Category: Updates

  • Open Source: WP Courses Plugin

    Open Source: WP Courses Plugin

    If you’re like me, you’ve been searching for an affordable and feature-rich solution to create and manage online courses. Well, guess what? I’ve built my own plugin called WP Courses, and it’s completely open-source! You can download it for free at TotallyWP’s github here: http://github.com/totallywp/wp-courses

    Taking Control of Online Courses, My Way

    So, here’s the deal: I’ve been creating online courses for quite some time now, and I’ve tried various course plugins available in the market. But recently, I felt a bit let down. Either the plugins were getting too expensive, or they didn’t have the specific features I needed without breaking the bank. That’s when I decided to roll up my sleeves and create my very own plugin – WP Courses.

    Introducing WP Courses Plugin: Your Path to Effortless Online Course Creation

    WP Courses is the result of my dedication to providing an affordable and user-friendly solution for online course creation. With WP Courses, you have the freedom to design and manage engaging online courses exactly the way you envision them.

    Open Source WordPress Courses Plugin

    Discover the Awesome Features of WP Courses

    Effortless Course Creation and Management

    Say goodbye to complex interfaces and hello to simplicity! WP Courses seamlessly integrates into your WordPress admin dashboard, making it a breeze to add, edit, and organize your course content. Finally, you can take full control of your courses without the headaches.

    Structured Learning Made Easy

    Organizing your course content into modules has never been easier. With WP Courses, you can create logical chapters or modules within each course, providing your students with a structured learning path. They’ll navigate your material with ease, boosting their engagement and success.

    WooCommerce Integration for Course Protection

    Protecting your course content is essential, and WP Courses has your back. By leveraging the power of WooCommerce integration, you can associate your courses with specific products. Only those who have purchased the required products will gain access, ensuring your content remains exclusive to enrolled students.

    Get Your Hands on WP Courses – It’s Free!

    I believe that offering outstanding online courses shouldn’t come with a hefty price tag. That’s why I’m thrilled to share WP Courses as an open-source solution. You can freely download WP Courses and start creating exceptional online learning experiences without spending a dime.

    So, what are you waiting for? Join me and countless other creators who have embraced WP Courses. Let’s revolutionize the e-learning landscape together!

    Visit http://github.com/totallywp/wp-courses and get your copy of the plugin now!

  • The Price of Being an Entrepreneur

    For the last few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work from home alongside with my lovely girlfriend Sharon. Back in 2013, I launched a software that helps entrepreneurs generate traffic for their business at a great price.

    Immediately after launch, I dove into the world of online marketing and found that the online entrepreneur needs three things to succeed: A Blog, a Page Builder to create landing pages, sales pages etc and an Email Marketing System to manage leads, lead lists, send email campaigns and to configure their autoresponder series. A whole new world opened up to me, and I’ve been fortunate enough to use these very tools to build my business with Sharon.

    Email Marketing Tools

    While looking at these tools and systems, I noticed that the service providers took advantage of their monopoly positions in the industry. Looking at the email marketing tools, a few of the big players are Aweber, GetResponse and Mailchimp. Seeing Aweber the most, I dediced to look at their pricing structure… And got the shock of my life…

    Screen Shot 2015-10-30 at 7.20.39 PM Being a developer, maybe I’m fortunate enough to realize that (looking at their most expensive plan at $149 per month) the prices these providers charge for using their service, are ridiculously high.

    Storing 25.000 leads for $149 is insane in my opinion, and far exceed most marketer’s list capacity (By now I personally have well over 500K leads) forcing them to contact Aweber in this case and I probably don’t even want to know what they would charge me to store ALL of my leads.

    See, people who are getting started online might not even have $149 per month to spend on a service like this and are basically forced to turn to a lesser service, which also means that they will run into issues getting their emails delivered!

    Page Builder Tools

    The email marketing tools is just one part of running your online business. Being able to store leads and email them is cool, but if you don’t have a so-called landing/squeeze/opt-in page you’re not getting very far. This leads most people to services like LeadPages to build their pages with their drag & drop systems. Again, a big shock hit me!

    Looking at their signup page, people pay a whopping $67 per month (if the monthly payment option is chosen) to build their Screen Shot 2015-10-30 at 7.35.20 PMpages. This allows them to build their squeeze, sales, opt-in, webinar pages and a few other types of pages that allows them to generate their leads and to provide a nice look to their pages without going through the hassle of learning how to code the page themselves.

