Road to Elite - Our Diary

Envato Authors Author Hangout
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After more than 2 years, finally we’re “Elite”. :sunglasses:

I’m sure we’ll start to experience the benefits of being an Elite Author soon but for now, it’s just a very good feeling.

During our journey, there were lots of up and downs. “Ups” were fun. And some patience + a strong will could solve any “down” thing. Thus, we wanted to share our notes and milestones with you fellows. Hope you find something interesting for you :wink:

By the way, if you have a similar diary or some notes for your own special days, let’s do share it here!

2015

February

  • We entered the “World of WordPress” from scratch. :hatching_chick:

March

  • Our very first WordPress theme Frida has been approved! :muscle: (March 19)
  • Author Level 1 :zap:
  • Author Level 2 :zap:

April

  • Author Level 3 :zap:
  • We hit 50 sales!

May

  • Metz has been approved.
  • We hit 100 sales!
  • Author Level 4 :zap:

June

  • Metz hits 100 sales!
  • Author Level 5 :zap:
  • New Badge: “Copyright Ninja” :star2:
  • We hit 250 sales!
  • Frida hits 100 sales!
  • New Badge: “Trendsetter” :star2:

August

  • Our first WooCommerce theme Grotte has been approved!

September

October

  • We hit 500 sales!

December

2016

January

February

  • We hit 750 sales!
  • 60% Author Earning - Half of the way! (February 22) :moneybag:

March

April

May

  • New Badge: “Featured Author” - We’ve been picked for the week May 17th. :star2:
  • Envato launches the new Refund Policy. Now authors are to deal with refund requests. (May 16) :confounded:
  • Reviews are now public and authors can reply them. (May 24) :+1:
  • We hit 1000 sales! (May 30) :moneybag:

June

July

  • New Badge: “Football Player” - From Euro 2016 contest. :star2:
  • New Badge: “Super Copyright Ninja” :star2:
  • Hunted is alive loooong days after the submission. Review time was around 60 days then! :dizzy_face:
  • Sales Record: 10 sales in a day! (July 21) :moneybag:
  • Robin hits 100 sales!
  • We hit $50.000 in total sales! (July 26) :moneybag:
  • Envato changes its hosting provider.

August

  • Envato launches Elements. (August 1) :thinking:
  • Envato is 10 years old now! (August 22) :birthday:

September

  • Beginning of the Author Driven Pricing (ADP) on ThemeForest and CodeCanyon. Authors can now set their own prices. (September 22) :worried:
  • Blake von Hauer has been approved.

October

  • New Badge: “Freebie” - Our WooCommerce theme, Grotte, has been selected for November’s free file. :star2: :gift:
  • All of the CMS templates have been added to Elements but WordPress. (October 31)

November

  • Hunted hits 100 sales!
  • We got our 100th rating! (November 9) :muscle:
  • Grotte hits 100 sales!
  • Envato announced that they’re planning to add WordPress themes to Elements in the first half of 2017. (November 16) :neutral_face:
  • We have 100 followers now! (November 17) :muscle:
  • Frida hits 250 sales!
  • New Badge: “Mo Bro” :star2:

December

  • Earning Record From a Single Sale ($59,70): Metz + Extended Support + Referral Cut (December 30) :moneybag:

2017

February

  • We sold our first “Installation Service”.
  • Gagens has been approved.

March

April

  • Buy For Me hits 100 sales!
  • Souje has been approved.

May

  • Baxel has been approved.
  • We did something for our website. burnhambox.com is now alive!

June

10 Likes
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Wow, great timeline @Burnhambox, thanks for documenting and sharing. Well done on making it to the Elite level! :star:

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Thank you so much :slight_smile:

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Cool diary, my congratulations! Wish you Power Elite soon!

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I love seeing posts like this. Well done guys and may your journey to level 8 be well underway!

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Congrats :smiley:
btw, we can’t remember our timeline like this :stuck_out_tongue:

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Impressive! Congratulation!

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Thank you all guys :slight_smile:

@leafcolor We’ve been taking this kind of notes day by day since the beginning! :bee: In fact, our actual timeline is twice as long as the list above :grin: But you know, it includes item price changes we made, high earning days, commission rate achievements etc. We wanted to keep the things simple for this post.

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Congratulation @Burnhambox :tada: Good luck for more sales :slight_smile:

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Congratulations and thanks for sharing your timeline. It was very interesting to see your progress and milestones. May you have many more successes in the future :tada:

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How nice to see that so well organized, congrats!

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@MidnightSnap @EnergyThemes Thank you guys :slight_smile: Nice to hear you like it!

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congrats @Burnhambox your timeline is very impressive. But you only mention UPS what about DOWNS which you face and how to solve?

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@Burnhambox Congratulations :tada: nice journey and great achievement. All the best

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Congratulations @Burnhambox, this is awesome you told step by syep your hard journey to elite, where every author dream to reache.

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Thanks a lot :slight_smile:

Yeah you’re right, mostly "up"s. Well, some of the decisions Envato has made could be counted as "down"s. US tax thing for example. But you know, there’s not much to do against this kind of things. I believe the key is adaptation. When I feel hopeless, I start to look for the solutions. Couldn’t find any? Then I try to see the new doors opened for me. :earth_americas:

Beyond that, there were some contests we had joined but got nothing :slight_smile: One of them was “Earth Flag Contest”. It was in the old forums and couldn’t find the link but our submission was like that:

image

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brnhmbx-flag-01-comic.jpg660×880 467 KB

It was the first contest I participated and my heart was broken after not getting that shiny “Won a Competition” badge. Later, I tried more and finally achieved it. I think it’s the best practice for motivation “to state a goal”. To find a target for yourself and work until you get it. :checkered_flag:

And of course, some disrespectful customers. Especially rude reviews and refund requests. :triumph: We spent too much energy for that. As a principle, we decline all of them. But you always have to be kind (well, mostly :smiling_imp:) and reasonable with your answers. Some people are really pushing the limits. Once, one of our customers threatened us with “other authorities”. What the…??? I’m quoting the exact sentence below:

Before we contact paypal, envato and other authorities please kindly refund the full amount.

And I said: ‘I think you mean Donald Trump by “other authorities”.’

Then he answered: “Please keep away from making fun and offer disrespect to our president of the United States Mr. Donald Trump.”

:rolling_eyes: It was crazy. Mostly, we prepare a looong answer with all the proofs regarding our item is not broken or something.

A useful tip for refund requests: Once a customer talks about taking his money back, there is no return from that. If he asks how he can get a refund and if you’re right to not to give a refund; save your energy and just provide the link without saying anything but something like “Please visit this link”.

After this, I can guarantee that he will mention a “weak” excuse while asking the refund. And at that moment you can easily rebut what he put forward.

While doing this, do not directly decline the request, but ask him some questions (use the “Comment” button) to force him to reply back to you. Like “After following the steps we provided, do you still get an error?”

Most of them never reply and you can close (decline) the request at the end of 5th day. If he replies, again, I can guarantee that he will be angry and say defamatory things. Now directly decline the request, he will raise a dispute to Envato and finally Envato will be by your side against the customer.

Sorry, it was a long tip :grinning: Anyway, thanks again for your interest!

2 Likes
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@wptech @PROFIVE Thank you so much for your nice thoughts :slight_smile:

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Very great achievement! :+1: Congrats! :champagne::champagne:

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Looking forward to a greater timeline from your future products @Burnhambox .
Very detailed and effort taking.
Congrats mate!

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@LuckyBlackCat @TheRubikThemes Thanks a lot! :+1:

1 Like