Featured Author: Meet Opal_WP

“It all started with just 10 single men with a passion for technology and a desire to escape from the poorness. We gathered as a group and spent all the time working together on codes, websites and accidentally fell in love with this job.”

OpalWP

Our latest interview features the cool kids at Opal_WP based in Vietnam! Get to know their learnings, experiences and tips as a Power Elite Author specializing in WordPress themes and what they believe is the secret to their success.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

We are a group of young, active members who love to explore and share our passion for website development. The core business focuses on WordPress Themes, mostly published on ThemeForest. Our career goal is to utilize this creativity to best create websites for our customers, thereby building our brand not only in Vietnam but also in the international market.

To what do you attribute your success – how is your business unique?

We started working on website development in 2014, and now we have officially reached the goal of becoming an Envato Power Elite author. All our efforts in the past 4 years have come to fruition, and we are so proud of it!

In general, we believe we are like other brands working in WordPress with the utmost dedication but we also think that we have some unique factors that no one has. So we will reveal them in later sharing soon…

What do you love about your work and why?

It all started with just 10 single men with a passion for technology and the desire to escape from poorness. We gathered as a group and spent all the time working together on codes, websites and accidentally fell in love with this job.

In the beginning, there were many different failures but no one was discouraged and continued to move forward. We spent time researching and exploring some interesting elements of sweet codes.

After that, we started to make clear plans and set the target for each month. Things went smoother and our sales increased dramatically. Becoming Envato’s Power Elite Author definitely is a breakthrough in our careers and worth all our sweat and tears.

What’s the most challenging thing about your work?

Beginning with nothing was most challenging – our work had lots of difficulties with limited knowledge and poor English at the start. All of us had to urge ourselves to constantly learn about codes, html, css, learn how to create a program from the simple to complex. All of what we learned came from the Internet and our successful friends.

Themes moved from the very simple and ugly to multi-functional with beautiful effects. Sometimes, we had the chance to make some improvements to our plan before going ahead, but we lacked in budget. We were just only working all the time to save money to buy more apps, more plugin licenses, etc.

Is where you live a good place to be a creative professional and why?

It’s known that not all entrepreneurs start with goals around grandiose riches; but in the case of us, a developers group from Vietnam – a developing Asian country, we had big goals from the start.

At the time that we started our business in 2014, we did not have access to good conditions and opportunities for growth because Vietnam is quite poor, especially in the countryside where we are. The budget is limited, so modern equipment such as computers, laptops, smartphones, etc are luxury items that we struggled to buy. Moreover, young people are also less likely to study Web programming for reasons such as lack of money to purchase equipment, no perseverance in the IT industry, etc.

What or who inspires you and why?

We are inspired by each other, our teammates and other wonderful developers. In terms of coworking, the most important factor is to always hear and share with each other to help everyone be better.

We are a family with different personalities and that usually sits together in every place they go to – whether it’s in the office, dining room or at home. This is so we can share knowledge, happiness, and worries and get over them together. Wherever we are, we are always willing to give and take, and lend our ears.

One of the most interesting things worth considering about our dynamic at a team is that we spend so much time together and are so busy, that we do not have much time to get to know the ladies, which leads to the fact that some members of our team are still not married yet!

Fashion – WooCommerce Responsive WordPress Theme

Who is your favorite marketplace author, and why?

We really like Themelexus because of their supportive spirit in work.

What are some of the biggest lessons that have impacted your work?

If you do not persevere and be patient, you will not be able to succeed. Designing for the web is extremely difficult and requires perfection to every detail. There are so many errors in web that you may spend all day finding out but to no result, so it’s important to remember not to hurry.

Try to add a little more time and focus on it. When you are scolded by another person for your inattention, do not give up because when they point out your faults, it means that they are helping to perfect your deficiencies and absolutely you should thank them. For us, our meetings are always stressful, we keep going until the problem is resolved.

What’s your most memorable client/customer story on Envato?

In the first days of starting our business, we had a client from America who wanted to find the best minimal & multipurpose theme to start his e-commerce business and he bought one of our themes. At that time, we were still working through the bugs in our products, so this affected the quality of our items.

Surprisingly, the he didn’t just ask for refund, but also proposed ways to correct and complete the theme with us. He also advised us on some good plugins that the US devs use. We wondered why he bought he did not make the theme by himself when he knew so much about it. The answer was that they lacked the team, but even to this day, he has become our loyal customer and an advisor for us. That has been the most memorable client in our career.

What is your advice to other authors regarding how to create a successful portfolio?

  • Do as much research as possible and self-study.
  • Persevere and be patient.
  • Facilitate hearing and sharing practices.
Pharmacy WooCommerce WordPress Responsive Theme

How do you balance work and family life?

After a hard working day, we usually spend the time left of our day with our family – hanging out together for dinner, visiting our parents, meeting our friends and for our single members, going on a date!

What are your hobbies and interests outside of work?

We are crazy about playing games, especially the Age of Empires. On our break time, we usually into divide teams and enjoy it together!

What are your plans for the future?

We still work on WordPress Themes and have joined more advanced courses for developers to enhance and update their skills and keep updated with the latest developments in technology.

Hopefully, this will help us continue on our path to reaching an even higher Elite author level in the future!

You can view Opal_WP’s full portfolio here. If you have any questions, want to continue the conversation, jump over to the forums and say hello!

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