年入160万美元，10年打磨WordPress插件产品矩阵

10 years and $10M in lifetime sales

I cofounded Barn2 with my husband in 2010 because I wanted to work for myself and have a flexible lifestyle, instead of a rigid 9-to-5 office routine. Building websites for clients met that aim, but I still wanted more. I sought the even-better lifestyle that selling software products promised. We started as a WordPress-focused web design agency and transitioned to WordPress plugins in 2016. While selling, maintaining, and supporting plugins is a lot of work, it is much more scalable than client services, and I have never looked back. I work hard, but I only work about 30 hours per week. My husband stepped back from the business in 2024, and I'm now running it alone with a team of 15 people who work remotely from various countries worldwide. In March 2026, we reached $10 million in lifetime plugin sales and celebrated the 10-year anniversary of our first plugin's launch. Our products currently bring in $1.6 million/year.

Building their first plugin

Our first WordPress plugin was WooCommerce Protected Categories, launched in 2016, and it is still going strong today. We intentionally chose a simple, niche area for our first product. We saw it as an experiment and a learning experience. And WooCommerce has such a huge user base that even niche products can have a large audience. My husband built the initial product, taking time away from client work to develop it, while I worked with freelancers, continuing the client-facing business. This allowed us to invest in product development without significantly impacting our day-to-day income. We launched it, and I started writing blog posts and tutorials about it. At the time, it was unique in the market and had no competition. Consequently, we went straight to the top of Google and were amazed to see sales start within a few days.

Becoming future-proof

Our revenue grew steadily until mid-2024. Since then, revenue has been stable overall, but growth in annual renewals is driving that stability — new sales revenue is declining. I believe the reason is two-fold: More people vibe coding their own solutions instead of using our simpler utility plugins. Changes in how people discover plugins. We've always generated most of our sales through organic SEO and Google. This took a big hit after Google introduced AI overviews, and people started using AI chat for website solutions. Even when AI recommends our plugins, it generates far fewer sales than if they found us through Google — probably because they don't see us as the only solution, nor do they see our professional branding, calls to action, or newsletter signups. If I started over, I would build much bigger products that provide essential solutions and become a fundamental part of our customers' workflow. Our diversification into Shopify is another key tactic. Shopify apps appear less threatened by AI than WordPress plugins, since nearly everyone finds apps on Shopify's App Store rather than via Google.

Diversifying the business model

Most of our customers purchase annual subscriptions, so that's fundamental to our revenue. In fact, 66% of our total revenue comes from annual renewals. This is common in the WordPress plugin space, unlike SaaS, which typically uses a monthly payment model. We also sell lifetime licenses, which typically cost 3 to 4 times the cost of annual licenses. Many people think lifetime licenses are a bad idea, but I think they can benefit both the business and the customer, provided we price them carefully — at more than the typical customer lifetime value. As we expand into the Shopify app space, we are experimenting with a monthly revenue model. Shopify apps are fully hosted on a SaaS basis and stop working if customers cancel their subscriptions. As a result, I expect to see better customer retention in our Shopify apps.

The importance of being AI-native

Here's my advice to indie hackers just starting out — and it differs significantly from how I built Barn2! First, be an AI-native company; hire as few people as possible. Deeply incorporate AI into all your workflows to keep operations lean and profitable. It's a ground-up approach, not something to add in later. If you are just starting out, this presents an incredible opportunity. And second, when choosing products, look for the most future-proof ideas possible. I recommend identifying a major problem you can solve for a specific group of people. Don't think about what platform you'll build it on. Instead, approach it by providing a solution for these people; the rest will naturally evolve.