From Broadcast Roots to Developer Life

Marcus: Well, hey everyone, I’m Marcus, and we’re back with a bit of a special episode this week. Going forward, you’ll know him as my Do the Woo co-host, and we’ll be interviewing guests from the Woo community. But first we’re going to put him in the hot seat and to let him tell you a little bit about who he is. Welcome to the show, TC Cazy.

TC: Hey Marcus. How you doing?

Marcus: Doing really great. I’m happy to have you here.

TC: Happy to be here.

How TC got into WordPress

Marcus: We will get you to share a little bit with our audience about who you are. We usually start by asking the important question, how do you do the Woo? But I want to take us a little further back and can you start by telling us a little bit about how you got into WordPress?

TC: I started using WordPress around about 2013 and ’14. I was trying to build a website for a media company, Lifestyle Media Company, and I got into WordPress.com around 2013 or ’14. And then I came back to WordPress again. So I used it for that site, tried to build that site, and then around, I want to say 2017, I touched it again and that’s how I got involved with the community. I was asked to build a website for a family friend’s business. I went to a meetup and at that meetup they were discussing WordCamp, and from there I volunteered for WordCamp and that’s when I fell in love with the community. Really got to meet a lot of people because it was WordCamp. It was my first experience with the community at WordCamp, and I came for the technology, stayed for the community.

Marcus: That’s awesome. I hear a lot of stories about people who come into WordPress, because they need to build a website and they have to figure out, what do I build this on? And the community for some comes a little bit later. I think it’s awesome that you got in the other way around. You needed a website, but you heard about this community event happening and were like, well, let’s see if that can help me out here and dove in that way. I think it’s really, really interesting to come in through the community and stay for the software and stuff after that.

TC: Yeah, awesome. You know how WordCamps are, you just spoke at a WordCamp and it can be electrifying. It’s so fun, it’s uplifting, it’s always friendly and it’s always a good environment and a good vibe. And I think during that time when we weren’t having them, it was the most downtime, like everyone wanted to get back together. So I think everyone and all the listeners know how fun and important WordCamps are to the community and to WordPress as a whole.

Sparking an interest in WooCommerce

Marcus: Yeah, for sure. It’s a community like none another that I’m sure these listeners are aware of. And honestly, if you’re new to WordPress and WooCommerce and haven’t had a chance to join a meetup or a WordCamp, I’d highly, highly recommend it. All right, well, let’s dive in a little bit deeper then since this is Do the Woo. What initially sparked your interest in WooCommerce?

TC: Well, I’m an entrepreneur and so I’m always looking for ways to take care of my family to earn, because WordPress is open source and you can own. They always say, own your space on the web or own your content or whatever. The next step would be to use WooCommerce because it’s on WordPress, it’s open source and there’s a lot of others out there, but at the end of the day, I wanted to use something that was WordPress, so it’s kind of like a no-brainer for me.

Marcus: Yeah, definitely. You mentioned in there a little bit that you’re a bit of an entrepreneur. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the things that you’ve done, whether they’re WordPress related or not in the entrepreneurial space? I know you’ve got a bit of a audio and video production background as well. You want to share a little bit about that?

A background in business, audio, video and the web

TC: Yeah, for sure. I’ve always loved media, so when it comes to audio and video, I’ve been audio and video since high school, so I had radio and TV in high school, and then even after high school I took a program to learn live music in Chicago, so it was called the Music Industry Workshop. And from there I started working at Lollapalooza, the Live Lights and the Live Music at Grant Park and learning from an intern.

And I just fell in love with it, the lifestyle, the music lifestyle. And from there when once the camera got into my hands, it was over from there. So I purchased a camera, Panasonic P2, started doing like sort of like TMZ before TMZ even existed, like a gorilla style of shooting. I was never invited, but get the drop on celebrities here and there, and we jump out the van and get to ask them questions with the camera in their faces and stuff.

