It’s Pete taking over the blog today. We’ve had an exceptionally busy start to 2012, with lots of exciting, new ventures planned for the year ahead which we’ll keep you updated on as and when.

I was keen to share with you some incredible figures we released in March when we reported a huge 500% increase in visits to the site. To put this in context, at the same time last year we were clocking in at 4.5 million visits a month, while this year we saw an increase in visits to the site to an astonishing 23 million!  With users of over 19 million members globally WAYN is continuing to grow whereby enabling members to share their experiences and aspirations.

Our good news was picked up by Tnooz, the travel and technology website http://www.tnooz.com/2012/03/16/news/what-else-worldhotels-room-key-wayns-number-agents-review-suppliers-facebook-fact/.

We were also pleased to be included in Daily Tekks list of over 100 Top Travel Websites; you can check it out here: http://dailytekk.com/2012/03/12/travel-smarter-over-100-top-websites-and-apps-for-your-next-trip/.

Over the next few weeks we will be submitting a number of blog posts on the most desired destinations, according to WAYN members, which we hope will be helpful when it comes to planning your trips away for the remainder of the year.

As always we are keen to hear your feedback, we attribute our continued success to the fact that we listen to what our users want and are constantly striving to improve, so any feedback do let us know!

Take care and speak soon,

Pete

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It’s Daga taking over the blog this week.

Here at WAYN HQ, we hope that you are having a good start into the week  :)

There’ve been quite a few things going on lately that kept us pretty busy, so let me take you on a little tour and show you our new great offerings and campaigns. I hope and trust you’ll enjoy it!

New Profile Skins, Gifts, eCards

Another set of beautiful and inspiring Profile Skins has been added to South Africa’s sponsored section. If you haven’t had a chance to check them out yet – have a go! They’re fun, colorful, free, and you might have a hard time deciding which one to apply to your profile… Simply go to your profile and choose one you like the most from our selection panel.

Also some beautifully designed eCards and Gifts can be found on the site for those of you who like to make your WAYN friends happy sending them virtual souvenirs.

Select your favorite eCard from Travel category, select friends you want to send it to, and type in the message. Or choose a Gift, add a lucky person (or more), and a few words to go with the Gift – simple as that!

Don’t forget to check out latest WAYN Offers

We have redesigned the WAYN Offers page to make it even more user friendly. Make sure to add it to friends and be always up to date with tons of amazing travel deals. Check out current WAYN Offers here.

WAYN Meet People App

We are also very happy to announce the release of long-awaited Meet People App. Solely created by our developers the WAYN Meet People App allows you to connect with like-minded folks based on where you are, where you want to go and what you love to do. You can start exploring innovative ways to customize your WAYN experience: meet people, get instant view on your selections and matches, check your messages and control your notifications on the go. To download the App from Android Market go here. Tap on Meet People, log in to WAYN, and get started! And not to worry if you’re an Apple enthusiast – iPhone App is about to be launched soon, so be patient

Valentine’s Day

Love is in the air and with this in mind we have prepared a special WAYN background to keep you in a romantic spirit Having the occasion we would like to wish all of you a Happy Valentine’s Day and lots of love on the 14^th of February and always!

I think that’s enough for an update for one blog entry!

Remember we’re always open to incorporating new ideas, so if there’s something you think would work great on the site, write us an email to ideas@wayn.com.

Take care and chat soon!

Daga

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Under the terms of the deal, WAYN will promote South Africa to its 17 million strong membership, growing awareness and driving product via a dedicated microsite on the WAYN platform. The deal also incorporates a research element, giving South African Tourism (SAT) up to the minute statistics on its audience, as well as a competition that will run on the site.

The deal is an extension of a partnership that has existed between WAYN and South African Tourism since 2009, and is testament to WAYN’s key role within the travel and lifestyle vertical as the foremost conduit between brands and consumers. SAT has previously run other campaigns on the WAYN.com platform, most notably the ‘Face of South Africa’, a competition- similar to Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best job in the world campaign’- to find a face for SAT’s promotions in 2009, which proved to be a phenomenal success with over 20,000 applicants in just 3 weeks of the competition opening.

