Weebly Privatebeta Launch

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There's one thing I can guarantee any new startup is going to be worrying about when they launch: 'Is my one (or less) web server enough?'
I've heard the question quite a few times. When we were in that stage, it was one of my biggest worries (so much so, that we initially launched a private beta). Seeing as it's a common worry, this post will address two related issues: how scalable is one web server? and should you launch a private beta?
How scalable is one web server?
More scalable than you think. I'm going to qualify that by saying that if you don't program with scalability in mind or are an idiot programmer, this might not apply.
Although we were lucky to have an awesome clustered infrastructure set up from the beginning (that I had spent a year developing for a separate venture), we actually ran Weebly off of one web server for a very long time. In fact, we can still run Weebly off of one server, total, if needs be. We currently have over 300,000 users, over 10 million page views a month, and are ranked about the top 6,000th site worldwide on the internet, and can still run off of one web server.
Plan for scalability, of course. Program with scalability in mind. But intelligently used, for most web apps, one web server can last you a long time.
Should I launch a private beta?
Short answer: no, launch public. Longer answer: probably not, launch public.
Everybody (including, initially, myself) thinks about launching a private beta when launching their product. But after seeing quite a few companies and advising another few, I think it's a bad idea.
Why? I understand the reasons for: You're scared that your product isn't ready -- or, you're positive that your product will be too popular. Opening in private beta will create an air of exclusivity. And you don't think you can scale. Et cetera..
1) Your product may or may not be ready, but it won't be that popular.
2) Your private beta won't be exclusive. In fact, nobody will know about it.
3) You can probably scale with a little effort, if things do actually go really well.
4) If you don't open up completely, you are losing users.
Think about things from your users point of view. You literally have about thirty seconds of their attention (if you're lucky). They want to like your product (they read about it, and it sounds cool). BUT, they can't try it out. It's not that they want to forget about it, but they have so many other things grabbing at their attention. Even if you ask them to submit their email address (most of them won't), you'll still convert less than 50% of those to users when you email them. It's not that they're idiots or trying to ignore you, it's just that you don't have their attention any more. The worst thing possible is if somebody wants to try your product, but can't immediately, while you still have their attention.
Basically, you're losing users. You can't afford to do that.
Even worse: if TechCrunch or any other large press source posts about you during this time, you've lost all their readers that might sign-up. And very likely, you might not get that coverage again.
There's only one reason I've ever advised anybody to try a private beta: if you (and other people around you) think that you aren't ready yet, and you need a small (read: 50 or less) group of people to try things out for you.
Occasionally, it seems to work out for somepeople, but I think this is more the exception than the rule -- and their product probably wasn't ready yet.
What can I do about it?
Ok, so you don't want to be like that new Yahoo! life casting thing that was down the entire couple days after it launched (even a worse way to lose your audience than a private beta, but not by much).
What can you do? Set the bar for a minimum level of service, and give that to as many people as possible, automatically. If you think your system can handle 2,000 signups, create a limit at 2,000 signups, and display a nice friendly error message after that. Make sure you'll be notified, and then put the rest on a waiting list. But don't set the limit too low. And make sure that if you hit the limit, you'll be working nonstop to increase that limit as fast as possible, to let as many people in when they want to get in as possible.

2/10/2008 07:26:55 pm
2/10/2008 08:15:25 pm

isnt that a function of your workload?
lets say the site is 80% cacheable then it is okay but what if every request translates into multiple database queries, thats when an issue of scaling works.
maybe I am missing something.

2/12/2008 03:31:49 pm

We just launched tipjoy.com
We were techcrunched. The site did fine on one 2GB Slicehost slice. The front page was static, which helped. You can configure lighttpd or nginx easily to do this. I had a background process grab another page with the same content about the front page.
I'm writing a blog post about the details. I'm probing google analytics like an alien out in the farm country.

2/12/2008 03:33:06 pm

Ohh, forgot to mention: our biggest problem was bugs, not scalability. We launched as early as humanly possible. As Paul Graham says: if you are not embarrassed by what you launched with, you launched too early.

2/12/2008 03:35:56 pm

if you are not embarrassed by what you launched with, you launched too LATE.
And while I'm here, let me add: the feedback that you get will direct what you should work on next so much better than the next feature you think you need to implement. Also, fewer features mean easier to scale, right?

