I recently spoke with Iman G. M. to ask him a few questions about his work as an Envato Market author, and about being given the Community Superstar award. So, let’s get started!
– Let’s begin by explaining who you are, and what you do.
Well, it depends! You may call me a theme author on ThemeForest and meanwhile one of the 5 million members of a lovely and exciting community named Envato.
As a theme author, I do my best to make good WordPress themes for ThemeForest and I do it with passion. I mean it, and I do enjoy working as an author. As a member of the community, what I do is simply enjoying being a part of it. I learn there and will try to help others as well.
– How and where did you learn your skills?
If I recall correctly, it was 1998 that I decided to become a web developer. In those days, it was easier to become a frontend developer. So, I started by reading a big HTML4 book and this way I entered in to the game. I studied Computer Software at university but I’ve learned these useful skills on websites such as W3Schools, Tuts+ and different forums.
– How long have you been working on Envato Market?
I do love photography. I’m not a professional photographer but a serious amateur. I enjoy playing with cameras, lenses and lighting equipment. So, beside my daily job in my own founded web hosting company, I started to shoot some photos for PhotoDune to improve my photography skills. Fortunately some of them got approved on the Marketplace about 2 years ago. Thus, I joined the Envato Market as an author about 2 years ago but it wasn’t a job for me at that time.
After a few months, I planned to submit an item to ThemeForest for the first time and made a monster theme. It took me 10 months to finish it. And once I submitted it, I got a hard rejection in 5 minutes! The problem was that my design was not ready for ThemeForest.
At that point, I understood that working on ThemeForest and making money from it, is not as easy as some people may think. So, I teamed up with two great authors; Jaynesh and Faton (PremiumLayers), and worked on their approved designs. The themes were approved and happily one of these items was chosen as the featured item of the week and the other one was the highest rated item on Envato Market in March 2014.
– How did it feel to be recognised and awarded the Community Superstar award?
It feels amazing! I mean it. I remember how happy I was when I got an email from D’zinc that they’d chosen me as the Community Superstar of the month. It’s a great community with great members that most of them have the potential to be chosen as the superstar. Now that I’m awarded with this title, I’m so proud of it and also I feel a bit lucky! Meanwhile, I feel I’m more responsible about our great community and I’ll do my best to deserve it by helping more people in the community.
Well, to be honest, there is another thing that made me happy when I was chosen as the superstar of the month, and it was about the badges! You know? Believe it or not, badges are one of the most important things in our community and people love them. There are two people that whenever I see their profile, I tell myself that someday I’ll have more badges than theirs. Scott Wills and Calin Teodorescu. They are both great people and when I was chosen as the superstar, I felt like I was getting one step closer to them because I got a new shiny badge for this title as well!
– Do you enjoy helping people out on the forums? You’re always there to help!
Yeah I do! Maybe it sounds weird if I say I enjoy helping and answering the tickets of the buyers of my items on ThemeForest, but I do really like that too. When someone has a problem and you know the solution, the most enjoyable thing to do is helping them to resolve the problem by sharing the solution. When you do this, you can imagine a beautiful smile on the buyer’s face and nothing is better than this. On the forums, it feels the same. When somebody has a problem and I’m around, I’ll do my best to help them out, and imagine that beautiful smile and enjoy it!
– What’s next for Iman G. M.?
As an author, it’s new projects. The good thing about working on ThemeForest is your freedom to work on something that you enjoy working on. I’ll try to enjoy my work even more!
Also, my wife enjoys travelling, so I’m planning to have a trip to the Moon! You know? I’m talking about the Envato Elite reward of passing $25m on Envato Market!
As a member of the community, I’ll try to be active and helpful whenever I can, and I’ll also try to learn more from the nice people who participate there every day.
– Anything else you’d like to share?
Thank you for the interview. I would also say a big thank you to all of the members of the Envato Community for making it such a great place to work, learn and help. I hope it will continue to grow and improve every day as more and more people enjoy using and improving their skills as an enjoyable job on ThemeForest and the other Envato Market sites.
We’d like to thanks Iman once again for his great answers! If you have any more questions you’d like to ask Iman, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to pass them on to him. For more info about Imam’s Envato products, visit his portfolio.
