Template Marketing Q&A - April 4th 2024

Call Notes

• Understand the demand: Before creating templates, invest time in researching what people are looking for and design templates that align with the current demand. This will maximize visibility and increase your chances of sales.

• Utilize marketplaces and directories: Get listed in reputable Squarespace template marketplaces and directories to connect with your target audience easily. Focus on building up traffic and sales in these marketplaces initially and then gradually start driving more traffic to your own shop for return customers.

• Focus on the customer experience: Make sure your templates are solving real problems for customers. Invest time in becoming a customer yourself by purchasing templates to understand the buying process and identify areas for improvement. Clearly communicate the solutions your templates offer on your sales pages.

• Prioritize post-sale support: Build stronger customer relationships with post-sale follow-up emails, value-added offers, and excellent support. This encourages repeat purchases and positive word-of-mouth marketing.

• Showcase social proof: Share examples of what your customers have created with your templates. This builds trust and helps potential buyers visualize how your templates can benefit them.

• Solve auxiliary problems: Identify the challenges that Squarespace users typically face and create valuable content that solves those problems. Promote your templates within this helpful content to drive sales.

• Plan for post-launch support: Understand the various aspects of running a template shop (fulfillment, support, technical troubleshooting, etc.). Gradually improve these processes as you get sales rather than trying to perfect everything before launch.

• Create a sustainable content strategy: Document and share the solutions you find to common problems. This valuable content not only helps customers but also provides natural opportunities to promote your templates. Stay consistent and align your content with what you naturally enjoy creating (video, blog posts, podcasts, etc.).

• Build a community for your customers: Facilitate spaces where your customers can connect, help each other and where you can learn from their experiences. Having a supportive community strengthens your brand and helps you create better products.

• Stay authentic: Stay true to yourself and your brand throughout your journey. Don't try to be something you're not, as this will be unsustainable and less impactful in the long-term.

Additional Valuable Insights:

• Start small and iterate: Don't try to do everything at once. Focus on selling a small number of high-quality templates and expand from there.

• Invest in continuous improvement: Analyze customer feedback and identify areas where you can improve your templates and overall customer experience.

Call Transcript

Awesome, cool. So yeah, so really quickly, if you're not familiar with who I am, I started my Squarespace template selling journey in 2015, pretty much in the BC era of Squarespace templates. So before it was even a thing, I was like, "Oh, this is definitely going to be a thing. And so when it is, I want to be there." And so that was like nine years ago now. And I wake up every day, thinking, "I can't believe I've been doing this for almost a decade now." I feel like a grandpa in the Squarespace template world. But anyway, with that has come some accumulated wisdom and experiences where I think it'll be really valuable to really unpack and unload those things and also to leverage the network of template designers, many of whom have been on the podcast. So if you're looking for inspiration or looking for stories of people who've done this and have had some success, I think there are certain episodes that speak to different things, but there's always something you can get from those. 

So anyway, let's jump in. And I think live, we only have a couple of people. Hi, Philippe. If you have a question, and I know Alyssa, you submitted yours before, but Philippe, if you have a question, you can put it in the chat and I'll definitely get to it. 

So Alyssa, since you're here, let's start with you. So you already have a template shop. How many templates do you have in there right now? Just one that's fully launched and ready to go. Okay, cool. So I think for you, it's like, "How do I sustain visibility here so that people know that this exists and I can sell more, basically?" I know you mentioned like switching up the brand name, and I think, you know, whatever makes you feel more confident and comfortable about your business, I think is always the best move. So if it gives you that feeling where it's like, "Okay, I want to show this off," then you're in the right direction. 

And then the other thing is, you know, the more templates you have, the more you're going to sell. But you're also going to discover that there are going to be a subset of those templates that sell the most. But you won't figure that out until you have a handful to work with. So as soon as you can expand on what you already have, the better. And then I think the best way to expand is as you build out your ongoing marketing strategy for the existing template, then you can add new templates based on what the demand is, what you're discovering from your customers. Or maybe you discover, you know, people are coming to your shop and they're like, "Yeah, I love this, but I'm really looking for this." And so you can adjust based on that. So on a really fundamental level, the more conversations that you can have with your customers, with your template buyers, the better, naturally, because you're going to get all the insights that you need to make a better product for them.

