So inspired by this somewhat sobering thread, I wanted to open up this new thread to let the community express any changes or suggestions to help make the experience better for you on WSO... while we are not dying like suggested in that thread, I always believe there is room for improvement and listening to the people in the community hasn't led us astray in over 14yrs... so let's do this.
Based on some of the comments from that other thread, I know there are split opinions on whether WSO needs or should invest the resources to build a mobile app for iOS and Android. I'd love to hear more opinions on this...if we do invest the resources to create and maintain mobile apps for WSO, what would you like to see that you aren't seeing/getting when you pull up WSO on your mobile browser?
I know we'd be able to do more smart push notifications (for when someone replied to your threads, etc instead of just emails) and potentially some cool things with meetups and GEO location...anything else? Speed?
Some other recent investments/initiatives we've been working on for WSO over the past ~6 months:
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Design: Completely new design for the forum container pages (plus more obvious filters to make it easier to find the top content by week, month, year and all time)
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New Company Database design - completely new Company pages, interview pages, salary pages, review pages to help make filtering and finding data easier
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New Video Library design - long overdue for our interview course clients
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Collapsed nested comments to help reduce distractions of side discussions for casual readers (this is brand new)...and new quote design to make it more obvious (just pushed today!)
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Major investment into speed over the past 3-4 weeks. Trying to make the site load faster, especially on mobile for better UX
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Major upgrades coming to the Investment Banking Interview Course (specifically the technical questions module) and Private Equity Interview Course (new badass module - will tell more later)
As always, thank you for taking the time to make us better!
THANK YOU!
Patrick
ps - we've also launched The Talent Oasis and the response has been simply awesome (yes, we actually give you a free hour of Wall St Mentors if you make it to a final round with one of our clients :-) -- so encourage you to check new jobs flowing in every week on there!
I guess I'll start us off.
I'll continue adding as I think of some more.
Thank you!
We're researching dev shops and options now :-)
Agreed. AndyLouis maybe we can get these revived?
Thanks for feedback
yes definitely would be good to have these again, will start posting these up weekly
I'd like to be able to click and be taken from new comment to new comment, i.e. the way Seeking Alpha comment section works.
Yeah like going through control f
Yeah like going through control f
hey, not familiar with it but I'll take a look, thank you!
Yeah that'd be great especially for long threads
The other suggestions were good but for me design, speed, and courses aren't really why I keep coming around. It's for the content.
Obviously the quality of content is subject to change based on where we are in the year and whats going on but if you could find some way to drive interesting discussion topics, I think we'd see a lot of the really high quality members come out of the woodwork and contribute more often.
A lot of this is member driven and sometimes we do see really interesting questions or concepts come up but lately it seems to be a lot of the same, common sense questions that garner similar responses. I would love to see something like a reoccurring "case study" thread where a scenario is prompted and members (both certified and non-certified) would contribute thoughts. These could cover anything from current news, investments, deals, market outlook, etc.
This, coupled with more AMAs, would really up the quality of the daily content for those of us not in the throes of recruiting. Not a perfect system but might really fill the gap between high quality member posts.
yeah, agreed on the AMAs and I love the ideas for case study threads...
We've been doing a lot of cases (IB/PE/Consulting/HF pitches) as webinars to continually add more templates and videos to the video library, but maybe we could release more into the actual forums to generate interesting discussions...I think the real question is how do we source these without going broke? To do these cases/webinars well, it takes a lot of work to prep the materials...
Maybe we could get professionals/certified users to submit templates/cases/files and we'd help make the cases anonymous such that they'd be more comfortable sharing them? We could post those publicly and if people want to get the actual templates, they could pay a small fee for those and that would be shared with the authors? Just spitballing... I know Seeking-Alpha has a similar formula where they pay a set fee + $10 per 1,000 pageviews to a specific blog post...
Are there any professionals out there that would be willing to monetize some of the deal docs/cases, etc that they may have stored from old deals?
Totally understand that a legit case study is tough to prep or expensive to find.
I like the idea of an option to purchase the full materials behind a case.
Could also add a feature where submitting a case gives the submitter access to the documents for x number of cases or for a period of time. That would help gather more materials.
In my opinion, the cases don't even need to be very complicated. Even a 2-3 paragraph response discussing hypotheticals would be pretty interesting to read from a lot of the members on here.
