Hello 👋 My name is Arun Basil Lal and this is the story of how the WordPress plugin Image Attributes Pro came to life.
Back in 2006, I started a blog where I wrote about WordPress and blogging. 15+ years later, I still have it today! 👉 MillionClues.com
Both blogging and WordPress were young at the time. I fiddled with WordPress enough and finally become a WordPress developer and made websites for a living.
Fast forward to 2017, I was writing less and coding more. I knew I wanted to get back to writing but I barely wrote anything. That year, I made it my mission to change that.
What does all this have to do with Image Attributes Pro?
As I was figuring out why I wasn’t writing much, I noticed that it was not writing itself that put me off. I enjoyed writing (and I still do), but there were too many “steps” involved in publishing a post.
I broke down the writing process and there were 9 steps to get a post published on my blog. Images had to be a certain size, attributes filled in, multiple WordPress meta tags filled (so that content would appear on various parts of my website) and so on.
I started automating everything that could be automated. Of course, I still have to find the images that go into a post. Image attributes can be automated. When I was done, in the place of making nine decisions per post before, I just had four.
I wrote some code to automate WordPress image attributes in the process. I kept it for myself for a while. Few months later I decided to share it because I thought it would make a neat plugin.
Thus Auto Image Attributes From Filename With Bulk Updater was born. I didn’t think much about it at the time. This was 4th of July,2017.
Few days later, on 13th of July 2017, I got my first 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 review. As a young up-and-coming-wanna-be WordPress product developer, this was a huge deal for me!
I got pumped up! I added few more features that users seemed to like.
Then one morning I wake up to this 👇 The user also sent me a nice donation as well.
That was the first time I was getting paid for a product. I was ecstatic!
Then another gentleman wrote a review and sent a donation as well. I was hooked!
It was at around the same time that I was getting tired of building WordPress websites. I had been at it for 10 years or so at the time.
I knew I wanted to build WordPress products, but I had no experience. So I was looking for a job in a WordPress product company.
I knew exactly what job I wanted. Consequently, that job hunt took a while.
In the mean time, I decided to build a premium version for the plugin and named it Image Attributes Pro. On 22nd November 2017, right before Black Friday, the first version of Image Attributes Pro was released.
That was unnerving. Delivering a free plugin is stress free. Your obligations are limited. Selling a premium plugin was something I had never done and I had no idea what to expect.
I didn’t even know if anyone would buy it. I though it would be a long, nail-biting wait.
My first sale came in just about 17 hours after the release. Organically via WordPress.org. I also sent the plugin to few websites that had Black Friday deals and got some sales that way.
Good things come in bunches? In the same month, I was hired at WP Media as Technical Support Level 2 for WP Rocket plugin. This would be a life changing job for me.
WP Rocket was the best work-job-culture fit for me. I found out that I had a flair for product and joined the WP Rocket product team first as Associate Project Manager and then as Associate Product Owner.
Everything I know about product I learned from WP Media. And judging by their products you can tell that it is a good place to learn. Not to mention the mentoring I got from the founders and others I worked with.
Although I kept working on Image Attributes Pro on the side, I didn’t have the time to really give it my all. I finally had to make the tough call.
I resigned from WP Media early 2021 to focus on Image Attributes Pro. The hurt was real. But I knew I had to chase my dream.
Image Attributes Pro is my full time job since then and I am not going to stop until I make it the best WordPress plugin for image attributes.
I am indebted to every single customer who bought Image Attributes Pro. To everyone who left a review. To everyone who sent me suggestions and stayed patient with me. You helped keep the dream alive.
For a young boy who stumbled upon WordPress, Image Attributes Pro is quite an achievement. I am very proud of what I have done so for.
Thank you for reading my story. I am excited to figure out the rest of the journey! 🚀