Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Within WordPress, the podcast about people, people inside of WordPress, people outside of WordPress, and in this particular case, I have a guest who is not only inside of WordPress, but also very much inside of WooCommerce.
Welcome, Rodolfo.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Hello, Remkust. Thanks very much. Yeah, definitely.
I would say I'm more inside WooCommerce than WordPress. Actually. I'm pretty.
I put all my eggs in, you know, in one basket. So that's me since 2011ish, basically working exclusively on, you know, WooCommerce website. So, yeah, that's, that's basically what I've been doing for the last, what is it, 14 years?
[00:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, 15 years.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: When did WooCommerce start being a thing? The Fork Fungico shop was 2011.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: Eleven. Yes.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: So I came just a few months after, thoroughly, randomly, like I was doing my first websites for clients. I'm a, I'm a civil engineer. Nothing to do with it, nothing to do with development, nothing to do with websites. I just switched careers on stage and as I was searching for some e commerce solutions, you know, the ones that were available in 2011, early 12, I just picked WooCommerce out of the, out of the hat. So it was, if you want, you know, a lucky, A lucky decision.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah. There was three, three main ones. You had Shop with Double P, you had Jiggle Shop and then you had the fork that is now known as Google Commerce. I think there's more.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Edd.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Was EDD there?
[00:01:56] Speaker B: No, I think probably later at that time it was Magento against more or less woocommerce and there was some other, like open cards and all that kind of stuff. Maybe.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah. External stuff.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I was in between the two, maybe. Don't remember if even Joomla could handle E commerce, to be honest, but it could.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: It could.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. So I was trying to decide in between these three or four and then I said, oh, this looks cool. It's open source and you can customize.
Comes with template. So of course I was buying templates on ThemeForest or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, for the very beginning and, and the, you know, the, the websites were ready in a week. Just I had to wait for six months for the content. So that was the thing that I definitely didn't like about.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, you, you have a.
First of all, tell us a bit more where you're from, what you do day to day.
Because we really jumped into WooCommerce really fast. But tell us a bit more about yourself.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so I am Italian, born in Rome, which everyone says it's a beautiful place, it's a beautiful city, which it is, but only if you don't live there. So as soon as I could, I escaped.
So that was my after degree. I just found my first job in Ireland, so moved there in 2012, six or seven, and spent 11 years in Ireland as an engineer. And then in Ireland because there was loads happening from local entrepreneurs and chambers of commerce and stuff like that, I could really see the potential of working for yourself. And that's when I became a web developer. Well, with no development skills anyway. Let's say a web designer.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, a web person.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Mar. Exactly. So, yeah, that's the thing. Now I'm back to Italy, but moved back south because my wife is from Sicily, from Palermo. So of course, in between, you know, 0 degrees Ireland and 45 degrees Sicily, we picked Sicily. And then, you know, I had to, to make a choice. But, you know, it's not bad. Nice food, nice people.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah, you got that going for yourself. Nice food.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the, the, the, you know, Italians, they always chase good food. So I, I can say that the level is quite decent in here anyway. Wherever you go, it's, it's going to be good.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've been going to Italy on vacation for.
26 years. 27 years.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: No very high standards then.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yes, yes, quite enjoy it to the point that I can see myself living there part time at some point.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: There you go. You're very welcome to join me.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Well, 45 degrees, I can handle it. I've done it before. And for those who are living in freedom units, that's 110.
If I have a choice, I'm not going to make that choice. So Abruzzo, that's from Abruzzo to let's say the Chianti region. Anywhere in that layer, still warm.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Central.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, a little more central. Yeah.
I like Rome.
Been there quite a few times.
One time in an idiotic heat of 42, 43, never doing that again.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, no, Rome is like.
You see the difference between Sicily and the big city, like Rome is like, you know, in here we have the, the sea. Yep. The wind very close by. So the, the air is so different and there is like cold concrete and, you know, asphalt and you know, Rome.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Side question. You say you're Italian and you are from Rome. Yes, I know a few people from Rome and they say they're Roman first, then Italian.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I kind of know that kind of people. Anyway.
I wouldn't identify myself as a Roman, you know, we go and conquer the, the world, you know. But yeah, there are some funny people who are there.
You know, I, I even, I don't have a strong Roman accent. So whenever I, I meet someone from Rome, like, I laugh because the, the accent is so familiar and so strong and I can't, like, I feel like I, I don't want to use it, you know, it's just, just too funny.