And so I think zooming out a little bit, there's a big mindset shift needed when you're going from one-on-one services to selling a product because it's a completely different business model. And when you are a one-person shop, it means that your priorities or your focus has to shift in a different way where instead of building an asset for someone else's business, their website or whatever the marketing materials are that you're creating for them, you're doing that for yourself. And you're also doing the support services that are also needed for that to run as well. Right. So you are now the business, and you're essentially working for yourself as a designer, but you also have to now be willing to work for yourself as a marketer or as a support, customer support person, or be ready to expand in those roles as needed. But before you can even get there, you need demand. And the biggest problem that people run into, I've seen a lot of template shops close, is because you quickly discover, "Oh, wait, there's not that much demand, or I'm not finding as much demand as I may have imagined." So maximizing that upfront or optimizing for that upfront sets you up for a more successful shop.

So how do you optimize for that? Well, the more, again, it goes back to like conversations with people who are going to actually buy the product, the more time you spend in that kind of research and development where you're actually building these templates for someone who's willing to buy them, then you now have everything you need to grow and scale from. So anyway, I feel like I just hopped on a quick soapbox there. Welcome, Brian. If you have any questions that you haven't emailed in already or sent me a message on, you can just leave it in the chat and we'll touch on it. So just to recap there, Alyssa, you know, I still haven't even fully answered your question. But going back to the demand side of things, so how do you maximize demand and visibility? Well, fortunately today, there are a number of different marketplaces, directories, affiliates, people who are actively promoting Squarespace templates. And so getting in all of those different places gives you the maximum exposure that you can get or the maximum reach. And then from there, you can decide, "Okay, I'm getting a lot more sales from maybe my Etsy store. I'm getting maybe a lot of traffic from Squarespace themes or whatever it is." You can then figure out what to do next.

But the first step would be, how do I get everywhere? How do I put myself everywhere where people are already buying? So out the gate, wherever the marketplaces are, and I can go through a few today, but making sure that you're in the marketplace literally. And then as you build up momentum in those marketplaces, make sure that you have your shop set up because you want your return customers to just come directly to you as possible. So I use that. I practice that in as many ventures as I can. Whenever I'm starting a new venture, instead of just like trying to hustle my own shingle, I figure out how do I get into the place where people are walking around and buying right now. And then once they've bought from me, then I can bring them back to my shop and show them the rest of the stuff. So, for example, I've got a photography studio and I get rentals from a marketplace called Peerspace. And then after they rent through Peerspace, then they can book directly through the website and it saves them money. It just works out that way. So marketplace first, as well as directories. My Squarespace career started by being listed in a directory and I started getting leads. And so I kind of function as that now. And so being listed in my directory definitely gets you a flow of traffic. And if you're on this call and you're not, I will make sure that you are soon.

 But the first step would be, how do I get everywhere? How do I put myself everywhere where people are already buying? So out the gate, wherever the marketplaces are, and I can go through a few today, but making sure that you're in the marketplace literally. And then as you build up momentum in those marketplaces, make sure that you have your shop set up because you want your return customers to just come directly to you as possible. So I use that. I practice that in as many ventures as I can. Whenever I'm starting a new venture, instead of just like trying to hustle my own shingle, I figure out how do I get into the place where people are walking around and buying right now. And then once they've bought from me, then I can bring them back to my shop and show them the rest of the stuff. So, for example, I've got a photography studio and I get rentals from a marketplace called Peerspace. And then after they rent through Peerspace, then they can book directly through the website and it saves them money. It just works out that way. So marketplace first, as well as directories. My Squarespace career started by being listed in a directory and I started getting leads. And so I kind of function as that now. And so being listed in my directory definitely get you a flow of traffic. And if you're on this call and you're not, I will make sure that you are soon. 

So, yeah, Alyssa, did that answer your question? Yeah, that was super helpful and covered the full spectrum of my several questions. And I even purchased a plugin from you a couple of weeks ago, and all of your follow-up emails afterwards, like, yeah, just introducing the plugin bundle and other things that I might be interested in, were so helpful. And I feel like, yeah, all those little automated follow-up email kind of things and stuff are going to be a really important part of retaining clients and having them, yeah, just come back to the same shop for future purchases or recommending to other people. Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of, I guess, unlocked, you know, the business Easter egg of becoming a customer. I think I have something that speaks to that here. Yeah, this is interesting. Okay. Let me see if I can zoom in and move this stuff out of the way. Yeah. So you kind of touched on, like, the post-sale experience, which is, in my opinion, more important because, obviously, Alyssa, you've bought something in the past, which makes you more likely to buy something again. But then the more touch points after the fact, like, "Oh, there's this added value," you kind of create a much longer-term customer where it's like, "Okay, you know, whatever you recommend that is going to solve a problem of mine in the future, I can trust it or I can appreciate it because you've already done that in the past." So treat your templates as a solution amongst other solutions, keeping the process, you know, keeping the problem in mind, right?

