As we are approaching a new year and a new decade, below are some of the things we would like to share we did during an exciting 2019. We are very happy to share that 2019 did not disappoint us and we were able to achieve maximum targets we had planned during the start of the year. This includes new products, update on existing plugins, retreats and fun activities and lastly but not the least WordCamps 🙂
New Products in 2019
We have added some new products to our current portfolio during the course of the year.
One of them is Product Input Fields for WooCommerce which we acquired during January 2019.
Apart from that we were successfully able to launch our first App for Shopify under the banner name of Studio Six Apps. The App name is Custom Order Status for Shopify and can be found on Shopify Marketplace. This was during July 2019.
Around October 2019, we released a Pro version for WP Content Copy Protection plugin. We were having 30000+ active installs of the plugin and people wanted some more features to protect their site against content theft. Hence we decided to create a premium version along with major improvements in the Lite version as well.
An update on the existing plugins
It is really important to maintain existing products. We roll out regular updates on all our plugins and this year was no different. We released over 100 updates for all our free plugins & the premium ones combined. Along with bug fixes, there were some major improvements in the form of features and enhancements.
We have fixed close to around 1000 issues across all our plugins. Some important highlights of the features we have released across our major plugins:
- Abandon Cart Pro for WooCommerce – An enhanced dashboard view with some important reports was rolled out this year. Other features include upselling and cross selling while trying to recover the carts. We also added a feature for tracking email addresses from any fields across the site and not just the checkout page or pop-up modal.
- Booking & Appointment for WooCommerce – Timezone conversion feature and creating Bulk Booking settings. We added the flexibility for the end-user to check the times as per the current timezone they are in. Also, added the flexibility to configure booking settings across products in bulk.
- Order Delivery Date Pro for WooCommerce – This year we made our plugin compatible with various shipping plugins. Compatibility with various shipping methods saw a rise in Orders for our customers using the plugin because this allowed end-users to place orders as per their flexibility and convenience. We also added an option to Import/Export settings so that your customized delivery schedule can be set within a few minutes.
- Deposits for WooCommerce – Automatic remaining balance deduction through Stripe. This feature allowed the Deposits plugin to get rid of manual payments, thereby allowing our customers to accept balance payments without any manual intervention.
WordCamps and Events
This year we were present at below events:
- WordCamp Europe in Berlin – Dhara and I were present at the event. You can read more about it here.
- Pressnomics – We were Coffee Sponsors at the event. Vishal and David were part of the event.
We're all set to begin @PressNomics here in Tucson.
- WordCamp Vadodara – We were the Silver Sponsors at the event. Our entire team attended the WordCamp. Also, I was a part of the panel discussion regarding Careers in WordPress. Dhara was a part of the volunteering team whereas the rest of our team took turns in manning the sponsor booth explaining the enthusiastic WordCampers all about Tyche & our work culture.
It was fun attending #WCVadodara with the team.✌️Enjoyed a lot!!
- WordCamp Mumbai – Our entire team was able to be a part of the WordCamp. We weren’t able to sponsor or represent the WordCamp Mumbai in terms of a speaking engagement, but Dhara was again a part of the volunteering team here too
Currently, we have not yet planned on the events we shall be attending in 2020 but we will be present at the first WordCamp Asia in February in Bangkok. We will be one of the sponsors at the event. If you are coming to the event do stop by our booth to say hi.
Retreats
We used to have annual retreats of a day or two. But since the last year, we have been organizing annual retreats that span across a week. This really helps in team building activities and bonding amongst the team improves a lot. Last year we had been to Kodaikanal (a hill station in the southern part of India). This year we had some different plans. We choose the desert region of Rajasthan having a royal presence in India. The place this time was Jaisalmer also known as the “Golden City”.
Our annual retreat for @tychesoftwares has begun at Jaisalmer .. It will be a heck of an experience this time .. Disappointed that many of our team members couldn't make it this time around pic.twitter.com/vewNKBhQlO
— Dhruvin Shah (@DhruvinShah8) August 3, 2019
All of us had an amazing time during the retreat with the highlight being palace type stay and desert safari 🙂
We also had one day of the retreat for Tychethon (Tyche version of Hackathon) and all of our team members were able to complete the tasks they had taken up. The development team completed the tasks of making our plugins compatible as per WPCS standards. While the support and testing team did some extensive research on the existing page builders and popular themes.
Unfortunately, many of our team members were not able to make it to the annual retreat and there were some last minute cancellations as well. But, we had another retreat to one of our local amusement part – Essel World. The entire team was able to be part of this memorable day with their kids. Some highlights are as below:
We also had regular activities in our office which includes celebrations of our festivals, fun games and quizzes.
Now comes the important part … Stats
Like I said earlier, 2019 was a wonderful year for us. Here are some statistical highlights of the year:
What can you expect in 2020
We have some exciting things planned up for 2020. I will provide some hints as to what can you expect from our plugins.
In the Booking & Appointment plugin for WooCommerce there were very few releases this year. Come 2020 and there are some features lined up making the Booking & Appointment plugin to be used more effectively with the Block Editor (Gutenberg). Other features include adding Webhooks support to allow connecting with external systems such as Zapier.
Abandon Cart Pro will see some more capture and recovery methods that will help you recover more sales and keep a check on cart abandonment. Abandon Cart too will have the option to connect external systems via Webhooks.
Are you excited? so are we for an exciting 2020. Till then watch out our premium plugins.
We would be keen to know how was the year for you. Please do comment below and let us know your thoughts.
Also, we are open to suggestions and would love to know what would you want in our plugins in 2020.
