solution into a ready-made module, I began to sell it, then in the “Market” group. The price is set so that even considering the affiliate discount for Small Business, the price of the Kiosk + Revision Start remains tempting.
The module was bought more than 100 times, and I earned more than 300,000 rubles ...
It is for this, by the way, that I love Marketplace - there is an element of luck in it. Excitement as in a casino. The module may not sell once, it can sell only a few times, barely recouping its development, and it can fortanut and the module will sell hundreds of times! Nobody ever knows that right away!
Unfortunately, the Kiosk module, now, doesn’t shake so much - many clones and imitators appeared ... Although I have done it decently since then ... Probably after this article a couple more clones will appear - like so, the imitators next time will know how to copy follow me!
And several recommendations at once:
1. If you have a web studio, then feedback from your customers is your most valuable asset. A vendor seeing sales through an affiliate network often does not have such feedback. You are on the front line, and you know best what customers need.
2. You can easily replicate your solutions made for a specific customer. In this case, you do not even risk anything, since the development of the module has already been paid for by your customer. You can simply get additional income from its subsequent sale, as a bonus.
3. Extending the functionality of the initial editions is a great idea. But keep in mind that the more complex the more load on your technical support.
The second module, which I want to talk about - Resizer
It is terrible, but in 1C-Bitrix there was no regular mechanism for automatic photo resize for the File property, with the help of which, for example, the functionality of additional photos on the product details page was realized. From the project to the project, the developers dragged their “crutches” behind them and since 2005 I was tired of asking the forums to add this feature to the box as standard. I asked, asked ... and then I got tired of asking, and I spent a couple of days already a full-time programmer to pack my crutches into a module and put it up for sale.
The price made it so that it would be more profitable to buy a module than to pay a freelancer 2-4 hours for the introduction of some fancybox.
The module sold more than 300 times, and I earned more than 200,000 rubles.
Later, much of the resize appeared in Bitrix out of the box and still appears ... It's funny, but now I’m against the fact that this functionality would develop in 1C-Bitrix regularly and I don’t ask them more on the forums ...
Recommendation:
1. If you see that something is missing in 1C-Bitrix, do not rush to criticize the system and demand this functionality on the forums. Make a module and put it on sale - it is quite possible that you will be able to make good money on it.
2. Be prepared for the fact that sooner or later this functionality will still be implemented in the box. For this "invest" you need to carefully.
3. Take an active part in the life of the platform's blogosphere, a lot of great ideas and customer needs can be learned from client and guest forums, as well as blogs directly on the 1C-Bitrix website. And of course the most valuable resource is idea.1c-bitrix.ru
The third module, which I want to talk about - Migrator
I purposefully studied the modules of other CMS and was looking for something that is not yet in 1C-Bitrix. I will tell you a rather difficult task - indeed, almost everything is in Bitrix. And yet I found a couple of such ideas ... One of them resulted in the development of the Migrator module. The module is free and is the locomotive of the sale of our services for the translation of the site from other engines including self-written on the 1C-Bitrix platform. Our agency has provided a lot of similar services and is an expert in this matter.
Recommendation:
1. You can earn on free modules.
Where else to get ideas for modules?
A real gold mine today, these are typical solutions. Business logic is very simple. For example, it is possible to make a site for an order for 300,000 rubles in half a year as the Customer wants. And you can do the same site, but how you want to make it, then put it in MP for 30000r. and sell within six months 10 times. And then another 10 times ... and another 10 times ...
And there is still not a plowed field, for example:
typical city portal (at the beginning of 2009 in Russia there were 1099 cities and 1318 urban-type settlements),
Typical site of a broadcasting company
typical news site,
standard auction
sample coupon sales site,
typical site of a noticeboard,
portal for the sale / lease of real estate,
typical dating site,
typical social network,
typical website of a newspaper / magazine,
typical blogging site,
Typical photo gallery site, photo stock,
typical entertainment portal,
typical file sharing service,
typical torrent portal,
typical video service
typical video chat,
typical portal for employment,
typical poster site,
typical electronic library,
typical website for the sale of used cars
etc
there is nothing else at all, by and large, except for the I-m`ov ... If you already have some ideas on some subject matter - come with them to the Marketplace and make your million!
This is my experience ...
It is clear that I don’t tell all the nuances right now, but the devil is in the details ... Want to know more - read my blog on the 1C-Bitrix website in the developers section.
In general, Marketplace today is a great new direction for web studios.
Develop modules fun and interesting! The community is actively involved in the development of the ecosystem. All decisions are tentatively discussed collectively and thanks to this, in the Marketplace 1C-Bitrix there is a spirit of freedom!
PS: By the way, we recruit young fighters in the Yeniseyte team!
I am very pleased with this fact and decided to share this success with the professional community in this article. And I want to draw the attention of fathers to this new and wonderful direction.
