David Rusenko at Startup School 2012

well thanks for having me guys uh you can hear me all right cool so I wanted to start by just uh going over the Weebly story a little bit telling you uh kind of how we got to where we got to today and some of the lessons we learned along the way so uh what is Weebly first of all if if some of you guys haven't heard of it uh Weebly is a simple and Powerful way to create a site people want to create a site they want to create a blog they want to sell things online and they just want it to work they don't want any of the frustrations around it um so let me show you a couple Weebly sites uh the first site is uh a photographer from Toronto showcasing their photography uh the second site is an interior designer from Oregon these they've actually been featured in dwell magazine for their interior designs run their website on Weebly uh the third site is a graphic designer from California you can see all these sites just look great and uh not one line of HTML or css was written for these sites um this next site is pretty special this is Brian he's 80 years old uh he retired and his passion is building ukuleles and he started doing his spare time went on Weebly and created a website uh what do you know the word got out and you know he could build a couple ukuleles out of his shop per month he now has a 3 to six Monon back order of ukuleles and this last site's really special to us uh you may have seen the long Anda initiative I think last year um but uh but this group of students who had volunteered in Kenya uh heard this story about Omari that had been brutally attacked while trying to defend his orphanage and they didn't even have a fence to defend themselves so they created a weebly website about this posted it to Reddit and were able to raise over $100,000 in less than a week for the orphanage and they built a they built a wall and a fence and much more than that and that's actually now helping out that orphanage in Kenya so a little bit about our story and how we got to where we are today uh in early 2006 as part of a class project at Penn State um we were uh came up with the same idea six years ago we thought you know why is this so hard why is it still so hard to build a website we're seeing people all around us uh that that were just struggling and so we came up with the idea we started working on now now I'm going to introduce you to the theme of the presentation here this is a graph of our new signups per day uh this is August 2006 uh this is real data and you can see up at the top it's 6 months after we started working on Weebly uh so 6 months 6 months after we wrote our first line of code our grand signup day we got 12 new users and uh you know it was just kind of friends and family it was still Alpha stage this wasn't something that was easy to pump out in a month it was something that was difficult that took some time to build uh so over that summer Dan and I and Chris were working on it uh here's October 2006 eight months later so we've now been writing code and working on the idea for eight months um we posted a private beta invitation on some forums and we thought man this is going to blow up uh and we got about 30 people to sign up that day um so you know around this time I I was up pretty late uh at night was browsing slash doot that kind of tells you also uh you know that was the most popular Tech news site back then and I was reading an article on uh why commentator I said you know I think I've heard about this company before I'm not really sure started reading the article oh this sounds really cool this sounds interesting oh application deadlines in two hours uh so uh well I thought you know what the hell I'll put something really quick uh you know it doesn't hurt to apply now I didn't actually have enough time to call up Dan or Chris to ask them if they'd be willing uh to drop out of school and move to San Francisco um so I took a guess uh I figured you know Chris would probably do it he's little he's a pretty wild guy and Dan's a pretty wild guy too but but I figured he he might want to finish his college career um so you know we we applied to YC with literally less than an hour to go on the clock um got accepted for an interview drove up to Boston interviewed we thought we thought it was great um incidentally the morning of the interview I wake up check my phone I'm reading email all blur eyed and uh and I got an email from someone congrats on the tech crunching what the hell is this about so open Tech crunch it just so happened that uh Tech crunch rot by us that morning the and you know I'm sure it definitely didn't hurt with the interview um but I also had to explain this graph this is really important this is not normally what a tech crunching looks like normally it goes straight up and straight back down um we had an invitation system in place you know to make sure our servers didn't crash and um so so that's why I see it spread out over more time but um you know later that night you know Paul told us uh expect a call from us by 7 p.m. the same day to we'll let you know if you made it or not so you know we were pretty nervous and uh we went out to dinner and and we sat down and literally I remember you know 7 p.m. rolled around and 800m rolled around and we were all just staring at our plates of food in front of us like we literally couldn't eat we were so nervous and then by 9:00 p.m. we're like this is it we're definitely not making it in they've called everyone they've accepted and now they're just uh calling the losers that that that aren't getting in um so I think around 9930 the phone call from Paul comes and I answer and literally his first words were I'm calling to end your college career um so you know funnily enough you know I ended up talking to Dan later and say hey guys do you want to you want you know I know we have a semester left but sounds crazy but how about we just drop out of school move to San Francisco what do you think of it and Chris was like hell yeah let's do it and uh and I asked Dan I'm like Dan like like what do you think this is pretty crazy he's like yeah I'm on board this sounds awesome uh so you know this is this is a picture of us that we took right after uh we got that phone call I think this picture was also right after we each took three shots uh at the bar to celebrate um and this is with our friend Dana um so the next graph is January 2007 so we move out to San Francisco start the Y combinator program it's now 11 months after we started working on we you know this is a pretty long time this is almost a full year after we started writing our first line of code I want you to take a look at this graph and I want you to notice something this isn't straight up and the right it goes straight up it comes straight back down now maybe you