William Price, Head of e-marketing at South African Tourism, stated: ‘WAYN is the biggest travel and social media platform of its kind in the world, and our partnership with WAYN makes sense for many reasons. It gives us access to the broadest global demographic and direct access to the very people we want to invite to come and experience the amazing destination that South African is.’

The campaign will see the promotion of South Africa as a travel destination within user journeys on the site. By interacting on the platform according to interests such as ‘Going on Safari’ or ‘Wine tasting’, members are directed to the South Africa page on WAYN, where a wealth of information about engaging in that particular activity in South Africa can be found.

As a result, the South Africa profile has already collected 230,000 fans, contributing to SAT’s 7th position on WAYN Insights’ list of Top 10 socially engaged DMOs (see the article below). This has enabled SAT to interact with a geographically diverse audience, as highlighted by the map of the location of the profile’s fans.

To read the full press release, click here. To visit the South Africa profile on WAYN, click here.

WAYN to promote PromPeru, Western Union and Icelandair to its community of members

PromPeru, the DMO responsible for promoting Peru globally; the global leader in money transfers- Western Union, and Iceland’s national carrier Icelandair have all inked advertising deals with WAYN in the last quater.

The Peru profile continues a trend of national and regional DMOs, from Fiji to Ontario to Brazil who utilise the WAYN platform to engage with a travel dedicated audience. Indeed, WAYN.com provides a platform in addition to Facebook, Twitter et al to engage with and influence millions of travel consumers, providing a tremendous boost to a brand’s visibility in the digital media space. A profile for Visit Britain will also launch shortly to complement the Love UK community on Facebook and Visit Britain’s Twitter presence.

Meanwhile WAYN is helping Western Union in its drive to rebrand the company to appeal to a much larger demographic than its traditional audience of migrant travellers. With the tag line ‘Moving money for better’, the innovative campaign gives the Western Union brand prominent contextual exposure on various parts of the site.

Brand exposure is a key element of the Icelandair profile as well, the DMO using the WAYN campaign in a wider marketing push (which includes attractive all inclusive packages to see the Northern Lights this winter) to bring travellers back to the country since volcanic eruptions caused massive disruptions to European travel last year.

WAYN to launch ‘Destination Inspirations’ – Travel E-zine in 2012

WAYN is to launch its first interactive E-zine at the beginning of 2012, which will feature the world’s top destinations for 2012. The E-zine will showcase the results of over 30,000 votes cast by WAYN’s travel focused community, sharing their favoured destinations for nightlife & entertainment, adventure and culture amongst a host of other  key travel categories, culminating in a ‘Top 10 Destinations’ summary. The E-zine shall be shared with 17m members worldwide and hosted on WAYN.com

To discover how you can feature your destination and for more information on our sponsorship packages, email nathan.easom@wayn.com or steven.wakeling@wayn.com.

Top 10 Socially engaged DMOs online

A measurement of the online clout of national DMOs, WAYN Insights- WAYN’s research arm- has tallied up the fans and followers of the profiles of travel destinations on Facebook, Twitter, and WAYN.com. It is well established that in order to engage with an increasingly mobile and digitally active audience, destination brands must be at the heart of online conversations. The study- based on the number of ‘likes’ and followers National DMOs have accumulated on their official Facebook fan pages and Twitter and WAYN profiles- seeks to gauge the size of each DMO’s social media influence.

Source: www.facebook.com, www.twitter.com, www.wayn.com

*Figures correct as of October 2011

In the latest study, Australia leads the way by a very large margin- more than 1.3 million followers over second place UK- and has done so since WAYN Insights started collecting this data.

The study found two distinct approaches to using the two most popular social media platforms. On the one hand, the DMOs for Australia and the UK each had one main page on Facebook and one main Twitter profile to communicate with their global fan base. On the other, the likes of Ireland and Japan, had multiple Facebook fan pages and Twitter profiles, each one targeting a particular geographic region or country. The fact that Australia and the UK hold the top two spots suggests that their approach may be the more successful.

Interestingly, despite the ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter, South Africa Tourism’s profile on WAYN outnumbers its Facebook fans and Twitter followers together by just under 93,000.

