Hi Paul. If lifetime membership is the problem, start a new club for the new Joomla release with adjusted memberships. You could maintain existing memberships up to Joomla 3. Members will move to the new club for the new Joomla release templates without feeling let down so long as you don't just cut off support.

Hi Paul

You already know my view on the lifetime membership, JB cannot run on fresh air and goodwill. Whilst I have had lifetime membership for a long time, it never felt right to me and I did, in Anthony's time, contribute in other ways to JB development.

Your support is amazing, professional and prompt, and this is what makes JB stand out from the majority of businesses, not just Joomla. There are many users that rely on your support in their day to day business, and the tools provided by JB. I suspect most would gladly pay for your support and backup, if you making your living from website development, then it is clearly a sound investment to have your skills on call. There is no one in the Joomla sphere that offers the quality of support that you supply.

It is clear you need to restructure JB, the issue has been there for some time. My view is there is a market for a template and support club aimed at professional users. There may be some of your experienced users who would be happy to assist with the templates and zentools along the lines of open source principles, but channelled via JB.

The discussion around JB are no doubt more complex than we know, however I would support any new venture of JB that continued with your [Paul's] involvement.

Best wishes
Ian

hi Paul

Your support und products are unique. I will support the idea to stop the lifetime plan and pay for a normal subscription. A crowdfundig can help put the whole thing on a solid financial footing. > OSM

Hi Marc and Ian,

There are several challenges facing JB and all need considerable investments in time and money

The JB site itself does need to rebuilt probably from scratch as it is quite old

The template, framework and ZT2 will need an update to work with Joomla4 (Joomla4 still at alpha stage)

As a team, we need a blend of hosting and technical skills, customer support and design so it really needs 3 people at least - with Anthony we were spoiled as he combined several roles into 1

I've been in customer-facing roles all my working life so working on a forum / ticket system was different but not something new

I can't, however, develop to meet the needs of the site and the software going forward as I lack the skills

The core products of template, framework and ZT2 are excellent and deserve continued development going forward

Thanks, both of you for the nice words - I've tried to do my best with support requests as way of a unique selling point for the company compared to other template clubs but ultimately any business has to cover its costs

I am not ultimately the decision maker as the company is not owned by me so I can only hope that we can carry on in some form

If anybody wants to reach out to me I am on linkedIn under Paul Burndred - that would be the easiest way of finding / contacting me

Cheers
Paul

I’ve no doubt there needs to be more behind the scenes chats. The crowd funding idea is a starter. From a business perspective this is the best product and service joomla wise that exists so let’s hope there’s enough of a nucleus. You guys need to establish what you want first then what you need in terms of support skills and funds. Have your meeting then solicit the skills and support you need. Paul I think you underestimate your worth. Happy to contribute in any way. I’m more business model than technical. I’ll contact you via Linkedin but best of luck to all.

I have to agree. I have loved JoomlaBamboo and used them for years. However, I may be part of the problem as I purchased a Lifetime membership years ago. However, I will also understand if JoomlaBamboo finds themselves in a position where they can no longer support the Lifetime memberships. I am sure you can think of something to do to give the Lifetime members some number of years since their purchase date before they have to make the decision to purchase another type of plan from JoomlaBamboo.

I think that JoomlaBamboo struggled a bit because of the T3 Framework fiasco. However, I also know that there are other Frameworks that might be less problematic. I hope you might look at Helix. Removing the maintenance of the Framework from your plates could really help.

I also believe that you may have to delve into the world of Wordpress templates as well in order to generate more business.

If JoomlaBamboo folds it will be very disappointing because you folks had the cleanest templates with the nicest support.

Sean

paulus103 wrote:
You can say that again

Sean

Hi Sean,

I guess the next couple of weeks will see what future will have

I don't think any buyer would want to move to an alternate framework

To develop wordpress needs a sizable investment and we don't have that unfortunately

Thanks for your kind words

Cheers
Paul

Hi Paul

I think I would echo what other forum members have said. We decided to go with Joomlabamboo as we liked the simplicity of the template designs and the JB tools such as zen grid, zentools2 and JB Maps. And the support is, as we all know, outstanding.

I think we would prefer JB to concentrate on supporting Build.r, the Zen grid framework and existing key extensions and ensuring they all integrate securely with the Joomla core rather than bothering too much (or even at all) about new templates. After all we can design our own layouts using the existing tools.

If prices have to increase, and lifetime memberships converted to annual memberships then so be it, especially if the alternative is JB disappearing completely.

This may be simplistic but if JB work out how much is needed on an annual basis to continue to run the service, divide that by the current number of members, that will equal how much each level of subscription really needs to be. Then ask the members if they would be willing to pay that amount. If necessary charge extra for certain time consuming services. Aim primarily at the business to business market - developers and website owners who are willing to pay a premium price for a premium product. Ditch things that take up an inordinate amount of time, energy and resources for little or no return and concentrate totally on your core products whilst being open to the idea of developing into other related areas.

Making a Joomla template business work is obviously not easy these days. For example I believe GavickPro ran into problems last year and was sold to Joomlart.

Ultimately the owners of JB must decide how best to move forward as they are in receipt of all of the facts.

We really hope that JB continues...

Brian

I agree with Brian - don't waste time on templates. Get ZGF, ZT2, and Maps at full strength and market as a professional developer's toolkit. There are plenty of lookalike templates out there, and my clients come to me for one-a-kind solutions (like the *huge* one that is now building in beta, and is going to need its framework for 7 to 10 years).

when clients want a template, there's wordpress. If they want an *application,* it's Joomla x and my go-to is ZGF. Nothing else comes close.

Thanks, some great ideas/feedback and really helping me.

We have good stuff but at the moment we just don't have the income - I am trying my best to reach out to possible partners and see what they say.

Hi Everybody,

We have some good news coming up - I can't go into details unfortunately at this stage but we will be making an important announcement very soon

Cheers
Paul

As Blueshift might say, Crickets! (Although, I must admit I don't know if Crickets is good or bad.) I'm hoping good.

Definitely good for the future of the business

Sounds promising! Really pleased to hear you sounding more positive. Look forward to the announcement.
Jan

I'd love to make an announcement but I can't at this stage

but I'm super confident that we will survive and prosper going forward into 2018

Cheers
Paul

that are great news