--- title: 2017 Year in review description: A 58.8% revenue growth marked a successful year for ThemeBeans, featuring new themes, a revamped website, and high customer satisfaction. doc_version: current last_updated: '2026-04-03T10:29:21.000Z' date: '2018-01-09T05:00:37.000Z' author: Rich Tabor summary: A 58.8% revenue growth marked a successful year for ThemeBeans, featuring new themes, a revamped website, and high customer satisfaction. tags: - Annual Review published: true type: blog url: /2017-review canonical: https://richtabor.com/2017-review id: 351 --- Each year I like to reflect on what I’ve accomplished over the last 365 days, reviewing any major wins, lessons learned, and failures too. Last year was full of adventure: new products, new friends, and a new baby. Here’s what’s new. ## ThemeBeans Annual Review While the theme market in general has tanked for the vast majority of theme developers, [ThemeBeans](https://themebeans.com/) has been growing quite consistently. I suppose that’s because there are still folks who pay for quality code and thoughtful design. Year over year, ThemeBeans saw a 58.8% growth in revenue and an 19.9% increase in average revenue per customer. Both metrics are attributed to the new [Theme Club](http://themebeans.com/pricing) offering solid marketing strategies, further exposure through content offerings and of course auto-recurring licenses. [![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/b0fef-themebeans-themes.jpg?ssl=1&resize=988%2C770)](https://themebeans.com) _ThemeBeans: WordPress themes for Creative Professionals_ I launched two new commercial WordPress themes ([Ava](https://themebeans.com/themes/ava) and [Tabor](https://themebeans.com/themes/tabor)), both of which were very successful campaigns, as well as a free theme on the WordPress directory ([York Lite](https://wordpress.org/themes/york-lite)). I also refinished my shop’s [website](https://themebeans.com) and introduced the Theme Club annual membership, which were both hits. We **closed 752 tickets** with an annual **happiness score of 92%**. There is still room for improvement, but I like where we’re headed. ? If you’re in the WordPress theme business, you know that a theme requires quite a good bit of maintenance throughout its lifecycle. Plugins are no different in this matter, except that themes deal with compatibility issues not limited to a specific functionality or scope; it’s site-wide. I take updates seriously, providing value in both maintenance and new features. Over the year, I single-handedly published **144 WordPress theme updates** across my entire catalog and migrated 8 of my older themes to the latest development framework. _Whew!_ 2017 has been a solid year at ThemeBeans. Even with all the uncertainty and complete saturation of the WordPress theme economy, I’m stoked on how well the shop is performing. This year, I learned that **effective marketing is the key** to success in today’s market. Having a good product doesn’t mean anything _if no one can find you_. ## Login Designer I launched the [Login Designer](/login-designer/) MVP over the WordCamp US weekend in December and it’s received quite a bit of attention since then. To kick it off, Login Designer was hunted on [Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/login-designer) with over 300 upvotes through the first weekend. Super cool! ? Here’s a quick video showcasing the plugin: https://vimeo.com/243191812 In the plugin’s first month it has been downloaded 2,223 times and has recorded just over 600 active installs. **Edit:** _Now there are over 3000 active installs, with 20 or so 5-star ratings!_ While there’s currently nearly a dozen or so WordPress login page editors on the plugin directory, there are none that capitalize on the Theme Customization API like Login Designer does. I built the plugin to be hyper-focused on providing a brilliant customizing experience — one that folks are obviously enjoying. I have a lot of plans for [Login Designer](/login-designer/) in 2018, including a paid version of the plugin which will house quite a bit of extended functionality. [Subscribe here](https://logindesigner.com), if you want to be the first to know when it hits. ## RichTabor.com One of my personal goals for last year was to write and share more. 2017 was the first year I really doubled down on publishing content. I wrote 14 new articles which garnered 38,041 views. That’s an **110% percent increase in page views from 2016**! My most popular post by far was [my announcement of Merlin WP](/merlin-wp/), which received just over 21k views by itself. I also re-launched my blog with a new design and content-focused strategy. I then [published the WordPress theme](/tabor-wordpress-theme/) I use, which has been _really_ well received and quickly became one of the year’s most popular WordPress themes at [ThemeBeans](https://themebeans.com). ## Merlin WP [Merlin WP](https://merlinwp.com) is my stab at addressing the generally awful first touch user experience for WordPress themes. It’s my most popular [GitHub repository](https://github.com/richtabor/MerlinWP) and has been a great learning experience overall. [![](https://i0.wp.com/rich.