    Again, I might have an unfair advantage, but looking at this pricing structure I would just feel ripped off. Hosting nowadays can cost pennies, and the web offers a wide variety of pre-built html pages that people can use to generate leads with rather then paying $67 JUST TO BUILD PAGES!

    There has to be a better alternative…

    Well… There wasn’t, unless you’re up for joining a MLM (multi-level marketing) company paying $100’s per month, being forced to buy into their higher level tiers by your sponsor and not having full freedom to doing exactly what you want…

    So I created it, and together with Sharon I’m proud to introduce you to: ToolsPlatform

    The biggest issue we see in the tools mentioned above is that you are limited in your creative freedom. Like a set limit of leads, pages and upload space. With ToolsPlatform, there are NO limits. You’re not paying extra for storing your leads, lists, campaigns or autoresponders and are in no way limited to what type of pages you want to make: You have complete control and freedom.

    As we have just launched this tools set, and want to start off with a bang, we’re allowing people to try ToolsPlatform for just $7. This trial is, as mentioned, in no way limited either giving you the full “All-In-One Marketing Suite” for you to try, use and abuse.

    After your trial (7 days), you’re paying just $49 per month to keep your suite up and running and you’ll never run into limits. We offer unlimited upload space and bandwidth within your site, again: no limits in uploading and storing leads, lists, camaigns and autoresponders and can write and publish unlimited articles on your blog.

    Best of all: It is all included in 1 dashboard, saving you the hassle of jumping around from site to site trying to connect it all together. ToolsPlatform is simply point, click and share it with the world.

    Try ToolsPlatform now for just $7, and see how our All-In-One Marketing Suite will help you generate an online income while keeping your overhead to the bare minimum!

    Let me know in the comments below what you think – I’m looking forward to your thoughts and opinions.

  • New: Affiliate Banner Graphics

    Affiliate Banner Graphics - Create Banners Without Photoshop!No no no this is not an ad… It’s a new project I acquired 😉
    See what I did there: project, not an ad 😛

    Seriously though, I ran across this system multiple times over the past few years and was finally able to snatch up the original domain name intended for the product: http://www.affiliatebannergraphics.com

    This new online app allows anyone to create beautiful banner graphics for any purpose. Whether you’re an affiliate of a product which does not provide banners, or you are a product owner looking to create banners to distribute – Affiliate Banner Graphics has you covered!

    I’m very happy with this new addition to the Aron & Sharon arsenal, and I hope it will be of good use to many.

    Let me know your thoughts below!
    Cheers,
    Aron

  • A little time off

    The last couple of weeks Sharon and I have been very busy with planning. The future, how we’re going to duplicate what we have accomplished so far but most of all: how can we give back? (We did this at the location seen in this photo: a villa we rented in Fuerteventura, Spain!)

    We’ve been very fortunate to launch our business and within a year be fully independent. With independent I mean no third party stuff. We do it all ourselves, in-house.

    Exiting times are ahead, and we can’t wait to share what we have coming. For the past 4 months we have been very focused on building our own blogging platform, creating training courses and converting recieved feedback to reality and creating what is in demand. 
    Stay tuned, we have some awesome stuff to share with you very soon.

    Take care! -Aron

  • The all new aronprins.com

    Thanks for taking the time to read this article! Ill keep it short and sweet: new. site.
    Bye.

    Kidding 😛 It’s time to let people see another side of me, rather then the guy that runs a zillion websites making a living online while working from home. People have always been skeptical, even my own mother. It wasn’t until Sharon (my gf) showed enough faith in me to start living my dream: working online rather then for a boss. The past 7/8 months have been insane. Upgraded the workstation, she’s working with me now and we’re doing better then ever before.

    I’ve decided to capture the process of what we do into a course. Check out my homepage to learn more 😉

  • How much should WordPress customization cost?

    I get a fair amount of project inquiries. One of the biggest things I see is people wanting small WordPress plugin customizations. I don’t mean small in the sense of change a line or two of code, I mean small in the sense of changing how part of the plugin works. Changes that may take a half day or up to maybe two days.

    I even get requests that involve wholesale changes to how a plugin works, these types of changes can take up to a week’s worth of development time. Though this isn’t really “small” in my book, it usually still is in the eyes of the requestor. They don’t understand the mechanics of why a “premium” plugin costs $49 (or $99 for that matter) and add-ons cost $19.

    Surely if a plugin costs $49 and an add-on costs $19, you should be able to do my custom tweak for like $15, right?

