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We talk with people interested in WordPress publishing. You'll hear interview with publishers who happen to be using WordPress, and also people in the WordPress space.
Hi, and welcome to the Publish Press Podcast. I'm Steve Burge And in this week's episode, we have some good news. In the last couple years after the coronavirus, there was a lot of talk about the death of WordPress events and just conferences in general. We saw some big cancellations of things like the O'Reilly conferences and lots of smaller conferences and word camps were just sucked up in that.
Steve Burge:It was difficult to get people to meet in person again. But this year, we've seen quite a bounce back. We've had Ben May from Sydney on the podcast, and he's holding a enterprise WordPress event down there. We had Raquel from PressConf talking about her event in Arizona. There's been others including LoopConf in London recently.
Steve Burge:And in this week's episode, I'm happy to have Rodolfo Muloggi who is holding Checkout Summit in Palermo, Italy. He's built a real following in the WooCommerce world, and he's now leveraging that to hold a conference in Italy all about WorkCommerce. I think you're gonna find this a really interesting episode about the value of community and also of taking risks. He's not held a conference like this before, but it's working because people have learned to trust him over his years in WooCommerce, and I know he's gonna make this work. If you're interested in WooCommerce, hear what Rodolfo has to say, and maybe you should be considering getting on a plane to his conference in Italy in April year.
Steve Burge:Hey, Rodolfo. Welcome to the Published Press Podcast.
Rodolfo Melogi:Thank you, Steve. It's a absolute pleasure.
Steve Burge:So we've had a a bunch of people on the podcast lately. We had Raquel who is running PressConf, and we had Ben May who is running WordPress event in Australia. A couple of years ago, we were talking about how WordPress conferences had died after COVID, but here we are with really several conferences. I think we had loop conf in London lately. And now, Rodolfo, you are doing Checkout Summit.
Steve Burge:Right?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yep. That's correct. And after all these years where I've been really talking out loud, you know, asking WooCommerce, can we get back into conferences? I mean, we all need that. And there's been also a trend on work camps not to include too much of WooCommerce.
Rodolfo Melogi:And and I said, right. I mean, that's given you the chance to get back onto organizing WooConf, which used to be the flagship conference organized by WooCommerce in 2000 and, I think, '15, '16, '17, something like that. They did it three times. And, apparently, it was amazing. I mean, I wasn't around back then, but I've been pushing them to, you know, after COVID, you know, we're back into normal life, Bartlett, to, you know, organize it.
Rodolfo Melogi:I mean, it's a big brand and a big brand needs to talk to its users. And I've always wanted to do you know, I always wanted them to go back to Wacomf. I've been telling them on Twitter, on emails, I've posted several, you know, blog blogs on on several posts on my blog about, you know, the benefits of having a a conference for WooCommerce. And and then I said, you know what? I'm gonna, you know, go crazy for one day and say, I'll do it.
Rodolfo Melogi:And and not trying to redo what they did at WooConf, so I'm just came up with my own conference, gave it a name, and went for it. And the first 50 tickets already sold. Congrats. So I'm kinda okay. So this is actually happening.
Rodolfo Melogi:And I'm absolutely delighted to be, you know, looking at all these independent and affiliate WordPress events because people definitely need to go back to, you know, putting a face on other people to chat in real life and to be present and understand what's going on in the WordPress, WooCommerce, in this case, Word, and see, you know, what the future holds.
Steve Burge:So it's been a while, but if memory serves me right, they did a couple of WooCommerce up in Seattle, Washington in The United States?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yep. I'd say three of them. I think there was Austin as well at some stage. I think we're talking about 1516, and 2018 or something like that.
Steve Burge:Been a while.
Rodolfo Melogi:So it's been a very long while. And of course, like as part of my process of, oh, I'll do it myself, there was also myself really pushing them to get back onto organizing their own events because at work camps, there are no WooCommerce talks, not a lot of WooCommerce people. So I was hoping for them to do it. So in the meanwhile, I said, you know what? I'll do it myself.
Rodolfo Melogi:Came up with the name, which is, let's say, software agnostic. So it's check out Summit. It's not, you know, WooCommerce Summit or something like that or Shopify Conf. So I'm going to cover ecommerce in general, but this year, I want it to be about WooCommerce. And hopefully, you know, if it goes well, I'm going to redo it and redo it and redo it.
