031 | Dennis Höting and Sander Mangel | Hobnobbing on Shopware's New Community Hub

Welcome to Commerce Famous, the biweekly podcast all about ecommerce and retail. In each episode, your host Ben Marks cuts through the clutter and takes you straight to the stories and experiences of those who shaped digital commerce as we know it today. While their names and faces might not be recognized on the street, each of Ben's guests are famous for commerce or commerce famous. Without further ado, your host, Ben Marks. Hey, everyone.

It's Ben Marks from Shopware. With me today, Sander Mangel, my longtime, friend and colleague, and, Dennis Hetting, my pretty much also now at this point, longtime friend and colleague. We are gonna be here, talking about some of the new things coming out of Shopware. Sander, you are actually at an event right now. What what are you doing?

Absolutely. I'm at the world famous, Repping Golfachtagen, in Netherlands. World famous in Netherlands. Wrapping a shop where we have a stand here, you know, hooking up with the community, chatting about life, ecommerce mostly, which is good. We actually have a stand with, I think, four, five partners on the on the booth.

It's, a prime example of community. Nice. That's lovely. And I'm sure I think I've I've heard the tickets are worth every Gilder. Dennis Hooting, what do you do at Shopware, and, where are you doing it from?

Yeah. Well, I'm located in Germany, quite near to our, headquarter. And I'm at Shopware for, well, for quite a while, for eleven and a half years now. Currently working as a director in our product department. And in that role, you know, being, responsible and, you know, accountable for some of the components our, in our product department, that are mainly not our product, our main product Shopware itself, but components around it, including our website, you know, documentation platforms, and also a new endeavor we are doing here, which is our Shopware community hub.

That sounds like quite the scope, but I guess it's it's one of the things that's really relevant to 2025. You know, shopwear, I think, you know, in my in my four years of shopwear, and I should introduce myself as well. I'm I'm Ben Marks. I am, currently resident in the, state of Pollen that is, South Carolina. Just overnight, we've had, an explosion of of of just yellow golden dust from the trees.

So that's why I might sound a little bit stuffy, but, but we're not here to talk about the annual cycle of, you know, life that that keeps things going. We're here to talk about Shopware. And, specifically, something that Shopware's been working on since gosh. It's been it's been over a year. Right, Dan?

It it's about to be a year. So About to be a year. With the first ideation in well, actually, yeah, in March in March, April or something and started getting into it in, I would say, May. We so we started right away. So, Dennis, I mean, you and I, you know, you and I both report to the, the same boss, Mark Stanley, who I think has I hope you would agree has been just a fantastic addition to, to Shockworth's leadership team.

Uh-huh. Chief product and technical officer, too smart to do one thing. And, I was it it was his idea. Right? This the the community hub?

Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely his, his input, like, really identifying the need of, you know, pushing something to help move our community forward and support our community, as a, you know, as one of the most important assets, that we are having. So we were searching for a for a system that eases, eases learning, eases continuous continuous learning con and onboarding, of course, and make sure that all the things happening in our community, can be digested and that we identify synergy effect and work together as an open source community. So it was his input, clearly.

Yeah. Well and and, you know, one of the things I've really liked about him is he's kinda stepped into this, you've been you've been at Shopware longer than I have, but this, I would call it the modern era of shopwear. Not to imply that shopwear hasn't always been modern, but just I I think there's a clear there's a clear distinction between shopwear from, well, certainly back in the in the in the shopwear five era. Right? But then really in the last couple years, I think Shopware has has done the work to transform itself into a, into a sustainable business, right, that, that actually can can be around, you know, in, you know, in in in the next ten years to to help, to help drive what it means to be, you know, an ecommerce platform and what it's like to be in the ecommerce business, forward.

So when we think about, when we think about some of the things that we're doing, obviously, Shopware gets to build features all day. That's that's one of the things that we get to do. And, you know, and, ideally, we're we're you know, because we're open source, because we have this great ecosystem, that allows us to be nimble and out in front of, even the big, the bigger SaaS platforms. You know? But in in doing this work, you know, we have to do it.

We we well, we we can't do it in a vacuum. Like, we have to do this work in full collaboration with the ecosystem. Yeah. And I think that was part of the inspiration behind, behind the, creating the hub. And I think you've you've given a good product description, but, you know, from from my perspective, I would say it it is just it is a place, it is a place that, it creates a space for one of the most important things in my mind when it comes to ecosystems because it's never it's never just about, you know, what individuals are doing and putting out there, what a company is doing, putting doing and putting out there.

It's about how everyone doing this work in this space connect with each other. And so the ability to have this kind of social component, but also visibility into the various places where, you know, shop where things are happening, is is really, really cool. So, you know, Sander, I know, you know, you've been you've been kind of community organizing for many, many years. I think the first time I met you in person after meeting you online was at a small conference you were putting together in The Netherlands. Is that is that right?

I think it was Rotterdam. Right? Yes. Yes. It was.

It was. Yeah. I think it was, like, at a a nice little brewery or something. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. That was good old times. Yeah. I think I I think that just proves that community is everywhere, and it's also hard to to find that community. Right?

It's it's for the organizers, it's hard to reach out to people that are not, you know, in your bubble. And at the same time, for for people not in the bubble, it's hard to kind of tap into that and figure out what's going on. Like, last night is a prime example. We had the pre parties, the Shopper United pre party here in in Utrecht before the No. No.

