Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community?  ## Metadata - Author: [[Do the Woo WordPress_WooCommerce_OpenWeb]] - Full Title: Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community? - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #woocommerce - #community - #productmanagement Author: Transcript speakers (Katie Keith, James Kemp, Jonathan Wald) Source: YouTube - "Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs) Reference: Transcript timestamps and linked video sections date created: 2025-05-26 21:00 --- # Title: Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community? ## Table of Contents:  - 📝 Summary - 📖 Main Content - 🗒️ Notes - [00:10 Community Thinking Importance](#0010-community-thinking-importance) - [02:25 Advocacy and Listening](#0225-advocacy-and-listening) - [07:11 Challenges Building Merchant Communities](#0711-challenges-building-merchant-communities) - [09:27 Diverse Needs of Developers and Users](#0927-diverse-needs-of-developers-and-users) - [13:33 Feedback Dynamics in Product Leadership](#1333-feedback-dynamics-in-product-leadership) - [16:01 Balancing Support and Development](#1601-balancing-support-and-development) - [20:10 Open Source Support Culture](#2010-open-source-support-culture) - [22:01 Community Collaboration and Growth](#2201-community-collaboration-and-growth) - [25:44 When Not to Build a Community](#2544-when-not-to-build-a-community) - [27:29 Effort and Motivation for Community Building](#2729-effort-and-motivation-for-community-building) - [31:24 Challenges of WooCommerce Plugin Communities](#3124-challenges-of-woocommerce-plugin-communities) - [33:18 Building Connections and Partnerships](#3318-building-connections-and-partnerships) - [37:10 Influencer Partnerships](#3710-influencer-partnerships) - [39:17 Influencer Needs and Relationships](#3917-influencer-needs-and-relationships) - [43:08 Handling Negative Feedback](#4308-handling-negative-feedback) - [44:49 Community Perception Through Responses](#4449-community-perception-through-responses) - [49:10 Community Engagement and Advocacy](#4910-community-engagement-and-advocacy) - [50:51 Business Growth Through Community](#5051-business-growth-through-community) - [54:44 Value of Connection Despite Conflict](#5444-value-of-connection-despite-conflict) - [56:39 Final Thoughts on Community Importance](#5639-final-thoughts-on-community-importance) - 📖 References - 🗣️ Paraphrase - 📰 Newsletter - ✅ Action Items - 🧪 Hypotheses - 📊 Methodology - ❓ Questions - 🔮 Future Research - 💡 Implications - 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - 📊 Accessibility Assessment - 🌍 DEIB Assessment - ✅ Logical validity - 🔍 DARVO Analysis - 🔍 SEO Evaluation - 🎯 Conclusion ### References: - Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community? (YouTube) - WordPress.org forums - Post Status, WooCommerce Slack, Facebook Groups, Reddit - Gildenberg community insights ## 📝 Summary: This conversation explores the role and necessity of community-building for WooCommerce plugins and products. Key themes include the importance of community advocacy, understanding diverse customer segments (developers vs. end users), challenges in building and sustaining communities, and the strategic decision whether to create new communities or leverage existing ones. The discussion also addresses managing customer feedback, balancing promises with limited resources, and the value of partnerships with influencers to reach target audiences. The speakers remain optimistic about community momentum despite recent challenges in the WordPress ecosystem. ## 📖 Main Content: The discussion highlights how community thinking is vital to successful WooCommerce product development by promoting customer engagement and advocacy. It acknowledges that community involvement is complex due to the varied nature of WooCommerce users—builders, agencies, freelancers, and end merchants—with distinct needs and behaviors. Building a community specifically for WooCommerce merchants is difficult because many are not tech-savvy and prefer personalized support over group discussions. COVID-19 accelerated a shift to virtual resources, affecting traditional meetup programs. Speakers emphasize that good community management balances listening to input and managing expectations without overpromising. Distancing developers from direct customer support helps prevent over-customization for single clients, enabling more scalable feature development. The open-source nature of WooCommerce encourages peer support and a shared ownership mindset, contrasting with proprietary ecosystems. However, finding active communities for niche plugin discussions is challenging due to low participation or restrictive platforms. Engaging with influencers who already have trusted communities is recommended for visibility and growth, as is understanding the nuanced needs of community segments. Handling negative feedback constructively builds trust and community loyalty. Finally, despite recent turbulence in the WordPress community, the speakers are hopeful that continued human connection, advocacy, and engagement will foster resilience and growth. ### 🗒️ Notes #### [00:10 Community Thinking Importance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=10) - Community thinking enhances WooCommerce plugin success by involving user collaboration. - Sharing knowledge and resources within community improves product alignment with user needs. #### [02:25 Advocacy and Listening](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=145) - Advocacy requires deep listening and responsible representation of community voices. - Understanding customer needs shapes product direction and priorities. #### [07:11 Challenges Building Merchant Communities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=431) - Many merchants are not tech-savvy and prefer direct, personal engagement over group forums. - COVID-19 shifted community engagement from in-person meetups to virtual resources and events. #### [09:27 Diverse Needs of Developers and Users](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=567) - Developers and end users have distinct frustrations and support needs. - Effective community strategies must listen to all segments to avoid neglecting groups. #### [13:33 Feedback Dynamics in Product Leadership](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=813) - Balancing community feedback with realistic resource constraints is complex. - Aggregating feedback helps prioritize product changes fairly. #### [16:01 Balancing Support and Development](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=961) - Separating developers from direct support avoids over-customization for single clients. - Support teams track requests, feeding feature ideas to product decisions. #### [20:10 Open Source Support Culture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1210) - Open source users show higher willingness to help peers, fostering shared ownership. - Community volunteers support moderators and foster collaborative problem solving. #### [22:01 Community Collaboration and Growth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1321) - WordPress community involvement leads to partnerships and personal/business growth. - Product and end-user communities often overlap but have distinct engagement outcomes. #### [25:44 When Not to Build a Community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1544) - Existing communities may already serve product users, reducing the need for new spaces. - Building a community requires intentional energy and participant motivation. #### [27:29 Effort and Motivation for Community Building](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1649) - Most community conversations occur within established platforms. - Founders may focus on niche or newcomer communities but must consider overlap and engagement. #### [31:24 Challenges of WooCommerce Plugin Communities](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1884) - Specific plugin communities often struggle with low participation. - Sharing promotional content in public forums can be perceived as spam and blocked. #### [33:18 Building Connections and Partnerships](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=1998) - Attending WordCamps and joining professional communities help build networks. - Identifying influential community members can aid outreach and growth. #### [37:10 Influencer Partnerships](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=2230) - Collaborations with trusted influencers amplify product marketing and engagement. - Partnerships can vary from revenue sharing to informal advocacy relationships. #### [39:17 Influencer Needs and Relationships](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=2357) - Some influencers prioritize non-commercial relationships and advocacy support. - Understanding influencer motivations helps build authentic