Like, I think a lot of the mistake a lot of people make is just thinking, "Oh, I want to make some extra money or I want to make passive income." And so that's my rationale for selling templates. And then you quickly either get stuck or it just doesn't go that well because it's not, you're not really solving anything, and it can seem a little - what's the word? I want to say nebulous. Like, how does this solve a problem?

Well, the automatic problem, and I think it's, like, ironic because Squarespace actually is a template, like, service. It's a template SaaS, practically. Everyone starts, like, you start your Squarespace experience by choosing a template. And so there's this built-in expectation and this built-in experience. And so if someone is going to purchase a template outside of that, it's because their first problem is they couldn't find what they were looking for within the existing Squarespace template thing, right? So that's, like, problem step number one - someone can't find what they're looking for.

So whatever you're offering, it should respond to that in some way. It should respond to, you know, someone looking for this particular thing and now they can find it. And so there's, like, this balance with, like, how particular should you get versus, like, how broad should you get? And you kind of have to just play with that yourself and figure out what that could be for you.

Like, in my experience, I'm, my template experience is very, very particular, right? I have a Squarespace 7.0 MySpace template, right? Like, it's, no one wants that. No one is, like, waking up thinking, like, "Oh yeah, I want a MySpace template." But there are, there's that, like, one in a million or every, you know, one in a hundred thousand. And I felt like catering to that, right? And so when people discover it and it's, like, "Wow, I've wanted this for years" or "Wow, this, like, you know, allows me to tap into this unique nostalgia that I couldn't experience otherwise," it's not a scalable product, but it's a product that works for its purpose.

So having that purpose in mind and that purpose being to fill a space that isn't currently being filled or to solve a problem for, maybe it's another web designer - you know, I think if you've never purchased a Squarespace template, I think you should, you probably should start there before you want to sell one. Just because you'll learn so much from just going through that buyer experience.

There might be things you discover after you purchase the template that make you say, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that," or, "Oh, that's good." And maybe buy another one, you know, maybe figure out, "Oh, okay, I like how this template shop sets this up," or "I like this from there." And that puts you into the customer experience by being a customer. And then you kind of know now, "Okay, I want to do it like that, or I want to improve on this part of it, because I didn't like how that happened," or whatever it is that makes sense for you.

So yeah, so that's kind of like the spiel on the customer experience. So that initial problem of, "Okay, I can't find what I'm looking for." Okay. And then there's this whole area of, "Well, where do I go next? Or, you know, how does this work exactly? What is involved with this? How easy is this going to be?" There are all of these other questions that fill up someone's head when they want to purchase a template. And your ability to answer those questions up front in your sales page, on your website, that's going to make your template easier to sell.

And then finally, I think social proof is a really important element here. And there's a lot of different ways you can do that. But I think the easiest way is simply examples of what your customers have done with the templates. That's your best kind of sales asset, because it's like, "Here, this is, you know, you can do this too" kind of thing. And that's what the DIY customer is looking for - the DIY customer is looking for, "Oh, I can do that myself with a little guidance or with a framework, with whatever it is you're essentially offering."

So, and then the final layer I would add to that is, and I'm, you know, forgive me if I'm riffing too much, but the final layer is, there are all of these auxiliary problems that come with creating a Squarespace website. And so if you can solve those, then you're just, you're kind of doing the thing that needs to happen.

So I know that's, so a good example, I'll use Big Cat Creative. So Big Cat Creative has sold more than a million dollars worth of templates now. And if you pay attention to Big Cat Creative's content, it's all Squarespace design, solving problems that Squarespace designers run into every single day. So if you're a Squarespace designer and you go trying to solve these problems every day, you're going to run into that brand and that association. And there's going to be a bunch of problems that are solved for you that you didn't have to pay for. And then comes this problem that, "Okay, I already know it's going to be worth paying to solve because you've already, there's all this other value."

