Do the Woo Podcast is Back with Conversations for Builders, Merchants, and Developers

James Kemp:
Hello, I’m James Kemp, the core product manager at WooCommerce and I’ve been working with WooCommerce since 2011.

Katie Keith:
And I’m Katie Keith, founder and CEO at Barn2. I’ve been working with WooCommerce Since 2010, selling plugins since 2016. We are doing this special teaser episode, though, because we have some exciting news for the WooCommerce world.

James Kemp:
We do indeed. And that news is that do the Woo is officially coming back as a fully dedicated WooCommerce podcast under the Open Channels network, hosted by Katie and myself.

Katie Keith:
So in this teaser episode, we’re going to be Talking about why WooCommerce needs a new dedicated podcast, who it’s for, and what sort of content to expect. And we’re also going to be revealing the guest for the first episode, who is a very impressive guest. So. So keep listening to find out who that is.

James Kemp:
Definitely. And if you want to subscribe to be notified of upcoming shows and launch information, head over to dothewoo.com. We also have a YouTube channel, YouTube.com forward slash do the woo podcast. Not sure if you need the capitalization or not, but you should be able to find it. And we’re do the Woo on X.

Katie Keith:
So first, let’s talk about why this new dedicated WooCommerce podcast is needed. So we’ve both had some thoughts about this over quite a long period. And essentially WooCommerce is its own massive ecosystem which has its unique challenges, decisions and innovations which are a part of WordPress but also distinct within WordPress. And yet there is no distinct, a consistent platform where people are just talking about WooCommerce related issues within the community.

James Kemp:
Yeah, and I mean, there has been in the past, you know, this podcast existed in some form, but it evolved over the years and became more than just WooCommerce focused. Right?

Katie Keith:
Exactly.

James Kemp:
Yeah, you and I had a podcast as well under the Open Channels platform where we focused mostly on product, general product conversations, and not specifically focused on Commerce or WooCommerce.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, it feels like WordPress is so big that with other channels it’s kind of eaten up the WooCommerce. So WooCommerce is just one part of it. And yet WooCommerce is probably still the world’s biggest E commerce platform. It has huge market share and it feels to me like it definitely deserves its own podcast which brings together different people, people who work in and love WooCommerce and want to talk about anything that will benefit the people that work in and for and around it.

James Kemp:
Completely agree. So shall we touch on the types of topics that we’re going to talk about on the different shows that we, we plan to do?

Katie Keith:
Yeah, so there’s so many different angles because obviously there’s many different disciplines. Anybody can use WooCommerce to build a site. So we’re trying to keep it quite varied so that maybe different shows will appeal to different people. So that might include insights from James and his colleagues about like the roadmap, upcoming features, new features, future direction, merchant workflows. So that’s always improving at Woo. Things like order management and how merchants can manage their stores more efficiently and profitably. Technical side of things, product strategy for product people like me. What else, James?

James Kemp:
We’re going to talk about ecosystem trends, the, the kind of big picture changes and, you know, even visionary topics and even down to the nitty gritty, you know, how we can make the, the platform better as it exists today. So, yeah, I think there’s tons of stuff to talk about and I think we’re going to need some sort of categorization system so that people can hop in and listen to the shows that relate to them. But yeah, really, really try and get a broad perspective. And that includes, you know, the guests that we have on most of the episodes we do will likely have some sort of guest. The show will be focused on a specific topic and the guests, we plan to vary them between, you know, names within the E commerce space or the WordPress space agencies, actual merchants that use WooCommerce in a big or unique way, developers, product companies, just anyone that’s kind of operating within the WooCommerce ecosystem. I would like us to have discussions with all of them and just kind of gather all this very useful information and unique perspectives about how people use WooCommerce.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, absolutely. Because it is all these different perspectives. And in fact, that was a big part of how we decided that you and me were the right hosts for this because you have the perspective of actual insight officially from woo, whereas I bring more the independent builder perspective as someone who has a plugin company which is not officially affiliated with Woo. So hopefully that gives us lots of different insights. Of course you’ve got your background as a product company person at your own company before that, and then our guests will be from all these different angles within woo. So I’m hoping that will give us some really different insights and perspectives to share.