But if you're familiar with maybe, you know, Scottish people like you, you, you know, it's fun just listening to them.
But I feel like, you know, a Scott that doesn't want to use the Scottish accent because I feel I don't, it doesn't feel like me.
So that, that's, that's a fair enough.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: That's what I, my, my friend Karim Maruki will, will make it very clear always, all the time that he is indeed Roman first, Italian second, third.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes, fantastically.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: But yeah. So you live in Sicily.
Does that mean your clientele is based
[00:07:41] Speaker B: in Sicily or 0% 00% Sicily and 0.5% Italy anyhow, anyway, so.
Yeah, it's always been like that since the very beginning. Like my clientele was international and in Italy, you know, that like there's not a lot of, a lot of money effect going and going around.
We put them in the, in the wrong places and we, we buy the wrong, the, you know, the wrong things.
Definitely business. Not doing business locally is really, really hard, especially in Sicily where, you know, 80% of the regional income comes from tourism.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: So, you know, these would be the perfect place. I mean, if, if I were, you know, a local counselor, like I would do like structures and buildings and investments for digital nomads. Like, this is the perfect place.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Like, you had the food, the, the sea, you can ski on the volcano, you can, you know, kite surf on, you know, on a very nice place by the sea. You can, you have the hills, you have the lakes, you have to, I mean everything, the cities, the history, the islands and like for digital, nobody would be perfect.
You know, every day you can change plates and you can enjoy different things. And if only we had super fast Internet then, you know, if only we had, you know, some investments and loads of co. Working spaces and you know, stuff like that.
It would really work. So why not maybe in the next 30 years.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: I was going to say there, there seems to be a change of wanting to attract a different type of expat crowd.
Certainly if you want to make Italy a permanent residence there's, there's some tax benefits.
Yes, there's some, some, some hyper niche one. If you live in smaller cities, you have 20,000 and then you get like, then you earn your money from an external, outside Italian income, 7% or something like that. I know this because friends of ours moved there.
And he explained me, like, we didn't know this, but now that we're here, we got a letter that we can apply for this. So hell yeah, we're applying for this.
But then I looked into it and it seems like there's, there's actually a concerted effort to, to do this more for Italy as a whole. Which, which I guess is good.
But it's interesting that you say that there's like 0% locally that's. I have low, I have maybe 10, 15%.
When I started, that was maybe 50%. But like a year, year and a half in, I was at 25ish, but that low, as low as zero. That's, that's, that tells a different story.
Would you, would you say that the, Is it, is it a business perspective, a business mind that holds, I don't know, holding, holding, holding people back to not pick up trades and selling stuff and all that, or do you see a trend there?
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Okay, so there is one note that I must make, which is I started doing business and being a local web designer when I was in Ireland.
So my website was in English, I was doing business in English language. I was building websites in English language.
So as soon as I moved then back to Italy, like, I kept all my clients that I, you know, made up over the, over the years.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Locally and online. So I wasn't really interested in doing business locally and I wasn't even bothering us.
I had no interest.
Also, I would have had to translate my website Italian because, yes, I am at a stage where I'm translating from English to Italian and not the other way around.
Like, you know, I don't, I can't speak Italian almost any longer. It's like I'm so used to speaking English that I find it really hard and I, I dream in English. I, you know, there was, there was a period where I couldn't put one word after the other in Italian after 11 years abroad.
But, you know, if I had and if I were struggling, then, you know, probably I would go and seek some local clients.
But see, the Italian thing is that there is not a lot of money happening. There is no tax breaks or ways for entrepreneurs to, you know, recover the money in case they, they lose them or it's really risky to go and, you know, run your own business.
In fact, I remember whenever I moved here to Sicily, people were asking, what do you do? Like, why are you moving to Sicily? Because everyone is moving elsewhere to, you know, go and get a job. Yeah, that's it. Why are you doing, you know, the opposite, and say, oh, I already have a job, which is online. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Really? Can you tell us more? So it's like we are 50 years behind here and, you know, if I had the energy and the motivation, I would probably change things, but I can't. I just need to look after myself and my little family. But there is so much room for improvement down here.
You won't believe it.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: So I haven't been to Sicily, but I have been to the south of Italy and it has not. The more southern you go, the more obvious that that becomes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
The north is entirely different, the middle is entirely different. And then everything below. Naples.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'd say below Rome.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: I was trying to be friendly here.