Don't don't tell me. Don't tell me. I wasn't there. It didn't happen. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. It was it was good. Because It was good. Yeah. There was there were so many people that I hadn't seen for half year, a year, whatever.

Couple of people, like, Kostobar from Finland was, was dropping in. I think they were the furthest away, and they were like, oh, this is amazing. You have a whole community here. Right? And it's it's just but at the same time, there were a lot of familiar faces.

I would would have loved to seen, like, 90% new people. Right? So it's it's it just shows that we need a central place, you know, where you can kind of advertise the community. Yep. And it actually actually, I'm really glad I asked you that question because that's one of the things that even I had to learn when I first when I, you know, I I taught myself programming, you know, and spoiler kids, I'm not a developer's developer.

So that was that was we're I'm not saying that's much of an accomplishment, but taught myself programming, started solving problems. Those gravitated towards ecommerce problems eventually get into stumble into the open source world. And I had no idea that open source was so much more than the the code. In fact, the code is probably the least interesting thing about open source. Right?

Because it's the people. And it's it's the people and the people, especially who choose, choose to give up sometimes weekends or, evenings come together and talk about the things that they're doing. And there's there's so so much value in that. Right? So, you know, you are you know, you're at this big ecommerce conference in The Netherlands, Sander.

I know, Dennis, you get to go to, a lot of the, I think a lot of the the Shopware related conferences, in and around DACH. It there's so much value when people get together and they talk about what it is that they do, why they do it, what their motivations are, and they can actually, you know, discuss business, discuss techniques. We are talking about taking that that that in person experience that isn't always there for everyone, but making it incredibly online all the time and and providing sort of different different lanes of experience. I wanna get into the capabilities of the hub in a second. Commerce famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open source ecommerce platform for mid market and lower enterprise merchants.

More than 50,000 clients already processed over $25,000,000,000 in annual GMV through Shopware. Find out more about Shopware and the best value in ecommerce at shopware.com. But, you know, Sandra, you've described you you've described the the community and the fellowship around open source, yeah, the Shopware ecosystem perfectly. You know, Dennis, what what is what is your experience, what is your experience of the Shopware ecosystem? Do you have a favorite, like, you know, moment or, event that you've been to over the years?

That's that's that's very that's a very pregnant question because, you know, now you gotta pick favorites. Oh, that's that's really, really hard to pick. But, you know, one thing that I always in enjoy in those events is it it I always say it it feels a bit like like, family. Let's at least stay friendship and but I would rather say family. Like, it's it's the same fellas again.

People know, each other, but still, yet is it is it is so open, like, inviting for everybody else, everybody inviting inviting you to others, and that just proves the importance of this of this connection of have having connection to other people in the in the community who maybe have the same challenges or maybe, you know, dealt with something similar and just getting into exchange, getting input. So I see that everybody everybody on those conferences, on those fairs, on those meetups, on those on those, you know, meetings with the community is always, thriving afterwards because they are full with input of others, and that's like it's giving so much energy. Right? That's the one I enjoy most. Yeah.

It's it's I I really actually, anyone who knows me knows how much how painful it is for me to be at home, even with my lovely dog laying across my feet, but to be at home while the community's gathering in The Netherlands, for example. But that is you know, being at these events is really it's it's such a privilege. And yeah. But at the end of the day, it's all about connections, facilitating connections. This is what we hope the hub does.

So so, Dennis, I mean, can we talk about, you know, as as kind of the the head of the project, can we talk about Yeah. What all has gone into? And and just for full background, folks, like, when when Mark Stanley, frustratingly smart guy that he is, suggested that Shopware, you know, create this space, And this was, you know, well over, you know, over a year ago that he was talking about it. I, I will fully own that I was dubious on this. I really thought that we could just we could kinda cobble together.

There are platforms that do this kinda thing, and there's nothing wrong with those platforms. But I was I really and I really thought we should we should not devote so much of our internal product and engineering, like, time and talent into this effort because I I I knew it was gonna be a big thing. And I couldn't possibly imagine that we would build something so phenomenally cool. And and and, I mean, I'm I'm not this is not me. This is not puffery.

This is not me just, you know, sort of, you know, in playing inside baseball or, you know, just loving loving the place that sends me a paycheck. This is genuine appreciation as someone who's had to look at different community systems over the years. Shoppers really built something really cool. How did we even figure out what it is we needed to build? I mean, do you remember those those early ideation stages?

And and, Sandra, feel free to jump in because I don't I I assume we we we brought you into some of these discussions. I think I heard about it, you know, sort of like, what should we have? What shouldn't we have? But but we'll we'll start off with Dennis just kind of from a a requirements gathering standpoint. Yeah.

So, I I would say, basically, you know, we we started with an with an idea of, you know, we wanna, you know, solve the mark sometimes the the bag of bits and, you know, getting things that are kind of everywhere, that kind of stuff, the spaghetti mess. You know? It was like, we we wanted to sort a few things out. Right? So so sorry.

Let me just jump in real fast. So Marcus Stanley, folks, if you don't know, he's from, he's from Brighton in in The UK. And so when he says it, it's bat bag of bits. It's like, actually, I can't I can't even I can't do his accent justice. It's it's a really it's a lovely accent, and it is also how he describes my job.

Bag of bits, or actually better describes how my job shouldn't be, but it is. It's a bag of bits. Right? Because it is that it is that unwashed mass of of ecosystem. Sorry.