James Kemp:
Yeah, for sure. And I think you and I have slightly different experiences on the product company. Side as well, because I was coming more from the developer side into product, and you’ve kind of come from, I guess, the marketing side into product as well. So we cover a lot of bases just between the two of us. And like you say, I think the guests are going to add a lot of valuable conversations to that.

Katie Keith:
Yeah. And as you say, the word conversation. So the goal is it’s not going to be like formal interviews. We want to have casual, honest conversations on how to be successful with WooCommerce.

James Kemp:
Yeah. And I think our plan is to do that live. Right. We. We want to do live streams of the sessions, which would be, you know, video based, so that go out across the. The relevant platforms. I think you’re highly skilled in that area now with all of your podcasting expertise.

Katie Keith:
Well, we just decided to be really awkward for Bob’s because Open Channels is mostly audio only, not live. And so while we are saving Bob editing time, we’ve also said, can we do it live? Because we want the audience to be able to comment while we’re doing it and can ask questions and make comments and ask the guest questions, most importantly. So that’s one more challenge. And then also the video side of things, because for a different podcast, WP Product Talk, I previously surveyed what people wanted, and a big proportion of people said they want videos. There was something like 25% that said audio only is good, but quite a lot of people also wanted video. So I think different people like different things and we wanted to be as accessible as possible in terms of how people access it.

James Kemp:
Yeah, exactly. I also think the live format contributes more to natural conversations. I think it’s less, you know, edited, less formal to do it that way. So I think that will be very nice and I’m hoping we get a lot of questions and feedback that we can ask the guests while they’re on the show.

Katie Keith:
Yeah.

James Kemp:
The other thing is that we will. The plan is to do it every month, once a month. We will more than likely have a fixed date or, you know, time of the month that we do that show, which we will announce via the newsletter, the website. So keep an eye on that.

Katie Keith:
So before we talk about exact episodes that we’ve got planned, let’s talk a bit about the name because people might be a bit confused. Do the Woo did exist before, then it turned into Open Channels and now we’re relaunching it. So, James, can you explain a bit more about why we’ve done that and what it means?

James Kemp:
Yeah. So do the woo started almost 10 or coming up to 10 years ago. And it kind of transitioned over that time from a show that was focused on e Commerce and WooCommerce specifically into more of a broader platform that is now called Open Channels. All of this was founded by BobWP, Bob Dunn. And now Open Channels runs multiple shows. And do the Woo is essentially a sort of category of different shows that, you know, would appear in that feed. And they’re. They’re kind of E commerce focused, not necessarily WooCommerce focused, and they lightly fit into that category. So, Katie, what you and I wanted to do was really focus and double down on WooCommerce specifically. And not just one area of WooCommerce like our current show is, like I said earlier, focused on product. We really want to evolve and kind of bring in voices from all different sides of WooCommerce.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, exactly. So I suppose the message takeaway is that that what used to be do the Woo, like a year ago, it’s now Open Channels and Do the Woo is the new WooCommerce specific podcast. So it’s still part of Open Channels, but it will have its own YouTube channel, its own website, its own X and so on. So it’s effectively a standalone podcast that is all about WooCommerce. So if you work in WooCommerce, then subscribe to that. Now, let’s talk about actual episodes that we’ve got planned. The first one is particularly exciting. We thought we’d get off to a bang and have arranged for Matt Mullenweg, co founder of WordPress and CEO of Automatic, to be our first guest. So Matt will be coming on the show on the 14th of January, and put that in your calendars now, because we’re going to be asking him about the future of WooCommerce.