')
In the article I will give a maximum of personal experience and recommendations + a little history of the development of the direction.
How it all started
Not long ago, I was mainly engaged in selling my watches on outsourcing to metropolitan studios and developing custom websites. But, both directions had a number of significant drawbacks for me:
Being engaged in outsourcing, even if your level grows and the cost of an hour grows, sooner or later you come to the conclusion that after the delivery of the next project you have nothing left - there are no assets other than experience. In addition, in our business you need to constantly learn, and the time for this is sorely lacking - Customers have little desire to pay for our pumping. Money comes only when you code, and when you don't code, money does not flow accordingly. And before you code, you need to be able to sell your time dear. Well, thousands of other problems that you know about. Attracting hired labor solves them a little + adds new ones. For example, an employee, with all the desire, will not work out more than 132 hours per month, there are restrictions on the cost of an hour - that is, there is always a certain ceiling in income. And with the departure of the employee, you lose all his knowledge and experience, lose important competences - which is essentially the only asset of the company. Fathers, I don’t want to convince anyone, but my opinion outsourcing is not the best business ...
Website development is still worse. The market is oversaturated. Dumping is huge. Every new project has to start all over again. Again consulting, again you explain that it is better to draw the logo on the left (I exaggerate) and so on. You have been developing an Internet project for years, and now you just cure almost all the cockroaches in the customer’s head and bring the site to a decent level when you can finally start doing what something really interesting and non-trivial, and then bam - the customer’s business didn’t go, or the business went, but the customer has reached his comfort zone and doesn’t want to develop further, or there is no budget for the implementation of your features. You take a step back and start all over again - a new customer, again wants a logo on the right, etc., etc. Groundhog Day ... It is clear that all this is not so much a problem as there are problems that are solved and many work well and with pleasure in this market, and yet ...
For these reasons, I was constantly thinking about some kind of replication of my experience, maybe creating my own project. Preferably without offline sales and marketing. Looking around, we see that there are two main trends for realizing this today: Marketplace (AppStore, GooglePlay, etc.) and SaaS. And if the second requires serious investments and super ideas, then the first is implemented fairly easily and with a minimum of costs. After all, the Big Brother - Vendor takes on a lot: creates the entire infrastructure and ecosystem, comes up with the rules of the game common to all, is engaged in marketing, develops the framework, and we can only generate ideas and implement them.
3 years ago I started selling my first craft components right on the Bitrix forum. And I remember that I was immediately showered with tomatoes ... There was a whole dispute about the admissibility of selling their decisions to fellow developers, about quality issues, about security, and also - “why is this all necessary?” But I showed perseverance and created a separate group in blogs. I called it the “Market” and began to lay out my developments there, and also provided this opportunity to other developers.
Gradually, the number of decisions in the group exceeded several dozen. Separate sites with collections of modules began to appear. The need and initiative were noticed and 1C-Bitrix created on its website a separate section in which it was possible to lay out its module. The sale and shipment were made by the development partner in manual mode.
The automated processing center for receiving payments was launched later, just a year ago - in August 2011. From the same day, the site keeps sales statistics, a screenshot of which I published at the beginning of the article.
The main advantages that I see in the Marketplace
1. The possibility of self-realization. You do what you want, and you decide how. At the same time, if you did something to your liking, it is likely that someone else (from more than 50,000 site owners on the CMS 1C-Bitrix) will like it.
2. Passive income. You can suspend production for a while: calmly explore a new technology, change developers, and go on the same vacation. Even if you do it for a while, sales will continue anyway. And it gives a certain peace and confidence in the future.
3. Accumulation of assets. Workers come and go, but the modules remain with you, they are sold, their number and turnover from sales grow.
4. Sale of goods, not services. We can talk about this for a very long time. The difference is colossal!
For example, you are not so dependent on a particular client when there are not tens, but thousands ...
5. Marketing and technological support for Big Brother. For example, at 20:00 in Krasnoyarsk, I sit at a club and sip a cocktail, and at this very moment a seminar is being held in Moscow, at which, among other things, they advertise my modules. Isn't it great?
6. Experience in developing, promoting and selling their own software. This is a unique opportunity to try at the lowest possible cost. Sin is not to take advantage!
7. Professional growth of developers. When producing their own modules, developers have to develop the architecture of the program, write their own classes, query the database, etc., as adult programmers do. Growth is much more intense than when simply stretching the design templates on the CMS.
Actually experience ...
One of the first modules I developed was the Kiosk.
Customers who wanted an online store, but for whom the cost of the editorial Small Business ($ 24,900) was too high and its functionality was excessive, often contacted the regional Internet agency Yenisight. They were not going to open eldorado.ru, they just wanted to try what it is online trading. One such client I wrote the simplest online shopping cart in the evening. And I saw that in the 1C-Bitrix editions there is an acute lack of such a revision - im for beginners. After spending one more evening and having packed the solution into a ready-made module, I began to sell it, then in the “Market” group. The price is set so that even considering the affiliate discount for Small Business, the price of the Kiosk + Revision Start remains tempting.