Yeah. Sometimes there's a line and then it just starts changing.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: The northern, you know, part of Italy, they say that anything below Milan is south to them. So, you know what I'm saying? They wanted to, you know, become independent to some stage and just say, oh, you're so different, that we should be two different countries. So.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Well, not too long ago.
Not too long ago. I mean, what is it, 150 years? Italy? 1860 something.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah, 1861 or something like that.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So not too long ago they were separate countries.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Maybe there was a reason why.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Hey, so you dived into E commerce real fast, like Woocommerce.
For those listening who don't know where Woocommerce came from.
I think I mentioned already there was a E commerce solution called Jigo Shop and the two main developers of that were.
I don't know what the right word is, but they started working for themes at the time.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: And then they say aqui hired.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And then the fork of Geo Shop became Woocommerce. And a lot has happened and it certainly has grown a lot.
You said you were lucky to pick on this one. Was it luck or did you see something that you were. Because you obviously looked at, I'm assuming the, the, the various options there.
What, what, what drew you into Woocommerce?
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Like.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this because all the other ones are open source as well.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yep. So, you know, because I said I wasn't really A developer. I wasn't any sort of it except from, you know, fantasy football websites on the front page and stuff like that.
I was working on Google sites at the time because I was building my own website and my own board game club websites for friends and stuff. And I was using Google sites. It was lovely and easy and lots of manual HTML. Love that so much.
And then as soon as I started, you know, working, you know, getting paid by clients, I had to look for something more serious and more stable and easy, easy to manage. And you know, this thing is what WooCommerce kind of, you know, show me. Which was easy enough. You know, there was this thing, the 5 minutes install from WordPress.
You plug the extension called WooCommerce and in 1 second you have a fully working e commerce website.
Plus apparently with a few lines of php, you can customize the look, you can change the colors with a few lines of css and that's it. That's the packaged e commerce website that you sell to a client.
And on paper, even for someone who didn't have a background of, you know, coding or studying it in university or whatever, you know, that was the easiest way to, you know, go to market basically. And that's it. I, I told these clients, these potential clients, oh, I can do anything. And I had absolutely no clue about technologies or strategies or whatever. I just say, I'll do it. So I had to figure it out. I had to be fast and talk to, you know, a few local people that I knew from tennis or whatever it was and I say, I'll pick this one. Sounds cool.
Went with WooCommerce. Loved it. Second client, WooCommerce. Third client, WooCommerce. And I said, this is amazing, I'm going to stick with this.
And, and then that was the second lot, which was, hold on, I'm doing all these websites on WooCommerce. I keep reusing all these code snippets from website A to B to C to D. Why don't I save these code snippets on my blog so that I can copy and paste them for the next project?
That was 2014 and I created my first blog post with a, you know, a code snippet, a WooCommerce code snippet for myself. And then Google Analytics like skyrocketed. The day after I said, hold on, what's going on? Like, why am I getting so much traffic? And then suddenly lots of blog comments and, you know, lots of people following me, they were signing up to the newsletter and said, hold on, this is something.
Let me post one weekly code snippet for WooCommerce.
That was 2014, and I think the last code snippet I published was maybe a month ago because now things have changed. But I Never stopped publishing WooCommerce Blog Tutorial or code snippet for the last, you know, 10, 11 years, because I saw that it was working. I saw that it was sending me leads, and my business became my only source of leads and income.
But until AI, they arrived.
But it was a sweet and lovely 10 good years of just posting content and getting business out of it.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that game for sure has changed now with the rise of AI. But I remember finding your site probably 2014, 15, and just needing a snippet. Like, how do I.
I've seen the filter.
Does somebody have it already? So I can just copy and paste it? And I think that's probably the first, first time I became aware of business bloomer.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Incredible.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've used many, many snippets over the years.
At a certain point you have your own little library of things you use and reuse and stuff like that.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yes, but well, now it's feeding AI anyway, so they're still using it is.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting how that has change, you're saying for 12 years. So let's call it 12 years, you've been sharing something weekly and essentially making a living off of that. I think. I think that's pretty amazing. That's.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: It is. But like from, you know, my house, just posting, you know, one little code snippet. There weren't, you know, 1,500 words, tutorials, you know, 10 lines of code, a little intro, a screenshot. And that was my business up until two years ago. So it was unbelievable how this little machine. Then, of course, I had to, you know, be consistent. I had to stick to my plan. I had to put leak magnets in it. I had to follow up with, you know, email marketing to, you know, keep nurturing my lead. That's a different story. But still, this blog post is what basically kept me in business. And well, you know, during those 12 years.
