The WP Minute+

Matt: James Kemp,
welcome to the WP Minute.

James Kemp: Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me.

Matt: you and I, we've seen
each other in passing, right?

I think on Twitter and post
status and other areas.

This is gonna be a, a first time
conversation, lots to get into.

this is not a gotcha you podcast
by any stretch of the imagination,

but I do want to get stuck into
some of the things around automatic

and, WordPress and WooCommerce.

But for the folks that don't know.

Who you are.

what's your storied tale in WordPress?

I, I, I always knew you as a guy
that was like launching a bunch of

products, but now you're at Woo.

us the picture of James.

James Kemp: Yeah, I think you
summarized it pretty well.

Matt: I.

James Kemp: yeah, always, always been
keen to kind of dive in and build stuff.

since.

2009.

We'll, we'll go back a fair bit.

2009 I got like a web
design job at an agency.

we started using WordPress at that point.

WooCommerce wasn't
really a thing back then.

I think JO Shop may not have
even been a thing back then.

but Magento was, and
we used Magento a lot.

and I, I spent some time.

My, my first kind of plugin,
experience was building a plugin to

integrate Magento into WordPress.

so you could bring across like the cart
data and, the navigation and stuff from,

from Magento to kind of make the, the
experience of building a Magento site with

a content managed, experience as well.

More, simple, more cohesive.

So I did that.

I, I built a plugin back then.

like I say, that was my first experience
dabbling in the, the world of WordPress

and, and the plugin ecosystem.

which I believe was quite early on,
like comparatively to, to now, where

there's a plugin for everything.

Back then there, there wasn't really,
too many plugins and that there

definitely wasn't an environment of.

bigger plugins that were like
solutions, like, like lifter,

LMS and like that kind of thing.

Give Wp you know, that there weren't
these like solution based products.

It was, it was very much, utility
based plugins, which is the world

that, that I kind of went into and,
and, you know, spent my time in.

Was, was these utility based products.

so after some time.

WooCommerce came about, I think
it was 2011, I built my first

WooCommerce plugin, which was called
multiple Images per Variation.

so very like.

Feature relevant plugin name.

I wasn't particularly,
a marketer back then.

started selling that on Code Canyon.

and then just kind of doubled down on
the, the WooCommerce side of things, and,

and built a ton of, you know, different
utility style WooCommerce plugins.

that one was renamed as Woo Thumbs,
which is still around today.

I eventually like, stopped doing
anything except WooCommerce plugins.

And I think

by maybe 2017, I decided to stop what I
was doing elsewhere, which was working,

running my own agency with a friend,
or a colleague at the time, I should

say, building websites for people and,
you know, using WooCommerce, using

WordPress, not really using Magento.

I, I.

Got out of that as soon as I could.

and yeah, that, that allowed me, the,
the agency side of things to build

up a collection of products that,
that I had built, you know, because

clients needed that functionality.

and it got to a point where I, I wasn't
particularly enjoying the client work,

but I was enjoying the product work.

So I rebranded, as iconic iconic wp.com.

released all the plugins over there, you
know, you know, created product pages

and, and, and all that kind of stuff.

changed it from being under my
own name to, to being iconic.

shifted off of Co Canyon onto FIUs.

I think I was one of the, the first
FIUs users, or one of the, the first

successful FIUs users, I guess.

and then in 2021.

Iconic was acquired by Liquid Web
Stellar wp, where it still resides

today with, I believe all of my team
that were also acquired at the time,

are still over there working on it.

and I worked there for a couple of
years and then I reached out to Paul,

who was the, the CEO of WooCommerce
at the time, and just said, you

know, I, I feel like I've taken.

Iconic as far as I can take it.

with it being utility based, you
know, that it's not, it's not an

easy sell, particularly in, in the,
the market as of today where there's

so much competition for, for all
of these utility based products.

but I have like a very deep understanding
of WooCommerce and also, you know,

what merchants and what clients
are actually looking for from.

