Episode 49: 2.2 million downloads w/ $35k monthly theme sales

Roughly 2.2 million total free downloads across 9 themes and monthly revenue upwards of $35k a month.

Meet Trent Lapinski, CEO of CyberChimps themes.

I invited Trent on to the show to tell us all about what it’s like to earn a living selling premium themes and supporting such a large install base. Aside from the massive responsibility of sites powered by their product, it’s also looking like a business with plenty of room to grow.

On to the episode!

Interview with Trent Lapinski CEO of CyberChimps

Listen to the audio version or subscribe on iTunes

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The cost of free

We’ve talked about the freemium model in past interviews, but this is the first time I’ve heard someone refer to it as a great responsibility.

And when you have one theme that powers more than a million websites — yea, I guess he’s right.

Trent doesn’t seem to mind the freemium model he’s been able to capitalize from either. In a world of seeking a sustainable WordPress theme business, he seems to strongly believe that a pay once for the download can work.

At the time of this interview, he was exploring paid support models and other upgrades to add to the revenue. What do you think? Can freemium + pay once for download work?

It should be interesting to see what he and the team comes up with.

Mergers and acquisitions

One of the strongest moves Trent has made in the market so far was acquiring the Responsive theme from Emil.

The deal made sense and only fortified the existing theme set CyberChimps had been working on.

Now with roughly 2.2 million total free downloads and 20,000 paying customers, CyberChimps is on track to reach annual revenue of nearly half a million dollars.

Fun and games

Trent isn’t all business.

Like a lot of us growing up in the 80’s and 90’s — he enjoys a video game or two.

He leads CyberChimps as a company that inspires the team to enjoy their work and build a camaraderie with one another to enjoy success as one.

There’s even plans for everyone on the team to get a game console to bask in the glory of online gaming.

Hope that was public info Trent 😉

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Comments

One response to “Episode 49: 2.2 million downloads w/ $35k monthly theme sales”

  1. […] After about a year of trying to manage a full time support load for his free theme, Responsive was acquired by CyberChimps, a commercial theme shop. An interesting bit of history here is that Emil’s site ThemeID and […]

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