Mavenseed
Make a website, sell courses and create a community.
We initially built Mavenseed as a tool for us, to run http://cgcookie.com, though decided to create it so others could also create their own CG Cookie.
Phew... it's hard some days.
We set out to build Mavenseed for us. This is the next iteration of the custom LMS platform for CG Cookie, with the perk of enabling others to create their own CG Cookies, no matter what flavor.
This has worked out really well having our flag-ship project running on the platform we're building for others. It proves it's possible and also helps that we're in the software every day helping customers and finding papercuts.
The rub is being such a small team, it's challenging to focus. Do we focus on supporting CG Cookie and its needs to support revenue there, or work on attracting new customers to Mavenseed to help increase revenue?
What's Mavenseed's identity, or stance as a viable product/value for others out there on the web?
In the end, I feel supporting Cg Cookie (Dogfooding) in theory also supports improving the platform as a whole, which supports our customers of Mavenseed. It just means the project grows slower I suppose.
It can be challenging when you want to see the project itself begin standing on its own legs. Seeing new customers come on building their sites, and products while making a positive impact on the earth.
We're not there yet, but still learning and building to get there.
W
We built Mavenseed as the new home for our project http://cgcookie.com, a project expanding on our company's mission to be a force of good. (Read Mavenseed's manifesto)
Over the last three years, we've been hyper-focused on that intent. During this time the landscape of LMSs, CMSs, and now Passion Economy Platforms has drastically changed.
It's crowded! 🏘
Originally a gameboard consisting of one or two players is now jammed with dozens, if not hundreds of, "build your course, sell your digital thing, build your community and we're the best!", online platforms.
Each of these platforms is seemingly locked in an exhausting feature battle, growing at all costs, consuming VC funding, with an apparent race to the bottom pricing model. #nobueno #soundshorrible
We're going our own way. 🌱
Over the next few months, we'll be rolling out a few changes to the platform that will help communicate our mission of,
"To help grow sustainable businesses, while having a positive impact on the Earth"
To be clear we're still an online business creation suite with the passion to build a platform that you'll love building your project on.
You'll still be able to do all the things you currently can do: build a community, sell digital downloads, create a membership site, and sell merch with Printful. All with the collective, shared mission of being a force of good for the nature around us. ✊
https://mavenseed.com/articles/building-mavenseed-walking-our-own-trail
Mavenseed is a tremendous initiative: building a new home for CG Cookie while supporting others to build their own creations.
I'm pleased to share three weeks into 2021, we've released multiple rounds of features, updates & fixes.
Since January 1st, we've deployed 20 new features and fixed/updated more than 20 things. All with the efforts of primarily two people on the project!
To be clear, we're not working 15hr days to get there. At Mavenseed we're consistently working ~30-40hrs a week, persistently pressing through challenges and compartmentalizing the work. Spending time with our family, friends, and nature.
Curious what we've kicked out so far this year?
https://docs.mavenseed.com/changelog/january-2021
See you on the next one!
Whether you are replying to customers on the forum, drafting a blog post, or crafting your course lesson. The WYSIWYG or text editor is the primary tool to build your business and engage with your customers on Mavenseed.
While the text editor (Quill) we were using was OK, it wasn't great for us and came with a slew of papercuts. Kudo's to you, and the other Maven's for speaking up and helping us realize the current editor just wasn't getting the job done. ❤️
The new text editor (Summer Note), available now on your site is packed with improvements and simply feels good to use.
- Improved code display,
- Color text and or the text's background,
- Organize with tables,
- Insert video URLs from Youtube & Vimeo,
- Improved image design controls: resize, float right or left
- Fullscreen mode + HTML view!
Bit by bit we're getting farther along our journey.
Wes
An epic milestone for Mavenseed 🎉
As our first premium [$] plugin free for paying subscribers, you can now accept PayPal payments for digital purchases and recurring subscriptions with our PayPal market plugin!
With zero transaction fees on any PayPal transaction.
We're offering this through Braintree (a PayPal owned company), which we've been using for many years across different applications.
#onward!
One thing we've noticed in recent years, months, and weeks are the growing number of digital platforms to sell stuff. What once was a unique vast space, is now resembling a perceived gold rush.
While we're aware of others in the space, it's not something that is on the mind daily.
I like to say, "It's important I'm aware I live on a giant rock orbiting the sun, which is part of a larger galaxy floating around space." but I don't let this consume me.
Our primary mission is building Mavenseed for us, specifically for our CG Cookie project. The cool thing is we're opening up the platform for you to create your own CG Cookie type business: portfolio site, online community, subscription service, landing pages, and or stream online videos.
We're lucky, we're not driven by the need to have MORE subscribers to pay back investors, or to keep the lights on. We're driven to build and evolve things that help CG Cookie succeed. This trickles features and abilities down to help YOU succeed in building on Mavenseed.
In the end, if we have zero customers the Mavenseed platform is okay, and will still exist. Heh, of course, we'd love to have customers, with believing this will happen naturally as the platform grows.
Stay tuned!
We're building Mavenseed as the new home for our project http://cgcookie.com. We're scratching our own itch while opening up the platform so others may join Mavenseed: create your own online business: landing page, membership site, and or sell digital stuff.
One of these itches was to have the ability for schools, or groups of people to subscribe to Cg Cookie.
You can now do this with your Mavenseed account!
Imagine having a school subscribe to their entire classroom to your site, or a small business pick up a team subscription so their people may learn from you. Pretty rad! 🎉
Available now http://mavenseed.com
Learn more about this specific feature: https://docs.mavenseed.com/admin/subscriptions/team-plans
The truth is, we've really been fumbling with how to price Mavenseed over the last year. What we came to realize is that it's not really fair to ask people to pay for a service when they aren't even making money yet!
So we flipped the script.
Mavenseed is now free. We just collect an 8% transaction fee. If you don't grow, we don't grow. It's that simple!
P.S - Mavenseed is built by a team who's been selling courses and digital downloads for many years. We built Mavenseed as the new home for CG Cookie. But instead of building a custom CMS for us, we built it for everyone!
Now that may sound a bit grim, but I feel it's something every project goes through, even stopping them in their tracks. The time-frame where you're filled with doubt, overwhelmed with challenges and the unknown on how this is all going to play out.
It's also where the most insight & confidence is gained, equipping you with knowledge and skills to come out stronger than ever. If you push through it. I feel it's a necessary part of the process, as much as the euphoric state at the project's beginning. Heh, and it repeats throughout the projects journey. 😅
Tim Brown's famous sketch outlines this in a visual way. https://designthinking.ideo.com/ . Hope > Insight > Confidence
Approaching our one year anniversary, has me reflecting how far Mavenseed has come from the first release. We're lucky to have the support of a handful of paying subscribers that are very active; finding bugs, requesting tools, and keeping us on our toes. A battle hardened team from @cg-cookie certainly helps. ❤️
We're here and settling in for a big year. 🦄 First round of updates included; subscription only products, ability to switch plans and more.
- Wes
Growing your audience and converting those first few customers is one of the hardest parts of starting a new business. Getting that first sell is nerve-racking, exhausting, and slow. It is also incredibly rewarding. Getting the second, third, and further sales, though, is where the real work comes in.
Read more below 👇
https://mavenseed.com/articles/three-tips-for-converting-your-first-customer