WooCommerce site.

and I just said, you know, is there
any role there that would suit me?

and we, we probably discussed
it for maybe a year on and off.

I met with Beau, who is now the,
the CEO of WooCommerce, at WordCamp

Athens, maybe.

Yeah.

A, a word Camp Europe, I
can't recall which one.

and we had a chat about what I
could do, and then eventually

we settled on, product manager.

So I joined WooCommerce as a product
manager after two years of, or

two years after my acquisition,
acquisition with Stellar.

and after about a year of being at
WooCommerce, I've, so I've been there.

Maybe a year and a half, just
over a year and a half now.

my role was shifted from product
manager where I was focused on like

one specific thing, which for me was
order management, to now being core

product manager, which means I kind of
touch all sorts of different areas of

WooCommerce and, and try and have an
impact, on what the overall product.

is, you know, what we include,
what we don't include.

and I work alongside the other
product managers that we have, and

that is essentially my life story.

Matt: It's a fantastic
life story, by the way.

James Kemp: Thank very much.

Matt: when I say the phrase,
800 pound gorilla in the room,

that doesn't get any attention.

How does that make you
feel about WooCommerce?

And let me frame it and we will
talk, more deeply about culture

and, and the current vibe of things.

But I've often looked at
WooCommerce as that 800 pound

gorilla in the room from the

looking in, especially when you compare
it to say, a more commercialized

Shopify, it's easy to wonder like.

Why aren't we seeing more
happen with, with Woo

its, you know, core offering and
its marketing and it's just overall

consumer appeal like a Shopify and
I even argue a square space 'cause

they often lean into the e-commerce
side, 800 pound gorilla in the room.

That doesn't get the attention.

Your thoughts?

James Kemp: I have a variety
of thoughts on the subject.

I personally believe that the audience
of WooCommerce versus something like

Shopify or Wix is slightly different.

I think Shopify, if they do marketing,
they're targeting the merchant.

And, you know, you can, you can jump
in, you can build a site very quickly.

you, you can, you know, you just
sign up and, and then your site is

kind of there to start building.

WooCommerce has a challenge in that
respect, where if the, the merchant,

if we were targeting the same, you
know, type of customer, needs to make

a decision before they've even touched
WooCommerce, they have to decide.

Where they're gonna host it.

They have to figure out what hosting
is, that they probably don't even,

you know, have that kind of technical
understanding of what that means.

they probably need to think about a domain
name before they've even spun anything up.

and I think that's a challenge, and
I think that is a challenge when it

comes to marketing as well, because.

It's, it's hard to direct them somewhere.

You know, we can direct 'em to a
landing page, but then they still

have to make this dec decision on,
you know, how am I gonna get started?

And that's something I, I've brought
up quite a lot recently, and I think's

something that we plan to tackle is
to, right now we offer, like if you go

to start, on the WooCommerce website.

You kind of get presented with these
different hosts that we partner with.

but to the person looking like all you see
is the host name, like you don't know why

you would choose whichever one you go for.

and that's, I think, a touch point that
we need to really focus on and make very

smooth, like, and it can still be, you
know, fair across the different hosts

where maybe there's some kind of pre.

survey or like pre-questions that
they populate that then narrow

them down to a specific host, which
they can then click a button and it

spins up a, a working WooCommerce.

so that's one of the issues.

I think another potential issue is with
something like WooCommerce, there's

also learning that has to happen.

to kind of learn WordPress, you're
not just learning WooCommerce.

You need to understand
how WordPress works.

and on these closed systems,
you don't have that issue.

Like they, they can very much tailor
it, to be the same for everyone.

and the third issue that we have is every
environment can be completely different.

You know, they could have a
different set of plugins, they

could have different hosting.

the host themselves can, you
know, modify how WordPress and

WooCommerce look once it's installed.

which is a challenge and I dunno whether
that answers all of your questions,

but those are like issues that I see,
that make marketing harder for us.

but I will say that marketing,
since obviously you saw the, the

rebrand that we, we did recently.

it's like a stage one of, of our new
marketing, efforts and we have some

really nice, like, really modern looking
marketing efforts that are, are gonna be

rolling out over the course of this year.

