Envato Continues its Creative Evolution

In 2006, Envato was established around a simple idea: how can we help people around the world bring their creative ideas to life?

We’re pretty proud that since that day we’ve helped millions of customers, and thousands of creators, to do just that: thrive independently and as part of a global creative community, by making creative success accessible and achievable to all.

It’s been quite an adventure. We started out in a world dominated by Flash-based web design and within the next decade, evolved our business to be one that supported digital creatives of all domains and experiences. From web developers to game streamers, video producers to audio engineers, photographers to graphic designers and everything in between, Envato has been a source of inspiration, content, assistance and, for many creatives, income. More than $1 billion USD in author earnings is proof of that.

But that doesn’t mean we can afford to stand still. If we are to remain competitive, and a viable choice for digital creatives the world over, then we need to evolve how we support our creative community.

From June 1, we’re making adjustments to our business approach that reflect this, driven by a desire to have a better focus on the things that matter: empowering our creative community, be they authors or customers. Our creative community deserves nothing less. Our customers want products that help them find assets in a smart, accessible and effective manner, while our authors want products and customers that continue to help them earn for their skills and creativity.

We have a unique opportunity on this front. While our business has been built off the backbone of Envato Market, after launching Envato Elements in 2016 we are in a strong position to become a real leader in the world of creative stock subscriptions.

But maximising this opportunity requires an improved focus and investment in our unlimited subscription service, Envato Elements and supporting products. It’s a strong base to build off, with hundreds of thousands of active subscribers and an enviable – and diverse – content library that customers love and keep coming back for. In conjunction with this, Envato Market will continue to be supported in its evolution in the coming years, even as we acknowledge we are witnessing a significant shift in the consumption of digital assets, from single-use marketplace models to subscription services. We were ahead of the curve with Elements when we launched it, and we plan to seize on that early advantage with fresh momentum.

Placeit is a key part of this future opportunity too. A market leader in the print-on-demand space, it has an impressive customer base in the highly competitive DIY creative tools industry. We believe there are a lot of opportunities to be an exciting and prominent player here as it grows.

However, we do need to acknowledge there are other products we will be phasing out over the next few months, and as we have a timeline in place for these we will share it with the community.

We know that any change can be challenging, but we believe these changes are the start of a new chapter in our history and provide us with the greatest opportunity to deliver on our purpose and promise to our community: to empower creatives to thrive independently or as a community, and in the process, provide genuine opportunities for our creatives to create, earn and grow.