I feel like that was just you used the term. I think it was important to clarify because it occurs to me that this is this is what we're doing. We're collecting all of that community energy in one place. I interrupted you. Please go.

Yeah. Yeah. All good. So, and what what we did here is, we decided, okay. Let let's let's get into, you know, rapid prototyping and and see what's possible.

And of course, we discussed, okay, can we, can we, just use systems that are out there, either LMS for, you know, for learning stuff? We knew, like, learning is one of the biggest challenges that we wanna solve, but also for, you know, integrating all those different sources. There are systems out there. But the very quickly identified that the most important fact that we have to deal with here is that the community, after what we are building here, it cannot be something that we are just building for the community. It has to be something that is built with the community because it really has to fit the requirements and the needs of the community.

So what we did is we, we started putting something together. And in really, really early stages, got into deep conversations with members of the community. And that just like like, literally, like, six weeks after we had the first idea on the SCD last year, already talked with the first people about the idea and about what what that could be and all that all that kind of stuff. And that really led us to get insights of, okay, how exactly should we should we form that. And that's definitely something that we couldn't have formed with a standard system.

And then we just progressed and integrated this and, you know, put together a system, that integrates signals from all over the community. May it be Slack. May it be, you know, Stack Overflow or GitHub, of course, or blog spots, or, you know, podcasts and webinars and YouTube. Well, and and of course, content directed to the hub, instantly. So all of that should be should be in one central, space and then directing to those, sources, making it easy for the members of the community to digest that content and to understand, okay, what's going on right now in the community?

What's the pulse of the community right now? Besides the big challenge of, we wanna provide high quality, up to date learning content that really enables our members, to be successful with Shopware. So that's, like, the big two challenges that we really identified as a rough idea in the beginning, but then started putting together as clear solutions with the community. And that was extremely important. So we had a we had a a, we call that exclusive MVP phase, with with a few hands full of of community members for a few months.

And then really early, got into an open, beta phase, and introducing everybody in the community, to join and to give feedback and to to provide ideas. And I guess that's the that's the power of it. Yeah. Sander, you've been you've been doing, you've been doing community building for a long time. Right?

I don't know if it's just it's just like a normal Dutch thing. You guys have built community over the centuries. You you've you've taken different approaches. That's but sorry. I gotta get it and take whatever I can because I I love the Dutch.

Please please let me join. But, you know, from your perspective and and and having watched, you know, both ecosystems, online ecosystems evolve around, you know, software products over the years, you know, this modern moment. Right? There are, there are lots of ways. In fact, it's it's it's really distracting how, how online we are and how many, like, you know, sort of informational inputs we we we receive as individuals Like, I've I heard, working on a local city council, there's we had a consultant come in and I think, you know, we're trying to you know, we're a small, you know, 10 kilometer long island and the the the guy doing the work for us, where we're trying to, you know, learn how to advocate for ourselves and connect with the outside communities and stuff.

So it's like, hey. When you're trying to put your message out there, you're competing against I I think he said 30,000 informational inputs per freaking day. Right? So, you know, in that context, so that's community building used to be easier back in the day because it was sort of like throw up a, you know, a forum and let people interact. Now you really have to be engaging and create a space for people to, like, put their energy into.

What do you look for, Sander, in a, in a, you know, in an online facility like we've tried to create here with the hub? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question, I think. I I mean, there's so much content out there, and I think especially with GPT, it's only gotten worse, right, because it's so easy to create content.

I think, first and foremost, you need to be able to provide quality. Right? Communities, at the end of the day, about getting enablement. Right? It's about people sharing.

Sure. But at the end, they people do this because they they feel that they can get enablement out of out of it for themselves, for others, what have you. Right? So so learning. That's it.

That's what we want to do. Well, I mean and that was I I have to I have to say sorry. I just just that was certainly, that was my my pathway into into an into the open source ecosystem was, first, I I was taught you know, I was trying to solve a problem. I was taught by one of the the masters in the space, a guy named Vinay Copp. And so and I I didn't quite understand that the learning is actually a big, big, big component in open source.

Right? It's because it's it's it's sort of, in, you know, certainly in in in in English, we have the the idiom of you, you know, you you you put you keep the ladder there for the person behind you. Right? And there's very much that spirit of, hey. If you once you learn something, you know, you can't pay someone for what you've been taught.

All you can do like, you can't pay them money, but you can teach the next people coming up the ladder. Is that is that kinda what you're getting at there, Sander? Yep. Absolutely. I think and and it's at the same time, you learn that it can be small things.

Right? It doesn't need to be a six page essay on how to do events in Shopware. No. It can just be, you know, what if you do this, this, and this? Twig templates become a whole lot easier to work with.

Right? It's it's a small knowledge snippets that that we share on a daily basis. And I think that is what a high quality community should bring is that consistent level of of quality learning. And to make it easier for others to do that. Right?

A prime example is Stack Overflow. It's a great platform to to learn and to teach. At the same time, we also see that there's a lot of moderation needed to keep it at that quality level. Right? Yep.

I am I am familiar with the with Stack Overflow. Definitely definitely did half of my early career based off Stack Overflow flows. So, Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of people did.

Right? And and I think what Shopware has done here, what is very important is they create a place where they can build a solid foundation, having been involved in some of the, learning paths that we created right now, just have documentation, but have learning paths, ways to to to get on board with Shoppe. So there's this solid foundation. And then on top of that, the community can can start to build. That's it.

