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Brandon Kelly

Founder & CEO, Pixel & Tonic · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveengineer@brandonkelly ↗LinkedIn ↗brandonkelly.io ↗

Brandon Kelly is the creator of Craft CMS and founder of Pixel & Tonic, a company building developer-focused content management software. He began by developing popular add-ons for ExpressionEngine before building and launching Craft CMS in the early 2010s.

15statements → 5claims → 0claims resolved → 3.87/5average certainty → 1.47/5average debate potential →

5 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 4 assertions · 1 opinion · 9 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Brandon argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Brandon Kelly on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Brandon Kelly said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Kelly says WordPress is not built for complex bespoke websites
“It's not built for Bespoke websites. So inevitably if people do a lot of development with WordPress, they get to a point where they just are tired of fighting with all these built in themes and you know like eventually the site design requirements get to a poi…”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 3:53 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Pixel & Tonic cannot track conference sponsorship ROI directly
“It's honestly, like, there's no way to track the returns. We've tried so we just kind of trust that it's working out for us, and it does.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 10:04 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Craft CMS shifts to SaaS with $60 renewals and 20% plugin cut
“We're moving away from one off licensing. So for example, if you spend 300 dollars on a license today then a year from now you'd be due for another paying 60 bucks again for more updates. Then beyond that, we also have a commerce product that is kind of the sa…”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 13:36 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kelly predicts Craft CMS plugin store will support 20 full-time developers
“So it's not, you know, it's no WordPress, but we do expect once the plugin store hits and some of these plugin developers feel more incentivized to actually charge for their work. We'll probably have a good handful, you know, 20 people or so that are making, y…”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 14:39 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Bootstrapping a 10-person CMS company is unheard of outside the enterprise
“Excluding the enterprise CMSs, most CMSs are done by one or two or three people on the side of their day job, you know? And so the fact that we've been able to fund a 10 person company full time working on this thing is unheard of for the most part within our …”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 16:04 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Pixel & Tonic intends to grow Craft CMS independently without outside acquisition
“Right now there's just zero motivation to change any of that. You know, we want to continue growing it. We have a lot of different ideas for how we can grow it. You know, we want to get it as large as we can on our own.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 17:21 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Craft CMS generated roughly $1.5 million in annual revenue in 2017
“Yeah, well, that was about what we did last year, actually, right there.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 6:08 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Craft CMS has 6,000 active developers and 6,000 lifetime paid customers
“The community size is about 6000 active developers. We also have about 6000 unique customers over the duration of the product.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 6:58 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Craft CMS revenue is growing at roughly 25% year-over-year
“It's about 25% growth.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 7:44 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Craft CMS parent Pixel & Tonic is completely bootstrapped
“Totally bootstrapped, yeah.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 7:47 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Founder Brandon Kelly owns 100% of Pixel & Tonic
“I do.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 7:56 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Kelly: Pixel & Tonic reinvests at least a 15% profit margin
“We try and keep at least a 15% margin going back into the company.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 12:34 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Pixel & Tonic introduced an employee profit-sharing plan in 2017
“And then as of last year, we introduced a new profit sharing plan. So I'm actually giving it right back to the employees.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 12:40 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Craft CMS licenses average $260 per sale
“So we've got on average, probably selling about 200 and 60 dollars a license. We have a 200 dollar license and a 300 dollar license.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 3:27 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS
Disclosure
Pixel & Tonic spends up to $20,000 per conference sponsorship
“Yeah, I mean, like, up to 15, maybe 20.”
Brandon Kelly Jul 26, 2018 ▶ 9:44 1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
1097 CMS CEO: How to Move 1 Time License Model doing $1.5m Annually to SaaS Jul 26, 2018 9m
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