Working with an enterprise client Our story of creating a WooCommerce plugin

for 4 markets for InPost

Maciej Swoboda WP Desk

WordPress2006

Great WooCommerce Plugins

Warszawa

• Created and convinced customers to use “Paczkomaty” - parcel lockers for collecting packages

• Broke up the Polish Post monopoly

• Amazon started a similar service called Amazon Locker

• Started a global expansion to France, Italy, Canada, Russia, China (21 countries total)

InPostthe rising star of e-commerce

How it works?

• Inspire Labs founded in 2012 by 2 coders

• In 2013 we started WP Desk

• Till late 2014 just 2 people

• At the time of this project: 7 people

• Majority of clients are interactive agencies who outsource coding

The BackgroundWho we are?

• The brief from a contact form at wpdesk.pl

• 4-page brief with a vision of the plugin for France, Italy, Canada and Poland

• A client with no knowledge of WordPress and WooCommerce ecosystem

• Fixed fee requirement

• “Let’s meet”

The BriefWhat we got?

• A lot of talking

• 60 days from the brief to the deal

• 17-page agreement

• 2 addendums

The DealHow we proceeded?

• Support 4 countries: France, Italy, Canada and Poland and cross border shipments

• Display new shipping methods in the WooCommerce checkout with a map

• Flat fee + cart total or weight calculator

• Allow shop owners to quickly and seamlessly generate packing slips, shipping labels and ordering pickup right from WooCommerce

The PluginWhat we needed to develop?

• Project Manager, Developer, Analyst/Tester and WooCommerce Ninja

• 36-page technical specs

• All tasks in Redmine - 99 internal tickets and 51 client’s tickets total

• SVN

The TeamHow we worked?

• 1 Business Manager and 1 Project Manager

• 1 remote team responsible for the Polish API

• 1 outsourced team responsible for other APIs

• 4 dedicated testing teams from local markets

• All communications went through the PM

The ClientHow the client worked?

• Slightly different feature sets in different countries

• The scope changed 2 times along the way

• 2 independent teams responsible for 2 APIs that we needed to connect with

• APIs were developed at the same time, outdated and incomplete tech docs

• Email, email, email… why not Redmine? ;)

The ProcessWhat challenges we faced?

• InPost for WooCommerce released in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory

• Downloaded ~350 times

• Used by ~100 shops

The ReleaseGoing live

• Often requires more talking than doing

• Time&material model harder (or impossible)

• Big companies are not always as organized as you might think

• Implementation guides instead of user stories

The Takeaways - DownsidesWhat we learned?

• School of life :)

• Enterprise projects can be profitable

• Project for your portfolio and a good case study

• New clients from recommendations

• You really need to learn how to work with big clients

The Takeaways - UpsidesWhat we learned?

Thank you!

Maciek Swoboda WP Desk

www.wpdesk.net @swoboda