Yeah. I and and, Dennis, actually, I wanted to bring that in. So thank you for calling that out, Sandra, because, I've I've been involved with education initiatives before. They're they're, you know, the critical to crucial. I remember, probably all remember working in our respective, you know, environments kind of before there was, what I would call competent, like, learning paths or education.

So, Dennis, I think one of the things that I that I I value gosh. If I had to pick a favorite, you know, feature in the hub, The fact that you can as a as an individual, you can come in. You don't have to interact right away. It's like you don't have to walk into the cocktail party when you're not the cocktail party type. Right?

You can walk in the door. You don't have to say hi to anyone. You can get right to work. You can find these educational pathways. That is, for me, so critical.

So that's also shouldn't be lost in what we talk about Shopware's investment in the ecosystem, you know, to create the hub is the investment, reinvestment in education. So Shopware has had education in the past. Right? It's well, I say in the past, it's always been there. But if we're being open, and authentic, shop the the investment in that education, like, we had I think we our education went up to Shopware, like, 6.2.

And then we kind of you know we kind of let it I'm not gonna say die on the vine because you know if you if you if you learn the things for Shopware 6.2 either operationally or as a developer like there's a ton of there's been a ton of value in there. But one of the most challenging things, I mean, what are some of the hardest problems in computer science? Like naming things, documentation, and then and then enablement. So that's, that's four things, and then there's off by one errors. Hey.

That's a computer joke. But I have I have watched I've watched education efforts truly die on the vine over the years. Right? Because it it requires it doesn't it doesn't directly generate revenue. And so it's really hard for companies to make the decision to invest, you know, and and help it move forward.

With the hub, I think I see us, Shopware, really investing in education. I think I see us not only investing in in in education, like, initially, but we've basically set an expectation and and a commitment that that that education has to stay up to date. Because guess what? When you have stuff like this all gathered in one place and you have the community gathering around it, you end up with, like, really strong motivation as a company to to to keep up, you know, the the content. And then also, I think, you know, I think one of the goals is that we will have a a we'll have the capability to, let people create their own educational content.

Right? So you can you can dive deep on single topics. If you if you if you wanna go into one area of functionality for shop where like b to b or something else, we wanna we want to, we want we want actually the the practitioners to be creating content. Can you can you talk about that journey, Dennis? And I gosh.

I I did you just grab your, like, notepad? Are you about to write write some notes down, maybe? Go ahead. I was, you know, a a few things to cover here. So, yes, we are heavily investing, into not only the hub as a system.

So we have a, a team, like, fully, fully dedi dedicated to only the hub, as a system. Moving that forward, it is, becoming a complex, system, and we are, like, really heavily invest heavily investing in that, and everybody is fully behind that into that investment into community because it is it is free. It is for everybody. But it it just makes so much sense. And we have an, you know, we are we are, having an an additional team, like, really investing into the learning content and, into creating that, into creating that content and maintaining that content.

On for for this, for this academy content, which is, not like pure videos, but, like, text first content will will, you know, which will be will be put to a higher, higher quality digestion level, maybe also utilizing AI. We are we are still putting that as text first because, maintenance and the content being up to date is so incredibly important. So we have to be sure that we cope with the with the speed of of our of our system, and that's why, this is so important. Yes. It is also planned to, to have, an easy way for community members to provide learning content here as well.

So we are, talking about, like, Shopware, a Shopware Mentors Program, or just an open and and, an easy possibility for for members of the community to provide, like, small knowledge bits, maybe just an idea or just a a different view on a very specific topic, to get into the hub so that others, can, can appreciate that. And that's that's something that's our notion of appreciation and celebration of our of our combined contribution is something that is keen to the hub, after all. I that reminds me of one of the, the early, like, ideation, you know, discussions. I think, actually, one of the first times I met, Mark Stanley, at a pub in London, one of the oldest pubs, by the way. His suggestion, not mine, was, you know, how do we get people to recognize their expertise and, find the natural leaders, like, in specific areas.

Right? Do you know a lot about, shipping? Like, the logic that has to go into, like, how how you model addresses and how you get things where they're going or, you know, something even as nuanced as totals calculation. Applied to taxes in different regions? Right?

So you might be operating, in multiple geographies. And the rules for, like, you know, if you offer a discount, well, is the full amount, like Yeah. Still tax, but doesn't apply to the discount. Is is shipping tax? Just as one of the, you know, one of the myriad examples of of how various and just at the end of the day, you know, arbitrary all of the rules that could go into commerce are.

So so naturally people are gonna learn more and more about these different areas. We wanted to create a space. We wanna create a facility for people to be able to to, I mean, you could say show off their expertise. For some people, it's an imperative. And this is actually, I think, very true in open source.

They feel an imperative when they know something well. They really back to that whole learning idea. They wanna share that knowledge. And and it looks like to me, like, to me, this the hub the hub facilitates this kind of guild approach. Yeah.

Let me let me give an, an example for that. Like, in the app, like, it is, a while it is, like, like, text content, like, structured in learning paths consisting of different courses, consisting of different units with an it's, like, bite sized learning pieces. Every, like, every unit of that, every unit course and learning path, actually, has a capability to, that members can add comments to it. And then can they can ask questions or they can add to the con to the content. So in every unit, if somebody, you know, has an addition of, hey.