got a couple squiggles here that are a little that are a little hopeful but things aren't looking great we're getting less than a 100 people per day signing up right now almost a year after we started working on Weebly um you know this is a picture of our first office so we literally moved into an apartment uh we put three desk together you could really tell how long ago this was because that old ass TV in the lower right hand corner uh and then and the 15inch monitors um and we literally just pushed three desks together put it in the living room and and this is this is what startup looks like uh we just worked our asses off we had one important rule which is we took Saturday off um but otherwise every other moment every other waking moment was 24/7 work um wasn't all bad we had a great view of the San Francisco Bay um and you know this is this is a fun story um this is a little display that Chris hacked up and he just put it in the middle of the table and it showed kind of some basic stats so it showed like load average which you don't see right here but uh it also showed total users and uh logged in users and there's three logged in users here and that's because it was the three of us around the table using Weebly and one of one of our biggest moments still I think in company history was one night we were sitting there and it went 4 you know and like we we were excited uh that was exciting um so you know in January 2007 we also got featured on Tech crunch again this is much more normal it goes straight up and straight back down and you know again 11 months after we started working on weely um this is April 2007 and there's a couple hard times I also want to share CU some sometimes you just hear about the good stuff you don't hear about the bad stuff you don't hear about the times that were really hard um this is 14 months after we started working on wi now the first thing I want to address on this slide is the signup graph I kind of want you to look at the end there and notice you know I think we were just oblivious and very hopeful the time but that kind of looks like it's heading down it's not heading up it's actually heading in the wrong direction um at this point April 2007 I mean we were just finishing the YC program we were really hopeful that we could raise money but you know talking to some Angel Investors but at one point we had less than 100 bucks in our bank account and that's all the money we had um we you know we spent money on two things early on we spent money on rent and we spent money at the bar um and and and that's pretty much it um and you know we were pretty hopeful but rent was coming up in two weeks and we had to pay rent in two weeks so we started talking about raising a friends and family round we started talking about moving to San Jose to save 800 bucks a month in rent and uh luckily we didn't do that and and um you know luckily sort of right in the nick of time uh we ended up raising 650k Angel round from uh from Ron from uh Steve Anderson Mike Maples a bunch of angels um this is another thing that really dates this story uh that big stack of paperwork is what an equity financing looks like uh these days you know all the financing most early stage financings are done via con convertible note two three pages Tops This is a fat stack uh for Equity financing so you know the next big thing for us uh was being featured in Newsweek now this used to be a really big deal um I I don't know today if it's as much of a big deal but back then this was a huge deal this was the thing that your parents like bought 10 copies of the magazine and afforded to everyone they knew um and uh so this was a really big deal 15 months in that that was definitely a high point um and that's what that looks like so so now you're seeing the effect of what being featured in Newsweek looks like you know again it's a very similar pattern it goes up and it comes right back down um you're now noticing you know it settles higher that's definitely a good sign but it's still going down it's not going up this is 15 months after we started working on wely um you know here here's a shot of our uh office here in in in July 2007 and that's that's Dan sitting there um and that's also our stats dashboard that you can kind of see what's going on uh next big moment for us around the same time um was being featured in time so we're featuring time is one of the uh uh 50 best websites of 2007 so this is 18 months after we start working on Weebly a year and a half after we started working on Weebly and things still aren't taking off there's no hockey stick here things are actually going in the wrong direction now I want to try something out here raise your hand if you're currently working on a startup okay now keep your hand up no NOP keep keep your hands up now keep your hand up only if you been working on for over 18 months okay right that's what I thought um it it's a long time this is a really long time and we didn't have any we didn't have too much positive we were just sort of naive we were naively hopeful that things were working out and and and we we knew it was a good problem to be solving we're getting feedback from our users but you know the metrics weren't entirely there yet um and this is where it changes this is this is 20 months in finally finally 20 months after we started working on we we seeing our first real traction now this is good this is where your your rate of acquiring news per day is increasing linearly that's a pretty good thing and one thing to notice you know you you might think hey if only I get on Tech crunch I'll blow up you know my my company will be successful if I just get on Tech crunch well look all the way back there just via Word of Mouth now we are now getting more users every single day than if we were featured in news week time or Tech crunch in July 2008 uh we moved moved in our first roal office 29 months after we start working on a Weebly funny story that TV on the wall got stolen uh our office got broken into the first week we moved in that was fun getting a call from the police officer at uh the next a and like uh you got to come deal with your office it's busted um so uh you know here's another picture um and and this is this was just it it was small it was, 1400 squ feet we ended up fitting I think about 12 people there and um and you know around the summertime we started looking at our bank account balance and and you know we're like okay well you know how much runway do we have this is an important thing to know uh if you're not profitable how much runway do we have we said okay well we really need to start raising money in September you know maybe October November we're going to run out of money it's you know so so we said well well what the hell let's let's give it a shot at least start making