Matt: I do like the rebrand.

I think the, the logo is great.

It does, it does look really good.

I.

One of the predictions I made at the
start of the year, of course off the

heels of a lot of the WordPress, or
automatic V versus WP engine drama was

that, I think in order for automatic
to really perform and compete, that

they, things would have to happen.

One, they would have to cut the fat

It's a poorly chosen phrase after, a 16%
roughly layoff of automatic employees.

But I think that automatic just
has a ton of products, Like

when you look@wordpress.com,

you know, investing time into
WordPress core, when that was a thing.

Simple note, Tumblr video press, jet pack,
like, you know, the, the list goes on.

WooCommerce of course, and that was
my other thing was to other prediction

was like they, they, they have to
get rid of, all these products that

are just not part of that experience.

The experience you just mentioned,
which was, listen, the customer has to

understand all this technical overhead.

They have to understand Woo Commerce,
and oh, by, by the way, because

they're in Woo Commerce, they're also
having to learn this WordPress thing.

So there's all these
particular challenges.

My other prediction is that in order
for Automatic to Succeed as well

throughout this year, the only way
I say the only, but the only way

achieve that to make wordpress.com

or

A better experience,

that hosted experience by automatic
air quotes will be the West best way to

experience WordPress and WooCommerce.

Do you think that is a direction
we're headed in where has the best

experience, whatever that might
be, and then open source world.

We can just do whatever we want over
here in the wild West, you know, third

party ecosystem, et cetera, et cetera.

But maybe the core initiative is to
make the experience better at automatic.

James Kemp: Yeah, I completely
agree that that should be the case.

Like, you know, if you spin up a
a WordPress site on wordpress.com,

that should be like, this is
the prime example of WordPress.

I.

At its finest.

and I think there is some work that
is currently undergoing to, to make

that the case, to kind of bring.com

back to what WordPress is,
because they have like their

own admin experience, on on.com

that I guess sat on top of WordPress.

so yeah, there's definitely
work happening there.

And we had, We were expressed for a
while, which was meant to be there and

also acted, I would say more directly
as a competitor to, you know, Shopify.

The, the, the platform.

There was a lot, closer in, in
spec in, you know, how it, how it

functioned to what Shopify, and
other providers, you know, offered.

obviously that.

It was wound down a bit and
kind of bundled into this,

commerce package on.com,

which I think already existed, but
I, I think they took some of what Woo

Express was and put it into that package.

I would like to see that
kind of come back a bit.

And I think the reason for
that winding down made sense.

The, the people working on that were.

WooCommerce developers, you know, they,
they were part of the WooCommerce team.

and the idea of winding that down was
that we didn't want to be, as a, as a

company, as WooCommerce, we didn't want
to be building stuff that only benefited

us, you know, within WooCommerce core.

Like if we're building stuff that
that could benefit everyone, then

we want to do that in, in a more.

global way and, and that's, you know,
part of this Be the host help, the host

stuff that, I can't remember when it came
out, but sometime last year, that was

like a shift in thinking that anything
we're building should be able to benefit

any host and not just Woo Express.

but I also think, and I also agree, that
we should have as a company, as automatic.

The best, you know, managed solution
of WooCommerce specifically.

whether that comes back or
not, I'm not sure, but I, I

personally would like to see it.

Matt: Automatic needs to survive.

It needs to be a healthy
company regardless of what

any of the critics might say.

I don't envy the position
of being an aian these days.

It must be a little tough to get
some criticism, especially when it's

stuff that's sort of like outside
of, out, outside of your control and.

Largely not based on like
the product experience.

I mean, I think everybody complains
about every product ever made.

Like this is, you know, and especially
if you're on Twitter, you know, you're,

you're always gonna see, you know,
complaints about a product, right?

It, it's just a never ending thing, right?

