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For long-form interviews, news, and commentary about the WordPress ecosystem. This is the companion show to The WP Minute, your favorite 5-minutes of WordPress news every week.
Eric Karkovack (00:01)
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the WP Minute. I'm your host Eric Karkovack.
And today my guest is Rodolfo. And ⁓ if you're into WooCommerce, you probably know a little bit about this man. ⁓ He is behind the outstanding website Business Bloomer, which I have used so many times over the years, I can't tell you. ⁓ And he's also organizing a WooCommerce event called the Checkout Summit. It's going to be taking place from April 23rd to 24th, 2026 in beautiful Palermo, Sicily. Rodolfo, welcome to the WP Minute.
Rodolfo Melogli (00:36)
Well, thank you so much, Eric. It's an absolute pleasure. And I must say that after all these years of, you know, hiding behind the screen and the keyboard, it's now time to, you know, come back in real life and in person. That's the ultimate goal of the conference of, you know, my rebranding, you know, my personal rebranding as well. Cause I believe that it's the only way to fight against AI.
Eric Karkovack (01:07)
Yeah, we are definitely in a different kind of moment with that. I do want to get your opinion on that in a minute, but as I said, I am a frequent visitor to Business Bloomer. Your visual hook guides have helped me so much in customizing sites for clients. So I thank you for building that. And I know you have a great club of where you share knowledge. How did you first get into all of that with WooCommerce? How did you start deciding, hey, I'm going to educate people on how to do different things with Woo?
Rodolfo Melogli (01:38)
That's an interesting question. And I have to say it's a mix of luck ⁓ as usual and a mix of, this luck is actually working. Let me do more of it. So my luck was back in 2012, almost at the beginning of my web design career. I'm a civil engineer, like nothing to do with web design, web development.
Eric Karkovack (02:06)
That's a very different
field, yes.
Rodolfo Melogli (02:08)
Yeah,
no background whatsoever. And I was let go and I say, what am I going to do? I just do websites. Why not? Sounds like a nice lifestyle. And my first clients were actually local e-commerce entrepreneurs in Ireland. One us used to live there and I picked WooCommerce out of the hat, to be honest. I absolutely know.
idea what the difference were between that and magenta at the time and whatever else was around. And I picked that. Then I enjoyed it very much. So I built, you know, five, six, seven, eight, 10 websites, maybe at the time for clients. And I noticed that every time I used to basically reuse some code snippets or reuse some, you know, knowledge base or
You know, kept doing always the same thing. I say, hold on, I have a personal website where I have the portfolio and where I share some tips sometimes. Why don't I save these code snippets for myself? So next line that comes up, I simply copy and paste. And that was the luck because from that moment onwards, I noticed like huge spike.
in Google analytics at the time. I said, hold on, what's going on? Like, why are these tutorials getting, they were not tutorials. They were simply a title, three words and the snippet. And they were getting so much traffic. I said, oh, hold on. What, what, am I doing here? Like I definitely should be starting to curate a weekly, you know, blog post sharing exactly these things.
And I used to be on Fiverr at the time as well. And I was like the only one at the time doing WooCommerce customizations. So I used to get like two or three clients per day doing very small edits. So I simply basically copied and pasted all my snippets from the client work to my website, scheduled it so I could have a frequent publishing of my tutorials and posts. And then my...
My whole world basically changed around. And from web designer, I became a commerce expert specialized in customization. So I wasn't dealing any longer with people without a website. I was now dealing with people with a website that already spent money and now needed a customization or an edit. And those visual guides, which are still relevant, even though now with blocks.
that have gone a little bit obsolete if you want to, but that depends on which way you're developing websites. I for me, they're still super relevant. Those were simply, hold on, I need a place where I can simply copy and paste hooks and I know exactly where they're placed without having to scroll through the plugin code base every time and search for specific keywords. And that's how they were born.