collaborations. #### [43:08 Handling Negative Feedback](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=2588) - Defensive reactions to criticism harm community trust. - Thoughtful, solution-focused responses can turn detractors into advocates. #### [44:49 Community Perception Through Responses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=2689) - Balanced response to reviews influences potential customers’ perceptions. - Disagreements reflect care and engagement rather than disengagement. #### [49:10 Community Engagement and Advocacy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=2950) - Early positive community interactions often lead users to become advocates. - Advocacy is an organic result of connection and shared ownership feelings. #### [50:51 Business Growth Through Community](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=3051) - Public sharing of solutions opens new opportunities and growth avenues. - Withdrawing from community reduces opportunities and long-term growth potential. #### [54:44 Value of Connection Despite Conflict](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=3284) - Taking breaks from community for self-care is healthy and acceptable. - Diverse opinions enrich community and personal experience. #### [56:39 Final Thoughts on Community Importance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs&t=3399) - Community feedback improves plugins and fosters innovation. - Authentic human connections sustain open-source ecosystems despite challenges. ## 📖 References: - Video transcript and timestamps from "Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community?" - WordPress forums and Slack channels mentioned in the discussion - Gildenberg’s approach to community building - Social media influencer examples (WP Crafter, Adam from Cadence) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase:  **Original:** "Community thinking is the process of involving the community in your product decisions. It means talking to your customers, understanding their needs, and advocating for them responsibly." **Paraphrased:** Engaging with the community involves actively including users in shaping your product by listening to their feedback, comprehending their requirements, and ethically representing their interests. --- **Original:** "The hardest thing is building a community of end customers who aren't tech-savvy and don't hang out in typical online groups. You often have to engage with them one-on-one." **Paraphrased:** Creating a community among end users, especially those less comfortable with technology and not active in common online spaces, is challenging, often requiring personalized, individual outreach rather than broad group engagement. ## 📰 Newsletter: Hey WordPress product folks! This week’s spotlight dives into whether every WooCommerce plugin needs its own community. As our experts discuss, community involvement isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s key to crafting products that truly serve users. But beware—the Woo ecosystem hosts diverse players, from savvy developers to merchants who’d rather chat one-on-one than in forums. Building and maintaining communities takes real work, so sometimes it’s smarter to plug into existing groups or partner with influencers like WP Crafter. Plus, smartly handling feedback—especially the tough stuff—can turn critics into advocates. Whether you’re coding, marketing, or just curious about community magic, this chat offers practical wisdom on thriving in the WooCommerce world. Dive in and connect smarter! ## ✅ Action Items: - Align community advocacy strategies with your developer and end-user segments, recognizing their distinct communication preferences. - Focus on building sustainable relationships with existing communities before launching new spaces, conserving resources. - Integrate structured feedback loops that balance listening with realistic delivery to manage contributor and customer expectations. - Encourage support teams as filters to separate feature requests from custom one-offs, ensuring scalable product development. - Foster partnerships with trusted influencers to expand product reach authentically without overcommitting equity. - Promote positive, transparent responses to community criticism to build long-term trust and brand loyalty. - Leverage your teaching and advocacy experience to guide newcomers through layered community engagement—starting with newsletters, events, and curated resources. - Emphasize inclusivity in community outreach to connect underrepresented merchant segments with WooCommerce products. - Use community insights to advocate within GoDaddy and WordPress projects for better funding and resource allocation aligned with OSPO goals. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Engaging targeted WooCommerce user segments differently improves product adoption and satisfaction. - Partnerships with key community influencers yield higher conversion rates than standalone marketing efforts. - Transparent communication of resource limits in community management enhances trust and reduces attrition. - Customized support structures increase retention among less tech-savvy merchants. ### 📊 Methodology: - Qualitative interviews with WooCommerce plugin developers, merchants, and community managers. - Sentiment and thematic analysis of feedback from WooCommerce support forums, social media, and Slack channels. - A/B testing partnership campaigns with and without influencer involvement. - Survey measurement of trust and satisfaction before and after transparency initiatives. ### ❓ Questions: - How can WooCommerce communities better serve less tech-savvy merchants? - What are the best practices for balancing developer involvement in support and product development? - How does public response to criticism affect community advocacy long-term? - What incentives motivate influencers to partner beyond commercial gain? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Explore AI’s role in moderating and scaling community support while preserving human connection. - Study regional and cultural variations in WooCommerce community engagement and their impacts on product design. - Investigate sustainable models for open-source product community funding aligned with OSPO frameworks. ### 💡 Implications:  Advancing these research areas could deepen understanding of community dynamics in open source commerce ecosystems. Insights would aid product teams in creating more inclusive, effective community engagement strategies, improving user satisfaction and contributor sustainability. This supports organizational goals of building transparent, well-funded, and resilient open-source programs. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - Present: Transcript format lacks visuals but is structured with timestamps. - Improve: Add infographics summarizing community types, feedback loops, and partnership models. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - Present: Original content is from a podcast/video, ideal for aural learners. - Improve: Provide audio summaries or podcasts versions of key insights for repeated listening. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - Present: Rich conversational language with examples and storytelling. - Improve: Incorporate more analogies or case studies for clearer verbal explanation. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - Present: Discussion of real-world examples encourages hands-on reflection. - Improve: Suggest exercises like creating a community map or role-playing advocacy scenarios. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - Present: Logical progressions in managing feedback and balancing resources are clear. - Improve: Use flowcharts and decision trees to visualize feedback management and prioritization. 6. **Social Learners (Interpersonal)**: - Present: Strong focus on collaboration, partnerships, and group dynamics. - Improve: Include prompts for group discussions or peer feedback on community strategies. 7. **Solitary Learners (Intrapersonal)**: - Present: Reflective moments about personal experience in community building. - Improve: Provide journaling prompts or self-assessment quizzes on community leadership skills. 8. **Naturalistic Learners**: - Present: Limited references to nature or environment. - Improve: Introduce analogies comparing community ecosystems to natural systems for deeper connection. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: Text transcript suitable but no images; alt-text irrelevant. - **Improve**: Add semantic HTML structure and accessible headings if publishing online. - **Keyboard Navigation**: Not applicable for plain transcript; applies to UI. - **Contrast and Readability**: Transcript text clear; conversational tone supports comprehension. - **Text Resizing**: N/A for text-only but ensure responsive formatting in digital presentation. ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment: - **Cultural Relevance**: Focus on global WooCommerce community but could include more diverse cultural examples. - **Inclusive Language**: Language is neutral and accessible, avoiding jargon when possible. - **Neurodiversity Support**: Transcript is conversational and broken into short segments—good for clarity. - **Representation**: Speakers represent multiple professional roles; additional diversity could enhance inclusivity. - **Psychological Safety**: Emphasis on respectful community engagement and acknowledging tensions positively. ### ✅ Logical validity:  **Positive Reasoning**: - Advocacy concept (03:00–04:30): Strong ethical reasoning on listening and representation. - Balancing feedback and resources (11:00–13:30): Clear causal reasoning on prioritization challenges. - Influencer partnerships (36:00–40:00): Logical appeal to social proof and network effects. - Responding to criticism (43:00–45:30): Sound inductive reasoning on community perception impact. **Suggestions**: Include more quantitative evidence or case studies to strengthen claims further. **Potential Fallacies**: - No major logical fallacies detected. - Slight risk of anecdotal evidence bias due to reliance on personal experience—suggest broader data inclusion. ### 🔍 DARVO Analysis: - No signs of DARVO tactics present. - Tone is collaborative, open, and empathetic toward community challenges. - Speakers acknowledge complexities and do not dismiss or attack dissenting views. ### 🔍 SEO Evaluation: 1. **Keywords**: Terms like "WooCommerce," "community," "product development," "support," and "influencers" appear naturally. 2. **Meta Description**: Not present in transcript format; recommend concise summary with keywords for publishing. 3. **Title Tag**: Clear and contains primary keyword ("WooCommerce Plugin Community"). 4. **Headers**: Not applicable to transcript; for article use, segment into thematic headers. 5. **Content Length**: Adequate for in-depth discussion, rich in detail. 6. **Internal/External Links**: Would benefit from linking to relevant WordPress resources and influencer sites. 7. **URL Structure**: N/A for transcript, but video URL is clean. 8. **Image Optimization**: No images in transcript; add visuals if converted to article form. 9. **Mobile Optimization**: Video platform optimized; text version should be responsive. 10. **User Engagement**: Strong conversational tone encourages engagement; include CTAs in published form. 11. **Schema Markup**: Consider FAQ or podcast schema for SEO. 12. **Social Sharing**: Sharing options present on YouTube; add social buttons if repurposed. ## 🎯 Conclusion:  This transcript reveals that while building a community around WooCommerce plugins can be highly beneficial, it is not universally necessary or feasible. Community involvement requires nuanced understanding of distinct user groups, clear communication, and strategic resource allocation. Leveraging existing communities and influencer partnerships often provides more sustainable value than creating new spaces. Effective community engagement fosters advocacy, supports product evolution, and can turn challenges into growth opportunities. As WooCommerce and WordPress evolve, sustaining momentum through authentic human connection remains essential for vibrant, inclusive ecosystems. - Summary: In Episode 655 of Woo Product Chat, Katie Keith (Founder & CEO at Barn2 Plugins) and James Kemp (Product Manager at WooCommerce) dive deep into the power and complexities of community thinking in building successful WordPress and WooCommerce plugins. They’re joined by fellow Do the Woo co-host Jonathan Wold (Co-founder of Guildenberg), who brings 20+ years of experience in the WordPress ecosystem and unique insights from his time as a community manager at WooCommerce. This conversation explores: What “community thinking” really means for product development and advocacy The essential role of advocacy and how to effectively listen to your community The marketing angle: Who’s your real audience—and how do you reach them? Challenges and strategies for reaching end users vs. builders and developers Lessons learned from running successful product communities and offering support The impact of influencers and partnerships on community growth (and how to think about those relationships) When it makes sense to build your own community—and when it’s wiser to join existing ones Thoughts on the evolving state of the WordPress community and what the future may hold If you’re a product builder, developer, agency owner, or WordPress/WooCommerce enthusiast interested in the community’s influence on product growth (and maybe some inside stories from the plugin trenches), this episode is a must-watch! Subscribe for more candid conversations with thought leaders in the WooCommerce and WordPress space. Show notes and links: Thanks to Kinsta for their support: https://kinsta.com #DoTheWoo #WooCommerce #WordPress #CommunityBuilding #WordPressPlugins #WooProductChat - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4_5WgG20Zs Hey, welcome to the Do the Woo Show.We'd like to thank our sponsor, Kinsta.They've been a solid supporter of theWoo Builder and developer community. Andif you're building products for WooCommerce, you know how much a fast,reliable hosting setup matters. Kinsta'splatform gives you the speed, tools, andsupport that can really make adifference when you're scaling ortesting new ideas. A big thanks to themfor backing the builder community, anddo check them out atkinsta.com. Hello and welcome to productchat at Do the Woo. I'm Katie Keith, founderand CEO at Barnu Plugins, and todaywe're talking about the role ofcommunity thinking in buildingsuccessful WordPress and Woo Commerceplugins. I'm here with my co-host, JamesKemp. Hey, James.Hey. Yeah, I'm James. Uh, I'm a productmanager at Woo Commerce. Uh, excited totalk about this specific topic. I thinkit will be an interesting one. Uh, andwe have a very special guest today,which is Jonathan Wald. Um, hopefully Ipronounced your surname correctly.You nailed it. Awesome. Uh, and Jonathan isthe co-founder of Gildenberg, uh, andAlso, one of our fellow Do the Wooco-hosts who hosts the Open WebConversation Show. Jonathan, pleaseintroduce yourself. Hey, James, Katie. It’s great to be here. Um, I’ve had theprivilege of being in this ecosystem for around 20 years now. Um, in a previous lifetime, I served as acommunity manager at WooCommerce, soI got to have a lot of contextthere for this particular conversation.These days, I spend most of my timeas the co-founder of Gildenberg, wherewe're focused on working with productcompanies, hosts, and agencies to growwithin the WordPress ecosystem.Cool, yeah. And so we’ll talk about thatbecause that’s so community-based aspart of the discussion. But to getstarted, let’s think about what weactually mean by community, thinking sothat we’re all on the same page and whyit even matters. Why should we evenbother talking about this?Yeah, it’s an interesting one.Um, I think I’d love to hearJonathan’s thoughts on it, but to meit’s the process of involving thecommunity in your product decisions. Um,and it’s something that you see comeUp quite a lot is, uh,to specifically talk to your customersand just you know that that's thebest way to understand, uh, their needsand your product, and if you're going inthe right direction to actually servethose customers. Uh, but Jonathan, whatdoes it mean to you and why does itmatter? So I found this historically, atleast to be a difficult question becausethere are so many ways of thinkingabout it and definitions. Uh, I had the privilege of, uh, considering AndreaMiddleton a personal mentor back fromher time on .org, and a lot ofher work influenced pretty significantlymy thinking about what communitymeans and how it works within theWordPress context. She does agreat job over the years pointing me todifferent resources. When I firststepped into the role of community atWooCommerce a number of years back, Iremember feeling pretty dauntedwith all the amounts of inputand like what do you do with a rolelike this? And one of the things thatreally stood out to me in thatexperience was the importance ofadvocacy and the idea of advocating onBehalf of your community, and to do soresponsibly meant doing the work of being curious and talking to a lot ofpeople and listening, asking questionsso that you could advocate for thethings that mattered to them on theirbehalf and be a liaison. So thatthere's a lot to it, and at leastfrom my experience, I didn'tsee enough where it's likeokay, it's one particular thing, butadvocacy, in particular as a concept, iswhat stood out to me. If you're notactively engaging with your communityand developing and investing in thatthen you're not able to listen and hearthat input and then be able to advocate. That's where I tended to focus: howto best represent the interests andthe needs of the people that are a partthat make up the community around yourproduct. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense andthat's about meeting both your needsand the customers. Everybody winsbecause you're providing products whichbenefit the user. So your product ismore successful and the user gets whatthey want. Their problem is solved. ButI'm going to add to that the marketing. The perspective of community building is awareness raising. So for that, youwould need to define which communityyou're going for. And, um, we'll get intothis a bit later, but I sometimes getthis wrong by marketing towards thecommunity who aren't necessarily thepeople who are going to buy my products.So, is it your fellow PE product companypeople who do similar work to you? Is itdevelopers, freelancers, agencies whoare building sites for clients? Is itwebsite owners and merchants who arebuilding WordPress and WooCommercewebsites? And what sort of communitywork can you do to raise awareness withthem? Is that building your owncommunities, as you've done withGildenberg? Is it going to existingcommunities such as joining, say, WooCommerce Facebook groups or Redditthreads or something like that? So thereare different ways to reach out tocommunities or create your own. Yeah, I think it's a massive challengeactually. Um, and you mentionedlike kind of reaching the wrongcommunity or not necessarily reachingthe right community, and I think that's abig challenge, uh, in our space. IFind the communitythat I reach personally, and I utilizeX and Twitter a lot for this. It is the builder community, the developercommunity. And occasionally, you’ll geta sprinkling of merchants thatjust happen to be maybe tech-savvy andfollowing the right people.Um, but I would say like 90 plus percent of thepeople who I directly communicate within a community fashion are builders,agencies, or freelancers. You know,the people making WooCommerce sitesin this scenario for the merchantthat they’re not the end merchant inmost cases. They’re justhighly knowledgeable in whatthe merchant needs, which I think is veryvaluable still, and ultimately we’reserving the same end customer.Um, but the hardest thingis building a community of that endcustomer, the merchants thatprobably aren’t as tech-savvy ordon’t have a desire to be as tech-savvy,and hang about, you know, inFacebook groups and onlinecommunities. And I think the communitythere is less so like a group ofpeople all with the same desires. More so, like a one-on-one typescenario where you kind of have to goout of your way to arrange conversationswith these merchants. I haven’tpersonally found any one placewhere they all hang out, and you knowwant to talk about WooCommerce.Thinking back to my experience, I was tellingyou guys just before the showstarted, and when I started mycommunity role at WooCommerce, I had alot of big ambitions to focus ongrowing the meetups program. There wasalready a pretty healthy meetupsprogram, but then this little thingcalled COVID happened, and it ledto one of the first things that I hadto do in my role as community managerwas to shut down all the in-personmeetups. For me, that led to, okay, well that was a setback fromwhat I was originally planning to do. So, how do we adapt? And whatwas interesting about that, the timingof it all is that this corresponded witha surge in interest in WooCommerce aspeople were like, "Hey, we got to getonline." So, I found thatphenomenal. We ended upjust pivoting to online only, and II focused a lot of my energy intoproviding resources and guides likehere's just supporting folks. A lot of the people that wereshowing up to these virtualmeetups that were still tied to a localwere people who were trying to getonline, so they were end users. For aperiod of time, I had a lot ofexposure to people who were the endusers. There were certainly, and itwas a beautiful thing because developerswere also showing up to thosethings, and there were people that were verymuch like helping each other. "Hey, howdo I get unstuck with this?" And itcorresponded to a lot of interest. Butjust looking back and listening tothe two of you, it is quite complexbecause the needs of those differentaudiences are quite different. What end users are looking forand needing, and care about, and findfrustrating is quite different than whatthe developers, the plug-increators, and the agencies find. Andthere are certainly overlaps between them,but it's quite different. Oneof the things that I always consideredto be the ideal and found occasionally. The goal is to try and find people who hadinfluence, if you will, over variousgroups. Like, is there someone who tends to be more regional? I found, um, tofind someone who's focused on endusers in a particular geography andunderstands the needs, especially withinthe context of commerce. Because you know,the integrations you use can varygreatly because your shipping needs or,you know, etc. can be quite differentfrom one locale to the next. But it isquite hard, and my best takeis that it goes back to being important to what'simportant to the business at its currentstate. And then just makingsure that that's going to influenceyour limited resources andwhere you prioritize your time andefforts, and what you're trying todo. But just making sure that theadvocacy piece keeps coming back in. Like even if you can't address all thethings that you're hearing, are youlistening to a wide group? Are youlistening to what the developers need?Are you making sure that you're, even ifit's one-on-one, like you said, James,that you're hearing individual input and takingThat in aggregate helps inform thedecisions, and it’s important to ensure that aparticular group isn’t, uhunintentionally ignored in the mix. Yeah, for sure. I definitely thinkit’s a hard thing to do. Uh,and I think it’s important as well to beclear when you’re talking to thecommunity and being open to, youknow, theirfeedback. Um, that you’re not making promises to them, like, youknow, "Tell me all your problems, and I’llsolve them." I think it’s a desireI have to be that person who cansolve problems.Um, but you also need to measure thatagainst whether this is a problem thatone specific person has, or is this a problem that solving thisis going to solve for multiplepeople. If I may add to that, thereis an inherent tension becauseI think you’re right in what you justdescribed there, James. There’s aninherent tension in my view to doing itwell, which is to ensure that peoplefeel heard and like listened to andalso being upfront withthem that you don’t know. To advocate. Just because you'readvocating doesn't mean it's actuallygoing to get done because as a product,you have to navigate the tension oflimited resources and only so much thatyou can do. Um, and if you're doinga good job, there's going to be abuilt-in tension there where you willnot be able to satisfy all the thingsthat you're hearing. Those things shouldbe influencing you, though. And tome, when you're doing community well,there's a tension that's maintained thathas an appropriately weighted influenceon the decisions that are happening at the product level. It's not that becauseand it's tricky because you have tofigure out how to appropriately weightand take it in aggregate. Um, and howdo you make sure that like the inputof one partner, for instance, doesn't justwipe the board in a way thatdisregards what you're hearing from others.It's quite difficult though, and I think you have tofigure out a way to recognizeand embrace and maintain a healthytension from what you're hearing to whatyou're actually deciding to do with it.Yeah. Um, as product leads or whatever, interms of listening to our customers, butnot promising everything. But this isactually way more complex in James' rolebecause he's core product lead and sortof, in some ways, unofficial communitymanager in that you're the person askingfor feedback. So people need to believethat you have the power to make thingshappen; otherwise they'll getdisillusioned. But you can't justpromise everything people say. Soactually, it's quite an interesting rolefor you in that sense, isn't it? Yeah,it's a challenge. I do think the people that I communicate with understand that,you know, the things they bring to mewon't necessarily just get, you know,fixed straight away. Yeah. Um, it it’slike you say, kind of balancing thatthe feedback andI guess being aware of that feedbackas it comes in, and you begin to noticethe patterns. Um, and you can kind ofrelate feedback tomultiple people sayingsimilar things in some form oranother. Um, but yeah, I did, I joined WooCommerce withA following, not a massive one,but you know, a significant group ofpeople that were aware of my previousWooCommerce business. And I think oneof the things that my previous businessthrived on was this sense of community. And we were always wellpraised for being really good atsupport, and we probablyover-delivered in support, to be honest.And I think, coming fromdeveloping plugins on your own whereyou're kind of developing, you're doingdesign, you're also doing support. Um,there's an inherent need withinyou to pleaseeveryone that's looking atyour products and using yourproducts. James, if you don't mind, what isthe over-delivering? What did that look like? Because I thinkthere may be something key in there.Yeah. For so I'm referring toIconic. Yes, of course. My plugincompany prior to this. Um, for us, over-delivering would be when a customer comesin and they have a very specificuse case for the plugin, and maybe that's anintegration with some other system or they want thisLike a little tweak of CSS that makes itdisplay in a different way. Um, and a lotof the time, you know, we would just dothis for them. Uh, okay. Okay. And, andhonestly, it never wentway too far where they just keptcoming back with more, and you eventuallybecame like an agency that you're workingdirectly for this customer for free. Um,but it was stuff that wewould do that didn’t then make itinto the product itself. It was likecustom development, essentially. Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.I’m curious, Katie, like how do youtoday manage that, where like people mayI’m sure you get requests for specificthings as well. Like how do you thinkabout that when people fromyour community are asking for thingsthat may seem easy or not that big of adeal, but it doesn’t necessarily makesense to build into the product?I, uh, personally think it’s very helpfulto keep a bit of distance between yourdevelopers and the customer in a supportcontext, because um if you have, youknow, there are so many people I know that areloan developers. They don’t have anysupport engineers. They do all theSupport. They do a lot of custom workfor individual clients and customersrather than keeping a feature requestlist and doing it based on evidence. Uh, sobecause I've got a support team ofeight people now, they are the firstline in most cases. So they are tracking demand, and then it goes onto thefeature request list, and then I make abusiness decision about what to add. Andwe do have good support in the sensethat we'll do minor customizations likeCSS changes or fixes for their theme orsomething like that, just within ourtier two and three support. Butin terms of the developer actuallyaddingfunctionality, because we have thatseparation, we're less tempted to dothings just for one customer. And ourdevelopers do a few tickets a weeknow. That's something we introducedabout a year ago to keep them a bit intouch. But overall, I think someseparation helps. And I learned long agowhen I was running the company on my ownwith my husband to keep him away fromsupport because he would just end updoing hours and hours of work for freefor one customer. I think that’s a common scenario for WordPress products:the product is typically built by adeveloper, and then they take itto the level that we see thesedays, with companies like Barn 2and Iconic reaching that point as well.Any product that has been around for 10 plusyears has generally taken that route oftransitioningfrom a developer to more of acompany. I also think thatthe majority of stories Ihear are about products that come out ofan agency, driven by the needs of aspecific client, starting as a serviceand evolving into a product. You've done a good job, Katie, where you’vetaken the developers away from support,to some degree, maintaining a slightdisconnect or barrier tofulfilling every desire, as developers enjoy solvingproblems, bugs, and issues that arise.They like to tackle challenges that come up. Come up. Um, so that's hard to avoid. Iwas just thinking a bit about support,and I think there's something that'sworth calling out. One of the thingsI've noticed is that there's adifference in mentality, and I’dargue it's an approach in handling supportwithin an open-source context versus, um,like—and this can be tricky because ifpeople are coming into our space from aproprietary ecosystem, they can have adifferent expectation about the role ofcommunity and support because, like,one of the things that stood out to me, Iwasn't too surprised to see this, but I sawa lot of evidence in my time as in the community at Woo of people helping eachother, and in a sense, it made mywork easy because I was able to focus onokay, what are the common threads herethat I can then advocate for on theircollective behalf, to be more of justa liaison in the interface. And also,looking at, okay, how do we help empowermore people to do this? So that could bethings like, um, keeping an eye on, uh,who the moderators are, like they may bevolunteer moderators, and saying, okay,what can you do to support them on, like,a subreddit or a Facebook group, etc.? There was a fair amount of that workthat I did early on where it was like,"Oh, cool. They're doing somegood stuff here. How do I just make surethat they feel appreciated and supportedand then kind of stay out of theirway? Because, uh, that'sdifferent in open source where there'smore, I would argue, this sense of sharedownership. If I'm helping someoneelse with their problem, it's alsohelping me. Whereas in a proprietaryecosystem, at least I haven't observedmuch of that same behavior. So I thinkthat's important for our developers and forpeople in our space to be thinking about; there is a higher willingness onthe part of people within opensource, uh, I would argue more so ifthey've been here longer than ifthey're necessarily like coming in brandnew. Um, but there's a higherwillingness to support each other. AndI think it's important to recognizethat and focus on what you can do toempower that, um, and support it;support that energy and provideresources and just help expressappreciation to people because Ithink they're willing to do that more so. In open source, because of this sensethat when I help someone else, it's alsohelping me. Uh, there's this sharedsense of ownership of the solution,and I think that's more unique to ourspace.Yeah, there is definitely a bigfactor within the WordPress community. Um, that reminds me of what I referredto earlier about which areas of thecommunity you target because I've endedup kind of being very much a part of theWordPress product community throughpodcasts like this. The other podcastI do, WP Product Talk, helps peopleon Twitter, either by asking questions,which leads to discussions about how todo certain things in a WordPress productbusiness, or by answering other people'squestions, and that has built me afollowingamong product people primarily. Theyare not the people buying my products. So I have gotten so much out of thisbecause I learn from them. I get, uh,partnership opportunities, for example.There are tangible business benefits ofthis. If I ever want to sell the company,then I'm sure that will be easy becauseof the links that I've built throughThis community work that I'm doing rarely leads to direct sales. Whereasif I was helping people with their WooCommerce sites, orparticipating in some of the Redditforums, then that might getpeople to know me among those whoare actually building sites rather thanbuilding products. So I always feel abit weird about that. Have I builtthe community in the right space? I think that’s actually a great question because it goes back tothe benefits and trade-offs ofany choice that you make. As yousuggested, the work you've done can influence thepartnerships that you develop. It caninfluence the long-term aspects of the business and the ideas and input that you’re gettingas a decision-maker in the business. However,by nature, and even just byfocusing on that, you could have been developinga community around end-users thiswhole time, which would give you, I would argue,more short-term benefits versus longer-term benefits. In the context for our listeners, II think it's important to just be makingconscious decisions about this whereit's like, are we hearing anything fromour end users? Are we? Because if we'rejust hearing from other product folks,if we're just hearing from developersand builders, then I'd argue, loopingback to where we started, that there's anadvocacy problem. Like, how much areyour end users actually influencing? Support can be helpful, but uh it's goingto be biased. Like, most of what you'regoing to be hearing is from when peopleare having, uh, I guess typically problemswith your product versus like what'sgoing on more generally. What arethe trends? What are thequestions that people are asking morebroadly? And I think for a lot offolks, it may be, if you want to hear someof that, you need to findthose community spacesto start one up. Man, I mean, that'sa lot of work. It's alot of work trying to get started. Yeah.Well, let's talk about that a bitbecause a lot of WordPress products havedone that successfully. Um, I think theCadence community is huge. I know a bit about that. I think WP Fusionhas a Facebook group. So, there are theseproduct-specific