So the point of that is, like, think about your template holistically in terms of, "Okay, I'm solving a design problem. I'm solving like an idea problem. People struggle with ideas for, you know, websites every day. Like I need an idea for a construction website, or I need an idea for a lawyer or a SaaS or a, or a plant shop or, you know, like whatever." And if you're already doing like one-on-one designs, then you already kind of have a lot of insight into, you know, what works and what's desirable. So I can talk about this for a long time. Let me move on to the next question so I don't miss anything.

Cool. So myself and my business partner are in the process of setting up our own template business, and we would love to be listed. What advice do you have on how to get on Ghost, etc.? So, yeah, I will follow up with an old video I have on how to get listed in these marketplaces, but I'll also follow up on every marketplace that you could possibly get listed in, and different, I guess you can call them influencers or blogs or websites that you could also reach out to directly as well.

Let's see. Oh, okay. This is a good one. "I need to better understand all the things that will require time and attention once the shop is live so I can balance that work with my existing service consultation work. I'm assuming there's fulfillment, launching template sites, customer service, technical support, content, etc. I'm assuming there's more and that's where I get hung up. How can I best plan for all the things that will require someone's time and attention once the shop is live?"

Alright, cool. So that is a great question because I think a lot of people run into this, and the good news is once the shop goes live, it's not like you're going to be selling a hundred templates a day and you're going to be overwhelmed with, you know, this like bombardment of problems that you can't fix. It's going to come one at a time or two, but it's going to come in at a rate where you can solve these problems incrementally.

So of course you need the basics to sell, right? Step one is to sell a template. Step two is, "Were there any problems there that I could have improved on? Was there anything there that I could have made better? Could I have, is there some kind of follow-up that I do?" Like as often as I've done this with the plugin shop, that's why it has the follow-up sequence that it has today, because I remember noticing that Dimitri, the developer, would respond to every customer support with a thank you.

And I was like, "Oh yeah, I've, I, I share that gratitude as well." So why not automate the gratitude? And so every, you know, the day later you get a thank you email for being a customer and for just giving this a shot because I know what it's like to, you know, buy something from a stranger on the internet and you don't know if it's going to work, but then it works, and you're like, "Oh wow." And that whole experience. So you're not going to know everything out the gate, but what you do need to know out the gate is, "Okay, I need to know enough to get a sale and get a customer who might be willing to be a customer again." And that is going to be a good product that is articulated well. And I'll definitely follow up on this whole piece as well.

So as long as your sales page and where people are coming from is in alignment, which is why marketplaces kind of give you a leg up because everything already happens at the marketplace, but as long as there's some alignment with what someone wants or what they're looking for and what they find on your sales page, you've got to sell. And then I think a big concern, and this is the most important one, is, "Well, how do I support this long-term?" And that's why you need some type of content strategy or some type of content plan and like a desire to do it. Like if you don't have the desire, it's going to be kind of painful. The good news is there are many different channels, right? So if you prefer video, you can do video. If you prefer - I mean, you can't do audio only, I imagine, because it's a visual thing, but maybe you can, right? Maybe you're catering to a particular niche and you enjoy podcasting. And so you can create a podcast around that niche where, guess what? At the beginning of every podcast, you can promote your templates to that particular audience.

So with content, the way I like to think about it is like, "We're all in pursuit of something. So we're all chasing something with our business and we're all bound to run into problems as we chase those things." And the best content I find, and the easiest content to create and get in alignment with, is when you are capturing and documenting your solutions to problems as you run into them and sharing them along the way. Like classic blogging. It's not like a new thing. It's actually, I would call it like fundamental internet skills, right? Like of logging a particular experience, keeping a changelog of your experience, pursuing something. Like if you can do that, then essentially you're creating that for everyone who's coming after you. And if some of those solutions happen to be templates, fantastic. You know, you can build, it gives you a track for you to like build your business on, right? Because everything that you create, it's like a product of your own experience and nothing is easier to sell than your own experience.

So, geez, I forgot how I got - okay. Yeah. So what to consider, right? Like all the things, it's like, I think the most important thing is having a content plan and strategy. And if you can align that with what you're already doing, then it becomes a more fruitful exercise because, you know, you don't have to go outside of your bounds.

So I've never created any Instagram content for Squarespace themes, but Instagram is an excellent place to promote templates and the visual thing, but it's just not my thing. So I haven't done it. Pinterest, fantastic place to promote visual things like templates. I've done it a little bit. I've paid for ads and I can confirm that it works really well without really knowing what's going on or being a user of that platform. Anywhere where Squarespace designers gather is an excellent place for your templates to be.

