I’ve invested a lot in our business in the past few months – not just money – TIME – and time is, as you know – priceless. (although actually, I’ve invested quite a lot of money too 🙂 )

With the help of community members and developers, I rebuilt the website from the ground up – I launched layouts manager for Elementor and I launched MY CLOUD for Elementor and Layouts Cloud.  The marketplace has signed up 20 new vendors in the past two months alone and now offers even more to our users. Layouts Cloud Continues to offer a fantastic solution and now Elementor MY CLOUD is gaining traction.

I attended one of the best conferences I have ever been to in the UK – Agency Transformation Live.
I was a privileged sponsor, took part in a panel and listened to leaders in their field educate us in how to get a better life balance, better work balance and frankly, a better bank balance.

I have also invested in WordCamp Europe – bought two tickets,  Flights & Accommodation for us to attend, do some learning and of course meet up with some developers to suggest they might be interested in listing their products on our ever-growing marketplace. Sean Barton – one of my top vendors will be coming with me to tell his story, attend the Berlin Meetup and enjoy his FIRST WordCamp! (I know, right?)

I’m also sponsoring a Divi Meetup organised and hosted by the effervescent and ever so helpful Tanya Quintieri you can see the event details here and, if you are in Berlin on Developers day and feel like attending and having a few bites and a drink with fellow Divi nation members, get on that list!

I have also been networking my butt off – approaching developers to bring new products to the marketplace from Beaver Builder Layouts, to more Elementor Products and WordPress Plugins and Themes that you can buy directly from your favorite marketplace – In this GDPR age, we’ll also be bringing you a fantastic solution for Privacy Policy Generation that you can resell to your customers and ensure they are GDPR compliant no matter where they are based. (Did you know that if you are based in California, you can get a fine of up to $2,500 for not having an appropriate PP – no? me neither!)

I will be reviewing learning opportunities, rebuilding our own learning site (man, it needs it!) and helping people promote themselves either through blog posts or video interviews and using the reach of our site to help, inform and educate more and more users.

There is so much more out there than Divi or Elementor and we must as a marketplace and learning resource offer as much in the way of development tools as we possibly can to our members and the wider WordPress community.

I have a proven track record of innovating and must continue down that road to enhance the success of The Elegant Marketplace, Layouts Cloud for both Divi and Elementor and Sitefixer in this very competitive arena.

Divi is and has been my go-to theme. However, I am not so dumb as to assume that it is for everyone – the exponential growth of Elementor, the continuing development of Beaver Builder and the release of Gutenberg tells us there are alternatives and, as a WordPress Marketplace owner I MUST acknowledge the needs of the wider community of WordPress users. And, no, we will not be abandoning Divi or Elementor just in case you thought that was the case.

I am very pleased that my approaches to the wider WordPress community have brought positive results and I will be announcing very shortly, new plugins, themes, and layouts that are for general use as well as for other page builder solutions, including Gutenberg.

Join our Facebook group if you have not already to keep up to date.

Of course, I could not do this all on my own and I appreciate all the vendors, the developers that have helped me keep us at the top of our game with the new site and excellent products, Mor Cohen for her consistent Branding, The ever present Mahesh Pandey (he heads up support)  and you, my growing base of 68,000 + customers, I extend the greatest of thanks – without you, the marketplace would not exist.

May the 4th be with you! 

See you at various WordCamps, Meetups and in the Facebook Groups soon.

If you would like Elegant Marketplace to help promote your product, service or learning opportunity, become a vendor or anything else – get in touch via our support link and I’ll arrange a Zoom meeting to discuss opportunities with you.

Tell me what you’ve been up to these past few months in the comments below 🙂

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Andrew Palmer
Andrew is the founder of Elegant Marketplace.