STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN DEVELOPERS & CUSTOMERS, Deena Varshavskaya, Founder and CEO, Wanelo Check out Deena's presentation that goes with this slide deck here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Ey3e3dqhE

1. The First 1 Million Users.
@siberianfruit

2. It all started in Siberia…

3. The search for meaning.

4. THE PROBLEM:
Commerce is so ‘90s.

5. SHOPPING > ?
NEWS!
VIDEO " "!
PHOTOS !
JOBS " "!
IMAGES "!
>!
>!
>!
>!
>!

7. Milestone 1:!
the first users

8. 2010: Nobody Cares

9. Remove all the things!Remove all the things!

10. • 30,000 monthly uniques!!!
• Close the agency.
• Move to San Francisco!
2011: Big changes.

11. Milestone 2:!
First funding

12. THE PLAGUE: single, female, non
technical founder with no team.

13. 40 rejections later…
rejection #28

14. 40 rejections later…

15. Milestone 3:!
The team

16. The fateful intro…

17. The fateful intro…

18. First engineers. First t-shirts.

19. Ohai Sean.

20. I’m currently 17…

21. First office

22. Milestone 4:!
The big relaunch

23. To rebuild or not to rebuild?
The Pros:
!
!
• Old platform is bloated and painful to maintain
!
• Too easy to break
!
• Team wants a clean slate
!
• Best tools, technologies
!
• Major productivity gains

24. To rebuild or not to rebuild?
The Cons:
!!
• The odds are against us
!
• Freezing development
!
• New, unproven team
!
• Full rebuild is non agile/iterative
!
• Will take longer than you think
!
• Too many moving pieces
• May hurt what’s working

25. We go for it anyway.

26. Challenges2 months later…

27. Challenges

28. How we did it
1. The right people
!!
!
• Builders and get-shit-done-ers.
!
• Pragmatic
!
• Non religious about tech
!
• Move fast
!
• Team over rockstars

29. How we did it
2. Militant focus
!!
!
• Know what’s important
!
• Is it possible to launch without this feature?
!
• Saying no is fun

30. How we did it
3. Work smart
!
!
• Agile tools: Pivotal Tracker, Trello, Campfire
!
• Pair programming
!
• Test driven development
!
• Design in code
!
• Let people do their jobs

31. How we did it
4. Be authentic
!
• Find a meaningful problem you love
!
• Question everything
!
• Express yourself

32. Milestone 5:!
Wanelo for iPhone

33. MVP.

34. The first 4 reviews. EVER.

35. November 2012:!
1 million users

36. 2006 The idea
!
Sep 2010 First users on Wanelo.com
!
Jan-Mar 2012 New funding, team
!
June 2012 Wanelo 2.0 (the big relaunch!)
!
Aug 2012 Wanelo for iPhone
!
Nov 2012 1 million registered users
Timeline

37. HAPPY ADVENTURING.
@siberianfruit