If you want to kick it up a notch, creating the spaces for your customers to gather is where you can build your entire platform. These are all things that I've done from day one as kind of like fundamental online business pillars. It's like, "Okay, who am I creating this thing for and how can I create a space for them and me to grow so that as we grow, I'm able to create products along the way that serve them? They're able to grow and the ecosystem kind of informs itself, if you will."

So having that approach with your business of, "Okay, who am I serving? And how can I create a space for them that's comfortable? That's a space that I would want to be in as well." So staying true to your own self, because it can be kind of draining psychologically when you're not.

I'll give you a real life example right now. Like I'm currently revamping a lot of content or blogs on Squarespace themes because for a number of years or seasons, there were other writers or ghost writers, if you will, who I never checked their work. I never reviewed it because I just wanted to get away. Like I didn't want to pay attention to it. But it kind of would constantly wear on me that there's this content out there that kind of has my voice, but it's not really my voice. And it's not really me. And there could be some inaccuracies - you know, this is humans that wrote this years ago, and I'm not even the same person, and all of these things that come up. And those things came up because I wasn't really a blogger like that. But I really believed and understood the need for that type of content at that time.

So, you know, I did what was necessary to outsource that. But then I also grew where it was like, "That I can't properly scale this because it's not fully me." So I now have to grow into that. 

So I use that as an example because, you know, you might find, "Okay, I don't like to. I'm not like a content creator person." Right. But if you have enough conviction that, "Okay, well, maybe there's a channel that I should focus on for a certain amount of time, and I might not be the best at it, but maybe I can get some help or maybe I can improve or do whatever it takes until I maybe one day I will be good enough for what I'm imagining."

So, yeah. Let me check out the chat. Let me see if there's anything here. No, I don't think so. Oh. Let me know if there is and I'm just missing it because I could just be missing it. But, yeah, if you guys have any specific questions specific to your shop or whatever you have in mind, feel free to unmute yourself.

Alright, so I'm going to have one more question here. "Yeah, big push to start exploring additional income streams that don't require so much one-on-one time with clients."

Yeah, so I started out, I set out to sell Squarespace templates and then ended up selling a whole bunch of other stuff as well. And so I think keeping a flexible mindset and following the problems, as opposed to following a trend or what you think is a good idea, is going to set you up for long-term success. So following the problems that, particularly the recurring problems that have an evergreen nature to them, that's the way to go.

And the challenge that can come with following the problems is, some problems might seem too small or might seem too minuscule, or it's like, "Oh, why should I create anything for this particular problem? Like, no one cares or anything like that." Those tend to be the problems that you should just create something for anyway. And so I like to just start with some kind of free content, right, so, like, if you're planning to create templates for law firms, for example, but you don't already have any content that speaks to someone who's designing a law - you know, most lawyers aren't, hopefully, designing their own website, right.

So it's going to be another web designer who would be looking for a legal template. Um. Yeah. So I kind of lost my train of thought on that last one. Um, but yeah, as soon as I get it back. Oh, yeah, the problem following the problem. 

So, yeah, it might seem like a small, small thing. Um. But I've had many instances where, you know, I spent an hour to create a YouTube video for a problem that I ran into that maybe 1 or 2 other people might have posted something about in a Facebook group. And, you know, a few years later, thousands of people have watched that video and have, you know, been able to solve that same problem. Um, and so sometimes you can leverage those pieces of content into affiliate revenue. Um, and then sometimes you can leverage that into product revenue. 

Um, and so what I discovered along the way was, "Okay, maybe I don't necessarily need to design templates, there's enough people who are trying to design templates that I can kind of fill my role as a marketer, which is what I would be doing for myself anyway." Um, so, yeah, following the problems. And in being, you know, transparent about the solutions that you come up with, and then monetizing those solutions as you discover there's demand for them. That's the simplest, the simplest, uh. Framework if I had one, right? Um, and not to discount the problems where you don't see - where it doesn't appear like there's anything. Those are usually the ones that are waiting for you, carved out for you. Whenever, like, whenever I go searching for something and there's not a good enough answer, and I figure out the good enough answer, that's it. Like, that's the signal. Like, that's the way to go. Um, that's kind of like my north star.