communities. AndJonathan, I'm sure that some of yourGildenberg experience about building acommunity of WordPress professionals orhowever you can describe it better to meis relevant. How do you actuallybuild a community and get people talkingto each other? Yeah, I think something we probablymissed at the beginning was for Jonathanto define what Gildenberg is.It's a relevant question becauseone of the things that we're currentlydoing is actually deciding not to focuson community. So, because one of thethings we looked at simply is likethere are already some great communityspaces, right? Like Post Statusis a good example of one that caters toa particular audience. There aresubreddits, there are Facebook groups,there are these different things. And welooked at that and said we see thevalue in community. We don't thinkwe want to ask ourmembers to just create... We spend time in some new spacebecause most of them are alreadyinvolved in other spaces, and we wereseeing thatwe don't want to try and solve aproblem that doesn't actually exist. Soin practice, for instance, withGildenberg, we have a Slack that we haveall the members in; most of theconversations that are happening areactually just between members, and we'rein a lot of the channels, but they canalso have—so we'll often set up atwo-way, or a three-way, or even afour-way channel between members who areworking on a particular problem together,and there'll be a lot of discussion thathappens there, but centric to theproblem. We've chosen, at least for now,to not make any conscious investmentsinto the community side of trying to say, "Hey, this is this," because we feellike it's currently well served. Wewould rather put that energy into saying,"Hey, we'll contribute as wellto discussions that are happening onPost Status, or on the .org, orSlack, or in other spaces if we see thatthere's something that's unmet there. Inthe future, I think we would change ourMind, but we decided to say like, and, andthere early on, it was more, it was, um, wethought of it more as like, let's buildcommunity. Let's sort of develop a spacewhere people get used to havingdiscussions. There is some of thathappening, but, uh, as co-founders, we decidedto not make that a conscious focusbecause we don’t feel like it's unmet orthat it's underserved at the moment. It's also something that, um, to do well,requires a conscious investment and, uh,deliberate energy. So that may not havebeen quite where you were thinking withthat, Katie, but I think it's quiterelevant, because sometimes you just haveto decide that it doesn't makesense for you as a product if youraudience is already served. Oftentimes, you’re asking for time onpeople’s behalf, right? You’re askingfor them if it’s going to have some lifeto it. Uh, it requires people beingmotivated and incentivized to contributeand keep that energy going. Otherwise,it’s just a dead space. Yeah, I agree with you, actually, becauseI’m in the Gildenberg Slack, and itoffers everything that you can alreadyget elsewhere. Connected in the WordPress community.I'm on Post Status, which I find quiteoverwhelming. I'm on Twitter. I recentlydiscovered I'm going to have to learnLinkedIn finally. And so there's allthese communities. I'm also on theFremiest one and it's all the samepeople. So I think maybe there would bea space for a founders community forpeople who aren't already well connectedlike newer people or something. Butbecause I was already in all thoseplaces, then I didn't see the need. So Ido agree with that and I think it's awise point that you've made because weneed to make a decision. Do we go out and create? Do we create our owncommunity and build it? And you quiterightly said how much work that is togive it that momentum, or do we go outinto existing communities? Yep, and itdepends on your product, right? Uh, butyeah, James, what are your thoughts?Yeah, I have many thoughts.Um, I think like you said, Katy, that thecommunities now that we tend tofind ourselves in are mostly like thesame people. You know that they'reproduct people that were in theWordPress space. It's been true, Ifound on Twitter, X, and LinkedIn, inthe Facebook groups that you'll see alot of the same faces.Um, and I think, like we touched onbefore, that the challenge is finding thecommunity of end users— of the peoplethat aren’t, uh, they don’t care thatthey're in the WordPress space as such.You know, that they'rejust, they just want their site towork. They want the solution, notthe tools. And I think that's thehardest community to find. And somethingI wanted to pose to the group was: whatdefines a community? Is a communitylike a group of people all in the samespace, and they can talk to each other? They can talk to you, um, and they cankind of group, solve issues, and shareproblems, or can a community be— and wetouched on this as well— can it be morelike a one-on-one relationship wherethey're a member of the communitybecause they use the product. Um, butthey're notnecessarily contributing to thecommunity without you. You know, you’relike the interface to that. Community. Uh, and you're takingtheir input and utilizing thathowever you want to utilize it. Is thatstill a community? Um, because thebiggest challengeI found not, not so much. Now I thinkWooCommerce has a pretty vast community,but when I was, um, you know, buildingpremium plugins that sit on top of WooCommerce,we tried a few times to createlike a Facebook community, for example. Uh, and it just doesn't work becausethere's not that many peoplethat really want to talk about veryspecific, like, uh, WooCommerce utilityplugins. Um, and it just doesn't comeup. And then if you go on Reddit and youwant to, you know, share yoursolution to people's issues over there,uh, you get, you know, you get blocked.You get denied because you'resharing links to stuff that just lookslike spam. Um, so yeah, quite along-winded question, but I guess thethe question is, what defines acommunity? Is it a group of people,or isit not? So I have two thoughts tocontribute to this, uh, because I thinkIt's a good and difficult question. The first is that I've had theunique experience, at least for me, ofdoing a lot more work over the past fewyears with newcomers entirely to ourspace. And so I've started to noticepatterns. And like, okay, if I'm like, ifwe at Gildenberg are some of theirfirst contact with this broadercommunity, what is the work that makes sense?I've noticed a couple of patterns. So for instance, oneof the things that I'll tell them is tosay, "Hey, if you want to follow what'sgoing on, make sure that you subscribeto the repository's newsletter." Likethat's a good resource. Here's what's going on in our space. Ifyou want to educate yourself,I'll do things like point them to theWordPress book milestones, likehere are some key points in the history of the project,so you have some broad context. UhI'll encourage them to go to their firstcouple of WordCamps, and I'll give themspecific guidance, like, here's whatto expect and here's what, uh, like whatnot to expect. You know, etc. Iwould encourage them to, uh, maybenot initially, but eventually sign up. Up for places like Post Status and, uh,just to like kind of slowly layer thingsin and help them form their ownconnections, right? Um, and becausewe have places like that that exist, uh,it becomes pretty straightforward. Like,if the repository didn't exist, then Ithink that would be something that wouldneed to be solved in adifferent way. So that's part ofit. Uh, the other thing, going back towhat you were calling out, James, aboutwhat's hard, um, I've had varying successwith this over the years, and I thinkit's non-trivial. It requires somecuriosity and discovery work. Astarting point is to find, when it comesto the end-users, is to find the peopleand do the work to find the people thathave influence on the end-users. Like, um,there, and it can be surprising.Like, it might be someone who has aFacebook group focused on a particulartype of small business, and uh, and I, Ifind that there's not like aone-size-fits-all approach, but if youmake conscious efforts to say, "Okay, whohas influence on the end-users that I'mafter?" And to one of the points that youmade, Katie. So, um, like, if you look at itThrough a partnership lens as well, like you might find that a particularvertical has a high interest in yourproduct, and you may get somesupport requests or notice some patternsthat could then lead you to say who hasinfluence in this vertical, and whatcan you do to start a relationship withthem? Then look at it through thelens of advocacy, like, "Oh, it says hey,this person, this group has likeinfluence with this particular segmentof your customer base." You can create arelationship with them that's focused onsaying, "Hey, we want to hear in aggregatefrom the customers that you do likerepresent that you're having this focuson." So I find that it's not reallyclean, which goes, then, James, back toyour definition