And, and it's, it's incredible. Like, like you, you couldn't do that now.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: No, no, like I said that, that, that that world has changed.
I. I see my traffic on change in a similar fashion. Like there's a few posts that I have that are ranking number one for some of them intentional. Some of them absolutely just, just happened.
And the 1, the positions 1 and 2 roughly stay the same. The rest is just like it's being picked up or whatever.
I have. And probably my most popular post is not on WordPress. It's on when you are in a call and your camera freezes, which on a Mac every now and then happens.
I had figured out that there's a snippet that you can modify a little bit and if you put that into the terminal and you hit Enter, it refreshes the camera in Zoom or in Google Meet or whatever, your.
Your connection stays alive and all you have to do is just hit that and enter. And I was so frustrated that I kept forgetting what I had figured out. I thought, you know what, I have this blog, why don't I just put it on the blog? And it turns out that's my most popular post.
Gets dozens of hits every single day. So it's a popular problem. But yeah, that, that.
That whole dynamic has changed for sure.
Which leads me to the. To. To my next question.
We will be seeing each other come April.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Now I can share why that is. But maybe you want to share why that is.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah, apparently. So let me complete for one second what we just said, which is my website worked for 12 years on its own and I had to do nothing.
And then I had to switch strategy.
The only way that I could find was either embrace AI, but remember, I'm not a developer.
So you know, if, if today you talk to me about, you know, cloud code or CLI or Open Claw, whatever it is, like I go crazy that that's beyond my skills.
So I either embrace AI or go against AI. And, and that's what I did. I said if I had to basically stay alive and survive in business, if I'm not embracing AI, then I need to build my personal brand.
I need to build a community, whether it's online or in person.
And that's why at the end of April, checkout summit will happen in Sicily, which is my way of bringing humans back inside WooCommerce. So we haven't met.
I mean, the last Woocom, which was a conference by Woocommerce, which happened in North America, was 2017. There were only three of them.
And since then there hasn't been a single WooCommerce conference anywhere in the world.
There has been something online like Woo Sesh or, you know, some other, you know, online meetups or, you know, one day events.
There have been work camps, but the WooCommerce coverage has gone to basically zero in the last few years.
Because WordCamps are about community, about you know, the software of WordPress and therefore they can't really put too much effort onto a single plugin such as WooCommerce.
So I said, you know, one way to bring the community back, one way to. For me to also stand out and continue, you know, doing business and using what I've, you know, gained in the last few years, which is loads of people, lots of contacts, lots of email addresses, loads of followers. The only thing that I can do is actually doing a live in person conference.
And this is, you know, the backstory of why I went with this. So, yes, we're meeting in Palermo on April 23rd and 24th apparently.
And you know, Checkout Summit is a small conference on purpose.
What is small?
Yes, 150 people max.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: I tend to get super overwhelmed when I go to, you know, the web summit or, you know, flagship works where like 3,000 people, 5,000 people, 50,000 people. Like I tend to go there and hide in a corner maybe because this is me or because I, you know, there's too much energy going on. Like, I tend not to enjoy those. Instead I wanted to be laid back, you know, spread out over two days and with enough time to actually talk to people. Could be about business, could be about Sicily, could be about Italy, could be about traveling. I don't really care. But I wanted to have the time to actually chat to people because we haven't done forever. Like no one knows anyone in the WooCommerce community apart from those little faces on social media or in a Slack channel from that. Not fair because woocommerce is alive thanks to the community.
So we need to give something back to the community.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: I think that's a wonderful thing that you're doing there and I agree.
So Woocom has been organized by WooCommerce and probably everybody was still waiting. When are they going to pick it back up? I don't know the answer to that, why that didn't happen. But what's interesting is since the last time Wukonf was a thing and now, and you look at the market share that is there and you look at the actual, the community that is around basically that plugin, and you look at the impact that that has and how many indie deaths or small diffusers agencies there are that are producing excellent WooCommerce content in terms of solutions, plugins, all that sort of stuff, it's kind of wild to think about that. The only location where you could get some were in fact the odd talk at a local WordCamp, perhaps a e commerce section of the track at WordCamp Europe or WordCamp US, but nothing dedicated for nine years now. Close to nine years. When you look at it from that
[00:29:47] Speaker B: way, I have to say I have to add one little thing, which is the B.O. labans was on Duderu, I think, a couple of weeks back, and when asked about why is there no conference and you know, we've seen Checkout Summit, for example, this year coming up, what's the story? We Woo companies say, oh, I can't say anything yet, but they're thinking about it, so.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Well, I was correct. They are thinking about it, but it's been nine years.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Yes, yes, I know. But you see, my idea with Checkout Summit was also to motivate WooCommerce into thinking about this again because they will see the results. They will see how helpful it is. And it's a small event. Imagine if there were, you know, 1,000 people w in London and then one other in whatever else in Tokyo and then another in South America. Like, it will be unbelievable.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: There is a, there's a huge opportunity there. Yep.
