An Update From Small Potato
The other day when I was checking my e-mail, I found a nice little surprise in my inbox from Tung Do, aka Small Potato, the previous owner of WPDesigner.com. He said he had just got back from Thailand, which was a fun and an eye opening experience.
He also mentioned he was disappointed with how WPDesigner turned out, and although the Themes Club is Pawel’s responsibility, if WPDesigner remains inactive and Pawel does nothing with the site until January 2009, he’ll personally refund the current paying members (only to the customers in his PayPal records). So if you’re worried about your $5, fear not.
What do you guys think is going to happen? Do you think Pawel will come back from the grave and bring WPDesigner back to life?
Mike
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Its a bummer the new guy ruined an awesome site. Its like he bought it just to get the revenue and not update it. Maybe wpcandy can take its place.
m@
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Who knows if the new guy is trying to get people to buy into the themes club or what, but it is disappointing to see a good site go down like that.
Josh Chesarek
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I joined the club simply for one theme and technically I felt the $5 was well spent on just the one. It will be nice if he refunds the money of the members who were expecting all 12 which is logical. He can keep my $5 and go buy a beer though. Its sad to see that the site has basically been abandoned.
liam
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
He mentioned hiring other people, Why not just Hire SP? That would be awesome! I think it was silly to take on a Site and spend that much money on it without thinking ahead.
Mark
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I’m with Liam - I reckon WPDesigner’s new owner should hire SP back on a handsome salary. Such a talent would pay off immediately, I’m sure! Welcome back SP
Nouman Saleem
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I don’t get why we need a refund. :/ I’m fine with what I received thus far.
Michael Castilla
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Well, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need a refund either. SP deserves a lot more than $5 for the amount of time and effort he’s put into the community.
As for those who say Pawel should hire SP, that sort of contradicts what SP’s plan was in the first place. I’m pretty sure he wanted to take a break from it all. Though if SP was down, it would be great
Ali Salem
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
This guy is great. I really like that he respects his deals even if 5$ mean nothing for the people who paid them.
Matt
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for the update, my dealings with WP he was nothing but a nice guy
DameryWorld
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
That is the price of business. It happens all the time in big business, I was hired by a company and then 2 months later I am in another company.
And I keep hearing that the $5 investment made by all was well worth it, if not a STEAL!
Brady Valentino
Posted on June 11th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
WPDesigner deserves better than Pawel.
dinu
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Only SP can save WPD from the current mess ……….
Jermayn Parker
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 12:32 am
The whole deal stunk in the first place with someone paying 65 odd k for a website. I guess unfortunately I was right when I said that the website would not be updated again.
I agree that SP was a great guy, he helped me once which I needed but WPDesigner is dead
Pasquale
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 12:35 am
That is an excellent mugshot.
Sumesh
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 12:40 am
This is worrying….I’ve not bought membership in the theme club, although SP offered me accounts to giveaway (that’d include one for me, obviously).
It is sad to see the site inactive, but I think we need to give Pawel more time. He said he’s a biz guy purchasing valuable websites, so he obviously can’t be stuck on Wpdesigner alone. But it wouldn’t have hurt to set up staff of writers and designers before moving on to another project (like Collis Taeed of Freelanceswitch.com and PSDTuts.com always does).
Jim Smith
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 2:12 am
What I don’t understand is why the new owner just didn’t ask the wp community/wpd followers for some guest posts or theme contributions in exchange for a link credit. This would’ve helped keep the site fresh while Pawel made all his planned changes. Instead all Pawel got was 290 comments…
It’s just a real shame:-(
Rajaie AlKorani
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Finally! An update from the grave, although the news doesn’t sound very promising.
Anto
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 9:10 am
This is what ive been waiting to hear. SP back at last.
To be honnest. SP would be better of to open up another site, such as wpdesigner and do the same with it. Fuck Pawel, no news from him, hes just lame.
SP, any thoughts of reopening andother project? or what? Give us a little info.
Michael Castilla
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 10:13 am
@Anto: Not to bum you out or anything, but I really don’t think SP is back or will be back anytime soon. He’s leaving to Vietnam in July to visit family and after that he’s not sure what’s he’s going to be doing.
Graeme Mac
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 11:32 am
There is probably small print in the deal with Pavel that SP can’t simply start another Wordpress site for XX months or X years.