Rodolfo Melogi:I've spoken to WooCommerce, of course, before coming up with this whole thing because I thought it was fair to get in touch with them before organizing it. Yes. It's an independent event, but still I'm going to be having 12 speakers talking about WooCommerce. I'm going to have attendees from all over the world working on WooCommerce products, developers, agencies. So I had to ask WooCommerce for at least permission, like, can I do this?
Rodolfo Melogi:And I say, oh gosh, this is great timing. We're so happy that you can help with this. And, you know, I we chose together the date. I thought it was important because, you know, there are so many flagship work camps, so many, you know, third party events like, you know, press conference, and CloudFest, and loop conference. I mean, there are so many of them that, you know, if one day I wanted WooCommerce to also be a sponsor, I couldn't pick a date where another big event was happening.
Rodolfo Melogi:So it's it was important to also agree on a on a good date, which is gonna be April 2026.
Steve Burge:Also, the automatic team have been working really quite closely with you. They've said, hey, this is a good thing. We want you to hold this event. Here are some good dates. They've actually been quite supportive and quite helpful in getting this this hold.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. Let's say I gave them based on the venue availability, which we'll probably cover later. I was given, you know, late April and mid October, and I just went to WooCommerce and said, what about these two dates? Like, is any of these, like, gonna cause, you know, problems, or is there any other WooCommerce event you're planning to attend so that eventually you you can you can send speakers to check out Summit or you maybe you can even sponsor it. So, you know, we're kinda chatting behind the scenes and trying to agree on a on a date.
Rodolfo Melogi:And q one, almost q two two thousand and twenty six was the the best choice. You know, there is Work Camp Asia, which should have been in February, but now it's been pushed to early April. There is Work Camp EU in June, and there is Work Camp US in August. So that's why I picked April, then work camp Asia pushed forward by two months, and it's a bit of a problem, but at the same time, it's very early April, and I'm late April.
Steve Burge:Rodolfo, you are hosting the event in Palermo, in Sicily, in the South Of Italy. You may have a similar problem with holding conferences where I am in Florida, that there's a there's a whole stretch in the summer, say, between July, August, September when almost nobody wants to come. It's too hot.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yes.
Steve Burge:Is it is that right for Sicily too that coming in the spring or the fall is going to be the best time? So April is a good time to be coming to Palermo.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. That was also what I had in mind. Like, I'm not organizing a conference in the middle of the summer where you might get up to 40 degrees Celsius, and it's like, that that's not nice. There is a swimming pool in in the hotel, but at the same time, I didn't want to, you know, risk it. So, you know, late April or, you know, October, they're actually nice months.
Rodolfo Melogi:In here, you might get the odd rain, but it's nice. You know, the 20 degrees more or less during the day. If the wind from the desert comes up, it might get a little bit higher. You never know. I mean, that that's really something that might last two or three days, and you never know when it's gonna happen.
Rodolfo Melogi:But it's a nice temperature. I mean, not saying you can, you know, you can swim in the sea, which is right in front of the venue. Not saying you can enjoy the swimming pools, which will be open by the way. But, yeah, it should be nice weather, hopefully, and not too hot for most Central Europeans and North Americans, especially. For us, like Sicilians, late April, it's definitely not a good time to go to the sea, to go to the beach.
Rodolfo Melogi:We'd be wearing still jackets and, you know, hoodies and, you know, trousers and, you know, shoes. But usually the, you know, the beach season starts in early June when there are at least 30 degrees. So that that's that's our mindset anyway. If it's not 30, it's not good enough, you know. You will get the odd tourists like, you know, walking on the beach in February and maybe it's a beautiful day, it's like 15 degrees and for them it's like summer.
Rodolfo Melogi:So, know, the beach right there is beautiful. But that's that's a nice time of the year, and that's what I was hoping for.
Steve Burge:So how did you get here? How did you end up getting a 150 people to fly to Palermo for a WooCommerce event? Take me back. How did you how did you first get your feet wet in the WordPress world?
Rodolfo Melogi:Well, that's that's a very long
Steve Burge:That's a long way back?
Rodolfo Melogi:A very long story. Let's say that I am a civil engineer. So I was working completely on, you know, different stuff, and I was in Ireland at the moment at the time. So I went to Ireland in 2007, started working for an engineering company. And after four years of, you know, long days and weekends and long nights and loads of work and lots of rain as well, the recession, the two thousand and eleven recession or, you know, if we want, 2010 recession came.
