Bob Dunn – Founder of Do The Woo

My name is Bob Dunn, founder of Do the Woo, known as BobWP around the WordPress space. In 2022, I attended my first WordCamp Europe in Porto, and by the next March, my wife and I were living in Porto after leaving a life of several decades in the U.S. I’m an optimistic type of person and love community.

The Journey Began

Bob Dunn – Do the Woo

Before WordPress, my digital life consisted of emails, HTML sites, and many years in print design. We owned a marketing company for 17 years and were one of those businesses that did it all.

Graphic design, copywriting, photography, marketing, you name it. Our clients ranged from restaurants and small retailers to hospitals, school districts, and city governments.

In 2006, the discovery of WordPress was two-part. In our business, I knew that it was inevitable that I would learn how to build websites, but I loathed coding and lost most of my juju from earlier years of study in computer programming.

I poked around with WordPress and, by the next year, was amazed at the sites I could build with no understanding of code of any kind.

Secondly, my wife had been blogging for a bit via Typepad and I was intrigued with blogging for our business. Once I discovered WordPress, it was decided.

By 2010, I put my print design on the back shelf, branding myself BobWP, and chose to dive 100% into WordPress. In the beginning, the ease of building sites and the experience I had with the community helped me largely to make that decision.

The Need for “Do the Woo”

Do the Woo logo

Up to the time I started podcasting, I did a lot of stuff around WordPress. Training, coaching, consulting, site design, and community building. Somewhere along the way, around 2014, I started podcasting.

A year later, I dropped my first podcast and put the idea of starting another on hold until, after a few years of working with Woo since its inception, I came up with the idea of helping to elevate and connect the Woo builder community.

I started Do the Woo, ended up changing it to the WP eCommerce Show, and restarted it again in 2018. Since then, I have done several different podcasts and stopped most of them.

The challenge of any content is being consistent and having the desire to pick up that mic for yet another episode. I finally found the sweet spot with Do the Woo and the community.

And when it comes to challenges, none really never stopped the clock on either Do the Woo or my branding of BobWP. The key was to find the challenges that could be overcome and rework the strategies for those that remained challenging.

If I think of any moment I am most proud of, it is any time that someone comes up to me and personally shares a small bit of their life that I was there to help make better.

Bob Dunn Workspace

Advice for Business Owners

My wife and I have owned and run our own businesses since 1993, and, of course, there is tons of advice I could give, but at the same time, I have found that not all advice is solid advice for any given circumstance.

But if I were to say the best advice I could give anyone is to be flexible. Be able to twist and turn when needed. Know when an idea needs to be put aside or eliminated. And most importantly, have an open mind and listen a lot to those around you.

WordPress & Beyond

I have been asked a lot about the future of what I do and the bigger WordPress picture.

As far as Do the Woo, I want to see it grow and go in the direction it has been heading. More global reach and continuing to elevate voices across the world.

In 2024, we will have 15 shows under the Do the Woo podcast, which is a big leap in our growth. So, moving forward will be the growth of those shows and the community.

As far as WordPress, where will it be in 5 or 10 years, and what does the competition look like? I’ve been asked this a lot, and I always say, well, it depends.

I am not a great predictor of what’s to come, but find that I roll along with and grasp the changes that affect me and others around me. A crystal ball might help, but I’m not even sure about that.

All I know is that I can predict and hope that I will be around for a good time to come.

My Love for the WordPress Community

I have already made this a long interview, and the love I have for this community, if detailed, would be overwhelming to you, the reader. I will just say that’s why I’m here.

I’ve attended and run Meetups and WordCamps since 2010, around the same time I started getting more involved with the community. I have made hundreds of friends and met thousands of incredible WordPressers. And I don’t see that letting up anytime soon if I can help it.

How I Keep Myself Updated

I follow a lot of the sites that others do to keep updated. Most of them are done via RSS. I also keep an eye on a lot of specific sites and individuals through social platforms such as X, LinkedIn, and a couple of others.

Also, I stay tuned in to “Make WordPress” Slack, Woo Slack, and a few more. Let’s just say I like to keep on top of things in this space.

I Have a Life Other Than the Work

Bob Dunn’s Cat

My wife, Judy, and I recently celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in Paris. We have worked together for a long time, and a good chunk of that has been side by side.

Our time is spent enjoying good food, watching a lot of very old classic movies, primarily film noirs from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and discovering our new life in Portugal.

I read a lot of fiction, mostly crime, thriller, and horror novels. And we share it all with our cat Chester.

Connect With Me

• DotheWoo.io |BobWP.com | LinkedIn | X (DotheWoo) | X (BobWP) | Tumblr | Mastodon | Facebook |YouTube