Today we’re announcing the launch of a brand new product at Envato dedicated to helping small business owners and DIY website creators get started. We call it Envato Websites and we’re super excited because this is our first launch on Envato Market since 3DOcean in 2011.
How did we get here?
Over the last few years we’ve been investing in building out tools to support the growing Envato community of small business owners and DIY website creators, who are looking for quick and simple ways to get going on the web.
With that in mind, our teams began to think about how we could leverage our amazing community of authors to make starting a website easier, quicker and more focused on new starters.
So, we started work building a brand new platform called Envato Sites — an approachable way to get started building simple websites. With the help of a small group of authors, we launched a beta and have watched it grow month over month.
We also began to look at WordPress, a platform that currently powers more than 25% of the web. Envato is one of the best known names in the WordPress community, but our focus to date has been on professional creators. Those customers who already know their way around hosting, installing themes, setting up sites to look like the demos and navigating the page builders, plugins, and systems that make WordPress such a powerful and customizable platform.
But what about all those DIY customers who are too busy building their own businesses to learn WordPress? How do we get them from a brilliant idea to a beautiful, functional WordPress website?
For those people, we built Envato Hosted. Access to WordPress items that come installed and ready to go, for customers who just want something that works. Customers could find a theme they liked, check out the demos and select Envato Hosted as an option right from the item page.
Where are we going?
Envato Websites is designed for small businesses and DIYers. It is intended to deliver a more consistent and targeted experience for customers looking to have a website quickly and easily. It combines the item catalogues of Envato Hosted and Envato Sites into a separate shopfront. Envato Hosted and Envato Sites are still separate products, with separate terms and experiences, so once a buyer has found a website design they like, they’ll be directed to Envato Hosted or Envato SItes to sign up and get started.
What does this mean for authors?
Both Envato Hosted and Envato Sites are working closely with a limited number of authors for now, but our goal is to expand the group over time.
There are some differences both in how Envato Websites will look and how it will display an author’s items. The most noticeable difference for many authors is the focus on a website design rather than a theme. The type of customer that Envato Websites will target is one that won’t know the difference between a theme, template or demo. They’ll be judging based on how something looks, how easy it is to make progress and whether it fits their industry.
Next Steps
This is a big deal for us at Envato as we continue to expand the customer base. We’re incredibly grateful to all the authors who have been building for Sites and providing feedback on their experience with Hosted. It’s helped to shape where we’ve landed.
There will likely be many questions about what the launch of Envato Websites means for Envato Market and what we’re up to. We’ll be watching this thread for the next seven days responding to questions and comments in batches. Please remember our community guidelines as you post. Thanks.