of, like, what iscommunity? At least for me, Ithink it just starts by recognizingthat there are humans, like people, thatare using your product, that are going tohave a wide range of backgrounds andinterests. The work as aproduct is to recognize thoseyou've already got and do what youcan to understand where they are, andwhere they spend their time. The things that are influencing thedecisions that they’re making. Andthrough the lens of trying to acquirenew customers, you're looking for clues inthose who are purchasing from you thatmight lead you into other sub-communities, if you will, that make upthis community thatyou have as a product. Yeah, I think that’s an excellent pointabout influencers. Basically,influencers are influencers because theyhave built community, and people withinthe community respect them and listen tothem. And that’s a particularly goodidea for, for example, the sole founder,the sole developer who’s building aproduct that we talked about earlier. Because they can use theseinfluencers. That may well involvegiving away half your company and usingthem as the marketing side, and that maywell pay for itself. Um, but if you’vegot somebody really big in thosecommunities, for example, WP Crafters,anything that Adam talks about inthat group, people will buy. They reallyrespect him. Um, you’ve also got KevinGiri and his products. Just to touch on the Adam thing. I mentioned Cadence earlier. That's whythey have such a big community. Adam wasinvolved early on, and you know he hasa YouTube following, and the audience of his YouTube channel is veryrelevant to buildingWordPresswebsites. Um, sorry, I just wanted tomention—no, I was thinking you wouldtake over that point. Would yourecommend people partnering withsomebody like that to get that reach? For sure.Yeah, I mean I haveworked with Adam in the past on aproduct we made called Orderable. It was a 50/50 partnership. You know,I built the product, Adammarketed it—um, Istill don't think I said that right, buthe put it out there in hisgroup on YouTube, and that initialengagement of putting that outto the audience, you know,did wonders for the initial sales ofthat product. Um, so for sure I think it'sbeneficial to connect with thosepeople, and like you say, they already have this community where ifyou're just starting,Um, to develop a product, you're perhaps solving an issue that aclient of yours had, or you've justexperienced in the past. Um, you mightnot know where to find these people whohave the same issue. Uh, influencersare a great kind of stepping stone tothat community. That makes sense. I would just adda—I don't know Adam personally. Um, I'veseen some of the work that he'sdone in the space. I would argue, atleast from my experience, that anythingclose to 50/50 is pretty atypical. Um,like a lot of times, if you're workingwith— I was surprised with how much thatyou can give and receive just bybuilding a relationship withsomeone where it's like, "Hey, I wantto be a good liaison between your community— thepeople that you're serving and theproduct that I'm building," and have thatbe like, I'm all for commercialalignment of interests. In my experience,I find that to be something that you work towards after you'vegot a good foundation, and so if it works out, great. From the onset, that's awesome,but in terms of what I've seen, um, likeyeah, there certainly might be a revenueshare or something that kicksin, but I would, I mean if it's a knockout deal on 50-50, awesome.But I've also seen people do really wellwith just, um, saying, "Hey,what do you need? What helps you?"Because sometimes, for instance, with someone who has influenceon a particular community, they mayactually care a lot about there being nosense of conflict of interest. They maynot want any commercial connectionto it. Advocacy and just knowing thatthey've got a great contact who can be responsive may actually be somethingthey value more than the commercialside of it. So, it's important Iwould suggest for those listening to find people who have influence on the customers thatyou're wanting to serve and then askthem, "What do they care about? What's going to beincentivizing and motivating for them?"Sometimes it'll be commercial,obviously, so other times it won't be, andjust being open to that as a founderBeing curious,I think it's kind of the benefit of building your own community as aproduct founder, developer, or whatever you are. Um, ofpeople in a similar space, but maybe theydo slightly different things. Likebecause of the community that I had,it meant that I had this interaction with Adam when Ilaunched Orderable. So yeah, I thinkKatie, you mentioned right at thebeginning the importance of building the right community or leaning into the right community. And I think there are multiple differentright communities that any one person or any business could interact with. Yeah, I'm definitely, yeah. So before wefinish, let's talk a bit about thefuture because there have been some changesin the WordPress community. I'm notgoing to go into the drama, but just saythat it's been a bit shaken. A lot ofpeople are sort of opting out a bit,feeling less motivated. Others areacting business as usual, and thecommunity will get through anything. Um,but I suppose what I want to talk aboutis the bigger picture of where we seeThe community going in the future. Doesanybody have any thoughts about that? Oh man. Well, these, I tend tolook at things through a lens ofoptimism. I can't really help it. Itend to have a more optimistic take.I thinkwhat certainly stands out to meis when I think about community, I thinka lot about momentum and how do youcreate, invest, and sustain momentumover time. If you care for itcarefully, controversy, pain,and difficulty can all be things thatactually contribute effectively tomomentum. Things are going to come upand people aren't going to agree. Thereis going to be tension, and there's a lotto be said about how do you dealwith that effectively. It'simportant to recognize, though, that forpeople with products, things goingwrong matter more about how you respondin general to the things that go wrongthan that they went wrong. I think agreat simple example that I've seen timeand time again is a negative reviewon your product. One of the worstthings that you can do is respond. Publicly to itdefensively. Um, and in likein reverse, one of the best things thatyou can do is respond in a thoughtful manner.Let me put it this way: this can actually have a lotof influence on the type ofcommunity you build. Some people like tosee someone who has a snarkyresponse back, and you’ll attract acertain type of person who’s like"hey, good for you for sticking up foryourself," and that can be part of yourpersona and everything there. In general,though, people I find pay quite abit of attention to how the productsfolks respond to the problems thatcome up. And I’ve seen situations in myown experience where a one-star reviewis what led me to purchase the product,because I saw how the founder and theproduct team responded to it. It’s like, cool, they cared. If there was an issue, they acknowledged it, butthey weren’t defensive. If there wasa need for improvement, they acknowledged it as well.There are all sorts of ways thatcontroversy and conflict canserve the growth of the business whenyou embrace it. When you’re not justIn a situation where there's nothing that youcan really do about it, but to acknowledge that, like, hey, I hear you. I'm, we're listening. We don't knowwhat the answer is. That can also bereally refreshing for people who arelike, okay, yeah, so you don't have ananswer, but if the folksin your community feel heard aboutit, that's a good step in the rightdirection. Yeah. And it’s kind of contextual thereas well, specifically with the reviewscenario where, you know, you've got500 positive reviews and then10 negative reviews, but you've respondedin a great way to all of thenegative ones and the positive ones.But if you had, you know, 500 negativereviews and you were respondingpositively, it's still not theideal scenario, but right. Yeah, it’s apiece of data for someone makinga decision as to whether to use yourproduct, to see that you respondeven to negative reviews, and not justdefensively, but potentially even, youknow, with a solution or willing towork towards a solution. Um, in terms of what's next for theCommunity, I think it's a challenging thing to answer. I think we haven't seen so much uncertainty, or at least I haven't in mytime in WordPress, or so muchdivision in the WordPress space. Ithink even like in the world, theviews are becoming very polarized, and Ithink social media has a big impact onthis. But I'm hoping that out of that, youknow, comes decisions that benefitthe majority. And, Ido think it will rebuild into astronger community of positive people. And you've got a note here that says disagreements are a sign ofpeople who care. I think Jonathan,you were touching on