Whatabaudio and the currently two soundsets for Zebra 2 are a passion project of mine that I started during the pandemic. After having written tons of reviews of sample libraries, creating my own audio product was a very exciting and fun process.
And also challenging with everything that comes with opening a store. At the time - almost six years ago - Shopify was the best or cheapest solution for me. I got it to work but I have always been quite disappointed that a lot of things that - in my eyes - basic functionality for running a store like this was not directly implemented into the store but was only possible with 3rd party plugins. The good ones of course have been paid subscriptions but after a while I got everything up and running with free plugins at minimum cost.
What do I mean?
If you want to sell a digital product you have of course to deliver the product - Shopify doesn't do that and you need a plugin, I used Uplinky for this. Then you need to send a receipt or invoice which Shopify doesn't do, I used Order Printer Pro for this. Then there's the problem with pricing for US, EU, UK - Shopify doesn't let you easily manage regional pricings and the thing that I really wanted was a solution for B2B-clients who wanted to put in their VAT-ID and then the VAT is automatically removed. I think I gave up on this finally so it was never possible at my store. (Maybe in the meantime things have changed…?)
At some point I changed the Shopify plan to a three-year tier which gave me a huge discount. This plan ends in June this year and that's the reason why I was looking for another solution that has no monthly fees at all because I really want to keep this project alive. Selling these two soundsets has never been a goldmine and with all the costs of running a shop I would lose money after June this year.
The "New Stack": AI & FastSpring
I recently heard about the coding ability of AI and after some tests I was convinced that I can do it even if I can't code at all. These are really exciting times! In the end I used Gemini to build my new website and it was a really fun process! Not that you put in a prompt and it's all there but with Gemini I had a competent partner with perfect coding abilities and I could ask it forever. So after a lot of back and forth we finally put together a new website which - in my opinion - looks and feels a hundred times better than what Shopify had offered me. Hosting everything on Netlify for free is a breeze too. Things run super fast and smooth!
To handle my newsletter and email list without adding new subscriptions, I integrated Brevo. They have a generous free tier that is absolutely perfect for a growing indie business, keeping those monthly fixed costs strictly at $0.
For the storefront, I looked into Lemon Squeezy and Paddle, but finally landed on FastSpring. They are very well known in the audio industry and offer everything that I always thought was basic functionality: Digital Delivery, Receipts/Invoices, automatic VAT removal for B2B-clients, and fixed pricing for EUR, USD and GBP. It’s awesome because they only take a cut if I actually sell something. No sales? No costs. Perfect. Yes it is a bit more expensive but rock solid.
By the way, for my US customers: with the new setup and the way currency conversion is handled now, it actually turned out to be a bit cheaper for you, which is a nice side effect of the switch!
Two things I did differently on the new site:
- Simple Demo Downloads: One thing that always annoyed me on other sites was having to "buy" free demos for $0 and going through a whole checkout. On the new site, I’ve scrapped that. If you want to try the sounds, there's just a simple download button. No cart, no forms. Just click and play. It also doesn’t distract from the actual products like before.
- No Email-Harvesting: I’m also not the kind of guy who wants to spam your inbox constantly and I never used the email addresses from the demo „buyers“ to send them anything. I’m a firm believer that if people like the work and want to buy it, they will. I’m not going to force you onto a list just to get a demo.
I’m currently finishing the trilogy with "Crime Fundamentals 3" — which will be for Zebra HZ this time! I’m using these sounds in almost all my own scoring projects right now. It will probably take another 2 or 3 months until it's ready, but I'm really excited about it.
If you want to support me or be notified when the Zebra HZ set is coming, you can subscribe to the list on the new site. Those on the list will receive a discount code for the launch. I’m a much bigger fan of loyalty discounts for people who stay in touch rather than doing constant public sales or deep discounts, so the list is the only place where that happens. I’d be happy to see you there!