Matt Cohen
Starting With WooCommerce

WordPress, specifically for me, was where I discovered my ability to really take a creative spin on web development. So instead of building custom systems and things, I went on vacation one year and thought, "Great, let's start a blog, everyone is starting blogs. And since Afrigate was around and we're aggregating the tech of South Africa and of Africa as a whole, let's play with this".

WordPress is an open-source technology. It's a piece of software that allows you to get a site online and get a place, a home on the internet that is completely yours. You can see inside of it and tinker with the code and understand how it works.

You've got tools for really specific niche needs, tools for niche markets and bolt-ons that all work within the WooCommerce system. So you can really Lego-style if you will, and craft your own online experience.

Community as a whole is a great way to learn how to communicate in the new world that we're heading towards or that we're likely already in and perhaps don't fully recognise. Community is tough sometimes. People have different views - they take it on differently or they see things from different angles.

Having a technical co-founder allows you to say, "OK, I'm going to focus on the business side of this," or wherever that skill set is, whether it's the business or the customer or the product.

As WooCommerce, we like to offer both directions. You can go to an agency and say, "Let's build!" and they will work with you as a WooCommerce specialised agency. They'll do all the setup and everything and then really just get out of the way and allow you to build your business. But you have the freedom to choose.

The first thing is to start. To make the decision to start, and not only on the e-commerce side - just to start something. Because if you don't make a decision and actually start, then you might as well be on the couch.

These are often things that you tend to set and forget, but that you should probably spend a lot of time on upfront and then outsource to a co-founder or agency to assist with as the business grows.

A lot of us within WooCommerce always saw WordPress as an app platform, not just for building websites and things. So we were always looking at what are people doing with WordPress, what innovative use cases are there? But it's not really about that anymore. It's actually about the business.

The biggest mistake is not starting at all. Just make a decision. Get going. Do the work. Focus on selling. Get your product out there. Prove the idea - get it out and prove it, lean startup methodology stuff. Get out of the building, quite literally. Go and sell. Once you get online, don't rush.