Envato
| Envato | |
|---|---|
| legal form | |
| founding | 2006 |
| Seat | Melbourne, Australia |
| management | Collis Ta'eed |
| Number of employees | 260 |
| Branch | Internet, web design, web development |
| Website | http://www.envato.com |
Envato (originally: Eden) is a network consisting of digital markets that sell components for creative professions such as graphic design , web design and video production. Website templates, graphics, videos, music / sound effects, as well as photos and 3D models are offered on the online platform. According to its own information, Envato had around 7 million community members in 2016. The most active market “Themeforest” is (as of April 2018), according to the analysis and statistics company Alexa, the 570th most visited Internet site worldwide.
Envato was founded in 2006 by Collie Ta'eed, Cyan Claire and Jun Rund. The head office is in Melbourne, Australia.
history
Collis Ta'eed, Cyan Ta'eed and Jun Rung founded Envato in 2006 in Sydney, Australia. The company started out as a lifestyle business that should enable the founders to combine work and travel. Contrary to the expectations and ideas of the founders, the network grew in the course of the growing technology sector.
The company currently employs over 250 people, mainly at the company's headquarters in Melbourne.
Ta'eed grew up in Papua New Guinea and moved to Australia to study mathematics and computer science. Even at high school, Ta'eed was friends with the design student Jun Rung, who introduced him to graphic and media work. Ta'eed quickly developed a new passion and dropped out of math and computer science studies. Ta'eed learned graphic design self-taught through online courses, magazines and specialist literature - an experience that would later become the inspiration for the development of Envato's online learning service "Tuts +".
Collis Ta'eed took up a position as a web designer, where she met Cyan Ta'eed, a graphic designer and later co-founder of Envato. Both married. Collis Ta'eed started selling Flash files on the iStockPhoto platform, making about $ 400 a month. Inspired by this experience, Ta'eed developed the idea of FlashDen, an online market for Flash files. FlashDen was the first of the eight stores that later belonged to Envato. However, FlashDen was renamed ActiveDen in 2009 after a trademark claim by Adobe.
Since the founding members lacked any experience in web development, a developer was commissioned to set up the FlashDen platform. The company cost a total of $ 90,000 to start up, funded by bank loans, family and sponsorship funds. The first company headquarters was the garage of Cyan Ta'eed's parents. Envato has described itself as down-to-earth since it was founded, given the numerous rejected takeover bids from other companies.
FlashDen was released in 2006. In 2007, Vahid Ta'eed, Collis Ta'eed's brother, joined the Envato team as the fourth member. That same year, Envato started publishing Psdtuts +, a website for Photoshop tutorials, and FreelanceSwitch, a blog for freelancers. 2008 is the starting year of the Themeforest platforms, an online marketplace for web design templates and so-called themes, and Audiojungle, an online archive for audio material. A year later, the VideoHive platform was followed by a sales site for video material and moving images, while Envato expanded the range of graphics and print templates on the GraphicRiver platform. After traveling several times, Collis and Cyan Ta'eed finally settled in Melbourne, Australia in 2010 to work with the Envato development team there. In the same year, Envato published the CodeCanyon platform, which offers programming scripts and web extensions. In 2011, the platform network was expanded to include PhotoDune, an online marketplace for photos and images, and the 3dOcean website, a sales site for 3D models and elements.
Since Psdtuts + in 2007, over 18,000 free tutorials on graphic design, web design, image design, programming, music, audio, photography, (3D) animation, game development, EDP, DIY and business models have been published on Tuts +. Envato has been offering a monthly subscription since 2011, which gives access to numerous explanatory videos and ebooks.
In 2013, Envato launched Microlancer, a platform through which users can order offers such as logo design, graphic design or Wordpress themes for flat rates. In 2014 the platform was renamed Envato Studio.
The Envato network
The Envato network consists of the Envato Market, Envato Studio, Envato Tuts +, Envato Sites and Envato Elements platforms.
Envato Market
Envato Market offers digital media for use in creative projects. The range now includes over eight million digital products that are created by a global network of over six million graphic designers, developers, photographers, designers and video producers and sold on the following dedicated marketplaces:
ThemeForest
At ThemeForest, visitors can find so-called themes and website templates for several CMS systems, including Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and Magnet. In August 2014, the themeforest.net domain was among the top 100 most visited websites in the world for Alexa . The Avada theme broke the 100,000 sales mark in December, making it the best-selling template to date.
Codecanyon
CodeCanyon distributes plugins, scripts and code for platforms and operating systems such as WordPress, HTML5, PHP, JavaScript, Bootstrap, iOS and Android.
VideoHive
VideoHive sells so-called stock footage, videos, moving images, animations, templates for After Effects and Apple Motion and is aimed at video production.
AudioJungle
The AudioJungle marketplace contains music and sound effects for film, game, trailer, web, advertising and radio projects.
GraphicRiver
Graphicriver offers graphics, illustrations, icons and templates for flyers, posters, magazines, banners and slide presentations.
PhotoDune
While GraphicRiver is dedicated to computer-generated images, PhotoDune offers photos from the fields of technology, business, food, travel and fitness, among others.
3DOcean
3DOcean offers three-dimensional models, textures, backgrounds, layers and plugins for the video game and animation industry.
ActiveDen
Flash files and animations were sold on ActiveDen until the end of 2015. On September 21, 2015, Envato announced that it would discontinue the ActiveDen service (formerly FlashDen) and thus the network's first marketplace.
