What’s Coming to the Do the Woo Podcast in 2020

Brad:
Welcome back to episode number 33 of Do the Woo podcast. I’m one half of the main event here, Brad Williams, and I am joined by, you know him, you love him, Mr. BobWP. Bob, how’s it going over there?

BobWP:
Hey, I’m doing good. I’m incognito. Nobody can see the video, but I seem to be having a little bit of video issues, so…

Brad:
It’s a good thing we’re an audio podcast, so yeah.

BobWP:
Yeah, good thing it is. And people don’t really choose to stare at my face very long anyway, so that’s probably a good thing.

Brad:
Oh, good thing it might be, but we’re back on another show. We got a lot of fun stuff to cover, a lot of new things coming in the new year. We’re only just a couple of weeks out from 2020—the end of a decade—which I think is always a big reflection point for people, right? New Years are always fun, but once you hit a new decade, it really makes you take a step back and think about where you’ve been the past 10 years, what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished, and setting your sights on the next 10 years. But in the short term, we do have some changes coming to not only the show but also some of your sites, and that’s the plan. We want to dig into that a little bit today. So, what’s coming up, Bob? Give us a little bit of information.

BobWP:
Yeah, I like that about thinking back on the year or the last 10 years, which, my God, I don’t even want to think back on the last 10 years, but I tend to not reflect. I mean, maybe it’s because I’ve reflected on so many years that I always tend to look forward. When I learn from my mistakes, I move on or something. And I’ve made plenty even this year. But we are going weekly, so that’s a big thing. When I made this decision or thought it, I approached Brad, and of course, Brad was very silent for a long time because it was like, okay, you mean every week, Bob? And so I went on a quest—a quest of looking for other people that would actually want to spend a little bit of time each month with me. Several people turned me down right away, but I continued the quest, and it was adventurous. Finally, I found a couple of people that more or less volunteered. I didn’t even have to ask them formally, and I don’t know what that says about them or me, but I thought that, hey, this is cool. This is going to be fun because Brad’s going to continue a couple of times a month.

Brad:
Can’t get rid of me, Bob.

BobWP:
I think that’s his limit. But other than that, the other two spots are going to be filled with two new co-hosts each month, and I’m pretty excited about that. And they’re going to be talking to me probably more than they care to. So, I’m going to let you introduce them, Brad, because I think that might be more appropriate, actually.

Brad:
All right. Let me introduce the people that are going to take over the spots I didn’t want to do, I guess, is another way to put it. First up, you probably know him, you may love him, it’s Mr. Mendel Kurland. Mendel, welcome to Do the Woo.

Mendel:
Hey, thanks. And just for the record, I didn’t turn Bob down; I turned him up. I’m ready, I’m excited, and I’m really happy that you’re not doing one week that I can do, Brad. Thank you for making room for us.

Brad:
I’m just glad you’re on the show. So Mendel, for anyone that doesn’t know you, why don’t you just give the quick elevator pitch—who you are, what you do, and what is your kind of involvement with WooCommerce?

Mendel:
Yeah, so I’m the Developer Advocate for WooCommerce at Liquid Web Nexus. I help agencies build awesome and performant stores for their clients. That’s it.

Brad:
Very good. That’s a great way to sum it up. We’re definitely excited to have you on WordPress. We’ve been friends for a number of years. You’ve been very active in the WordPress community for a number of years. I’m sure most people listening are familiar with you, and I think you’re going to bring a really fun and interesting perspective to the show. So it’s going to be fun to listen in. And we also have another co-host, Mr. Jonathan Wold. Did I pronounce that right?

Jonathan:
Wold—you nailed it.

Brad:
Perfect. And Jonathan, again, for anyone who’s not familiar with you, why don’t you give everyone the pitch of what you do and how that relates to WooCommerce?

Jonathan:
I’ve been in the world of WordPress for a long time and done a number of things. Been in the agency world for a while. I now work at Automattic. I am the Community Lead for WooCommerce. My background, a consistent thread throughout my experience in development, has been doing e-commerce, both in some startup stuff I did in my early years and then just doing a lot of WooCommerce on WordPress over the years. So it’s been exciting for me to watch WooCommerce grow, and from my point of view, I feel like we’re still in the very early days of its potential. So it’s exciting to see where it goes.

