It’s no secret that if you’ve visited Kolakube, or have been following me on Twitter for a while you know that Marketers Delight is more than just a skin to me.

It’s my most successful project in my career and one of my proudest accomplishments in life, as its success has undoubtedly changed my life.

To see it evolve into what it has now, in this version 3, thanks to the advances of the powerful tools on the web such as WordPress and Thesis (the software it’s built around) amazes me every time I think about it.

It’s also fun to think how Marketers Delight came to be. From a simple skin I used to fill a gallery, to the beast and icon it is today.

And for the sake of showing off some of the excellent post formatting that’s built right into Marketers Delight, I want to tell you a little story.

The Freelance Project

The very first version of what would be known as Marketers Delight was a design I created for a client, who was/is also a great friend of mine, to use on his (wait for it…) marketing blog.
As you can see below… I didn’t really have a good handle on typography and the whole ‘whitespace’ thing, but the design was a huge success throughout his booming community.

RobsWebTips on Marketers Delight

Click to see the homepage → Click to see the post page →

Eventually, the site changed its focus and no longer needed the blog design, so I asked if I could use the design to sell on Kolakube. We worked something out, and I was going to use the design with hopes people would love to buy it as much as they liked looking at it.

The Name

Throughout all of my past projects online, I’ve always been particularly picky about the names.

I’ve never settled on naming something so it had keywords in it, but I loved the idea of giving things deeper meanings.

But I think Marketers Delight was the most fun to name, because the name came so unexpectedly… and it’s actually kind of funny to talk about where it came from.

Are you familiar with a little group known as The Sugarhill Gang? If not, I can almost guarantee you’ve heard a song that goes a little something like:

i said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat…

Yup, those are the opening lyrics The Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight, and it’s not hard to see how I switched the name up for the skin.

But why in the hell would I name something like Marketers Delight after this song?

To me, Rapper’s Delight is the just the epitome of fun. You can’t listen to this song (all 14 minutes of pure bliss) without at least tapping your feet on the ground, because it’s just fun to listen to.

It’s also, in my opinion, the king of rap/hip hop. It was one of the first hit rap songs ever and it was just a few rappers rapping about rap!

I wanted Marketers Delight to be the king of something too, and just be good at what it does; from every last detail down. At the time, whether it was the king of Thesis skins or just the king of Kolakube, I wanted this skin to the be the best of its kind.

With my beliefs that this skin should be fun to use, as unique as possible and just the best at what it does, Marketers Delight couldn’t have been a more suitable name with a small tribute to the best rap song ever made.

Marketers Delight 2

After the quick success of Marketers Delight in the Thesis community, the overall success of Kolakube was wearing thin.

I was a senior in High school, and couldn’t stay committed to the site. I was making money from my business, more than any of my friends, and some people knew it.

So, it wasn’t hard to get distracted and lose focus, especially being the immature prick senior I was.

I stopped offering support, stopped updating skins, and just started counting my money. The community completely went downhill, and eventually the money stopped too.

It wasn’t until summer, after graduation (I’m happy I got things together quick) that I figured out what I was really doing with myself and business.

And that’s where MD2 came in, naturally. It was yet again going to be the thing that made myself and my business shine bright.

Obviously, I had a lot of work to do to make things right with the people I had neglected in the past, and of course to expand on how I defined the Marketers Delight brand.

“Alex I knew there was a reason i’ve been standing behind you through all the ups and downs. You’ve got talent. The new skin really looks like something special. I’m already happy with the Business theme, but have to find a reason to use MD2 soon.”
— Cole Dano, Studio 8

MD2 introduced things I call Page Leads, which are essentially specialized areas on your website that are easy to setup and plug your own content into. You could create email forms, pricing tables, column boxes and more without any real effort. And these things took off throughout the community immediately.

What’s even greater is that MD2 became the second skin that boasted a responsive design, meaning it would look great on any screen size and device.

MD2 was truly the the skin that not only revitalized Kolakube, but molded me into the designer and thinker I am today.

Marketers Delight 3 is Unveiled

On Thursday, December 13th, I unveiled the next iteration of Marketers Delight, version 3, to the world. And the creative energy and thought I put into it was like nothing I’ve ever done before.

Built on top of Thesis 2’s incredible drag and drop system, Marketers Delight 3 bends the limits on what you can achieve without writing any code.

Like past versions before it, MD3 stands for something a lot bigger than just a piece of software to me. Right before I started the project, I moved from my hometown in New Jersey to Austin, Texas.

Dealing with the emotions of moving away from the place I’ve lived my whole life, as well as leaving my friends thousands of miles away to live by myself was challenging. Before I was even completely settled in, I had already started rebuilding Marketers Delight from the ground up.

With such two huge events in my life coming up at the same time, it was definitely one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever gotten through.

Learn More About Marketers Delight Now

I’m not an emotional guy, but when it comes to Marketers Delight, it’s not hard for me to talk about everything I’ve put into it and why it’s such a huge part of my life.

I won’t talk about what MD3 can do here, you can learn all about that by following this sexy button:

Click to learn more about Marketers Delight

Thanks for reading! I hope this story gave you a good example of how you can create beautiful content with Marketers Delight 3, and has shown you a little what I’m about.