Supporting WooCommerce Communities in Bangladesh

Abha: Hello and welcome to another Do the Woo Show. We’re here for the very first time in 2023. And we are live, well we recorded it live in Bangladesh, in Asia, and listening to Abha Thakor and I’m here with two very special panelists today. So we are joined by Sumaiya Siddika and A.H.M. Nazmul Hasan Monshi, who is also known as Robin. And we’ll be calling him Robin, which is his favorite nickname throughout this show today. So welcome to you both. It’s lovely to see you. And it’s 2023 already. Can you believe it?

Robin: Yeah, thanks for inviting us. We are excited, and let’s see what’s going on.

Abha: It’ll be a fantastic show, I’m sure. I’ve been talking to these wonderful people all week and we’ve got some very interesting things to share with you. So last month I think we were in Africa and this month we go over to Bangladesh with no air flight miles. So this is really good, through the power of Do the Woo, which is dedicated to supporting inclusion and helping us spread the voices of people in different parts of the world, because of course open source allows us to do that and that’s a great thing about it.

So I’m going to talk to both of you about your journeys as developers and how you can inspire other people in your country and also elsewhere in Asia and globally, because I know from talking to you both that you have a lot of energy and excitement to share. So we’ll get going straight away with that.

So Sumaiya, I’m going to come to you first. Now when we’ve talked, it’s been fascinating because we’ve talked about architecture. We have a common love of buildings and design and it’s been really great. And then we actually found that we also have a common language of code. So Sumaiya, you didn’t want to be a developer first of all, did you?

Sumaiya: It’s very unfortunate I am studied in computer science and engineering. I wanted to be an architect all time.

Abha: But I think the joy for you is that there’s been a lot of parallels in that journey. So the love of design that you have, you’ve seen that in the development world. Tell us a little bit more about what it is about your current job and your current role as a developer that really sings to your love of design?

Sumaiya: From the very first time, I am always love to designing things, crafts like dresses. Currently I’m working on as a front end developer, which is related to the design directly. I always love to play with color.

Abha: And I suppose for many people who have not considered web development as a career, they may not have thought they can use those kind of interests and those creative part of their brains in development, but you found that you have that root for expression. So as you are developing things, are you able to use your creative energy?

Sumaiya: Yeah, I can use my design energy with my code using sense of designing.

Abha: I’m just going to go to Robin for a minute because you didn’t intend to be a developer either. And both of you have ended up in a field that you love accidentally. As I understand it, you were first taken by medicine but then went across to do development in computer science and engineering as well, in the same way that Sumaiya has. But what was it that attracted you to this world of computer science?

Robin: Well, everyone wanted me to be a doctor from my childhood. Everyone wanted I study in medical college. Then also I prepared for medical college. There was three months period I studied for medical. But last day what happened that I chanced in engineering college instead. So university life was in Sylhet, in Shahjalal University and that was great. I have few choices for selecting subjects in engineering. I select CS instead and lucky I am now here with all of you.

Abha: And I think that shows, and especially some of the interviews that we’ve done already, that it doesn’t matter if you come to development at whatever stage, there is a path and a journey that you can have and you can learn whatever it is that you want to within that. Now you’re both based in Dhaka at the moment where you’re both working, right in the center of Bangladesh. What is it like now that we are a year hopefully in a more relaxed COVID environment than we have been, have you found the return to working together in offices and everything? Has that been a real blessing for you all?

Robin: So COVID was very difficult for everyone. We are doing home office and it was nine/five in our single room and doing work without seeing anyone. We do sometimes Zoom call, but it was missing in person interactions. So after coming back to office, the whole environment was changed. So we are enjoying the moment and luckily we have passed the COVID dangerous period.

Abha: It must be nice to be able to see each other and of course go to meetups. I know you’re both planning to come to WordCamp Asia in another month too. So Sumaiya, WordCamp Asia is your first WordCamp that you’ve been able to get to in person.

Sumaiya: Yeah, it will be my first WordCamp.

Abha: You’re very excited to be there?

Sumaiya: Yeah, yeah. I’m very excited about making new friends, learning new things, explore new city, food.

Abha: Will it be the first time that you have traveled outside Bangladesh?

Sumaiya: No, last year we traveled in Nepal.

Abha: Oh, beautiful. So that must have been a lovely thing. I know both of you also love sharing photos with WordPress photo library, which I have to give a quick plug to, which if you haven’t already then do check out these two wonderful pictures of not only their home country but the places that they’ve visited, and just go to the WordPress photo directory. It’s a great way of getting started with getting to know people in the community as well as increasing what you can use.