So even today's Q&A, it's been years since I really unpacked a lot of this template marketing stuff in one sitting, because I've had other priorities. Like, I spent almost a year diving down this rabbit hole and learning how to build stuff I always wanted to build. I went on another detour to create a whole bunch of other Squarespace related brands and services. Um, and so I'm coming back to this, but I have to start with a conversation. I have to start with, "Okay, who's at the verge of doing this and what are the recurring problems today? Um, and, you know, how can we address those?"

Um, and if there's enough demand, then this can become a product or can roll into a product of some sort. It already has been, um, and I'm an affiliate for the other people who sell courses related to, you know, templates. So, like, I really live this whole thing of kind of being everywhere on the customer journey, right? Being the customer, um, partnering with the people who are solving the problem for the customer, becoming the solutions provider yourself, right, figuring out where along that food chain you're best suited for, and then building around that. 

There are certain parts of this thing that I really enjoy, and there are other parts that I can get bogged down in or whatever. And so, you know, having your website as a core asset that is continually solving problems for people every day, that's the path to passive income, um, if you will. 

So that's all I have for today. Um, if there are any questions specifically that I didn't get to, um, this is the last call. I know how, I know how - oh, here we go. I know how it is sometimes. "Any advice on selling specifically on Etsy?" 

Yeah, so one, "I've only had two sales so far." Okay, that's actually good news. Um, let's take a look at your shop. Um, so I don't know what your shop is, Philippe, so you're gonna have to fill me in and I'll get there specifically. Um, do you have a website as well? Okay. So, um, and then fill me in if there's something better I should be searching to find. 

Oh, car studio. Okay. Okay. Um, I can't find it yet. Sure, I'll find it. Did you mean the shop? Yeah, this is what I meant. Yeah, here we go. Etsy helped me out there. Um, okay, cool. So this is what I'm about to do. I'm about to try to reverse engineer the search to get me to this template, for example. Um, and so you've got a creative portfolio Squarespace template. Um, and then I'm going to go - Alright. Cool. Perfect. Alright. So I found what I'm looking for. Um, you've got the one star.

I'm curious about the price and decision - why $124? It is on the lower end. And the reason I bring that up is because there could be a perceived value thing, but everything is price is relative. 7 is my favorite number. 

As you increase the price, though, one critique that I've noticed, especially from other designers, is with the stock photography. To either find stock photography that's not easily accessible - that increases the perceived value of the template. I've noticed a lot of templates will have the same images, and it's like, "That reminds me of something, you know, I saw that person on that website." That happens a lot.

The inertia that you're constantly fighting against with template design is trends. Like Squarespace is Squarespace because for a period of time, they had the trendiest templates on the internet until everyone else caught up. And then once everyone else caught up, it was like, "Okay, well, what else is going on here?" And now we've got Fluid Engine and that kind of stuff.

But yeah, the customers, the people who are buying this stuff, they essentially want to feel like they can't get this anywhere else. And that's where having your own stock photography helps. That's just a small point though.

"Answered multiple questions, incredibly user-friendly and awesome art." So look at that - this is a fantastic testimonial because it gives you clues into a couple of key things that people appreciate about the template, like the art in this case, which is exactly what I was speaking to. It's pretty cool.

So yeah, let's look at the rest of the shop. It's clear here that you're trying to optimize for some key things. I think maybe to make it less keyword-heavy, you could kind of roll up the "support folio website template." But anyway, that's a small point because I've been doing a lot of SEO lately. 

Cool. "Fun and colorful Squarespace website template, includes a number of pages." You've got everything here - how it works, linked to your website if needed.

Okay, cool. So, I mean, you're on Etsy, you've already gotten a couple of sales, so, you know, it works for you, right? At this point it's like, "Okay, well, where can I go next?" So where, you know, where else are you listed? How can I, you know, make the most use of Etsy? I think maybe experimenting with ads on Etsy could be a thing. Also with your price, definitely you've got some leeway here.

So yeah, there's a number of things in your favor that it's kind of maybe, you know, also what's really important is having the right expectations set, and kind of for yourself in terms of revenue-wise, what you want this to do, and how it fits into the rest of your business. 

You know, if you want, there's only a handful of template shops that sell more than a hundred thousand dollars of templates a year, right? And the reason for that is one, there's a longevity - like they've been in the market and they're not going anywhere. And, you know, they've been in the market because they've created a significant amount of resources and content along the way where someone can be a content customer of theirs or a content consumer, it can be in the audience, years before they decide to buy a template. So there has to be a stick - you gotta be in it beyond just the template to really maximize the benefit of selling templates. I hope that makes sense.