The module was bought more than 100 times, and I earned more than 300,000 rubles ...
It is for this, by the way, that I love Marketplace - there is an element of luck in it. Excitement as in a casino. The module may not sell once, it can sell only a few times, barely recouping its development, and it can fortanut and the module will sell hundreds of times! Nobody ever knows that right away!
Unfortunately, the Kiosk module, now, doesn’t shake so much - many clones and imitators appeared ... Although I have done it decently since then ... Probably after this article a couple more clones will appear - like so, the imitators next time will know how to copy follow me!
And several recommendations at once:
1. If you have a web studio, then feedback from your customers is your most valuable asset. A vendor seeing sales through an affiliate network often does not have such feedback. You are on the front line, and you know best what customers need.
2. You can easily replicate your solutions made for a specific customer. In this case, you do not even risk anything, since the development of the module has already been paid for by your customer. You can simply get additional income from its subsequent sale, as a bonus.
3. Extending the functionality of the initial editions is a great idea. But keep in mind that the more complex the more load on your technical support.
The second module, which I want to talk about - Resizer
It is terrible, but in 1C-Bitrix there was no regular mechanism for automatic photo resize for the File property, with the help of which, for example, the functionality of additional photos on the product details page was realized. From the project to the project, the developers dragged their “crutches” behind them and since 2005 I was tired of asking the forums to add this feature to the box as standard. I asked, asked ... and then I got tired of asking, and I spent a couple of days already a full-time programmer to pack my crutches into a module and put it up for sale.
The price made it so that it would be more profitable to buy a module than to pay a freelancer 2-4 hours for the introduction of some fancybox.
The module sold more than 300 times, and I earned more than 200,000 rubles.
Later, much of the resize appeared in Bitrix out of the box and still appears ... It's funny, but now I’m against the fact that this functionality would develop in 1C-Bitrix regularly and I don’t ask them more on the forums ...
Recommendation:
1. If you see that something is missing in 1C-Bitrix, do not rush to criticize the system and demand this functionality on the forums. Make a module and put it on sale - it is quite possible that you will be able to make good money on it.
2. Be prepared for the fact that sooner or later this functionality will still be implemented in the box. For this "invest" you need to carefully.
3. Take an active part in the life of the platform's blogosphere, a lot of great ideas and customer needs can be learned from client and guest forums, as well as blogs directly on the 1C-Bitrix website. And of course the most valuable resource is idea.1c-bitrix.ru
The third module, which I want to talk about - Migrator
I purposefully studied the modules of other CMS and was looking for something that is not yet in 1C-Bitrix. I will tell you a rather difficult task - indeed, almost everything is in Bitrix. And yet I found a couple of such ideas ... One of them resulted in the development of the Migrator module. The module is free and is the locomotive of the sale of our services for the translation of the site from other engines including self-written on the 1C-Bitrix platform. Our agency has provided a lot of similar services and is an expert in this matter.
Recommendation:
1. You can earn on free modules.
Where else to get ideas for modules?
A real gold mine today, these are typical solutions. Business logic is very simple. For example, it is possible to make a site for an order for 300,000 rubles in half a year as the Customer wants. And you can do the same site, but how you want to make it, then put it in MP for 30000r. and sell within six months 10 times. And then another 10 times ... and another 10 times ...
And there is still not a plowed field, for example:
typical city portal (at the beginning of 2009 in Russia there were 1099 cities and 1318 urban-type settlements),
Typical site of a broadcasting company
typical news site,
standard auction
sample coupon sales site,
typical site of a noticeboard,
portal for the sale / lease of real estate,
typical dating site,
typical social network,
typical website of a newspaper / magazine,
typical blogging site,
Typical photo gallery site, photo stock,
typical entertainment portal,
typical file sharing service,
typical torrent portal,
typical video service
typical video chat,
typical portal for employment,
typical poster site,
typical electronic library,
typical website for the sale of used cars
etc
there is nothing else at all, by and large, except for the I-m`ov ... If you already have some ideas on some subject matter - come with them to the Marketplace and make your million!
This is my experience ...
It is clear that I don’t tell all the nuances right now, but the devil is in the details ... Want to know more - read my blog on the 1C-Bitrix website in the developers section.
In general, Marketplace today is a great new direction for web studios.
Develop modules fun and interesting! The community is actively involved in the development of the ecosystem. All decisions are tentatively discussed collectively and thanks to this, in the Marketplace 1C-Bitrix there is a spirit of freedom!
PS: By the way, we recruit young fighters in the Yeniseyte team!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/150985/
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