Hacker News Reader

Hi Jason,

I am the founder of Visual Website Optimizer. And to be fair I have been expecting Optimizely post on TechCrunch as soon as I learnt that it was a YC funded startup. To be honest it bites me to actually read it on TC especially when I emailed you thrice :) But anyway that is life. I guess special connections do matter!

As far as name is concerned, the company's name is Wingify (which isn't as dull as Visual Website Optimizer). The product name was chosen to differentiate it from Google Website Optimizer, as my tool makes creating tests super easy.

As far as differentiation is concerned, well we launched way earlier than Optimizely (so it is them whom you should be asking this question). Actual differentiation comes in the ease of use, while offering all enterprise level features. Here is a comparision table: http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/feature-list.php

As far as interesting story is concerned, well we're bootstrapped (2 people actually), launched two months ago, are profitable (more than just ramen) and have managed to bag customers like Microsoft, Rackspace, 99Designs, Aweber and Threadless. Here is a partial customer list http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/customers.php

The tool has helped numerous small businesses in increasing conversions and sales. Here are some case studies: http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/case-studies.php and if you must compare it with other tools, here are numerous (all non-asked) testimonials comparing VWO with other tools: http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/testimonials.php

I don't know how else to pitch you rather than just providing facts. Please let me know if you wish to do a story, I will be happy to provide you with more stats or make it into an interesting story.

-Paras Chopra

PS: Thanks for mentioning VWO at the end of the post, but I will still stand by saying that it was bit unfair on TC's part.

Happy to see your product doing well, and the fact that it is profitable already. Good going.

I am sure you are pretty cool about it, but take it easy about the TC (or any other such blog's) (non-)coverage. You got paying customers and if this continues, relevant news coverage would follow soon.

Cheers.

Yeah, I know. I am, of course, not dejected that TC didn't cover us. Long term business viability requires much more than a news story but it is always great to be covered on TC because it is a respected blog read by many potential customers and influencers. Optimizely is an interesting product with a great team so they deserve coverage, but so do we because we have an equally interesting product made and marketed without taking any external funding (that's all I'm asking for!).

That's not unfair. YC is a news-maker. So is Ron Conway. So is Sequoia. So is Jason Calcanis (<shudder>). So is Zed Shaw. If Bill Gates launched a VWO competitor tomorrow, would it be unfair if TC covered it?

TechCrunch trades in links, traffic, retweets, and comments. Take two companies of ANY flavor side by side, and TC will pick the one that is somehow associated with a newsmaker (or is otherwise going to drive the metrics they care about).

There's nothing "fair" about it. You're just not speaking the language that bloggers care about. You're talking about case studies, feature comparisons, and testimonials, for pete's sake.

I LOVE VWO. Love it. But I can totally see why TechCrunch would pass on it (even if you gave them the above pitch at a time where they'd get/read the email).

Of course, ultimately it is TC's choice whom they cover. But I totally fail to see why just because it is a YC company, it is news-worthy. And as I said in another comment, I am not concerned that they covered Optimizely. All I mind (that too a little bit) is that they passed on us.

When TC, Mashable or RWW didn't reply I realized A/B testing may not be as sexy as location-based-gaming or a cool new iPhone app. But then covering an A/B testing startup on basis of YC while passing on another A/B testing startup (because it is not YC) is what I call "unfair". Right, I know it is not an ideal world, but someone has to keep reminding what a fair world could be :)

PS: Almost all your examples of news-maker point to the VC/Angel/Web clique and perhaps you are right that blogs that serve that clique may not be interested in a (bootstrapped) startup that doesn't fit the "culture".

Very classy response, it gives me great confidence that you will go very far with your company in spite of silly things like this.

It definitely isn't fair, but media coverage is transient, long term what matters is business savvy, customer satisfaction and technology.

No two bit article featuring a 'me too' competitor, funded or not is going to make a difference there in the longer term.

For whatever reason, Y Combinator has engaged enough people to have a kind of 'following' that seems to be like other start-up investment groups. It may be due to PG's writing or it may be because we're all part of the community here, but people here WANT to see Y Combinator start-ups do well.

So it makes sense then that TechCrunch would cover every single YC launch, because this site is going to drive a boat load of traffic their way.

If it makes you feel better, people who read hacker news shouldn't be your target group anyways. The 'winner' in this market will be the people who engages webmasters who are inexperienced and wouldn't have heard of A/B testing before landing on your page.

> people here WANT to see Y Combinator start-ups do well.

Sure, but being here and not being Y combinator funded should not translate in to a disadvantage either. After all, bootstrapping is a lot harder than getting VC money and some names behind you for equity, once your idea is out in the open the least you could ask for is a level playing field in terms of coverage. It's not like a posting about other start-ups would cost TC traffic.

In this case it almost seems like they delayed mentioning paraschopras offering until the YC combinator venture went live.

I don't understand why "fair" is part of the conversation... Are you suggesting that they should make coverage a pure product meritocracy rather than based on the metrics that drive their business? Certainly product quality impacts the decision, but it's not unfair for them to run their business like a business.

