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?
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Posted June 11, 2008
Mike said:
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.
on June 11, 2008 at 6:58 pm
m@ said:
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.
on June 11, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Josh Chesarek said:
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.
on June 11, 2008 at 7:32 pm
liam said:
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.
on June 11, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Mark said:
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
on June 11, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Nouman Saleem said:
I don’t get why we need a refund. :/ I’m fine with what I received thus far.
on June 11, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Michael Castilla said:
Well, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we need a refund either. SP deserves a lot more than $5 for the amount of time and effort he’s put into the community.
As for those who say Pawel should hire SP, that sort of contradicts what SP’s plan was in the first place. I’m pretty sure he wanted to take a break from it all. Though if SP was down, it would be great
on June 11, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Ali Salem said:
This guy is great. I really like that he respects his deals even if 5$ mean nothing for the people who paid them.
on June 11, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Matt said:
Thanks for the update, my dealings with WP he was nothing but a nice guy
on June 11, 2008 at 9:07 pm
DameryWorld said:
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!
on June 11, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Brady Valentino said:
WPDesigner deserves better than Pawel.
on June 11, 2008 at 10:18 pm
dinu said:
Only SP can save WPD from the current mess ……….
on June 12, 2008 at 12:15 am
Jermayn Parker said:
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
on June 12, 2008 at 12:32 am
Pasquale said:
That is an excellent mugshot.
on June 12, 2008 at 12:35 am
Sumesh said:
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).
on June 12, 2008 at 12:40 am
Jim Smith said:
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:-(
on June 12, 2008 at 2:12 am
Rajaie AlKorani said:
Finally! An update from the grave, although the news doesn’t sound very promising.
on June 12, 2008 at 7:15 am
Anto said:
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.
on June 12, 2008 at 9:10 am
Michael Castilla said:
@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.
on June 12, 2008 at 10:13 am
Graeme Mac said:
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.
on June 12, 2008 at 11:32 am
Josh said:
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.
on June 12, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Epic Alex said:
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.
on June 12, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Bram said:
I sure do hope so. Seeing as the sites simply dead atm.
on June 13, 2008 at 5:17 am
Kip0130 said:
Finally we hear something. If WPdesigner doesn’t step to the plate again
WPcandy is the next best thing if not the best already.
on June 13, 2008 at 9:01 am
Nika said:
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.
on June 13, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Peter said:
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.
on June 14, 2008 at 2:33 am
Katy Castro said:
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.
on June 14, 2008 at 3:12 am
PSD to HTML said:
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.
on June 14, 2008 at 6:50 am
Ehab said:
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
on June 14, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Luke said:
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.
on June 15, 2008 at 2:16 am
Mindy Koch said:
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.
on June 18, 2008 at 1:17 am
Jenny said:
I’d say that site is pretty much dead.
on June 23, 2008 at 2:07 am
EmmaB said:
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
on July 12, 2008 at 10:18 am
jez said:
really sad to see pawel do “feck at all” – from an economic point of view he is flushing down the green bills every day.
on July 15, 2008 at 6:09 am
Mixedbrains said:
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
on July 23, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Hector A. Henry S. said:
Hi what its the plan of small right know whit web pages? are he online in any new page?
on October 3, 2008 at 12:57 pm