Beaver Builder

Our 2nd Birthday and a BIG Milestone – April Update

Robby McCullough - April 20, 2016

It’s our April update! This month, we’re talking about taxes, lawyers, CPAs, and some of the lessons we’ve learned on the business front. Along with our birthday celebration, we go over a few sponsorships, a big feature update on the horizon, and a major milestone in Beaver Builder history. Let’s get into it…

Taxes, CPAs, and Lawyers — Oh My

Many of you are business owners and, if you’re based in the US, I am sure you’re all too familiar that April is tax month.

On the subject of taxes, I was inspired by a chat in the Post Status Slack Channel. I signed up for a Post Status Club membership a few weeks ago before I went to PressNomics. If you’re a WordPress fanatic like I am, it’s a great place to bump virtual shoulders with the who’s who of our industry.

Just the other day, there was banter about whether or not to hire a CPA to do one’s taxes.

I realized, we’re celebrating our birthday this month and we’ve learned a LOT over the last two years about running a business. We’ve benefited immensely from companies like Pippin’s Plugins and Ninja Forms who are so generous with their knowledge. I’m hoping to continue the tradition and share some of the things we’ve learned and mistakes we’ve made.

On that note, a story…

My dad always prided himself on doing all of our taxes himself. To his credit, he did a great job and I really appreciate all the time he spent helping with the family taxes.

Like me, though, we tend to be “big picture” thinkers and occasionally have a bit of trouble keeping track of small details. Unfortunately, the IRS isn’t exactly flexible when it comes to overlooking a few “small details” and he’s been going back and forth with them resolving small discrepancies for decades.

For that reason, saving myself the time and potential trouble, hiring a CPA to do my taxes was a great decision.

It’s Official, We Lawyered Up

fastline-media-llc

Along with getting a CPA to file taxes, over the last few months, we’ve been working with a very talented law firm to get our legal documents in order.

Originally, we used Rocket Lawyer to set up our LLC. It’s wise to set up an LLC to protect one’s personal assets. We were a bit shocked to learn that, because our Rocket Lawyer LLC didn’t cover many of the requirements needed to actually be an LLC, we may not have been protected.

Don’t get me wrong, services like Legal Zoom or Rocket Lawyer are great if you’re just getting started, but it’s important to know they’re not nearly as thorough as hiring a professional.

If you’ve been putting off hiring a professional to review your legal documents, it was a lot less painful that we thought. One of our lawyers is a partner at a local brewery and he even invited us out for a beer. Lawyers can actually be pretty cool. Who knew!? 😉

On the subject of lawyers, if you have a client services business, this video titled “F*ck You, Pay Me,” is a great one to watch.

What Happens When You Break Up?

Billy, Justin, and I are fortunate that we’re really good friends—more like family even. Not all business partnerships are so lucky.

At our old office, two of our friends were partners in an auto shop down the street. Sadly, they had a bit of a falling out. I think watching their “break up” first hand was part of what prompted us to discuss what we would do if one of us wanted to leave the company.

Thanks to our lawyer, we now know this is called a Buy-Sell Agreement. It’s a bit like a will for your company.

Over a beer or two, we had a pretty morbid—but important—conversation about what we wanted to do if one us kicked the bucket. While it was a bizarre conversation to have and to think about, there is some peace of mind knowing that we’ve hashed it all out on paper. I mean, it’s inevitable…death and taxes, right?

The moral of the story is, FastLine Media had been in business for many years without ever dealing with this stuff—and it was fine—but there comes a time it makes sense get things in order. With hindsight, now that we know what was involved and how it really wasn’t that difficult, we probably could have done it sooner.

It's never too early to build a solid legal foundation for your business. Don't wait until it's too late. Share on X

What’s New

Okay, enough shop talk! Prompted by our update post last month, I really do want to write more about things that can help you, but enough is enough. Time to talk about us, hehe!

Beaver Builder 1.8 Gordon is Coming

We’re trying a few new things here. First, we’re going to start naming our major releases. For the upcoming 1.8 release, we’re naming it Gordon.

Why Gordon? Because it’s a famous dam, of course! 🙂 The Gordon Dam is in Australia, and it’s going to make for an awesome featured image in our next version update post.

We’ve got some great new features in Gordon, one of the biggies are several new landing page templates! Here’s a sneak peak at just a few of the new features we have in store…

Gorgeous new landing page templates are coming to @BeaverBuilder! Share on X

Beaver Builder 1.8 Gordon Features

New Landing Page Templates
Ability to export individual templates
For theme/plugin authors: ability to create and bundle templates with Beaver Builder Lite
Hide/Show elements based on whether a user is logged in
Button/Heading Module enhancements
And much, much more

We’ll have a version release post published soon with all of the details.