Sumaiya, for WordCamp Asia I know that you’re going with all your colleagues and it’s going to be an amazing time. And Do the Woo will be at WordCamp Asia as well. So if you are planning to go and you have things that you would like to share beforehand, then do get in touch with us on various channels or our post status and we’ll be lovely to hear what you are all doing. But for Sumaiya, for you in particular, what would you say to other people considering going to their first WordCamp? How would you encourage them, particularly other developers?

Sumaiya: It’s a great opportunity to know the larger scale of community, knowing different kind of product, knowing different kind of developer, different kind of skill, introduce new language, new people. Also it will help us to motivate ourselves to develop things, learning new things, share with the community.

Abha: Sumaiya, you’ve found the WooCommerce website really helpful in terms of your own learning to be able to build WooCommerce sites and to customize it. How would you recommend it to other developers who are just starting their journey into eCommerce or wanting to improve the level of customization?

Sumaiya: WooCommerce is very easy platform to learn and to use. It actually helped us to build a dynamic e-commerce website by help of WooCommerce and it’s very much an opportunity to help wider range of audience for the side.

Abha: And Robin, you’ve also been finding resources that are very helpful and I understand you’ve also been translating the learning that you found yourself into your native language of Bangla so that other developers can try doing a bit more with WordPress, can do a bit more with WooCommerce and also with tickets. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Robin: Yeah, first of all about translations. So in what was on this side, we can translate every plugin so that for e-commerce we can go to that plugin page and we can try to translate that plugin as well. There are various languages available and we can try to translate in our native languages. So we are doing to translate in our native language Bangla as well as I encourage everyone to do the same, so it enrich the community as well. It helps to understand the plugin or functionality in our native languages. Also I have started working with WordPress skill track and also one of the Core contribution part was translation. Without translation, I am also doing good direct things. Fixing bags, reviewing patches.

Abha: So do you think both of you that because things are being translated into your native language, this enables you both to have more participation in the WordPress project?

Sumaiya: Yeah, if it’s a translated language, we have more things to do by e-commerce. People very much use this tour site for their businesses.

Abha: Do you think that WooCommerce and WordPress would be so popular in Bangladesh if they were not translated into local languages?

Sumaiya: Yeah, I think it’s quite popular if it is translated or not.

Abha: Robin, what do you think about the usefulness of translation?

Robin: So at the moment without translation it is doing good, but if we have proper translation and proper content in Bangla, it will enrich our community as well. So everyone can easily understand the website and the pages. So we are encouraging everyone to do translation in other local languages, including ours in Bangla.

Abha: So looking at the WooCommerce usage and in Bangladesh it looks like it’s increasing. And both of you build WooCommerce sites mainly for the US, Canada, and Germany. What is the community like for WooCommerce and WordPress in your city?

Robin: There are various ways to do e-commerce. Recently we have seen growth in e-commerce businesses. So first of all what you need to do in business is an e-commerce site. And currently WordPress is the most popular CMS or technology to build a website. Also in WordPress, you can build an e-commerce website very easily with WooCommerce. That’s why WooCommerce is really popular here and WooCommerce is doing great and everyone is trying to make an e-commerce website and developers are helping. So it’s pretty good for both of them.

Abha: So Sumaiya, you’ve been doing a lot of work on food-based e-commerce websites. Do you think that there is a real big demand for food products to have e-commerce offerings and to use the Woo platform?

Sumaiya: Yeah, now in Bangladesh we have very demand in our daily life product like grocery, daily uses things like dresses. People are more getting into shopping online. After the COVID period people are used to shop online. So now it’s a very demanding thing in our country.

Abha: I guess that demand will hopefully grow as well as people see the benefit of doing it. Have you seen an increase in customers wanting an e-commerce element of the sites that they’re asking you to build?

Sumaiya: Yeah, actually it’s their recommendation also because WordPress and e-commerce both are equally popular in our country, they are asking me for development their website by using e-commerce.

Abha: Robin, how about you? Have you found that sites and organizations that didn’t traditionally want an e-commerce aspect are now looking towards having that built in to their integration?

Robin: Yeah, I saw a few businesses who are doing mostly content, mostly normal websites, but at the end they see that without e-commerce sites, their business are not growing that much. So they ended up doing e-commerce businesses, making e-commerce websites. Everyone wants to make an e-commerce site so we are getting pretty busy these days.

Abha: Which is great.

Robin: Yeah, yeah. Thanks to e-commerce.

Abha:
Yeah, and of course being open source, it’s a great opportunity for everybody to get involved and develop their businesses and their skillset. What is the WordPress meetup? I know you have some in Dhaka as well, which is great. Do you have a WooCommerce meetup yet in the area or in Bangladesh as a whole?

