Building WooCommerce Community in Africa

Abha: Hello and welcome to another Woo Builder Stories. I’m Abha Thakor, and today I have the pleasure to introduce Sunday Ukafia. Hello, Sunday.

Sunday: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.

Abha: We’re delighted to be coming from Africa today. And do tell us, Sunday, whereabouts in Nigeria are you actually based at the moment?

Sunday: I’m based in Lagos, and Lagos is more like what I would call the awesome city in Nigeria. It’s more like where you go to hustle if you feel like where you are, business is not moving, things are not going well, Lagos is like where everyone goes to make it.

Abha: And have you always lived there?

Sunday: No, I haven’t. I’m from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, which is actually the southern part of Nigeria. I grew up in a city called Uyo. It’s in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. And I think it was about three years ago that I relocated to Lagos.

Tech as as option for a future career

Abha: So we’re going to take you back a bit further than your three years. So in this show, we love to hear about your story that brought you into tech. So let’s start, Sunday, with when you were growing up and when you were at school. Was tech an option that you thought would be your career for the future?

Sunday: Not really. I actually have a background in electronics, and my goal at the time was basically to focus on electrical and electronics. And at a point, I found out that I had interest for tech. I think it was in my, what we call SS1, which is basically your first year in high school, that I advanced my then school further to an internet cafe. So here we call it cyber cafes, and they’re just basically internet cafes where you go back there and you go and buy times, think you buy an hour just to help you access the internet.

So that was basically my first introduction to the internet and tech. And after that experience, I found myself going back to the internet cafe every other day. And from there, I found myself learning web design. And along the line, I realized I was actually interested in the community side of things. So I’m actually not a developer. I like to call myself a community builder because I like to focus on building tech communities.

And the reason I love communities is that I’ve seen the impact it can have. So for instance, I think the digital gap is wide in Africa than in any part of the globe. And I’ve identified community as a way of closing that gap, because I found that when people come together to learn about the certain technology, so let’s say they come to learn about building websites with WordPress, you find out they tend to get deeper into tech. So from building websites, before you know it they’re writing codes, they’re running social media ads and all that. And that’s basically my drive for community.

Abha: So electrical engineering is very different to tech. So what made you decide to go into electrical engineering? Obviously some very similar skillsets, but what was the incentive to choose that career path initially?

Sunday: Well, it was electronics to be very specific. And I think growing up, I like to play with electronics. I like to dismantle electronic toys, electrical toys, and basically just put them back together. And as a young person, that was fun. As a child, that was fun. And so I just found my way going in that part, into electronics.

And when I started up my career, initially I was a projector technician so I could fix literally any brand of multimedia projectors. That’s what I started with. And I started a company that was fixing projectors and we did multimedia solutions, which was basically projector repairs, sales, and we also did a bit of web development. We were doing web design and development. But at the point, I personally had to move away from the projector aspect of the business because I was our primary projector technician, trained a couple of others, and then I just had to move away to focusing on the web.

The web tools as a designer

Abha: When you moved to web design, obviously as a starter when the company you’re working for, and then later on, what were you using? What was your first web tools?

Sunday: I think my first web tool, and I think my web tool has always been WordPress. So I started learning WordPress in 2013, and that was the year that I decided I was going to move into web design, I was going to be a web designer. And I did tons of research, basically, to find the right tool, because at the time, I was looking at learning to write code. So I was like, “Oh, how can I get this done?” And I learned about content management systems. And by then, WordPress and Joomla was also really popular at the time. And I just kept comparing both of them. And I think it was because of the community, because I’ve always been a community person, because of the community I went with WordPress. And I’ve been using WordPress ever since.

The local WordPress community

Abha: I love the fact that the community inspired you to use WordPress. So tell me a little bit more about the local WordPress community that you’ve discovered and that encouraged you to use that.

Sunday: All right. So by then, it was actually the global online community because basically every article you read about content management system that is comparing the different options, they will talk about WordPress and how it has a large community where you can get help, where you can get support. So that was basically one of the things that inspired me to use WordPress. And since I was comparing WordPress and Joomla at the time, I also tried Joomla and even built a site with Joomla. And then I found WordPress easier to use. And then I also found the communities to be most supporting. So I basically just stayed with WordPress from that time to now. So WordPress has basically been the tool I’ve been using.

Abha: Was it easy to get involved with WordPress when you first came across it, but also in terms of being able to get involved with it in contribution?

Sunday: Yeah, it was really easy to learn and use it. I started learning in, I think that was 2013. At about 2014, I was already building websites professionally and earning an income from it. At a point, I realized the impact WordPress added my life, how it was helping me gradually gain financial independence. And I thought that I wanted to help young people like me basically learn so they could achieve what I was able to achieve with WordPress at the time.