I, I work at Gravity Forms fulltime.

we've been doing this now for 15 years
and we get complaints every single day.

So it's like, like I totally get it.

but the.

But how is the culture, right?

How is the culture?

How do you feel reporting for duty?

every day under the Woo brand,

James Kemp: Yeah, I mean, obviously,
you know, we've, we've got that.

WP Engine thing kind of hanging over us.

there's, there's negative connotations
from that on, on Twitter, but

honestly to, to me personally,
there's not that much negative.

And I, I think because most of
the people that I interact with on

Twitter were aware of my journey, you
know, up until that point, they're

kind of aware of me as a person.

has helped, but I have seen.

Other people who maybe don't
have that history, not, you

know, have as good of experience.

so we've got that.

We've also got the, the layoffs
that you mentioned, as of last

week I think it was, which has
definitely had an impact on people.

But leaving them aside,
which is, you know, tricky.

I, I personally love the experience.

you know, the, the, the people I work
with are all deeply, invested in making

WooCommerce as good as it can be.

there's, there's tons of
collaboration like across.

The product team, which, you know,
I'm, I'm primarily in, engineering,

design, marketing, developer advocacy.

Like, it, it feels very tight knit.

but obviously these things, these
things have, have an impact.

and it's typical, most impactful
when they've just happened.

and I'm hoping that.

it leads to us being able to put
things out more quickly or even, you

know, focus on priorities more easily
rather than trying to do everything

we have to, you know, really think
about what the priorities are.

and we've, we've just gotta
make the best of that situation.

Like you say, I think automatic is a.

Is a big asset to the WordPress and,
and obviously WooCommerce space.

and we need to make sure that thrives.

And if this is the way to do
that, then I, I hope it works.

But yeah, for, for me personally, like
the satisfaction of working on, on

WooCommerce when it's the stuff that I'm
putting in or like advocating for within

WooCommerce is impacting so many people.

Which is something that I could
never really do prior to this.

You know, I could impact our own
customers, but the, the kind of scope

of people that interact with stuff
that I've had a say in or, or that I

can advocate for is, is much larger.

and that's really, you
know, what I want to do.

Like, I want to make this
product as good as it can be.

And to do that, you know, I,
I listen to a lot of people.

I do a lot of research.

I physically like ask the questions,
and, and try and bring a lot of

stuff that was previously behind
the scenes, you know, out into the,

into the public for people to see.

and I, I love doing it, so I
hope I can continue to do it.

but yeah, it's, it's challenging
times and we just have to.

Do the best with, with what we've got.

I tend to stay out of the, you know,
the discourse online on these topics,

because I don't think it adds anything.

Like there's, there's
nothing I can do about it.

all I can do is just make sure
WooCommerce is as good as it can be.

And you know, that we're, we're focusing
on stuff that people actually want.

and listen to what people are saying.

So.

Matt: There's nothing a lot of critics
can do about it, just that either.

But they, but, but they also, weigh in.

But hey, that's, that's
the internet for you.

pop culture, the Doge effect,
it's really affecting, everyone.

And, and you know, when, know,
lose, use that term loosely because

it, it gets, thrown around as
something that is, is bad, but.

Cutting the fat, optimizing what
have you, for, any organization

to, to have a moment to reflect.

It's not a, a clean thing.

It's never a clean thing.

It's never an easy thing, and, and
it's something that must be done.

I was on the way here to the
office listening to, I also follow

the podcast industry fairly,
deeply like I do with WordPress.

And I was listening to some, real
high level, ad executives talking

about sponsorship on podcasts
and by sponsorships on podcasts.

Certainly not this podcast, but the
ones that like, are made by celebrities,

athletes, you know, news personalities, et

James Kemp: Yeah.

Matt: And they were talking about
host red ads, and that's when the host

reads an ad and they're talking about
how those are the best ads, obviously.

And, you know, for some sales executive
out there who is selling this ad spot

on whomever celebrity podcast it is,
they were saying it took 80 touchpoint

to get from when the, when the buyer
from a brand, let's say WooCommerce

says, I want Kevin Hart to read.

