Weebly: Empowering Entrepreneurs with Easy Website Creation by Founders David Rusenko and Dan Veltri.
Company profile
Company business details
Motivation to build the product
The founders were motivated by the need to simplify website creation for individuals and small businesses who lacked technical skills. They recognized that many entrepreneurs struggled to establish an online presence due to the complexity of existing tools and wanted to create a solution that made it easier for anyone to build a website.Problem that their product solves
Weebly solves the problem of website creation being difficult and inaccessible for those without coding skills. The end users are individuals and small business owners who need to establish an online presence to grow their businesses. Solving this problem is important as it enables these users to reach a wider audience and compete in the digital marketplace.Their unfair advantage
Weebly's unfair advantage lies in its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, which allows users to create websites without any technical expertise, making it accessible to a broader audience compared to competitors.Strategies
Pre-Launch (Product Development & MVP)
Y Combinator Acceptance
The founders of Weebly, while still students at Penn State, recognized a significant demand for easy website creation. They wrote the first line of code for their platform as part of a class project and applied to the Y Combinator program. Their acceptance into this prestigious startup accelerator in November 2006 was a pivotal moment, providing them with mentorship, resources, and a network that helped them transition from students to full-time entrepreneurs in January 2007.
Class Project to Startup
David Rhew and his co-founders started Weebly as a class project in their IST 402 course at Penn State. The project aimed to help students create e-portfolios, which was a graduation requirement at the time. They quickly realized that building websites was a significant challenge for many, as existing tools like Microsoft FrontPage and Dreamweaver were cumbersome. This insight led them to pivot their project into a startup idea, focusing on simplifying website creation for users.
Y Combinator Application
In their senior year, David and his co-founders applied to Y Combinator, a prestigious startup accelerator. They submitted their application just before the deadline, showcasing their project and vision for Weebly. After being accepted, they moved to San Francisco to participate in the program, which provided them with initial funding and mentorship to develop their product further.
User Testing and Feedback Collection
In the early stages of Weebly, David Rusenko and his co-founders focused heavily on user testing to refine their product. They would invite friends and acquaintances to use the platform and observe their interactions. This hands-on approach allowed them to identify pain points and areas for improvement. For instance, they discovered that users often mistook a two-field sign-up form for a login form, leading them to add a full name field to clarify the registration process. This iterative feedback loop was crucial in shaping the user experience before the official launch.
Launch Stage
Empowering Entrepreneurs
Weebly was designed specifically to empower entrepreneurs who wanted to create an online presence. The platform allowed users to build websites and online stores easily, even from their mobile devices. This focus on user empowerment resonated with their target audience, leading to over 40 million websites created on Weebly, showcasing the success of their marketing strategy to attract and retain small business owners.
Learn more about Weebly
David Rusenko - CEO & Co-Founder of Weebly
IST Startup Week 2016 - David Rusenko - Co-Founder and CEO, Weebly
David Rusenko and Benjamin Nason A Virtual Fireside Chat