Envato Tuts +
Envato Tuts + offers online courses and tutorial videos for web development, design, composition, photography, video and music production and other multimedia areas. Since its inception, the platform claims to have helped over two hundred and fifty million students.
Envato Studio
Envato Studio is an online marketplace for digital services. It was introduced in April 2013 under the name Microlancer and renamed Envato Studio a year later. The platform provides services such as logo design, company and online marketing, WordPress, graphic design, video production, animation, eCommerce and CMS development, app development, website creation and programming. Freelance authors publish basic prices, scope and creation time for the services they offer.
Envato Sites
Envato Sites was released as beta in November 2015. It is a so-called website builder that uses templates from Envato Market authors.
Envato Elements
Envato Elements is a marketplace that provides subscribed agencies, designers and graphic artists with tools and materials for their work. Among other things, fonts, graphics, website and CMS templates are offered. Envato Elements was first referred to on November 4, 2015 in a forum entry entitled A New Opportunity for GraphicRiver authors . The platform was released on December 23 of the same year.
Envato hosted
Envato Hosted is a service that allows users - for a monthly or annual fee - to define a special " theme look ", where "look" means the respective industrial sector, for example "restaurant theme". This gives even inexperienced users a theme tailored to their corporate area. Envato Hosted is an "all-in-one" service. In addition to the theme, hosting, domain reservation, support, server relocation, theme installation, automated backups and a reduction of 10% on products from Envato Studio are also offered.
Envato Hosted was introduced in November 2016 with a manageable number of themes, but has grown quickly. In June 2017, Envato Hosted introduced a new categorization process in which more than thirty premium authors for WordPress themes participate.
Envato Elements has been nicknamed "Netflix for Designers" several times because - similar to the streaming service - it offers an unlimited number of elements for a subscription and advocates fair compensation for the designers.
Reputation and distinction
In 2014, the reviews agency JobAdvisor named Envato "Australia's coolest tech company". In 2015, Envato was in twelfth position in the "BRW Best Places to Study" ranking.
Approximately one third of Envato's employees work outside of Melbourne’s corporate headquarters. Employees can work anywhere in the world for up to three months under flexible employment contracts.
Envato has financially participated in several open source and closed source projects, including Glotpress, Ghost, Macaw, Rails.app, Pressgram and Aesop.
Envato was one of the first Australian companies to ease recruitment requirements for technical professions for female applicants. In November 2015, Envato was named "Coolest Company for Women" by JobAdvisor.
Founding member Cyan Ta'eed was named Telstra Victoria Business Woman of the Year in 2015 and named one of the 100 Most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review .
2016 Envato came third in the Australian and New Zealand competition "Tech Pioneers Top 50" and named "Coolest Australian Diversity Company".
criticism
The reputation of online marketplaces like Envato and its competitors is controversial. Although the platforms invite you to browse with their abundance of themes, templates and products adorned with appealing cover photos, it is precisely this strategy that is criticized by some. The blogger Claudio Schwarz, for example, criticizes the "feature arms race" between theme authors on the Themeforest platform. The authors implement several plugins and functions for certain features. Schwarz mentions the function of the slider in his article "More is not more". Some themes provided five plugins with different handling and functions. This then only serves to enlarge the "function list" on the sales page. In everyday use, however, the complexity causes excessive demands on the end user, as these are often users who are tempted to buy by the supposed simplicity of the Wordpress CMS and the attractiveness of the preview versions of the themes. Although Envato has taken a first step towards the same terms of use for themes with general guidelines for theme programming, Schwarz still sees a problem in the arms race with unnecessary features and functions.
Envato caused confusion in mid-2016 with a comprehensive change to the license environment. Before this change, end users had unlimited access to support and help from the theme and plugin authors. And this is exactly where the disadvantage of "cheap marketplaces", as David Keulert calls Envato and similar platforms, became noticeable. Because changing demo versions of themes and plugins according to the wishes of the end user is usually a lengthy process, since all factors are coordinated on the demo pages. In addition, the image material used in the demo versions is often not supplied with the purchased product for licensing reasons and the user increasingly loses himself when adapting the themes. According to Keulert, this leads to increased support inquiries from the topic authors, who for their part feel overwhelmed with the problems, as they are already devoting themselves to further product developments. This leads to the orphaning of numerous themes and plugins that are simply no longer updated and maintained or even withdrawn from sale entirely. Envato tried to counteract this orphanage with a license change by limiting the support period when purchasing a theme to six months by default. After that, users must purchase a six to twelve month extension. Envato tries on the one hand to make the maintenance of themes and plugins more attractive for the authors, but on the other hand limits the possibility for end users to contact the developers if they have problems or questions. This limitation has been discussed by the Envato community. The latter is still partly understanding, partly critical and indignant.
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://envato.com/blog/about/
- ↑ https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/themeforest.net
- ↑ The History of Envato - Fuel Themes . In: Fuel Themes . October 21, 2015 ( fuelthemes.net [accessed September 8, 2017]).
- ↑ Envato newsroom. Retrieved September 8, 2017 .
- ↑ More is not more - the feature arms race on Themeforest . In: claudioschwarz.com . July 19, 2013 ( claudioschwarz.com [accessed September 8, 2017]).
- ↑ Envato: WordPress plugins and themes now with support period. Retrieved September 8, 2017 .