The WooCommerce ad on his podcast, it took
80 touch points to get that done right.

And they were just like,
why does it take that much?

And they're having like this real
deep conversation about how they

need technology to solve this.

And I'm like, technology, you get the ad.

The guy says, yes, he
reads the ad, you listen.

That's it, you know, very easy.

but there's always these complexities that
come into play with big organizations,

which, which brings me to one of
Woo's competitors, again, Shopify.

also in the news air quotes, for,
you know, talking about embracing ai.

Paraphrasing Toby put out his, social
media post that look, just like

mul, Matt Mullenweg had said, a few
years ago, we gotta learn AI deeply.

We gotta start to embrace this stuff.

I've seen automations more publicly
talking about ai, doing things with ai.

My friend Rich Tabor, quite often,
he and I have a little chatter back

and forth on Twitter about using ai.

I have been using ai.

But I am cautiously

optimistic about it, especially
when I hear leadership, not, not

just Matt, but from other CEOs.

a little, little uneasy what,
what embracing AI means,

James Kemp: Mm.

Matt: especially when
there's no real plan.

Hey team, go learn this thing.

'cause if you don't.

You'll be the one that's
gonna be gone next.

And I just look at that and I go,
Hmm, what are we optimizing here?

Are we optimizing the workflow or are we
optimizing the company's expenditures?

Your thoughts on ai, how are you using it?

Where are we heading with it for?

Woo.

And one other tidbit.

I did just get the
email from wordpress.com

that they launched their AI builder,
which I've yet to try out 'cause

it was literally a few hours ago
before I hit record with you ai.

Everyone's favorite two
letter, acronym thoughts.

James Kemp: I love ai.

yeah, I will.

I.

I prefix, whatever I say by saying
that Matt has basically, you know, said

the same thing as, as Toby revealed
the other day to people at Automatic,

as far back as last year sometime.

you know, that, that he encourages
people within the company to experiment

with ai, to expense ai, to explore
the options that are out there.

We had a, we had an AI team actually for,
for WooCommerce for a while where we were

just focusing on what can we do with ai?

And this was probably this time last year.

and, you know, you'll be aware like how
dramatically AI has evolved since then.

so yeah, we, we, we had a
team that was focused on ai,

at WooCommerce specifically.

And we were able to ship that
into Wu Express, which is another

barrier that doesn't exist anymore.

we, we kind of wound that team
up a little bit because we didn't

have a clear path to deliver ai.

you know, whereas something like
Shopify, people are paying for

that plan, so they're kind of
covering the costs of ai, whereas

WooCommerce can be hosted anywhere.

It's not something that we could
really ship in core, as it were.

Maybe we could have some sort of
extension, but, yeah, we, we, we wanted

to explore that a bit further and,
and we weren't quite ready, I don't

think to, to push anything out there.

we did have some cool stuff in,
in WordPress, but yeah, I guess

that's AI at a product level.

And I should note that we are revisiting
WooCommerce AI and what that means,

and, and how we can deliver that.

with, you, you may have seen
James, the page joined Automatic,

who's very, heavy on ai, has
built a ton of cool AI products.

so he's, he's now leading the,
the Wu AI initiative as well.

so that'll be cool, but me personally.

Yeah, I use AI all the time.

I use it to just experiment and build
stuff that I couldn't build before.

so, you know, games, what,
what they call vibe coding now.

experimented a little bit with the,
the WooCommerce API and like pulling

that into a, a game environment.

I, I built like a, an art gallery
experience for my photography prints,

so you can kind of walk through a
gallery and, and click through to a

product, which is just a, a photo print.

but really that's, that's like hobby, you
know, I'm just doing it in the background

'cause I wanna see what these tools
are capable of and, you know, having

been a developer, it's just fun to do I
think any, any developer enjoys coding.

So that, that's why I do that.

but in the day to day, I use
AI a lot for, multiple things.

So I would use AI to kind of
take my ideas and formulate

them into something presentable.