Rodolfo Melogi:And in '11, I was let go. And I said
Steve Burge:What what were you building, if you don't mind me asking? Can you walk around different parts of Ireland and say that's what I I'm was from Rome.
Rodolfo Melogi:Okay. And I build roads. So that that's what I I went that's why I went to Ireland for. Apparently, the the Romans didn't get to Ireland. They only got to UK and then stopped.
Steve Burge:The Romans, they thought that the British people were weird and scary. I think they painted themselves blue. But the Irish, they were even more scared of the Irish. They thought it was just beyond the edge of civilization. And so, yeah, no Roman roads in Ireland, I guess, until until you arrived.
Rodolfo Melogi:Until I I got there and and then started building motorways. And it was it was a very good job, to be honest. And we're checking that the right materials were going in the right places. So we were not the We were checking on the quality of the materials and, you know, Ireland is like always wet. It was so hard to work in there for for the Portuguese contractor.
Rodolfo Melogi:Like they were really missing the sunshine. So in 2011, I was let go, and I was given the option to go to Canada or Australia with the same company. And I say, no, thanks. I wanna stay here, love Ireland. Actually, you know, I I got to like it very much and found my little piece of paradise.
Rodolfo Melogi:So which part of
Steve Burge:Ireland were you living in at the time?
Rodolfo Melogi:I was just South Of Dublin in a Okay. Kind of a commuting town called Naas, N A A S. And it's lovely, you know, super green, you know, nice houses and kinda fancy, bars and restaurants and, great tennis club. That's that's, you know, where I, spent most of my time in Ireland inside the tennis club. So I said, I'll take a few months off and see how it goes.
Rodolfo Melogi:And then I said, hold on. I'm Italian. The bakery in the town that I used to live just closed down. And I said, you know what? I'm just gonna build a bakery online and build a website, do lots of recipes of biscuits and stuff that I can sell while cooking at my place.
Rodolfo Melogi:Do a, you know, a course for safety and stuff like that and sell it. And I say, wow, that's amazing. Let's do it. Then I ate so many biscuits in the next few weeks that I got sick of cooking, of baking, and I say, hold on, but I like doing websites. I really enjoyed this experience of putting together a website for my bakery online and you know, e commerce kind of thing at the time.
Rodolfo Melogi:It was like Google sites or something all by hand. And I say, I could do this. You know, up to that moment, I had a bit of HTML experience. I've done some fantasy football websites and stuff like that or board games and stuff. And I say, I could do this for for a living.
Rodolfo Melogi:I may charge, like, you know, €50 for an ecommerce website and see how it goes. And then I say, hold on. €50 multiplied by how many clients to get to a decent a decent salary. So, you know, I started very slow, very small through the chamber of commerce. And my first client was like ecommerce client.
Rodolfo Melogi:They wanted to sell online. I had no idea about software, how it could be done, how what I could be using, I said, oh, this WooCommerce looks good. It was back in 2012, and I said, let's do it. And from that moment on, I became a WooCommerce expert over the years because I was sharing like code snippets and customizations on on my blog and loads of traffic started to come and everyone wanted to hire me and you know, to achieve the same things or, you know, a modification or whatever snippet that I published. And then, you know, the the whole thing opened up a new word, you know, from civil engineering to, you know, coding.
Rodolfo Melogi:Like, I'm not a developer.
Steve Burge:You never opened up the bakery?
Rodolfo Melogi:I never did. I had a domain registered. I had a logo, like, maybe done on Paint or whatever it was at the time. I had a website and the PayPal buttons underneath each pack of biscuits, and then I actually never sold anything. I just ate everything myself by myself.
Rodolfo Melogi:And and then, you know, that was the motivation that brought me to, you know, become a website developer for the local, you know, businesses first and then through the luck, to be honest, that I had by sharing my WooCommerce customizations on my blog. Then I became an international WooCommerce developer just because people were sending inquiries from all over the world to say, I wanna do that. I wanna do that. Can you do that? Can you do that?
Rodolfo Melogi:So I became the WooCommerce mechanic if we want to because they were all coming with existing websites and they wanted to add something more. And that was beginning of my WooCommerce career.
Steve Burge:So you were in WooCommerce very early. The the fork from Jigoshop was 2011. 2011? And so you you jumped in just about when the first versions of WooCommerce came out.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. It was about 2012 with my first WooCommerce client. So about a year later, I remember still has a fun, a very fun brand of these kind of foodie doing all this kind of vapor things, recipes. I don't know what what they're called, though, even though if they still exist. I don't think so.
