Artbees 2018 in Review
Nine years after Artbees started in an abandoned apartment basement, the team launched new products and released countless updates, resulting in new milestones and exceptional growth for the company!
You may have already seen enough of Year In Review posts in the last days of 2018, so we thought it’s better to keep ours for early January when you’re back afresh from the holidays.
This post highlights what Artbees has done in 2018 and recollects how we reached our achievements and milestones.
Jupiter X
Probably our biggest news in 2018 was the release of Jupiter X, the most capable and customizable remake of the Jupiter WP theme yet.
Well, listing all the powerful features that Jupiter X offers would definitely not fit in a single blog post, let alone a short paragraph. Suffice it to say, Jupiter X is going to be a game changer with its very new page builder, Elementor. Just imagine that you have limitless control on every single aspect of every element and the ability to customize everything within a smooth user experience. All that would be possible with Elementor.
You now can build a unique header and footer with header and footer builder, customize every bit of your WooCommerce shop through the Shop Customizer, revamp the look of your blog and portfolio list, enjoy the ready-made block templates and get inspired to kick off your website, to name a few. If you want to step into the future of WordPress themes, Jupiter X can take you there — just dream and create!
To see for yourself the unimaginable freedom and power Jupiter X gives you, please visit this link.
GrowFlow
It was in November that, along with our attendance at the Web Summit 2018, we introduced our very young product, GrowFlow, that just like Jupiter X for WordPress themes, is the future of Marketing. It basically personalizes marketing solutions for each and every user. The best thing about it is that it’s “intelligent”! Yes, Artbees stepped into the growing and exciting world of AI and machine learning to make marketing easier for everyone, not just marketers. GrowFlow constantly monitors users’ behaviour and provides intelligent suggestions accordingly.
GrowFlow is in its very first steps, it is evolving as AI does, but it’ll soon take you away from the mass marketing giant, and instead offers you the tailored marketing solutions in the most efficient and intelligent way, and makes sure you are not left behind halfway. GrowFlow is not released for public yet and we are planning to send beta access invitation in early 2019.
To read about our official announcement of GrowFlow, please visit this link.
A Community of 132000 Users, Yay!
We’re proud to announce that the number of our users has grown by 20% from 2017. And to be exact, we are now a family of 132,206 members who trust and support us to this day. Shout out to our great Artbees family, and way to go!
Agencies and Businesses Run by Artbees Themes
Nothing is better than watching the result of your hard work powering websites and fueling up businesses all around the world. 2018 was again a year of dreams and creations! Here are some statistics to get a better idea:
- 1 agency made 100 websites using Artbees Themes.
- 131 agencies each made more than 5 websites using Artbees Themes.
- 40 agencies each made more than 10 websites using Artbees Themes.
- 4 agencies each made 50 websites using Artbees Themes.
More and more awesome websites will come to life in 2019, cheers to that!
Artbees in WordCamp Europe 2018
2018 was the year of social presence and our reunion with the great community of WordPress. We managed to attend a couple of WordCamps around the world, the first of which was the WordCamp Europe happening in Belgrade, Serbia. Needless to say that we were lucky enough to be among 2000+ developers, designers, freelancers, entrepreneurs, speakers and experts who had one thing in common — passion for WordPress.
n the upcoming days, we were running from isle to isle and moving from workshops to talks to get the most out of the event. The entire WordCamp was somehow revolving around WordPress’s new editor, Gutenberg, and its capabilities, as well as GDPR. Matt Mullenweg had a keynote speech about that and the state of WordPress.
We managed to attend many exciting talks and workshops such as, “Mastering Feedback by Davide Casali”, which was simply about how we can master at giving and getting good feedback, “Making Websites Talk by Andrea Volpini” of wordlift.com which was mainly about the importance of the intelligent content on AI and machine learning application, and “Technical SEO to Grow Your WordPress Business by Yoast founder Joost de Valk”.
We also had a chance to engage in warm chats with some of the best in the market during the event and in after-parties, like the guys from Envato, Freemius, Elementor and many more. We learned a lot and met with a lot of fabulous people in this WordCamp, and cannot wait to attend WordCamp Europe 2019 in Berlin.
Artbees in WordCamp Milano 2018
Our second WordCamp experience happened in the charming city of Milan. Along with other factors that get us excited every time before attending WordCamps, this event was special in another way because we were lucky enough to sponsor a WordCamp event for the first time as Bronze-tier sponsor. Jupiter X was also presented to the great Italian community of WordPress.
One thing we’re sure about WordCamp Milano is that it had the best Contributor’s Day among all our WordCamp experiences. In a blog post, Maziar, one of our representatives, wrote about the insights and the reasons why he thought contribution day at WordCamp Milano was so special and how it changed his mind on voluntary work.
At this very special day and the days forward, Artbees had the chance to meet with guys from Yithemes, who run some of the most successful WooCommerce plugins in the market. We also met with Raffaella Isidori, an expert designer and passionate speaker, who shared some valuable tips and insights on the topic Maziar was going to speak about in our next WordCamp.
As always, we learned, shared, contributed, networked and strengthened our bonds with the great community of WordPress and came back excited for the upcoming WordCamps, this time in Greece.
Artbees in WordCamp Thessaloniki 2018
The last WordCamp we attended in 2018 was a local one in the beautiful city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Well, it was our last chance to contribute to WordPress and follow the culture of giving which is the spirit of all WordCamps, local or continental. Saying that, we had the pleasure of sponsoring the event with our brand new Jupiter X for the second time.
Along with the sponsoring opportunity, Artbees had the pleasure to present in one of the talks. Maziar Firuzmand talked about a less covered topic “WordPress and The Problem of Diversity”, as part of a company dealing with this problem all the time. He gathered quite a positive response from the much diverse community of WordPress. Maziar also joined a panel discussion about Gutenberg and shared ideas, suggestions and community concerns together with other guests. Full videos of both sessions will soon be available on wordpress.tv.
Like all other WordCamps we were really happy to be able to meet with fellow developers, designers, marketers, and WordPress-based agencies in Greece and will definitely plan to go back soon, hopefully for WordCamp Europe 2020 in Athens this time. You can read our full travelogue of this WordCamp here.
Artbees Got Even More Diverse
Artbees family has grown and got even more diverse during 2018. Right now there are 32 bees all around the world working hard hand in hand to make great products and to support our valuable community. Bees from many countries around the globe like Philippines, Ukraine, Colombia, India, Turkey, Nepal, Russia, and Canada bring together their unique cultures and languages along with their professionality to make Artbees a great example of a diverse WordPress family.
We are inexplicably grateful for every single member of our squad and will look forward to work with more peers from other parts of the world.
Audience and Users from Different Countries
In 2018 we again were rewarded with our users’ trust from all around the world. Receiving feedbacks, positive and negative, has made us work even harder to fulfill the users' needs and to deliver the support they deserve.
Just like 2017, our reports show that our biggest community is in the US, with Germany and the Netherlands in the second and third row. A big shout out to our people in these and other countries. We will keep striving to make greater products and to walk the long way to flourish our young products together with you.
Happy Creating in 2019!
None of these milestones, objectives or achievements would be possible without the valuable community of people who use Artbees themes to create great websites or products. We are honored to be part of many ventures and businesses who use Artbees products to build and run and we can’t wait to see what our community will come up within 2019!
Originally published at Artbees Themes Blog on January 11, 2019.