WPHunts – Providing Exposure to Small Fry WordPress Creators

If you’ve created something with WordPress, you’ve probably wanted to let the world know about it. But in the WordPress scene, it’s tough to gain exposure and coverage. Many of the big companies are routinely covered and if a media site doesn’t have any interest in your product or press release, it won’t be written about.

WPHunts aims to solve these problems by enabling creators to list products, themes, plugins, hosting, and more whereas users can upvote items that are listed and learn more about them from the creators themselves. Think Product Hunt but for WordPress stuff.

Ben Townsend, the founder of WPHunts says the site will provide an opportunity to users who are missing out on new solutions.

“With all of the acquisitions of late, I revisited the idea of WPHunts,” he said. “My issue? Developers have no real outlet and as a user, I’m missing out. Sure you can put something onto the WordPress plugin or theme directories, but the chances of me finding it when it’s flooded with plugins/themes, that have a huge userbase are slim to none.

“What if, that particular maker’s product is perfect for my needs? I’ll never know because the WordPress landscape favors the bigger, more established products, which is in my opinion inherently wrong. WordPress to me was always about enabling individuals, the freedom to create, to choose plugins/themes. Then the boom time happened and affiliate spam blogs flooded the gates.”

WPHunts won’t have any affiliate links and registered users will be able to redeem coupons or other discounts from product makers. Townsend also made the decision to not allow products from CodeCanyon or Themeforest to be listed as they already have a large budget for marketing.

One of the ways Townsend plans on monetizing the site is to allow developers to come up with a fair listing cost. Five percent of any revenue that Townsend generates will be donated to A Big Orange Heart Foundation. Something else worth noting is that for product reviews, users will have to prove they’ve used the product via a screenshot before the review can be published.

Townsend is in the beginning stages of building the site but if you’d like to be kept informed of the progress, you can sign up to the WPHunts Newsletter. If you’d like to contribute to his endeavor or pass along some ideas, you can follow and contact him on Twitter.

I think something like WPHunts can be a beneficial addition to the WordPress community. All too often, new products and services fall by the wayside because of any number of factors. WPHunts gets rid of the middleman or middlewoman by allowing creators to gain traction directly instead of hoping an influencer or media site provides coverage.

One of the big hurdles I see for WPHunts is getting the site enough traction so that the product creators benefit but that will only happen over the course of time. However, if enough people use the site to list their unknown creations, WPHunts could become quite the destination for folks all across the community, especially if you’re interested in new things or what to support indie developers.