Say “Goodbye!” 👋 to FFW.Press & say “Hello!” To… Me! 🤩

I can’t do a major overhaul of my website (new design, new domain name) without taking a moment to explain. FFW.Press became Daan.dev and while the title of this post might be confusing, it’ll all make sense in a minute. Trust me.

I’ve been contemplating this migration for a few months and last Sunday I finally pulled the trigger. Why? You might think? Well, 4 reasons:

• My Terrible Sense of Humour
• I’m not a Company, nor am I a Team
• The Internet is Changing — Rapidly
• I Needed An Excuse
• Summing up: Why the new Logo/Design?

My Terrible Sense of Humour

When I started this business, all I did was speed optimizations. I made sure your website would get green scores in PageSpeed Insights. I figured; a company needs a company name, right!?

Some of you might remember I started out with WoOSH!, which was a fun and playful name, matching my personality.

Unfortunately, some other dude in The Netherlands already owns a company with that name, so I had to change it. Like he’s as fun and playful as me. *Blows raspberry*

So I came up with FFW.Press, or Fast Forward Press, which if you pronounce it fast, sounds like Fast For WordPress. Ha! Fun right! Right!?

Unfortunately, literally no one gets it. It makes sense, because in hindsight it’s a bit far fetched.

I’m not a Company, nor am I a Team

Just because no one gets my terrible sense of humour, obviously isn’t a valid reason for this major overhaul.

An interesting side effect of having a company name is that people i.e. users, start seeing you as a company.

You might think: Duh! But this wasn’t obvious for me at all, when I first started out.

I can deal with a support ticket starting with: “Hi team!” It makes me giggle — and feel slightly schizophrenic. 1-star reviews making me out to be a money grubbing corporation; they’re not as fun as you might think!

The biggest downside, however, is when people get impatient, because I didn’t respond within 4 hours — like most teams do, apparently. That’s the moment I want to pull my hair out — if I had any.

I mean, I’m sorry I need to sleep sometimes.

While this “team” people speak of is entirely non-existent, it seems to be taking up quite a lot of space in my office. And the whole point of me starting this business was me!

I wanted to do something I like. I was done with having to keep a corporate tone of voice and to represent a company. I wanted to build a business around me and to have more time for me and my family.

The Internet is Changing — Rapidly

The internet changes rapidly. And the last few years, it’s been more insane than ever.

Privacy has become the #1 priority and Big Tech is taking fire from (European) privacy watch dogs. Website owners are affected as well, because the GDPR is enforced now more than ever.

For a while, only large corporations would get hit and receive massive, 6 figure fines. Then, last February happened and a court in Germany fined a small website owner € 100,- for using Google Fonts.

Regardless of how relatively small this fine was, its message was clear: the GDPR spares no one.

While I’ve known for a few years that using Google Fonts’ CDN was in breach of GDPR, I couldn’t predict the spike in popularity this ignited for OMGF.

Now, people barely care about my PageSpeed Optimization skills. Instead, they rely on me for GDPR related matters!

Do I mind? Au contraire, mon frère! But it’s another reason why my business needed an overhaul.

I Needed An Excuse

Not so much a reason, but more of a convenient opportunity. I needed an excuse to fix one of the mistakes I made: I offered waaay too many license types.

Obviously, there’s not a better moment to change this than after a redesign/migration!

Most WordPress plugin developers offer 2 or 3. Me? I offered 5! Since Monday, I’m offering 4 license types with a wider range between no. of site activation slots:

	Price	Website(s) (old)	Website(s) (new)
Personal	€ 24,-	1	1
Business	€ 49,-	5	10
Corporate	€ 74,-	10	N/A
Agency	€ 99,-	50	100
Ultimate	€ 299,-	100	1000

These changes are grandfathered into all current annual licenses. What does this mean for you?

• Nothing changed for Personal license holders.
• Business licenses now have 10 site activation slots, instead of 5.
• Corporate licenses have been converted to Business licenses, essentially saving you 33% on (all) your next renewal(s).
• Agency licenses now have 100 site activation slots, instead of 50.

As the Ultimate license is a lifetime (one-time fee) license, no changes are grandfathered into these licenses. Current Ultimate license holders will soon be able to upgrade their license from within their account area. The Unlimited license add-on will no longer be sold. They were abused, i.e. resold far too often.

Summing up: Why the new Logo/Design?

So, I wasn’t happy with my licensing structuring and the company name:

• Didn’t make much sense to begin with, and
• Made even less sense now my services are requested more often in GDPR land, and
• Caused people to see me as a corporation. Not a person. While that is a very important detail to me.

Change was necessary. I needed a new company name. A company name that tells people they’re dealing with a person, not a company. A name that’s flexible enough to withstand the multi-directional pulls of the internet.

It just had to be my first name. And a new name needs a new logo.

I’m self employed for more than a year now. I make mistakes. I bounce back. Every day. And it’s. So. Much. Fun!

That’s what the logo illustrates: Ups and downs, and steady growth. And it’s personal, too. Not just because it’s my first name, but because it’s inspired by my actual autograph!

The new logo and new design are a celebration. To mark a new chapter in this adventure — also, you’ve seen the previous design, right? I mean, what was I thinking!?

What do you think? Do you like the new design and licensing structure?