So I started the Uyo WordPress Meetup at the time that I did not even know about WordPress meetups. So I didn’t know that there were WordPress meetups, so I basically went to meetup.com and purchased a subscription and started Your WordPress Meetup. It was later on that someone in the WordPress community was like, “Oh, we have the WordPress chapter. Your meetup should be a part of it.”

And that was our meetup, the Uyo WordPress Meetup, by then, move to being part of the official WordPress meetups. So I think contributing for me started that way and it was easy. So at that point, it was just basically me seeing that this is a great tool. This is a powerful tool that can have an impact, that can help people build businesses, that can help people build their career. And I wanted to share, and someone basically guided me to move meetup to become part of the official meetups. And that was when I also had the full understanding of how the WordPress community in general works. And aside from hosting the meetup programs, I joined the WordPress documentation team and also started contributing to WordPress documentation.

Why WordPress documentation?

Abha: So the WordPress documentation team is an amazing team. I’m very proud to be part of it. And what was it about documentation that you found so interesting?

Sunday: Well, I think documentation is really important because basically, without documentation, I think most of us can’t use WordPress, or it probably would take a lot of us a while to be able to just play around and learn. So I found documentation to be key. And one of my focus in the documentation team when I joined was basically helping onboard new members, because I felt, oh, if we are onboarding new members properly, it means we can have lots of people contributing who have better documentation. So I started an initiative in the WordPress documentation team to help welcome and onboard new contributors for the documentation team.

Abha: So how long have you been contributing now?

Sunday: It’s been a couple of years. I’m not sure of the exact number of years. And to be honest, I’ve actually not really been active in the documentation team for a real while now. And that’s basically because I’ve been focused on building the WooCommerce community in Africa.

Abha: That’s a very nice link for us. So let’s have a look at that. So the WordPress meetup that you started, what city was that in?

Sunday: That was in Uyo.

Supporting the WooCommerce communities in Africa

Abha: Okay. And the WooCommerce communities now that you’re helping support, whereabouts are they?

Sunday: Oh, when I relocated to Lagos, I started the Lagos WooCommerce Meetup, and I still run the Lagos WooCommerce Meetup until today. And later on, I found myself supporting WooCommerce meetups across Africa, basically as the regional mentor for WooCommerce communities in Africa. And what that role entailed is basically providing guidance and mentorship to people who are interested in supporting WooCommerce mission to democratize commerce, so people who are interested in hosting WooCommerce meetups in their cities and basically ensure that they get the necessary support, they get the necessary guidance to get the meetup group started and running.

Abha: That must be quite rewarding to see the spread of WooCommerce in Africa, but also to be doing that little bit of support so that other people can hopefully support and start meetup groups focusing on WooCommerce too.

Sunday: Yeah, it’s been great, and it’s been very fun and rewarding, rewarding in the sense that WooCommerce mission and vision basically aligns with my personal vision. And just a bit just to give you an idea, just to give you a bit about my vision, I want to be part of closing the digital gap in Africa. And WooCommerce wants to democratize commerce, and that basically means making commerce accessible to everyone from across the globe.

So I realized that if I’m contributing to WooCommerce mission, I will also, at the same time, be achieving my mission and vision. So that’s what really makes it fun, because I’m literally not doing it just because… I love WooCommerce. It’s a great tool and I think it’s the best eCommerce platform, but for me, it’s beyond my love for WooCommerce. It’s the vision itself. It’s the mission. And it’s really, really been great. It’s been exciting. It’s been fun.

Thanks to our Pod Friends

What makes WooCommerce so special

Abha: Why do you think WooCommerce has that special ability and also that vision? Because a lot of people might be skeptical. They might think, “Oh, yes, it’s just a slogan.” But obviously, you really believe it. And a lot of our developers and builders who’ve come on the show have an absolute passion for using it for the reasons that you’ve described too. But what do you think it is about WooCommerce that makes it so special?

Sunday: I think, first, the flexibility and that WooCommerce is also very customizable. Now, the way I see it, I feel that there’s literally nothing you can’t achieve with WooCommerce. I feel that with WooCommerce and with WordPress, because you can’t forget that WooCommerce is on top of WordPress, I feel with WooCommerce and with WordPress, that your limitation is basically your imagination.

And to give you a bit of an idea, if you think of achieving a certain functionality, a certain feature, and you do a Google search, you’ll find that someone else is already thinking in that direction. In fact, you’ll likely find that an extension, a blogging exists for that functionality. So you only have the feature you’re looking to achieve, that someone else is not thinking of it, is not thinking in that regard. And one of the key things, one of the very important thing is being able to own your data. So because when you’re building with WordPress and with WooCommerce, you can truly say that your store, your online store, that your business is yours, because you own the data. And the way I see it, I feel the person who owns the data basically owns the store.

