Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers • Hacker News Board

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#21

Post by paraschopra » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 2:43 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #20

paraschopra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our enterprise customers pay thousands of dollars per month, so it is well over $1M :)

Thats awesome. I remember when you launched on HN not long ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141

Yep, that was for the original prototype called Wingify (which I had to completely discard. Horrible user experience). Based on feedback from initial users of the prototype, then I had built Visual Website Optimizer and had launched on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#22

Post by Juuumanji » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 3:05 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #21

dmix wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats awesome. I remember when you launched on HN not long ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141

Yep, that was for the original prototype called Wingify (which I had to completely discard. Horrible user experience). Based on feedback from initial users of the prototype, then I had built Visual Website Optimizer and had launched on HN http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252

congrats on the excellent progress!

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#23

Post by petercooper » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

bdunn wrote: post #16

I've been using Optimizely, but after hearing from about VWO from COUNTLESS people I think I'm going to make the switch. Plus, bootstrappers should support other bootstrappers, eh?

I'd be keen to hear the difference from someone who has used both in anger. I'm with VWO (because it gets mentioned around here so much - so I went there first) and it's awesome but it's always good to keep your options open.

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#24

Post by plinkplonk » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 4:37 PM UTC

Paras's (founder of Wingify) blog posts on

Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money

http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g...

How to find startup ideas that make money

http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-sta...

might be appropriate given his stunning success (congrats Paras)

The other great thing about Wingify is that they aimed from the beginning at a global product vs a 'localized' knock off of an existing American product.

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#25

Post by kalid » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 5:06 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #10

jameszol wrote: post #7

I am a raving fan of VisualWebsiteOptimizer.com (VWO) and highly recommend using or trying their A/B product over any other. Paras truly cares about his product, responds personally to inquiries although I am sure that as the business grows he may not be able to do that as much. It was clear to me from day 1 as an early customer (1st test deployed Sept 2010) that he truly cares about his customer, listens to his cust…

Thanks James! I remember you being one of the earliest customers of VWO. With expanded team, we're baking lots and lots of interesting new features. But I will make sure the customer experience remains #1 priority even as we grow :)

I'd like to chime in as well: VWO is awesome, and Paras' support rocks.

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#26

Post by dsiroker » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #23

bdunn wrote: post #16

I've been using Optimizely, but after hearing from about VWO from COUNTLESS people I think I'm going to make the switch. Plus, bootstrappers should support other bootstrappers, eh?

I'd be keen to hear the difference from someone who has used both in anger. I'm with VWO (because it gets mentioned around here so much - so I went there first) and it's awesome but it's always good to keep your options open.

Congrats, Paras!

As for a comparison, Optimizely uses Akamai which has 100,000 nodes in 75 countries. VWO uses Cloudfront and does two round-trips. Cloudfront has 32 points of presence in 12 countries.

Optimizely response time: Slowest: 289ms, Average: 65ms, Slowest: 19ms VWO response time: Slowest 1983ms, Average: 276ms, 171ms

Source: http://till.klampaeckel.de/blog/archives/100-Shopping-for-a-...

Unique features to Optimizely that VWO does not have:

- Mobile web support & editor

- Dynamic text insertion

- Staging server support

- Human-readable results

- Documented API

- Advanced developer tools

- Cross-browser testing for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE, iOS, and Android

- One-click integrations with Google Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, KISSmetrics, MixPanel

- Implementation is 1-line of code vs 21 lines of code

- Pricing starts at $19/mon vs $49/mon

- Optimizely comes with a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee with 99.999% service level agreement

- Optimizely support offers web, phone, email, and a dedicated account manager, as well as the CEO's direct cell for Platinum customers

In terms of adoption by the top 10,000 websites on the internet Optimizely is 6x bigger than VWO.

Sources: http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Optimizely http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Visual-Website-Optimiz...

Note: I co-founded Optimizely and used Google Website Optimizer, Omniture Test&Target, and VWO but by no means an expert in their products.

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#27

Post by kroger » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #24

Paras's (founder of Wingify) blog posts on Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g... How to find startup ideas that make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-sta... might be appropriate given his stunning success (congrats Paras) The other great thing about Wingify is that they aimed from the beginning at a glo…

The link for "Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money" is: http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g...

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#28

Post by plinkplonk » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

kroger wrote: post #27

plinkplonk wrote: post #24

Paras's (founder of Wingify) blog posts on Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g... How to find startup ideas that make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-sta... might be appropriate given his stunning success (congrats Paras) The other great thing about Wingify is that they aimed from the beginning at a glo…

The link for "Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money" is: http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g...

fixed. thanks. sorry about that. too much time without sleep.

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#29

Post by desinerd » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 6:21 PM UTC

good stuff!

Re: Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers

#30

Post by jeremyjh » Tue, Aug 28, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

It seems so many successful small internet businesses lately are attacking meta-problems for the benefit of small internet businesses. Sort of like Levi selling bluejeans to gold miners in California.