And basically this initial luck and then seeing how the traffic was growing. We were at the very beginning of the WooCommerce success. So there was so much traffic, so much people coming to my site. And for years, I basically did no networking, no podcasts, no in real life conferences, nothing except posting blog, mean, publishing blog posts. And that was my only source of income.
and stayed like that until a couple of years ago. ⁓
Eric Karkovack (06:05)
That's incredible. I mean, that
was a fun time for WordPress developers, I think, because everything was kind of exploding at that point. And if you had a resource like Business Bloomer where you could find these code snippets, that was like finding gold for a developer. Especially because, I mean, with WooCommerce, everything is so ⁓ customizable, right? So...
people will ask, clients are gonna inevitably ask for things that I don't know how to do. And here you have this website that has all of these great tips and I can look and see, this is how Rodolfo did it. And kind of apply it to ⁓ my work. And so I think you deserve a lot of credit for the growth of WooCommerce just because you've helped so many people along with customizing it.
Rodolfo Melogli (06:52)
Indeed.
would say I'm an evangelist of WooCommerce customization and flexibility and the potential that this system has had, still has, at some stage, even WooCommerce.com, they removed whatever tutorials they had on their website as well. Loads of snippets, lots of...
customizations, tutorials, so I don't know why they did that. And therefore I got basically all the traffic off it as well. And then competitors came, of course, copycats came, of course, and then AI came a couple of years ago. And now I'm here ⁓ looking for plan B.
Eric Karkovack (07:39)
Well, I I definitely want to talk about the event in a minute, but I did want to ask you, like, what are your opinions on where WooCommerce is today? Because we've seen Shopify and some other competitors come along and probably winning on the ease of use portion of things. But where do you see WooCommerce right now in the market and, you know, how it's evolving?
Rodolfo Melogli (08:03)
Yeah, I mean, that's a million, probably a $10 million question, probably, because that strictly depends on the client requirements, but also on the developer as well. mean, there so many developers that think that WooCommerce is no good. It's rubbish. lot of other developers that think that Shopify is too expensive and it's not worth investing.
in it or they're not familiar with it and they stick with WooCommerce and vice versa. it's a mix. There's no answer to that. I mean, over the last few years, we've seen like millions of clients going from WooCommerce to Shopify and maybe millions of clients like going back to WooCommerce as well or moving into the opposite direction. sometimes a certain business has some problem and that
Eric Karkovack (08:51)
Yeah.
Rodolfo Melogli (09:01)
coming maybe from hosting. mean, not necessarily from the plugin itself. then say, you know, and then things, ⁓ that's WooCommerce fault and I need to switch to something else. And then they moved to Shopify and then they changed their mind again. And you know, after two years and say, my God, this is too expensive or I can't achieve what I want to achieve because I need to install like 10 apps or
you know it's closed environment so you can really do everything that you want to and with WooCommerce if you want to you can really make it yours.
And with that, mean, yes, you own your data, you know, you're free. It's open source and you check, you control the code. You can fork it. You can copy. can do whatever you want, but at the same time, it's super flexible.
I mean, if you want to achieve something, now we come back once again to the AI era. Like you can do so much stuff with WooCommerce plus AI or even without it, just by you going through the code and looking for hooks and know, filters and actions and edit the template or the admin or change the, you know, the display or whatever it is.
It's so cool and still like so manageable, so flexible and so such a ⁓ cool piece of software that, you know, I never had basically, of course the time, but also the will of, you know, experimenting with Shopify simply because up to this moment, like I was completely flat out, we work, clients, my website.
like content writing and now even shooting because I'm doing lots of videos now and the membership and Slack channel. mean, that really keeps me busy like 24 seven.
Eric Karkovack (11:04)
Sure. So ⁓ tell me a story behind Checkout Summit. So what led you to decide that you wanted to put on an event? Because that's quite a big deal compared to putting out videos and blog posts.
Rodolfo Melogli (11:18)
Oh,
it is. In fact, I hope I'm not going to regret this, to be honest, and I'm going to arrive alive to April the 23rd. So the story was this, like over the years, there had been a few WooCommerce conferences called WooConf, organized by WooCommerce. I think they did three of them around 2016, 17, 18, or something like that.
