Envato Notes

Posted: 05 Dec 2013 04:00 PM PST

ait-notes

Congratulations to the AitThemes team, who have reached Power Elite status by making one million dollars worth of sales. The team currently includes 15 people crafting various web projects, while working in a large city office close to the pub.

Happy AitThemes Day!

On reaching Power Elite status, AitThemes receive a day in their honor, and a special Power Elite care pack, including the Power Elite ring. We asked Martin from the team a few questions about the journey to the $1,000,000 milestone. Read on to discover how the design process is managed in a large team, their new theme framework, and how it feels to reach one million dollars worth of sales!

Congratulations on reaching Power Elite status. First up, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here?

Thank you. After working as web programmer and Linux admin since 1999, I decided to set up my own business. We started as a small web design company back in 2008, making websites for local clients with a friend of mine who’s a web designer. Once we came across ThemeForest, we instantly saw an opportunity there. We wanted to become the "Rolling Stones" of the digital world.

We made our first theme back in 2010, and even though we spent lot of time (and honestly lost money on it), we learned a lot and enjoyed the experience. That was it—we fell in love with the freedom we have in terms of the design and features we can invent and create. Currently we're 15 people working together on various web projects.

I'd like to say big thank you to all our team members, for doing their best and helping us to bring all our ideas to reality.

What does this $1M milestone mean for you as a team

Our designer started wearing a ring.

As a team of 15 (that's pretty huge!) how does the design process start? How are ideas managed?

If you have a look at our portfolio, you can see that we have a lot of themes dedicated to a specific market. We made a list of all professions, and then picked one.

That's how we created our Guesthouse, Ristorante, Doctor, Lawyer, and Directory themes. Anybody can have an idea, it does not matter if the person is an accountant or support staff.

What is your office space like?

We recently moved to a bigger office directly in the city centre. It’s very close to all the pubs, and the city’s outdoor swimming pool.

How do you get inspiration for your designs?

I remember I once bought a sugar bag when I was on holidays in Italy. I really liked it, and it became an inspiration for one WordPress theme.

A bag of sugar? Really? We'll take your word for it! What is the best thing about working for yourself on the Envato Marketplaces?

Creative freedom, and the opportunity to help so many people. Anybody in the world can create their own website without any technical knowledge for a very affordable price.

What’s our secret? Programming, design… magic.

How do you keep motivated and inspired?

Reading books and autobiographies, watching trends and new opportunities.

Do you do loads of testing on devices? Any particular ones that really take your fancy over others?

Nothing in particular. We have few iOS and Android devices, Macs, PCs, and also one Ubuntu machine. We still have one pretty old PC with IE8.

Let's talk about your new theme, Solitudo. That Page Builder is incredible. And the admin demo is amazing! How long did it take to build this theme-spectacular?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. We're very excited about our new Page Builder and theme framework—it’s completely custom-built. It took us more than a year to finish the framework, and then about three months to finish the theme.

We already have a full list of new features we'd like to implement. Some of them are top secret, as they haven’t been done in any theme before. All our upcoming themes will be based on this new framework, and will include all these great elements. You can look forward to some game-changing ideas!