And so at that time, I hung out around a lot of people around Colombia College in Chicago, and Columbia College is a arts school, so it was just a lot of cool people like us just running around and trying to be creative. And so from there, I just wanted to create a business out of it. And so I started a production company from music to radio. So we were on the radio and also I produced the show on television out there and try to shoot short films and just always been into it.

So from a business perspective now with that background, learning how to edit and shoot film and that sort of thing, everybody now wanted to start having their long form content cut into short form content. And so with my editing abilities, I felt like, wow, this is a great way to pivot now that everybody wants to… This would be a better way to earn or a thing to add to my income stream. And I really didn’t expect how many people wanted their long form video cut into short form video. I didn’t know it was going to take off like this, and I didn’t even have the business structured the correct way at the time, but it just took off before it could even be structured in the right way. So we’re working on that right now.

It all leads to becoming a developer

Marcus: That’s awesome. And that makes complete sense with you being on the podcast, another audio production. How has that fed into you becoming a developer as well and building things for the web, for WordPress, for WooCommerce?

TC: Right, right. Good question Marcus, because that’s how it all started. So from the website, from the media and then how I started to learn that owning your space on the internet as a whole from media, audio, video and even websites, email, newsletter, these are things that I learned later on, and so I wanted to… After I started building just websites for instance, it was just all about websites. And then from there, learning what code does and how code can give you the power to really not only create income for yourself, but also to create platforms and applications that can also help you with the audio and video and the media as well. And so once I just dove in the code slightly again just to solve a problem, you start with a problem, we had a problem, and then from there it just snowballed into a whole other thing.

So I went with Python, everyone said Python was the easiest at that time to learn. There was a lot of resources to learn Python. And so I started going to conferences and just as a learner and lurker there, listening and learning, and from there I was using it a little bit. I was getting some small jobs, but at that time as a self-taught developer, it was hard to get jobs, because a lot of the Python students were learning this in the computer science programs.

And so I was learning from Udemy and online courses. And so from there I decided to go to bootcamp and from bootcamp kind of transitions from Python to JavaScript, because the web is JavaScript as we all know, so it’s like all coming together.

The most pressing challenges for store owners

Marcus: It’s interesting, but also makes sense the way that that path was followed from the thing that you’re passionate about with video and audio and then how do I publish this to folks who will be able to see it on the other end, and how do I own that publishing and following that path through to the web and being able to own your space on the web and all of that Makes complete sense. I know you’ve done a little bit of this and you’ve built some sites, so let’s loop it back to WooCommerce. And I’m curious to ask you, what do you think are some of the most pressing challenges for WooCommerce store owners?

TC: For me, taking it back to audio and video again is to let people know about your product. I think a lot outside of the technology, it’s like, you may have something good, you may have the things that people want, but being able to let the world know you have it and being able to drive traffic to that product, to being able to have an ability to not only distribute that product, but more importantly, being able to get that product to the people, get those eyes on your product, get those ears to hear what you have to say.

So I think that’s where I come in from the way that I see it, it’s how to drive traffic to that, how to keep the customers engaged, how to build a relationship where they go from a customer to a client, to a friend, to a community member.

Why WooCommerce?

Marcus: In your opinion, are there things that you feel like sets WooCommerce apart from some of the other eCommerce platforms?

TC: To be honest, Marcus, I’ve never used any other eCommerce platform, so I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never used anything else. I have taken a course on Shopify and React Development, but I’ve never used anything else.

Marcus: And I think you alluded to it a little bit earlier, but the reason you chose WooCommerce in the first place is, well, I guess a little bit of because it’s WordPress, but there are other WordPress commerce platforms. What made you choose WooCommerce over any of those?

TC: It came down to community again. It was about what my circle of people in the WordPress community that I was learning from or admiring what they were using as well. So in terms of the community, a lot of things that I’ve learned from being an outsider in the community, I’ve always learned from watching others. For instance, Bob. Bob was BobWP. He was the first person from the WordPress community to have followed me and I followed him.