Robin: So currently we have pretty good meetup related to WordPress, but WooCommerce meetups are not that much popular at the moment but we’d like to improve that one. We are trying to grow our community bigger and bigger then if we do well in starting then I think we are good to go with the [inaudible 00:14:52]. So we are planning, we have a few plans to do in-person meetups. Let’s see how can I grow big with WooCommerce.

Abha: Which would be lovely to see you. You must keep us informed about how you’re doing that and hopefully we’ll be able to bring Do the Woo to one of your meetups and share that enthusiasm for WooCommerce too.

Abha: So I’m going to just take you both back a little bit in your journeys and talk about the steps that you both took to really find your feet in development and what were the things or the sites that might have inspired you along the way.

So Sumaiya, I know that you’ve talked about being drawn to sites that have very good design. Was there any WooCommerce sites that you’ve particularly loved and have inspired you or ones that you’ve worked on that you have found that they have encouraged you to get more involved with Woo?

Sumaiya: I personally love WPNeginner site a lot and also I love WooCommerce’s main documentation side. I learned a lot.

Abha: And would you recommend those to others?

Sumaiya:
Yes, of course. I recommend to others that WPBeginner’s and WooCommerce main documentation site is very rich site.

Abha: Thank you. Robin, have you found anything that has really inspired you in your WooCommerce journey?

Robin: I have built few commerce websites in my first five years in the company. I used to help clients with customizing sites, building e-commerce sites. There are many customizations including shop pages, checkout cards, including adding few fields. One website I really liked that wasn’t that much complex, but that was Freelance Collective. It’s almost like social networking for freelancers. So that was pretty good concept and I really enjoyed that one. I see that link is not working these days, but it was really enjoyable while doing the work.

Abha: And sometimes it’s the sites that we’ve really enjoyed that inspire us to keep going, isn’t it? And get involved with things, which is wonderful. Obviously now you’ve been involved in this kind of development work for the past eight years or so, both of you, where do you see your journeys going in the future? What do you think? I’m going to go to Robin first. Where would you like to see your career go?

Robin: Yeah, I have soft corner with WordPress and WooCommerce. I have worked with few WooCommerce add-ons and recently I have working with WordPress code as well and WooCommerce, also helping WordPress building our e-commerce sites. In my past I have extended feature of WooCommerce but didn’t create WooCommerce add-ons, but I have used and customized those add-ons. I have plans to create few WooCommerce add-ons then making everyone’s life easier. So let’s see what happens in the future.

Abha: That’s great. And Sumaiya, I see that you’re a block pattern author. So are you a great fan of block patterns and if so, tell us all about it?

Sumaiya: Yeah, from last one year I really enjoy the Gutenberg block. Recently or last one year, I work with Gutenberg block, so I love to work Gutenberg.

Abha: What is it about patterns you particularly enjoy?

Sumaiya: Oh actually I enjoy this. I already design, which anyone can use easily.

Abha: And do you think that block patterns will be the future? Do you think that we’ll be seeing more and more of these?

Sumaiya: Yeah, it’s the future. Anyone have the option to have used a section which is already built in with some contents, images and it looks quite beautiful, so why not people use these things?

Abha: Absolutely. And Robin, are you a fan of full site editing and all the Gutenberg block development as well?

Robin: Yeah, Gutenberg is the future and full WordPress team is working on it and it really helps everyone. These days no one likes other editor except Gutenberg and I really enjoyed the full site editing. It was really surprising at first when I saw those features, those options to edit site button. I’m enjoying the future as well and hopefully it’ll be better and better, slowly, slowly and in the future versions.

Abha: Absolutely too. And do you think that WooCommerce will improve and be more usable for people as block patterns and other features start becoming part of its standard usage?

Robin: Yeah, I think so. The constant development is going on and we are seeing new features added and improved. So WooCommerce is doing really great and we all the developers need to get in touch with the change log or what is happening. So hopefully we have a really bright future with WordPress and WooCommerce.

Abha: Thank you. Sumaiya, you were telling me this before we came on the show that one of your highlights from last year was a WordPress women’s meetup that happened in Bangladesh. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why it was so wonderful to attend it?

Sumaiya: Last year for the first time in Bangladesh we organized first hacker women in WordPress meetup, which held on 10th of March 2022. There was almost 17 participant in the meetup here. We get to know each other and share our WordPress journey, WordPress story, how do we get started with WordPress? And I saw them very excited to share their story with everyone.

Robin: And few of them already got job recently.

Abha: Oh wonderful.

Robin: And our colleagues, they’re doing real good job.

Abha: Which is really good to hear. And Sumaiya, do you think that it’s important for women to have those opportunities to share their career journeys and to inspire and connect and learn from each other?