3/19/2008 01:00:51 am

very nice web site. My English is not so good, so I do not understandt it well, but it seems very good. Thanks


Comments are closed.
(Redirected from Chris Fanini)

The invitational beta release was announced June 2006, followed by the official private-beta launch on September 12, 2006. Later, in February 2007, Weebly staff announced it was working on a new WYSIWYG-like editing interface for Weebly. This interface, along with a few other new features, was released March 2007. Working to be current and keep customer satisfaction, Weebly continues to update and implement new services. Below is a summary of some of its key accomplishments that are relevant to its educational use. 2006 - Formal development of Weebly begins. A private beta launch is made by invitation only and then later is opened up to the public.

Weebly
Type of site
Web hosting service
FoundedMarch 29, 2006; 14 years ago (Beta)
Founder(s)
ParentSquare, Inc.
URLweebly.com

Weebly (/ˈwiːbli/) is a web hosting service, headquartered in San Francisco. Its parent company is Square, Inc. On acquisition in April 2018, Weebly had more than 625,000 paid subscribers.[2]

History[edit]

Weebly was founded in 2006 by Chief Executive Officer David Rusenko, Chief Technology Officer Chris Fanini, and former Chief Product Officer Dan Veltri.[3] Rusenko and Fanini both attended the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) while Veltri attended the university's Smeal College of Business. At the time, Penn State required all students to maintain an Internet portfolio, so they built upon this idea and created software that made it easy for anyone to build a personal website.[3]

Weebly Privatebeta Launch

Formal development of Weebly began in January 2006.[4] The invitational beta release was announced in June 2006.[5] The official private-beta launched in September 2006.[6]

In January 2007, Weebly was selected for Y Combinator’s winter startup program.[3]

In March 2007, Weebly re-launched with its 'WYSIWYG' editing interface.[7] Also in 2007, Weebly raised a US$650,000 financing round from several angel investors, including Ron Conway, Steve Anderson, Mike Maples, and Paul Buchheit.[3][7]

In 2008 Weebly added 'Pro' accounts and Google AdSense monetization features, as well as compatibility with Google Chrome and Safari.[8]

During its initial startup years, Weebly received criticism for its lack of CSS/HTML editing support, and in 2009 added this functionality. In 2010, the company added French, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese languages.[9]

In 2011, Weebly raised a growth-stage round from Sequoia Capital and added Roelof Botha to its board of directors.[10]

In April 2014, Weebly raised $35 million in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings Ltd.

Rusenko stated in August 2013 that the company signed a lease for a 36,000 square feet (3,300 m2) warehouse in San Francisco, based on an expectation of ongoing growth. The new office will house the majority of a global team of 600 employees in 2014 when it moves into the property. As of August 25, 2013, Weebly had 80 employees and was based in an 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) space in the Pacific Heights area of San Francisco.[11]

In October 2015, Weebly announced it would open a Berlin office in late 2015/early 2016 to offer European-based support and marketing.[citation needed] In April 2016, Weebly integrated JotForm software on its services.[12] On October 1, 2015, Weebly Carbon was released to allow plugin integration among other features.

In 2016, Weebly began to focus in on its ecommerce offerings with the release of Weebly 4 and Weebly Promote, an integrated marketing tool.[13]

As more sellers began using the company, the company created features for one click taxes, integrations with Shippo to streamline the shipping process, Facebook Ad creator, integrated email marketing and lead capture, abandoned cart features, the release of Mobile 5.0 to help sellers run their store from anywhere and deep integrations with Square payment processing.

Xquartz for mac. In early 2018, co-founder Dan Veltri left the company to pursue other interests. In January 2018, Weebly hired its first VP of Brand, Alexis Contos, and her hire marked the first time the 12 person executive team was 50% women and 50% men.

On April 26, 2018, Square, Inc. announced it would acquire Weebly for approximately $365 million in cash and stock.[14]

Product[edit]

Weebly Privatebeta Launchpad

Weebly's free online website creator uses a simple widget-based site builder that operates in the web browser.[15][16][17][18] All the site elements are drag-and-drop,[15][18] and it automatically generates a mobile version of each website.[16] Storage is unlimited, but the service restricts individual file sizes.[16] Consumers are given the option to have any url ending in .weebly.com, .com, .net, .org, .co, .info, or .us. (example.weebly.com)

Launch

Weebly Privatebeta Launcher

Android and iPhone apps are available that allow users to monitor their website traffic statistics, update blog posts and respond to comments, and add or update products if the user has an e-commerce online store.[19][20] Basic features for blogging and e-Commerce are supported: as of 2018, site owners could develop simple stores with payments through either PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net.[2] Users can choose to incorporate advertisements in their pages, and visitor statistics can be tracked through an in-house tracking tool or Google Analytics.[16] Weebly also has integrated newsletter marketing features.[21]

As of 2020, Weebly was offered in 15 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Norwegian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Turkish.[22]

Weebly Privatebeta Launch Page

Public relations and sponsorship[edit]

In April 2012, Weebly co-sponsored a hackathon hosted by Pennsylvania State University titled the 'PSUhackathon.'[23] Rusenko and Fanini, who are both alumni of the College of Information Sciences and Technology, spoke at and judged the event.