So from an outsider, at that time, he’s being a mentor to me and we didn’t even know each other. And so whatever he’s using, I’m getting the information from shows like Do the Woo and other people and other podcasts and people that I’m seeing on YouTube or the internet, and I’m just following along what they’re doing and I’m trying out what they’re doing, because they said it was cool or someone that I saw at a WordCamp.

Again, I’m on the outside, so I don’t know anything. At that time I didn’t even know that there was other WordPress eCommerce sites. So everything that when it comes to me in WordPress, everything is community driven. I’m learning from the community. I want to be around it for the community, and I’m using what the people in my community is using.

Marcus: That makes total sense. And same, I mean the community part is such a big part of WordPress and each of the little pockets within WordPress, like WooCommerce and having folks to lean on when you have questions and having lots of resources and all of that is huge.

TC: Right. Because even when I started coding, if I would’ve tried something else, then I would’ve just been on that lonely island where I didn’t have any resource or nowhere to find information to fix it. So if I decided to try something different, is that sustainable? Would I be able to, if I have a question or search, even when it comes down to searching, a lot of things you search is still within the timeline or your information or your sphere or whoever you’re dealing with at that time.

Marcus: And I’ll continue to say it over and over again about the community, just it’s like not only do you have folks that you can ask for help when you need help, but folks are just willing to looking for places to jump in to help. It’s not even pulling teeth, you’re not throwing a question out there and hoping somebody stumbles on it. People are continuously out there searching for folks that need help, that are looking for help and jumping in wholeheartedly, trying to figure out how they can help people with issues. And that’s the WordPress community, that’s the WooCommerce community. It’s a lot of other pockets in the WordPress space, but it seems like a space no other.

Thanks to Hostinger for their support

Moving forward as a co-host

Marcus: Jumping back to a little bit about you and some of the things that you like to do, are there any specific topics within WooCommerce or eCommerce that you’re particularly passionate about that you’d like to explore further as we go forward co-hosting this podcast together?

TC: Oh yeah, definitely. Business as a whole, so my degree is in… I have master’s in the science of business management. And so business as a whole, how all the way down to how maximize the revenue, also, how to keep the customers happy, the technological things. WordPress is changing all the time, so the tech behind it was interesting. How to collect the money, that’s a big thing when you’re cashing out and things of that nature, that’s a real big subject-

Marcus: It’s not a store if you’re not collecting money. That’s one of the most important pieces

TC: And all the integrations into it.

Marcus: We got a chance to talk a little bit last week. I know that you have an interest in artificial intelligence in AI. How do you envision AI impacting the world of WooCommerce and eCommerce in the coming years?

TC: Oh wow, that that’ll be great in so many ways. For instance, just knowing what the customer’s next step may be in terms of what they may need next, using artificial intelligence to know as they progress, if they purchased this item, they’ve been using this for years, or if you purchased this item, you may like this. But even taking it a step further, making it easy for them to get it, and also not just making that decision on which thing to buy, but also making it easier for them to do it.

I’m not sure exactly off the top of my head how, but I’m talking about everything from shipment and everything. They just make this stuff just seamlessly easy for the customer. And I think a lot of people are afraid of artificial intelligence, but I think if you embrace it and then you use it correct, it can make our lives better or go the other way.

Thoughts on the future of Woo and eCommerce

Marcus: For sure. And I’ve been digging in a little bit on the AI stuff too, so I have no doubt that we’ll have some time to talk AI on these episodes going forward. That aside, what are your thoughts just in general on the future of WooCommerce and eCommerce? What other trends or technologies should listeners keep an eye on?

TC: As a whole, again, with me it’s like being able to… I think the most important is just being able to take care of yourself and take care of your family. I look at it that way. We can say what technological advancements or integrations from a developer standpoint, or we can… I look at it as accessibility. When people talk about, and if you hear in development, a lot of people talk about accessibility, but I’m talking about accessibility in terms of having a financial handicap, or not having the resources or wherever you are in the world to be able to earn a livable wage, put food on the table. And so I’m looking for ways to teach others how they can do that, how they can use WooCommerce to be able to feed their family, earn a honest living, learn the platform, learn these things where you can help your community, help yourself and live a good life.