Sumaiya: Yeah, it’s important. It’s very important, actually. People in our country, women are very shy to ask help or ask something when a girl. If we break the ice from these things that women can also ask questions, they can easily find their answer. Also they can learn different things from anyone.

Abha: Which is what it’s all about. It’s that sharing of knowledge, as Robin has talked about earlier as well, and bringing people on and the importance of encouraging people that you come across in your journey. I know Robin, that you’ve a real advocate for highlighting what’s happening in Bangladesh, and not just to the outside other countries but also within Bangladesh. Why do you think it’s so important that developers and anyone involved in the WordPress and the WooCommerce project, why is it so important for them to be highlighting it within their own countries too?

Robin: Yeah, so recently I took an initiative to take interviews of the Core contributors and I saw previously that they’re not getting that much highlight and no one even know their name. So I thought it’d be really great if I start interviewing them and I think it did good job and it is spread out and everyone is interested in contribution these days. So I think highlighting or marketing is really good here and people are loving to contribute these days.

Abha: Absolutely. And I think also that we are talking about quite a few years ago now, where the landscape has changed for Bangladesh as well and what’s been lovely is that the more translation is available, it appears and from talking to other colleagues in Bangladesh, it appears that as translation has increased and therefore the awareness of what you can do, not only as a contributor but also with the products, that has increased interest in being involved as a contributor and using it as a software. Is that your experience too?

Robin: Yeah, everyone loves contributing in translation. It was a good first task for everyone. It was easy to translate and just we need to show how and where to do the translation. That’s it. When everyone just learn that thing they started doing and they are not stopping after that. Even in my first meet up, I wasn’t sure where to add translation and things. Then even at the end of the event I completed almost 500 strings. So that was great fun for me too.

Abha: And I know both of you were looking at translating the WooCommerce plugin and keeping that up to date as well, which will be even better. I know you’ve got colleagues all over Bangladesh who are wanting to do that too, so we would be really keen to hear how that progresses.

So we’re coming to nearly the end of our panel for today and we’re going to be doing some more of these interviews in Bangladesh and other parts of Asia in the run up to WordCamp Asia and throughout this year. So if you are listening to this and you think that you are experienced in Woo usage and you have a story to tell, please do get in touch with us and we really would like to hear from you too.

I think from both of you, you both started contributing to WordPress in the last year, 2022, and you’ve got a long, wonderful journeys I’m sure in front of you. Not just in contributing but also in using the products and your developer journeys. So we wish you well in that.

So I just wanted to, before we wrap up, if people want to get in touch, we’re going to be putting your GitHub and your key links on the webpage where this is featured. But also is there anything that you would like to say to other people who are in Bangladesh who are wanting to be a developer for Woo? What would be your final message to inspire them? I’m going to go to Robin first of all.

Robin: For me, I think if you try to learn the content or read the documentation, it is not enough. You need to do practice and do exercise more and more. So I prefer doing exercise more. The function is good. You need to learn at first, but then you shouldn’t stop. You need to continue the practice. So I think every developer in our country or throughout the world, then just keep doing your job and keep practicing. Even if you fail or find errors, you shouldn’t stop. You just keep doing and doing and you will be a great developer at the end.

Abha: That’s great advice. So Sumaiya, would you like to add your thoughts to that?

Sumaiya: I want to add a little bit with Robin. Please engage with the community and help each other to improve their development experiences, skills, development career. It’ll help us a lot.

Abha: And even more so when people are worried about it, they can do so in their own language, can’t they, as well? So if people are listening to this and they think, ‘Hey, okay, I have some ideas for a WooCommerce meetup,’ then you’ve got two people here already who are interested in doing that and I’m sure there’s lots of others too. So we hope to see a WooCommerce meetup in the future in different parts of Bangladesh. You’re building on what’s already started in that area as well.

It leads me just to wish you good luck in your trips to your first WordCamps in WordCamp Asia, and that we hope you’ll enjoy them very much and that you’ll enjoy continuing to contribute to Core and to WooCommerce. And thank you for being involved in today’s show.

Robin: Yeah, and thanks to the Woo, and I’m looking forward to meet the team in Thailand, and thanks for the podcast and I hope everyone keep doing their work and the practicing, then they will be doing good.

Abha: And I know you’ve said you feel it’s a great place to start, the WooCommerce, so it’s even better recommendation. So Sumaiya, I know you’ll enjoy your first WordCamp. I know we’ve talked about some track stuff that we are going to come back and do with Do the Woo as well. So that’ll be great, so will not be the last time that we hear from her either. So thank you both and we look forward to hearing all about the developments in Bangladesh and seeing more developers out there joining the project too. So thank you for joining today.

Sumaiya: Thank you both of you.

Robin: Thank you.