Rodolfo Melogi:But he was a chef and doing all these fancy things to eat. And it was very relevant to, you know, what I've done, what I did earlier with the bakery. So I say, oh, this is gonna be easy. I'll just charge you £700. And and that was my, you know, my first experience with WooCommerce.
Steve Burge:You've had a thirteen, fourteen year career in WooCommerce now. What have you done? You've been a a developer, a blogger. You've created courses. You've had a whole career in WooCommerce.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. It's been a long ride, to be honest. And, you know, if you asked Rodolfo from 2011, like, where do you see yourself in thirteen years? Know? Never thought about this.
Rodolfo Melogi:Like, was all like natural and organic. And, oh, this is working. I'll just do more. Or or there is definitely a need for an online course. Why don't I record the one?
Rodolfo Melogi:And then 45 lessons after I I published it, and it was a lot of work. So basically, I, you know, I spent all this time you know, I started with doing full websites. I said, after a few months, couple of years, maybe I said, this is not for me. Like, I'm not gonna stick with six or or nine months projects. Like, it's way too much work, like waiting for the content and photos and, you know, architecture.
Rodolfo Melogi:And I had no patience whatsoever. So I said, you know what? I'm going to work on an hourly basis on smaller projects. And that was a great luck, to be honest, and choice at the same time because then, you know, through the blog. So I wasn't doing any any network, you know, I wasn't doing any in real life conferences.
Rodolfo Melogi:I wasn't going anywhere except, you know, being on my chair in my, you know, room of my house and, you know, getting inquiries every day through the blog. So that was When
Steve Burge:you say the blog, what which website were you blogging so prolifically on?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. So that was the Business Bloomer blog. And the actual name Business Bloomer, I mean, got nothing to do with WooCommerce. And that's because early in my web design career, I wanted businesses to bloom. So I wanted them to I wanted to give them a website, which was not just a brochure website, you know, something that could help them convert or get people to the contact form or get people to purchase the product.
Rodolfo Melogi:So the the idea behind this brand was to actually help clients make more money. And then that stayed on over the years. And I never felt like, oh, it's time to rebrand. We've seen how rebrands can really go bad, you know, in regards to SEO, in regards to anything. And I say, you know what?
Rodolfo Melogi:Just stick with it. And now people, oh, you're a business bloomer. I say, yeah. How do you know me? Say, oh, I've been on your blog for like seven years and always full of, you know, great tips and snippets.
Rodolfo Melogi:Say, right. Nice to meet you. So actually people know me, but I don't know anyone basically.
Steve Burge:It's could be called rodolfomalogy.com or something. It's it's you. Business bloomer is you. You're the you're the face of it. You're the person that people go to for their WooCommerce advice.
Steve Burge:It's a it's a personal brand almost?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. I would say so. In fact, I try to put my little gravatar face on on every page just in case. And, you know, on social, I always try to be me as opposed to the brand. Speaking, I don't particularly like brands on social.
Rodolfo Melogi:I don't follow Annie. I just follow people. So I like to be very personal successes and failures and whatever it is. So, yeah, business bloomer equals Rodolpho and Rodolpho equals business bloomer. And also, I mean, that that's another reason why I said, oh, we need a conference now for WooCommerce makers.
Steve Burge:Oh, okay. So that background really helps me understand why you you think you are well positioned to host a WooCommerce conference and people know you as the WooCommerce guy. But was there a moment, a spark when suddenly the conference went from not happening to happening from from zero to one? Was there a moment when Checkout Summit was born?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. I think it was a moment of madness for sure. I was at WCEU in Basel in Switzerland last June. So we're talking about, you know, just a a few weeks ago, basically. I was talking to some WooCommerce folks in the in the hallway, and we all noticed that, you know, a conference was badly needed.
Rodolfo Melogi:And I say, oh, I've been saying that for years. And I say, you know what? I'll just do it. And, like, we're kinda joking and, you know, I wasn't being serious. And then I I went back home, like, after a couple of days.
Rodolfo Melogi:And I said, you know what? Like, I might come up with something. It happened that, you know, in the last few years, my traffic has gone down by a lot because I provide code snippets and now AI is doing it sometimes even better. So my traffic has gone down. My leads have gone down.