that. Ithink that's true. Ithink it's better to havedisagreements than to just kind ofcoast along and let a product slowly,lose engagement. But yeah, hopefully theresolution is that we kind of rebuildand come together andkind of heal what's potentiallyA fractured community. Uh, and I think alot of that's going to come out ofum, you know, WordCamps and meetupsand things like that and just actually,you know, connecting back to actualhumans and not screens and words. Um, but yeah, I dowonder how much the end user who isn't,you know, as involved in these spaces isaware of any of the kind of drama orthings that are going on withinthe actual builder communityum and what their view on it is. Uh, I think that it's an interesting kindof position to put yourself in tothink from theirperspective. Um, do they even are theyeven aware that things are happeningin know what you guys think? One thing Iwould just add to that I thinkthat's an important question like what'sthe awareness of end users and I thinkin our context especially it's probablyhelpful to think through how did we growhere; like, and I would argue that alot ofthe work, a lot of the waysthat this community has grown iswhen I think back to my first experienceum, many, many, like 18 plus years ago. Almost like 19, now I went on to theWordPress.org forum and I had a questionabout how to integrate WordPresswith a project that I wasworking on and it was funny.Actually, the first couple of responseswere kind of dismissive, where theywere like, because I was very new at the time,and the threads are still there.The first couple of responses were prettydismissive, and I found it a little bitdiscouraging, but I was motivated and Iasked a few more follow-ups, and thenthey started to become more helpful. Matt himself chimed in; there werefolks who helped me get theanswers, and they pointed me in the rightdirection. I got unstuck, and thenat the end of that, I felt thisappreciation, and I decided towrite a tutorial about that experience.I credited the folks who helpedme with it. I ended up sharing a linkback as a thank you on the thread. Iwas like, "Hey, thanks for all the help,guys, and here’s something I wrote thatjust sort of put it together." Thattutorial ended up being the thing thatkicked off my career because beforetoo long, people began to say like,"Hey, you wrote this tutorial. Thanks. Could we just hire you to do this for us?"And I was like, "Sure, I guess."And I started to like that — that justsort of kicked off a whole thing. And itbegan with a moment of communityinteraction where I felt a connection tothis new piece of software that I'dheard about but hadn't really donemuch with at the time. And thatconnection was what motivated me to getover the hump of the difficulty that Iran into because WordPress, WooCommerce, like open source, it's noteasy. It doesn't justespecially in comparison to these well- capitalized proprietary platforms thatcan hire the best people andthey'll work on these reallyslick onboarding experiences andall these things. Yet I felt this senseof loyalty that grew out of that, andthat turned into a sense of sharedownership for me where I was like, "Hey,I'm going to now become, as I then did,from that moment on, an advocate for this, and people would ask me, "What areyou doing?" I'm like, "Oh, WordPress WooCommerce, like this is what Ido." So, I think that's... I’d argue that a lot of our success hasbeen that many, many, many times overwhere someone’s had a positiveexperience. This is what I saw happenwith meetups, where someone would show upto a meetup, you help them withsomething, and then they become anadvocate for it. And I think it’simportant to think about that; you can’tcontrol it. You can’t just sort of makeit happen. But when people feel thissense of connection to it, which is whyyou’ll see people be so passionate whenthings aren’t going well. When they’refrustrated, it’s because they do care about this. Um, but yes, at least in my experience, thoselittle investments back, and thoserecognitions of effort when peopleput in effort, even if it’s frustrating foryou, they see this question over and over again,but each one of those moments is an opportunityto create an advocate for the thingthat you’re building. Yeah, I think that’s a really goodexample because you were reaching out ina community-based way. They hadprovided support on the forum, andthen you went out and published. Something, and you obviously tapped intoa gap in the market—a problem thatmultiple people had, not just you. So, bygoing out there and sharing, peopleactually came to you and wanted to useyour services, and that helpedthings grow. And I think thatgenerally with business, you just haveto get something out into the world, andthen opportunities can start coming yourway. And if you just keep everythingwithin your head, never launch anything—whether it’s a blog post, a product, oranything—then no opportunities aregoing to come to you. And I’m thinking that a lot at the moment because of somepeople who are choosing to withdraw abit from the community because of recentevents. The people who are continuing topush the community forward, and interact,and share, and take a positive approach—those are the people that opportunities aregoing to keep coming to. So, I do thinkpeople are perhaps hurting themselves sometimesby withdrawing.I agree.It's an interesting point. I thinkum, one of the things that stood out withyour scenario there, Jonathan. Was that the other side of that engagement you felt? You know,heard because the people helped youwithoutwanting anything in return necessarily. It became a more human interaction,not like a business transaction.And I think that’s probably one of the most importantaspects of community. You touched on it a bit;you can’t necessarily control it,and I think that ties into the advocacy side. You know, people connect with humans,and I think that’s what’s going to build a good community.I would argue too that in a world where AI, quote unquote,will increasingly have the answers,people are going to value the connections more. Yeah, and it’s going to be less about you as a humanhaving all the answers and being able to just give a solution forsomething, but more about someone saying,"Hey, there’s someone else who spent some of their actual time,not just like throwing an answer through chat GPT and pasting it to you."Someone who spent actual time and that'sgoing to become more and more meaningfulin a world where the answers are likethat you can find answers to thetechnical questions that you have, andyou probably need to double-check thoseanswers and validate them, etc. But Ithink in that world, especially as thatgets better and better, people are goingto find even more value, whether they'reconscious of it or not, in these momentsof connection with another human. That, uh, so that's going to beinteresting to see how thatdevelops. But I think that makes meoptimistic about the increasingrecognition of the importance ofcommunity. And to your point, Katie, II'm not— I don't hold it against someonebecause community, like the painthat comes from that can also be reallydevastating. It can be really like to your core.And sometimes people just need— theymay leave for a while, and they may comeback, and like it's all good. If you need to, like, takespace to protect yourself, that's totally fine. Um, Iit reminds me of someof the same things that we can sometimesDeal with in our family dynamics too,where it's like we may not get alongwell, and there's all this pain, butI find that it's worth continuing tocome back to, for the value ofconnection, even with, especially I'd say,with people that I don't agree with. Right? Like, it helps me, it helps me, uh,it's good for me to have thoseconnections, and I think, I thinkwe humans are going to find even morevalue in that, um, even as we seem to haveless direct need for the answers tothe problems that we’re having. Agreed. Uh, I think that’s a pretty goodplace to leave it. I feel like we’vegone pretty deep on the topic. Um,I’ve personally got a lot out ofit. Uh, I think it’s been great todiscuss. Um, Jonathan, thank you verymuch for joining us to discuss. Uh,where can people find you online? Uh,you can check out my website,jonathanw.com. It's been runningWordPress for a long time now. And, um,yeah. And, um, I'm still fairlyactive on X Twitter. Um, but, uh, yeah,in all the community spaces. So, ifyou’re on Post Status or the.org, Slack,or, you know, wherever else, I always loveHearing from folks. And what WordCamps will you be attending? Uh,I won't be at WordCamp Europe thistime. Uh, Tammy, my co-founder,will be there. But I will be at WordCamp US.So, I look forward to anyonewho's making it out there, and I'mexcited about that. Awesome. Well, thankyou very much. It's been great. Thanksfor having me., Does Every WooCommerce Plugin Need a Community?, Do the Woo WordPress_WooCommerce_OpenWeb, 01jw8xmhwhd6fvhnrps5pnh17y.