In that context, this is, by the way, a good way to approach it, those things can be appreciated by other members with a little with a little heart, with a little kudo. And then for that context of that learning path, we have a little leaderboard, a kudos leaderboard so that, basically, domain experts in that in that, field can can thrive. And that's that interactivity, I think, is a crucial part, not only for us as feedback, but also it adds value to the whole learning experience because it's it's not only provided by us. It's provided by the community and added. I've I've never actually I don't think I've heard the singular form of kudos verbalized, and I I'm I'm here for it.

But the point that you made, Dennis, is that, is that people can can absolutely say, like, just really easily say, like, hey. This was valuable for me. This this interaction, this thing that happened. Right. Sort of the ability the ability to, provide, like, that direct input that, like, hey.

This was valuable to me is orthogonal. Right? I mean, it it it it per it's it's across the whole system. It may not actually be implemented in an orthogonal way, but, and that's probably a good thing. And I might be a pilloried for for for using the term, but no, it's just it's it's about, I think it gets back to the core, you know, the core philosophy behind the hub, which is that the the interaction is the thing Right?

So, I mean, you know, we have this famous, you know, sort of polemic dude in in The US and, you know, back in the in the Clinton era, right, in the nineties, you know, in his, like he basically he said, you know, that that that a certain president won a candidacy because, you know, it's the economy, stupid. And if we had to have that sort of it's the economy, stupid moment or characteristic of the hub, it's all about, you know, it's of course, it's the interaction, but it's also about the the value of the interaction. And I think the way the hub has been organized is that anything good. It doesn't matter the lane it's in, whether it's, you know, learning or, contribution via code or documentation or whatever it is. It's the ability for the good stuff to just all the good stuff to bubble up to the top.

You know, Sander as a as a long time expert in this area, you know, you get to say, whether or not we've done done the good thing here. I think you've basically said as much. I'm gonna ask a I'm gonna ask a a question that I know the answer to for myself, but I have always looked up to, I have a couple of examples. I think we did really good work when I was at my previous employer, creating a space for contribution and and, well, really, for for recognizing contribution. Right?

Because the contribution was hatch happening naturally. Another community ecosystem that I've looked up to, and I think it's, again, I think it's really important to call out these other ecosystems even if they might be competitors. Salesforce has trailblazers. Right? That that is that is that's it's it's incredible branding.

And anyone working in software or, I don't know, just, you know, certainly in in certainly in our space will should be familiar with Salesforce, and and and should probably look at what they have built over there. And I love it because it's the same thing that we're doing here. Like, we're trying to build a space for people to interact and be proud of what they do, show off what they do, and let the ecosystem experience that and interact around it. Center, do you think, based on what you've seen of the hub, do you think that we are do you think that we might have actually iterated, you know, even above and beyond what those guys built years ago? And and and folks, before you think that this was, like, a staged question, a, it wasn't because I'm not that organized.

B, Sander's Dutch. There's literally zero bullshit that that's gonna come out of his mouth. That's a that's a bold statement. But, so I I think having been in various done contributions there, I think it's great to give a stage to people that contribute a lot. Right?

I think it's gift it's great to give them recognition and what have you. However, I think it's, on the long run, not as sustainable. Right? Because either everyone gets super famous and then you're not famous anymore, or people become resentful because they have not been recognized. What I like about the community hub is the fact that we give, you know, we we try to make the motivation a bit more intrinsic.

It can be with with small points. It can be with, you know, badges, that kind of stuff. We're we're talking, on on our, Supercom Hub, podcast. We're talking to Nam Li, our colleague from Vietnam, who is so I I want to do a podcast about Stack Overflow. And and, you know, we did an integration into the community hub to kind of, you know, encourage people to to become more, more active on Stack Overflow.

And what he said is the reason why I do this, first of all, I like to teach people to do stuff, but second, I I get addicted to the fact that I get batches and points and that kind of stuff on the on on the community app. Right? And I think that is the kind of, the kind of motivation that's much more sustainable because it it is it is a a a race with yourself. Right? And that's much more fun than racing with others.

What it's it's it's a race with your I mean, come on. That's the what do they say at at, what they used to say on MeiTalk? Like, you know, show, show title right there. It's a race with yourself. That's a really that's a really good point, Dennis.

Dennis, Write that down. Yeah. Does that does that resonate with you? Like, it's a race with yourself. So Dennis and I actually, we spoke we were chatting yesterday, just catching up.

We were talking a little bit about what we might record today. And, you know, I think this this the thing about, you know, intrinsic extrinsic motivation, you know, might might agree is in psychology. And, you know, I've done abs I made zero money with that besides being a bartender. But one of the things I I told you this yesterday morning, Dennis, that, you know, one of the things that that was most fascinating I mean, actually, abnormal psych was really fascinating. That way that that was truly that was the most interesting thing I did.

Maybe second to that was was motivational sort of the the science around motivation. Right? Because different people are motivated in different ways. Nothing's nothing's wrong or right. It's just we we work differently.

And there are people who are they want they want the XP. They want they want they need they need somehow to quantify, and they especially appreciate external and externally visible, quantification of what it is they're doing and saying. Others want to be you know, they want to know that they're providing value. And for them, I guess, maybe it's enough just that it's being displayed and shared. And the cool thing is over time, people can even change and and what one person might experience as a a true reward and award, you know, some people might, like, say, hey.

You know, I did this thing. It was awesome. I did it for you all. It'd be great if I could get, you know, a thousand dollars a month out of it. Other people, you know, if they're contributing, heavily, regularly, and you hand them a thousand bucks, like, give them, like, you know, a few months, and they will completely, like, exit an ecosystem.