There's zero doubt in my mind.
I mean, I get for the what happened in 2020-2023, that blip. I get that we had to come back from that and then, you know, organize ourselves again.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: But in all fairness, that had been already three years at that point, and now it's been a few more years on top of that.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: It's time. It's time. When, when I learned of you organizing this, I was like, yes, finally someone's picking this up.
If you see the chatter on, just on X. Right. I, I, I, I'm on Blue sky as well. I'm on Facebook as well and on LinkedIn.
But of all, all of, all of the places where the chatter around Woocommerce is the most active. It's, and there's a lot of discussion, there's a lot of sharing, there's a lot of learning. There's, there's people from Kestrel, from Barn2, from WooCommerce themselves, developer advocates. James, Brian.
There's a lot of information and, and direction shared now. And I love seeing this. And the only thing that was missing was that when are we, when are we getting together? Because, you know, I went to where campus. I see James there. I've seen Brian there. I seen, you know, Katie, Ian. You could, you know, all of the names, I see them there, but it's not enough.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: So I was very, very happy to see that you picked up that and went like, all right, I'M going to do this and the way you're doing it, by sharing the steps and asking for feedback and going through the motions.
It reminds me, in a way of what Katie is doing from Barn 2, where she's also moving into the Shopify world, and she essentially logs the decisions and the pain points and the questions and all that with a dedicated hashtag on X.
But you're doing that for the whole conference, and I like that. I like that.
For someone who has organized dozens of wordcamps, it's nice and refreshing to see this being done in this way. I like it.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
I was saying, because I'm organizing this whole thing on my own, I also need a way to get some feedback from some people. It's like I have a full crowd there that is able to help me. Like, I post stuff and then I get DMs say, are you doing okay? Did you sleep last night? And then I get, I guess someone else saying, we should hop on. On a call and help you with some sponsorship stuff. And then I get some other people telling me, oh, I liked that idea. Where did you get it from? And say, I don't know. I just came up with this. And then, you know, it's amazing to build this in public because I get that motivation that I need that I wouldn't have otherwise because I'm working on my own. So this is why I'm doing it. Once again, back to that 2014 way of why I was sharing my WooCommerce blog posts. It was for me. I'm doing this mostly for me, because it keeps myself accountable.
I have to post stuff every day, which means that I have to show it to myself that I'm making progress or not. Maybe. You know, there are some days where I wasn't feeling great or where. Where I thought it was gonna. Was gonna be a big failure.
And I write it. It's for me, because at least if I put things down, it's like when you take notes, you empty your brain and you're fine with that after that.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Super powerful.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: And I do the same on. On Twitter and LinkedIn as much as I can. It's marketing at the end of the day, of course, as well, but it also.
It's a big. It's a big help for me.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, it is marketing. I like that you said that, but I think it's the right kind of marketing. So the things you share are. So first of all, I should. I should preface by saying this. And. And I somewhat publicly said this before, but it is my ambition to organize an event as well.
One of my own.
Great Not a Word camp. I've done, like I said, dozens of wordcamps.
I have an idea of how to do an event in a different way for a different crowd, very specifically designed. And I'll share about that later, not in this podcast, but on my blog.
But seeing you do this is inspirational because I like the questions you have.
I see you cover interesting angles. I was going to ask you because I didn't think of many questions I had in advance, but here's one that I do have.
We're going to have speakers.
We're going to have an event where the normal things happen. We're going to have, you know, hallway tracks, people interacting with each other outside of the presentations and whatnot.
From.
Aside from the normal stuff happening at any event, what are you most proud of having thought of as. This is what I'm going to add to this.
This is what makes it unique.
I've seen you share a lot of these examples.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. I would start in the first place by saying that the location, it's a place where people will usually go on holiday.
