Weebly

History

David Rusenko, Chris Fanini, and Dan Veltri co-founded Weebly in 2006. 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. The three founders were all 22-year-old students at Penn State when they founded the company. 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.

Formal development of Weebly began in January 2006 and the invitational beta release was announced in June 2006; The official private-beta launched in September 2006.

In January 2007, Weebly was selected for Y Combinator’s winter startup program in Silicon Valley, California This selection represents the time that Rusenko, Veltri and Fanini began working on Weebly full-time.

In March 2007, Weebly re-launched with its characteristic "what-you-see-is-what-you-get" editing interface. 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.

In 2008 Weebly added "Pro" accounts and Google AdSense monetization features, as well as compatibility with Google Chrome and Safari. Weebly reached one million users in 2008 and released a statement announcing that it had become profitable.

During its initial startup years, Weebly received criticism for its lack of CSS/HTML editing support, and in 2009 it added this functionality.

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

In April 2014, Weebly raised $35 million in Series C funding from existing partner Sequoia Capital and Tencent Holdings Ltd. The funds will be used to expand into new markets, increase investment in research and development, and drive Weebly's mission of empowering people to pursue their passion.

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.

In October 2015 it was announced that a Berlin office would open in late 2015/early 2016 to offer European-based support and marketing. In April 2016, Weebly integrated JotForm software on its services.

Product

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

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. Basic features for blogging and e-Commerce are supported: site owners can develop simple stores with payments through either PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net. Users can choose to incorporate advertisements in their pages, and visitor statistics can be tracked through an in-house tracking tool or Google Analytics.

A new version was released on October 1, 2015. Named Weebly Carbon, it enabled users to add plugins into their websites among other features.

Public relations and sponsorship

Weebly co-sponsored the "PSUhackathon", while Rusenko and Fanini spoke at the event.

Awards and recognition

TIME Magazine listed Weebly amongst the 50 Best Websites of 2007.

Weebly has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur Magazine and Newsweek. It was also featured briefly on the BBC in February 2008.

Google Chrome featured Weebly in the Utilities section of the Chrome web store. Weebly was one of the featured apps in the Chrome web store’s launch.

Vikitech, Business Insider, and InGeek have all featured Weebly as one of the best Google Chrome apps.

David Rusenko, Weebly’s CEO and co-founder, earned a spot in Forbes’ 2011 "30 Under 30" list.

Censorship

In December 2014, the Indian government blocked Weebly in India, due to fears that ISIS propaganda was being spread through the site. On December 31, the site was again made available throughout India.