Eric Karkovack (11:23)
You
Rodolfo Melogli (11:47)
in America, in Austin, Washington, and New York maybe. So at the time, like, I wasn't really making enough money and I didn't invest into buying a ticket and a flight and visa and I didn't want to bother with it. But I kind of liked the idea. Then, like over the years, there was War Camps, especially War Camp Europe.
Like almost every year I tried to make it an appointment for myself and just spend some time with people. And the other 363 days, you know, behind a keyboard in my little house room. So it's good for me. And over the years, like I posted on Twitter and blogged about Wacom forever. Like, please, can we please get it back after COVID? Of course.
I think it's such a great idea. So good for WooCommerce. Like WorkCamps, they basically removed for some reason all the WooCommerce stocks and all the WooCommerce people as a result of this. So I think at WorkCamp EU there was one WooCommerce stock out of 50 and WorkCamp US maybe just one or maybe an e-commerce stock, super generic. So for some reason people stopped either pitching
WooCommerce talks. mean, I kept pitching WooCommerce talks, like three talks per WCU and was never picked for that. So I guess there was some decision there.
Rodolfo Melogli (13:28)
All right, so basically I've been asking WooCommerce for years on social through blog posts in any possible way to get back into in-person conferences because I think it was badly needed. Then at WorkCamp EU 2025, so we're talking about June a few weeks ago, basically, was talking to some WooCommerce folks.
there in the hallway as usual, that's my usual work camp EU experience like spending loads of time in the hallway and we're talking about WooCommerce and you know the future and blogs and stuff and also we say listen how come there's still no WooCommerce talks at work camp EU and what can we do about that? say you know what like I think I'm gonna do my own conference I've been thinking about a retreat
sort of thing for a few years, like doing a very small gathering. And then I said, why not extend it to like more people? Still, I wanted to keep it small, so not like 3000 people, which to me is like super overwhelming. And I tend to talk to the same five people for those three days at work camp, when I'm happy with it. And then the other 2,995 people, they're like strangers to me.
That's my way of being. as I said, I still want to do a small conference, but I'll do it. You know what? I go for it. And then I went back home and I said, like, you crazy Rudolpho, like you're going to do this like all on your own. And where are you going to do it? Like, how are you going to find sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and media partners, and you need to build a website and you need to get quotes and you need to come up with something that can actually.
pay you something, like I can't do this on a volunteer basis, like trying to break even like, you 100 % of work camps and say, are you doing the right thing? And then, you know, say what I said, I have some time, like it was June, so it was the summer and the summer we usually moved to the beach house. So I kind of have some extra time because the kids stays with grandma and you know, go to the beach.
There's more time off. I can just leave and go to the office there and spend some time and say, I think that this might work. Let's do some calls to close by venues. So I didn't want to go far away from where I live. said, let's look for venues in Palermo and they must have rooms because I don't want people to go searching for accommodation around.
you have a conference and rooms at the conference. It's going to be easier.
Rodolfo Melogli (16:26)
And, um, also I wanted to have, I wanted to be at the beach. So I had a very specific requirement, which was, you know, big conference hotel.
has to be at the beach because I mean, why people would go to conferences otherwise. And then I picked three or four of them when visiting them in July, we're like 45 degrees Celsius, it was like sweating like crazy, but I had no choice. And I picked two of them and then I came up with one and I said, this is gonna be okay, I'm gonna do it. And I built the website all on my own.
I, you know, came up with a budget, ⁓ with a plan. I started to build in public, which because I'm a solo founder, really helped me like getting help from anybody. So, you know, am I going to have one track or double tracks or two tracks? Am I going to, you know, have to provide food or not?
Should we have like DJ or a quiet after party and all the, all these kinds of decisions, they're all based on Twitter polls. And, I mean, I didn't get, you know, thousands of votes, but I had an idea and that, you know, that was kind of the same with that people thought, ⁓ in their voting, ⁓ on these polls. And then I copied the results of these polls and I created blog posts for the website and.