Brad:
Very cool. I’m excited because I think, obviously, Jonathan, you’re at Automattic, you’re working directly with WooCommerce. Mendel, WooCommerce is a big part of what Liquid Web’s doing over there on the WordPress managed side of the house. Bob obviously loves it, lives it. I’m doing a lot of it from the agency perspective. So I think if you think about it, it’s like a really well-rounded cast of characters here that can all bring a very unique and interesting perspective to the different topics that can come up from week to week. So I think it’s going to be a lot of fun as we kind of go into 2020, have a little bit different crew running into the different shows, digging into the topics, and just having some different perspectives. We’re all doing it and working with it in a little bit different ways, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun for us and for the listeners. And more than likely, Bob, I am sure there are going to be some shows where we all kind of mash together just like this one and kind of dig on, which I think will be a lot of fun as well. So I’m excited not only as a co-host of the show but also as a listener on the shows that I won’t be on to sit back and see what you guys bring. And then I’ll debate it on the show I’m on the next week.

BobWP:
Yeah. One of the things that I’ve been moving towards in this entire site, which will be more focused around the podcast, which basically will be the podcast, is that if people know the site, if they’ve actually listened to the podcast on the site, which I know probably a lot of people listen to it on their pod—whatever the pod platform they listen to—the site itself has been pretty much WooCommerce-focused over the last three or four years. And all that tutorial stuff is sitting in the backend now, but I’m bringing everything print. So I guess the overall theme of the site, which is now bobwp.com, and may be changing its domain, is that it’s all about community and news in the WooCommerce space. So I’ve taken a total 360 on, instead of writing tutorials, I’m going to do this, and through the site, bring more content and news of what’s happening and more of a community whole thing, not just what’s happening to WooCommerce at WooCommerce core and stuff.
And I think that’s what’s going to be cool—having you three join me, and we will bring in guests from all walks of life in the Woo space and learn more about them. So there’ll be content on the site that’s more news related, that will be the written content. I’ll be honest with you, I’m going to admit it right now—I’m so over writing tutorials. I mean, I’ve done this for 10 years and I love doing it, and I’m ready to grasp onto the medium of podcasts and maybe focus a little bit more around the content of news. So that will be done. I’ll do a weekly roundup every

week on the news. And it is going to be interesting to see how this plays out because essentially I’m going to try to curate this news myself maybe, and if you think of something, hopefully, sometimes you’ll pass something along. I don’t expect it. But also, I will have people submitting news on the site and I’ll have a form, and that’s going to be, I guess, editorial—what do you call it?—editorial power that I will have over what I decide will be listed as news or not. But it just will be interesting to see how this develops over time. And if I continue to be sane or I start to have questionable doubts about if I’m doing this the right way or not.

Mendel:
Bob, can I say something? Yeah, I just want to say two things. One, none of us are sane, so don’t worry about that. And number two, when you’re a legend like you are, it really doesn’t freaking matter. It’s going to be fun and awesome. So I’m excited personally to see this evolve and BobWP evolve. I think it’s going to be awesome.

BobWP:
Thank you, thank you. And Brad, what do you think? I mean, we’re basically—I think what’s cool is we’re going to be keeping the same general format of the podcast. There’s not really going to be a lot changing there. We always brought in somebody, and we always talked a bit about the news in and around WooCommerce and even sometimes out in the e-commerce space. So I think it’s kind of not so much as a huge migration from one thing to another—it’s just a nice subtle move to bringing in the podcast front and foremost.

Brad:
Yeah, I mean, I love it. I think it puts more of a focus on the site being more around WooCommerce. Like you said, you’ve done tutorials for looking back the last decade, writing tutorials. So I can see how doing anything for that long a period would be tough to continue to stay motivated and excited because you get into ruts. So I think just mixing it up is always a good thing. It gets you re-energized, it gets everyone excited, it gets some new content, some new focus on the site, and it’s really a one-stop shop. You got the news, you got the podcast, you got all of us. So it gives everybody a clear path to really dig into the WooCommerce side of the house and talk about the specifics around that, and specifically with WordPress. So I’m excited. I know you did a lot of work on your site, which we talked about. It’s been a few episodes back. We kind of dug into some of the challenges you had with migrating some of that data and really cleaning up your old content and what goes where, and the best way to do that. It is a big undertaking when you have years of content on your site and you’re trying to refocus it a little bit. What do you do with that older content? So there’s an interesting story to be told there, which we talked about. So I’m excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Jonathan:
Bob, what I’m excited about is seeing you experimenting and trying things. For me personally, learning is so important and continually growing, and there’s often discomfort associated. And when you experiment, you don’t know how it’s going to go, right? Anyway, so that’s exciting to me. I think you have a clear trajectory, a focus, a sense of direction. So it’s all good. There’ll be little things that you might try and maybe double back on later or try something entirely different, and I’m excited to see how it goes.