Awards and recognition[edit]

TIME listed Weebly among the 50 Best Websites of 2007.[15] In 2011, Business Insider included Weebly into its '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome' list.[24] Also in 2011, David Rusenko, Weebly's CEO and co-founder, earned a spot in Forbes' '30 Under 30: social/mobile' list.[25]

Weebly Privatebeta Launch Date

Censorship[edit]

2021 big boardthe initials game. In December 2014, the Indian government blocked Weebly in India, due to fears that ISIS propaganda was being spread through the site.[26] On December 31, the site was again made available throughout India.[27]

Weebly also applies censorship to its availability with a wide selection of geoblocked countries where Weebly is unavailable to internet users. Site owners are unable to login from these geoblocked locations to administer the site just as internet users cannot reach the site. According to Weebly official support forum, the exact list of blocked countries is secret, but the employees confirmed blocking of Côte d'Ivoire, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine, as well as much of Middle East, West and Central Africa.[28]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Ha, Anthony (April 26, 2018). 'Square is acquiring website builder Weebly for $365M'. TechCrunch. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  2. ^ abGagliordi, Natalie (April 26, 2018). 'Square buys website builder Weebly for $365 million'. ZDNet. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  3. ^ abcdLevy, Steven (May 20, 2007). 'A Boot Camp for the Next Tech Billionaires'. Newsweek. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  4. ^Guynn, Jessica (June 10, 2008). 'Weeblies aren't wobbling'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  5. ^Veltri, Dan (June 29, 2006). 'Exciting Developments' (Press release). Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  6. ^'Weebly private-beta launch' (Press release). Weebly. September 12, 2006. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  7. ^ abRobinson, Blake (May 9, 2007). 'Weebly Launches blog Platform, Closes $650K Investment'. TechCrunch. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  8. ^Adewumi, David (June 10, 2008). 'Weebly, a Simple web page creator,launches Adsense feature and pro accounts'. Venture Beat. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  9. ^Ha, Anthony (February 24, 2010). 'Simple website builder Weebly goes international'. VentureBeat. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  10. ^Botha, Roelof. 'Weebly: What we do'. SEQUOIA Capital. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  11. ^Empson, Rip (25 August 2013). 'As Wix Heads Toward IPO, Weebly Looks To Expand With Big New SF Headquarters, Plans To Add 500+ Employees'. TechCrunch. AOL Inc. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  12. ^Roy, Rohit (1 April 2016). 'Weebly Users Gain Access to Easy-to-use Form-Creator JotForm'. Martech Advisor.
  13. ^'How Weebly 4 Is Leading An E-commerce Revolution'. www.forbes.com. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  14. ^'Square to Acquire Weebly'. Square, Inc. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  15. ^ abcMary Murray Buner (July 8, 2007). '50 Best Websites 2007'. TIME Specials. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
  16. ^ abcdWeebly,Inc (September 19, 2012). 'Weebly'. iTunes Store. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  17. ^Johnston, Mike (July 6, 2012). 'Weebly Review-The Website Builder that makes Web Design Fun'. CMS Critic. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  18. ^ abRussell, Kate (February 15, 2008). 'Webscape'. BBC News. Retrieved September 24, 2012.
  19. ^'iPhone and Android Apps'. Weebly. Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  20. ^'12 Best Free Website Builders'. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  21. ^Williams, Alex (January 9, 2020). '10 Best Website Builders (UK) in 2020'. hostingdata.co.uk. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  22. ^'Company Info'. Weebly. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  23. ^PSUhackathon (April 27, 2012). 'Sponsorship & Judges'. /psuhackathon.com. Archived from the original on April 27, 2012. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  24. ^Hamburger, Ellis (May 17, 2011). '15 Cool New Apps That Are Crushing It On Chrome'. Business Insider. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  25. ^'30 Under 30:Social/Mobile'. Forbes. 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2020.
  26. ^Stone, Jeff. 'Vimeo, DailyMotion, Pastebin Among Sites Blocked In India For 'Anti-India' Content From ISIS'. International Business Times.
  27. ^Sharma, Ravi (January 2, 2015). 'Indian government unblocks Vimeo, Dailymotion, 2 other websites'. The Times of India.
  28. ^'Weebly doesn't work in Russia'.

External links[edit]

  • Official website
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