Whatever happened to rooting for the underdog? I mean a two-person company making it in India with Google as their competitor is as good a story as anything else. You are being unfair.

I'd say it makes for an even better story just because of that.

That's what I meant also, just my English is twisted sometimes :)

I meant "as good as anything else" in the sense of "better or at least equal to any other story"

What?! I never said who I was rooting for. This is business (for techcrunch). The world of software is not a product meritocracy. Again, I love the product, but Paras has failed to craft a story that will drive page views,retweets, and comments. He can solve that with storytelling, a celebrity investor, or some other strategy.

I agree that the david and goliath story has potential. He should play that up.

No, I didn't mean that you were not rooting for him, but that you implied his story was not interesting for bloggers. I said the "david and goliath" aspect of the story was interesting and news-worthy.

Reading the TC story, and this discussion, the gapingvoid cartoonists' line comes to mind: "Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me."

Yeah, I agree with you-- I think you're missing my point. The David and Goliath angle is EXACTLY what he should pursue. He's not. PR is about handing GREAT STORIES to bloggers/reporters. Stuff that is gift-wrapped. That's storytelling, and it's something Paras either isn't good at or isn't throwing effort into.

My point is that the story isn't in the facts, it's in the storytelling. You can call it a juicy steak or a muscle tissue sample of a castrated bull and it's the same damn thing. If you want to catch the eye of key bloggers, you can't make them dig through facts for a great story. They won't take the time to do it.

The product name was chosen to differentiate it from Google Website Optimizer, as my tool makes creating tests super easy.

Leaning the word up against something like GWO seems more like hoping to catch some customers who confuse the two. I know that is probably not what you are doing but it could be interpreted a such and I would stay away from that kind of possible confusion.

If you want it to stand out, call it Wingify. It's not the name that makes the success, it's the product(and the connections and timing etc), but if you want to differentiate your product calling it almost the same isn't going to create anything but confusion.

I plan to write a blog post on how the name helped us. It may sound unsexy or cheap to the startup/programmer community here on HN but for the internet marketers (who are my target customers), having the "Website Optimizer" pits the product exactly opposite to Google's tool (which was well known at the time VWO launched). It helped us position the tool, other wise we would have to educate what Wingify does.

Microsoft's first product was simply called MS-DOS and I don't think having a "OS" word in it caused them any disadvantage (in fact it helped them). But then in days of MS-DOS there were no tech blogs :)

How does it pit it against?

It seems to leverage on what google created.

I am not saying that is a bad thing, but I fail to see the "pitting against" factor.

Because "Visual Website Optimizer" implies ease of use as against the very non-visual "Google Website Optimizer."

nitpick: MS-DOS wasn't their first product

Yeah, I think it was Quick BASIC. But, ironically, that too perfectly fits my example :)

Unfair or not, I guess it just goes to show that TC is not a reliable news source. Or at least in this case they seem to have failed.

I can't believe that a Techcrunch writer, who I assume considers himself a serious journalist, would actually come out and say that he didn't cover a startup because the name doesn't have a Web 2.0 flourish like "ly" or "ckr". Visual Website Optimizer is a fantastic name- it tells you exactly what the app does, and how you can derive a benefit from it- it lets you optimize a website visually. I can't think of a much better name, and tacking a "ly" on does not magically create legitimacy.

I'm kind of pissed that the Web 2.0 culture has somehow made a less memorable, less descriptive name superior. It completely flies in the face of traditional, accepted marketing and branding theory and, frankly, gives the appearance of lazy incestuous journalism.

That's actually not what I said and you've put quite a few words into my mouth (I am not a big fan of the ubiquitous "ly's", to be honest). I doubt I even saw this email — 3 AM on a Sunday is not prime time for reading pitches. And, as I wrote earlier, I'd be happy to check out this startup regardless of the name.

EDIT: Also, I'm sort of interested to hear more about brand theory. I mean, isn't there a reason that Google isn't called "SearchEngine" and Dropbox isn't "CloudFileStorage"?

Wingify (the startup name) is better than VisualWebOptimzer (the product name). I am not sure why Paras is not using the same name for both.

Hi Niyazpk, The reason Wingify decided to have a separate name Visual Website Optimizer for its A/B testing product is because we have plans to roll out more website optimization tools in the future.

Just call it Wingify.

Agreed. Then you have "Wingify Optimizer" or "Wingify Analytics" or "Wingify Widgets". Consistent, recognizable branding. What ties "Visual Website Optimizer" to any other product? Nada. There's no brand transference. Even if I liked VWO, I'd have no idea that Website Analyzer has anything to do with it.

And VWO really is a cheap sounding name, so I am not surprised jkinkiad passed on the pitch.

Please see my other comment on this thread. why we chose the name. Link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1520656

If you didn't know either existed and wanted a tool to optimize your website, would you search Google for "wingify" or for "website optimizer" ?