some money um so uh July 2008 we choose wavely Pro we also sell domain names uh now and and when we started at that time and you know things were looking good but if you know anything about the the fall of 2008 it was just a really bad time to be raising money uh so we went out there and you know it might have worked but but the the the terms were just not what we were looking for so um this is a graph of our company bank account balance um I actually uh hacked up vanguard's uh graph you know like flash graph to plot in XML feed to graph this for you guys uh this is 34 months after we started working on Weebly and um it was pretty low and and and this is you know this is this is another hard time we basically we we looked at our bank account balance and we said okay well you know revenue is increasing and things are going in the right direction and we're pretty hopeful we could squeeze through but you know but we can't pay our bills next month so so what are we going to do about it so you know obviously payroll was just never an option we're obviously going to pay payroll if we had to cut our own salaries that was going to be one thing but for people we employed that was just not an option not to pay that so the next step was to get out of count literally I remember getting out a big calendar on a piece of paper and mapping out all our bills on which days they were due and how much money we thought we were going to make in the meantime to just barely squeak by and and then there's really two types of bills that we labeled there was one that was a type of Bill that if you didn't pay it you got a late fee and the second type of Bill if you didn't pay it they shut your servers off uh so obviously we had to pay that second category um but you know in January 2009 which is which is a great month for us um you know we fin hit Break Even uh this is where things started turning in the in in the profitable Direction and um you know this is where you first start seeing a working business model um it it finally clicks and you can see a little bit of History out there 35 months that's three years after we started working on it we finally hit a working business model um this is February 2010 and now things are looking great now we're off to the races this is four years after we started working on Weebly um and I want you to notice all the way in the back that that Newsweek that time you know the tech runch articles they're just blips on the radar you know now every day we're getting about 5,000 new users per day all via word amount it's all organic growth um in March 2011 61 months after we started uh we partnered with seoa capital uh we we loved them as partners and and and brought them on board uh to help grow the business and that brings us to today so where are we now uh today webly PO is about 2% of the active websites on the internet that's all based on public uh data from Netcraft um every month 15% of the United States visits a weebly website and my favorite stat here is our net promoter score our net promoter score is over 80% now if you're not familiar with what a net promoter score is that's you know that means 88% of people who answered this survey said nine or 10 likely they're going to recommend wee we to a friend as a point of comparison I think Apple's is 67% that's considered excellent so this explains everything about our business a quick tour of the office here we moved in the this office uh about a year ago this is what it looks like when you walk in uh this is this is a quick uh snapshot of our Lobby in conference room at the front here's our open work plan area and um you know we really like this because you could really talk and communicate but obviously it gets noisy so one of things that we give everyone uh who works at Weebly is Bose's noise cancelling headphones to block out the noise um it's a TV room great for catch in a big game especially the Giants games have been on lately um and this is this is our kind of you know kitchen SL wreck area downstairs and we get super competitive on ping pong pool foosball one thing I want you to notice is that bookshelf in the back um actually if if you go up to that and you know the right book to pull it actually opens up I'm not sure how well you can see that but uh uh it's it's it's policy we can't show anyone uh pictures of inside the secret room unless you come visit so we'd love to have you over to check that out um so you know just for shits and giggles I I pulled our bank account balance from this morning um that's what our company bank account balance looks like now um and this is 80 months after we started working on Weebly U I think the important message here is that it's still an unfinished story you know I mean as large as we've been able to grow this is just the beginning uh so you know what's next for wavely well six years ago um we thought the same thing you know uh making a site is just hard you know and and today people are just as frustrated um you know just as confused and all they really want to do is participate in the internet and you know what most people can't participate in the internet the way they'd like to um you know people just want to uh you know showcase their business showcase their art or their talents um and and sell things online and it's still too difficult for them so you know as much as we've done the last six years we think we've just built a foundation and what's most exciting is is what we're building right now and there's just a whole lot of work left to do so I think the number one takeaway of everything is you can't succeed if you quit um too often I've seen people that build something something for 6 months and then they launch it and then two months later they stop working on it like how do you expect that to work uh you know behind every I think we've seen it today behind every quote unquote overnight success you see people who have been working for years and years and years and uh if you want to build a truly big and meaningful company it's going to take you 7 to 10 years of your life you know it don't give up so easily you just got to keep going even at the early days for everyone including us it didn't look great you just had to push through and know that you're working on a valuable problem and and keep pushing through so last thing I'll close with that you know if you'd like to help us finish the story uh that that's still in progress um we'd love to talk to you but I won't go on too much about that if you have any other questions please email me uh hope to see you at the party tonight and thank you very much

Channel: Y Combinator

Views: 10,012

Keywords: Y Combinator, Weebly, David Rusenko, Startup School, 2012, YC

Id: ZOeyYAfKXLI

Length: 18min 50sec (1130 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2013