I'd think hard about who your customer is. At most companies, there's a designer either on staff or on retainer that worries about these sorts of things and I'm not sure they are likely to spring for your services. Similarly, the vast majority of small businesses won't see a need for a blog, or they will already have a templates version built into the platform they are already using (i.e. shopify, etc.) I agree that theming blogs can be a hassle, but I'm not sure the market you've chosen is big enough to make a go of it. Some of the other commenters have some interesting ideas about how to address the needs of a larger market, but even then, the intersection might be too small. I'd think really hard about whether or not this is worth investing in - not saying it is or isn't, but just that its worth spending some time getting very comfortable with the answer to that question.
This has been a challenge for us. Some types of businesses have no real need for a blog, or run on a comprehensive platforms such as Shopify or a CMS.
An ideal customer would be a SaaS business with a small staff (5-20 employees) that is big enough to be able to afford throwing a few hundred bucks at a blog, but small enough that the developers/designers don't have the bandwidth to work on a blog. Businesses this size probably have a full-time designer that could design the blog, but there is a sweet spot where it's not worth it to spend their time on anything but the revenue-producing product. Our best example is http://www.transferbigfiles.com (http://blog.transferbigfiles.com). They have a full-time developer/designer, but he simply doesn't have the bandwidth to also maintain a blog design. Is this market big enough? We think so, but there are several other potentially larger markets for our theming technology that we could easily expand into.
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I'd think hard about who your customer is. At most companies, there's a designer either on staff or on retainer that worries about these sorts of things and I'm not sure they are likely to spring for your services. Similarly, the vast majority of small businesses won't see a need for a blog, or they will already have a templates version built into the platform they are already using (i.e. shopify, etc.) I agree that theming blogs can be a hassle, but I'm not sure the market you've chosen is big enough to make a go of it. Some of the other commenters have some interesting ideas about how to address the needs of a larger market, but even then, the intersection might be too small. I'd think really hard about whether or not this is worth investing in - not saying it is or isn't, but just that its worth spending some time getting very comfortable with the answer to that question.
This has been a challenge for us. Some types of businesses have no real need for a blog, or run on a comprehensive platforms such as Shopify or a CMS.
An ideal customer would be a SaaS business with a small staff (5-20 employees) that is big enough to be able to afford throwing a few hundred bucks at a blog, but small enough that the developers/designers don't have the bandwidth to work on a blog. Businesses this size probably have a full-time designer that could design the blog, but there is a sweet spot where it's not worth it to spend their time on anything but the revenue-producing product. Our best example is http://www.transferbigfiles.com (http://blog.transferbigfiles.com). They have a full-time developer/designer, but he simply doesn't have the bandwidth to also maintain a blog design. Is this market big enough? We think so, but there are several other potentially larger markets for our theming technology that we could easily expand into.