Yeah, was a lot of work, have to say. Like July and August, I was spending quite a lot of time on this. And it was all fluff, to be honest, because I had a website, I had content, I had a logo, I had a venue and then nothing to show. So in September I said, I have to sell tickets. Like, I don't care even if I don't have speakers, I don't have sponsors, but I need to see if this is real.
And then 50 tickets later, which would be one third of the expected attendees, because I don't want to have a big event. So 150, it's a nice number, especially for year one. And I say, if 50 tickets sold without doing anything, like just sharing the link on Twitter and now LinkedIn as well.
And I didn't announce anyone yet, like just a place, a date and a WooCommerce conference for makers. And then they actually bought the tickets. Okay, listen now, now it's real. Now it's happening. So now I need to put some work on it and start looking for great speakers and hopefully get sponsors
Eric Karkovack (19:14)
You
Let's talk a little bit about what people can expect then. I mean, I know you don't have speakers quite yet. I know you've been asking for submissions. Have you gotten a lot of good submissions yet? Are the people that you think are going to be a good fit?
Rodolfo Melogli (19:38)
Yeah, I think that I managed to attract the right audience, both in regarding to attendees. So if you go to the attendees page, you have like agency owners, product managers, know, six, seven, eight figures developers. So that's exactly who I was looking for. Like the decision makers or...
the experts or the successful ones. And speaking of speakers, I got about 20 submissions. Now, if you think it's going to be two days of conference and a single track, like I chose to have just 12 speakers. And the reason is that I want to have the time to do lots of networking.
I want to have the time to do loads of hallway chats. I want to have the time to do breaks. There is a swimming pool if the weather is nice, there are happy hours. And those are the actual moments where business happens. Business doesn't happen when you're sitting listening to someone. So I'm trying to pick the best to have possible speakers and also let people network.
And, you know, find their peers and, you know, if you're looking into acquisitions, then, you know, you need to talk to, if you're looking to hire someone, then you know, who's for hire. If you need to create partnerships, then we will find you people there. And that's almost my goal, which is kind of a curated networking sessions where on top of being a content first conference, which
It was my goal from the very beginning because work camps usually a super generic, talks and topics because I need to cater for all sorts of levels. this case, I want topics to be like, you need to attend them. Like they must be, you know, super helpful and super relevant and they must contain the WooCommerce keyword in the title. I mean, that's the number one requirement and they must be about making new money at the end.
whether it's saving time or learning a new thing or learning a business trick or copying someone's decision, whatever it is, they need to make you money. And the networking as well is gonna be important. And we're in Sicily, so I mean, to me, like food is so important too. So there's gonna be like all paid for like.
know, breakfast is coming with the accommodation and then you got coffee breaks, lunch, after hours, sorry, happy hours, dinners, after dinners, like all paid for included in the ticket. So I really want people to also enjoy food if they're into food or drinking. they're into drinking, it doesn't really make any difference as long as they enjoy this as both a business trip and also
a fun and relaxing trip. And that was the goal. And that was the reason why I chose nearby Palermo, because within the area, you can always hire a car and go visit amazing places. mean, Palermo city wouldn't be the best city in the world, but you you just drive 20 minutes and you're on a beautiful beach or
You know, you drive one hour and you're in a natural reserve and like there's so many things around you, which are super interesting if someone wants to stay on longer for longer.
Eric Karkovack (23:42)
Yeah, that seems to me like, as I mentioned to you before we recorded, it's rainy, it's cold here. You wouldn't have to talk long to convince me to go there and enjoy the beach, enjoy the nature, just the beauty of Italy, and my gosh, the food. ⁓ So that, I think you picked the absolute right place to have it.
So I noticed that you didn't want to have a live stream or post videos of the conference. And from what you've told me here about, you know, just the a lot of in-person networking, that makes sense. ⁓ Was it a hard decision for you to make, though?