Right? So this is this is one of the challenges of building something like this is how do we create a space where people can can can can do all of these things in a way where they can get their own kind of motivation out of it. Right? I mean, that that that really is I mean, if we if we really step up, you know, away from the things that we wanted to build with the hub, I think that's a that's a that challenge is fundamental to building anything like this. It doesn't matter the industry.

Dennis, how do we how do we navigate that? And and by the way, I know we're we're getting close to time. I just but and I'm gonna reserve I'm gonna I'm gonna hold on to each of you guys for, like, a minute or two afterwards. But I just Dennis, I think this is incredibly important to answer because people don't show up somewhere, especially these days online, unless it's valuable for them. How how did how do we how do we get that right?

Did did we intend to? Like, did we just put the things together in the right way and the combination worked? I mean, how how how is it as a product leader, how did how do we come up with the stories and the epics and everything else that have led to this? And and by the way, folks, you can't see this. I am actually looking at the hub.

It is accessible. It is all the cards, all of the navigation, it just it actually flows really, really well. I, again, I I wasn't sure about this thing, but it we really have built something special here. So, Dennis, tell me how we figured out how to build a system for so many people that wasn't ecommerce. Right?

Well, yeah, I think it again, it's it's about it's about, talking to the people and also giving them giving them choice. So really early in that process, we identified that we have that broad range of, you know, so let let's take the the, community, the the community hub profile, for example. So for some members, they they clearly said, okay, the profile where I can show my activity, and this is how I contribute on GitHub, and this is the badges I have, and this is the certification I have. And and this is my role in this universe. For some people, that is incredibly, important from a personal and from a from a business perspective.

And for others, they are like, I don't care. I don't I don't care about my about that profile in the community or so. So. I just wanna learn. I wanna get better.

I'm just doing it for me. So I think it's about talking to people and understanding that range, and then also giving giving people a choice. So you can decide to make your profile public and and show to the world, even to those who are not, like, in the hub so that you can you can just show publicly, I am focusing on Shopware, and this is my role in this universe. And for others, it's not relevant, so they don't want to share that explicitly. And, you know, I think that's that's an important important thing.

And, also, kind of, I think, one key is really, that came again and again, having some notion of transferring that digital world digital world into the, into the real world. So if you, if you get a badge in the real world, On an event, for example, like a, like a cool, shiny metal badge, maybe You wanna have a digital in your in your hub as well. But also the other way around, maybe you made a great achievement, in the Shopware community and got the digital badge. People really appreciate if they then get a real, like, a metal badge and they have it, like, physically in front of them. That's something that's really, really valued.

So people are proud of that. That's like that's that's even a bit more than just, you know, merchandising. It's more than just a Shopware swag. This is yeah. I mean, I I you know, in these days, there are people who, you know, Shopware has we'd be remiss if we didn't discuss the, fair fair fair usage policy that Shopware has just talked about.

You know, it's just it's about how do we, you know, how do we have both, you know, sort of maintain the openness of an open source application, which Shopware Community Edition always is. It's a bit of a third rail touch right here, by the way, folks. Certainly not authorized by our PR or marketing teams, but I think it's a board you know, it it's an important context. Right? You know, we want we want people we want we want people who are generating the kind of revenue with Shopware that they should have a relationship with us to have a relationship with us, and it's not an extraordinary relationship.

And and I I I think we've actually we've done it. It it's a difficult topic, and I think we've done it in a really fair, balanced way. And for the record, folks, you know, I I used to work for Magento. We talked about that shit all the time. We tried to like, can we do this?

Can we not do this? Well, we we were watching watching our peers from other open source ecosystems, you know, dealing with this problem. I think Shopware's gone about it in a in a really fair way. But, you know, getting back to, like, you know, the impetus for the hub, I it I think the context is important because it allows us to plow, take that investment, you know, incremental investment. It's not much.

And and plow it back into the ecosystem. I Dennis, we may actually have to cut this out out of the episode. Maybe not. How much how many how much time and hours? How much opportunity cost went into building this?

I I I'm not I'm not gonna ask for, like, a specific number. No. But but, I mean, I mean, is it on the order was it tens of hours to build this? Was it hundreds? Was it thousands of hours?

Like, again, over a year to build this thing. And and by the way, again, folks, this was built internally by people who could have been building stuff for the Shopware, like, the next Shopware release. Yeah. We we have to, you know, we we have to we have we really have to think about it a lot. We have a full team working on that in including What what is what is a what is a full team?

Actually, I don't even know at Shopware. What is a full team at Shopware? Like, right now, it's, five developers working on that. It's it's, UX engineer, and UX engineer being responsible for that. I'm I'm putting, a majority of my head time, into that project as well.

Really? I'm working with with other yes. And we're working with with, other depart departments, of course, a lot. We're working with with marketing. So it is a lot that we are investing into into this, because we strongly believe that this investment is good for our ecosystem and in the end, of course, contributes all of our success.

Right? If if I had if I had one complaint about the hub. Right? Well, I mean, I have I have I have some nuanced feedback. But if I had a complaint about the hub, it would be that we didn't build it earlier.

And if I had a a separate complaint, it would be that I didn't think of it. But, again, that's why you and I work for Mark Stanley. Sander. You know, you know you've been part of education initiatives in open source ecommerce applications before. What would you say your impression of what we built here?

And I'm gonna lead into the final topic. Where do you see this going? Like, where Yeah. It's If you could if you could see this if you can see this iterator, if you do see this iterating, what more might we do? Those are big questions.