So it's not a city. It's not some random place in the middle of Europe. No offense.
It's.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: Well, I'm not in the middle, so that's fine.
[00:37:15] Speaker B: It's, you know, on the beach, which is a. A typical place to go for a conference. In fact, I mean, if you search for conferences in. In Sicily, you probably find zero.
But that's. That was my first goal. And the second is I want people to make a return on the investment.
So if they come here the flight year, they, you know, spend lots of money on flights or drive.
Or driving. Yes, even. Even crazier.
But, you know, I want real connections. I want business to happen.
And that's why we will have a lot of as. As opposed to just random networking or speed networking, whatever. We'll have breakout sessions.
I like that thing.
But this is something that came up while I was building in public. Someone said, oh, instead of just networking, you should be having breakout sessions. I said, let's do it. So, you know, it'll be kind of, you know, the. The room will be divided into topics. AI, performance, designers, developers, and, you know, marketplace, wherever it is.
There would be totems and you can just go there if you want to break the ice and you're introvert like me, you don't know what to talk about. You just go there and show off and, and you know, basically share your expertise and ask questions. And you know, this is a sort of a way for, you know, to allow people to rotate in between these sessions and make sure that they get know as many people as possible.
And this is the second thing that I'm most proud of.
The first thing is probably the fact that the ticket, it's basically all inclusive.
So I didn't want people to have to go outside the venue and look for a restaurant and then come back and then see you later and then, you know, go out for a cafe and then come back and then exit, get a taxi, come back. I just want to wanted them to, you know, get the full experience if they want to. They can have breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, coffee at the venue for two and a half days in a row without spending a single cent.
The.
And that, that's something that I was able to do first, because it's quite affordable where we are. We're not in London or Rome or Milan or whatever.
And second, because my idea for a conference is that I should be there and relax. I don't want to waste time going outside or searching for things on, on the phone for recommendations. And so it's all there. Right. So you can go there, relax and do business. So these two things is really something that I wanted to, to achieve. So fingers crossed.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Well, I think, I think the fingers crossed is I don't think it's necessary from what I can see and obviously I've booked, I have a ticket, I am coming, I am driving, not flying.
The location looks absolutely wonderful.
And if it's just that, and I'm pretty sure the talks are also going to be lovely, then everything else is just gravy on top. Right. So it's just, it's already wonderful. But what's above wonderful? I don't know.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: And it seems like you're nailing that.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, the, the location, they have a very good photographer. So I can't guarantee that is as beautiful as for the photos also those photos were like during amazing sunsets and during the summer were in low season, but still, you know, you can, you know, walk five minutes here on the beach. You want to go for a walk in the morning.
And this another thing, the first talk in, you know, both days is going to be at 10:15, 10:30.
So I want people to chill out, relax, go for a walk, go to the gym, have a great breakfast, maybe a chat or two before we actually start the event. So it's very laid back Relaxed and
[00:41:56] Speaker A: it's very southern Italy.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Yes, yes. We, we might get a siesta as well after lunch, who knows?
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: And, and yes, pro, hopefully proper coffee as well. So I'm actually, you know, coffee is on me, so I basically asked, I,
[00:42:15] Speaker A: I, I couldn't care less. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't drink coffee, so it's. Oh, that's fine, it's fine.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: You'll survive.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: I, I will, I will.
I don't go to Italy because I like the coffee. I don't even go to Italy because I like pasta. I just, I love Italy because of Italy.
The best Italian food for me is, you know, Fiorentino steak. That's, doesn't get any better than that. That's, that's all I need.
Not that you have to provide that. I'll, I'll find something along the way as I'm driving down, but since technical difficulty.
[00:42:54] Speaker B: You'll be driving through Tuscany. Exactly.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: So I'll find my way.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: That's the place.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Since we're having technical difficulties all the time.
For those of you listening, I don't know how much it's going to be evident, but Adolfo's connection every now and then just drops and then has to refresh.
So I think we have a 10 minute window now for my final question.
Actually, two questions. First of all, are there tickets left still?
[00:43:27] Speaker B: Yes, there are.
So There are about 60 tickets left at the moment.
The effect here that some sponsors still have to redeem their tickets and some speakers as well, and some volunteers. So I'd say 60.
So the last 10 would be at a discounted price and then the full price kicks in in a few days.
But yes, so, you know, pretty happy with how sales have, you know, gone so far, and I hope to, you know, sell out if I can in the next few weeks.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: It's my experience that the last six weeks is where most tickets are sold, period.
