Wanelo: The First Million Users • Hacker News Board

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#61

Post by thegorillamofo » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:57 PM UTC

So, she's non technical and somehow has a website that someone presumably set up, installed on a server and maintained etc? Or she's 'solo'? There's talk of a founder being cut out early on (cannot confirm or refute)... In short, there's parts to this story that are missing.

You can't just throw up your favourite flavour of CMS with a theme from themeforest and magically hit it off, there's technical considerations that need to be made.

3 Options really.

1. She is technical and knows all about web development (no idea why she'd lie about that though)

2. She did indeed have a founder she cut out.

3. She wasn't solo on the project.

Something doesn't gel here.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#62

Post by poweribo » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

eddd wrote: post #26

caio1982 wrote: post #14

Loved a particular slide about how they (she?) did it: "The right people: builders and get-shit-done-ers, pragmatic, non religious about tech, move fast, team over rockstars"

I saw a few projects where "developers" were not religious about tech.. they still using ftp for php files deployment, "BUT HEY! THE SHIT IS DONE!" :). I don't want be sarcastic, but i think every startup team should have at least one engineer who will know what to do, at every iteration of the project.

whats the "preferred" way nowadays? commit source using git to server and let it autodeploy?

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#63

Post by jaredsohn » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

cfontes wrote: post #8

Non-tech and the first site was made using what? Her mind power? Wordpress?

Non-tech just describes the founder (although in this particular case she may have actually had a cofounder.)

Any kind of success by a nontechnical solo founder can be an inspiration for other nontechnical people who want to build their own companies.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#64

Post by dmor » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:01 PM UTC

thegorillamofo wrote: post #61

So, she's non technical and somehow has a website that someone presumably set up, installed on a server and maintained etc? Or she's 'solo'? There's talk of a founder being cut out early on (cannot confirm or refute)... In short, there's parts to this story that are missing. You can't just throw up your favourite flavour of CMS with a theme from themeforest and magically hit it off, there's technical considerations t…

She was running an agency before, it's possible she just just hired people to do work for her but they weren't a permanent part of the team.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#65

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:02 PM UTC

AdamFernandez wrote: post #19

squigs25 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it relevant that she's female?

Specifying characteristics of exemplary people, can serve as an encouraging example for others with those characteristics. Maybe another potential future female founder will read about her example, and decide to pursue the same path. Not everyone needs that, but sometimes it helps.

[deleted]

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#66

Post by ballard » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:04 PM UTC

mtrimpe wrote: post #43

ballard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ever since the pg incident and reinforced by the github gate, the valley is in a "see we welcome women, women are great and we've always loved them" mode. Folks are already calling it "gender washing."

Let's hope it becomes one of those 'fake it until you make it' stories then...

Anything but folks arguing sex politics.

Did anyone even bother to look to see how this site compares in their market? Who's their closest competitors even?

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#67

Post by kohanz » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

dogfood123 wrote: post #27

This is an entirely bogus history. She had a tech co-founder and cut him out. I met him back in 2009. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8860093 Why lie about it?

The phrasing entirely bogus seems hyperbolic. She may have left out a (key?) piece of information, but does that invalidate the summary of what the team achieved?

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#68

Post by ballard » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:06 PM UTC

luxpir wrote: post #60

6 years. That's my favourite part. Kudos for sticking at it throughout when I'm sure there were times it felt less than certain it would work out. Been working on my own startup for (what feels like) too long, having to actually earn a living in the meantime, so appreciate seeing another business go from seed to growth in a similar time scale. People always laud the internet for allowing ordinary people to do all sor…

One thing is to keep ongoing tech (servers etc) costs low so it can simmer. Shutting apps down just destroys value.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#69

Post by peterwwillis » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:07 PM UTC

squigs25 wrote: post #9

joshbert wrote: post #2

Can someone tell me why it could possibly be relevant to say that she is single?

Why is it relevant that she's female?

Mentioning the female gender (I am assuming cis-gender sex/gender terminology) is an identifier that points to the added difficulty of starting a company in a culture where women are treated as inferior or have less social power. So they're pointing out how the company was created under potentially difficult circumstances. The idea that it's difficult for women to start companies turns gender into a kind of 'selling point', as in, because this company was started by a woman, it's clear the founder must have extra-ordinary abilities to be able to survive in a culture that often treats women as inferior, and this company may have properties that make it "better" than any other average company not started by a woman. So gender mentioned here is not only falsely attributing greater business acuity to the company, it also acts as a PR flag to attract attention to the company. People therefore perceive it as important that the founder is female, hence mentioning it in the title.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#70

Post by downandout » Mon, Mar 24, 2014, 3:12 PM UTC

dogfood123 wrote: post #27

This is an entirely bogus history. She had a tech co-founder and cut him out. I met him back in 2009. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=8860093 Why lie about it?

I'm not sure that she - the founder - is lying in this presentation (though she fails to mention her technical cofounder). I think it's more that the title of this submission, which was presumably not made by her, was inaccurate (and has since been changed to its current title which is more accurate).

Lots of companies screw their technical cofounders. I was the technical cofounder of a company that was later acquired, but never received the $12.8 million check I was supposed to and didn't have the resources to fight back against a maniacal cofounder flush with $60+ million in new cash from the acquisition. That doesn't mean that others can't learn from the company's story, even if only told selectively. It just means that the people that wound up in charge are perhaps not the kind of people you would want to do business with.