Rodolfo Melogi:My revenue has gone down, and therefore, I had more time. And and I say, you know what? I mean, the only way to fight against AI is to humanize back my brand, which means showing up in public speaking, you know, building a membership site where there are real humans behind it, and maybe organizing a conference. I say, why not? I mean, it shouldn't be that hard.
Rodolfo Melogi:I've organized meetups, and I co organized a local work camp. And I said, shouldn't be too difficult, and that was really crazy. But we're here now, so I have to do it now.
Steve Burge:So we deal with a lot of publishers, and they're in the same situation as you. AI is eating their traffic, and quite a lot of them are pivoting and saying the one thing that AI cannot do is create and cultivate a community, and they're hosting events. A lot of these publishers are local, so there are events in their community. But that is something that AI cannot take away from them, that you, they have the ability to create in real life events, communities that can't be sucked up into a database.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. I truly agree. And, you know, in my, let's call it rebranding for this year, definitely, there is, you know, a a choice of going against the bots, against the chat bots, against the AIs because everyone knows how to use them. Everyone use them on a daily basis no matter what you do with it. So the only way to, you know, to get back into community, the only way to get away from, you know, the screen is probably like a conference.
Rodolfo Melogi:It's probably a meetup. It's probably, you know, could be a podcast, a video. Like, whatever AI can't do, then that's a good thing to to focus on now. And JEKHOUT Summit came at the perfect time, perfect moment, and I had the time to organize it, spent the the full summer, like, looking for venues and, you know, studying and analyzing the feasibility and how many people am I gonna get. And is there a venue with rooms?
Rodolfo Melogi:Because I didn't want people to, you know, to go to the to a conference and then go search for accommodation elsewhere. I wanted to, you know, basically create a gathering of 150 people in the same place for two days talking about what, you know, the future holds in regard to WooCommerce. And then I said, you know what? Amazing. That's all good.
Rodolfo Melogi:I found the venue. I paid the deposit. So I'm gonna go for it. And then finally, he started to sell some tickets, you know, the first 50 early birds. And no speakers announced, no sponsors announced, no schedule, nothing available except a place, a date, and a venue.
Rodolfo Melogi:And, basically, we have 50 people now attending, and I haven't announced anything else. So that that's the the power of WooCommerce. That's the power of in person events, and that's the the power of my brand as well because, I mean, everyone believes in me. I hope I'm not gonna let them down because, I mean, it's the first ever event. So lots of things can go wrong, but I hope that the the good ones are gonna be, you know, more than the than the bad ones.
Rodolfo Melogi:And, hopefully, they're gonna be happy.
Steve Burge:Yeah. That reflects well on what you've built over the last decade or so. I mean, you're not telling people to come to London or Paris or a big city. You're asking people to take a risk on a new conference that's never been held before, to get on an airplane and fly to Palermo. I mean, in London, you could probably get 50 WooCommerce developers just hop on the tube and come over.
Steve Burge:In Paris, maybe the same. But all these people are committing maybe a week of their lives flying down to Italy. That really reflects well on the work you've done previously to build up a community, to build up a brand of people who trust you enough to to spend that time and effort.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. And, I mean, a lot of people also purchased micro sponsorships just to help out. I mean, that that's amazing. Like, did they even ask them to do that? And, you know, they paid three times the the the ticket price just to to help out with your organization.
Rodolfo Melogi:Wow. And three sponsors are already on board. I only, you know, need three more. And this is kinda working. So I'm really hoping to come up with, you know, a very good schedule of speakers.
Rodolfo Melogi:Like, over the years, I attended so many work amps and, you know, some year, yes, some other year, not really. I was let down by content. And I think instead that a conference should be, first of all, should be content first, should be speakers first. Because if I go to a conference, I wanna spend time, you know, sitting in the audience and listening to great speakers. So they wanna spend time outside the, you know, the rooms and, you know, spend all the time in the hallway tracks.
Rodolfo Melogi:I wanna actually learn something. So that was my first goal. I mean, content has to be super, otherwise makes no sense. Second thing, sponsors have to be relevant, Otherwise makes no sense. So if a sponsor doesn't have any sort of tie with WooCommerce makes no sense.
Rodolfo Melogi:I want them to be part of the event, I want them to be spending time at the side events, I want to be speaking if if possible. So it has to be a full immersion into WooCommerce. So I've chosen some features based on my previous experiences, my previous work camps especially, and something that I really wanted to do if it were my own event. And and I did. The downside to this is that I've done everything on my own.