Unlike our other version releases, we’re also splitting our beta period into an alpha and a beta period. An early, alpha-version of Gordon is actually available for testing right now on your account page. See this article in our Knowledge Base for information about testing and how to provide feedback. We appreciate it. <3

BeaverBuilder.com

We’re proud new owners of a premium domain name, beaverbuilder.com! Pretty cool, eh?

WP Water Cooler Podcast

I got the opportunity to go on the WPwatercooler Podcast to chat a bit about graduating from SquareSpace to WordPress. The Watercooler is one of my favorite WordPress podcasts. I try to catch it every week.

Sponsorships

We’re going to share some revenue numbers at the end of this post. Before that, I wanted to highlight a few of the ways we’ve been able to give back to the WordPress community. We love that we’re in a position to sponsor great companies and events in the WordPress space, and we have a few new sponsorships to share…

WP in One Month Webinar

WP in 1 Month is a project started by our buddy, and very talented teacher, Joe Casabona. We jumped on the opportunity to sponsor a webinar with Joe called, “Going from Zero to Website with Beaver Builder.” This is a great introduction to Beaver Builder and it would be an awesome resource to share with your clients/friends that are new to the software.

WordCamp San Diego

WordCamp San Diego is this weekend and we’re thrilled to be a sponsor. Unfortunately, none of us will be able to make it in person, but we sent over a bunch of stickers and we’re sure it’s going to be a great event.

WPChat.com

WPChat is a favorite hangout of mine. Quite simply, it’s a forum/chat community for WordPress. Come and by and say hi. It’s a great place to ask questions and meet other folks using WordPress.

Collision Conference

While it’s not exactly a sponsorship, I’ll be attending Collision Conference in New Orleans next week, and I’ll be exhibiting Beaver Builder on Wednesday. If by chance you’re in the area, come by and say hello!

Beaver Builder Hit $1,000,000 in Gross Revenue

one-million-dollars

Geez, I can’t even believe I am writing this. It’s surreal. We celebrated Beaver Builder’s 2nd birthday this month, and within days of that milestone, we hit another huge milestone: $1,000,000 in gross revenue!

We also just passed 100,000 websites that are running Beaver Builder. The page builder revolution is in full swing!

The #WordPress page builder revolution is in full swing. @BeaverBuilder hits $1,000,000 in revenue! Share on X

I know this probably sounds like we’re bragging, but that’s not the intention at all…

We think it’s important to share this milestone. We want you to know that your decision to use Beaver Builder—and in many cases, the decision to build your business around Beaver Builder—is a safe one.

We want you to have the peace of mind that we’re going to continue to be there for you. Beaver Builder has seen month over month growth almost every month for the last 2 years. We’ve been growing our support and development teams, and laying a foundation for Beaver Builder to continue to grow and thrive for a long time.

No one likes it when a product they’ve used and grown to love disappears. Along with our sincerest thanks, we wanted to let you know that things are humming along smoothly over here.

In Closing

Oof. I feel like the cat is out of the bag. Not much more to say here except thanks again. These two years have been a wild ride, and we’re enjoying every minute of it.

I really pour my heart and soul into our monthly updates, and if you enjoy ’em, please consider giving this one a share (using the snazzy new sharing buttons below) or leave us a comment and say hello! =)

59 Comments

Stefan Peters on April 20, 2016 at 10:49 am

Well done written Robby. Keep up the awesome work.
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 3:50 pm
  
  Thanks, Stefan!
Brenda Malone on April 20, 2016 at 10:55 am

Happy Birthday, two-year-old! Are we ever happy to see you guys continue to be successful-because selfishly it means we are guaranteed a great, supported plugin!

Would love for you guys to celebrate at WordCamp Northeast Ohio June 11-12! Guest speakers are Chris Lema and Eric Meyer–what a blast that will be! (Or send some stickers with Chris?)
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 3:52 pm
  
  Hey Brenda. Thanks for the happy birthday! I hate to say it, but I think June will be a tough month for travel. We’d love to send some stickers out, though.
  