Out of all the events that I've done, yes, some are being sold up front, but it's like, it's like seven, six weeks before something happens. People go like, should we go? Should we go? Yep. Yeah, probably. Probably we should. Okay, let's, let's, let's go. It's kind of, there's some more than
[00:44:31] Speaker B: told me the exact same thing.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: I've not seen it any different.
I've organized works in three months. I've organized work camps that almost were 10 months ahead. It's the same thing. It's in the last Couple of weeks, everybody jumps in, goes, yeah, you know what? I'm going to do this.
I don't know, maybe it's because people can't. Can't or won't or don't plan that far ahead.
My travel has been planned until the end of June already, so. But that was my first question. The last question I have for you is you have an interesting collection of speakers.
Did you have any particular idea of how you wanted to approach finding the right speakers and who is the right speaker for you?
[00:45:22] Speaker B: Right.
So first of all, we only have 12, 12 speakers. We're not going to have 50 or 70 or 100.
So I have to be super selective.
And, you know, thankfully all the speakers that were not selected are staying as backup speakers or will speak at some of my online classes afterwards because they're amazing, amazing thoughts.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: That is cool.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Second, I said, folks, just one requirement. The WooCommerce keyword must be in the title because these really obsess me whenever I go to work camps. And I wanted to change that. Say word. A woocommerce conference. Your title must contain the word woocommerce.
And that was already, you know, kind of self selecting most of the speakers.
And second, this is a conference for developers, founders and makers.
So of course I wanted speakers that could share case studies, things that haven't been told online, things that can only be, you know, answered, you know, in person.
I wanted, you know, people, I mean, there are people, speakers flying from Australia to, you know, to come to Palermo, which to me like crazy, I, I,
[00:46:59] Speaker A: I'm just driving for two days.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I asked them and I said I wasn't expecting definitely, you know, nothing in return. And then I said, we'll do it. Say what? Oh my gosh, like, what are we gonna do about it? And then South Africa and then west coast of the US and you know, from all over the places. But I wanted to big names, but especially great stories.
So whether it's someone moving to Shopify and failing, someone moving to Shopify and succeeding, someone talking about amazing performance or penetration testing that they run at their company, whether it's someone who spent years in WooCommerce, now is doing their own thing, but they have, you know, 10, 15 years experience with the marketplace or things that they would have done differently, but this is what I want to have there.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: Then if I, if, if I were to translate it, it translates to learnings.
[00:48:03] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. And also because talks will not be recorded or live streamed, I really wanted to, you know, some speakers that they could deliver in public that people that have followers on social, you know, people that are well known and they can actually put one word after the other and come up with a great story that, you know, is going to be told in Palermo and that's it. So, you know, they're. They can reuse it afterwards. But, you know, I really value the fact that people have to come here because I live here to listen to these amazing case studies and only 12 of them, plenty of time to talk to them afterwards.
And that was my goal with selecting these speakers.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: I like it. I like it a lot.
In fact, I like it so much, I'm coming.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: It fits that back.
Really looking forward to.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: As am I. I mean, not gonna lie, I'm gonna really enjoy the journey as well. But yeah, it's.
Yeah, like, like I've said before, I'm repeating myself, but I think it's important to repeat this one. I think it's high time this happens for this particular niche inside of the WordPress community.
W. Commerce is big. Most people don't realize what that actually means, what the.
What the market share is, what that translates into compared to the, you know, the, the big money machine that is Shopify WooCommerce is huge.
So we, we need this. And yeah, I mean, I think I want to end this with. By saying thank you for organizing and looking forward to seeing you.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope I get there alive. That's my first goal.
And then my second goal is to finish it and start thinking about here too, if. If I can.
[00:50:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure that'll happen.
Very, very happy for you to be on the podcast. Thank you so much. Again, the technical difficulties were interesting, but we'll see how much we can smooth this out.
Thank you so much for joining. And where can people find tickets?
[00:50:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's on checkout, summit.com and you know, there's a website and the ticket page and the. The last few, you know, the last 60 tickets are. Are there available.
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Excellent.
Thank you so much.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: You're very welcome. It was an amazing pleasure to, you know, meeting you in almost in person.
And we. We'll complete that in about two months. Two and a half months.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Yep. Soon enough. See you there, my friend.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Take care, man. Bye. Bye.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Ciao for now.
