I would like to suggest a small change in your EE Core licensing agreement. I realize that Ellis Labs needs to sell full versions of EE to stay in business, however, I think you would be much better served to allow the EE Core to be used on single site, small business web sites as well as personal sites.
Before you scream “No way!” let me give you my reason for the suggestion.
I live in a non-urban area where an ever increasing number of small businesses are needing web sites to survive by reaching customers from outside the immediate area. Many are not yet ready for full-blown e-commerce, many may never need full-blown e-commerce but will need more complex customer interaction and communication. They almost invariably waste a few hundred dollars on either having their nephew or neighbor’s son build their initial site with Frontpage and “free” graphics or they hire one of many flim-flam “complete web site package for $300” plus the SEO package at something like $60 per month because they’re promised prominent placement on “the search engines”. After they get over their initial disappointment, someone refers them to me.
Now they don’t have any spare money, they don’t know any more about web development than they did before but are now terrified of any tech terms including CMS. They’re even more terrified of having to learn HTML to make changes to their site, let alone discussing community building, forums, RSS, etc. At this point they think they want a plain brochure site for minimal money and if that isn’t too horrible an experience, they want to discuss adding additional features to the site in about 6-12 months. They blanch when I say the words “site maintenance.”
Then there are the artists/creatives who want sites to promote their band, photos, artwork, quilts, soaps, etc. They’re working as baristas or sales clerks and have zip to start. They want to barter for their initial web presence. They come to me because they got their initial site done as a student project by a classmate. Unfortunately, it’s done in Flash or Dreamweaver with lots of javascript/AJAX and they can’t add or change anything to the site. They’d like to post regular updates about what they are working on, what fts fairs they are going to attend, what art shows (i.e., coffee houses) they are exhibiting at or where they are appearing. They are more than happy to let me leave the promo link on the page template in exchange for cutting costs.
There are a lot of these people out here. They can be persuaded to buy an upgrade once they’ve gotten hooked on doing their own changes and see the power of CMS. But to tell them that they have to spend several hundred dollars on graphics, my services plus buy what for them is an expensive software program that they don’t understand is a very difficult sell.
Invariably, I can offer these people Wordpress or something similar to get them started with posting their own changes so they can learn to do their own maintenance. I’d like to offer them EE Core so I can then move them up to EE when they come back and we talk about expanding and growing their sites (and we do end up having this discussion). However, getting them to switch to EE at that point is like trying to get a Windows user to switch to a Mac. They have to really feel the need because they now fear the new interface as well as the cost.
So please, consider changing the license on EE Core. I think you’ll find that you’ll have a lot of new customers down road. After all, I got started with you folks because pMachine was free back in 2003.(or was it 2002? It wasn’t a business then.)
I wondered about that too. Especially when it came to simple 5 page sites with a news section.
Perhaps a weblog/categories/custom field only version of EE for small business?
So no memberships, no module/ext/plugin capabilities etc.
I would be prepared to pay a fee for it but obviously not as great as the Commercial version. If you want/need the extra features then you buy a commercial licence?
$250 is not even remotely high for what you get right out of the box. that’s a drop in the bucket and if they balk at that, then i would suggest not doing business with them. you will never recoup your time and efforts. they will always want something for nothing. believe me when i say, it’s a never ending street. so do yourself and the rest of the industry a favor and ask to be fairly compensated for the work you do, which is nothing more than what ellislabs does. </end rant>
$250 is not even remotely high for what you get right out of the box. that’s a drop in the bucket and if they balk at that, then i would suggest not doing business with them. you will never recoup your time and efforts. they will always want something for nothing. believe me when i say, it’s a never ending street. so do yourself and the rest of the industry a favor and ask to be fairly compensated for the work you do, which is nothing more than what ellislabs does. </end rant>
Very true. I did say I was prepared to pay for a cut down version though
guerrilla…the one flaw I see in your post is that you are looking to get paid for your time/graphics and hard work but want EllisLabs to throw their hard work to the wind.
My experience has always shown that if they don’t have the money for something as small as EE and don’t understand (or you can’t explain it well enough) what it will do for them they will probably never upgrade later, it will always be either this is good enough or the price is still too high.
And, you can do a demo site using EE-Core so they can see how it works and demo why this is a good thing for them.
Edit-Add: And, I do understand the small businesses out there, know a lot of people/friends that have them.
Not true, PXLated. These people would pay a small fee to get used to program and the concept of self-maintenance. They aren’t going to “get” the value of the more expensive product without experiencing some of it themselves. It would be like me trying to sell you AddiTurbo or Destiny circular knitting needles as the first needles you ever knitted with. Hmmm, there’s these needles for $5 or these needles that folks say I’ll love once I learn to knit for $25, but I’m not certain yet whether or not I’m going to keep knitting—so I’ll buy the cheap needles and if I like it, I’ll invest in the more expensive ones. Once these folks start trusting that I’m telling them the truth and not ripping them off like their previous horrible experiences, they can be talked into “buying up.” And they always come back wanting to add features.
