Deena Varshavskaya is a name to be reckoned with. The founder and CEO of Wanelo is redefining the conventional online shopping experience. Thanks to her app, Wanelo, which allows users to shop from a variety of online stores.
The idea was born in 2006, after Varshavskaya realized that something was lacking for consumers who preferred to shop online. She recognized the need for a new type of online shopping experience, where users could purchase from multiple stores in one convenient location. What sets Wanelo apart from other online shopping experiences is that it’s not just a single store, but rather 550,000 stores. Users can make purchases from multiple retailers within a single session without having to leave the Wanelo website. They can also create wish lists and follow each other’s brands and stores to find new and interesting products to order and shop from.
The name of the company is a combination of the words “Want, Need, Love,” which speaks to the ease of online shopping. You see something you want, decide you need it, and after adding it to your cart, it’ll soon be yours to love. Varshavskaya was born in Yakutia, a region in Eastern Siberia. She was just 16 years old when her family moved to the United States, following her parents’ divorce. Years later, Varshavskaya attended Cornell University, where she studied psychology, computer science, and film before dropping out with only two credits remaining to complete her degree.
“I felt that the environment was not conducive to me, and I wasn’t finding the passion I was looking for,” Varshavskaya says. This didn’t stop her from striving for success, though; after leaving Cornell, she moved to New York City and created her first startup, Reel Act, an online video directory of actors to help producers during the casting process. New York City seemed to suit her speed.
She also founded a design agency called Dynamik Interactive, where she worked with several large-scale consumers as a user experience designer. By 2010, Dynamik had established itself as a reputable company with several notable clients, including Disney, Nickelodeon, and Toyota. After developing the idea for Wanelo, Varshavskaya spent two years – and her own money – bringing her idea to life. In 2011, she received 40 rejections from potential investors, but refused to let it discourage her. A year later, the Wanelo app took o and made its way onto the App Store’s free lifestyle apps list, eventually landing in the top 10. Upon seeing the success of Wanelo, Varshavskaya decided to close her design agency and focus on Wanelo full time. Soon afterwards, she relocated to San Francisco, which allowed her to be in close contact with some big names in tech and at the same time become closer to where all the action in technology is taking place.
Despite being a city alienated from fashion, Varshavskaya says that she never felt she belonged more in any city or community than in San Francisco. “I love the fact that this community is full of people who don’t only have big dreams and ideas, but they are also building them,” she says. More like an online mall, Wanelo allows users to share what they love. After reading that people preferred to learn about new products from their friends rather than from advertisers, she set out to make Wanelo the interactive and innovative platform that it is today. Wanelo’s following is growing by the day; this is a far cry from its initial humble beginnings in 2012, when the site had only one million members. To sign up for Wanelo, users 68 Summer can sign up for free through email or Facebook and are easily directed to the company’s e-commerce sites to make purchases. Users can also save their favourite products to purchase them later on and assemble them in collections for others to browse. Varshavskaya credits the growth to the company’s increase in users, driven by word of mouth. “Only a portion of users connected their Facebook account,” she says.
By 2013, Wanelo had built a following and gained lasting popularity among online shoppers. Vanity Fair named Varshavskaya one of their 15 “up-and comers to keep an eye on” in 2013, and she was featured as one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs in 2013 and 2014 by Goldman Sachs. Fast Company dubbed her one of the Most Creative People in Business in 2014, and she was recognized by Glamour magazine as one of “35 Women Under 35 Who Are Changing the Tech Industry.
Wanelo is particularly gaining popularity and becoming a hot property among a younger demographic of women. Seeing the increase in the number of users, a number of well-known brands are choosing to establish a presence in the renowned app. Today, Wanelo remains extremely successful, with millions of users frequenting the site. On her journey to success, Varshavskaya certainly faced challenges, but she didn’t let any setbacks stop her. She always believed that learning from failure is part of what leads to success. “As an entrepreneur, you absolutely have to make your own mistakes and reading is a far slower way of learning than doing,” she says.
Taylor Charendo | Contributing Writer