Brand != SEO

Traditional marketing theory, at least as I learned it states that the best product name should mention or at least derive from the product's biggest benefit. This is obviously a lot less important when you have millions to build a brand, but numerous split tests by the world's best copywriters have shown people respond better when they can instantly see what a product does. I know exactly what VWO does and how I can use it just from the name. I think if you were to compare the value of the two domains you will find that having three words may be a benefit from an SEO/traffic perspective. But that's not my point. Maybe I am completely misinterpreting your comment, but to me the reasons you give for passing over VWO are completely frivolous and lacking in substance. The time of his email determines it's newsworthiness? Do you mean that you simply were not aware of VWO before and missed Paras' emails? Now that you are aware of it, will you write a full length post about it at this time?

To me your comments smack of a valley centered arrogance and elitism that TechCrunch seems to be a mouthpiece for. Silicon Valley fads get endless coverage and everything else gets ignored. I think being an Indian startup should augment VWO's newsworthiness not detract from it. I'm not calling you out specifically, I think this attitude is widespread in tech reportig, and this story is an example.

"[A less descriptive name] flies in the face of traditional, accepted marketing and branding theory"

By pretty much any metric, this is demonstrably wrong. Here's BusinessWeek's Top 100 Brands list: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/07/top_brands/source/1....

How many of those are descriptive names?

Seems to me the 'me too' product is optimizely.

Interesting concept. Scan HN for good stuff by people from third world countries that are unlikely to get funding, apply to YC with a similar idea, get funded and run rings around them in the media, and to add insult to injury have them labelled 'me too' by the same media that refused to cover them beforehand.

I'm sure you can do much better than that Jason.

Also, how can you write that 'you'll check out his site' if you mention them in your article already ? Don't you do that anyway before mentioning a site ?

I agree, and the entire thing leaves a poor taste in my mouth too. Techcrunch screwed up in not mentioning VWO, but only because it is the real innovative company in this space, and its product has been out there for a while. If this new one is newsworthy they should have at least linked to VWO in the review.

That said, I think the real fault here is with PG and YCombinator, who should know better than to fund teams to compete with single-founder bootstrapped startups that congregate on these boards. I mean... what's next Paul, a YC funded play at online bingo?

I have a policy about not criticizing people in their house, and this is definitely not my house.

That said, there are some markets large enough to sustain many companies. Bingo cards probably won't support a company on the trajectory that YC would like. A/B testing, though, already supports many companies, from several big-freaking-consultingware companies down to VWO. There is room for more, and I'd suggest people remember that the biggest competitor isn't a just-launched startup or even Google. It is "Customer decides not to A/B test." This competitor is very popular, and has 99% share in the A/B testing space. Heck, it probably has 90% share among HN readers!

That is the enemy. Focus on killing that.

There's a difference between being critical and being disrespectful or rude.

And the size of the market is irrelevant. To run with your analogy, the question is whether it is ethical to invite someone into your home to join a support group for small entrepreneurs and then fund a much larger team to chase their ideas once you learn about them. For an organization that aims to support entrepreneurs, this just looks bad. There is nothing wrong with competition, but they should have passed the proposal to someone else to fund.

Similar argument could be made about the 99% of people who don't play Bingo - yet :) I agree with you otherwise that the two markets are of different potential sizes..

Sorry? YC should or shouldn't invest depending on what feathers it will ruffle on HN?

Remind me never to let you invest my money.

Hope you enjoyed that ad hominem attack. Because regardless of how you slice it, there's a conflict of interest between presenting this forum as a neutral and supportive environment for entrepreneurs and actively competing with its members.

I don't have any illusions about competition and am inclined to believe if not YC then someone else, but at a minimum this tarnishes the image of YC as an organization which supports underdogs, kicks dirt in the face of any independent Indian hackers hanging out here, and discourages anyone not looking for funding from participating. That's a lot of bad karma to exchange for a token investment of a few thousand USD.

Yes there is a conflict. It doesn't matter who is first. Thats worth nothing in itself.

It matters who is the best at pulling the levers that get exults.

VWO obviously failed at that. Optimizely, at least in this case, won. Play to your strengths, realize the world isn't fair, and move on with it already.

If I were an LP in YC and they held back because of a post on HN I'd (rightly) be pissed as hell. Who expected them to behave differently?

Btw, I'd bet this "scandal" has no effect on either HN or YCs reputation. I also think people are overestimating ghe values of a mention on TechCrunch.

the name sounds off alarm bells in my head (or at least, makes it sound mediocre)

I know where you are coming from, but startup names can be deceptive. Lot's of great products have bad names, and vice versa. Would you have reviewed the product if it was named Visual Studio - http://www.visualstudio.com, which in my opinion is an ambiguous and mediocre name for a developer product.

I'm glad to see your reply. At least we now know what exactly or close to exactly happened. The other day on HN thread, all we learned were "opinions" and "guesses" about why his startup is not getting featured on major blogs.

Now this is called as - the power of HN and open communication!