I’m in one of those situations right now. I’ve got someone who has a small retail establishment that’s growing. She knows she’s going to want to expand later this year or early 2008 with e-commerce, discussion forum, “library” of F.A.Q. type articles, blogs/info sections by a couple of staff members on their fields of specialty, and several other features. We’ve discussed these ideas. But she blew her initial web dev budget on one of these SEO/“promise-the-moon for a fixed fee” guys and got burned. So now what she wants, and what she can afford, is a plain brochure site of 3-5 pages that gives good directions to her store, contact information, a list of products and a way to post news based on a single, design template. I’d like to train her and her staff to post updates and edit product lists themselves so a CMS/blog-type, template-based solution is an ideal starter. In 6-months I can come back and tell her okay, it’s $250 for the backend software, about $200 for setup and additional template work and we can port your current template directly. This she would go for.
In addition, I’ve got a young artist wanting to dump the javascript-dependent, student-project developed gallery site she has for something where she can edit the exhibition listings and news updates herself. She’s working two jobs to cover her school debts and living expenses. We’re exchanging her art photography knowledge and help for my dev work. We’ve talked about adding a fine art photography discussion forum and calendar of events on her area of expertise, but she’s afraid to start one until she’s comfortable with posting online. A fellow artist suggested Wordpress because it’s free. She liked the look of EE when I showed it to her but hesitates to fork out what is a large sum of money to her until she’s sure she can handle the back-end posting. Want to guess what I’m having to develop in right now?
Of course, I could just develop these sites with EE Core and ignore the licensing agreement like a lot of other people do, but I thought I’d mention the problem those of us who are honest face in selling EE to a large market share that’s winding up getting started with Wordpress.
Even having an EE Core license of something like $50 would be viable for these people. But telling them they have to dive into the deep end when there’s a free shallow pool is losing EE business. But then I remember a little program called Homesite which started out shareware for $35 which became the HTML editor of choice on Windows machines. I believe the developer retired after a few years when the Macromedia bought out the rights. Too bad no one was willing to upgrade to Dreamweaver…
Well Core still has the majority of the features from the full version so I still vote for a weblog and module/ext/plugin only version of EE for Small Business.
You could always do the 30 day demo with them for $10.
I see your points, but one of things of staying in business is targeting the customers you want/need as opposed to targeting everyone out there. And chasing after every small business unwilling to spend $250 doesn’t very profitable to me.
It would be really nice to just be able to purchase modules individually. And not just 3 or 4 modules, ALL of them. I’d hate to find myself feeling like I have to use every feature just so I can fulfill the full value of my license. In practical terms the licensing scheme seems a bit impractical. Eh, just a thought.
Not true, PXLated. These people would pay a small fee to get used to program and the concept of self-maintenance. They aren’t going to “get” the value of the more expensive product without experiencing some of it themselves. It would be like me trying to sell you AddiTurbo or Destiny circular knitting needles as the first needles you ever knitted with. Hmmm, there’s these needles for $5 or these needles that folks say I’ll love once I learn to knit for $25, but I’m not certain yet whether or not I’m going to keep knitting—so I’ll buy the cheap needles and if I like it, I’ll invest in the more expensive ones. Once these folks start trusting that I’m telling them the truth and not ripping them off like their previous horrible experiences, they can be talked into “buying up.” And they always come back wanting to add features.
I’m in one of those situations right now. I’ve got someone who has a small retail establishment that’s growing. She knows she’s going to want to expand later this year or early 2008 with e-commerce, discussion forum, “library” of F.A.Q. type articles, blogs/info sections by a couple of staff members on their fields of specialty, and several other features. We’ve discussed these ideas. But she blew her initial web dev budget on one of these SEO/“promise-the-moon for a fixed fee” guys and got burned. So now what she wants, and what she can afford, is a plain brochure site of 3-5 pages that gives good directions to her store, contact information, a list of products and a way to post news based on a single, design template. I’d like to train her and her staff to post updates and edit product lists themselves so a CMS/blog-type, template-based solution is an ideal starter. In 6-months I can come back and tell her okay, it’s $250 for the backend software, about $200 for setup and additional template work and we can port your current template directly. This she would go for.
In addition, I’ve got a young artist wanting to dump the javascript-dependent, student-project developed gallery site she has for something where she can edit the exhibition listings and news updates herself. She’s working two jobs to cover her school debts and living expenses. We’re exchanging her art photography knowledge and help for my dev work. We’ve talked about adding a fine art photography discussion forum and calendar of events on her area of expertise, but she’s afraid to start one until she’s comfortable with posting online. A fellow artist suggested Wordpress because it’s free. She liked the look of EE when I showed it to her but hesitates to fork out what is a large sum of money to her until she’s sure she can handle the back-end posting. Want to guess what I’m having to develop in right now?
Of course, I could just develop these sites with EE Core and ignore the licensing agreement like a lot of other people do, but I thought I’d mention the problem those of us who are honest face in selling EE to a large market share that’s winding up getting started with Wordpress.