  Can you shoot me an email with an address? http://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/contact/
Jean on April 20, 2016 at 10:56 am

Congratulations and THANK YOU!
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 3:55 pm
  
  Our pleasure! Thanks for reading! 🙂
Edward Morgan on April 20, 2016 at 11:57 am

Good for you guys and good for us to love working with BB.
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 3:58 pm
  
  Great to hear!
Sasha-Shae on April 20, 2016 at 12:09 pm

Wishing you all much more continued success, and yes finally that domain is yours, you don’t know how many times I accidentally typed that in and forgot to put the wp in front lol, so winning!! Looking forward to all that’s ahead with BB and so far I’m enjoying the alpha release, really nice to use.
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:00 pm
  
  Oh, good! We decided to get it “defensively” in a way, so that a competitor or someone malicious couldn’t pick it up. Talking about it, maybe we should track how many people are hitting that domain. I am curious now, haha!
Jeffery on April 20, 2016 at 12:15 pm

Congrats on the milestones and thanks for changing the way my business operates… for the better, of course! 🙂
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:03 pm
  
  That’s nice of you to say! Much appreciated.
jb510 on April 20, 2016 at 12:26 pm

Ok, because you asked. Yes, love reading these. Bummed you won’t be at WCSD. Congrats on hitting 1M!

When 9seeds went from sole proprietorship to partnership to s-corp we had a great lawyer to help us through the process. We too thankfully we advised on things like exit clauses, buy-sell, death and how that affect spouses…. etc.. Owning a business both a PITA and super rewarding. Still looking for a good personal Tax Agent/CPA…
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:05 pm
  
  Yup! That’s the same transition we made. Of all the months, April is definitely biggest PIA when it comes to owning a business, haha.
  
  On an unrelated note, I am doing my first extended trip next week. I’ll be in New Orleans for about 2 weeks! I got my portable 2nd monitor setup all ready to go. Thanks for the inspiration and the tips. 🙂
Geoff on April 20, 2016 at 12:30 pm

Good work guys – we continue to be fans 🙂
Chantal Oicles on April 20, 2016 at 12:50 pm

Congratulations! We are still loving our site!
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm
  
  Thanks, Chantal! The remindercall.com site is on my short list of favorites. It looks great.
Ed Stutzman on April 20, 2016 at 12:50 pm

Congratulations to the whole beaverbuilder team! Y’all deserve every bit of success that comes your way.
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:08 pm
  
  Appreciate it, Ed. 🙂
Rick Altman on April 20, 2016 at 12:51 pm

Hi Robby —

Will the update include my undisputed No. 1 feature request? I want an additional item added to the Display dropdown of Never or Nowhere. Nothing could possibly be more helpful for me when I am preparing new content and am not quite ready to publish it yet. I’m betting on it being pretty easy to implement, too…
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:10 pm
  
  Oh, that is a good idea! We’re doing the visibility settings so you can toggle a row/module to only show when a user is logged in. That might work?
  
  When I’m working on a site, I’ll usually duplicate a page to work on it, then save a template when I am done and replace the existing page with the template. We could definitely save some steps doing it your way.
  - Rick Altman on April 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
    
    Robby, the duplicate page technique or user id trick are two of several ways that I can get around this, the others being creating a global module and stashing it away or even using CSS to make something invisible. But all of those are far less efficient workarounds compared to the clean, easy, and elegant option to simply set a module’s display to nowhere.
    
    I urge you to consider it as the very best solution to this simple challenge.
    - Justin Busa on April 21, 2016 at 1:16 am
      
      Rick, “Never” is actually an option with the new visibility settings 🙂 Download the alpha, give it a shot, and let us know what you think!
      - Rick Altman on April 21, 2016 at 7:47 am
        
        Justin, how does one acquire an alpha version and how do I safely put it into service?
      - Justin Busa on April 21, 2016 at 11:08 am
        
        You can download the alpha version from your account page. As for safely putting it in service, have a look at this post on alpha/beta releases… https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/knowledge-base/about-alpha-beta-releases/
Troy on April 20, 2016 at 12:56 pm

Happy Birthday. Any discount on paid options?
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:10 pm
  
  Hey Troy! Thanks for asking. Sorry, but we’re not doing any promos or discounts now or in the near future.
Stephanie on April 20, 2016 at 1:31 pm

Happy Birthday Beaver Builder! You guys are awesome. Keep up the great work and don’t forget to celebrate!

http://bit.ly/1WG4VEm
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:15 pm
  
  Awe! That’s so sweet. What a great drawing. Thank you.
  
