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Getting to Know You
Welcome, Florian! Please tell us about your background, what inspired you to become a developer, and what you do outside of work.
Thanks so much! I’m Florian, 40 years young, originally from Germany 🇩🇪. Outside of work, I’m super active — I love playing soccer, going for long bike rides, and traveling whenever I get the chance. I also share my days (and office!) with my awesome white little husky mix, who’s basically my fluffy sidekick 🐶.
As for my background, I got into coding by building simple HTML websites just for fun. That curiosity grew over time, and eventually, I discovered WordPress. That’s when everything clicked, and I fell in love with creating plugins. I’ve been hooked ever since!
Building AAWP, ClickWhale, and MHThemes
A WordPress plugin for Amazon affiliates is quite a niche offering. What led you to create AAWP, and how did you identify the gap in the market?
Like many of my projects, AAWP started out as a way to scratch my own itch. I had just started dabbling in Amazon affiliate marketing, making a bit of extra cash by promoting products on my websites. But when I looked for a WordPress plugin to help me out, I couldn’t find one that ticked all the boxes — especially when it came to both functionality and design.
That’s when I thought, “There’s no way I’m the only one with this problem…” and I built my own solution from the ground up.
Once I was happy, I figured it could help others too, so I polished it up and launched it on CodeCanyon as my first real step into the WordPress plugin business scene.
Tell us about ClickWhale’s origin story.
In affiliate marketing, it’s common to use link management tools to shorten and track affiliate links. I’d been using a solid, well-known solution for years, but over time I realized it just wasn’t hitting all the marks. It was missing features, had a UI that didn’t vibe with me, and honestly, there were a lot of things I would’ve done differently if I were building it myself.
And that’s exactly what we did, setting out to build something that reflected our needs, vision, and just felt more right.
An added bonus? Many users of our other plugins are already doing affiliate marketing, so ClickWhale was a natural fit for them too.
You also have MH Themes, which offers a suite of WordPress themes. What sparked the idea, and how does it differ from your plugin ventures?
A few years ago, an opportunity suddenly came up to take over the project from a German developer, who had been doing a fantastic job with it for years. We got in touch, clicked pretty quickly, and sealed the deal soon after.
For me, it was the first time diving into the WordPress theme business — and wow — it’s definitely a different beast.
One of the biggest challenges early on was stepping into someone else’s shoes: understanding how the business worked, figuring out what to keep, what to improve, and how to realign everything for long-term success. A lot of learning, but super rewarding!
Across your three products, what specific problems are you solving for users? What features do they love most, and how do those set your offerings apart from the competition?
It’s a bit tricky to answer this for all three products at once, since each one lives in its own niche, but they do share a common goal: helping users get more out of their websites, whether that means increasing revenue, improving usability, or just making things look and work better.
With AAWP and ClickWhale, the core mission is to help affiliate marketers make more money through smarter, better-looking, and easier-to-manage tools. And honestly, even with our MH Magazine theme, it’s still about giving users the tools to build a professional site that supports their goals — whether that’s monetization or just building a strong online presence.
As for features people really love (and that help us stand out), I’d say:
- For AAWP, it’s definitely the comparison tables: super flexible, visually appealing, and conversion-friendly. People use them a lot.
- For ClickWhale, the bio link pages have been a big hit. They’re perfect for creators and marketers who want to share multiple links from one profile, and they look wonderful too.
[If you have a team,] we’d love to spotlight them. Who are they, and what makes their contributions valuable?
We’re a small but passionate team of WordPress enthusiasts — mostly developers, online marketers, and support pros who handle customer questions and feedback every single day.
For the first few years, I was doing everything solo (which, in hindsight… was a bit wild). Eventually, I brought on my first support assistant, and honestly, that was a total game-changer. From there, we’ve slowly and intentionally grown the team, bringing in great people based on what the business needed at each stage.
Everyone on the team brings their own strengths, and their contributions are super valuable, whether it’s writing clean code, improving our marketing, or just being there for our users when they need help. Couldn’t do it without them! 💙
From Multiple Platforms to One Home
You previously used Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) for AAWP and Lemon Squeezy for ClickWhale. What made you look for a more unified, alternative solution?
This was a long journey!
We used the EDD stack with Stripe and PayPal for years for AAWP and MH Themes. And to be honest, when it comes to selling WordPress plugins, EDD is still one of the best plugin-based solutions out there.
Funny side note: MH Themes actually started out using FastSpring as a merchant of record (MoR), but we moved it over to EDD pretty early on. So that was technically our first brush with an MoR setup.
With EDD, we started running into limitations — a few persistent issues, some friction with certain features, and then came the new global tax regulations. That was the tipping point that made us realize: “Okay, we need a more future-proof solution.”
When we began looking for a more unified solution, we gave Lemon Squeezy a try. It looked super promising and did a decent job overall. But once we launched the first version of ClickWhale Pro, we quickly realized their built-in licensing system just wasn’t up to par, especially compared to the flexibility and power of EDD.
That’s when we gave Freemius a try — and honestly, it felt like finding the solution we’d been looking for. I’d come across Freemius before, but for some reason (maybe the migration process looked overwhelming at the time?), it didn’t feel right yet.
