Priyanka Sharma and I worked on a massage on-demand startup which didn't take off. We decided to see if investors would be interested in my WakaTime project, and Priyanka asked to be listed on the WakaTime "About" page to build her confidence when talking to potential investors. I also agreed to pitch WakaTime on TechCrunch with her, although they listed her incorrectly as CEO! She was CEO of the massage startup, Kneady, but never WakaTime!
It's unfortunate that Priyanka Sharma now uses the WakaTime TechCrunch article to charge early-stage startups for advice through Heavybit. It's also unfortunate if HN caves to her threats of ownership without asking for any proof. If she was a founder of WakaTime, she should be able to produce a stock purchase or other agreement, or even documentation about an "ongoing legal dispute". I've already reached out to HN via email offering proof of ownership, so hopefully HN unburies this post.
Here's one example of an email from Priyanka on behalf of WakaTime:
https://i.imgur.com/PYHuc8s.png
And the removal of her blog posts:
https://github.com/wakatime/wakatime-blog/commit/5d671e9aab6...
Edit:
And an interesting Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/downey/status/861908826223759360
This makes me want to stop paying for WakaTime.
At the time I was happy when she said she would send the newsletter emails for me, but now I see she just wanted people to think she was the public face for WakaTime to further a tech founder persona. Yea I made a mistake letting her send newsletters on behalf of WakaTime, but that doesn't mean she can claim to have built WakaTime.
> This response is fishy as hell.
I didn't raise a fuss when I should have because I didn't want to cause her trouble, but then she demanded a large sum of money from me in exchange for giving me WakaTime... when she never owned WakaTime. That's what I consider fishey.
I am still unsatisfied with your version of events because it seems to discount that Priyanka did any work at all.
Her last blog post was on: 2015-03-31
This doesn't look like an sophisticated engagement.
https://i.imgur.com/VHeJPYY.png
That first spike is December 2014. Interesting timing!
The last Slack notification email I have from her is from 10/26/2015. Why is it so hard to believe that she did a year or so's worth of work for WakaTime? Why are her contributions to be valued less because they aren't code?
Also read: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=15617309&goto=item%3Fi...
She's very good at making people believe her lies.
dang,
would appreciate if you can at least acknowledge receipt of the proof that was offered by Alan. Of course you don't have to, but it would be a kindness to the community if you come back to tell us that you stand by your decision or have decided to walk it back.
I experienced Priyanka as a dishonest person, solely focused on personal gain, who had no issues with stealing credit from others (including from me). It's terrifying to see that she continues to leech off Alan's hard work and even damage his success. Alan only listed her temporarily as Co-Founder on the website (almost 2 years AFTER he founded WakaTime) to build up her confidence in talking to investors (an idea she had btw). She proceeded however to use that for self-promotion, giving interviews all over the place of how she was a "female founder", despite it being a fake title. She would tell Alan that it was all to help Wakatime. Alan was too patient and trusting, even though many people who met Priyanka and saw through her manipulation were warning him about her. Despite finally realizing what she was doing, he kept her listed on the website for many more months, because it was helping her get new job opportunities. He was THAT generous and just didn't think she would exploit him and his hard work. She has now woven such a big lie that all she can do is continue lying. I hope the truth will finally catch up to her.
The story is about building this product. About putting in the time(thousands of precious hours) and focus to build the extensive amount of software running Wakatime. He has listened to his users and built the integrations. There is no disputing that. This story deserves attention and is true. Let whoever else make claims about their alleged ownership on their own time. it wouldn’t change the story.
Incidentally, we invited this submission as a repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546345. We do that when we run across a good submission that didn't get much attention the first time around, and we think the community might find it interesting. We wouldn't have done that if we'd known the story was disputed. The principle remains the same, though, so if any of you know of a good submission that fell through the cracks, please email us at [email protected] and we'll consider putting it in the queue.