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Joining me is a former NFL player. He’s here because he realized something that I realized years ago: it is so hard to sell content online to an your audience. Well, instead of patching together different solutions like I’ve done for a decade, he created a solution. Drew Strojny is the founder of Memberful, membership software for independent creators, publishers, educators, podcasters, and more. I invited him here to find out how he built it. Drew Strojjny is the founder of Memberful, membership software for independent creators, publishers, educators, podcasters, and more. Sponsored byHostGator – Ready to take your website to the next level? Whether you're a first-time blogger or an experienced web pro, HostGator has all the tools you need to create a great-looking website or online store. A wide range of options includes cloud-based web hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers. Founded in 2002, HostGator is the perfect web partner for business owners and individuals seeking hands-on support. Visit www.hostgator.com/mixergy to see what HostGator can do for your website. More interviews -> https://mixergy.com/moreint Rate this interview -> https://mixergy.com/rateint
Drew Strojny, Founder of Memberful, discusses how his frustration to find a good subscription service led him to create his own software, and how being a lean startup helped him during periods of slow growth.
Drew Strojny is a retired NFL player turned tech entrepreneur. He is the founder of Memberful, super easy to use membership software. Growing up, Drew had a passion for tech and computers. During the NFL offseason, Drew continued to teach himself how to code and build websites. When his career in professional sports came to an end after a few years, Drew decided to launch his own company. But the original model never succeeded. After several years of building Wordpress sites and selling premium themes online, Drew noticed that there was no simple way of selling and managing online memberships. 4 years ago, he launched Memberful and has been growing the software ever since. Drew joins us to share his story, what it was like transitioning from a career in professional sports to tech startups, what it was like launching his first company, how he’s bootstrapped both Theme Foundry and Memberful, how he approaches building small teams, and much more.
Drew Strojny, former NFL player and Founder of The Theme Foundry and Memberful, talks about how Memberful was built internally out of necessity and later opened to the public. He also talks about how to stay positive and hungry, despite moving slower than Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I had the pleasure to interview Drew Strojny, founder of The Theme Foundry, about their work at The Theme Foundry, their philosophies about themes, and their latest theme release, Oxford. http://s3.amazonaws.com/PostStatus/DraftPodcast/Post-Status-Draft-3-Drew-Strojny-ThemeFoundry.mp3 Direct Download Drew is a former Duke football player that spent a few years in the NFL before he started a small business doing general marketing. Over time, his clients started asking for websites, so he discovered WordPress. His work with web projects led him to start designing WordPress themes, and he ended up being an early player in the commercial theme market in 2008. Competition with themes over time In 2008, there weren’t many people selling themes. Chris Pearson was selling Thesis, Brian Gardner was selling Revolution, pre-Genesis. WooThemes was just underway. But the demand was enormous. Well, I thought we’d just throw our hat into the ring and try a design and see how it goes, and we got a really huge response. It was really great timing on our part. It was one of the best times to get into the theme market. The WordPress theme space really exploded for a few years. Drew notes that they haven’t seen the explosive growth in the past couple years compared to the first two The market is maturing and there are a lot more companies in the space, and a lot more options. Setting themselves apart I asked Drew how The Theme Foundry sets themselves apart from the competition, considering just how many theme providers there are now. They like to tout their “world class design and clean code” when they market their themes. They do most of their design in house, but they also commission some designs to get outside the bubble of the “WordPress theme” concept, and those commissioned themes help them expand their work. John Hicks designed Shelf. Ryan Essmaker designed the Anthem theme, Dave Ruiz designed the Avid theme, and most recently Veerle Pieters designed the Collections theme. The Theme Foundry notably doesn’t use any form of framework and attempts to limit theme options as much as possible. When they sell a theme to a customer, they want it to “just work” and