So, I I think the way we set it up with the learning paths and and the units and right? It's it's very modular. You don't and I really like this. A lot of the platforms out there expect you to become a ninja in their platform. Like, you want to know from a to z everything.

Reality is most developers don't. Maybe they're working with several platforms. They just maybe they just need to build a payments integration. Right? And they couldn't care less about the rest of the stuff.

So it's nice that they can, you know, mix and match, pick the bits and bobs that they like, and just discard the rest. On top of that, we also have information, not just for developers, but for solution specialists, merchants. And there's there's more to come. So I think we're also enabling not just the developer, but the whole agency and the whole, you know, the client, so the whole team working with the solution. I think that is very powerful.

Then where I see this going? I think it's gonna get so much more powerful the moment that we're gonna get direct feedback and contributions from your community, where they go in and they say, look. I love what you wrote about, shopping experiences, but actually on a day to day basis, this is not how we're using it. Right? This is this is you might think we're using it this way, but actually, we are hacking everything together and and we'd like to do it that way.

I think that kind of insight, like, that real world, this is how we use your product because guess what? Shopper doesn't use the product themselves. Right? We don't host our own shops, so we have no clue how people used it. Well, that's not true.

But I I think that that direct feedback loop and that contribution from community, that is what is gonna make our our learning capabilities even more well rounded. Oh, And let let me let me maybe add to that. Like, in the very early stages of constructing our approach on the learning pathways was really about, you know, let's not let's not focus on we wanna create learning content for the sake of learning content being there and and just aiming for, you know, certification and, and all of that. You know, speaking as an engineer, it's always about you wanna what you wanna get shit done. You wanna get you wanna solve your your you wanna get your solve your problem solved.

Right? That's that's what we are aiming for. And the learning content should aim for enablement. It's that's that's the goal and not like, the sake of of, having a full blown a to b, experience of of learning with everything. It's about getting shit done.

Getting shit done. I guess every software software adjacent person's, like like, that's the you know? I gosh. I'm old enough to remember the GSD shirts. I there's an idea.

Get shopwear done. That's there it is. There's the there's the show title. There's the tattoo. Alright.

Okay. So, guys, you know, we we knew we knew coming into this. We could talk about this stuff for literally hours. Sandra, you're about ready to go to an after party, and, oh my god, it's it's so painful to not be there. It really you you you you know me well.

It's it's really difficult to not be at the Webwinkle Bachtage. Okay. So, thirty seconds. I don't have a clock in front of me, so you can make up your own timing. But thirty seconds, Sander, in six months, what do you expect to see and or do, when it comes to the Shopware, Community Hub?

So what I'll be doing I don't know. Honestly, I hope I'll be at these events talking about the solution. What I hope to see is that people have complete profiles, that they have, you know, contributed a lot, and that they're starting to see the recognition that they want to see for all the all the work that they have done so far in in in the past and that they haven't had the recognition And and sorry, but I'm man, I should I shouldn't even do this. This is illegal. But you've been involved with so much education, like, education initiatives over the years.

So there so I I also think, it may not have occurred to you, but I also think you'd be very, very happy to see, education, the I mean, because it's an enablement mechanism, education as continuing to be a first class citizen with full budget and support at Shopware. And and I'm gonna put more words in your mouth. You would love to see education content being created by the ecosystem in nuanced ways. Again, folks, there was there was no agenda here, but I'm making that up. I mean, that most fall because it's it's fun to do, but I'm kind of tired of that shit.

I won't do other stuff. So I'd love for other people to, to write the content. Absolutely. Especially the practitioners, the people actually doing the work. I mean, you still are, but I'm not.

Anyway, alright, Dennis, what would you you know, this is this is kinda your baby. Right? I mean, you just told us all. You've put the majority of your time, and expertise into this thing over the last year. In in in when you sit back and, like, you in the same chair with all your guitars there and you put your hands behind your head, what do you what do you what would you what would you be what what would give you a moment to say, damn, we really knocked it out of the park, kicked it off the pitch.

I'll use appropriate sports metaphors for our international audience. Cricketed the bat or batted the cricket. I don't even know. What what what would make you exceptionally happy in six months time? I I think it's it's about when when we when we have, when we prove that we have built, the the appropriate basis for a system that thrives with the community so that you you get in and you see, like, people being there, thing things happening, people discussing about things, people people helping each other and contributing, and and collaborating with with each other, and, you know, identifying synergy effects, and and working together for the for the greater good of our of all our success.

For Oh. For the greater good. Damn it. That's the show title. Again.

Well, like, this this activity and, you know, the the the whole harp, thriving and and people, you know, getting value and adding value to it. That's that's, I think, the the goal. Because we are just basing we are we're just creating the base for it, the system that the the home for the community that enables us to to work together here, but it has to be used. And, and that's what I would what I would aim for. Yeah.

I could see that that might be a show title. Right? It it it has to be used, which means that we have to have built the thing that people wanna use, and we have to curate it. We have to create an environment in which it's curated, right, by the ecosystem because because we we will not be the ones. I think, actually, something that should be said before we conclude this whole thing.

The culture around this, you know, we're not sitting there saying, like, hey. Push the delete button on this post because it goes against our interests. It's actually it's a foregone conclusion that people are gonna talk about things, and and they're gonna talk about things in ways that we couldn't predict, that may not always be, you know, necessarily to our best benefit. But there's no doubt in my mind that that Shopware is is gonna be facilitative of the conversation. We will not be the ones writing that, like, scripting this interaction.

