From Interviews with Entrepreneurs

Dog eating food from bowl
Dog eating food from bowl

WooCommerce, Subscriptions and Good Karma: the Story of Alpha Dog Food

Royce Reed has taken his passion for healthy pets and harnessed the power of WooCommerce to build his pet food subscription business, Alpha Dog Food.

I had the pleasure of chatting to Royce last week about his experience starting and running Alpha Dog Food. Some of the highlights include: how they’ve implemented their Ambassador (affiliate) program, which benefits Alpha Dog Food and many of their clients, including great animal charities like the Humane Society of Atlantic City;
 Royce’s seven favourite things about WooCommerce (we agree Royce, it’s so hard to choose!); and
 how Alpha Dog Food wound up accepting Bitcoin payments, and Royce’s experience with that so far. 


I hope you enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed doing it!

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Nomads in the desert
Nomads in the desert

Using WooCommerce to Build a SaaS in 3 Days

Bryce Adams is a WooThemes ninja who—in his spare time—built a handy little SaaS (Software as a Service) business called Nomad SMS.

Nomad SMS allows you to easily create a local phone number in over 15 countries and receive SMS messages to that number in your inbox and online. Anybody who’s had the frustrating experience of being locked out of their bank account while traveling or overseas will see the benefit of this simple idea.

Bryce got some love from WooThemes and others on Twitter for Nomad SMS, but when it was featured on the hot product aggregation site Product Hunt, traffic to Bryce’s little side project really took off.

Bryce was kind enough to talk to me about the whirlwind experience of building Nomad SMS in three days—using WooCommerce and Subscriptions—and releasing it to the world.

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Black and white image of man drinking coffee
Black and white image of man drinking coffee

The Batman of WooCommerce: Interview with Ben Jenkins

Ben Jenkins is a busy man.

By day he works as a designer at Infusionsoft. By night, he delves deeper and deeper into the world of WooCommerce, through his eCommerce education and hosting service Wodobo, as well as client work, and a digital & print magazine he part owns.

“I joke around sometimes that I’m kind of like Batman—during the day I work as a designer at Infusionsoft—and then at night I do all my training and prep work for the Saturday classes.”

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Causegear People Jumping 2
Causegear People Jumping 2

Fashion With a Cause: Interview With Causegear

Today we have an interview with another WooCommerce business that’s trying to make a difference in the world, this time in the field of human justice fashion.

Causegear employs crafters in India that get paid dignified wages to make high-quality bags, backpacks, purses and the like, which are then sold through Causegear’s website. The crafters’ stories are one of the most important parts of Causegear’s brand.

Brad Jeffery is the President-CEO-Servant of Causegear, and he was kind enough to sit down with me for a telephone interview to tell me more about Causegear, the crafters and human justice fashion.

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Needmore Designs' record collection 1290 x 860
Needmore Designs' record collection 1290 x 860

Selling Happiness: Interview With Kandace Brigleb of Needmore Designs

Kandace Brigleb really likes her coffee… and I mean really.

I counted 26 mentions of the word in the transcript of our interview.

That’s probably for the best, because Kandace and the rest of the seven person team at Needmore Designs are carving themselves a tasty little niche out of websites for specialty food and beverage businesses—many of which are coffee roasters.

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White Gum Wool sheep
White Gum Wool sheep

Doing Things Differently: The Story of White Gum Wool

What do small-scale, ethical sheep farming in Tasmania and WooCommerce have in common?

You might not think much, but that’s only if you haven’t yet heard of Nan Bray, founder of White Gum Wool.

Nan has kept an open mind and an inquiring eye on her farm and business. By paying attention to the behaviour of her flock, and using her scientific background to do some research of her own, Nan has discovered an ethical and sustainable way to graze sheep.

Nan’s willingness to do things differently has meant her 1,000 or so Merino sheep have flourished. And because of their superior health and nutrition, Nan’s flock produce wool so fine that it could be used in top-of-the-line Italian suits.

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The Bearded Roaster bags
The Bearded Roaster bags

The Bearded Roaster: Shipping Hacks, DIY Branding and Seizing Opportunities

Tony Cosentino might just be a small-business branding genius.

His business name—The Bearded Roaster—is fun and entirely memorable. The way Tony tells it, he came up with the name rather effortlessly.

Tony had a similar experience when naming his WordPress consulting business, The WordPress Guy. In both cases, it was what people had naturally started calling him anyway.

Along with his natural talent for simple, yet effective branding, Tony is taking advantage of some other very clever business ideas. These include an Australia Post shipping hack, and deftly taking advantage of an opportunity to get his coffee in front of customers.

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5 Puppies sitting on a couch
5 Puppies sitting on a couch

A Saucy Pet Business, Powered By WooCommerce

Do you wish you had something you could pour over your pet’s dry food, which would not only make it delicious, but also provide them with the nutrition they need?

After all, condiments have been used by people for years to help convince children and fussy eaters to finish their vegetables.

Bringing the power of condiments to pet nutrition is the idea behind a Colorado-based pet business Petchup, which was started by Anthony (Tony) Williams and his wife Toni.

Petchup is a fantastic idea, executed with fun and humanised branding. And we’re happy to report that the online store is powered by WooCommerce.

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A cruiser bike with a french basket for delivering Yousli muesli
A cruiser bike with a french basket for delivering Yousli muesli

A Breakfast Revolution Powered by WooCommerce

Paul Findlay, the founder of Melbourne, Australia-based muesli eCommerce business Yousli, is on a mission.

Using his WooCommerce-powered online shopfront, he wants to “get people excited about breaky again” (breaky is Australian for breakfast).

“Because you know, it’s funny, we celebrate every other meal. Particularly lunch and dinner and dessert. But we don’t get as excited about breaky at home.”

Paul is bringing his love of good food—and his considerable experience in branding as the Cofounder and Creative Director of branding agency HubGroup—together to create a “democratic” breakfast revolution.

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