Rodolfo Melogi:I don't have co organizers. I don't have partners. I don't have, at the moment, a team. It's just myself. I've done everything from building a website through finding the venue, through reaching out to speakers, sponsors, spending time on Twitter, building in public, and LinkedIn now as well recently.
Rodolfo Melogi:I've done everything on my own. And that's tough and that's, risky because I I risk of spending more time in bed as opposed to excuse me. More time, in bed as opposed to, you know, on my on my work chair. But that's that's how it is for now. And maybe in the future, if it if it works well and we wish to scale, maybe we will look into, you know, working on on a bigger team and coming up with a proper company behind this, but at the moment, it's just me.
Rodolfo Melogi:And
Steve Burge:So the goal is a 150 people? Correct. And you've sold 50 plus tickets now. So you're about six months away from the conference now. So your focus over the next six months is to try and persuade another 100 or so people to to join you to talk WooCommerce and Palermo.
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. I believe that I won't need to do too much pushing. I think my goal is to do a lot of pulling. And with that, I mean that if I'm able to announce the right speakers, if I'm able to announce the right sponsors, and if I'm able to tell people that there is more to it, like side events, welcome parties, and a nice and fun day out, the day after the conference, maybe games. I mean, there's so many things that we could be doing.
Rodolfo Melogi:And I believe that by simply announcing things week after week that would eventually pull the remaining 100 people in order to fill basically the the conference venue. And we've got we've blocked a 100 rooms, so that that sounds like a nice compromise. 150 attendees, 100 rooms. I mean, the the conference room could hold maybe 700 people. So maybe in years two, we'll think about that.
Rodolfo Melogi:But I think 150 is a small enough conference where simply word-of-mouth is sufficient. And I'm I'm saying this, which means that I'm hoping the word-of-mouth is sufficient and I don't need to do any advertising or, you know, pushing people to come or, you know, please come. It's gonna be an amazing event. I mean, I want to demonstrate by announcing things that it's gonna be a great event and that they should definitely come. And by the level of people that have seen so far signing up, I mean, we are on a high end level and and super happy.
Rodolfo Melogi:There are, you know, people, you know, $6.07, 8 figures people, product managers, you know, developers, agencies, and I'm super happy to be seeing that without even sending out an email. You know? And that that's an amazing achievement.
Steve Burge:It's attracting the the right people so far, the people who are going to get some value from it, but also add some value as well. One of the the difficult things sometimes about organizing a word camp is you don't really know who you're getting often. It's a very for good and bad, it's a a very random selection of the population, maybe some people working in development, some agency people, some curious people that just happen to have a WordPress website. And so it makes pitching the the content difficult. It makes it it's it's difficult to just help a very broad section of people who turn up to a word camp.
Steve Burge:But by being hyper focused and niche, you're looking for high end WooCommerce people. You immediately narrow down the selection of people, and each person that comes is likely to be someone who is able to contribute a lot and get a lot out of it. Yep. The the lot of self selection.
Rodolfo Melogi:I totally agree. And in the next few weeks, I'm also going to push a lot on the concept that going to check out summit is gonna be an investment. I don't like to saying buy your ticket or purchase your ticket. I like to say invest in your ticket because you're definitely gonna get the money back, if not more. So by having just the right people there, so plug in makers, you know, consultants, developers, agencies.
Rodolfo Melogi:I mean, if you talk to a single person and you get a new contract in or you get a new development job in or a partnership or who knows what, an acquisition, like, you're definitely gonna get the value out of it. And I'm almost thinking of coming up with a guarantee, which is buy your ticket and get the investment back or your money back. So it could be something crazy that anyone's never seen at any conference, but I really believe in the amount of networking that will happen at Checkout Summit. Like, imagine two full days, like, full immersion of WooCommerce makers. And, I mean, if you don't make some money out of it, like, makes no sense, honestly, to even attend the event.
Rodolfo Melogi:So I'm hoping to find a way to demonstrate that this is the event for those who are serious into WooCommerce and those who are willing to, you know, upgrade or to increase the revenue or to find new opportunities. And I want these to be the place to be for a WooCommerce product manager or developer and go there with a specific objective.
Steve Burge:So you have basically booked into this. One of the interesting things about events is it's almost like one of those big sort of eight, nine month projects that you told me you were trying to run away from earlier, that you've booked a venue, you've put the deposit down, you've sold 50 tickets, people have probably booked flights, have booked hotel rooms. You're booked into this project for the next half a year. You have, I think, from what I hear, speakers and sponsors, but none of them are announced yet. What's your plan over the next six months?