This is this is something that we have built for the ecosystem. I'd yeah. No. Just, like, two hours ago, I was I was in a in a quick, in a con quick conception, regarding, regarding resources, like blog articles, for example, being contributed and how will they be represented in the hub and stuff? And there we, we like, like had that very clear notion of, so there will be content like blog articles, for example, provided from us, like, and they are shop recurated and that's all good.

And we, in the end, like, discussed, okay, those should be like, yeah, there's a gray notion of, oh, Shopware Shopware curated maybe also. That's cool. But there are other content pieces and other blocks that have been provided by the community, and those should be, like, colorful and shiny, and that's that's, like, appreciated. And let's celebrate those because they are coming directly from the community and not not only from us. Yes.

We will also provide stuff, of course. But but things coming from the community, that's something we should really celebrate. I hadn't really considered that, but we do know intuitively that the best our best work is, well, let me not put words in everyone's mouth. And this I promise, Senator, I know you've gotta get back to the the event, but, like, final take. Like, our best work is actually it's not what we do.

It's what we do in the hands of the people who do the things with our work. That is that is what we that's who we build for. That's why we build. These are the problems that we solve. I feel free to disagree with me, but I've always maintained that especially in this open source ecommerce approach the whole point of the exercise is not that a company builds a platform, an amazing platform that's immensely extendable.

It's that the practitioners actually get to, get to take that work and actually apply it to the various domains and geographies, approaches. Right? Is that like, do we see do we see that the hub facilitates that? I I think, yes. Absolutely.

It it it's basically you know, it it fits you. Yeah. There's this you had a talk on the STD 2022, I believe, and there's a video of that. I think it's it's still on our on our website because it is still true. Like, that's the main idea of open source.

Right? And and, Shopware, very, very clearly identifies with open source. And this is, why we express those values in the in the community hub as well, of course. So, yes, definitely. Okay.

Sander, agree? Disagree? I think I wholeheartedly agree. I think, let's put it very poetically. That's fair.

That's fair. Alright, folks. So there's an address. Dennis, the, what is the what is the, people wanna check out the hub, get involved. Again, there's no commitment.

There's no requirement that you perform. You can just you can show up and watch until you get so interested that you start doing things. How do how do people find the community hub for Shopware? So right now, the URL is still, hub-betabeta..shopware.com. So we are still in a in an open, beta phase.

We're we're we're still in our Google phase. Yeah. But not so for for so much longer. So there's there's, few interesting things progressing right now. But this is how you how you reach it.

It's it's open. You can log in, with, either your GitHub or with your community Slack or with your Shopware account. It's completely open. You don't have to newly register. So just just get in.

We have a Slack channel also in our community, Slack regarding, you know, community hub feedback. That's that's the name of it. And it's about, you know, also interacting. So they're just yeah. Hit up, hub-beta.com.

I I truly don't want this podcast to end. And by the way, I hope in the in postproduction like that, if you if you're watching this in a visible medium, that you will see us just scrolling around, looking at the contributors. We've already discovered people that we didn't know were so prolific, but they're they're really engaged. When you go to the hub, please, at the very least, if you if you're if you're listening to slash watching watching this podcast, go ahead and register. Just just be there.

Give it a try. If you feel like interacting, do that. At the very least, you can interact through one of the education paths. So if you wanna learn more about Shopware, if you want to, just verify what you know about Shopware as a practitioner, the learning paths are there. They're really, really well done.

I'm I'm I'm as a long time educator in this space, I'm really impressed. Shopware has really spent, I an immense amount of intent. I won't talk about euros. I won't talk about, you know, developer product hours. I won't talk about opportunity cost.

It's backhanded way, by the way, of talking about all those things. But we we we poured a lot of intent into the system, and we did it completely irrespective of any commercial concerns. This was something that needed to be done. It needed to In in those early stages, it it was really that that notion. I I talked about that with, with Mark.

Like, you know, it's not about can we afford doing that. It's about can we afford not doing that. Can we afford can we afford not doing that? Right? What's the classic thing is, you know, why would I pay my pay my developers, or why would I pay for them to be educated?

Like, it's like, why would why would you want developers who aren't educated? It's it really is about, raising the level, raising the bar. I could even I could even foresee practical discussions about other ecosystems, other solutions on this. I mean, if it's truly meaningful, well, again, it's in the hands of the ecosystem. We built it for you all.

That's what we've done. And and I think everyone involved feels immensely, immensely proud. And and kudos again to Mark Stanley's leadership, Kudos especially to our founders. At the end of the day, Stefan, Sebastian, and, and also to, you know, to the investors, like, you know, we've hopefully spent your money well. I think we have.

I I this is this this is for me one of the top examples of, this kind of thing in, you know, just really anywhere. So well done, everyone. There will be more, there will be more, discussion, more directed discussion, about the hub going forward. And then in the future, we're it's our plan to, to to just have a regular update, a brief update from us that you can you can watch on YouTube, where we just kinda go through what people are doing. Because that's actually really the interesting stuff, not the fact that this thing exists, but that, you know, what are what are the people doing with it?

Right? Because we want to surface all of the good good stuff that people are doing. Dennis Hetting, Sander Mango, what a great, what a great hour with you guys. I, look forward to seeing you both, again sometime soon. And let's just spend the rest of the day, celebrating the hub at Shopper.

Alright. Thank you.