We've been learning a ton lately when it comes to running a theme company and as each late night follows the next we have been looking at ways to run Obox Themes slightly differently.

At the moment we try and produce a set amount of premium themes a month. We usually aim for 2 new themes a month (in November we launched 6 new themes, exhausting stuff), however with the new year around the corner it offers us the chance of a fresh start and maybe a different focus.

With that in mind I have started looking into different ways you can run a premium theme company and I would like to share them with you.

All these methods are being run successfully by their respective companies, which is why it's worth looking into.

I am going to try and share with you what I think the advantages and disadvantages are of each model, which allow you to consider the best route to take when you decide it's time to enter this already saturated market.

1. Quantity

Quantity means pumping out new designs and functionality at least twice a month. That means maintaining an element of freshness and uniqueness in your new themes.

That last line is the tough part and brings in the disadvantage of this model: You either need to invest money in designers (therefore bringing your costs up) or you need to invest a lot of time in creating theme's yourselves (long hours, pressure on creating something new everytime).

The benefit of getting someone else to do it is that you get different creative angles and you have more free time, however this is only viable if you are turning over a good amount of money a month. Some top theme designers will charge $3000+ for a template so make sure you are covering that monthly before investing in that route.

Along with costs of creating new themes, updating and improving old themes will become an issue.

There are clear advantages to this model, by creating new themes monthly you open up the opportunity to run a subscription based model. New content also means the prospect of increased sales with out the worry of increasing your traffic.

If you have 1 theme on the rack and 1000 visitors there is a small chance of making a sale because it’s unlikely that that theme will appeal to all your visitors. However if you have variety you increase your hit ratio considerably.

2. Quality with a mix of Quantity

Option 2 is not to release themes every month but to maintain a fairly wide variety of about 10 themes.

If you have just 10 or so themes you can focus on improving each one, so instead of pumping out new themes you are pumping out improvements on each one of these themes.

The advantages are that you can refine your product to the point of perfection and the resources required to do this will be minimal. This kind of model can easily run with two person involved. If you are willing to work 8 - 10 hours a day then this is perfectly doable by one talented theme developer and a designer.

The disadvantages are that your themes design may become old and out dated despite the continuous improvements.

The other disadvantage is the issue I mention in option 1 where I talk about variety for potential customers. You can minimize this disadvantage by having multiple color and style options for each theme.

3. Quality

This option is about putting your entire focus in one theme. In all likelihood this theme will evolve into a Framework which will be used by other theme developers to create their themes.

Easily manageable in terms of time and low cost compared to the other methods, this is perfect for a one man theme band IF you have the skills to improve your product.

My feeling is that the disadvantages of this model are that you need to be quite technical because the majority of the theme refinements will come from the back end. So if you take this route, be willing to get to know Wordpress better than Wordpress themselves.

Also consider that since you will only be selling one product you have to make sure you convert as many of your site visitors as possible. Either via micro sites which focus on certain features, to cool videos and also endorsements from those who are blown away by your product.

4. Community Orientated

This is the ThemeForest.net way and is probably the most complicated in my opinion. Initial costs will be high because you need to develop a site capable of being self run by your community in terms of managing themes, sales and forums in (hopefully) large volumes.

Also consider that you have to give the theme developer a cut of the sale, so that means high turnover in terms of sales.

The advantages of this are that you are getting someone else to do the creating for you while you can focus on the platform to sell them. If this method goes viral the growth and turnover can be explosive but you will need to be able to market the hell out of your site in the initial stages.

Conclusion

All these methods have huge advantages and relatively small disadvantages. The disadvantages involve working as hard as you can, it’s just a matter of choosing the method which best suits you. If you don’t have budget and are an excellent designer then I think Option 3 is the best route.

However if you are like me and constantly have design idea’s flowing out your head then consider option 1. Just be willing to work with someone who can cover the tech side (I am lucky because Marc excels in that department).

I like the appeal of Option 2 in the sense that there is always something you can do to improve your product and the combo of 10 – 15 themes and pure focus allows you cover the quantity and quality aspects without needing huge resources.

Option number 4 is for the highly skilled who have massive resources in terms of time (to build it yourself) or money (to get someone else to build it) and management (building and maintaining a community).

In all cases you will need a lot of patience however. If what you make sucks, then it doesn’t matter which option you choose. None of these methods succeed over night and in all cases it’s a good product that will sell.

But, if you make something that people like… strap yourself in because it’s going to be an incredible ride. Trust me.