Templatemonster

Hello. Please tell us the history behind templatemonster.com?

Well, our history started in 2002, when we worked as a custom design studio called Inverse Logic (www.inverse-logic.com). Those days we usually did quite expensive projects, but we received about 20-30 inquiries about low budget projects daily that we did not want to do. You know, since I came from a marketing background, I could not sleep with the idea that we were losing 20-30 clients daily (imagine, if you will, that is about 7-10 thousand clients yearly), so I came to the office one day and we all sat down together to find a way to satisfy all those people. This is how we came up with the templates idea. Those days there were just a couple of template sites and they were ugly. So, we decided that we could compete on this market and produce much better products. So what started as a small team with 5 people is now a company with more than 120 employees and more than 40 000 affiliates around the world producing over 3 000 products yearly.

What are the plans for future?

The next step is vertical integration with related market segments – domain registrars, hosting companies, shopping cart developers and other solution providers. That is what we are focusing on at this moment. We are trying to build trusted partnerships with strong brands like Dotster, Aplus, Fortunecity, Monstercommerce. This is the future. People want to buy turnkey solutions. They don’t have much time to research all proposals, select separate products and try to mix them themselves. This can bring frustration to them, so we need to assist them as much as we can to make the process easier. As to the design concerns of our customers, we spend a lot of time inventing new styles by mixing existing styles and adding something new. Since we are the Industry leaders – we should set high design standards. This is the primary goal for our creative department. Recently we have started using 3D technologies, plasticine, cartoon animation and other tools that are common in TV production but not in web design. We forecast that they will be more and more popular and widely used, considering the growth of bandwidth capacities. So we would like to be counted among the pioneers.

A lot of designers hate this project. What do you think about it?

Well since about half of our customers are web design studios and freelance designers, I doubt that it is true. I guess some of the so-called “designers” can’t compete and that’s why they are jealous. I think that we will never compete with such studios like 2advanced, Ceonex and others since we are on different markets. However, you are right – we just set up higher quality standards so they need to comply with our benchmark. Otherwise, if you can’t beat our standards – then join us and start using our templates as a source for clients’ projects.

Many people think that TemplateMonster is a European company. Is that true?

No, it is not. We are Artvertex, Inc. – a Delaware corporation doing business in Brooklyn, NY. We have a couple of development offices in Europe. Probably this is the source of such rumors.

There are many other templates-related shops. Do you think they have any chance of being in first place on the market?

Well, theoretically they do have a chance, but in fact we should stop working to make this happen . And I can say that some of them have already tried to destroy our business by
launching numerous DDOS attacks against our sites. Fortunately, we worked with authorities and successfully mitigated their attacks. It was a good lesson for us and now we always have an anti-crisis management plan in place.

How many visitors does TemplateMonster have a day?

Currently, it has about 35 000 unique daily visitors and this number is going to increase.

The most popular question from the public – if I want to be a designer for TemplateMonster, what should I do?

Well, first you need, sensibly, to estimate your skills. If you think that you comply with our high quality standards, then you can send your portfolio to jobs@templatemonster.com and if we like it – our HR manager will contact you.

Who are your favorite designers and artists around the world? Why?There are many. But I am more of a businessman than a designer, you see; I can’t really name designers, but I can definitely mention 2advanced and Ceonex as very high end commercial studios.

What is your favorite corporate site?

www.interland.com is my choice number one. Interland changes its design often, but they always have something that touches my heart.

What is your favorite studio that makes corporate sites?

I already answered this question earlier.

Well, I think that is enough. Any final comments?

I would like to thank you for the interview and I wish you and all your readers prosperity and success in coming new year.