This post comes a little later than usual for reasons outlined below and I hope it provides some insights into the highlights and challenges of 2021, what we can do better and what the future holds.

New Sections, Layouts and Updates

In 2021, we released the following new Sections and Layouts:

• 16 New Header Sections.
• 10 Landing Page Layouts
• 27 Blog Sections
• 45 Card Sections
• 400+ Button Modules
• 13 New Interactive Sections
• Total Sections available: 350
• Total Layouts available: 31

In addition to the above releases, we provided important updates to all 40 of our Header Sections as well as numerous tweaks to our most popular sections and layouts.

The Divi Marketplace

• As of writing, we have made over 950+ sales on the marketplace, having made 600+ sales in 2021.
• Our most popular products continue to be are our Header Sections followed by our Feature / Content Sections and Footer Sections.

More importantly to our team, and to me personally, are the 5-star reviews we’ve received in 2021.

These reviews reflect our commitment to delivering an exceptional product and standard of professional support to our customers.

I’m a big believer in investing in quality support and we’ll certainly continue to invest in and uphold our high support standards in 2022.

A customer recently said that having our support service is like having an additional team member to bounce ideas, review work or ask for help or guidance. Another customer said it’s like having their own Divi developer for a 10th of the price! Maybe I should increase our pricing!

In addition to the new sections we published 4 blog post updates and closed over 70 support tickets.

What we could do better and looking ahead

We would have loved to release our much anticipated WooCommerce layouts and sections but given the release of the new WooCommerce modules late in 2021, we wanted to take advantage of all the new design and functionality settings in the new modules.

While our belief in quality over quantity is what sets DiviWP apart from other layout and section providers, we do acknowledge that this can result in longer design and development time.

Another reason for the lack of more regular releases is the quality assurance we perform after each new core Divi update.

There were some big releases in 2021, including the 4.10+ speed update, which meant final QA on new layouts and sections needed to be revised, along with testing of our current library. More on how we plan to increase our release cadence further down but I wanted to touch on a human element which had a big impact in 2021.

My wife had some scary pregnancy complications throughout the year which, when combined with the constant stress of COVID-19 and raising our toddler, meant work/life balance was extremely difficult.

I think most of you understand and get this (even if you don’t have kids) and I’ve received so many supportive emails from customers when I mentioned why we may take a bit longer to respond.

Towards the end of the year, we welcomed our second baby girl much earlier than we expected which meant another huge adjustment had to be made (and is still being made!). Unfortunately, my wife and newborn had to be readmitted to hospital (twice) a few weeks later before everything finally settled into the chaos of a newborn routine.

It was a stressful and worrying time but I’m happy to say that everyone is healthy and I’m so proud to be a Dad to two little girls. 

As I watch both of my children grow up, I am reminded that we can all only take one step at a time and keep persevering through it all.

In 2022, our goal is to release smaller batches of layouts and sections, instead of grouping releases together.

This will enable us to build a release momentum while also providing value for customers who may need the layout or section we’ve just released.

This has been suggested by a few customers and we’re going to start these “micro” releases in the coming weeks. We’ve got so many epic layouts and sections currently in draft, we can’t wait to get them out there and add even more value to the DiviWP library. 

Thanks for being part of the journey.

Tristan – Founder, DiviWP