Former Envato employee here. I helped build ThemeForest with my buddy, and lead-dev, ryan-allen (who has already commented) and a bunch of other cool guys.
The $1M story is amazing but I think it is even more important to note how many authors are making a good living on the Envato marketplaces, not just the super-success stories. There are many, many authors who are making a good side-income or even enough to quit their day-jobs. The barrier to entry is super-low and making money is much easier than marketing your own wares on your own site. Have a look at the top sellers pages for the past month, or quarter, and do the sums. The money is excellent.
Their latest marketplace, Photodune is growing rapidly. It has very good payment rates compared to competitors. Worth trying out if you are a good photographer.
Also, if you are a Ruby dev in Melbourne, they are ALWAYS hiring. It is a great place to work.
Watching someone go through their design submission process recently, I heavily disagree. It seemed purposefully arcane and difficult.
Edited to put a little bit of substance:
- They don't make all information you need public. You'll only find out about the not explicitly stated rules/policies/guidelines after you're rejected for not following one.
- They provide minimal to no feedback on rejections.
- They made many statements that were demonstrably false about various things.
And other things. It didn't seem to be a very pleasant experience.
I think the real advantage of Envato is that it can help upcoming creative types with product validation.
I finally convinced my brother to submit some of his music clips to AudioJungle and he was thrilled when they actually sold.
Ok, so as a composer $60 for a few clips isn't much (when you really want commissions in the $1000+ region :)) but it was validation that people were interested in his work.
Funnily enough I have a mate working for them and he also says it is a great place to work. So much so I have finally bit the bullet and last month started learning Ruby so I can apply to work there. Being a Python guy for a decade I feel like I am crossing to the dark side ;)
The $1M story is amazing but I think it is even more important to note how many authors are making a good living on the Envato marketplaces, not just the super-success stories. There are many, many authors who are making a good side-income or even enough to quit their day-jobs. The barrier to entry is super-low and making money is much easier than marketing your own wares on your own site. Have a look at the top sellers pages for the past month, or quarter, and do the sums. The money is excellent.
Their latest marketplace, Photodune is growing rapidly. It has very good payment rates compared to competitors. Worth trying out if you are a good photographer.
Also, if you are a Ruby dev in Melbourne, they are ALWAYS hiring. It is a great place to work.
End of unpaid commercial. I could go on forever.