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Wanelo: The First Million Users

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Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#141
post #134

Hey guys, I'm the CEO and Founder of Wanelo, so I'll jump in here. In 2007-2008, I actively searched for a technical cofounder, but I couldn’t find one. I did have a false start of working with two great engineers, who in the end weren't interested in taking this on full time. In parallel, I started consulting as a UX designer to make money. I eventually took on more projects that led me to hire a small team of desig…

Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile, but glad to see clarification from you and Sarvjeet.

Congrats on your hard work.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#142
post #134

Hey guys, I'm the CEO and Founder of Wanelo, so I'll jump in here. In 2007-2008, I actively searched for a technical cofounder, but I couldn’t find one. I did have a false start of working with two great engineers, who in the end weren't interested in taking this on full time. In parallel, I started consulting as a UX designer to make money. I eventually took on more projects that led me to hire a small team of desig…

Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile, but glad to see clarification from you and Sarvjeet. Congrats on your hard work.

>> "Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile"

The original title was the problem. Unfortunately the original title was created by the HN submitter (as far as I can tell) and it wasn't 100% accurate. If there's one thing people on HN do well it's pick holes in things that aren't 100% correct. It doesn't excuse some of the bile you're referring to but I think it reinforces the need not to create our own titles when submitting and to follow the HN guidelines around submissions.[1]

[1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile, but glad to see clarification from you and Sarvjeet. Congrats on your hard work.

>> "Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile" The original title was the problem. Unfortunately the original title was created by the HN submitter (as far as I can tell) and it wasn't 100% accurate. If there's one thing people on HN do well it's pick holes in things that aren't 100% correct. It doesn't excuse some of the bile you're referring…

>and it wasn't 100% accurate.

The title came from slide 12 of the presentation. Based on the recent posts by the parties involved, it seems that it was accurate with respect to the hurdles encountered in getting funding, but the presentation slides didn't express the context of how this event fit into the history of the company.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#145
post #131
post #34

Slide 8: no one cares. Slide 9: not interesting. Slide 10: 30k monthly uniques. What happened there? That is all I really care about.

:) What happened was that we removed the crap that was built before. Only 2 things could not be removed: products and people, so the homepage became a precursor to what it is today: a minimalist grid of products posted by users. I then spent $20 a day on Facebook ads. The goal was simply to get a small stream of people to check out the website and to see if they would use it. I didn't think I could actually grow a co…

It is great to know that FB ads do work well under the right circumstances. Great story.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#146
post #137

Slide 5, is not identifying Amazon there some kind of joke? I know they're not the same but I'm not sure how you say online shopping is completely without any answer without looking daft. Anyway they seem to be doing well and they have amazing reviews and a great brand. I'd really like to know how they decided not to show pricing in their feed though on the mobile app. When I joined I followed lots of companies, thos…

Amazon is not a social platform.

It's not? It's got an interesting community of commenters. The Tuscan Whole Milk and Three Wolves product pages are legendary, and I personally check out any product George Takei comments on.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#147

$20 a day on FB ads for a few months. This.

There was a period in time when $500 or so in FB ads would result in a $5000 sale, so the math worked for me. FB ads work surprisingly well if you target them properly.

In my case, targeting males who were either married or not in a relationship, age 21-40, and then had a variety of interests really narrowed things down.

I gleaned the approach from looking at our 50 or so past customers who all fit that demographic.l

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#148
post #140

Seems like a cool tool for people who like to shop for visually appealing stuff, but I don't think it's really "fixed" any problems or truly modernized e-commerce. It's basically a clever front for a ton of affiliate programs, which interests me because my startup does something similar. I just wouldn't go so far as to consider it the "YouTube of Shopping" (slide 5). If anything, Amazon Prime belongs in that position…

We're just getting started. Amazon Prime is not a social platform. Slide 5 is all about the web becoming social.

It's a nice assertion you make that "Amazon prime is not social".

I find the opposite to be true.

Re: Wanelo: The First Million Users

#149
post #134

Hey guys, I'm the CEO and Founder of Wanelo, so I'll jump in here. In 2007-2008, I actively searched for a technical cofounder, but I couldn’t find one. I did have a false start of working with two great engineers, who in the end weren't interested in taking this on full time. In parallel, I started consulting as a UX designer to make money. I eventually took on more projects that led me to hire a small team of desig…

Still somewhat amazed at how discussion around a successful example of product-market fit degenerated into such bile, but glad to see clarification from you and Sarvjeet. Congrats on your hard work.

Thanks. Indeed a lot of hard work has gone into the initial stages when there were only two people working, Deena as product and design and me as a techie. And hard work still continues. And glad to see that our clarifications saved further degeneration.
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