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Estimated reading time: not gonna lie, it's dense — but you can make it to the end
The beginning of the story #FatherBeaver
It’s 2012, and the goal is simple: to be the band that generates the most buzz (🤢 I hate that word). At the time, I was a student, and a school competition pitted us against others. In case you’re wondering, we didn’t win that competition 💩 #EndOfTheSuspense. I know you’re disappointed, and maybe right now you’re wondering if it’s even worth continuing to read this story that starts with a loss. But hey, we’re talking about a project called VAINKEURZ—it would be a shame to stop there, wouldn’t it?
Anyway—for this contest, we don’t really have a strong idea… or any idea at all, for that matter 😵💫
The ceremony is in 4 days, and we’ll have to present the Google Analytics stats in front of the whole auditorium.
The pressure 📈 within the group. We’re wondering what could create a buzz (I can’t wait for the story to progress enough so I don’t have to use that word anymore) and we end up thinking that if there’s one thing that’s gone crazy in a short time, it’s Facesmash 😳
If you’re not familiar with it, basically, it’s a website developed by Zuckerberg where he pitted all the female students on his campus against each other in random matchups. On the site, you click on the prettiest girl in each matchup and keep going like that indefinitely. All the votes generate an overall ranking based onthe ELO algorithm (this algorithm is serious business, as it’s used to rank chess players, tennis players, and in lots of video games). Zuckerberg developed it overnight, and the result? 🤯 Harvard’s servers crashed because too many people were on his site. Later, he would create Facebook.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this spoils a bit of the movie The Social Network 🙊
A V1 smashed to the ground 😅
So, we went with that idea. But pretty soon, we realized that if we were going to copy the concept, we had to add our own twist—be more subtle, more cool… so we decided to hold a contest: “Who’s your favorite actress 🔞? " At this point in the story, you’re totally free to despise us as much as you want. Even I feel like hurting myself 🤕
Well, great—we’re going to try to be the group with the most visitors by creating a site where people can vote for their favorite porn star 🤘 I dive into developing the site with the goal of beating Mark’s time, and I succeed—I code the site in 30 minutes 💥
Wondering how that’s possible?
Option #1: I’m a better developer than the creator of Facebook
Option #2: the code was freely available online #copypaste
Anyway, at that point, we’ll launch the site and post a few tweets. At the same time, we’ll put together some “Top” lists on other topics, like this one on rap 👉
A few days later, the results came in: 15,000 visitors in just a few days, and most importantly, a retweet—the one we’d been waiting for:
Katsuni thanks us. That’s something to make her mom proud, but is there also a way to provide for her through this project?
Dying 3 times 💀💀💀
2012–2013: After that contest, we kept creating Top lists on other topics (favorite YouTubers, rap contenders…), we chose VAINKEURZ our end-of-year project but ended up dropping it, and the project died a first time. Don’t ask me why—it was too long ago 🥵
2014–2017: I launched a digital agency 👨💻 and was joined by 1️⃣ of the 2️⃣ other group members. Its sole mission was to develop V2. I’m not sure if it’s better or not to share our first names, but just in case, his is Jérémy and mine is Guillaume—nice to meet you 🤝. Over those three years, we made just about every mistake that can 🔫 a project, so unsurprisingly, VAINKEURZ dead for the second time.
Hey Guillaume, even if it means writing a novel, could you list those famous mistakes for us? 🤔
So looking back, I’d say the main issue was that we were always waiting to improve the site before communicating. As a result, since we could always do better and always do more—well, we ended up with a highly developed site but with 0️⃣ users. So no user feedback and less and less motivation. In fact, we didn’t know who we were working for or why we were working on this project.
2019: I’m making a promise to myself 😶 I’m going to focus on the agency and forget about all those projects that wasted so much of my time and quite a bit of money. This time, VAINKEURZ dead and gone 🥺
To The Moon 🚀
It's 2021 and we’re in lockdown. I feel like coding, but client projects aren’t exactly thrilling. 🤔 Hey, what if I tried rewriting the VAINKEURZ code VAINKEURZ It’s a blast, and plus, I’m getting to this V3 pretty quickly —it’s way cleaner 😎 . By the way, if you’re into dissection and programming , you can poke around here —you’re welcome to contribute to the code 🤗
I'm convinced this project has potential
New Year's resolutions: 👉 First off, we're going to stop trying to build a website for the whole world—too bad for my aunt, who'll have to wait a bit longer for the next "Top Kittens" post —Which one is the cutest?
So we’re focusing on topics we’re passionate about above all else 🥰
To decide which features to develop first and which Top lists to create, we’ve set up a Discord so you can have your say. We’ll see you there 🍻
If you’ve read this far, major props 🙌 and I think we can both agree thatit’s high time to wrap things up.
In all this rambling, I mentioned at one point that the project was dead because we didn’t know who it was for or why we were developing it.
Now, I’m sure the project has a future because I have the answers to those two questions.
👉 For whom?
For you (😭 phew, what I’m writing is just too good). If it’s for you, we have to make sure you like it. So we need to listen to you and incorporate your feedback. The result is that VAINKEURZ in the right direction—the one suggested by its members.
👉 Why?
To have an incredible experience 🧪. Starting with a few lines of code, cross-legged on my couch 🧘♀️ (I’m a bit of a stiff—not flexible enough to cross my legs), then asking my cousin to refine the algorithm #BacSMathSpé, and my best friend to create the Top lists… Today, there are about ten of us on the project, mainly focused on: design, development, and communication. We’d love to see other winners join us to take the concept as far as possible.
What will remain of it in 1,000 years?
You get the idea (or maybe not), but we don't know what VAINKEURZ will become VAINKEURZ the coming years. We'll be developing the concept week by week with everyone who likes it enough to want to participate or use it like ChoopChoop to rank WoW add-ons on YouTube.