In this episode, we talk to Barry Kooij about building your own products vs. working for a company, delivering quality customer support as a solo developer, and the benefits of the plugin extension model.

The Core

* Barry Kooij from the Netherlands, develops and sells his premium plugins on Never5
* Organizer of WordCamp Netherlands
* Used to work for WooThemes (on WooCommerce)
* Left to focus on his own projects when WooThemes was acquired by Automattic
* 4 premium products:

* Related Posts for WordPress - caches related posts, works with custom post types
* Download Manager - monitors file downloads, uses the extension model
* Post Connector - connects post types to each other
* WP Car Manager - for managing vehicles

* Handles everything himself, with remarkably fast support response times
* 70-80% of sales come via wordpress.org or the free plugins
* Benefits of extension model (Download Monitor)

* Can add features without cluttering the original product
* Easier to get repeat customers with cross-sells and upsells
* Lower barrier to entry - easier to sell multiple small extensions than a big one
* People may feel like they are paying for more features than they are using

* Website: http://www.never5.com
* Twitter: @CageNL