Omaha, December 18, 2018 — Flywheel has announced the opening of the Local Dev Fund, an initiative that will invest up to $1,000,000 in grants to WordPress developers that are dedicated to shaping the future of Local by Flywheel.
Over the next three years, Flywheel will offer grants ranging from $1,000-$10,000 to WordPress developers who are invested in creating add-ons for Local by Flywheel, a local WordPress development application that is quickly becoming the gold standard in the industry. The Local Dev Fund allows the WordPress community and Flywheel to collaborate and create the best local development application for WordPress users by extending the product’s feature set.
“There is an incredible community around Local already, including dozens of developers who have already created their own add-ons, as well as YouTube tutorials in almost every language,” said Rick Knudtson, Chief Marketing Officer. “We’re really excited to bring our own investments into this and provide more support for these community-led initiatives.”
Flywheel is looking for talented developers who are passionate about the future of WordPress to build onto the Local Add-on Library. There are very few stipulations from Flywheel for an add-on to be built. It needs to be written in a language that transpiles down to ES5 and JavaScript, and it must use React for anything user-facing. Any ideas that meet those two requirements and extends the functionality of Local in an elegant way are encouraged, and the Flywheel team has expanded their API documentation to support these initiatives.
Those who are interested in crafting custom add-ons can apply on their website. If approved, these individuals will also be offered marketing support to spread the word about their work.
Flywheel has also announced several other ways they plan on investing in the local development community. Developers and speakers can apply to speak at a WordCamp or related event, educators can create a Local by Flywheel tutorial, and Local users can write a review on their behalf.
They will also be launching Local for Teams in January 2019, with the Local Community version remaining free for users to download and use in their day-to-day workflow.
Local by Flywheel, previously known as Pressmatic, was acquired by Flywheel in December of 2016. Since then, the app has been downloaded by more than 150,000 users.
