scormi - lessons learned creating a wordpress plugin

Scormi

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Dave Goodwin | May 2015

@dgoodwn

Presented at WordPress NYC Meetup

Creating a WordPress Analytics Plugin

Download this presentation at

bit.ly/wpnycscormi

Scormi creates a daily report fromGoogle Analytics

& Moz data

Who it helps

Digital marketersSite admins

SEOs

Scormi is an automation tool for

Ideally with >100 site visitors/day

Gathering data frommany sources is an

obstacle to clarity andtakes too much time.

There must be a better way.

• One page snapshot

• WordPress plugin

• Optional daily email

• Mobile friendly

• Automatic

• No-login Web access

Can we make this?

Why a WordPress Plugin?

Developer-friendly platform

No infrastructure costs

A great testing ground for... • measuring user interest • getting feedback• developing support system

Scormi development path

March 3, 2015 Begin development, 100% open source & client based.

End of March Working prototype with PDF output. Then a pivot.

What will it be in 3 years? In 1 year?

This affects business model and infrastructure.

Business ModelsFree

Free + PremiumSubscription / SaaS

API calls needed

How to make the charts

Load times

WordPress cron & time zone bug

Email clients PNG and CSS issues

Report generation timeouts

3rd-party data integrity

Obstacles to overcome

Deferred to an update...Mobile responsive design of HTML version

Obstacles to overcome3rd-party data integrity garbage in > garbage out

< Referrer Spam

Tools and tech used to create Scormi

WordPress

PHP

JpGraph

Base 64 encoding

Google Analytics APIs

GA Query Explorer

Moz APIs

AWS

BitBucket

Photoshop

View or get this presentation at

http://bit.ly/wpnycscormi

Connect on Twitter@dgoodwn

http://scormi.net

WordPress Plugin business modelFixed price vs subscription?

Premium plugin and/or support revenue model - all code in plugin● No infrastructure to handle● Fixed sale price is a clean and simple transaction● Open source mindset limits price

Subscription model using client/server architecture● Typically done with API key that stops working if payment

lapses. Akismet uses this model for business customers.● Financial, team, and infrastructure burden that can grow quickly

if plugin becomes popular● Can expand off WordPress to SaaS for more features and less

price friction from customers● Allows infrastructure growth concurrent with business growth

Appendix A