Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wanelo: The First Million Users

slideshare.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 161 posts

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#121

Post by arbuge »

skizm wrote: post #86
arbuge wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked her this question directly. She claims she did it via $20 a day on FB ads for a few months: https://twitter.com/siberianfruit/status/447961840090218496

Awesome. Thanks! I don't know if I believe it but that's another story.

It is a bit hard to believe. As another person pointed out that equates to 16 users for each $1 spent, assuming she ran the ads for 3 months or so. Must have been very viral to maximize the return on each dollar spent.

Damn good value when you consider the price per user Facebook paid for WhatsApp...

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#122

Post by glomph »

kyro wrote: post #115

Lesson learned: Don't upload a fun, story-telling presentation online for fear that a third-party may submit it to HN where you will likely be ridiculed not only for not applying scientific-study-level-rigor to every bullet point and image you've placed on your slides, but also for events of your past that are constructed from nothing more than tenuous inference and speculation. You guys are a lovely and welcoming bu…

Most people (I hope) were only commenting on the title being misleading and not trying to ridicule you or the presentation.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#124

Post by mtrimpe »

chacham15 wrote: post #112
mtrimpe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a sad, sad state of affairs. Especially seeing the points for my comment cycle up and down as rapidly as they are. 12,4,7,4,7,1 so far :( After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.

You are a guy[1][2]. Why would you "spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny" (assuming that it even exists)? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mtrimpe [2] https://interactly.com/company

Thanks for checking out my profile. If you'd dug a bit further you'd have found [1] that I am indeed a transgender [2] bisexual male.

That means that unless I closet myself for YC, which I'm getting a bit old for, I'm likely to have a significantly worse experience than the average woman would.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098056 [2] Gender-dysphoric to be precise, but that isn't meaningful to most.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#125

Post by winslow »

borat4prez wrote: post #35

Very interesting, although someone claims the history to be bogus. I currently have a website that gets over 500k Uniques per month and over 5m pageviews a month, so it's interesting to see what the future could hold!

I'm curious. What's the website? How'd you reach that audience? Short story?

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#126

Post by camelite »

epistasis wrote: post #79
sosuke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HN has a very low tolerance for bullshit, no matter what your background or situation is. If you had a tech co-founder, then parted ways with them before getting funding, then advertise yourself has being solo with no co-founder people are going to call you on it.

She says "no tech cofounder" when she was looking around for funding, and mentions it only to the extent that it makes it more difficult to get funding. The next slides are all about the technical team. Plenty of "co-founders" disappear in early stage startups that take a long time to get going, and at that point they're no longer co-founders, they were just associated people. I think that HN has a very low tolerance…

It's important to get your facts right before you leap to someone's defense, or castigate others for withholding judgement. If you look at vadsye's link[1] to the Nov 2011 investment announcement, you'll see that Sarveet is given equal billing as the then tech leader.

Something - I don't know what, but she's certainly not being forthright about it - must have happened between then and the new "this is what a real CTO looks like" guy took over.

So there's enough there that merits hesitating before making a woman-in-tech hero of her. It's not misogynistic to say so either.

[1] http://tmtinvestments.com/i/pdf/Wanelo%20RNS%20(22%20Nov%201...

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#127

Post by melindajb »

Great deck. Congrats on your success. I briefly met your sister in a ruby class a couple of years ago and was impressed by the work ethic both of you displayed.

Could you talk more about how you got from "nobody cares" to the first funding that attracted your CTO? Was that the $20/day in FB ads?

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#128

Post by prawks »

squigs25 wrote: post #11

This is a really impressive story. I wish we got more background about the 2010 era, before she hired engineers in San Francisco? Was this site completely freelancer developed initially? How many users did she get before shipping out to cali? BTW, this site is really taking off with young, social-media crazed teenagers, so keep an eye on it! Already at 8MM users, it's similar to pinterest with a business model that r…

Very cool site, seems to be very well implemented. I can see it becoming a much more "useful" Pinterest, at least to me. I love cruising around for cool stuff to buy, and it seems to make good suggestions of related items based on other users' likes (which I'm guessing is weighted by your friends list).

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#129

Post by reshambabble »

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?

Perhaps her comment that she was single and non-technical is true. She could have found her co-founder on her own and gave it a shot, but that relationship didn't work out for any number of reasons, leaving her on her own again. Who knows. Finding co-founders that fit isn't easy!

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#130

Post by squigs25 »

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.

This is a really good point. In the context of the headline however, it's listed in a string of characteristics which would normally be considered obstacles which the founder overcame, and I do not see gender as an obstacle.
Post reply on HN