We just recently released a new extension BuddyForms Pods and We’ve been quite excited about it. We did not know much about it until a customer asked us to support him and from the moment we understood it, we immediately became a fan of the Plugin. We have been aware of ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) and Custom Post Type UI but with Pods both were combined and even brought into the frontend with all the needs that we were asked about quite often from our customers in the support.
We immediately saw a huge potential in Pods combined with BuddyForms and build the BuddyForms Pods extension. Please read the post on Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields and BuddyForms Frontend Forms
Now just some weeks later I found this Blog Post on the wp tavern https://wptavern.com/pods-framework-loses-primary-sponsorship-seeks-donors-to-fund-project and I decided to write my thoughts into this blog post.
My Thoughts: Pods should become a paid plugin.
From my perspective, I think they should make a business out of it. With 80,000+ active installations, it’s a great start to a solid ecosystem. They can keep the Community Foundation Idea and use the income to pay the team.
Why do I think it’s such a great idea to make Pods turn into a sustainable business? It’s easy, I believe paid support is the best for any plugin as it allows someone´s business to be responsive.
I think nobody wants to depend on a plugin in which business is built as a hobby. If a product is built-in free time as a hobby It is never the same as if people think and identified with it full time. I think Making good money with a product is a must for bigger success and will generate the best team to support maintenance and grow a plugin.
So I have great hope that by starting to earn money Pods will become even stronger than before and grow faster.
Freemius would be an easy solution
Why not just use freemius and offer a paid supported version. A Professional supporter plan. This will give all existing 80 000 users an impulse to switch to the pro plan. You could offer a limited time supporter package with all upcoming pro features included. This would be a huge trigger.
With Freemius in place, you can jump into cash flow right now. And you would start getting insights and email automation would start to grow your business rapidly. Just an Idea. I thought I give up my two cents.
We like to collaborate with pods. We already did it in contact pods and they are willing to add the extension to there site after a review. We are preparing the review request right now.
We are also in the process to write more documentation and create videos.
If you want to help Pods with your Donation you can do it here: https://friends.pods.io/donations/one-time-donation/
I feel It is a great plugin and I hope it will make the transition into a new Buissenes model and into the Gutenberg area.
We still need all the functionality they to provide, and to have the benefits added into blocks It should be not a blocker.
What do you think? Do you make use of Pods and would you like it to become a free/paid business model?
I would like to know
https://forms.gle/qaPoLu26yWVN7m4n7
