The WooCommerce Agency Transformation: Lessons in Growth and Change

Robbie: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Do The Woo. I’m Robbie Adair with OSTraining, one of the co-hosts today. And with me, I also have Robert Jacobi. Robert, how are you doing today?

Robert: Hey, Robbie. Doing excellent. So I’m Robert Jacobi with not OS Training. Maybe robertjacobi.com. And yeah, another great week where, by the time this launches, it’ll be maybe a week before WordCamp US 23, a lot of people getting excited, doing a ton of stuff. Fun times.

Robbie: Yes, indeed. I am looking forward to WordCamp US myself. Today, we’ve got Mary Volker joining us. She leads the agency program at Woo, and we’re real excited because we actually also have one of the agencies here with us today, Built Mighty. Johnny Martin, the founder of Built Mighty, is going to join us as well. So I’m going to start with Mary. Mary, how are you doing this morning?

Mary: I’m good. I’m also getting excited for WordCamp US. It feels like WordCamp Europe just happened. But I’m looking forward to getting together with some of our agencies there and meeting lots of new agencies.

Robbie: Awesome. We, Robert and I were just saying we’ve never met you or Johnny in person, which is really unusual. We’re pretty active in the community. So when we meet people we haven’t met before, it’s wow. Now we’ll get to meet you in person at WordCamp US. I’m looking forward to that. And it does feel like I just literally unpacked my bags from WordCamp Europe. You’re right. So also we have Johnny Martin with Built Mighty. Johnny, how are you doing?

Johnny: Doing great. Summer’s winding down. Kids are almost getting ready to head back into school. 2023.

Robbie: Fantastic. We love hearing that. And we want to start out by just getting your story behind Built Mighty. You’re the founder. So tell us, when did you start this agency? What were your goals? And then what have they become now?

Johnny: Awesome. Thank you, Robbie. I’m doing something completely different today than I ever set out or wanted to do, which is a common experience for a lot of people. I actually started out as a merchant. I ran several e-commerce stores on the Magento platform back in 2008, 2009. I wanted to launch a marketing agency focusing on local marketing for dentists, chiropractors, and auto repair shops. Completely separate from the e-commerce world. But I had some online stores myself, did a lot of practice, and learned a lot of SEO in that space, a lot of paid search. Those stores became very successful, and before long, a lot of our customers learned that we had e-commerce experience.

Back in 2009 and 2010, everyone was deathly afraid of PCI compliance, getting hacked, or a site going down on Friday night. No one wanted the challenge of taking on an e-commerce store. Over the first few years of trying to create a business that was a marketing agency for dentists, chiropractors, and auto repair shops, we ended up with no customers in those fields. It’s all e-commerce now. We changed and evolved because we had a lot of experience from me running my stores and hiring a team to support those. We did a lot of combo builds back then where we used WordPress as the front end because Magento was awful for a CMS, and WooCommerce hadn’t grown up yet. So we used Magento for the e-commerce store. It was a nightmare. Once WooCommerce started to grow, the dev team came to me and said, “I can write the same feature in WooCommerce with a tenth of the code that I can in Magento. I’d rather build more features than write more code.” So we dropped Magento and completely focused on WooCommerce. We haven’t looked back since.

Robert: There are a lot of barriers to entry for Magento. Is that fair to say?

Johnny: Yes, it is. Magento definitely has some positives, but it is a large, complicated platform. In order to do anything, it takes a significant amount of work to accomplish even just moving stuff around on the front end of a website or changing any functionality. People complain about WordPress and WooCommerce database structure, but Magento has about 150 tables just to start. It is extremely complicated and over-engineered for most uses. Most businesses should spend that money on marketing rather than development and building out this gigantic, complicated system to grow their business. That’s one of the reasons why we really like WooCommerce.

Robert: I’ve seen it in action, but I don’t know if Built Mighty has had the same experience. You can have a WooCommerce experience for a very small click-and-mortar and then scale up to something Amazon-ish.

Johnny: Last year, we supported a site that did COVID testing. One of the largest testing organizations, and we were doing 38 orders a second on a WooCommerce store. WooCommerce can handle that and can also run a meal delivery for a teriyaki restaurant. It can go from 100 orders a day to 38 orders a second at peak speed. It can handle everything in between.

Robert: That’s super cool for an open-source project.

Robbie: No joke. It can also handle subscriptions with WooCommerce subscriptions. Johnny, we’re going to come back to your agency and story, but Mary, I just wanted to get your take from the Woo side. How do you see your relationships with these agencies and what do you try to gain or help those agencies gain by being part of your program?

