Having lots of ideas in my head is not something I think I have a unique claim to, but taking action
when the opportunity presents itself is something I definitely love to do.
A particularly speedy example of taking action on an opportunity happened a few months ago. Actually it may have been over a year ago…and it seems it didn’t fully pan out, at least in the rewards
department. Regardless, the story is about an idea I’m glad I pursued.
One night, I was working on something or other, probably Memfy, and now I think of it, probably the
Memfy blog. I wanted a way for visitors to share our content in an easy and more importantly, obvious way. Being an avid believer in not reinventing the wheel (providing its legal of course), I did a bit of searching to see what kind of social sharing options were in use. I already knew of the standard floating ones and had tried out variations on this over the years, but none of these appealed. I only used them in the past as it was a quick fix for something that I wanted to have but never really paid too much attention to. This time was different.
Social news sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy were all the rage these days and their entire model was about good, engaging content being shared like crazy. And they had the money to spend on researching what techniques worked and which ones did not. So I figured the social sharing options they opted for must be working so why not just copy them.
About 30 minutes of searching later, I couldn’t find any decent WordPress plugins that even closely
resembled the large big sharing buttons of these two sites. And if I was looking for something like
this, it was a good bet that others were too, which means that creating a simple solution could be a
revenue generator. Within seconds, oDesk.com (now UpWork.com) was loading up on my browser. I drafted a quick and dirty job spec and posted it with a small budget in mind, about $30-40 I think. oDesk normally provides you with recommended freelancers that match your criteria whom you can immediately invite to apply for your task. I selected a few and clicked on the big ‘Invite to apply’ button.
Whilst the oDesk engine was busy finding contractors for me, I spent a 10-15 minutes searching for
large Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons that would be used as part of the plugin. Having found
them, I tweaked them slightly to meet my requirements in colour shade, size and shape and saved them to a new folder on my desktop.
By now, my phone had started pinging with emails coming through and as it was past midnight, I figured it must be oDesk emails. And it was. About eight had come through and I went through each of the applicants, with a keen eye on the vetting technique I use to filter out spammy applications. I was left with five now and looked into these a little more to see what their bid rate was. One had bid higher than my $40 budget and one didn’t have any previous oDesk history so they were out. I normally don’t mind trying out newbies, but I wanted this done asap so didn’t want to be a guinea pig for this small job.
So now I was own to three candidates all of whom looked the part from their profile history and seemed to have good written English skills which for a quick job was going to be crucial. So I sent them each a message with a more detailed script on what I wanted done. When I say detailed, I mean six lines instead of the three that were on the job ad. This included by Google Chat email ad to make comms quicker at this time. One of the applicants (based in India) added me right away and we started having a Q&A right there and then. By the time any of the others had even responded, I’d built a rapport with this first chap and I hired him within about five minutes.
Then the work started and in about 15 minutes, I had the first plugin to test sitting in my inbox. It
worked but needed tweaking. About four versions and another 35 minutes later, the penultimate version was installed and ready to go live on the Memfy blog. I wanted one other minor change but the freelancer advised that it was already starting to get bright where he was and he needed to get some sleep but that he’d come back to me the next day with the final changes. Though not as late as in India, it was late in London too so I took the opportunity to get some shut-eye too.
By the time I got up the next morning, I had the updated plugin in my inbox ready for testing. And I
had it tested and live on three websites before I went downstairs for breakfast. Straight after
breakfast I was scouring WordPress plugin marketplaces where I could list the plugin for sale and
applied for a listing on the biggest two I could find. Marketplaces effectively work like eBay does –
they give you access to their market in return for a cut. I also got it placed on sale directly on
another site which I know provided guidance for startups a while back. To put it up on sale, it
needed a name, something that was easy to understand and a short description. Both relatively easy to do but don’t rush this, if you intend on selling many plugins.
I should confess I haven’t made millions with this plugin, but I never intended to. I just had a bit
of late night energy, excitement and ambition to put my mind to something and accomplish it in less
than a day. I got an email late yesterday that another sale of this plugin had been achieved and
thought this story could inspire someone.
And that, my friends, is how the Get Social Get Viral WordPress plugin was born.
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