Snapshot Travel Trends

WAYN Insights periodically conducts comprehensive travel and lifestyle surveys of its members. The most recent survey, conducted in May 2011, gathered over 45,000 responses and the results suggest that despite the gloomy economic outlook, many members were travelling more and spending more while on holiday than they were last year.

Taken together, these results are positive news for the industry, however they must be viewed in light of prevailing wisdom that suggests that many countries are close to recession. As governments struggle to get public spending down, the jobs market stagnates and inflation continues to rise, travel will become less a priority for many consumers.

Some of the highlights of the latest study include:

• The median average length of respondents’ last trip abroad was between one and two weeks:

This contrasts well to a WAYN poll last year when just over 50% of all respondents stated that their last trip abroad was between 2 and 7 days, and the median average length of respondents’ last trip abroad was only 5 – 7 days. There has therefore been a noticeable shift towards people taking longer holidays this year.

• Over two thirds of respondents  had taken at least one trip abroad in the last 12 months; 6.6% had taken more than 10:

This too is an improvement since last year when over 42% of respondents stated that they had not travelled abroad over the previous 12 month period. The percentage of people who had taken more than 10 trips abroad last year was also less than it was this year, with only 4.2% stating they had done so.

• Over half (55.7%) of all respondents spent more than $1500 on their last trip abroad:

The willingness to spend relatively larger sums of money on travel abroad is certainly encouraging for the wider travel industry. In a WAYN Panel poll last year, 41.6% of 7300 respondents stated they spent $1000 or less on a trip abroad, so there has indeed been a marked increase in individual spending.

• Over half (55.9%) of all respondents plan a trip abroad more than 3 months in advance of travel:

The first time this variable has been measured, this is an especially interesting piece of data which confirms that the industry needs to ensure that promotional activities grab the attention of the consumer as early in the decision making cycle as possible. Social media could play a huge role here- DMOs should aim to keep their destination at the forefront of the minds of the travel audience so that when it is time to make a purchase, that destination figures prominently in the decision making process.

In conclusion, the encouragement in these sets of data may be tempered by the impending financial crises in many part of the globe. However, as has been noted elsewhere, the BRIC nations continue to buck the (economic) trend, and it is to them perhaps that the industry should turn their attention to, if they haven’t already.

Social travel pick

Visit Britain Harry Potter game on FB

Over the summer, Visit Britain leveraged the immense popularity of Harry Potter and the hype surrounding the final instalment of the boy wizard film franchise. Sitting on the Facebook platform, the game allowed fans to work their way through 8 sets of ‘puzzles’ or quizzes , with each complete ‘chapter’ enabling Harry to move closer to defeating his arch nemesis Voldemort.

On completion of the ‘final chapter’ the user’s points (or Galleons) were converted to entries to a competition to win a trip to the UK. Simple and neat, the game allowed you to enjoy some healthy competition with members of your social graph to separate the muggles from the wizards.

According to Visit Britain, over the course of the 8 week campaign, there were 25,641 people who completed the quiz and the Love UK Facebook Fan page grew in size by 161,000. See the interview with Justin Reid, former Head of Digital at Visit Britain below, for more information on the game.

The Interview  

We caught up with the former Head of Digital at Visit Britain to give his take on a range of social media issues of importance to DMOs.

Justin speaks about the London Riots and social media strategies for dealing with adverse circumstances- specifically how Visit Britain chose to engage with its audience in those 3 days of intensely negative press; the Harry Potter game that was such a success on Visit Britain’s Facebook fan page; and the latest social media platforms including Google+ and WAYN.

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It’s Naresh taking over the blog this week.

After bit of a hiatus owing to, among other things, one of the WAYN founders getting married and going away on honeymoon (see below), I thought I’d update the blog about an exciting revamp coming your way.

Pete getting married in Montenegro

 Pete in the Maldives

But first, it’s been great to see the uptake of our newly launched feature, Tips and Q&A. It certainly proved invaluable for the WAYN team when we joined Pete in Montenegro to celebrate his wedding. Thanks especially to some great night life recommendations from our members, our time in Montenegro will never be forgotten. WAYN Tips also came in handy when Pete and his new wife Aga were checking out potential honeymoon destinations!