BobWP:
Yeah, it is going to be very—what is important. I got to put on my hat what is important to everybody else and not necessarily myself as far as what’s keeping everybody informed in the community. And I know that you have a—Jonathan, well, you have that position now at Automattic, which is—that’s really a lot of what you’re going to be doing.

Jonathan:
That’s the hope. There’s a lot still to be figured out. It’s been fantastic for me to sort of begin to look and see what’s happening already in the community. We have some really strong meetups. I think in that vein of what I described earlier, I think we’re still in the very early days of potential. So I’m hoping to be a part of helping the WooCommerce community grow, and things like this are an important part of that. Having resources, having shared channels where we’re communicating with each other. So yeah, I’m excited about it.

BobWP:
Yeah, one of the things I think is cool is what Brad pointed out, and as I look back on these are the co-hosts I have now, what each one brings to the table—we have the agency, we almost have the hosting perspective, and we have the WooCommerce core community perspective here. And Mendel, I think that it will be cool how you will be able to bring in, because as somebody that’s working for hosting and especially specializes in WooCommerce, you’ll hear a lot of different perspectives. And yeah, you’re going to hear it from them—exactly that tie-in to their frustrations or their wins with WooCommerce. But it’s always, it has to be played upon that perspective of the hosting, and that’s how they’re going to look at you. And I think you can bring something—I guess I’m kind of in a roundabout way saying it’s a unique approach, what you’ll bring to the table.

Mendel:
Yeah. Well, thanks. I’m looking forward to it. And to echo what Jonathan was saying in a weird sort of way, I think WooCommerce is—there’s a rebirth happening of WooCommerce. So as people start to understand the modern capabilities of the WooCommerce platform, as they start to understand that it can be performant, that large stores can be run on it, that there are all sorts of really interesting, unique things that can happen on WooCommerce. I think we’re going to have more and more interesting conversations, and I get the unique perspective of talking to agencies that are both starting to use WooCommerce for the first time—they may have been using Magento previously or OSCommerce or who knows, right? There are so many carts out there, and now they’re discovering WooCommerce or rediscovering WooCommerce—some perspective out there that might be different than how WooCommerce is now from the way WooCommerce used to be. So as the platform is maturing, it’s going to be super interesting to bring some of that perspective to the group and get your feedback too, Bob, because you’ve been in this game for longer than I have, and it’ll be interesting to see your perspective and kind of how you tie what is happening now with the history of the platform. So I’m excited.

BobWP:
And Brad, you can continue that agency thing. Brad’s always been an asset, and he deals with me twice a month. I mean, you figure he deals with me twice as much as you’re going to have to deal with me. So he’s been very patient and willing to kind of go along. And when I first asked Brad, I honestly—I don’t know how that even transpired. I was just—when I initially—if people don’t know the history of the podcast, the podcast actually started in March 2016. After about seven months, it changed into my other podcast, and I tried to make it more broad-focused in WordPress, and then I brought it back. And I started it—when I started it back, it was basically me interviewing people again. And I thought, man, I’ve got to bring somebody into the mix here because with the different podcasts I have going on and stuff, people can only handle so much of Bob just interviewing somebody. And it was time to bring somebody in. And I believe that was—I did not have anybody say no because I think Brad was the very first person I thought of and approached him, and we just took and ran with it.

Brad:
Yeah, I don’t know how that happened either. I think we were hanging out at a WordCamp US afterparty, and then I get an email Tuesday saying, “We’re recording today, remember? We talked about it,” and I’m like, okay. And here we are, however many shows later. So, no, I’m kidding. But it’s been a lot of fun. I mean, I’m excited too. I think it’s a