Mary: Agencies and developers are core to WooCommerce. We recognize them as instrumental to what we do. When we relaunched the agency program last year, it became a big priority for the entire company to make sure that agencies get the education, access to support, and leads they need. We are still a young program, even though we’ve been around since 2015 and Built Mighty has been there since the start. We paused the program for a bit and relaunched it last year. We’re in this ramp-up period to market our agencies more and get their name out there as thought leaders in the community. We support them in all ways to help them grow on Woo. We have a lot of big plans for 2024, and we’re excited about the future of the program and how we can work more closely with Johnny and other agencies like his.

Robbie: I have to do my obligatory request because we have a Woo person here. We really want to see WooConf come back. I have to do it every show we have somebody from Woo. Please, bring WooConf back.

Mary: Yes, please. I hear it all the time. Our agencies are always asking for it. I am doing my part in advocating for it internally, I promise. In the meantime, we’re doing lots of events with agencies, and we’ll be doing one at WordCamp US. Hopefully, we can expand as things grow. To be continued.

Robert: Can you tell us more about this lead generation aspect?

Mary: Our agencies are listed in our Woo Expert Marketplace. Any merchant who needs help can contact them directly. We work hard to be selective with the agencies we let into the program. We vet them strictly, looking at their design, code, and ensuring they are the best agencies out there. Our sales team also works to connect agencies with larger merchants or any merchants needing help. Our job is to ensure we have agencies available for any merchant in our marketplace. We’re excited to ramp up marketing even more next year to increase lead flow to our agencies.

Robert: Is there a cost to join the agency partnership program?

Mary: There’s no cost, but there is a lead-sharing expectation. We provide leads, and you provide leads. It’s a partnership, and we work with our agencies to ensure it’s mutually beneficial. We put the agency first before our company and the merchant first at the end of the day. The merchant getting the right help at the right time is everyone’s number one priority.

Robert: Do you provide marketing development funds for co-branding with agencies?

Mary: Yes, we plan to implement that next year. We’re making plans to support our agencies in that way and ensure we show up at industry events to help spread the Woo brand. We want to show up alongside our agencies to ensure people see them as true partners for WooCommerce.

Robert: The last question for Johnny, how has Built Mighty’s experience been around everything Mary just said?

Johnny: It’s been pretty amazing. One of the blessings of WordPress and WooCommerce is the low barrier to entry. It’s a great place to learn how to be a developer and start an agency. It’s also a curse because the barrier to entry is so low. Often, brands outgrow their provider, whether it’s a freelancer, contractor, or in-house hire. They learn WordPress and eventually outgrow the technical needs of their provider. They reach out to the WooExpert program, and we get introduced to those companies and merchants. We help them finish the job or add features the previous provider couldn’t accomplish. We found a lot of value in the WooExpert program.

Robert: And Johnny, do you network with the other agencies in the program?

Johnny: Absolutely. In 2018, we ran an expert agency mastermind where we invited 17 agencies to Atlanta. We all met to talk shop, trade secrets, and learn how other people run their businesses. It’s rare we go head-to-head with another expert. The space is huge, and there’s a lot of work out there. The more we help other agencies get better, the better brand WooCommerce has. We’ve been a part of the program since 2015, and it’s grown significantly. Mary and her team have invested in training and marketing. Ross, our account rep, understands who we are as an agency and connects us with the right merchants.

Mary: The WooExpert community is really special. It’s not competitive,

and agencies help each other grow. It’s a unique and supportive environment. I’m happy to be a part of it and witness that.

Robbie: I agree with Johnny. There is plenty of work out there in the space, and it’s more collaborative than competitive. After COVID, there’s even more work than before. It’s great to feel more collaborative between agencies now.

Robert: There are huge ties that bind, like open source and community. It’s different from just trying to kill each other. People get into this business because of those soft pluses of running a business and being successful. I wanted to touch on something Johnny mentioned regarding the Woo brand. It seems to go up and down. People know Shopify and Magento but might not know Woo. How does that impact you, Johnny, and Mary, how do you see that message being expanded?

Johnny: WooCommerce came from being a WordPress plugin, and their focus was on selling to the WordPress community. Now, they’re focusing more on the e-commerce community. WooCommerce is beginning to invest in marketing outside the WordPress space. There’s still the challenge of the perception that WordPress sites get hacked. But a well-maintained store won’t have that issue. WooCommerce is ramping up marketing, and we’re excited for what’s next.

Mary: WooCommerce is really investing in marketing now. We’ve doubled the size of our marketing team and are making big updates to the brand. We’re amplifying that at the end of this year and into 2024. Our agencies are a great way to amplify that message even further. They have boots on the ground, and we should use them to help spread the word about Woo. I’m excited for the future of marketing at Woo and hope to see brand growth over time.