The WooCommerce mission

Abha: I think that’s a very interesting analysis, but I think it is true. And I think we’ve heard people like Matt Mullenweg talk about very similar things. We’ve heard about how it’s so important to be able to keep your data and transfer it to whatever platform you want to transfer it to. And that is the heart, of course, of working with opensource solutions, is that it puts the person who’s wanting a site back in control of that. And how is that received with the businesses, the other developers, the designers, WordPress professionals that you work with and work alongside in Africa? How do they relate to that mission?

Sunday: Oh, right. I think its mission is something people are interested in. In the time that we are in, everyone wants to get online, people want to sell online. And for most people it’s about the ease of getting online. So when you start out, some people may not really understand the need to own their data. They want to be able to know how easy is this to use, where can I get out? And knowing that the WooCommerce community there to support them, I think those are the things that people are primarily interested in when they’re getting started.

Abha: And have you found people in the meetups and the meetup leaders that you are being able to talk to, have you found them just as passionate about that mission?

Sunday: Yes, they are. So the way the community runs is that it’s being an opensource platform. Our community is basically volunteer-based. That basically means we don’t pay the meetup organizers. And it’s like I said, I also started out as a volunteer and I started the Lagos WooCommerce meetup, basically as a volunteer. And I’ve been running it as a couple of years. And even when I host the WooCommerce Lagos Meetup today, I still host it as a volunteer. And that’s because I understand how important WooCommerce mission is, and I want to be a part of that.

And I think literally every month, we find people who are also interested in being a part of that mission. People are interested in supporting WooCommerce mission, being a part of the mission, starting meetups in their cities. When I get off this interview, I’m going to be speaking with someone who’s interested in hosting one of our meetups. So I think literally every month, we get people who are interested. So it’s something I can say that people are interested in it. People are interested in supporting the mission, being a part of the mission.

The WooCommerce pivot

Abha: Which is fantastic, and long may that continue and grow as well. We’re going to go backwards a little bit and just to explore your journey with WordPress and WooCommerce. So you’ve told us about how you came across WordPress, but when was that pivotal moment for you when you realized that WooCommerce was the solution that was going to be such a big part of your life?

Sunday: I’m not really sure of the exact timeframe, but I think it was probably around 2018, 2019 that I got to understand how powerful WooCommerce is. When I talk to people about learning WooCommerce, the way I see is I like to describe it that they might use WooCommerce and unlock certain superpowers. And superpowers for me is basically just getting to understand more of WooCommerce. So at a point, I did not know how to use WooCommerce bookings, the WooCommerce bookings integration. And after I learned about how you can build a booking website with WooCommerce, I felt a superpower was unlocked. So that’s how I like to describe learning Woo, working with Woo, is basically unlocking superpowers. So I think around 2019 was about that period for me, and so far, it’s been a really amazing journey.

Abha: What a wonderful description, Sunday. I love the idea of unlocking superpowers. And of course, there’s people that think that Bob from Do the Woo has a little bit of that magic himself too with all of his helping people join the dots and spreading that magic of what opensource eCommerce can do. And I know that you’re a big fan of Do the Woo.

Sunday: Of course I am.

Abha: So it’s absolutely lovely, therefore, to be able to have you on the show today. So we’re going to just go a bit further forward in your journey. How do you see yourself working with WooCommerce in the next few years?

Sunday: Right. In the next few years, I think what I want to continue doing is basically supporting the meetup initiatives. What do I want to be able to achieve? One of the things that I want to be able to achieve is have WooCommerce meetups across all cities in Africa. And that’s basically my goal. So if I get there, that’s where I can say, “Oh okay, I’ve achieved this goal.” And I think by then, I will have found out my greatest WooCommerce superpower.

Helping the community grow in Africa

Abha: For those people who obviously can’t see Sunday as we’re interviewing him, I can vouch for the fact there’s no Superman flying across the studio today. Well, not yet, but if you see someone looking like Superman flying across with a WooCommerce flight branded cape, then you could just be a Sunday here making that difference. And of course, Sunday, you work with a lot of other African leaders in WooCommerce as well. And do you find that there are opportunities to get together with other WooCommerce users, and that’s not just in your immediate locality and city, but across the continent? How does that work out in Africa? Because obviously it’s a lot more travel that would be involved.

Sunday: Yeah, that’s one of the things we are looking to move to focusing on, because so far, we’ve not really been able to achieve much of that because of the COVID-19 pandemic with everyone working from home. For now our meetups are running remotely so we are not doing in-person meetups, we are not having in-person events, but we’re hoping that soon, hopefully from next year, that I will move back to having in-person meetups, and then we’ll be able to do a lot of networking, a lot of collaboration and partnerships across the continent.

