Envato Shows Publishers and Community Managers How it’s Done.

If you’re a designer, developer, musician or artist, the chances are you’ve visited at least one of Envato‘s portfolio sites. The Australia based company, founded by husband and wife team  Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, has seen its array of blogs and marketplaces expand from one to nineteen within three years, and has developed the type of community even Apple would be proud of.

The company’s first undertakings were its marketplaces, five in total; FlashDen, ThemeForest, GraphicRiver, AudioJungle and VideoHive. Each of which provides a platform for artists, musicians, designers and developers to  promote and sell their work. For its marketplace members and visitors, today sees the release of a refreshed design and a bundle of new features. The ability to follow a particular author (seller), an improved buyer experience and search and a marketplace wiki full of articles designed to assist buyers and sellers with their marketplace experience.

But it’s not just the Marketplaces that have enjoyed tremendous growth. Envato also runs fourteen, yes fourteen, prominent blogs including PSDTuts, AppStorm, Creattica and Freelance Switch.

What’s startling is the success of each of these of sites, primarily thanks to a devoted community that seems to support each and every new project the company’s two founders set their mind to.

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Some stats:

Tuts (a network of Tutorial Sites) Launched: Aug 07
Alexa Rank: 1,362

Creative Eco Launched: Apr 07
Alexa Rank: 10,196

AppStorm Launched: Jan 09
Alexa Rank: 27,412

Freelance Switch
Alexa Rank: 10,597

Envato Marketplaces Launched: Aug 06
Alexa Ranks:
ThemeForest: 1,957
FlashDen: 3,820
GraphicRiver: 9803
VideoHive: 20,096
AudioJungle: 35,143

While all relatively popular, it’s the Marketplaces and Tuts+ that currently support the company, with a new series of Tuts site to be launched soon. The company also reportedly has several other projects waiting in line – three blogs and a community site – all in the same creative/web niche .

In 2008, Tuts joined the likes of GigaOM and announced a premium content section to their PSDTuts site called PSDTuts Plus with tutorials only available to members willing to pay $9 a month or $22 per three months membership. Founder Collis Ta’eed has said it is this membership offering that has made its other Tuts blogs (4 in total) possible.

Ta’eed discusses the company’s growth in an interesting and in depth interview with Blogger Talks:

“I think the key success factors for us have been that the bulk of the content is free, that there is good value in the membership and that we are using a subscription system…”

On the company’s three year birthday, the two founders sat down to answer its community’s questions. If entrepreneurs are your rock stars, it’s worth a watch: