Goodbye

[wakabayashi]

1 hour ago, 30knees said:

It's easy to get people to say that they're willing to support the project but when it finally comes to actually doing so, things fall apart

Right. It's why I have thrown in the 50$/month Freemium model. In my post, I list everyone, who is ready to commit such an amount. Right now we are only 2 persons. Ofc the concept needs to be done much clearer, but if we can not even reach 10 people who say: "oh yeah thats in my budget". Then I don't even beginn to think deeper about it.

[30knees]

Do you have an idea for how to handle the escrow, @wakabayashi? I donated a bit during the crowdfunding and was supposed to get some free hours in exchange. I never followed up on redeeming the hours. And now I donated a bit again. At this stage of the project, I'm honestly hesitant to donate without knowing what exactly will be done, having a clear roadmap, etc. 

[Smile]

I am generally very busy so I can't help to much in time. But my company is running on TB and I have quite some employees running around. I mean like many others it is serious business. We even work on a connector for Odoo and I can tell you this is a huge investment. I would be happy to tip in a monthly fee. @wakabayashi As a user for many years I surely know what is definitely needed and not.

What about making a association of it?

We also could work with crowdsourcing major improvements.

 

We just need a mastermind what has time and devotion to run it,  and a steady financial income.

[rubben1985]

4 hours ago, wakabayashi said:

Right. It's why I have thrown in the 50$/month Freemium model. In my post, I list everyone, who is ready to commit such an amount. Right now we are only 2 persons. Ofc the concept needs to be done much clearer, but if we can not even reach 10 people who say: "oh yeah thats in my budget". Then I don't even beginn to think deeper about it.

add me to the list. If the small adjustments are included in the freemium (as johnny does with his template) that is peace of mind for small problems. I would highly recommend to join this options to anyone that it is doubting

24 minutes ago, Smile said:

I am generally very busy so I can't help to much in time. But my company is running on TB and I have quite some employees running around. I mean like many others it is serious business. We even work on a connector for Odoo and I can tell you this is a huge investment. I would be happy to tip in a monthly fee. @wakabayashi As a user for many years I surely know what is definitely needed and not.

What about making a association of it?

We also could work with crowdsourcing major improvements.

 

We just need a mastermind what has time and devotion to run it,  and a steady financial income.

we too are integrating Odoo. Big investment and a lot of troubles. Maybe we can share some integrations? If you are interested PM me.

[rubben1985]

On 4/16/2020 at 3:49 PM, Theo said:

So we're at an impasse still.

Now, how do we take some action and fix this? Given what everybody knows?
No, not everybody is great at everything, so we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Some are better at the Dev side of things, others better at Leadership / Running the show.

But maybe if we work together and somehow utilize our collective strengths, we can save this project and kick some proper PS ass?
In terms of money, 'the TB company', marketing, direction of the project and leadership?

@Traumflug @toplakd @datakick @musicmaster @rubben1985 @Chandra @movieseals @Occam @lesley @wakabayashi @AndyC @haylau @Briljander @zen @30knees @Sigi
 

From my side what I can offer for free with my actual more than full time occupation is:

 

- suscriptions to graphic and media resources (useful to make a design changes)

- one of our designers to improve web design (part time starting june-july)

- An small study of the most important marketing problems I see (a to do list of the most basics that would improve a lot the branding image with reasonable effort)

- more in the future but I do not want to make a compromise now

[Smile]

Just a comment on the side. We are a serious business and there are more people like me I guess. For my business I could think about hiring a developer. But we don't have enough work for it or time to work out all projects. But we just need 10-30 bigger sites running TB and tipingin to make a serious association or consortium. 20 x 250 per month = a reasonable salary to start with. And 250 is like not much for the bigger stores in my opinion?

I mean I like to keep it mostly open source..... But like how it works with Odoo as an example. There is a community edition and a Enterprise version (Database managed). With functions you would need being a bigger store. For example think about API access, advanced vouchers, hreflangs .... ect.

Maybe we should run a online meetup for all interested.... I did not read the full topic and all lesley's ideas about it.

[Smile]

According to the association or something like that I am willing to setup legal part as well as financial part. Considering we run it under a dutch flag.

[dynambee]

On 4/13/2020 at 8:39 PM, datakick said:

I just wanted to say good bye to all of you. I decided that I will no longer participate on thirtybees project development, as it takes too much time and effort on my part. Lately I was feeling like I was the only one pushing this project forward. And I'm not even affiliated with the tb company, I was just a volunteer doing this for free.  

Thank you for your tremendous contributions. I wish there was a way you could stay, perhaps at a reduced level of contribution, but I understand time is valuable and very limited.

