In this episode of WordPress Weekly, I sat down with Japh Thompson to discuss his experience working at Envato for the past four years. Thompson worked in support before becoming the WordPress Evangelist for ThemeForest. In the interview, we learned what it was like to be a liaison between a huge theme marketplace and the WordPress Community.
We learned how difficult it was to try to change the negative perception of ThemeForest while working alongside the community. Last but not least, we learned what he’s working on at X-Team.
Stories Discussed:
How The Advanced Image Editing Properties Contributed To WordPress Theme Lock-in
ThemeLab Acquired By Syed Balkhi
Take the WordPress Contributor Experience Survey
Why WordPress Can’t Kill Commercial Plugin Businesses
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Next Episode: Friday, May 2nd 3 P.M. Eastern – Special Guest Siobhan McKeown
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Listen To Episode #147:
[powerpress]
Great show and of particular interest to me. ;)
First, super mad props to Japh for all he accomplished in his role at Envato. He did a huge amount to improve the reputation of ThemeForest and get things moving in the right direction and set up for the future.
I’ll be hoping to continue where he left off (albeit in a different role). There are still very complex issues to solve and I’ll be looking to make progress with those. I’m expecting it to be tough work, but I’m joining Envato because I want to help solve these.
I can’t say much more than that at this point because I haven’t started yet. There’s a lot to get my head around before I can speak sensibly about the issues involved!
I will say that during the interview process, I saw a strong, genuine desire within Envato to improve the quality of the marketplaces. There also seem to be some very good people in place within Envato. Both good signs for the future.
Although my role will be different from what Japh’s was, I’ll still be the right person to contact about WordPress / ThemeForest / CodeCanyon issues, so anyone can feel free to hit me up if they like!
Japh, mate, all the best for the future! I’m sure Envato’s loss is X-Team’s gain and I look forward to seeing how Stream progresses.