Bring back Eddie the GOAT
I've tried :-) paging Eddie Braverman
Unban theaccountingmajor
I really think there is something to learned from the Fishbowl App. The app is a lot more social casual than WSO, but there are often some really insightful threads about exit opps, comp, and lateraling.
It's grown tremendously among the management consulting industry. For finance professionals, it's definitely small but the activity is getting better every month
The quick and casual nature of the site is well suited for getting many responses and thoughts within 24 hours
The LinkedIn/phone verification means that you get what you get. If someone is "McKinsey 2" then you know you're talking to someone from McKinsey. If someone is "Partner 1" then you know they're a partner. You get more pointed and meaningful answers when you know who you're talking to. WSO's verified user system is nice but definitely not the same because in Fishbowl, everyone has it
The ability to toggle your identifier between position "Investment Banking Analyst" and company "someone from Evercore" depending on the thread was really well-thought-out by the Fishbowl team
Now I don't know how something like this would fit in perfectly with WSO's platform, and I certainly don't have all the answers. But some suggestions:
Create an actual app incorporating the design features of Fishbowl (also Yik Yak and feed-based apps)
LinkedIn and phone number verification on sign-up for users
Allow people to switch between posting anonymously with their position or company and their username
Create more forums (city-based, interest groups, cultural, etc.) similar to the many bowls on Fishbowl
Yeah I think getting more infos about relevant posters if they are willing to do so and also the ability to post anonymously would be great and would avoid throw away accounts.
Similarly the ability to delete threads without responses would cleanse WSO from a lot of bad/useless content.
FYI - 1 thru 3 are coming.... stay tuned!
Hey Andy, how is it going with the app?
Maintaining multiple mobile apps for different platforms can get pretty pricey, especially with the decline in general app downloads for this sort of use-case which makes it hard to justify. I think allocating the same cash into general mobile UI/UX makes sense.
Are you running crazyegg/mouseflow? I've always found it helpful on conv rate optimization for our eComm side and even content. Might find friction points that you didn't realize existed! :)
I want to be able to see what is trending on a daily basis, not only on a week+. It's hard to keep track of good threads if they get pushed off the 1st page since there are so many low-quality posts to filter through.
this is a great suggestion. We're on it. What about a 48hr view?
I think something like that would work. It's good to be able to track "hot" threads so they don't fall off a cliff once they are off the first page on the all threads tab
Quality>Quantity of content.
There a legit posts that get pushed down and into oblivion because some 16 year old is asking about if Harvard is a target school
Not sure how itd work but reaching out to members based on their profiles to do pinned AMAs/guides for different industries and product types.
Revamp of the company database. It's not the most user friendly
Thank you for the feedback!
Have you tried using the Best in last week filter? Here's what I'm thinking based on what I'm hearing. Introduce a new "48 Hour" time window view that looks at top-ranked threads from that shorter window and sticky them (maybe top 5?) at the top of the forum container for each container...EVEN IN THE RECENT VIEW (this part is key since I think a small minority actually use the filters)... so this way, we have the stickied Hall of Fame threads in each forum + the 3-5 most popular topics in any given forum over the previous 48hrs also sticked to the top of the container pages.
Also, on the revamping the Company DB - can you please share specifics? We just did a major redesign and I'd love to know where/what is breaking or it's not intuitive for you!
Thank you! Patrick
Pay someone to write thought provoking articles. Send a PM to the certified users (or some other group of ‘valuable’ users) to invite their perspective on the topic when it is published or maybe even before it is published on the general site. So, at least they will see the article and maybe you’ll get some good comments before it’s published broadly. Somehow highlight it so that it doesn’t get buried with the crap. Front page it and then some.
The morning brew is usually good, but it’s more informative than discussion-worthy. Stuff like EddieBraverman wrote would be a good example of what I’m thinking about. Ideally, said writer would participate in the discussion to probe further/incite/whatever.
I don't think maintaining an app is really feasible. Would definitely dump dev budget into mobile + getting AMP up & running on mobile. Google is still giving tons of weight to pages running it. I think I intro'd you to our C-level running AMP on an eComm site + what it did for the SEO side of things. Definitely email him!
Thanks man! We're up on AMP, just focused on other major speed improvements now...thanks for the intro, replied...
As far as mobile app dev and it being a nightmare, we're in the research stage right now and I think having push notifications working on iphones may be enough to make it "worth it" (50% of traffic is now mobile and ~70% of those are iphones)...at least in the long run.