Steve Burge:Are you basically going to be using those announcements to to regularly drum up interest, like one week new sponsor, one next week new speaker. You kind of have a plan over the next six months to to keep pulling, to use your phrase, to keep making announcements and trying to to pull people to attend?
Rodolfo Melogi:Yeah. That's that's a great question. And I have here actually on my board a timeline of, you know, what I think it should happen in the next few months. For sure, call for speakers, call for sponsors, call for volunteers, call for media partners, and call for, and I'm really proud of this, call for underrepresented willing to attend the event even if they can't afford it. We have a we would have an inclusion grant.
Rodolfo Melogi:So anyone from anywhere in the world can actually hope to attend the event and get everything paid, ticket, accommodation, flight as a a refund on their expense anyway, on their purchase. So it's all closing at the October. I've chosen a single date just not to get, you know, not to go crazy with, oh, the call for sponsors in October, the sponsor the speakers in November. No. Everything is closing like this Friday, basically.
Rodolfo Melogi:And of course, if I can't feel all the sponsors, I will leave the call, you know, open for a few more days. But overall, from what I've seen, I have the speakers mostly mostly done. I have the sponsors three out of six. I have some volunteers. I have loads of media partners, potential because I haven't chosen them yet.
Rodolfo Melogi:So in the next few months, what what am I gonna work on? As I said earlier, I'm going to announce some things like week after week. I mean, I don't I don't wanna overdo this too much. Definitely, I'm going to be announcing the headline sponsor very soon. And that's one thing that will pull a lot of people to the event.
Rodolfo Melogi:You know, that's that's a hope. Anyway, should be a big one. And, you know, over the next few weeks, I will then especially focus on speakers. Like, I want, you know, people who are well known in the WooCommerce space. I want relevant speakers.
Rodolfo Melogi:I won't be sharing the topics as of yet, but surely, you know, four or five phases in the next month or so, they will be published on the website. I don't wanna publish the yet because we've seen how much WooCommerce has changed in the last six months. And I don't wanna think what will happen in the following six months. So the actual schedule with the actual talks will be published later on, maybe in 2026. But for sure in the next few weeks, we're gonna be talking about the headline sponsors, about the supporting sponsors, and about the speakers.
Rodolfo Melogi:This should take me to the end of the year, so 12/31/2025 with the regular tickets sold out. And then in 2026, I'm going to issue 50 additional premium tickets, which would be for, you know, the late attendees, still is not they're not expensive for a two days conference where everything is included, like lunches, dinner, drinks, talks, side events, and you name it. So it's it's a good price point. But still, they're gonna be a little bit more expensive. And that means then 2026, that will focus on, you know, really coming up with a strong schedule and loads of possibly side events sponsored, hopefully, or not sponsored or whatever it is.
Rodolfo Melogi:And lots of things that can basically communicate the value of attending this conference, the value of coming to Palermo for two days and, you know, possibly find your next business partner or your next gig or whatever it is that could really open up, you know, a new world for you in regard to, you know, revenue partnerships and growing your business or agency.
Steve Burge:I wish you luck. It sounds as if if things go well, this could be the start of something new for you too. This could be Checkout Summit version one. And if it goes well, there could be a 2027, 2028 version as well. And you have me curious about the major sponsor now.
Steve Burge:You say it's someone that's gonna get people excited. That's probably not gonna be WooCommerce themselves or Automatic because those are the ones people would just expect.
Rodolfo Melogi:So I'm see? Sorry. Can't You're say anything
Steve Burge:doing well by teasing these things out. So we're going to be expecting some big sponsor announcements, some big speaker announcements. You're gonna be rolling this out, and I wish you all the best.
Rodolfo Melogi:Thank you.
Steve Burge:Maybe we should have you back on in May when you've held the event, and you've had a couple of weeks to recover.
Rodolfo Melogi:I'm still alive.
Steve Burge:You can tell us
Rodolfo Melogi:how it went. Oh,
Steve Burge:you'll be you'll be great, and you'll be starting to have some ideas in your brain for next year's conference, I'm sure. Thank you so much, Rodolfo. I wish you all the best with Checkout Summit version one.
Rodolfo Melogi:Thanks a lot, and thanks a lot for having me. It was a a very nice conversation. I enjoyed this a lot.