Winnipeg Web Design

Interview with Collis Ta’eed of Envato

1. What part of Envato do you enjoy more … the marketplaces or the tutorial sites?

I generally am the type of person who loves whatever they happen to be working on at that time. So when we’re doing lots of marketplace work I become very engrossed in that side of the business and when I’m going full steam ahead on Tuts+ then a little switch flips in my head and I start obsessing about those sites. Both of them have such great communities and ideas behind them that it’s very easy to get excited about them!

2. Envato is very active in the social media(Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Do you think social media is something small businesses need to utilize more?

I definitely think social media can be very powerful if you decide to really go for it. The thing is it takes quite a bit of effort and involvement to create a real presence. So while I think it’s something every business should consider, I do think they need to take into account the amount of time it might take up.

Interestingly there are companies appearing now who specialize in providing social media services for businesses. Two examples are SocialMediaFish (http://socialmediafish.com/) who we use at Envato and the fabulous Mo’stash (http://mostash.com/) who have BuySellAds in their client list.

3. What advice would you give a blog startup, such as myself?

I always suggest focusing on creating great content first and foremost. Generally speaking if you can create great content then the audience will come one way or another. But if you don’t do good content, all the marketing, social media, and networking in the world won’t make the blog rock. As the saying goes “content is king”!

4. How tough did you find it to try and create a “brand”?

I think branding is always pretty tough to get right. As our sites and communities have grown I think our overall Envato brand has grown accordingly. We started adding Envato site switchers about a year ago and that seems to have helped a lot. I think it means people start recognizing that sites they visit a lot are actually part of the same family. As with the previous question though, I think it’s really important to focus on creating great products (or great content in the case of blogging) and then let the other parts evolve from there. Otherwise it’s quite easy to get too caught up in creating a brand, or a great design, or a great marketing plan, without actually having something great to brand, design or market.

5. A lot of people wonder if freelancing suits them… what skills do you think make a great freelancer?

Absolutely, freelancing is not for everyone. I think to be a great freelancer you need to have one essential quality in buckets – reliability. So much of freelancing boils down to being reliable and always delivering on time, on budget, and according to plan. If you can deliver reliably, you can go very far as a freelancer.

6. Being a designer, how do you maintain good communication between you and the developer? Especially this Jeffery Way character

As a designer I think it really benefits to understand a bit about how developers work, and how sites are built. Having insight into their part of the job means you can design things which are buildable. It also means you have realistic expectations about what can be delivered in what timeframe.

Jeffrey is great! He doesn’t do that much development work at Envato, but his background in development is invaluable and has helped us build some of the most popular Envato websites – Nettuts+ and ThemeForest. He’s now working on our next big marketplace which is going to be called CodeCanyon and which will feature PHP and Javascript (migrated over from ThemeForest) as well as a couple of new coding categories! We’re really excited because PHP Scripts in particular have been doing really well on ThemeForest suggesting there is a big market for them!

7. What do you find is the best way to manage projects? Keeping track of my projects can be quite time consuming…

It certainly can be difficult juggling multiple projects. There is a certain amount of mental overhead to doing many things at once. There are some great organizational apps around these days that help manage either individual projects or multiple different projects. Those can help. I use a pen and paper system most of the time, and try not to take on too many things at once (though that doesn’t always work).

8. What is the worst part of your job?

Not getting to do everything that I’d like to do! There are lots of ideas that are just unfeasible for one reason or another – particularly lack of time or too expensive – and it can be quite frustrating seeing opportunities pass by. My old boss used to say “whatever you do in life, you won’t get to do lots of other things, so choose wisely!”

9. When you’re not glued to the computer, what other things do you entertain yourself with?

I love playing the piano actually. I usually make it up as I go along which means it’s another sort of creative output, but one that’s got no stress or expected output tied to it. I also love traveling and in a few weeks I’m visiting Malaysia for a month which will be very exciting and computer-free!!

10. I just redesigned my website. What do you think of it (http://www.brenelz.com)?

It’s really easy to use which is so important! I think usability is probably the biggest key to a successful website. And I love that colour scheme, I’m always meaning to design something with a really clean light blue + grey scheme. Good job!

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Written by brenelz

Hello everyone, I'm Brenley Dueck or better known as Brenelz. I currently run my own business called Brenelz Web Solutions which focuses primary on winnipeg website design. The web technologies I most specialize in are CSS, jQuery, AJAX, PHP, and the MySQL database. Please make sure to follow me on twitter.