WooCommerce has never lacked talent. What it’s lacked—at least up until recently—is noise.
I’m not talking about marketing, but real, human, day-to-day signals from the people actually building the plugin. We’ve seen some of it over the past couple of years, and when it happens, it changes everything: clarity improves, trust grows, and the community gathers together.
The problem? It’s still too rare.
At a time when AI is flooding the internet with generated content and competitors are getting louder, silence is risky. If we don’t hear what Woo is working on, thinking about, and struggling with, we’re left in a limbo. And guesswork is where attention drifts.
This isn’t a criticism. It’s a call to action.
James Kemp and Brian Coords Set the Standard
James Kemp and Brian Coords changed the game. Since joining WooCommerce, they’ve shifted the narrative around building in public, showing what it really means to connect with the developer and merchant community on a daily basis.
Especially when James announced his promotion, things shifted—for the better! For the first time, we could see who was actually behind Woo’s development, what they were working on, and the decisions shaping the platform.
Together with Brian, their work is about humanizing Woo, giving the community transparency, context, and confidence.
It’s a small shift that makes a massive difference: when people know the humans behind the code, trust grows, engagement rises, and the platform feels alive.
But It’s Still Not Enough
But as impressive as James and Brian’s work has been, it’s still not enough. A software as big and complex as WooCommerce can’t rely on just a handful of people to tell its story.
Every department, every team, every developer has a perspective, a lesson, or a struggle worth sharing. Without more transparency and more daily connection, the community is left guessing about priorities, progress, and the roadmap.
These days, staying quiet just makes Woo invisible. We need more humans showing up, sharing what they’re actually building, and making the platform feel real. Not just a logo on a website.
Imagine a WooCommerce developer tweeting about a tricky checkout feature they just finished fixing, or a product manager posting a quick tip from their own account, or a community advocate sharing their plans for the future—they’re small stories, but they make Woo alive and human.
Even better, imagine if everyone at Woo launched their own ecommerce website.
People Follow People, Not Logos
People don’t follow logos. They follow humans. The @WooCommerce twitter account is great for announcements and sharing blog posts, but it can’t replace real, daily connections.
Stories are best told by people with a profile photo—the developers pushing updates, the product managers debating features, the engineers solving problems, and so on. When we see the humans behind the brand, it builds trust, sparks engagement, and gives context to every release or decision.
That’s why building in public actually works. When someone shares a small project, a tricky bug they just solved, or even a mistake they made, it turns abstract work into something real we can relate to.
The more people at Woo do this, the more we understand what’s going on—and the more we want to jump in, help, or try it ourselves.
Building in Public Is No Longer Optional
Building in public isn’t a nice-to-have anymore—it’s a necessity.
These days, AI is spitting out content everywhere, and competitors are shouting to be heard. If Woo stays quiet, it just gets lost.
The community, merchants, and even internal teams need visibility into what’s happening at Woo. Roadmaps, experiments, and daily progress don’t just inform—they build credibility and momentum.
If only a few voices are telling the story, the rest of us are left guessing, misinterpreting, or worse, being outpaced by competitors who are louder, faster, and more human.
Every employee has the power to contribute to the narrative, and together, those voices create a platform that feels alive, trustworthy, and future-ready.
I read on LinkedIn about a company that asked its employees to go all-in on social media every day. Within a few weeks, their revenue shot up, and they said it was the best marketing they’d ever done.
I’m not talking about spending millions on marketing. I’d much rather see the 200 (?) WooCommerce employees on social media every single day. It’s not hard—just share what you worked on, or what you’re working on.
Show Up Daily, Anywhere
Showing up doesn’t require a camera crew or a polished video—a quick post on Twitter or LinkedIn is more than enough.
What matters is consistency. Every day that a Woo employee shares what they’re working on, a challenge they faced, or a small win, they strengthen the connection with the community.
This is about making Woo human again. These daily signals build trust, spark conversations, and give merchants and developers confidence that someone is listening, experimenting, and solving real problems.
Over time, sharing small, real stories builds way more momentum than any marketing campaign or press release ever could.
Show up. Share. Engage. Anywhere you feel comfortable—but do it daily. That’s how we make Woo alive, visible, and relatable.
Woo, are you ready to show your work and share what you’re building every day?
P.S. If you enjoyed this and want to see more of this in action, James Kemp will be speaking at Checkout Summit (in person) and Checkout Summit {Reloaded} (remotely, on May 7) about “WooCommerce Unfiltered,” giving a behind-the-scenes look at the platform and the decisions shaping it.