Oh, crazy wood cute. Yeah. So I meant to check out the website car studio. Is the template shop somewhere else, or maybe it's just on Etsy? But definitely having the shop on your own website, now that would be my next step. And then it gives you - then you can market your website. The thing about being in the marketplace is you don't want to market the marketplace for too long.

You might need to initially just for a bit, like to send people to your marketplace link or marketplace shop, but long-term, you just want to be able to send people directly to your website. And the marketplace is just a, you know, a bridge.

All right, so AI - can you speak more about the AI tools and projects you've worked on? I'm a bit off-topic, but curious, might be tangentially related. I'm a big fan of your content, the podcast and more over the years. Thanks, Brian.

Yeah, so like beginning of 2023, I recommitted to learning how to code. It was like, "Alright, whatever it takes, I'm going to just try my hardest this time to get past module two of whatever coding course I was taking." And at the same time, a friend had introduced me to ChatGPT. And initially I just dismissed it because he was like, "Yeah, you can make a whole bunch of content with this." And I was like, "I'm not interested in that." But then I saw, "Oh wait, I could troubleshoot some of these coding problems that I'm running into with ChatGPT." And so that unlocked like two decades of code and desire for me - things I've wanted to do since like eighth grade or ninth grade. I was finally able to do, but specifically problems related to my business.

So the biggest problem was having thousands of support tickets and not having an easy way to query those tickets. So I spent a good amount of time building out this custom support chatbot that I use internally. And it's now paid off because I hired a full-time operations person, and they've been able to use that support bot to onboard themselves and to quickly answer questions that you can't just ask ChatGPT.

The thing I'm not sure about is because I haven't even used ChatGPT myself in like months. But I have been using Gemini, which is Google's AI chat tool, and I've been using Claude as well. With Gemini, I've found I'm getting more of Google's perspective when I'm using it. So like for when it comes to content and writing stuff, I like Gemini because I feel like I'm getting Google's optimized perspective on whatever I'm presenting to it. Claude has different strengths.

I haven't upgraded to their paid version, so I don't know how good it is on that level. But yeah, so just coding stuff, right? I made a Chrome extension that I found myself using the other day that allows you to export all the URLs on a Squarespace website from the homepage. It's called Square Genie. I always wanted to make a Chrome extension and I was like, "Okay, cool. I could finally make one now." Made a bunch of stuff - a Pinterest catalog converter that people have used and found useful.

Yeah, so like for me, we've got a plugin shop, but I didn't develop any of those plugins. I was kind of the marketing bridge - this is something we need to create. And so I've always wanted to be able to just make the stuff myself and tinker around. So that's kind of where that led me.

And then by the fall, I was like, "Oh yeah, I've got a business to attend to." But what I appreciate, though, is I've had plenty of time over the past three or four years to go down so many different rabbit holes while my business kind of just chugged along and, you know, did its thing autonomously without much, without much.

So that's the benefit of this overall philosophy when applied long-term and you can zoom out. Right now I'm at this pivot point again where my youngest child is four. And so they start to wake up around this age, you know, to the world and so on. And so when my oldest, who's now 10, got to this age, it was like, "Okay, my business needs to be run in a certain way so that I can maximize my time for these golden years." And I'm glad that I did because it paid off. And so now I have to set up for this next era of parenthood. And so I have to create that time again. And so invest in creating evergreen solutions to these evergreen problems.

This problem that we're discussing today, that's definitely evergreen because I had this problem nine years ago. You know, I was looking for templates 10 years ago, right? Someone is going to wake up a year from now looking for something that we might be talking about today, right? So the future-casting mindset - you've got to remember that there are always people coming after you in some way, and their desires are more than likely going to mirror the desires of people who came before them. And so creating along that desire line, if you will.

I pretty much started my Squarespace themes when my son was 15 months old, 16 months around that part. So I've had this thing where I'm like, "I really want to, I feel really strongly about maximizing the parenting thing while you build your web design business." Anyway, any other questions? I could talk about this all day, obviously, but I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I'm happy to share more.

I don't have any final questions or anything, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experience and perspective on all of this, Omari. This whole presentation has been really incredible, and I appreciate all of it.