PENEWO – The people behind it.

Yet another social media - really?

What's interesting about Penewo's developers is that they weren't really active users of Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. They just wanted to build the best software to connect people based on their interests.

In an early article, Mark Zuckerberg said that if MySpace had stuck to its original and fundamental purpose of connecting people (whereas Facebook's strength is in keeping in touch with friends), it would still exist today. Maybe he's right.

It wasn't clear from day one what Penewo should look like. It was a long development with a lot of changes and adjustments and what seems so simple and logical today was mostly the result of a long process of experimentation, redesign and reprogramming. If you ask the creators of Penewo, they would claim that every feature has been developed multiple times to improve it.

In addition to its main function of connecting people, Penewo is also intended to entertain. Here is (briefly) the story of the creators and how it all came together.

A coffee shop in Bangkok.

Peter Grob (Swiss - engineer) went to a cafe in Bangkok and was introduced to Ruben Wasserscheidt (German - programmer and computer nerd) and that led to the development of Penewo.

Back then, Peter was developing a corporate hub where companies could upload all of their external communications. Ruben stepped in and they started to work on function, design and programming.

The initial spark for Penewo – What is work anyway?

The company hub involved finding employees and Peter had to create the page design.

Some thoughts came up. What is work anyway?

People sell their know-how and work for wages. But most people have a lifetime of experience in many different areas that could help and support others.

How often would we be happy if someone could help and support us in areas we have no idea about - for example the lawyer who is well versed in corporate restructuring or the banker who has experience in financing various projects? How many people don't currently have a job, but they have know-how and can help others or even start a new career? And by the way, who are the people behind the know-how you find in encyclopedias or in science (if they are alive)?

Whole lives could be changed with new perspectives if only people could properly showcase their expertise and connect with people who need it. Especially in times when working life is increasingly being done from home, it seems to be necessary to find a perfect presentation on the Internet combined with a proper search in order to be found.

But these questions about the business world were just the beginning.

New slogan: We connect People!

People have dreams, desires and needs in all areas of life. So the new page should be a general connection page. People connected to people in all their areas of interest - for fun, action, leisure, dating, jobs, business or science.

Peter called Ruben to discuss his thoughts. They were complete fascinated and decided to focus on this new idea – the project that was later called Penewo (acronym for People - Network). They worked on it for the next few years (don't ask how many years - in any case longer than you think). If they would have known how big the effort was to create Penewo, they would never have started it. They personally don't really use existing social media extensively, nor have they used the Minimum Viable Product strategy (develop a minimalistic version and then see if it works, and if it does - adapt, change and improve). It wouldn't help - what do you expect from the Germans - they have to do it 100% and then adapt.

In fact, in a "development rage," they have created an entirely new social medium based on pre-set interests that are defined by the user.

Penewo consists of an enhanced profile (called "PENEWO page"), a news feed (called "Your News") where people can get the latest information on their preset areas of interest. The newsfeed is not based on surfing behavior. In addition there is an electronic name card system. The design was changed multiple times until they were satisfied – for desktop, Android, IOS. They wanted their program to be perfect.

The result

"Now anyone can be represented online without any fuss." But not only that. The Penewo (web) pages can also be found via a search, which is a big difference to conventional websites.

People can be entertained and informed by their areas of interest. It's been a long road of development.

Just have a look at the result. www.penewo.com