pretty cool point and interesting point about the rebirth of WooCommerce because it’s been around for a while. I think a lot of that, from my perspective, is—and maybe even WordPress in a sense—is Gutenberg. It’s kind of brought this new exciting element back to WordPress. And we’re also seeing that as we’ve just discussed on even the last few shows, Bob, seeing how that’s starting to integrate into WooCommerce more. And some of the really cool things with the WooCommerce Blocks plugin and some of the things they’re even experimenting with at kind of an early stage, but even getting Gutenberg potentially hooked into the checkout process, shopping carts, and things like that, which gets super interesting.
Now we’re beyond just using Gutenberg for content. Now we’re using it for workflow, and especially checkout workflow, which is obviously the most important thing on an e-commerce store is making sure people can buy stuff easily. So I think that to me is very exciting because it’s pushing beyond what we’ve ever seen with WooCommerce and with WordPress. So I feel like a lot of that is what is helping kind of reenergize everything again and get everybody excited again because, like we just talked about, doing the same thing year after year—building sites or working with content year after year the same way—ultimately it does get a little bit stale, a little bit boring. And now everything’s been flipped upside down, and we’re using this new cool tool called Gutenberg, and it’s fun again, and it’s exciting, and there’s just a lot of uncharted territory and seeing the type of stuff people are putting out there—even if it’s just proof of concept stuff—it’s cool. So that’s the stuff I’m really digging and enjoying discussing. And I expect that we’re only going to be talking about that more going into 2020 and beyond. So, a lot of big opportunities here for WooCommerce and for WordPress, and a lot of stuff to talk about.

Jonathan:
I got a question for you, Bob.

BobWP:
Sure.

Jonathan:
So, with the move to a weekly, which I think is a great idea, you have that sort of consistency and cadence you can build up over time—something people expect. When you look back on the end of 2020 and having had, what is it, 51 episodes or whatever you’re targeting, is there anything in particular that you’re hoping to have achieved? Or what will you look back on and say, “I’m really happy with what happened”?

BobWP:
Most people with podcasts, and if you deal with any podcasters, I deal with them in some groups on Facebook and listen to them, and all they focus on is the number of listeners. I mean, these people—and that’s how they measure their success. I don’t care what podcasts they’re doing, that’s how they come in and they measure it. And I’ve never really—I mean, that’s always, yeah, it’s important. You don’t want to be just talking to the air and talking to nobody, and you want to build up interest over time. For me, it is really simple, and I know that it should be some big significant answer and something that’s mind-blowing, and Mendel just shakes his head and goes, “Wow, Bob’s amazing.” But it’s not going to be quite that approach. To me, it would be when I start seeing people say, “Hey, I’m keeping up on WooCommerce because of this podcast and this site.”
It’s really that simple. That’s where I want to be. I want it to be—not like the only source out there; there are other places to find this information—but I want it to be where, and if somebody has news, they come to me and say, “Because we know your site does this,” that’ll tell me that, yeah, people are starting to pay attention to it. I guess I could say let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya and say, “Oh, bring the community together,” but it would be cool if I heard that this site was doing just that with the WooCommerce community.

Jonathan:
So for me, I’m hearing that there’s helping people keep up, which is incredibly difficult to do, especially as Woo continues to grow. New things are happening all the time. And then I think the other part that I’m hearing is just adding perspective, having each of us with different perspectives. If I’m a listener and hearing this perspective and this perspective, there’s an enrichment that happens that gives you just a greater sense of what’s happening across.

BobWP:
Exactly. And I think bringing in different people in the space, that has been great. I mean, so far with Brad and I, it’s interesting because you bring in people that are doing plugins or doing other services, whatever they’re doing in the space. And I think that’s another thing, and that’s one of the things I’ve always liked—any—I’ve never been a talking head type of podcast kind of guy because, first of all, I don’t know if anybody can listen to me for more than 30 minutes by myself or even 15 minutes, but I do like that conversation with people. And that is probably one of the reasons I do podcasting—is just that. And this podcast, unlike others, is a little bit more focused on specific questions, even though we’ll go off on tangents. This is very open discussion, and we leave it open, and we can kind of go in whatever direction we want, and that’s what I love about it.

Brad:
Very cool. So, I know there’s a few other things. One important part of obviously—which you kind of touched on—running a site is being able to support it. And traditionally, you mentioned on this show, we’ve had sponsors, and I think we’ll continue to have sponsors, but you’re also doing something a little bit different on the site. You want to touch on that, Bob?