Bringing perspectives and experiences to the show

Marcus: Yeah, no doubt. As our new co-hosts, we talked a little bit about it, but what unique perspectives or experiences do you bring with you that you think our listeners will benefit from?

TC: Unique? I think my perspective is from a regular perspective. I wouldn’t say so much unique. I think just like the common man, the average everyday people who just want to live, be happy and live a sustainable and a fruitful life. I want to bring that perspective. I want to bring love. I want to bring happiness and I want bring community together. And I want to make sure that everything that I do if I speak or whatever I’m doing, is beneficial to all of us living harmonious, and so I think that’s the perspective I want to bring. I’m not going to say too much unique, but that’s how I’m going to always speak.

Marcus: I think you’re selling yourself a little short about not having a unique perspective, especially coming from TV and radio background. That’s definitely going to make sense for the podcast part, but also the developer part and all this, all the develop development work that you’ve done and bringing that to the table as well to talk to our guests about that. That’s definitely going to bolster my skill sets a little bit when we have guests come on, we’ll have a better overlap of where I mesh up with our guests in terms of the things that we have overlapping skills. Mine will end at some point, and I think that yours will be able to take over there having done lots of TV and radio stuff and development, and really being able to speak to those things with our guests as well.

TC: For sure. Even that when it comes to development and creating videos from the developer standpoint, being able to help others learn the basic of web development, for those that was me, they say when you create things, create things for yourself, the old you, two years ago. So when I wanted to get in development, I didn’t have a lot of people around me that were developers. You know what I mean? So my perspective is you are listening out there and you don’t have anybody to help you as a developer. You don’t know anybody, a developer, you have me, I’m here. So I’m willing to help. I’m willing to tell you I don’t know everything, but what I do know I’m willing to share.

Marcus: And another thing that just came to me as you were talking some too, is I don’t know if any of these shows really have creator guests on them. And I think that would be a really great avenue for us to explore too, to see some of the folks that are doing content creation, video, audio stuff in the WordPress and WooCommerce space and have them on and talk to them a bit. And that’s definitely somewhere where you’ll have a lot more in common with that. I’ve done a little bit of that, but you’ll have a lot more in common with them and be able to bring that experience and that knowledge to those conversations too.

TC: Definitely. I think that’ll be a great idea, because now again, that goes along with WooCommerce in a content creator saying what you want to say, expressing yourself to people and then creating a business out of it, earning income. And it’s so many ways, you don’t just have to be the person on the microphone or the person in front of the camera. So many ways and the avenues that you can earn a living.

A piece of advice for builders starting their journey with WooCommerce

Marcus: So true. All right, well, as we start to wrap up this intro to you a little bit, could you share a piece of advice or a tip for our audience, especially for those who are maybe just starting their journey with WooCommerce?

TC: Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Shoot your shot. Believe in yourself, give it a shot. Stay with the community. Get with somebody that’s… Like you said, Marcus, there’s so many people that’s looking to help and to offer information, and so don’t be afraid to ask. I’m here. If you see me online, say hi. I’m going to always say hello and I’m always be there for you, so don’t be afraid to ask.

Marcus: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you joining me and sharing a bit about yourself for our audience. I’m really looking forward to continuing on these episodes with you as a co-host and setting someone else in the proverbial hot seats and getting a chance to ask the questions coming from both of our backgrounds in WooCommerce and development and all of that. And I know that we’ll have a great lineup of guests, and I’m looking forward to having you sitting next to me in those conversations and chatting with our guests and getting to know them a bit better as well. I appreciate you coming on and sharing a bit about yourself to get us started there.

TC: Thank you, Marcus. This has been great.