Now? We’re happy we made the leap. Freemius gives us a super solid, WordPress-focused licensing system, handles taxes so we don’t have to stress about it, and just makes selling our software way smoother overall.
Once you migrated, what key limitations or frustrations from EDD and Lemon Squeezy were resolved? How did that impact your day-to-day operations or your products’ growth?
The biggest (most relieving) win by far was outsourcing the invoicing and tax handling. Before, we were using a separate third-party tool on top of EDD just to generate VAT-compliant invoices. It worked, but it added complexity and made the whole process clunky.
With Freemius, everything’s built in. My support team can easily adjust invoices for customers when needed, without jumping through hoops. That alone saves us tons of time and support overhead.
It also gives us peace of mind. Knowing taxes are handled properly in the background means we can focus more on building great products instead of stressing about compliance in every region.
Two successful plugins and a popular theme shop sound like a lot to migrate! How was your migration experience?
This was definitely one of my biggest fears. We had tens of thousands of licenses to move over, so the idea of something going wrong was pretty nerve-wracking.
Luckily, it went way smoother than expected. The migration tool Freemius provides is really solid, and what made the difference was the personal support from their CTO. That hands-on assistance was incredibly valuable and made the whole process feel way more manageable. Huge thanks for that again, Dror.
Shaping the Platform Together
You were part of the community during the new checkout design and development process. What was your impression of the process and its results?
It really felt like we joined the Freemius party at just the right time!
The old checkout design was starting to feel a bit outdated, so when I started seeing Slack messages about a full redesign, I was genuinely excited. We jumped on it early and implemented the new checkout across our sites pretty quickly and it worked really well right out of the gate.
I don’t have any hard numbers on conversion improvements (we trust the Freemius team and their internal research), but purely from a design and usability perspective, we’re super happy with the results. It feels modern, smooth, and much more in line with what users expect today. Great move by the Freemius team!
What’s your impression of how Freemius approaches building and evolving the platform?
As a developer, I can’t help it — whenever I spot something that could be improved (even tiny UI things), my fingers start to tingle like, “Let me just fix that real quick!”
In those moments, I usually grab a few screenshots, write down my thoughts, and send them over to the Freemius team as feedback.
What’s amazing is how often I see those very points show up in their changelog shortly after. Such responsiveness makes me, as a store owner, feel genuinely heard.
How do you see Freemius fitting into the broader story of your products’ growth?
After all the years dealing with disputes, generating invoices, handling tax forwarding, and getting frustrated with constantly changing tax regulations, it’s such a relief to finally focus on what we love: building great products.
I’m more than happy to pay a fair cut of our earnings if it means I get to spend my days on things that actually move the business forward — not chasing paperwork. Freemius has taken a huge weight off our shoulders and become a key part of helping our projects grow with less stress and more focus.
Business Growth & Impact
How has your revenue model or payment flow improved since migrating to Freemius compared to EDD and Lemon Squeezy?
One of the biggest improvements was how Freemius handles subscriptions. EDD’s recurring payments add-on always felt like a bolt-on, and managing upgrades/downgrades was clunky. Freemius handles all of that automatically, including proration and renewals, which helped stabilize and grow our MRR.
Which Freemius features have had the biggest impact on your growth? Can you share how they’ve helped streamline your business?
There are a bunch of great features, but one that’s had a huge impact for us is dispute and chargeback handling.
You wouldn’t believe how much time we used to spend manually gathering info, taking screenshots, and responding to Stripe or PayPal — all because some customers forgot to cancel their subscription, or requested a refund for no real reason.
Now?
Freemius handles all of that for us. As a store owner, that’s a massive time-saver and stress reducer. It lets us stay focused on growing the business instead of wasting hours fighting chargebacks.
Day-to-Day & Developer Life
What does your typical workday look like?
I still struggle with keeping a super structured routine. Most days, I find myself jumping between different (and often spontaneous) tasks: answering customer support requests, reviewing dev work, or switching gears to tackle some marketing-related ideas.
It’s a bit of a chaotic mix.
But there is one constant in my day — my fluffy office buddy Nala, a little husky mix who keeps me grounded. She’s always by my side and makes sure I take regular breaks, whether it’s for a walk (great for clearing my head) or a quick ball game in the office. Honestly, she’s probably the most reliable part of my routine.
What does your dev environment look like?
Full honesty! I don’t do a ton of coding myself these days, thanks to my awesome team of developers. But I still jump in for code reviews and occasionally tinker with smaller tasks when I get the chance.
As for my setup… I keep it pretty straightforward:
- MacOS as my daily driver
- PhpStorm as my go-to IDE
- LocalWP for spinning up WordPress environments quickly
That’s basically it — clean, simple, and gets the job done.
Wrapping Up
Thanks for your time, Florian! Before we wrap up, please share your social media handles so people can follow you and stay connected.
Thanks for the opportunity to share my experience — I really appreciate it!
If you’d like to follow my work or hear more of my thoughts on dev and business stuff, feel free to connect with me on Twitter/X and LinkedIn.
I also share occasional insights and updates on my personal dev/business blog (definitely worth checking out if you’re into that kind of thing).
You can find the links to my channels on my bio link page.
