2024 has been a year that reflects many changes for me personally and professionally. Being a kind of solopreneur, a part of Khoja Nepal, going for regular workout in Tokha, launching Nepal Payments Hub & Pro versions of WPForce Logout, WP Frontend Delete Account, Mini Plugins, Mardi Himal Trek, and several noticeable things that I hadn’t experienced before.
On January 6th, near Chandragiri.
On January 13th I got the first sale for Himalayan Bank For WooCommerce Plugin via Freemius for $19. The first monetization from the product after the Customer Journey plugin in CodeCanyon.
There were a total of 3 sales for the Himalayan Bank WordPress plugin in January.
In AAWP – the plugin I work for, we released 3.32.0 on 29th January which included the Site Stripe Migration feature.
In February, it was all about the short but unforgettable 3-day trip to Thailand with my wife, cousin & his wife. From the thrill of the coral islands to dinner in Bankok, every moment was a perfect balance of adventure and relaxation. The trip may have been brief, but the experiences left lasting memories.
On February, there were 3 more sales of Himalayan Bank WooCommerce plugin via Freemius. At this point, I thought, it would be a nice idea to move the Himalayan Bank WooCommerce plugin to a professional website rather than selling on the personal blog. With this thought, I launched Nepal Payments Hub on 21 February.
However, there were not so many traffic coming to the site and couldn’t find the contents to write for, So, I didn’t migrate the blog posts written for Himalayan Bank WordPress plugin to Nepal Payments Hub.
Starting in March, I had an idea of making the paid version of the WP Frontend Delete Account plugin and selling it via Freemius. Up until this point, I was familiar with Freemius because we integrated it in AAWP and also in the Himalayan Bank plugin.
Also, inspired by the article Why Free WordPress Plugins are Bad for Everyone, I launched the Pro version in March with two new features to the Free version:
- Exclude User Roles
- Customize “wpf-delete-account” endpoint.
There were 6 Sales with Earnings of $118. However, there was one 1-star review on WordPress.org for the plugin which says Freemius Sucks!
I don’t mind if you add paid features or not, but Freemius is really sucks, they are information traffickers, I would never install plugins working with them. Your plugin has been working well, but now I’m going to remove it and look for a replacement.
I spent around Rs. 1200 on Facebook Ads for the Himalayan Bank plugin which didn’t help much in conversion.
April is Nepali New Year. We went to Chitlang, and Om Adhaya Retreat Resort in Tistung.
Coming back from this little vacation, I immediately launched the Pro version of WPForce Logout, with features such as Idle User Logout, Logout on browser close etc. With this, there were 5 sales of the WPForce Logout plugin, 8 of the WP Frontend Delete Account plugin, and 1 of the Himalayan Bank Payment For WooCommerce plugin. At this point, I sensed that I could monetize from plugins.
I still sell the plugins from my personal (this) site.
I’ve also been to Butwal at this month of time.
May the force be with you!
May 1st is my 2nd anniversary at fdmedia. At AAWP, we released version 3.40.2 – which highlighted the addition of PHP translation files for improved performance.
My other plugins sales kept going, not so rapidly but steadily.
Himalayan Bank – 3 sales
WP Frontend Delete Account – 1 sale
WC Auto Delete Old Orders – 2 sales
WPForce Logout – 4 sales
June happened to be my eventual month. I launched miniplugins.com 🎉– and started selling all my plugins (except Himalayan Bank) from this site. Mini Plugins with the focus of selling small but impactful tools for WordPress. From this month, Mini Plugins has become the brand. I no longer sell plugins from this site. I started redirecting all plugin pages from this site to Mini Plugins. In June, I had:
WPForce Logout – 5 sales
WP Frontend Delete Account – 1 sale
June is also my wedding anniversary. We went to Sukute Beach! – a really nice place to visit in Summer if you’re around Kathmandu.
A glimpse.
