The hero of the first issue is Oleksandr. After another riot on Peekaboo, he decided to make his project in the entertainment niche. In an interview, he told how he promotes “Wombat” in a niche where there is a monopoly, how “Pikabu” was banned for mentioning “Wombat” and who is financing the project.

(this is a transcription of a podcast that is broadcast on my Telegram channel Stas is watching an advertisement; subscribe 😉

— Oleksandr, “Neolurk” writes that “Wombat” is a group of former “Pikabushniks”. Why ex?

— Most of our audience are users who came from “Pikabu”. I myself was an active pickabushnik before the cons were taken away. And when creating my project, I focused on the same Peekaboo that was a few years ago. The Wombat site has the same format. This is UGC. User generated content. As a result, one of the authors completely moved to us. Someone lives on both projects and helps Wombat with content.

– The “Wombat” project appeared a long time ago?

— The project appeared online in September. Today we have about 4,000 registered users. From one thousand to one and a half thousand visitors come to us every day. During the existence of the project, more than eight thousand posts were written. Of them, more than 2,500 are author’s. More than 42,000 comments have been left for the entire time. This is about 450 posts and 2000 comments per week. The peak of activity fell on November-December. that is, we launched in September, and in October we gradually increased the audience. Now we are getting back to the peak values. People are coming back from holidays. The number of posts and comments started to increase again.

— How do you assess the dynamics of growth?

— The growth is so far jumpy. We are seeing growing numbers. The same Similarweb showed us 33,000 visits in October, and 93,000 in December. According to the authors and comments, the growth is smoother. Since many authors are invited to the site individually, and this process is not so fast.

About promotion: advertising, bans, MVP

— Oleksandr, there is “Pikaboo”, which was the reference of “Reddit”. Your Wombat has appeared. You built it as an MVP. A minimally viable product. But the user in your niche always has Top of Mind – Peekaboo. It is difficult to advance behind such a competitor. How did you progress?

— Yes, Pikabu is practically a monopoly in this niche on the Russian Internet. He has almost no competitors left. He is the biggest. But that’s the problem. If the user is dissatisfied with any actions of the administration, the functionality or the number of advertisements, he has nowhere to go. Because there are no more projects of this size.

— That is, Pikabu in his niche is “like water in a tap”? Monopolist?

– That’s all. Regarding promotion. At first, we tried to advertise on the Peekaboo itself. Write that such a project arose. And we were almost immediately banned for any mention of “Wombat”. In fact, from those posts that managed to come out, we received quite a large number of people. Then the “word of mouth radio” turned on.

— So Pikabu is very jealous of this and does not allow advertising on their resources?

– Yes, absolutely. Any mention of “Wombat” is now crawled and deleted. Even accounts that have been spotted in similar messages are banned. Now we are trying to go directly to some pickabushniks who have a large audience. Some public. And we try to advertise in them.

— Can we now say that there is some kind of war between you competitors?

– Now we are definitely not a competitor of Peekab. Because of their and our size. But to say that we are trying to compete for their audience is true. Another issue is that the audience does not have to sit on the same site. I said that many people continue to fast for two projects.

Continuing the idea of ​​promotion. We were already level when we started making merch. We periodically hold competitions for the best position. Our merch is in the prizes.

About the idea: I am the author!

— Who is the author of the idea of ​​the “Wombat” project?

— I. During the next riot on Peekabu, someone wrote in the comments: “Poll up a new site with blackjack and clear algorithms, and minuses.” I thought it was a good idea. And taking into account my experience in programming and as a technical architect, I didn’t have to look for an executor either. I took and wrote. However, the presence of the main job made its adjustments. Our MVP was released two months after the decision to create the project was made. But I decided to launch and “finish” the site in the process of obtaining user experience. Over the next few months, the finalization of the project was carried out in all free time. At the moment, we have made about 15 releases with updates. All this based on the requests of authors and users. Subscriptions, an ignore list, autobahn by rating, video downloads, additional filters and generally a lot of useful things have already appeared there.

— And what became the real trigger: I will make my project!

– Cancellation of minuses on “Peekboo”. It triggered a lot. A lot. I’ve been a very active picabushnik for almost eight years. And these changes led to the fact that the author’s posts began to quickly drown in tons of other copy-pasted content from other resources. It became clear that the quality of the content will decrease on the resource. Many wanted to go somewhere. I realized that it was time to start sawing something of my own.

About the team: Echidna and wombatologist

— How many people are in the Wombat team and what are their functions?

