The Web Developer

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Becoming a Web Developer is like fighting in a Great Battle.

If you make a wrong move, you will lose, but gain wisdom for it, with each failure you gain more wisdom, with each rebuild, you build faster.

Things can get toxic all too quickly, you will have to be ready to quit, and retry. Like a Samurai, without thought, you release your Katana, cut the job, move on.

Below is the text from Love building themes? Join the Theme Store community at Shopify, where website themes sell for $180.

(If you think you can handle this, go for it! Though, please note that they are gently asking that you have a team, which could mean outsourcing, and a budget for bug fixing. The platform for managing your outsourced team would be github and slack, this is doable you could even experiment paying your developers via liberapay)

Personally, I see that the posting below has too many restrictions. And if your theme won't average 10 sales per month, they'll throw it out.

I don't know what their relationship is with leading web design frameworks. I don't think they have a rational streamlined pipeline. Because, what they call bug fixing is a massive undertaking requiring dozens of developers.

The most widely developed foundation for themes, after many years of development had 60 issues last month alone (November 2019).

Shopify is the world’s fastest growing commerce platform and we have no plans to slow down! The Shopify Theme Partnerships team is on a mission to make sure our merchants have access to the highest quality themes available. Every month, thousands of merchants look for new themes for their online stores. Our team is on the lookout for skilled, passionate designers and developers we can work with to create amazing themes for the Theme Store.

Important information to know before you apply

Here are a few things to consider before you send us your Theme Partner application:

• Shopify themes need constant care and attention. We expect Theme Partners who work with us to be engaged, passionate about their theme(s), and apply any theme updates we request in a timely manner.
• Being a Theme Partner is a full-time job. You will need to dedicate a lot of time updating your theme(s) as well as supporting the merchants who are using your theme. If you become a Theme Partner, you’ll need to consider how you’ll balance Theme Partner work with other jobs you are currently doing, or are planning to be engaged in.
• Our current Theme Partners are a tight-knit group of people. We expect potential Theme Partners to be approachable and collaborative with the Shopify Theme Partnerships team, as well as merchants using your theme(s).
• We want Theme Partners to actively contribute to the Shopify themes ecosystem, and work with us to help merchants succeed. The Theme Partnerships team will be working closely with you every step of the way during the theme submission process, and will continue to work closely with you once your theme is published. We have dedicated email and Slack channels set up to provide feedback, advice and support for all your theme-related questions and issues.
• The revenue share for Theme Partners is 70/30. The Theme Partner receives 70% of each theme sale.

What to submit when you apply

Please email themes@shopify.com and include all of the following:

1. A link to an active Shopify website you built for a client. This must be a live, fully functioning shop that you built for a client.
2. A case study for the above Shopify website that details your experiences on the project. You will need to provide an overview of the project and the client.
3. A cover letter.
4. A link to your design portfolio.

How we review your application

For the active Shopify website our review will cover:

• Problem solving ability (the solution outlined in the case study is visible).
• Originality (the shop is using a custom theme, not a free or paid theme from the Shopify Theme Store).
• Art direction (choice of photography, images, icons, color, and overall originality).
• Layout (flow of content, hierarchy, balance, contrast, white space, responsiveness, grid, and alignment).
• Typography (font pairings, font sizes, line spacing, hierarchy of text, number of fonts used, and legibility of text).
• Consistency in design patterns (between pages and on a single page).
• Accessibility (hover states, colour ratios, and touch targets).
• Customer UX (purchase flow through the collection, product, and cart pages).
• Technical ability (up-to-date with Shopify platform, website functionality, code consistency, and lack of errors).

For the case study we will be looking for you to provide this information:

• What brought the client to you?
• What were the client’s needs?
• How did you go about solving their problem?
• We would like to see your research, your workflow (prototyping and refining), and what you learned.

For the cover letter we would like to see the following information:

• An outline of who you (and your team) are.
• Why you want to join the Shopify Theme Partner community?
• Why you think you’d do well as a Theme Partner?

Feel free to put your own personal touch or spin on the cover letter. We highly value originality, enthusiasm, and motivation when considering applications.

For the design portfolio we will be reviewing the same design related points as mentioned above for the active Shopify website:

• Art direction.
• Layout.
• Typography.
• Consistency.

The Shopify Theme Partnerships team is not able to provide detailed feedback on why an application does not pass our review process. If we do reach out to you about becoming a potential Theme Partner, we will work with you on the next steps of the approval process.

Your theme in the Shopify Theme Store

Once a theme has been built and approved, it may only be distributed via the Theme Store. Please do not distribute your theme on other marketplaces or third-party channels, or try to take customers away from the Theme Store.

Theme support

If there is a technical issue with your theme (for example: broken layout, dead link, logic error) you will be responsible for fixing the issue in a timely fashion. Critical bugs must be fixed immediately or your theme may be temporarily removed from the Theme Store.

Theme Partners are responsible for supporting merchants who use their theme(s). You will need to provide a public support email address, theme documentation, and assist merchants with their theme-related questions.

Themes will be removed from the Theme Store if they have made less than 25 sales in a 3 month time period. Theme Partners are responsible for keeping their themes up-to-date with core Shopify features and any improved standards Shopify implements in the future. These can include improvements to the overall user experience, the user interface, accessibility, and more.

Now, a job making themes for Shopify is great for a Web Design start-up struggling to get customers, as 160 sales would get them $20K, after the 30% cut (of $8,640). But for an outsider looking in, it is just a look into the world of professional web development, and never-ending bug fixing. Aside from regular bugs, both code-bases (bootstrap and shopify) are under active development, that is a lot of code updates.

There is a smaller but streamlined theme sales platform, with more reasonable restrictions. Take a look at the sales stats that they parade right at their front page. At 48,623 sales priced at $44 USD, the INSPINIA - Responsive Admin Theme would have made 2.2 million USD. Even if WrapBootstrap took 50% of that, the developer took a million home.

Now remember INSPINIA is sitting right on top of Bootstrap so all this development is going on in the back at no charge to INSPINIA Developers. All they do is add more components, and keep up with the latest updates to the Bootstrap code base.

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The Web Developer, that you need to become creates the streamlined, low-liability versions of wrapbootstrap.com, themes.shopify.com, or even shopify.com it self, and others that tickle your fancy in similar ways.

Now when I went to the website of INSPINIA developers, I got redirected to wrapbootstrap.com. This may mean - and in deed it would make perfect sense

• that WrapBootstrap made INSPINIA. This would also mean that they made 2.2 Million Dollars, they pocketed 100% of those sales ([3rd party sellers earn 80%]4).

Your story may be even more elaborate than this. You maybe taking a step above the platforms, and sell a service where a person can rent a platform like wrapbootstrap.com or themes.shopify.com for a monthly membership fee and a reasonable percentage of sales.

Web Developer, is a huge step. But making themes is not it. It is not even about learning programming, though you should definitely know about it; because you need a team of programmers to develop your sales platform(s).

It is about becoming a Businessperson with a plan. In other words, a Founder, a CEO.

You shouldn't think of a web developer as a person that merely develops for the web, think of one as a developer of the web. That is a difference between $180 and $2,200,000, a resume and an outstanding portfolio, an employee and an employer, bugfixes and excitement.