The official launch of Do the Woo 4.0 is today, coinciding with the first day of WordCamp Europe. Since its return in 2018, it has undergone significant growth and changes, culminating in the creation of a new, dedicated website.
Our goal has always been to build a community of builders and business owners, focusing on both WooCommerce and the broader WordPress ecosystem. BobWP tells you more about the redesigned site and how it aims to make content creation easier and more efficient.
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Our new site features all podcast shows in one place, making it easier for listeners to find and subscribe to their favorite shows. The launch includes a new Enterprise podcast, bringing the total to twelve shows. A new support option allows listeners to support specific shows and hosts, who volunteer their time.
Thanks to our special partners WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. And to our sponsors Airwallex, Avalara, Cloudways, GoDaddy, Hostinger, Omnisend, and Weglot.
There is a lot going on and BobWP promises you will hear more about this launch and also exciting developments and content to come.
Episode Transcript
Hey, BobWP here, and welcome to the launch of Do the Woo 4.0!
The day is here—the first official day of the event at WordCamp Europe and the official launch of our site. To be honest, I don’t even know where to begin. Since its return in 2018, the podcast has undergone many different phases of growth. So let’s step back to the end of 2022.
When we moved Do the Woo to its own site, it was the first major step. As I grew the format over time and found new hosts to join our team, something struck me around the end of 2022. Some call it a tickle, that little feeling that there is something bigger on the horizon.
Moving into 2023, I revisited the reason for creating Do the Woo: building a community of builders and business owners in the space. But as time went on, my ideas grew beyond just WooCommerce to encompass the bigger picture of WordPress. Naturally, one thing led to another, and I spent many early mornings waking up with new ideas that kept me from falling back to sleep.
I knew in my heart that everything revolved around two simple concepts: elevating voices and creating a podcast by the community, for the community. The rest would all fall into place.
Fast forward to October of last year. I had been creating more episodes, each fitting into its niche yet still part of the Do the Woo firehose. It was one big pond with so many fish. But seriously, for months I dreamt of a new site—a site that would showcase the Do the Woo podcast channels, where people could find and subscribe to the shows they wanted. At the same time, I didn’t want to tinker with my site anymore. I just wanted to create content. Longingly, I looked at the opportunity of moving to WordPress.com.
In my head, it all sounded great, but I knew what it would take in terms of resources. I sent a Slack message to Matt Mullenweg and told him what I was thinking about. Two or three weeks later, I had a team to redesign my site, I became a new partner with WordPress.com, and the rest is history.
Now, there’s a lot to unpack in those last few sentences that I will save for another time. But I have never been more thrilled about the future of Do the Woo than at that moment.
Rest assured, I am not part of Automattic, nor did anyone get a piece of me. We are still who we are. The fact that Do the Woo was valued as much as it is speaks volumes about everyone who has helped me build this community.
But wait a minute. I’m here to tell you about the launch. The process between then and now has been incredible. I will have some of the team join me on the podcast to talk about it more later. I’m sure there are other bits and pieces I will add along the way.
Some of you may have seen the site go live in March. WordPress.com pushed out a cool video they made of me (I never in my life thought the words “cool,” “video,” and “me” would be in the same sentence). It was done in Madrid before State of the Word 2023. But let’s just say it was still a diamond in the rough behind the scenes. So, we decided not to call it our official launch and worked some more on it—both the site and the content. Again, the story behind that will be saved for another podcast, somewhere, sometime.
What I will do is give you a quick overview of what you will now find at DotheWoo.io, aside from the fact that the site was built by some of the best WordPressers in the world.
We now have all of our shows in place as of this launch, with the Enterprise one you heard about earlier this week being our latest addition, capping the number of shows at an even dozen. Any new episodes will always fall under the existing shows.
Each show has its own page where you can not only learn about it and see past episodes but also subscribe to your favorite shows. This was one of the top priorities of the new site: to give listeners an easy way to subscribe to the content they wanted. Of course, you can always subscribe to all the shows via the Do the Woo full feed.
On the About page, you will find all the amazing hosts—all 25 of them, sans myself. In fact, between the shows and the hosts, there is so much more to say. So tomorrow, watch for an episode telling you more of the story behind the shows and the hosts, I promise.
Also on the About page, we have a very cool map that shows where all our hosts, sponsors, and guests have come from around the world. I know there are quite a few places we need to fill up, but hey, we are only on version 4.0. You can click on a guest and see the shows they have been part of. With 459 of them, many have done multiple shows.
Of course, there are so many other things I could talk about, but I think at this point, I would just ask that if you have not been to dothewoo.io for some time—and I know a lot of you listen to shows via a podcast app—take a few minutes and click through. I would love to hear your feedback on the post of this episode.
Before I go, two more very important things I would like to mention.
First, you will now see a support option on our site. This is a bit different, as anyone can have the opportunity to support a specific show and its hosts, who volunteer their time here. Please check that out, and I’ll be talking about it more later on. But I do thank all the companies and, of course, the hosts whose links are listed there as well for stepping up and doing this.
A special thanks to our partners: WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. Your belief in our community and the support you have given is more than I could have ever dreamed of.
Most importantly, our sponsors. We have had a lot of them bring us to where we are today, and I wish I could list them all from day one. But I know your time is valuable, so I would like to give a huge shoutout to our current sponsors: Airwallex, Avalara, Cloudways, GoDaddy, Hostinger, Omnisend, and Weglot. Do the Woo would not be what it is or even exist if not for these sponsors. So please, at any opportunity, thank them and consider their products or services for your next build. They have stepped into a community that they truly believe in and are supporting.
Well, let’s call that a wrap, huh? I am always open if you have other questions about our launch, are interested in being on the podcast, or perhaps want to support or sponsor a show. You know where to find me. But I can tell you this: we have so much more to do and some really cool stuff coming down the road. So stay tuned, and I just want to thank you, our listeners, for your amazing support. Until next time.
