Pixie CMS - The Small, Simple, Site Maker

I agree with the thought process that before you add new features, you should step back and review your approach and the way you do things. If the foundation isn't strong, the structure won't last. First off, one person, or even a few people, can't run the show. Eventually, you have to engage the community. And in order to do that you have to trust them and communicate with them. Communication being the most time consuming part is always difficult. Point is you’ll have to trust people to do things for you. It may sound difficult because you may be accustomed to certain standards when you do things at your own. But that’s really how it goes. Secondly, you can't run a project successfully or long enough if you don't have the financial backing for it. And I think the approach that you have taken is the right one, which is to build a commercial entity which provides services related to Pixie. And the development, which is paid by clients, can make its way back to the community. Also, there are other things that open source projects do to raise money or to support development. Having a store is one of them. Publishing a book or technical videos about your product can be another. These are not direct methods so someone who knows what he/she is doing is an ideal candidate for managing the store. Now there are a few things that can really use some attention or a new strategy. a. Forums: I personally hate huge forums i.e. phpBB, IPB, SMF, but they're a necessity if you're serious about building a community. A Google group to me doesn’t really work that well in community development. And that's just my experience. A forum that is within your website can really build trust and engage people for longer periods. b. It may feel odd but you really need to get a little more social media involved. Twitter isn't all the social action you can get. A person who can engage with marketing is always needed. And social media is the new marketing. So if you wish to sustain social media, without burning out, you'll have to trust people to market for you or you don't and it won't hurt but it wouldn't help either. In an open source project, you need all the help you can get.