Abha: How does the online work? I know in some places or some continents, they are managing to get together much better online because you haven’t got the travel costs, the time that would be involved, and you haven’t got some of those barriers of the pandemic either. Is that something that is taking off in Nigeria and wider in Africa? Are you able to benefit from that digital connection?

Sunday: Honestly, when we started out, it felt like it was going to be challenging, but Nigerians are very flexible and resilient people. So I would say we’ve adjusted and people are now comfortable with doing online meetup. When we started out, I remember our first meetup was a bit on the tech part, so using the online tool. It was just basically about getting familiar with the online tool that we use for meetup programs. But for now, everyone has gotten used to it, but we are at a point that people are advocating for in-person meetups. So it’s more like everyone is getting tired of the events happening online. So the community is saying, “Oh, let’s get back to doing this thing in person.”

Abha: Fair enough. And hopefully the communities across the globe will be able to meet together more in the future and we won’t have the restrictions but I think we’ve been lucky as well with having the online where it’s been possible so that we’ve been able to stay connected, which is such an important part of growing this community as well.

Sunday: Yes, I agree with you, even though I know I’m really look looking forward to getting back to in person events, because for me, one of the key things that makes community fun is being able to meet people. It feels better when you’re meeting people physically than when you are meeting them online.

Abha: Definitely. So in terms of if of the Woo presence in Africa, on looking at the statistics, it looks like Woo is growing. Its usage is growing in the continent as a whole. And also, it looks like there’s more different types of businesses now using WooCommerce. Is that your experience of the journey that Woo is making?

Sunday: Yes, I think in Africa, the adoption of WooCommerce is basically growing by the day. And in general, the adoption of technology is growing. Everyone is trying to get their business online, and I think it’s one of the few instances that I’m tempted to say that COVID was a blessing to some extent, because COVID basically helped in accelerating that. COVID helped in making people take getting their businesses online seriously. So people are adopting technology, people are more serious now about getting their businesses online, and that basically means that platforms that make that possible are going to grow. And I can confidently say that WooCommerce is growing, the adoption of WooCommerce is growing across Africa.

Across the world with Woo, I think we’re getting to where people are coming to know WordPress through WooCommerce. So we are starting to see a few percentage of people getting to the WordPress ecosystem through WooCommerce.

Abha: Yes, so it’s a becoming a regular story, I think, that people who hadn’t used WordPress have discovered it through WooCommerce too. So it’s lovely to hear that that’s the case there too. In your role as… I think it’s regional mentor for WooCommerce, how would you encourage other people to put themselves forward for this kind of mentorship and to be mentors as well? What would you say to them in terms of how you have found it useful and rewarding?

Sunday: Well, first I would say that we have a very welcoming community, and that means there’s no form of discrimination. We work on people just as they are. And I would say if you basically have the interest, don’t worry about the skillset or whatever excuse you can think of or make up. Just come as you are, and we’ll be happy to guide you to get started. There are several ways you can contribute. You can start a meetup in your city, or you could just show up and learn. Or you can assist a meetup organizer, you can help share a meetup event. There are tons of ways you can contribute.

Abha: And that is the essence of opensource, isn’t it? There is something out there that will fit you, that will fit you now, that you might change and you might find something else within the community. I think that’s one of the joys of opensource, is that you don’t have to do whatever contribution role you’re doing for the rest of time.

If you’re hearing this in whatever country you are, but especially in Africa, get involved. There are so many ways to get involved with WooCommerce community, with the WordPress community, just like Sunday. And I hope that you’ll hear from his enthusiasm just how amazing a community it is to be part of. Sunday, thank you very much for being with us today and sharing a bit about your journey, and we look forward to hearing about the things that you’re doing in the future. If people are looking to connect about the regional mentor, that mentorship that you offer as part of WooCommerce, how can they get in touch with you?

Sunday: I’m available on Facebook, so you can reach me on Facebook. My name on Facebook is Sunday. You can send a message, I’ll be able to reply. Or better still, you can just go to my website, sundayukafia.com and you’ll see my email address, my WhatsApp numbebasically all my contacting info right there on my website.

Abha: Thank you, Sunday. Is there anything you’d like to just say to the Do the Woo crew or the Do the Woo listeners today?

Sunday: I would like to say thank you for doing the Woo, and I like it that you guys have been very consistent with Do the Woo. And to be honest, you’ve been an inspiration, and it’s great to be on the show. Thank you for having me.

Abha: It’s been absolutely lovely to have you here in the studio, and we look forward to talking to you again. Thank you, Sunday, and good luck to the African WooCommerce community. We really are going to be looking forward to hearing about how it grows.

Sunday: Thank you.