For example, I would use ai, as
like a, a partner to just talk

to and just talk through ideas
with that, you know, perhaps.

Frees up someone else's time, you know,
comes back with ideas that aren't solely

based on two people's imaginations, but
they're, you know, widely based on the

breadth of the internet essentially.

I use AI to help me rephrase
things that I've written.

I use AI for research.

You know, so if if I have a, an idea for a
feature within WooCommerce, then I might,

ask AI to kind of do some research on that
and find examples of people, you know,

requesting that functionality, whether
it's in WooCommerce or somewhere else.

so yeah, at at the product level,
the, the, you know, product

role level, I, I use AI all the
time, and I find it very useful.

What I don't want to see with AI is,

I guess, having AI do the work for
you without you then, you know,

analyzing what it's actually saying
and, and thinking it through.

and the same with codes.

Like I, I know people, talk a
lot about AI taking your job, as

a, as a developer or whatever.

But I see AI as a, a tool.

I think the people who use it best,
and who produce the best results with

it, know what it's doing and like
know how to interact with it and why

something maybe isn't working, and how
they can kind of reframe their question

to make it work in an optimum way.

and I, yeah, I think
it's, it's very powerful.

I, I think you can.

Solve problems a lot more quickly,
and yeah, I, I'm all for it.

Matt: I want to end, Our conversation
on a more positive outlook, I hope,

than a lot of the, deeper questions
we've been going through and, and asking

ourselves through this conversation.

I do think that one of the North
stars, and maybe this is more

for the WordPress side and, and.

You know, hearing you answer
some of these questions.

I, I do.

It's interesting to hear how, I
mean, there's woo, there's woo woo

commerce and, and then, you know,
automatic, and of course WordPress.

But I think the North Star for a
lot of WordPress future success is

going to be through the playground.

This is my prediction,
playground.wordpress.net

For those of you that,
are not familiar with it.

You can check out, some of the
videos I've done on the YouTube

channel about playground.

It's fantastic.

You just load up WordPress.

It's right in your browser.

You don't have to install anything.

you know, you can learn
how to use WordPress.

You can start to learn
how to code WordPress.

You can test out a plugin.

It's fantastic.

And I think that's going to
be, the starting point for a

lot of users in the future.

And maybe woo.

And.

wordpress.com

and automatic proper like that, that
more automatic experience might have

their own iterations of, of playground.

But I think that's the
great starting point.

getting your hands with the
tools and features, your thoughts

on getting the users to start
experiencing this stuff straight away.

And is playground poised to be like.

Entry point for the future
of Woo or W or WordPress.

James Kemp: Yeah, I completely agree.

And it, it touches on what I was saying
earlier about WooCommerce's entry point.

you know, it's very, it's
very technical at the moment.

and it's something we've discussed
maybe that maybe the first touch point

of the, the WooCommerce experience
is that you can spin up a, a word,

WordPress slash WooCommerce site
on playground, you know, start.

Building out a site there and maybe,
we, we didn't touch on it too much, but

maybe integrates somehow with the, the AI
builder that, that was rolled out earlier

today by automatic, that you can spin up
a, a WooCommerce site, tailor it to your

needs, and then from there, you know,
click a button to then host it somewhere.

The, the challenge we face is that we
don't want to lead people to our hosting.

You know, we, we want, we wanna be
fair to all of the hosting providers

out there, but specifically the, the
ones that partner with us and, and

feature on, on the WooCommerce website.

so I'm not sure what that looks like.

Maybe it just randomly chooses one of them
and, and leads you off in that direction.

Or maybe it's tailored to
whatever the, the site is.

You know, how many products they're
gonna host, how many orders they expect,

like, all of that kind of information.

but yeah, I, I do think getting someone
into WordPress, into WooCommerce

as quick as possible is going to
be key to, to solving adoption,

you know, solving the issue of just
getting started without having to

think, what's my domain gonna be?

Where am I gonna host it?

You know, all that kind of stuff that.