  We believe in the “work hard play hard” adage over here. We definitely won’t forget, hehe. Cheers!
Kim Doyal on April 20, 2016 at 1:32 pm

WOOHOO!
Congratulations guys! SO exciting…. and SO very deserved! Can’t wait to see the new templates! Better than Christmas!
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:18 pm
  
  Hey Kim! Thank you. <3 For your support and feedback. You've been around since very close to the beginning, and we really appreciate it!
Jose Gonzalez on April 20, 2016 at 2:04 pm

Well done guys 🙂 The new themes look stunning – love it!
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
  
  Thanks! Those are just the tip of the iceberg, too! Many more on the way. 🙂
Tyler Moore on April 20, 2016 at 2:28 pm

Good job guys!
- Robby McCullough on April 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
  
  Thanks for stopping by, Tyler! It’s been great working with your team and the Tesseract community. 🙂
wpdevservereu on April 20, 2016 at 3:53 pm

Thanks for sharing Robby. Just got some great support from you guys. Also I was just getting back from a WordPress meeting in Slovenia and I was talking warmly about BeaverBuilder. Keep it up and let’s work on the 2 million!
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:29 pm
  
  Alright! Beaver Builder in the motherland (I am 1/4 Slovenian). My Grandpa will be very proud!
Eric on April 20, 2016 at 6:59 pm

Glad to hear about your success with BB. It was about a year ago that I first heard about it on a podcast, and it sounded like the perfect tool for my business. It was well worth the investment!

You guys are doing a great job of building a solid software tool and business!
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:36 pm
  
  Thanks, Eric! I’ve heard so many people say that the first heard about us on a podcast! It’s wild how much reach they have.
  
  Thanks again for the kind words and the comment.
David on April 20, 2016 at 7:12 pm

Congratulations to the team! I am glad to have been one of the early customers (back when the product was still Fastline Page Builder). You have only grown from strength to strength and I wish you many more years of success and growth. 🙌🏻
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:36 pm
  
  Hey David! Great to see you. Gosh, yes, you have been around since the very beginning. Thanks for sticking with us and for the kind words. 🙂
Athlone Harris-Compton on April 20, 2016 at 9:07 pm

Happy birthday BeaverBuilder! And congratulations on 100,000 website installs and $1,000,000 in gross revenue. It’s not difficult to see why, BB is simply in a league of it’s own. May the future bring even more well deserved success.
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:38 pm
  
  Hey Athlone! It was a big week!! Thank you for the comment.
Lana on April 20, 2016 at 9:20 pm

Happy Big Two! I appreciate all your hard work to make our job easier 🙂
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:38 pm
  
  Our pleasure. Thank you for your support.
lesdow on April 20, 2016 at 11:38 pm

Well done on the success guys. Keep up the good work and I am sure the success will continue.
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:38 pm
  
  Will do!
Jason Parsons on April 21, 2016 at 3:22 am

Great update. Glad to see you guys are doing well. The more support you have the better the product will get! Keep up the good work.
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:40 pm
  
  We appreciate it! 🙂
Dave Bell on April 21, 2016 at 9:13 am

An extremely cogent and well written update, thanks Robby! I am excited to try out the new features. Dave
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:39 pm
  
  Thanks, Dave! Are you going to be at WCUS again this year? Let’s meet up for another drink. 🙂
Tyler on April 21, 2016 at 10:01 pm

Congrats on the milestone! BeaverBuilder has completely changed how we empower clients to interact with their website. Keep up the great work!
- Robby McCullough on April 22, 2016 at 2:40 pm
  
  Awesome to hear that. Thank you for the comment, Tyler!
Suanlian Tangpua on April 22, 2016 at 1:24 am

Congratulations !! Wishing all much more success in the coming years….
Melanie Richards (@MelRichards_) on April 28, 2016 at 10:49 am

Congrats on hitting that milestone! That’s huge! 🙂 Very excited for next release, as always!
- Robby McCullough on April 28, 2016 at 10:55 am
  
  Hey Mel! Thanks so much for the comment and your ongoing support. We really appreciate it! 🙂
Richard Greene on April 30, 2016 at 6:04 pm

I Love the Beaver. Other page builders just do not have the stuff. Can’t wait for Gordon.
Russell on May 3, 2016 at 3:15 am

I read all your blogs mate but this one really deserves a comment. A big congrats to you guys, it’s always satisfying to see people achieve and you three have built, and continue to improve, a freakin great product with amazing support and there doesn’t seem to ever be any bullshit 🙂

We tested the free plugin at the start of our journey and very quickly bought the Pro Subscription to use the BB Theme and were thrilled at the decision. Last month we made the final move up to the agency subscription and theres no going back, we’re kinda glued together now. Again well done guys.
- Robby McCullough on May 3, 2016 at 6:55 am
  
  Hey Russell! Really appreciate the kind words and sharing your story! 🙂