James Kemp:
Yeah. And that’s a live show. Right. So we’ll be able to, for starters, take questions ahead of time. So if you have any questions that you want to know from Matt specifically about WooCommerce, get them into us. But also if you’re watching live, you can leave comments and. And we’ll pick them up as the show’s going. So it’s going to be a great opportunity to. To talk to Matt and kind of dig out what his vision of e Commerce and WooCommerce specifically is for the future.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, I’m really excited about that because you don’t tend to hear from him about WooCommerce specifically. You hear from Woo People about WooCommerce, but he’s that level above, like in his state of the words and WordCamp, Q&As and all of that. He’s generally talking about WordPress and the block editor. And of course, he is the ultimate boss of WooCommerce. So I’m really excited to ask him about where he sees it going in the future, particularly in the context of things like AI competition like Shopify, and how he sees all that fitting together and navigating the path to the future.

James Kemp:
Yeah, I think the AI conversation will be very interesting because I know Matt’s deeply invested in, you know, AI as a. As a tool, and I imagine he has a lot of vision and thoughts about what that looks like further out into the future. So I think that’ll be a very interesting conversation.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, definitely. So anyone who has particular questions for Matt Mullenweg about the future of WooCommerce, tweet, dothewoo, or there’s also going to be published now a blog post on the Open Channels website and that will have comments active. So you can put your comments at the bottom of that if you don’t want to tweet us. So either way, send us your questions in advance or just watch live and ask the questions at the time.

James Kemp:
Definitely. So we also have some other episodes planned for after Matt’s episode. We won’t reveal who the guests are just yet, but let’s talk about what the topics we’re going to be looking at are for the upcoming shows. So one of the first ones after Matt’s show will be all about AI again. And you know, how AI is already reshaping E commerce and how that’s going to impact WooCommerce, and not just WooCommerce, but commerce online in general. You know, how people shop and how people manage their stores. And yeah, very similar to the. The Q and A that we did recently in Porto. So I think that’ll be a great topic to discuss.

Katie Keith:
Yeah. And we also. I’m speaking of an event where we had that conversation. Want to do an episode about events? Because I’ve noticed just in the last six months or so, there’s been an increase in the number of dedicated WooCommerce events, mostly organized independently. Although you had E Commerce Day, which was kind of a word camp. It was like an offshoot of a word camp, wasn’t it? Checkout Summit is completely independent, although I believe Woo is sponsoring it. And then you’ve got things like Woo Sesh that’s been going for a while on online conferences. So it just seems like the community is really getting much more interested and excited about Woo related events. So we want to do an episode talking about what makes these events valuable, when to attend them, whether it will be worth it, and also what you can get out of these events.

James Kemp:
Definitely. I think it’ll be useful as well to talk about how you can set up your own local meetups as well and what that process looks like. I think the more conversations and collections of people in the WooCommerce space that we can have, the better. So the following conversation we plan to have is around scaling WooCommerce operations with automation and I think that’ll be a very interesting topic focusing on real world workflows and time saving patterns, I imagine primarily for merchants and how they can automate managing their store. But there’s going to be a ton of useful information in that conversation for agencies and developers to really understand how they can optimize the workflows that merchants do every day while managing an E commerce store.

Katie Keith:
Yeah, because that can make such a difference. So those are the first shows that we have planned, but we’re also the floor is open to other ideas. We want to do a wide range of shows aimed at anybody who works in WooCommerce. We of course have a list much longer than that of episode ideas and we would love to hear yours as well. So please get in touch and give us your ideas of what WooCommerce related discussions you would like to see us having and also suggested guests or maybe you would like to be a guest. So yeah, get in touch. This is a podcast for the community so we want your input.

James Kemp:
Yeah definitely. And like we said, you can do that via our website.hewoo.com via the YouTube channel YouTube.com do the woo podcast on X dothewoo or via the launch announcement blog post. The comments are open as Katie says. So yeah, definitely put the first episode in your calendar for the 14th of January. And thanks for listening. We really look forward to seeing you in the comments on future episodes of Do the Woo and we’ll catch up soon.