BobWP:
Yeah, I call them—boy, this is so original. I mean, I couldn’t have gotten more original—Friends of Do the Woo. But first, I thought, a backend kind of member-only—what do they get? Do we put some content back there? All these different things. And I’ve been there, done that. I just thought, well, why don’t I just make it a Friends of Do the Woo where people can support—it’s almost like you could compare it to something on Patreon that maybe a podcaster does. It’s just having people be able to—either individuals can pay $99 for the year, or a business can pay $199 a year, and they’re on a directory. They’re just supporting the site, they’re supporting all this other stuff. There are a lot of things—I mean, it’s great. I love this time we spend together, but between production, post-production, marketing, keeping the site up and all that stuff, that’s what I’m hoping this will help with.
And I’ll create a little profile for each person. So again, it’ll almost be like a Woo community directory. You’ll be able to see who people are, what they do, be able to connect with them. I’m not putting a lot of stuff, like I said, any special benefits to members. I don’t consider them members, I consider them supporters. And yeah, it’s just something that is going to be—it’s live on the site right now, so people can go ahead and head over there and, of course, reach out to me if they have any questions. But again, I just want to start seeing the—I’d love to see a collective of faces of kind of who’s behind Woo.

Mendel:
I want to take this moment to interrupt with a sponsored statement. Individuals that donate to Do the Woo ensure that we are able to continue sharing stories and inform and inspire merchants and builders. Sorry, that was a total rip-off from NPR, but I love—that’s what I think of. I’m like, man, NPR does the same thing where you give the stuff away for the good of the community and then hope the people that can will support you and the podcasts and the good work that you’re doing. So yeah, do it. Use that sound clip later, Bob.

BobWP:
Yeah, I’m going to paste that out, and that’s going to be at the end of every show. It’s going to be happening, and we’ll tell you, we’ll start in with the NPR WooCommerce, that type of thing. So that is essentially it in a nutshell. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. I guess the three things I just ask for people to check out: the Friends of Do the Woo, I’ll have the link up as far as being able to submit news. And there is a page that kind of goes over a little bit of the criteria of what I’m looking for. And again, I’m sure that will morph into a more direct approach over time, but right now I’m leaving it kind of open out there. And somebody said, “Are you insane to put up a contact form like that? Because you know what you’re going to get?” Well, hey, I’ve done this a long time, and I’m good with that. So I’m putting it out there for people to be able to do that. And, of course, subscribe to the podcast. We’ll continue to ask people to do that and wherever they listen to it, whether it’s on our site. And those are the ways. And that’s it, guys. I mean, I’m looking forward to this because I’ve known Jonathan—we’ve known each other online for a while. I’ve

gotten to know Jonathan more in the last few months. Mendel, of course, I will say Mendel got me to my first WordCamp US back in whenever the first WordCamp US. And I’ve known Mendel for a long time. I think the first time we met, we were drinking Bloody Mary’s at a WordCamp in the morning, and…

Mendel:
Accurate. Yeah.

BobWP:
And that’s a story for another show. And then, of course, Brad and I’ve known each other for a long time, so I’m just excited for this year and having the three of you join me and see what we can do. So, before we close out, any exciting stuff going on over the holiday season for anyone? Or are you just going to lay back and enjoy the time?

Brad:
Well, I’ve been a good boy, so I think Santa’s coming this year, so I’m excited about that.

Mendel:
We just bought a house here in Austin, and so I’m doing things like firing up the old electric lawnmower and stuff like that. So I’m just enjoying that chill suburban life.

Jonathan:
We are skipping Christmas this year. We’re going to take the kids down to Cabo for a week and take all the money we spent on that. And we’ve always talked about it. The kids are old enough now where we want to actually experiment and see how it goes. Could be terrible.

BobWP:
It’s like Christmas with the Kranks, man. You see that movie? Skip Christmas to go on a cruise. It’s great.

Brad:
All right. Well, I appreciate getting together on the last show of the year. We have a bit of a break, and we’re going to kick it off in 2020 with some fun and exciting stuff. So everyone, I hope you will join us in 2020. Again, reach out if you want to be part of the community here. And even if there’s an option, if you’re interested in being a guest, you can do that on the site as well. And yeah, looking forward to 2020. Thanks a lot, guys.

Mendel:
Thank you.

Jonathan:
Thanks.

BobWP:
Well, that’s a wrap for today. Again, I want to thank Ajoy for their support. From targeted upsells to onsite cart abandonment, they have you covered for your WooCommerce store. Head on over to useajoy.com/bobwp and use the code BobWP to get 20% off any of their plans. And if you enjoyed the show today, a review or a share is always appreciated. You can follow us on Twitter at Do the Woo podcast or subscribe on any of your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening, and make sure to join us again for some Do the Woo.