So continue to contribute to recommendations in your favourite locations and keep spreading the knowledge!

And as for what’s in the pipeline- I don’t want to give too much away, but we’ve got an exciting new revamp in the works. There is, as usual, a lot of testing involved and roll out will be incremental- so please be patient with us- but thought I’d give you a little teaser screenshot of what’s coming your way…

Stay tuned- more to follow very shortly

And finally, I’m happy to announce we’ve had a bunch of new recruits to the WAYN team, in London and Poland- to the commercial, product and development, and support departments. More WAYNers means more hands to ensure you, our members, are able to make the most of WAYN- to enable you to meet people based on where you are and what you want to do!

Bye for now,

Naresh

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*This post was originally published as an article on the BBC website on 08 September 2011. Click here to access the original article or here to listen to the BBC Radio 4 podcast 

Can London really build the kind of entrepreneurial hub which could challenge California’s tech dominance?

They are brimming with confidence. They have the latest technology at their disposal. And they are looking for serious backers to fund their digital ideas.

“I’m skipping lunch,” one announces, hunched over a laptop. “I’ll take a break when I’m either rich or dead.”

These internet entrepreneurs are not in Silicon Valley, or even New York. They are in London, at an event called Seedcamp Week - a sort of networking event, venture capital competition and problem-solving session all rolled into one.

The ambition of the 20 start-ups at Seedcamp is matched by the breadth of industries they hope to disrupt. Crashpadder is a service taking on hotels, while FarmerOn wants to harness online tools to manage cows, crops and tractors.

TransferWise is a user-to-user foreign exchange site which cuts out banks and their commissions.

‘Organic’ growth

“Since our launch in January, we’ve handled £3m in transfers,” says TransferWise co-founder Kristo Kaarmann. “We’ve saved 100,000 euros (£88,000) for our customers and they love us for it.”

“For us, this week is about speaking to people and getting their advice about how we grow faster and make it a sustainable global business,” he says.

TransferWise is just one of the hundreds of companies that are based near so-called “Silicon Roundabout” in east London.

Before the recent flurry of Web 2.0 startups, it was simply Old Street Roundabout, a notorious – and notoriously ugly – traffic blackspot.

Around this shabby, hip neighbourhood, hundreds of small technology companies have started up this year alone, thumbing their noses at the economic gloom around them and hoping to build tech companies to compete with the world’s best.

The government has noticed. It has declared a swath of east London “Tech City UK“, and hopes that the roundabout magic will spread all the way out to the Olympic Village in Stratford, more than three miles away.

But Eric Van Der Kleij, Tech City’s “entrepreneur-in-residence”, insists that the government will keep a light touch:

“Tech City is one of the fastest-growing technology clusters in Europe at the moment,” he says. “It’s entirely organic… the companies that identified the Old Street Roundabout area of London as the right home for them did so naturally.”

He has no doubt about what kicked off the start-up boom – by his estimate, the number of new companies has doubled in under a year.

“It’s such an attractive area, and fun to be in,” he says. “Where we are now around Old Street Roundabout, if you did an hour’s walk you would come to 100 art galleries, and the culture of this area is what makes it so attractive to the creative classes.”

Some entrepreneurs bristle at the name even as they extol the tech virtues of the capital. Alex Asseily started Jawbone, a mobile phone products company, in California. But when it came time to start a new venture, he returned to London.

“We don’t make any silicon in London,” he says. “And Silicon Valley has held on to the name because they really did make silicon and the semiconductor industry really did start there.

“But it’s valuable to start thinking what is it that London really does well.”

Different flavour

“London is at the intersection of Europe and North America.

“Americans feel comfortable here, it’s a place where Europeans converge to do business, people from the Middle East come and of course people from the Far East come as well.

“What better place to have global ambitions than the global capital?”

One of the biggest hits of the new generation of London tech businesses is Mind Candy, creators of Moshi Monsters, a social network and game for under-13-year-olds.

