Superior Motive, the corporate behind OptinMonster, WPForms, MonsterInsights, and different widespread WordPress plugins, has acquired Sandhills Development. The deal consists of the entire firm’s WordPress services and products: Simple Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, WP Easy Pay, Sugar Calendar, WP Easy Pay, and the Payouts Service. The vast majority of the development staff will probably be becoming a member of Superior Motive to proceed supporting the merchandise.
In a private farewell to the WordPress group, Sandhills Development founder Pippin Williamson confesses he misplaced his ardour for WordPress and the net:
In the previous few years I found a fact about myself: I had misplaced my ardour for the net and constructing software program merchandise. I used to completely adore WordPress and constructing plugins to increase it and energy companies. That zeal helped create wonderful platforms which have helped tens of 1000’s of companies develop, succeed, and thrive on the internet, and I’m so immensely pleased with that. However when the fervour is gone, the drive and motivation to construct nice issues leaks away as nicely. It has been a number of years since I final felt really impressed and motivated to construct one thing with WordPress.
Sandhills Development has created an iconic and beloved suite of merchandise with greater than 100,000 customers. Its Payouts Service paid out over 1,000,000 {dollars} to associates in Might and is on observe to cross $2M this 12 months. The service has greater than 6,500 people and companies registered and capable of obtain deposits and greater than 1,350 companies setup to pay their associates.
The monetary particulars of the deal weren’t disclosed however Williamson has at all times been clear about Sandhills’ financials. In final 12 months’s abstract he disclosed that the corporate introduced in $4,331,814.12 in income from plugin gross sales, affiliate agreements, providers, actual property, and payout processing, with a internet revenue of $232,201 after closely investing in new tasks and payroll will increase.
A lot of Superior Motive’s merchandise use EDD, so the corporate has a vested curiosity within the product’s future, alongside others within the WordPress ecosystem who depend upon it. Williamson defined in his announcement why he chosen Superior Motive as the brand new dwelling for his merchandise:
Superior Motive has been an innovator in WordPress for greater than a decade and through that point they’ve constructed infrastructures, processes, and a stage of polish hardly ever seen within the WordPress trade. The learnings and techniques which have made Superior Motive so profitable will probably be utilized to the entire suite of Sandhills merchandise, making the merchandise higher than ever earlier than and at a tempo beforehand unseen by our prospects.
Regardless of Williamson’s professed confidence in Superior Motive, a number of sources inside Sandhills Development expressed reservations concerning the deal. The corporate was known as to an all-hands assembly the place workers got the choice to leap ship or proceed on with Superior Motive.
“Effectively the factor that made this essentially the most irritating was that there was little room for dialogue, or selection,” one supply mentioned. “We got a really quick heads-up (2 weeks), and no alternative to debate employment phrases. Principally it was ‘in two weeks, you’re working for Superior Motive, or you’re out of a job.’”
Superior Motive at the moment workers greater than 200 individuals throughout 36 nations. For years, the corporate has been identified for its aggressive gross sales techniques and upsells within the WordPress admin. These considerations, together with the change in tradition from Sandhills, gave some workers cause to pause when contemplating the change.
“Given AM’s questionable enterprise practices, resembling utilizing display recorders on many workers’ laptops, set off blissful firing tendencies, and extremely aggressive non-competes, it felt like we have been being coerced to work for an organization that was so, so removed from the elemental values that introduced us to Sandhills within the first place,” one supply inside the firm mentioned. Regardless of this criticism, the identical supply mentioned they consider “each product acquired will change into significantly higher,” with Superior Motive’s funding.
“Going into the assembly with Syed, I’d describe the prevailing sentiment as cautiously optimistic,” Sandhills’ former Director of Operations Kyle Maurer mentioned. “Clearly none of us have been concerned on this choice; that was Pippin solely. We didn’t ask for this and didn’t know what to anticipate. However our many questions have been answered and at this level everyone seems to be wholly on board. Syed’s pleasure and enthusiasm are infectious and, alongside along with his staff, he’s performed an incredible job welcoming and accommodating us. It appears like new power has been injected into the group and I’m personally very optimistic concerning the future.”
Superior Motive Founder and CEO Syed Balkhi confirmed that previously the corporate has used time monitoring software program on its workers however “shifted away from doing in order the overwhelming majority of our workers are on full-time wage now.”
“Many individuals might consider AM as one giant firm, however I at all times see us as a set of over a dozen small corporations,” Balkhi mentioned. “Every product staff operates independently and can proceed to take action.”
Balkhi confirmed that no pricing adjustments are deliberate for the merchandise. He mentioned Superior Motive additionally plans to share a number of inner instruments the corporate has constructed for EDD to assist scale the enterprise.
Acquisitions are ramping up within the WordPress house, with main gamers like Automattic and internet hosting corporations scooping up smaller companies and plugins to create a collection of merchandise tailor-made to their customers. Some query whether or not this can be a wholesome a part of a maturing ecosystem or a pattern that will stifle the distinctive vary of numerous, smaller merchandise which have at all times been obtainable to WordPress customers.
“I do know that our purpose is to assist small companies develop and compete with the large guys, and our development is a results of us dwelling true to our mission,” Balkhi mentioned. “We by no means got down to change into traders.
“As you possibly can see the merchandise that be a part of AM — the founders have been round for a very long time and so they know of us already. Founders select to hitch us as a result of we’re an unbiased bootstrapped enterprise not some large PE /venture-backed company.”
Matt Medeiros, director at Castos and creator of the Matt Report enterprise podcast, commented on how the deal reveals the present lifecycle of WordPress corporations.
“It’s fairly apparent that we’re within the shopping for season for WordPress product corporations,” Medeiros mentioned. “In the event you’re an organization that has constructed a considerable enterprise, with a strong product, strike whereas the ‘shopping for iron’ is sizzling! WP merchandise attain a sure plateau level the place they must develop wider, making a platform of their very own. If you search for at Jetpack, Elementor, AwesomeMotive, Liquid Internet you must do some severe soul looking if that’s who you need to compete towards. It doesn’t take 2x the trouble, it takes 50x.”
Ultimately, it’s the customers who unwittingly drive the success of those merchandise by means of their responses to the engineering, help, and advertising and marketing. Superior Motive is retaining a lot of the identical staff behind the Sandhills merchandise however has its personal packaging, imaginative and prescient, and management that may inevitably deliver adjustments for customers down the street.
“I feel customers can count on to stay supported and nonetheless have a fantastic product, however ought to definitely count on to be a part of a much bigger platform or suite of providers,” Medeiros mentioned. “Finally, it most likely means value adjustments, however in actuality, WP options have been too low cost for some time. Of us like Syed at AwesomeMotive will have the ability to supply end-to-end options for WordPress web site homeowners, notably small companies. Whereas internet hosting corporations like Liquid Internet gives you a turnkey options _per site_ for non-profits, e-commerce, and now on-line educators. Finally, I feel we’ll hear much less about ‘WordPress the software program’ and extra concerning the full answer + expertise corporations are delivering with WordPress at its core.”