

Is it possible to compete with Pinterest and Wanelo? - KristianMadsen

Hi friends,<p>I&#x27;m looking for some feed back on my start-up?<p>Everyone compare us (Wishlistt.com) with Pinterest and Wanelo, but we think we are different? What are your thoughts about it?<p>Thanks a lot :-)
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jyu
Take my advice with a grain of salt as I play armchair analyst.

Structurally, you're in a race for eyeballs and burning cash along the way.
Sites like these can not be monetized easily until you have rapid growth and a
large, active user base. Are you ready to burn a lot of cash? Do you have the
clout to raise several rounds until you get to some sort of critical mass?

Sites like these monetize through two methods: advertising or product
referrals. Even with millions of pageviews / month, you are still only looking
to support a handful of developers. Looking at product referrals, review
Refer.ly (YC12), which realized the business model of product referrals
doesn't back out until you've reached millions of users. Between where you
start and that millions of users point is an uphill battle. Then, at that
point, you're kind of chugging along at ramen profitability.

Pinterest and Wanelo have raised large rounds and have been burning cash since
2009 with no significant revenues to speak of (unless something has
drastically changed in recent months).

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sixQuarks
The only way you're going to make it is to go super niche at first. You're
trying to compete with the big boys on their own turf, no way to get traction
that way.