Robbie: We’ve been watching and seeing a difference in Woo marketing and advertising. It’s starting to happen. Johnny, tell us more about the agency growth you’ve seen over time. How many did you start with? How much did you grow? How do you work?

Johnny: Running an agency is a rollercoaster. We’re 27-28 people today, very different from three years ago. We used to be in an office, now we’re spread out all over the country. We’ve maintained between 23 to 30 people for the last six years. Running an agency involves a never-ending game of training and instructing. The key is perfecting training and education for our team to maintain a high level of expertise even as our team changes.

Robbie: Do you find that you’re documenting processes to keep continuity between changing people?

Johnny: Processes are one thing, but goals, intentions, and priorities are more significant. How you take care of a customer is more important than the technical processes. Every customer is unique, and businesses that take risks grow. Training people on intent and priorities is the hardest thing to keep continuity. Systems and processes are important, but the goal is to connect with people.

Robert: With this being 2023, how are you taking advantage of AI to tackle issues like support, knowledge transfer, and continuity?

Johnny: We use AI to write some boilerplate code. AI is great for writing boilerplate code quickly, but it’s not going to replace a developer. It takes busy work off the plate for our developers, but we still need more developers in the future.

Robbie: AI makes employees more productive. It helps with code, marketing, and learning. It’s not replacing people but making them more efficient.

Mary: We hear a lot from agencies about the need for training in business skills. We’re prioritizing that next year, helping salespeople grow on WooCommerce, setting smart goals for agency growth, and marketing agencies. We want to provide training and resources to help your team learn these things.

Robbie: We’re getting some insights from Mary. Now it’s about executing those plans. Johnny, tell us about some creative things your agency has been doing with Woo over the last couple of years.

Johnny: We supported a site doing 38 orders a second with 120 people in the admin panel. It was on a four-server configuration with separate servers for the admin team. Another company we work with uses WooCommerce for booking appointments for donation pickups. WooCommerce can be used for various purposes beyond just selling t-shirts.

Robbie: Did you use a hosting company for this, or did you set up custom hosting in AWS?

Johnny: Everything was on AWS for that site.

Robert: As part of being a Woo agency partner, is there a push to drive customers to VIP or other hosting platforms?

Johnny: There is a push to use VIP or Pressable, but they can be restrictive for custom development work. They are great for standard builds but not for unique cases.

Mary: We want to lift up Automatic products but rely on agencies to recommend what’s best for the merchant. If there’s an opportunity for partnership, we explore that, but the merchant comes first.

Robbie: This sounds like a way for Pressable and VIP to learn from agencies why they weren’t selected.

Johnny: I don’t think it’s fair to ask a hosting company to do everything. Hosts should focus on specific customer types. Automatic could launch a new hosting company focused on custom development without compromising VIP or Pressable’s strengths.

Robbie: I agree with you, Johnny. Hosts have their niches, and they need to stay in their lanes to become the best in their niche.

Robert: Hosting is a complex topic. Agencies need to learn which hosting companies do what best. What about WooExpress? How’s that been a component of the Woo experience?

Johnny: For us, WooExpress doesn’t really factor in. We’re a functionality-based agency, and WooExpress isn’t our focus.

Mary: We recruit agencies that are great at extending WooCommerce. WooExpress is great for smaller agencies and freelancers but isn’t integral to our program today. However, it might be in the future if we expand to freelancers or smaller agencies.

Robert: There could be an opportunity for moving from WooExpress to more customized solutions.

Mary: Absolutely. We’re looking for indicators that a site is growing and introducing agencies to help take them to the next level.

Robbie: It’s brilliant for Woo to have WooExpress as an easy entry point and then hopefully grow businesses to the level where they need an agency like Johnny’s. We’re running out of time, but before we go, I want to give some contact information. Mary, if an agency wants to be a part of this, how should they reach out to you?

Mary: I’m on LinkedIn, and we have a waitlist available on our website. We’ve closed the application currently to ensure everyone in the program sees value. We’re letting people in as opportunities become available. I’ll be at WordCamp US, so feel free to stop by and say hello or message me on LinkedIn if you’ll be there.

Robbie: Johnny, if people need a website, how should they get in touch with you?

Johnny: Email me at johnny@builtmighty.com. I also like to get to know other agency owners. If you run an agency and want to network, learn, and share, I’d love to connect with you.

Robbie: Robert, how can people find you?

Robert: Twitter or X, Twitter X, Twitter, or robertjacobi.com.

Robbie: Awesome. If you’re looking for me, I’m Robbie Adair on probably every platform you can imagine, or you can go to ostraining.com. Thank you for listening to today’s episode. We hope you enjoyed it. We had some great information from Johnny and Mary. Listen for the next episode of Do The Woo.

Robert: Thanks all. Can’t wait to see you all at WordCamp US 23.