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Woo.io

woo.io

104 pointsmikevm50 comments

Hi, I'm Ami and Iam the founder & CTO of Woo. Thanks for adding us to hacker news :) The service is currently by invitation only because it's important to us to get the right techies on-board and keep our service quality. However this community is definitely unique and special so here is an exclusive invite which you can use to bypass the invitation request.

Feel free to share your feedback!

https://woo.io/eng/useinvite?token=1085A2AA0E9B89D90AF94BCD0...

You need to include "Remote" as a location. :p

Also, you should allow "Other" to be the only location used. I had to pick an irrelevant location to get the profile to go through.

Or they only support the US atm? That's how I interpreted the error message I got when picking something outside of the autocomplete list (which also was US only).

Well, I'm looking to relocate if I was to change jobs so my current location is the question they implied/asked for and the target location is a different city.

I could change it but then people would be unaware I'd need to relocate. Basically, the only reason I'm looking for a job is because my current employer has blocked me on relocating to one of our other locations.

We really want to support remote location and will add more locations outside the US soon. About the "other" location, you're totally right, will be fixed soon :)

is there a way to update your email address? I started with my backup email, now I like the service and want to use my real address.

Few days from now and this option will be live

There really should be a rule that when a press logo is present, clicking on the logo brings you to the article mentioning the startup, especially since the site itself is relatively sparse.

I could only find 2/4 of the press articles:

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/02/09/woo-lets-you-find-a...

http://www.cmswire.com/social-business/new-platform-promises...

Both articles were released 7 hours ago, which implies that this is a coordinated marketing strategy and not organic buzz.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3056478/the-future-of-work/new-re... http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/02/09/startup-aims-to-turn...

Thanks for that; I was wondering why they were not showing up in Google.

So all 4 were released at the same time. I strongly question the use of a Early-Morning USA embargo.

I actually heard about this startup from a friend at work today (we're not from the US). Decided to post on HN after work (my evening is your early morning).

>I strongly question the use of a Early-Morning USA embargo.

Why?

Ideally you want your press released at a time where it's most visible for your target demographic (unless it's bad news, in which case you release at the least visible time, a tactic that startups have been employing). Press releases aren't evergreen content.

No REMOTE option for location... (from your link).

Only seems to support US atm.

Still would be nice to include remote work within the US.

x2 for that - and in no way am I insinuating anything about _this_ particular company, but its getting bad in general with this type of stuff.

also anyone remember this thread from HN a few years back - http://thestartuplegitimizer.com/

I tried to sign up to check it out and got some bullshit about... "Your request to join Woo's closed beta has been sent."

I'd want to use this site as a hiring tool (and wanted to see what the experience is like from the person signing up), but if they aren't even allowing people to sign up without going through some 'beta' process, I can't see how they would have anyone using their site.

Why is this at the top of hackernews?

Astroturfing.

Actually, this is an interesting case. It looks to me like the early votes were real, but then a bunch of later voters showed up to promote the story. Perhaps teammates got wind of their startup being on HN.

All: promotional voting is bad on HN. It's against the rules, users hate it and are good at detecting it, and we penalize accounts and sites that do it.

In this case, though, there clearly was some real community interest, so we've reduced the penalty on the story. Hopefully the thread can focus on the actual startup now.

Honest question: if in the future a company I work for is submitted to HN and I notice, should I really not upvote it? That seems like it would be a really unnatural reaction.

An isolated vote won't make a difference. If a bunch of people have the same reaction, that might be indistinguishable from a voting ring.

Something fishy is going on with new HN accounts created right after this was posted:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ajax_freak

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=hws100

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=rivalz

thats the risk with these type of launches. I'm sure the founders were aware of this type of reaction. Its just a gamble.

Hi I'm from the WOO team, the reason for a closed beta is because we want to control the quality of candidates however you are a HN user which is why we created a link to HN users to bypass the invite - here it is: https://woo.io/eng/useinvite?token=1085A2AA0E9B89D90AF94BCD0...

Two day old HN account? No, I won't be using your 'service' or clicking on your special link.

If the only way to control the quality of people using your site is through special links, then your business won't be very successful.

Why is your comment so harsh? Why did you put scare quotes around "service"? What's wrong with them providing a special invite link when people here were complaining about their closed beta? For that matter, why are people complaining about a closed beta?

Seriously folks, what in the world is with the insanely uncharitable reaction here to someone launching a service targeted at developers and their employers and it being linked on HN? This is completely relevant content!

I'm a founder and I'm a developer. I'm not only hiring people aggressively (thanks to a successful startup) but I'm also spending a lot of time coding.