    No. 

    To make that assumption is to throw out basic principals of how things are made. The plugin may cost $49, but that wasn’t the cost to make the plugin. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours went into the initial plugin creation. The plugin developer makes this back on sales of the plugin. If 1000 copies are sold, they’ve grossed $49,000.

    The same goes for add-ons. Depending on complexity, they can be made in a day, or over the course of a week or so. Selling 100 copies of one for $19 gets the developer $1900 towards the cost of development. Common-use add-ons are great. You generally won’t see an add-on that only 5 people may use. Either it’s more expensive or the developer would never make back the cost of building it.

    I’m not going to complicate things at this point on how products are bundled and priced to add value and drive sales, lets just stick with basic math for the sake of this argument.

    The custom shirt scenario

    Have you ever looked at the cost to screen print shirts? The more shirts you buy, the cheaper the cost-per-shirt becomes. Sure you can get 1 shirt made, but it’s going to be expensive. The screen still has to be made whether you use it 1 time or 100 times.

    But if you get 100 shirts made, the cost to make the screen is divided out over the shirts produced. The same goes for plugins and add-ons. The cost can be divided if it’s re-sold as a generic add-on, but this doesn’t apply to the single-use customization someone requests.

    Now, when you contact someone to do custom work on a plugin and change how it works, you need to understand that you’re paying for time.

    For a beginner developer this may be $35/hour. You might expect to pay closer to $100/hr for a seasoned developer, and upwards of $150 to $200 (or more) for an expert. Choosing a developer is a topic for another day, but keep in mind– if your customization is going to take a day, expect to spend more than $500 to make it a reality. You’re paying someone to make something custom for you that they aren’t going to resell.

    Assembly Lines and Customizations

    Henry Ford revolutionized the Auto and Manufacturing industries with the invention of the assembly line. The best part of the assembly line is that it works great when you’re doing the same thing over and over. Ford was able to assemble a Model T in 97 minutes.

    The downside to the assembly line is that it didn’t allow much room for customization. If you wanted a custom product, it was usually still made by hand; and at the time, hand-assembled automobiles cost more than assembly line automobiles.

    The Bottom Line

    In the end, if you want custom work, understand the mechanics of your request. You’re asking for something custom that isn’t going to apply to anyone else. If you need something super custom, be prepared to pay for someone who knows the ins and outs of the systems you plan to use.

    As the requestor, you have to afford the full development cost. If you can’t do that, assemble a solution based upon what plugins and extensions exist. That’s the inexpensive way out.

  • Lekker Parfum

    A few months ago, I was able to start working from my own home which has enabled both me and my girlfriend new opportunities and setting new goals.

    Along with me, she started her own company in her own field: Perfume.
    Check out her awesome new website at www.lekkerparfum.nl

  • Twitter Auto Poster

    Posting on social media and specially Twitter can be difficult and time consuming. Twitter Auto Poster will take manage your tweets for you, saving you at least 1-2 hours each day.

    Easy to use Interface
    Simply write your message, upload an image (optional) and set the date and time. We’ll handle the rest!

    Easy to Set Up
    Video Tutorials are included with all plans. Setup is a breeze, you’ll be posting within 10 minutes.

    Check it out at www.twitterautoposter.com

  • ExpertPlayingCard.com

    IIt’s my honor and pleasure to introduce you to my latest creation:
    The Expert Playing Card Company Offical Website!

    Visit http://www.expertplayingcard.com/
    Thanks to Bill Kalush for his ever lasting patience while creating this awesome website Stay tuned for some killer Decks!

  • Ryan Leslie + RenegadesNYC = New Project?

    After a long time of no blogs posts, here’s an update!
    For the last 1 or 2 months I’ve been in touch with one of my favorite artists Ryan Leslie on some projects we’re trying to accomplish.

    For his #RENEGADES project Ryan was looking for an Instagram feed that placed both video’s and photos added to his Shopify powered storefront.

    We’re currently in the process of getting this up and running and next to that I’ve sent some examples to him and his partner that might potentially replace Shopify for his entire artist expierence… Can’t disclose too much about it 😉

    Last wednestday on October 30th Ryan attended de Melkweg in Amsterdam where I was fortunate enough to shake hands and have a little chat before he did the concert. Had a great time 😉

    To get Ryan Leslie’s latested album titled “Black Mozart”, join the #RENEGADES Club today and get the album FREE!