– At the beginning of development, I was alone. After the launch, I invited my former colleague to take on the role of Product Owner, combined with user assistance and the involvement of new authors. Universal specialist. It relieved me a lot. Later, one developer who was interested in the project offered to help… Today the team consists of four people. I, the Product Owner, am a “wombatologist” and a “go-to girl” who deals with everything related to project development and public relations.

About the inclination to the author’s content

— Oleksandr, what are the plans for the development of Wombat now? Just entertainment content along the lines of Peekaboo or…?

— Currently, the development vector of Pikabu has shifted to the audience that consumes fast content. The author’s posts are no longer as popular as they used to be. At the same time, the intelligent reading audience, which likes long posts or other content, has not gone anywhere. Including, for such authors and readers, we are ready to provide a platform on Wombat. We will stick to entertaining content, but with a bias towards original content. Do not copy and paste from the network. In general, there are more plans now than time. I have, for example, a 70-item list of tasks in development. Grades, awards, redesign of the rating system. And just as much for some small bugs.

As for the non-technical part, it is the involvement of authors. The more the better. Sometimes some users ask to call someone they read on other resources. Sometimes we find interesting posts or accounts ourselves. The main task is to get a stable flow of content on various topics.

— Are you luring top authors from Peekaboo?

– It is difficult to call it persuasion. We simply inform users that a new platform has appeared. Then they themselves decide to support the new project or not. Many authors today also suffer from changes to Peekaboo. But in general, they come to us steadily. Famous guys such as Deathman, Mama Lada, Gena Inzhenersky, Khrustalov and a number of other great authors publish posts here. “Sarafan” works well. Many people have heard about us and come to see what kind of project it is.

Rebellion drives progress: the community filters content

— Some of your colleagues directly in the description of their Telegram accounts have: “Wombat – you can put negatives here.” i.e. you made the Peekaboo opposition your positioning. Was it that important to users?

— This turned out to be important due to the fact that cons filter content very well. Maintain it at a certain level. If you think of the “fresh knights” (a group of users who rate new posts) on Peekaboo, they were always filtering new content. They put minuses of content of not the best quality. As a result, “Hot” produced good posts. When the minuses were canceled, the “fresh knights” were left with nothing to do and the quality of the content began to decline. Cons is a very good tool when it works together with the auto-ranking ban. If the account went into a big negative, then it gets an automatic ban. It was also canceled on Peekaboo.

— But there were also those who were satisfied with the cancellation of minuses? Wasn’t there a confrontation between the two groups? Some “for” cancellation. Other “againsts”…

— I will say this: regarding the cancellation of minuses, most often express a negative opinion. There is not enough positive. In general, those with external resources responded positively. For example, those who link to their Telegram channel in their posts and lead their audience there. At the same time, these posts became simple copy paste. I remember when posts with a negative rating were hot. This could be seen in the mobile application. There, the display of minuses was disabled later than in the web version. Accordingly, it was possible to see posts in the hot section that actually had a negative rating.

“Isn’t this the first riot on Peekaboo?” And a few years ago, users opposed some innovations. How developed is the community of content creators and consumers who go and create their own projects in Russia? I’m talking about community cohesion.

— Of course, these communities exist and all manifestations of dissatisfaction are related to the actions of the resource administration. Mainly the lack of feedback on the reaction of users. Often this happens due to a strange interpretation by the administration of its rules. For example, “strawberry riot”.

– What it is?

— The moderator deleted the photo, which, in her opinion, was erotic content. Although there was a girl in clothes in the photo. Then people immediately rebelled and began to demand clearer rules. A clear description of what can and cannot be published.

About money: who finances?

— How is the Wombat project financed now?

— Today, the project does not have any external funding. Just give. All servers, advertising, paid services – I pay. There are currently no ads on the site either.

Several users have taken over the prize pools. Competitions that take place in our country. That is, the merch that can be won for a post is partially covered by donations.

— So there is already a certain community?

– Yes, we are trying

– And the possibility of donations to authors?

— Yes, we are planning such an opportunity to increase the audience.

About naming: easy to say!

— Oleksandr, I googled and found another site in your niche “Capybar”. Where did this fad in animal naming come from and why, in fact, “Wombat”?

– Yes, there are such guys “Capybar”. We even held a joint activity on New Year’s. Gifts were exchanged.

Why “Wombat”? I had a minimum of time to search for a name. I wanted something simple in pronunciation. Easy on the ears. But available for registration as a domain name… But there is no clear answer.

Did they try to buy you?

– Didn’t Peekaboo try to contact you? Maybe buy. So that you do not develop your activity.

– No. But we would refuse such an offer.

***

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