Rodolfo Melogli (24:15)
So it was and it wasn't. mean, live streaming and recording, first of all, costs money, like loads of money. And because this is all on my basically own, like, you know, I'm investing my own money to make these up and hope that the money comes back from sponsors and ticket sales. Like, first of all, it's an expense. But most importantly, we've been...
you know, talking about in-person events for years, like there are amazing online conferences like, you know, WP sessions, WUSash, you know, work camps are live streamed. If you really want to rewatch things, lots of other conferences do live streaming recording. And I said, hold on, like, I need to tell people that this is all about the people actually. It's all about coming here. I mean, it's only 150 people or not, you know.
I don't need to live stream to 5,000 people all over the world. just want 150 in Sicily to come and actually put faces on people that they've always seen online. So the live stream and the recording goes basically against my ideal conference type, which would be, go there, I speak to those people and that's it. Like no pressure.
I don't want to live stream and record because I want people to say, ⁓ I can't make it. So I'll just watch it from, you know, from my office. And I don't like that. Like I want actually people to show up and otherwise networking wouldn't happen. So that's also a way, or if you want to say a trick to, you know, let people understand that this is all about the people. So we're talking about content.
Eric Karkovack (25:51)
Yeah.
Rodolfo Melogli (26:11)
earlier. So it's a content first, people first conference because it is what we've been looking for, what we've been asking for the last few years within the WooCommerce ecosystem. And that's what I would love to be communicating.
Eric Karkovack (26:34)
Yeah, it sounds like a great idea in this era where everything is live streamed, everything is always online. It would be nice just to get together and feel a little bit sense of intimacy and privacy, right? We don't normally get that ⁓ when we go out anymore. We certainly don't get it online, and we definitely, in a lot of conferences these days, we don't get it. ⁓
Rodolfo Melogli (26:55)
True, and let me add one
last thing for speakers. Like just the thought of not being recorded or not being on a live stream, like can allow them to, you know, let go and say whatever they want. And, you know, your occasional swearing, I'm okay with that. And, you know, if you disagree with something, I'm okay with that. mean, for sure, you're going to get hundred percent honest speakers.
Eric Karkovack (26:58)
Sure.
Rodolfo Melogli (27:25)
and you're going to get good quality. And if they're shy, it's not a problem because they can do mistakes and no one is going to ever know. So it's totally okay. And it's going to be very relaxed and social until that event. And that's my goal. So I hope to get there to achieve it.
Eric Karkovack (27:49)
It sounds like it's going to be a wonderful event in a beautiful place. ⁓ So how can people get tickets? How can people learn more?
Rodolfo Melogli (27:57)
Yeah. So the website is checkoutsummit.com of course. So I don't know how the .com was available, but that's also a reason why I chose this brand name. And at the moment, so I guess up until this second batch of tickets sell out, they still can get in at a discounted rate.
Eric Karkovack (28:23)
So definitely go to checkout summit.com, learn more about the event. Also go to businessbloomer.com. That's Rodolfo's membership site where you can learn just about anything you want to know about WooCommerce and how to customize it to match your needs. You're going to get great information there. Rodolfo, thank you so much for being with us today.
Rodolfo Melogli (28:44)
It's been, again,
a pleasure. And as I said, sometimes it's actually good to have a conversation about your own business because as a solo founder, it's like you spend so much time on the business and then you never talk to anyone. So this is a great chance for me just to think about, am I doing the right thing? Like, is this going to work? And apparently it is going to work. And hopefully I will work as much as I can in the next six months to make it happen.
and to make this such a wonderful event that hopefully people will want to come back the following year and who knows where and who knows when.
Eric Karkovack (29:26)
think you're going to have too much trouble getting people to want to come to Sicily and the event sounds like it's going to be outstanding so congratulations on on your work so far putting it together and good luck the rest of the way I know you're going to get it but that's going to wrap up our episode thanks for listening thanks for watching please visit us over at the WP minute comm slash subscribe you can get our newsletter there and you can become a member and support the content we create here at the WP minute we'll see you next time