In June, I also become more proactive in physical activities like playing badminton in Bhutkhel, Tokha, Calisthenics exercises, and more. I could hardly do 1 pull-up, though. 😂
Also, I started doing some investment in Stock in June.
In July, I was busy polishing Mini Plugins and other of my own stuffs. There were 6 sales across all plugins with the gross of $234. More investments in Stock, more exercises in Tokha, and more focus and building small tools that provide huge impact – Mini Plugins.
August 20, my birthday – but didn’t happen much. Going to Tokha has been a regular at this time. We also went to the NADA Auto Show 2024!
Mini Plugins had 5 sales with a gross of $175. At this month, I got the chargeback of $59 – lost dispute.
Few random things happened in September. We went to a WordPress meetup in Kathmandu, Stuck in the rain near ATM.
At Mini Plugins, we had 8 sales in September.
WP Frontend Delete Account – 3 sales.
WPForce Logout – 5 sales.
October – month of festival. Dashain, one of the greatest festivals of hindus, Tihar – another greatest festival. Lots of happenings this month. 9th was my wife‘s birthday. On 10th, we went for a short family trip.
12th October was the Dashain. The festival commemorates the victory of good over evil. On this day, we put tika from our elders. Tika is made of rice, yogurt, and red powder. Put on the foreheads of younger family members as a blessing for good health, happiness, and success. Along with the tika, elders also give jamara (yellowish barley grass) and sometimes money as a gift. Families come together, visit relatives, and celebrate with food and joy.
We receive Tika from our elders at Home in Kathmandu, and went to Palpa – in law’s home. Palpa isn’t the urban city like Kathmandu, and we’re going to the village through rough countryside roads.
The road in Palpa:
In October, we also had the most awaited Mardi Himal Trek. I took the vacation for 3 weeks.
I’ll summarize the Mardi Himal Trek and add some photos.
Day 1: Prasanna, Neetika, and I went from Kathmandu driving my own car to Pokhara, where we met Kshitiz, Abishma, Prem and Sandesh.
Day 2: We began our trek and spent the night a Forest Camp.
Day 3: We hiked to High Camp, passing through the stunning Badal Danda, and stayed there for the night.
Day 4: In the morning, we went to see a Sunrise through the Machhapuchre Himal at Mardi Himal View Point. We also experience snowfall in the view point. Turns out to be everbody’s first snowfall experience. We came back to Pokhara, the same day – hurriedly.
Day 5: Taking breakfast, we went to Begnas lake in Pokhara and head towards our next mini destination – Bandipur.
Day 6: We’re back to Kathmandu from the Galchi, Nuwakot route.
Here’s the glimpse of the trek:
We came back to Kathmandu and then soon the another festival – Tihar started. Tihar, also known as Deepawali, is a five-day Hindu festival celebrated in Nepal. It is the festival of lights, honoring animals like crows, dogs, and cows, as well as the goddess Laxmi, the deity of wealth. The final day, Bhai Tika, strengthens the bond between brothers and sisters with tika, garlands, and blessings. Most of the days we play cards.
That’s how festivals went in October.
At Mini Plugins, there were 4 sales with a gross of $316. One customer bought a lifetime, unlimited sites WPForce Logout plugin for $117 which boosted up the total payment I received.
November was a disappointing month in terms of Mini Plugins & sales. Usually, November should see the highest sales due to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the promotions. Though I haven’t put much effort into marketing, the plugin sales dipped to a low of net $91.31 not even exceeding the threshold of $100 to withdraw.
There was only one customer using the Black Friday discount coupon.
After all the travel in October, we had to go to Pokhara again, to attend the Engagement Ceremony of one of my siblings.
In December, we went to a short trip – Jarsing Pauwa for a night stay. Wrapped up in this video.
Mini Plugins wrapped up the year with 6 sales and the net earnings of $129. Hoping for some big in the next year.
That’s all in the year. See you next year 2025.
Dharan Trip coming in 2025. Stay tuned.