I hope to see more cool TB modules from you that I can spend some money on. 🙂

[wakabayashi]

18 hours ago, 30knees said:

Do you have an idea for how to handle the escrow, @wakabayashi? I donated a bit during the crowdfunding and was supposed to get some free hours in exchange. I never followed up on redeeming the hours. And now I donated a bit again. At this stage of the project, I'm honestly hesitant to donate without knowing what exactly will be done, having a clear roadmap, etc. 

I don't have a concrete concept yet. Right now it's more like a poll, to check how big the potential is. I want to see, how many "serious" merchants are we, who would invest 50$ (or more) into this project.

A rough idea is like this. We actually still use a crowdfunding project and bring back the feature request, but with incentives.

• Golden Supporter with at least 50$/month can add features request and vote for feature request.
• Normal Supporter below 50$/month can vote for feature request.
• Non supporter will have access to full open source code, but they won't have any influence in the direction of the project.

For this to be happen, the pool of golden supporter have to be big enough. So we can hire good devs like (Petr or Markus) for the jobs. That's why I now want to check the potential.

This won't be easy at all and won't solve all problems, but maybe it brings some life back. Problems I see:

• Feature requests vary a lot. Golden Supporters have to "organize" their ideas. Which issues do we all have and which issues are just issues for 1 merchant. 
• Feature requests need to be concrete. It won't be enough to say: "Stock management is bad. Make it better.". The devs need to exactly now, what we expect from them.
• This voting system / feature request system won't come from god...

Feedbacks on the idea are welcome.

[toplakd]

I would qualify myself as Normal Supporter 5-10$ monthly (60-120 on yearly basis)

[Smile]

Please make it a big bigger. To use some flight example:

Platinum $500 per month

Gold $250 

Silver $100

Bronze $50

Generous backers < 50

So we have a more defined view on income.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Smile

[DRMasterChief]

Hello,  first of all very bad news,  even when it is partially understandable from datakicks side...  

My idea was always to set tb on a other business model.  I dont think supporters models will work:

MOST of the supporters will go away after shortest time when shopsystem is working,  they are all merchants and have no time or effort for such things,  what we need is a good and stable shopsystem with the possibility to have extra features or modules and support if needed,  but 99.999% of all merchants are no hobby developers with time and effort to have a look at a forum each week or so.

You have to ensure a permanent monthly income for a shopsystem like tb  (even when it is a great thing to have it free),  so it should be a monthly subscription for the shopsystem will all main modules, maybe in 2 or 3  steps with price increasing.  Basis can be 5 USD /month for tb shop with main modules,  then 2 upgrades or similar maybe with support included  (but the better way is to have support in separate booking and this is also the prefered way to make developers happy  🙂 ) 

OK, this is not a new idea and most of the other 'professional' shopsystems do so,  but it is the only useful way for both sides, merchant and tb.  Price just have to be very good compared to other shopsystems and developer should have two open ears for the needs of merchants,  thats it. 

[DRMasterChief]

5 minutes ago, Smile said:

Please make it a big bigger. To use some flight example:

Platinum $500 per month

Gold $250 

Silver $100

Bronze $50

Generous backers < 50

So we have a more defined view on income.

Sorry, first i refer to my post above,  and 2nd NOT ONE merchant will pay this compared to other shopsystems well-known with much lower monthly rates  (10 - 30 USD /month).  Ask yourself:  why should i pay e.g. 250 USD a month for a small not well-known shopsystem with only a small awareness on the market...    No chance on the market with such a business model.

[AndyC]

I honestly would love to be a supporter again, but am still running at a loss after many module problems ..But I think I have fixed them now. Am having to sell stock on ebay to keep me going. I hate Ebay

 

[Smile]

4 minutes ago, DRMasterChief said:

Sorry, first i refer to my post above,  and 2nd NOT ONE merchant will pay this compared to other shopsystems well-known with much lower monthly rates  (10 - 30 USD /month).  Ask yourself:  why should i pay e.g. 250 USD a month for a small not well-known shopsystem with only a small awareness on the market...    No chance on the market with such a business model.

I don't know a better open source system on the market at the moment. Open source is key of TB/PS. Beside that would you migrate when you site is running the bigger business and all is connected to WMS, PIM, CRM ect. Well then 500,- is not that much anymore I can tell you.

As stated above I love the Odoo model where there is also an enterprise model.

Edited April 18, 2020 by Smile

[toplakd]

For subscription to survive one should also take in consideration the compatibility and ability to install non-verified modules.

As this is the root of most bugs due to core being adopted to newest php standards, and most prestashop 1.6 are not updated since last 1.6 version.

What helps if one can install 100+ prestashop 1.6 themes or modules, if they only bring out problems and their developpers are not interested into fixing them.

[Acer]

Point is we need some sort of new 'Running Committee' or 'TB Community Committee' , imo. 

Right now there are supporters, and Partner Agencies already. Where is the money going? And how does it work? Why is this not going to devs? 