Founder Michael Acton Smith is an industry veteran who started his first tech business in the 90s. He hit a wall when Mind Candy’s first big product, a complex online game, was a commercial failure.

Moshi Monsters was his last throw of the dice, but a good one – it now has 50 million tiny users.

“I love London – there’s a great buzz and energy here at the moment,” he says. “A lot of my friends are moving to build their businesses in Silicon Valley, but while I like visiting there, I’d rather build my business here.”

Spend some time on the fringes of the City of London, in old warehouses with creaky staircases and broken lifts, and you will definitely notice the companies here have a slightly different flavour than their Californian counterparts.

Many focus on art, design or music, such as early success story Last.fm, an online music recommendation service which was bought by American giant CBS for £140m in 2007.

Others are lifestyle-focused businesses hoping to create a new generation of social networks.

WAYN.com - the acronym stands for “Where Are You Now?” – began life as a travel network. It has since broadened its appeal, according to co-founder Jerome Touze, to “people who want to do stuff”.

“If you look at our business, we are more of a media company than a technology company,” he says.

“It makes a great deal of sense for us to be based in London, and I’m not convinced that being based in Silicon Valley would make any difference.”

From a slow start early in the last decade, WAYN now has more than 17 million users.

However, Touze does admit that funding and attention would probably have come more quickly in Silicon Valley, California.

And along with the relatively slow speed of growth come other big questions.

Is the boom really a bubble, ready to burst just like the first tech bubble a decade ago?

Will British tech companies stay here to grow instead of, as has been the pattern, being sold to American firms?

Can London really build the kind of Silicon Valley machine – including entrepreneurs, developers, and different types of investors – that is the envy of the world?

Those are some serious challenges, but they don’t seem to bother the entrepreneurs at Seedcamp Week very much.

They are too busy working hard, right through lunch.

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Hope you have all been keeping well! The sun’s finally shinning on WAYN HQ in London- hope it is wherever you are reading this too

Sorry for the lengthy break from my last entry- as usual, work and travel (business and personal ) got in the way: recently Ive had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine and Italy, and even spent time with our wonderful team in Poland, which is always a blast (see the pic below)!

In the meantime, as Im sure WAYN members are aware, the whole team has been hard at work on our latest offering- WAYN Tips. We realised some time ago that our 17 million travel and lifestyle savvy members are full of ideas and opinions on any and everything- whether it be the best beach in Thailand, the best street market in Moscow, how to cook an authentic Hungarian Goulash or even how to ‘make it’ in Hollywood! So we decided to let them have an outlet to relive their travel tales and make lifestyle recommendations through Tips.

Alternatively, if you are instead on the lookout for inspiration, you can now send out a question or a request to those of our members ‘in the know’ so you can have advice ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ in no time!

We’ve been encouraged with the enthusiasm with which members have shared their recommendations and helped others make the most of their upcoming trips and the activities they pursue- testament to the truly positive and communal vibe within the WAYN community. Of course with any new innovation, improvement comes from experience, so we’ll be tweaking the service in the coming weeks in order to ensure it works to the best of its ability.

So what are you waiting for- go to your WAYN homepage and share the knowledge!

Bye for now!

Jerome

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Its been a while since I said hello in these pages so I jumped at the opportunity to pen this week’s WAYN blog entry. It’s certainly been a very productive time for myself and for WAYN generally. As you are surely aware, the site is continually being upgraded and the whole team is encouraged that these improvements have had a marked upswing in traffic and buzz. You don’t have to look further than the biggest publication in our industry to know that WAYN is raising eyebrows!

And of course there’s more to come. Speaking of which, I was recently in India on a media tour where I met with the management teams of some of the top companies in the media, social media and travel space- the likes of Snap Deal, Times of India, Cleartrip and Conde Nast India to name but a few. Besides a renewed appreciation for that country and its economic potential, I came away with a sense that there is tremendous scope for some mutually beneficial partnerships between WAYN and its Indian peers- the fruits of which our Indian members can hopefully take advantage of soon! Here’s an interview that I gave to the prominent Indian blog alootechie about the trip.

