The brand and member base that Small Potato (a.k.a. Tung Do) or the owner of WP Designer will soon be in the hands of another owner.  As he must travel abroad, he will no longer have the time or resources to keep up with the extensive work required for the Premium Themes Club or his regular blogging, so he must sell the blog.  An accretion of other events in his life further prompted the choice to sell.

Since June of 2006, Small Potato has contributed immensely to the WordPress community and unless the new owner will be able to continue the themes club, his hosting package, and continue releasing a combination of premium and free themes, the network built around his site will be ruined.  Nonetheless, his decision was probably made for the best, as it was a huge undertaking as it was - managing support for hundreds of theme members while keeping up with ever-changing needs from the blog themes market.

It is important to note that WP Designer isn’t accepting just any investor for the purchase.  The purchaser must have an extensive background in WordPress (development, theme creation, etc.) and be able to continue the projects that he has been aiming for releasing.  You should also have your own team of WordPress developers to maximize the site’s potential.

Update: It appears as though WP Designer sold for his full asking price just a few days after putting the site up for sale.

For a current bid of $15,000 or $65,000 (Buy It Now Price), you’ll receive:

Advertising and Revenue:

• Themes Club - approx. $890/month
• Revenue potential from private banners, text link ads, sponsored reviews, consultation service, and WordPress development service
• Text links could bring as much as $150-$250/link

 Stats:

• 70,000 unique visitors/month
• 896,000 page views/month
• Page Rank: 7
• Alexa Rank: 9,066 (Up 4,454 ranks over the last three months)
• Compete Rank: 29,378 (with 61,745 U.S. visitors per month)
• 2,900 RSS subscribers
• 400+ paying themes club members
• 1300+ theme club members total
• Ranked highly in WordPress-related directories, Google, Technorati, and themes have been used on WordPress.com

What’s Included:

• Domain name
• All original WP themes and articles
• Current design
• vBulletin license
• Monthly license for themes club management system

I extend the best of luck to WP Designer and hope that he will still be able to support the brand that he has created in the future.  Anyone devoted to WordPress looking to put in a large sum of money for a potential down-the-road revenue stream should really consider the purchase.

[via SitePoint Auction]

Further discussion on other blogs:

• Premium WP - WPDesigner.com For Sale
• Adii - WPDesigner Being Sold: Would you buy it?
• WP Candy - WPDesigner.com Is For Sale