You have to think about that.

You don't have to think about
on, other hosted solutions.

Matt: I think we'll see a resurgence,
my prediction for the rest of the year,

especially through whatever economic
thing we're running through right now,

James Kemp: Yeah,

Matt: that, that we'll

a resurgence of, WordPress
services based businesses.

I.

So for the freelancer or small
agency listening, what, what are the

opportunities for WooCommerce now?

Like obviously we know we can go after
and clients that are wanting to sell

things, is there something from your
vantage point you could share with the

freelancer agency owner listening to this?

This is, this is the best opportunity
for you right now to word, WooCommerce

in in your client solutions.

James Kemp: Yeah, it's a tricky one to
answer because I, I think the, the biggest

thing about WooCommerce and WordPress
in general is how flexible it is.

And I think that's probably the main, or
at least one of the main selling points

of using WooCommerce over something else
is, there, there comes a point where you

can just do anything with WooCommerce.

I, I.

Can't envision many scenarios that you
couldn't achieve using WooCommerce.

one of the things that we're gonna be
focusing on a lot is builder tools, which

is something that we have some, you know,
form of builder tools currently, but

we're, we are really kind of doubling
down on that because we're aware that

these more technical WooCommerce builds.

and.

You know, the people using
WooCommerce aren't necessarily

the merchant directly like they
would be on these other platforms.

typically they're, they're a,
a builder assisted merchant.

So the, the builder creates
the site, hands it over to the

merchant in some way, and then
maybe they continue to maintain it.

so yeah, there's, there's a, a real big
focus on builder tools that, that we want

to, you know, lean into, Some of that is
gonna be like better import export tools

right at the beginning of, of the project.

being able to import, products, customers
orders, like all of that stuff that you

can't currently, easily import without
building your own solution to do that.

but also we're experimenting with
like blueprint data, which is kind of

heavily influenced by playground where.

Maybe to spin up a, a WooCommerce
site, you just give it A-J-S-O-N

file of, you know, these are the
settings that I want to pre-configure.

these are the, you know, whatever
products or categories that I want.

You click a button and it's
kind of done and, and completes

that process a lot more quickly.

And yeah, I, I think performance is
a big focus for us at the moment.

I think that's something that we hear
about a lot and something else that we

want to tackle, is the kind of, I think
one of the main issues with WordPress and

WooCommerce is the compatibility layer
and like the, the update layer where,

because of all the different scenarios
where WooCommerce can be, installed.

with all the different plugins that may
be run alongside it, we, we want to figure

out a way to prevent issues or to, to
kind of pre-warn or early warn people

that issues have arisen or might arise,
to just try and make that experience of

updating and, and, you know, plugging
compatibility more, more seamless.

So, yeah, all of that to say like the, the
builder experience and the compatibility

experience and the update experiences, and
the performance experience is something

that we're like heavily focused on.

and I would suffix that with just saying
that, you know, the, the WooCommerce

team in general is pretty open to
feedback and, me specifically like.

I welcome feedback and suggestions and
I regularly talk to, mostly agencies

and builders that are working with
WooCommerce and hear them out and,

you know, implement their feedback
and advocate for their feedback.

So hopefully that answers the
question, but I know I talked

on a lot of points there.

Matt: James Kemp woocommerce.com.

also check out developer.woocommerce.com

has been a great source of, inf
information, especially for me.

Where else can folks go to
say thanks either to you or to

learn more about WooCommerce?

I.

James Kemp: obviously woocommerce.com.

There's, there's the Twitter accounts.

there's two actually.

There's one for WooCommerce, which
I believe is just at WooCommerce.

and there's one for the developer
side of things, which I think is.

something like develop Woo, I,
I should know this really, and

then me on Twitter, James C.

Kemp is the, the best
place to reach out to me.

and yeah, just do it.

You know, if you've, if you've
got questions, you've got

suggestions, just, DM me.

I'm pretty sure my dms are open, or
do it publicly and I will respond

or direct you to the right place.