Even having an EE Core license of something like $50 would be viable for these people. But telling them they have to dive into the deep end when there’s a free shallow pool is losing EE business. But then I remember a little program called Homesite which started out shareware for $35 which became the HTML editor of choice on Windows machines. I believe the developer retired after a few years when the Macromedia bought out the rights. Too bad no one was willing to upgrade to Dreamweaver…
take advantage of the 10$ for 30 days deal. problem solved. this just blares as a nonsensical rant to me.
if it’s only a 3-5 page brochureware site, why bother using EE at all? Just build it as static html. Then, when it’s time to upgrade, use the design and code you created for the static site for your EE templates, copy and paste the text from the 3-5 pages into the CMS and you’re good to go. I have yet to find a client who would balk at paying $249 for a CMS, yet really needs to update the site themselves.
It would be really nice to just be able to purchase modules individually. And not just 3 or 4 modules, ALL of them. I’d hate to find myself feeling like I have to use every feature just so I can fulfill the full value of my license. In practical terms the licensing scheme seems a bit impractical. Eh, just a thought.
I totally agree with you. I’m currently working on a site for a roofing contractor and they are really interested in having EE as their back end. The site is a really basic, in fact the only reason they want a CMS is to be able to update their company news themselves. If you think about it the Core version will do the job but they fall on the commercial category and have to buy the $250 licence. Although they know about Wordpress wich is free and will probably work for them too… they also know the design flexibility that EE offers and don’t want their site to end up looking like a blog.
another option might be ModX. Not to disparage EE, but ModX is free and might work well for a basic site like you’re talking about. It’s nowhere near as robust as EE, and from what I’ve seen it’s a tad more difficult to implement, but for smaller commercial uses like you’re talking about, it might be worth a look. On the other hand, if they want the capability of updating the site themselves, they should be willing to pay for it. I can’t imagine that $250 would break the bank for a roofing contractor.
I like how everyone is leaving out the part about costs for ongoing maintenance on your part to update whatever script you use for their site. Select something with less than stellar security and you may be doing quite frequent updates for them, are you doing those for free? Think about it…
I totally agree with you. I’m currently working on a site for a roofing contractor and they are really interested in having EE as their back end. The site is a really basic, in fact the only reason they want a CMS is to be able to update their company news themselves. If you think about it the Core version will do the job but they fall on the commercial category and have to buy the $250 licence. Although they know about Wordpress wich is free and will probably work for them too… they also know the design flexibility that EE offers and don’t want their site to end up looking like a blog.
come on. $250 is going to make or break the deal? these guys make 250 for just showing up at your house. my guess is they don’t want spend much more than 250 on their entire site, which is ridiculous. if you choose to do business with people like that, then i have little sympathy for you. this may sound harsh, but it’s this kind of thing that really devalues what we all do as an industry.
One might also argue that if a business is concerned that it will not make back $250 worth of additional revenue as a result of having a web presence, then perhaps they should rethink whether or not they really need a web site.
At any rate, there are interesting points on both sides of this discussion, and there are many tools available for site management that target the budget site development market; but that’s not a market we are striving to get involved in with ExpressionEngine.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned CodeIgniter in this thread. It too is a quality EllisLab product, and can be used for rapid site development and basic content management as well. It takes a bit more knowledge, of course, but nothing extraordinary, and the skills you would learn as a web developer from using CI would be invaluable to you and open many new doors in what you can offer your clients. And CI is free.
I’ve got some thoughts, I could go either way in the discussion too.
The first thing that comes to mind though is Wordpress sites are getting to be a dime a dozen.
A product with a price tag to some folks equates to “a better product”.
Wordpress “themes” are just everywhere, so a client could easily think all your doing is setting up a free CMS throwing somebody elses theme skin on it, adding some logos and getting paid. For this they think they should pay even less and less, not a good circle to be into.
Two products does equate a little bit to what Macromedia was doing, like the Flash Pro version, the one with all the programming goodies built in.
It is a shame there has to be two schools, one that is limited the other not. Hey I’m a newbie, I should stick with the basics, so maybe it’s a good thing.
I totally agree with you. I’m currently working on a site for a roofing contractor and they are really interested in having EE as their back end. The site is a really basic, in fact the only reason they want a CMS is to be able to update their company news themselves. If you think about it the Core version will do the job but they fall on the commercial category and have to buy the $250 license. Although they know about Wordpress wich is free and will probably work for them too… they also know the design flexibility that EE offers and don’t want their site to end up looking like a blog.
come on. $250 is going to make or break the deal? these guys make 250 for just showing up at your house. my guess is they don’t want spend much more than 250 on their entire site, which is ridiculous. if you choose to do business with people like that, then i have little sympathy for you. this may sound harsh, but it’s this kind of thing that really devalues what we all do as an industry.
I see your point and you are right, money is not a factor to them. But not because you make a lot money your not going to to watch your expenses, I know I would. They are not complaining about the price for the license, they know EE is worth it. It’s just the fact that they know the EE Core version exist (which is all they need) and its free. I’m sure they feel like they are paying $250 for the Core Version.
And it’s ok if you have little sympathy for me. Unfortunately I don’t own a roofing company and I have to do business with as many people as possible.
Huh. Would they do my roof for free because it’s a residence?
Point being - if as business owners they don’t understand the need for EllisLabs to charge for use of a commercial product for commercial purposes then they are being unrealistic.