The problem is that the project doesn't just comprise of the development aspect. In my mind we would need to take care of the following:

1. Development: new features, bug fixes
2. Marketing: Active and aggressive marketing campaigns to bring in more and new users, especially from PS
3. Coordination: Organise developers and tasks etc in line with Features and overall goal
4. Money and Admin: What is says on the box. Budget, Plus subscriptions, Partners etc
5. Leader: pulls all of this together. The Master Mind. With vision of future TB and with the motivation and momentum and purpose driving the project forward. With a blood lust to succeed and take on PS head on. This individual will need to be a full time, paid and paid well employee of TB
6. Community Committee: like a board, votes on issues and tasks and advises and guides the Leader 

Maybe we can have a meeting with @lesley and all concerned to discuss? 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Theo

[AndyC]

7 minutes ago, toplakd said:

What helps if one can install 100+ prestashop 1.6 themes or modules, if they only bring out problems and their developers are not interested into fixing them.

This has always concerned me as there is no clear indication of what modules work. For example, I have to use Product Fields manager I did enquire at the time if there were any other modules and there weren't so am forced to use this 1 as I have extra items but with costs involved. Also the answer I mostly got was if it's v1.6 it SHOULD be OK    

[toplakd]

2 minutes ago, AndyC said:

Also the answer I mostly got was if it's v1.6 it SHOULD be OK

And that's correct answer.

If module is stating that is PS 1.6 compatible, developer does not need to care if it does not work with thirty bees.

And thirty bees can not leave known bugs in its core unfixed just for the sake that some PS modules (which are exploiting the bugs or are poor written) will work.

As small developers (even some big ones) will not change/update their modules for similar ecosystem (just more updated).

And more 1.6 PS modules will be affected sooner or later.

[AndyC]

And that's what worries me as I know sooner or later that all important module will break. 99% of the other modules I use are just there because and I can do without them , this 1 is an absolute and was the only 1 I could find

[Acer]

Yes, it's worrying. However from experience, that's one of the great things about this forum. If it happens and the module breaks, put the site in debug mode. Copy the error and make forum post.

The guys are happy to help and usually it's a line or two that needs to be updated. 

You may have to sometimes ping the post, but 9.9/10 you'll get help. Alternatively you could always contact @datakick or similar developer to implement fix.

A broken module is'nt necessarily the end of the world. 

Also to put things into perspective, we recently purchased Advanced Search 4. A great paid filter search module. No official support for TB, but the up-to-date version for PS 1.6 works like a dream in TB.

Incidentally that's one of the reasons there's such a fuss being made about @datakick leaving (support, looking after Core and pushing the project forward) 

All effort needs to be made to convince him to stay. 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Theo

[veganline]

1 hour ago, AndyC said:

sooner or later that all important module will break. 99% of the other modules I use are just there because and I can do without them , this 1 is an absolute and was the only 1 I could find

@andyc
I have an open source hack that does some of the same but doesn't charge for customization nor survive site updates well.  If your Custom Fields Module conks-out we might share the cost of a developer to improve it.

[AndyC]

Could be an idea in the future 🙂

Although coming from Zencart I was very surprised TB did not do this as it is a standard feature

[Briljander]

2 hours ago, Theo said:

Yes, it's worrying. However from experience, that's one of the great things about this forum. If it happens and the module breaks, put the site in debug mode. Copy the error and make forum post.

The guys are happy to help and usually it's a line or two that needs to be updated. 

You may have to sometimes ping the post, but 9.9/10 you'll get help. Alternatively you could always contact @datakick or similar developer to implement fix.

A broken module is'nt necessarily the end of the world. 

Also to put things into perspective, we recently purchased Advanced Search 4. A great paid filter search module. No official support for TB, but the up-to-date version for PS 1.6 works like a dream in TB.

Incidentally that's one of the reasons there's such a fuss being made about @datakick leaving (support, looking after Core and pushing the project forward) 

All effort needs to be made to convince him to stay. 

Yeah, even though this is great I guess this shouldn't come for free from developers hired. They should focus on developing TB further but of course also check bug-reports.  But for personal support I do think it must come with a cost otherwise the paid developers won't have time to work with what should really be worked at.

[Traumflug]

7 hours ago, wakabayashi said:

A rough idea is like this. We actually still use a crowdfunding project and bring back the feature request, but with incentives.

• Golden Supporter with at least 50$/month can add features request and vote for feature request.
• Normal Supporter below 50$/month can vote for feature request.
• Non supporter will have access to full open source code, but they won't have any influence in the direction of the project.

Sounds like a reasonable base to work with.

Except for one thing missing: making a feature request needs a price tag. Else the list of feature requests ends up where it was before: hundreds of requests with one supporter each and many being almost, but not entirely the same. Hardest part of a user driven feature request list is probably to aggregate requests somehow, to agree among all/most users on what to work, and on what to work next.

There is no shortage of ideas for features. I have a TODO list with like 100 bullet points myself, requests on Github not even included 🙂