On a more personal level, prior to my trip to India, I was honoured to participate at the e-G8 forum in Paris, where the leading figures from the internet industry- including Mark Zuckerberg, Jimmy Wales and Eric Schmidt- met for an internet summit called by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The purpose was to discuss the future of the internet- especially with regards to the subject of regulation- in advance of the G8 meeting and I was very lucky to be witness to, and a participant in, some engaging discussions.

So, as I said in the beginning of this entry, it has certainly been a productive time here at WAYN HQ, and as always, the team and I continue to work to ensure that our community of members have the best possible experience on the site.

Speak soon!

Jerome

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WAYN signs three year, multi-million dollar advertising contract with South African Tourism

South African Tourism moves into Top 4 most social engaged National DMOs online

London, 20 June, 2011- WAYN, the largest travel and lifestyle dedicated social platform in the world today announces the signing of a three year, multi-million dollar advertising deal with South African Tourism. Under the terms of the deal, WAYN will promote South Africa to its 17 million strong membership, growing awareness and driving product via a dedicated microsite on the WAYN platform. The deal also incorporates a research element, giving South African Tourism up to the minute statistics on its audience, as well as a competition that will run on the site.

The deal is an extension of a partnership that has existed between WAYN and South African Tourism since 2009, and is testament to WAYN’s key role within the travel and lifestyle vertical as the foremost conduit between brands and consumers.

The signing of the deal comes on top of impressive growth figures in WAYN traffic and registrations since the site’s re-launch in February 2011, with traffic to the site tripling in the last six months and monthly visits surpassing 12.7 million.

The announcement coincides with a study by WAYN Insights, WAYN.com’s research arm, which ranks South Africa within the top four most social engaged National DMOs online. The study, which is based on the number of ‘likes’ and followers National DMOs have accumulated on their official Facebook fan pages and Twitter and WAYN profiles, found that Australia was by far the most socially engaged National DMO brand with over 1.6 million fans and followers, followed by Spain (419,978), New Zealand (400,851) and South Africa (272,540).

WAYN co-Founder and co-CEO Jerome Touze stated: ‘This new long term deal exemplifies South African Tourism’s faith in the ability of the WAYN platform to grow audience and market share, and the site’s recent re-launch has certainly made WAYN the place to be for companies operating in the travel and lifestyle vertical. We are primed to help South Africa become the most socially engaged destination in the world.”

“There are very few lifestyle choices in the world as social, or as naturally given to social networking, as travel,” said William Price, head of e-marketing at South African Tourism. “South African Tourism is determined to put South Africa at the very heart of online conversations about travel; about destinations; and about travel experiences. WAYN is the biggest travel and social media platform of its kind in the world, and our partnership with WAYN makes sense for many reasons. It gives us access to the broadest global demographic and direct access to the very people we want to invite to come and experience the amazing destination that South African is.

“We know that consumers make travel decisions after having researched and engaged with others online. South African Tourism is very serious indeed about growing arrivals beyond global growth trends and about maintaining the competitiveness boost that the 2010 FIFA World Cup brought. Our partnership with WAYN is but one component of a broader mobile and social media campaign. The relationship is set to be the lifeblood of the larger campaign. It will not only give us access to a world of consumers, but it will also give us research data and metrics to help keep our campaign relevant, our destination compelling and our arrivals growing.”

The Top Ten National DMOs worldwide in terms of Facebook ‘likes’, Twitter and WAYN followers (as at June 14, 2011):

Source: www.facebook.com, www.twitter.com, www.wayn.com

Ends

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By Mike Butcher

Is the recession over? Are people really hitting the globe-trotting trails again? Looks like it with news out of WAYN, the travel and lifestyle portal-turned-social-network which has pivoted several times since its launch in 2003 (making it one of the world’s oldest networks).

Back in 2009 they hit 15 million members and introduced a new feature allowing members to share their future plans – “intention broadcasting” as it’s known in the trade. It’s likely this was the best pivot of all to date.

In those two years they’ve now grown towards a total of 17 million members. But more significantly they’ve been iterating the site to the point where now, they say, the site is generating a new traffic high of over 12.5 million monthly visits, putting it above TripIt and Tripwolf, and neck and neck with Lonely Planet (according to Alexa figures). That’s a tripling of growth since their 3.7 million figure in December 2010.