Push with pushcrew? I'll intro you to the email guy we're using now too. Ex-OS and super super ridiculously awesome for the money! Still loads of room for you on email and probably worth spending their first before apps.
One thing that's a bit annoying is that I'll click on say a thread I've been reading with 150 comments and there'll be 50 new comments. I'll click on it, but shortly after someone will comment and all the yellow boxes disappear and it'll only be around the one single comment. Maybe make it such that if you click on a thread that already has the yellow comment boxes, disable them from disappearing until you click off the thread?
Seconded.
This has been fixed. FYI DickFuld ...more changes & fixes coming soon
thanks Patrick. Could you also check yo PMs
Hey Patrick, I noticed on threads where the replies are part of the boxes that you have to click to open, they aren't showing up as yellow/we also can't tell which boxes contain the new replies -- think you could fix that?
My $0.02:
Mobile app not necessary
Actively delete repetitive threads or combine the best info into primers like you have in some forums (should be more prominent)
Improve site search. It isn’t nearly as robust as just Googling “wall street oasis [topic],” which may be contributing to the repetitiveness
Ability to link to individual comments would be great. Most services make the time stamp a clickable permalink (I see some ppl do this, but it doesn’t seem possible on iPhone)
Crazy one, but might help with curation: give us unlimited SB/MS. We would still be limited to one per comment, but could upvote/downvote more readily knowing we don’t have to horde them for only the truly superior/abysmal content. Comments with too much MS should be hidden by default
Random thoughts:
Mobile App
Maybe something like a "post of the week/most useful post" in the front page, like a bigger highlight, along with the other ones.
A new logo maybe (the actual one looks a little outdated)? or a design revamp, kind of like what investopedia did not so long ago.
Ban trolls
You could get some finance people to host an AMA every now and then. This could help giving the platform a more "serious" reputation (dont get me wrong, this is top when it comes to finance/IB forums, but there has been a spike in troll accounts lurking around lately).
Allow users to delete comments and accounts without the posts being deleted, however, the username could be renamed to something like "deleted". Similar to what reddit does.
This may sound silly, but you could add some pictures/photographs to the site. I know it is supposed to look like a forum site, but a few pics now and then wouldnt hurt.
Again... a mobile app
On it :-)
We're going to promote less (but higher quality) posts to the home page going fwd
Entire nav system is getting a new redesign and I think you guys will love it (see below)...likely coming live in next ~2 weeks
Getting more aggressive/speedy here and no more multiple warnings for repeat offenders / repeat violations
We already have a TON of these (usually at least 1/day or 3-5 per week) but will keep trying to source them. again, it's our fault for not featuring them better
We do allow members to mark certain threads "anonymous" - all they have to do is click red flag icon on a post they authored and mark as anonymous. I think each user can do this for up to 10 pieces of content. The support team also works with members to do larger cleanups if needed
trying to make it prettier and with our new designer on board I think it's helping, but you're right, we could add more imagery, etc. I think key here is to keep the site fast, but they dont have to be mutually exclusive
Again, on it :-)
I think expanding to other areas that aren't currently covered like Commercial Banking. While IB/PE/HF have traditionally been the industries that users of this site have been most attracted to, offering a section for other finance professionals would be beneficial. I've scoured the internet and there really isn't a dedicated Commercial Banking forum out there at all. Even the information on Mergers and Inquisitions is minimal at best and mainly focuses on Corporate Banking. Based on some of the posts I see on Reddit at r/financialcareers I think this could bring in even more users and give us the opportunity to have some meaningful dialogue with those who want to pursue a career in CB.
Hey, great site.
My one request would be to be able to pay for courses in instalments (premium package). Forking out $400 at once is quite expensive but being able to pay that amount in installments say over 5 or 6 months would be far more viable for many people. Breaking into Wall Street do this and I'm not sure why you haven't implemented it yet.
Thanks
Please let Wall St Prep know that (we promote their course and offer a discount to WSO members) ...all of the WSO courses do have payment plans (3 monthly payments).
What are your goals with the site? Do you want better retention and higher quality content with your existing user base? More new users? If it’s more geared toward the latter, then I think more investment in and prioritization of the mobile app makes sense.
yeah, mobile app company will be selected by next week and development will start. Excited for this new chapter
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