be reliable over time. The impact of selling themes on WordPress.com The Theme Foundry was one of the first providers invited to sell commercial themes on WordPress.com. They released the Shelf theme in early 2011, and today nearly their entire collection is available. However, WordPress.com wants as many great themes in the marketplace as possible, so over time the overall impact WordPress.com plays on The Theme Foundry’s business has been reduced, but it’s still an important part of what they do. Making big splashes with themes The Theme Foundry has made a number of big splashes in the theme market. Shelf, at the time, was an innovative theme, making use of post formats and responsive design when hardly anyone was doing it. Collections has a single page app (SPA) feel, using Backbone for loading pages, and Basis has a drag and drop builder that made a lot of waves. Drew says that they don’t like to just put out themes, but prefer to create themes that target a specific concept, and then build the theme to fit well into that concept, without bloating the theme with unnecessary functionality. Oxford theme and Typekit integration Their latest theme is another that’s ready to make a splash. To date, no theme company has automated Typekit integration; as in, if a theme customer currently wants to use Typekit fonts, they need a separate account for it. With Oxford ( demo), The Theme Foundry is including Typekit support, without a Typekit account, as part of the yearly licensing deal. What this means, is that Oxford offers the theme plus the Typekit font integration, for $79. And the yearly renewal fee is reduced to $39 for support, updates, and a continued Typekit font license. The Typekit integration is the first of its kind in the WordPress theme landscape. To date, it’s a world limited by Google web fonts for hosted custom font integrations. There’s nothing wrong with Google web fonts, but Typekit is certainly a level up, and I’m excited to see this happen. All of The Theme Foundry’s themes will be integrated with Typekit over the coming weeks. You can read more on their announcement post. The Theme Foundry, Post Status, and what’s next Drew and I had a fifty minute convesation discussing the topics above and much more. We also spent some time talking about advertising, content marketing, and The Theme Foundry’s partnership with Post Status. If you’re interested in our relationship and Drew’s motivation for supporting what I do, I hope you’ll give this interview a listen. It was a pleasure to talk to Drew, and I look forward to seeing what The Theme Foundry has coming next. You can follow Drew on Twitter, The Theme Foundry on Twitter, and check out their website.
Adam talks with Drew Strojny the founder of The Theme Foundry and Memberful. Drew is back again to talk about his latest product, Memberful - a membership as a service site that lets you create a membership in minutes and start selling monthly or yearly subscriptions.
Adam Stacoviak talks with Drew Strojny after Founders Talk #46.
Adam talks with Drew Strojny the founder of The Theme Foundry and Memberful. Drew is back again to talk about his latest product, Memberful - a membership as a service site that lets you create a membership in minutes and start selling monthly or yearly subscriptions.
Episode 21 (we're legal!) of WP Late Night saw an awesome guest: Drew Strojny of The Theme Foundry and, of course, lead designer for the new Twenty Twelve default theme. We discussed themes (duh), plugin reviews, and of course I asked for Drew's opinion of Retina/HiDPI displays -- much to the dismay of Brad and Dre. Fun ensued. You just finished reading WP Late Night #21: Twenty Twelvish with Drew Strojny on WPCandy. Please consider leaving a comment! The post WP Late Night #21: Twenty Twelvish with Drew Strojny appeared first on WPCandy.
This episode of Aftertaste follows the continuing discussions of WP Late Night #21 with special guest Drew Strojny. We spoke more about themes, as you might expect, and more about the process behind designing and building Twenty Twelve. You’re welcome to listen in, of course: [audio http://wpcandy.s3.amazonaws.com/aftertaste/Aftertaste-029-After-WP-Late-Night-21.mp3|titles=Aftertaste 29 After WP Late Night 21] MP3 file (21 MB) […] You just finished reading Aftertaste #29: After WP Late Night 21 on WPCandy. Please consider leaving a comment! The post Aftertaste #29: After WP Late Night 21 appeared first on WPCandy.
Drew Strojny joins Adam to talk about his path in life, playing in the NFL, marrying your business partner, web design and pursuing the unknown, developing digital products and themes for WordPress and the 5by5 logo.
Drew Strojny joins Adam to talk about his path in life, playing in the NFL, marrying your business partner, web design and pursuing the unknown, developing digital products and themes for WordPress and the 5by5 logo.