It’s a long way from May 2003 when co-founders Peter Ward, Mike Lines and Jerome Touze started the site with £25,000. The site even reached profitability last year.

And it’s a significant achievement, given most people would have thought European-based social networks were going to have trouble against the Facebook juggernaut. Interestingly, WAYN has 20,000 photo uploads per day – this, despite the appearance of mobile photo apps.

What’s helping WAYN of course is its focus on its travel and lifestyle vertical – and to be frank – an extension of its audience from the typical Gap year kids (who are probaby using Facebook as well) to an older demographic which is travelling more.

WAYN’s says it now has the following key metrics:

• 17 million registered users from 193 countries – Up to 10,000 new members per day. In 2009 it had 15 million.

• 12.5 million monthly site visits compared with 3.7 million in December 2010 – a tripling of growth.

• They say their Google Analytics results show that in the last 3 months, they received 16.5m unique visitors – generating circa 35 million total visits so just about two visits per month. Time spent up to 15 minutes.

• 65,000 destinations and activities are added daily (“intentions broadcasting”)

• 875,000 daily messages sent (includes comments, messages , IMs etc)

• 20,000 photo uploads per day; 18 million photos in library

• User payments have increased by over 1000% in 9 months.

Here’s an interview I did with co-founder Pete Ward at Founders Forum recently:

Interview with Peter Ward, Wayn.com by mikebutcher. Uploaded with SoundCloud iPhone

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WAYN.com, the social platform we founded for the travel community just under 10 years ago, was born out of the love and passion its three co-founders had (and continue to have) for travelling. And that indeed is the first lesson any budding entrepreneur should learn: love your product. You’ll need it, because the blood, sweat and tears you will shed in the course of bringing your idea to life will be much easier to deal with if you know in your heart that the product is worthy of all your efforts.

Having said that, be pragmatic. That means being able to step back and look at the bigger picture – recognising what isn’t working, and then adjusting and moving forwards, step by step. Believe us, we’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, as no doubt you will too. But as they say – and this is certainly true in our case – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

For example, the rise of Facebook should have spelled the end of smaller social communities such as WAYN, but the fact that we (and many other niche social networks) have survived – and indeed continue to grow – is testament to our perseverance and the fact that as long as the product is innovative, then there will be room in the market for it.

But it must also be said that luck has played its role in our venture, as it undoubtedly does in all start-ups. We were lucky in that we were one of the very first movers in our sector which gave us a huge advantage, but timing is not everything. Barriers to entry can be broken if you have a good product that better meets the needs of your customers – just look at how Facebook took over from MySpace.

Following your instincts is another factor often mentioned in success stories. And for us, it has mostly paid off. We’ve made many a business decision based on gut feelings. Luckily the three of us have for the most part been on the same page, which is another factor in our success – finding the right people to partner with, those with complimentary skill sets and who can be trusted to do the best for the company. Each of WAYN’s co-founders offers something unique to the company and that has certainly helped to create and maintain forward momentum.

As for the lessons learnt since attracting venture capital investment; firstly, bootstrap for as long as possible so you don’t dilute equity too quickly. Secondly, if you do get into bed with a VC, take care to understand the objectives of everyone involved and be prepared for a different type of journey. For example, when we raised our ‘series A’ investment round in 2006, everyone wanted to be our mates, but relationships change and the stakes are higher when you’re going through tougher times. Furthermore, treat VC money very carefully, or you will pay for it later. Remember that it is a lot easier to spend money to grow than it is to grow your profits to make money.

Finally, enjoy the ride. There will certainly be challenges at every step of the journey, but always be ambitious and never give up. We are certainly entrepreneurs at heart and are very supportive of others like us who risk it all to strike out on their own. We are advocates of policies that foster more entrepreneurship and innovation in society and we hope that the knowledge we’ve learnt along the way will help to usher in the next generation of start-ups. Globalisation and a permanently connected world have levelled the playing field between big and small enterprises, established businesses and start-ups. There’s never been a better time to challenge the norm, and never a better time to disrupt.

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