WooCommerce Successtown is a place that we’d all like to get to. However, there is a lot of planning, tools, and knowledge that are required to get there. There may also be roadblocks or delays that require a pivot or detour during our journey. With all of the complexities involved in eCommerce projects, having a process and checklist will increase your chances of completing your journey while avoiding major calamities.

Takeaways:

• WooCommerce Roadmap
• A checklist in how to price out an WooCommerce project (so nothing is forgotten)
• Being able to direct a prospect/client to what is needed for a succesful WooCommerce project

This is a business focused track, but built for freelancers and developers, alike. We didn’t start our firm with anything but our team and time.

This talk discusses actionable items and financial practices that you can do on a daily basis to better run your WordPress plugin, theme or consulting business.

In this talk I will discuss:
-How our firm used the “free downloads metric” to monitor paid growth in year 1 of Startup (we are now in year 3 of GiveWP.com)
-How we used financial projecting to grow from 4-8 employees with no outside investors
-Planning our internal “hours as dollars” against Code base assets and COG expenses
-Using Cash Flow projections rolling three months to plan for product development cycle budgets
-Budgeting marketing, quarterly without understanding future sales
-Release learnings vs. free and vs. paid and how our projecting formulas change as our business matures
-Projecting renewals

Finance might seem boring. This talk won’t be.

Takeaways:

• How to setup and work against your planned budget
• How to project based on outside variables that you can and cannot control
• A different view of finance–how it can be fun and playful, not boring.

A website is the heart of any brand, but most WNC organizations need help to bring their site into the modern age. However, the process of ReBranding is much more complicated than simply launching a new website. Modernizing an existing brand requires leaders to refine their message, deliver engaging content, and manage a robust platform around the website to maintain a more sustainable relationship with customers.

Takeaways:

• Draft a ReBranding Strategy and Timeline
• Identify the key channels in and out of the website
• Better understand the connections between website message, imagery, and functionality in relationship to the evolving brand

Being able to write in a way that is both factual accurate and respectfully positive can be challenging. From emails to project updates to tweets, we are constantly sending text artifacts out into the world that may not jibe with what we MEANT to say.

This talk will explore words to avoid when interacting with words, and ways to temper both your writing, and your reactions to other people’s words. In a time when we need unity more than ever, starting with the basics of word choice and tone is a good way to start off on the right foot.

Who needs this talk? EVERYONE! “But devs don’t need to know how to write well,” you say. Sorry, but developers do need to, for:
* Clients (both current and potential) – being able to explain technical issues in a way that is both intelligible and digestible is a key work skill. Many WordPress developers and businesses live and die by solid RFP responses;
* Coworkers – website development can be a solo gig, but often involves code collaboration (even if your collaborator is your future self #docbrown). How you update (or solicit updates from) your co-workers can make or break a project. The words we choose only become more important in situations where cannot rely on body language (such as in Slack, email, forums, or work tickets);
* the WordPress community – when all you have are Core Trac ticket updates, how we bolster support or provide actionable feedback to our peers is crucial. A poorly crafted forum reply can drive someone away from open source contributions, so being able to respond in helpful, respectful ways is a skill we all must hone;
* Yourself – Do you tweet? Do you publish content online? Are you seeking work and need to craft RFP responses or application cover letters? All these require stronger writing skills than a one-and-done draft.

By sharing easy-to-implement tips and tricks on writing, I will help attendees communicate better in any situation.

Takeaways:

• Words to avoid and replacements for those words
• How to create stronger drafts and better final versions
• What to do when something written triggers you.