I just don’t get why someone would invest that amount of cash and then not develop it to build a return. Doesn’t make sense to me.
Josh
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Good to see the diminutive, starchy, tuberous root vegetable is enjoying his travels.
Pawel is in rather a hard position, I think. If he tries to actually do anything with WPDesigner, there’ll be a barrage of angry people. Look at the obsessed folk leaving beastly comments on the WPDesigner “Introducing the new owner” posts.
I actually e-mailed Mr. Cizewski a while back, offering to do a guest post. No reply yet.
Epic Alex
Posted on June 12th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Well its good to hear from SP, even if it isn’t the best news.
Is still don’t get how someone can justify spending $65k on a site and then doing nothing with it. Its been like three months, and no one needs that much time to get some posts up.
@Graeme - Yeah, in one of the posts somewhere, SP mentioned that he has agreed not to start a rival site.
Bram
Posted on June 13th, 2008 at 5:17 am
I sure do hope so. Seeing as the sites simply dead atm.
Kip0130
Posted on June 13th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Finally we hear something. If WPdesigner doesn’t step to the plate again
WPcandy is the next best thing if not the best already.
Nika
Posted on June 13th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
I doubt WPDesigner will come back to life since like what other said, its been a few months since the sites last post. I really enjoyed WPDesigner back when SP was handling it since his articles are really informative especially the ones that help people learn how to make their own wordpress themes. I loved his themes as well and I joined the theme club too.
I’d hate to see the site go down especially since the new owner paid 65k for it. That’s quite a lot of investment that will just go down the drain.
Peter
Posted on June 14th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Nice to hear Small Potato is still kicking around. Pawel could have just turned over the site completely to guest posters and still maintained readership — that’s how well Small Potato had developed the site.
Katy Castro
Posted on June 14th, 2008 at 3:12 am
I most agree with Peter, the site could have lived if Pawel would have just put up a few themes and some guest posers. I couldn’t imagine investing that much money and just letting it die. And because it has, I’m done with it.
Happy to hear SP is doing well but as far as the refund goes, $5 was nothing for the 4 themes I got with the club and the dozen or so more he gave away for free. Frankly, I think anyone could see the value for the $5 and he shouldn’t have to hand anyone their money.
PSD to HTML
Posted on June 14th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Good to see a reply, but what im really pissed with is, that SP was very hypocritical with a few comments. He said he would make sure he would sell it to the right person, with the right knowledge and determination yet this happened. He clearly expressed it in his comments and through PM.
Damn.
Ehab
Posted on June 14th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
He should buy back WPDesigner.com : )
Ofcourse. thats not gonna happen. He would be starting off another startup service pretty soon. And it would sale, why not ? Who doesn’t like free themes
Luke
Posted on June 15th, 2008 at 2:16 am
If the new owner is genuinely a good guy he should make just a bit more noise, I tend to feel uncomfortable in these situations where a website changes hands, so I start to question their motives if nothing happens.
I’m glad he at least has a face picture on his first post, his not faceless.
But, to be honest, if he doesn’t soon say something further I’ll start to be concerned about what I can’t immediately see such as the potential for malicious code/bugs being hidden in this popular website like in dodgy forum sites.
Mindy Koch
Posted on June 18th, 2008 at 1:17 am
I have several blogs with Small Potato’s designs. I love them. I would love to see more in the future. His pride theme is one of my absolute favorites. I hope he develops more whether from wpdesigner or a new site that he creates.
Jenny
Posted on June 23rd, 2008 at 2:07 am
I’d say that site is pretty much dead.
EmmaB
Posted on July 12th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Did anyone ever stop to think that Pawel might be DEAD??
I have, I mean where the hell is he?
At least we got an update on our favorite small potato :p
jez
Posted on July 15th, 2008 at 6:09 am
really sad to see pawel do “feck at all” - from an economic point of view he is flushing down the green bills every day.
Mixedbrains
Posted on July 23rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Good to hear from him. I don’t care about the $5. Just sad to see the site go to waste. I still wonder if this Pavel guy is an imaginary figure? Also, let him know the forum is filled with s [pam].
Also, check out the latest woothemes ad. I know adii and Tung had a falling out but kind of a low blow. Might be a good post.
http://mixedbrains.typepad.com/photos/new/woo.jpg