Unicorns 50/229 – Wish

Unicorns 50/229 – Wish


WISH

Founders: Peter Szulczewski, Danny Zhang
Key people: Peter Szulczewski (CEO), Danny Zhang (CTO)
Number of employees: ~200

Wish is a mobile shopping platform set up to be a shopping mall in the user’s pocket. The site was originally built around people’s shopping wish lists. As the site’s popularity began to grow, they created a platform for merchants to sell their products with the lowest prices optimized in a feed. The Wish app has been cited as top 10 free app on Android and a top 15 free app on iOS with millions in its user base and billions of dollars in merchandise sold on the platform. Users of the app are able to get access to over 50 million products globally with around 50% of the company’s sales coming from Europe. 

History

Co-founded by Peter Szulczewski and business partner Danny Zhang on November 11, 2011, they are headquartered in San Francisco. Starting out with only three employees they have grown to employ over 150, many of their employees are graduates of the University of Waterloo where co-founders Szulczewski and Zhang both received degrees. They have now opened offices in Shanghai (2014) and Toronto (2016). ContextLogic makes the top app Wish, along with several others. ContextLogic also runs; Geek.wish, Mama.wish, Home.wish and Cute.wish.

The app has over 200 million global users. Szulczewski and Zhang took a virtually unaddressed market and capitalized on it, appealing to users who could forgo the next day shipping option offered by some online retailers for lower prices.

Wish Express rolled out in 2016 that targeted a shorter shipping window for select products with merchants agreeing to certain terms to be includ ed in the program. This new service is designed to bring faster shipping to the platform and expand the current user base. In 2015, Wish.com was the second most downloaded app on Black Friday.

Wish has been cited as a career launching company and their financial savvy has been highlighted in tech magazines and in industry lectures. Among global investors who have backed ContextLogic, Temasek, a Singaporean sovereign wealth fund, is the most recent.