I spent my arguably valuable time to try out their service from both roles and my time was wasted because their service isn't usable and / or ready to be on the front page of HN.

I call bullshit on the beta and the response. Nowhere in the signup process was there any sort of notification that I would have to wait to get access. Nowhere on the site does it say 'beta'. I shouldn't have to enter my information in order to find this out.

If they wanted to make something special for HN readers, then look at the referrer. No need for special links.

Ok, so I don't really want to get in an argument with you over this and waste even more of your (and my) valuable time, but does it not say "Request an Invite" as the CTA? Isn't that pretty clear?

Do you really expect everything you come across on HN to be a fully hashed out and mature product? That's not really what this site is about… There is no "ready for the front page of HN", it's just a collection of links that are meant to be interesting to "hackers". It seems pretty clear to me that this fits.

Why is a closed beta such a "bullshit" concept? I see start-ups do this all the time, it makes sense to me. Either to manage scaling (Gmail) or to control the quality of the users on the site.

Since cost of living and rent varies widely by location, it'd be much nicer if I could set multiple expectations of salary. You'd have to pay me more for me to be willing to move to SF, for example, but I know I can expect less if I'm working on the east coast, or say, Tokyo, where programmers aren't as 'hot'.

I'm more interested in this from the hiring side of things but I was curious to see the experience from the employee side. For something that emphasizes things being anonymous it sure does ask a lot of identifying questions about you that may deter individuals from signing up. It asks for: LinkedIn URL, Full Name, Country, Current Company, Current Position.

I imagine the intent was that things would be kept anonymous in regards to your data being exposed to the companies looking to hire. But I can't help feel like individuals would feel more comfortable being a bit more anonymous with Woo.io itself.

This seems similar to what Startup Digest did years ago with their Startup VIP program.

If the focus stays on helping quality talent connect with quality companies, then it should do well.

LinkedIn profile required -- pass...

(Maybe their business model is to be acquired by LinkedIn? This would make some kind of sense as a LinkedIn service.)

After getting the invite and signing up, I no longer see the link to my LinkedIn profile anywhere in my account. I'm thinking that they ask for the profile only to get the invite (maybe a verification step for them?)

I opened this link, thought the site looked interesting. Scrolled down, saw "Yahoo," "Microsoft," and a bunch of companies I've never heard of.

Interest went from 70% to 0. Yahoo is not "Top Tech," it is a corpse of a company that has recently layed off tons of staff, has dim prospects, and has recently been accused of sexism. And the fact that you call it "Top Tech," demonstrates to me that the site lacks integrity.

Like it or not, Yahoo still runs several extremely popular services including Tumblr, so I don't think its that disingenuous to call it a top tech company.

Yahoo owns Tumblr, but it runs independently. If the Tumblr portion of Yahoo is hiring they should (and I suspect would have) put their logo up.

And no, Tumblr is not "top tech" either. It may be more than a dying husk, but it's 2 tiers below "top tech."

I guess I don't really see the value to businesses. People have an awful tendency to (a) overrate themselves dramatically and (b) have wildly unrealistic expectations for what they're worth and what's out there. So you wind up with a bunch of "10/10" Ruby engineers who think they're worth 150k, when the reality is that they're probably 7/10 guys that are worth 2/3s of that.

Would be nice if it was clearer that it is only taking a US address at the moment (I think)

The basic idea is brilliant. Put an anonymous resume out there, and get approached by companies who already agree to your salary expectations...

I do agree though that something is not very enticing about that homepage and wording (or lack thereof...)

How does this recruitment service differentiate from Hired.com?

Your landing pages are eerily similar.

This is the biggest question I have as well. Will be interesting to see how they differentiate themselves, Hired has been providing this anonymized, salary-first hiring platform for a few years now.

I hate to ask how Woo plans to "disrupt" the existing market, but...

I'm not particularly happy that they didn't openly say that subscription is for participation in closed beta. I'm glad that I read comments before signing up. Almost all websites with closed beta subscription clearly tell you before you sign up.

Interesting fact: This woo.io is posted right after "the woo guy", on Super Bowl sunday, who screamed "woooooo" every few seconds near CBS TV camera/microphone for everyone on the nation to hear.

Edit: Beta invite bypasser is posted somewhere in the comments.

Here is an invite: https://woo.io/eng/useinvite?token=1085A2AA0E9B89D90AF94BCD0...

I wondered how they make money, and it's covered in their FAQ. It seems they sell matches to companies. So MS has to pay to get matched to you, for example.

I think it's kinda like a LinkedIn recruiter account

Nice. Will it work?

Really like the idea, simple ui, yet clean, the onboarding was very smooth. Now let's see what I get...

Wow thats really amazing! I will try it out next time I will find a job!

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