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/71c89-merlin-fb.jpg?ssl=1&resize=1200%2C630)](https://github.com/richtabor/MerlinWP) _Contribute to Merlin WP on Github_ There’s a lot of work that goes into an open source project like Merlin WP, and I still have a few issues I’d like to resolve before marking it “good to go.” I have been testing the wizard within a few of my less popular WordPress themes with pretty good results, and I hope to roll the wizard out across my entire catalog soon. To top it off, I’ve been chatting with the folks who run [OCDI](https://wordpress.org/plugins/one-click-demo-import/) to see about merging their content importing functionality with Merlin WP’s experience. I’m not entirely sure it’ll happen, but if it does – this would be huge. ## Now let’s get personal I personally hit quite the speed bump dealing with the stressors of a newborn when our baby girl was born late March. Looking back, much of the stress came from the trials of transitioning to life with two young children. I became irritable at home and much less productive at work. Only recently have I emerged from under the burden of stress by really diving deep and taking a look at the mental gymnastics that I was putting myself through. And while I will have days that feel overwhelming, I also have a loving wife who has my back. ## Other cool stuff A lot more went on throughout the year. Here’s a quick-fire list of more cool stuff that happened in 2017: - Jesse and I had our second baby girl in March! ? - I had a great experience at [Pressnomics 5](/pressnomics-5/), my first WordPress conference - Ana Segota from Anariel Design [interviewed me](https://www.anarieldesign.com/wordpress-interview-rich-tabor/) about my story - [WPThemeDoc](/wpthemedoc/) was featured on [WPTavern](https://wptavern.com/wpthemedoc-a-single-file-html-template-for-documenting-wordpress-themes) - [Merlin WP](https://merlinwp.com) was also featured on [WPTavern](https://wptavern.com/new-merlin-wp-onboarding-wizard-makes-wordpress-theme-installation-and-setup-effortless) - Tara and Liam chatted with me on [Episode 19](https://hallwaychats.com/episodes/episode-19-rich-tabor/) of Hallways Chats - I talked about WordPress themes with James Laws on [MasterMind.fm](http://mastermind.fm/episode-66-theme-market-rich-tabor/) - I went to my first WordCamp, [WordCamp US](/wordcamp-us-2017) - I published seven new plugins to the WordPress directory, including [Login Designer](https://wordpress.org/plugins/login-designer/), [EDD Software Licensing Version Quick Edit](https://wordpress.org/plugins/edd-software-licensing-version-quick-edit/), and [WP Gravatar Logo](https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-gravatar-logo/). - I released the initial betas for my first Gutenberg blocks: [Pricing Tables](https://wordpress.org/plugins/pricing-table-block-gutenberg/), [Social Sharing](https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-sharing-block-gutenberg/), [Spacer](https://wordpress.org/plugins/spacer-block-gutenberg/), and [Portfolio](https://wordpress.org/plugins/portfolio-block-gutenberg/). - I’m still [reviewing WordPress themes](/joined-envato/) at Envato — it’s great! - I started answering questions on Quora late in the year with just over 1.4k views with 30 answers. If you’re into Quora, [follow me](https://www.quora.com/profile/Rich-Tabor). It’s quite fun! ## Overall, 2017 was phenomenal Cheers to 2017 for a brilliant, fast-paced, yet incredibly satisfying year. I learned a lot, built more, met some wonderful folks and laid the groundwork for future endeavors. Looking forward to this next year, I am particularly excited about Gutenberg. The modern content creation experience will be fantastic for users and there is a lot of potential for a future commercial Gutenberg block market. The sky is the limit. Bring on 2018. ## Sitemap [Full site index](/sitemap.md)