Buster’s Brown Blog

November 30, 2009

What does Wahanda mean?

Filed under: Wahanda — busterbuster @ 4:34 pm

One of the most common questions we get is what does Wahanda actually mean, and where did we come up with the name?

Wahanda actually means "Great spirit and creator god", and is of Native American (Indian) Origin. Here is a list of Native American Deities which was the source of inspiration in the naming of our site.

We wanted an inspirational name that fit with what we are trying to build – a comprehensive resource for all things wellness, which includes spas, salons, gyms, yoga, Pilates, personal training, holistic & alternative therapies, nutrition and more.  We didn’t want the words "spa" or "beauty" or "lush" in the name, nor did we want to have the site feel exclusive, closed or something just for women.  We believe wellness is for everyone – whether you are young or old, male or female, and at any income level. 

We think everyone wants to be happier, live better and look & feel younger, so we are trying to bring all of this online so that users can find information, share & learn from the collective experience of others, and connect with the businesses and professionals that can help them with this wellness promise through special deals & offers.  Hence our tagline: "Health, Beauty, Happiness"

And coming full circle, we think the name embodies the spirit & passion we have for creating this marketplace, or ecosystem, that connects consumers with businesses and professionals (see the ecosystem slide below). Just felt the need to put this down in writing.

Click here to download:

image001.emz (78 KB)

Click here to download:

oledata.mso (37 KB)

November 4, 2009

Wahanda going to Croatia to give keynote address at SIBEC – Health, Fitness and Leisure conference

Filed under: Wahanda — busterbuster @ 2:03 am

Lopo & I are travelling to Split, Croatia to attend the SIBEC health, fitness & leisure conference where we will be giving the keynote address on behalf of Wahanda and also meeting with companies from all over Europe and the world.

The conference is being held at the Le Meridien Lav, Split, where there is also a lovely spa, which hopefully we will get to check out.

“Wahanda is a Native American word for “great spirit and creator”.
This certainly sums up the energy and passion that Salim Mitha and Lopo Champalimaud have for health, beauty and happiness.”

October 28, 2009

The Wahanda Christmas Reindeer – is it too early for Christmas & Holiday promotions?

Filed under: Wahanda — busterbuster @ 1:35 pm

Pictured: our singing, dancing & flashing Wahanda Reindeer on top of a lovely Wahanda Spa & Wellness Gift Voucher
Its a few days early to break it out, but @Judy_Jay insists Christmas starts Oct 1st. I personally prefer to enjoy the Autumn

September 18, 2009

Fordham Soho Hair Salon – Newest Place you can use a Wahanda Spa Salon & Fitness Voucher

Filed under: Salons, Wahanda — Tags: , , , — busterbuster @ 11:49 am

The very cool and stylish Fordham Soho has joined the Wahanda network of over 350 places (and growing) that you can use the Wahanda Spa, Salon & Fitness Voucher. The owner Sean was kind enough to put up the Wahanda Voucher “accepted here” sticker in his window, which looks great and matches their colour scheme.

I have actually been to Fordham twice now to have my haircut, and my stylist Adam is just fantastic.  I am recommending him to all my male & female friends because he is that good, and super-friendly and has great intuition.  Read my reviews of Fordham Soho on Wahanda.

Check the place out and I think you will agree it’s a great little find, and very centrally located in the heart of Soho, on Greek Street.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

September 11, 2009

Free offers for Laser Eye Surgery and £10 online voucher gift from Wahanda for spa days, fitness & more

Filed under: Wahanda — Tags: — busterbuster @ 5:41 pm

In addition to all of our other free offers in the spa, fitness and wellness space, we are now really proud to be working with the London Vision Clinic who are offering their free UK Guide to Laser Eye Surgery as well as a free consultation.  This is our first foray into the laser eye surgery space, so we are excited to be breaking new ground.

Sign up for a free consultation at London Vision Clinic if you have wondered if laser eye surgery if for you.

As a little celebratory gift, for the first 25 people who sign up for the offer, we at Wahanda will give you a £10 online credit for any purchase from our online Wahanda Spa & Wellness Store

Our goal at Wahanda is to help everyone look & feel better, from the inside-out and the outside-in, so expect to see a lot more great deals and offers soon!

 

September 3, 2009

Wahanda Voucher Window Sticker at hydrohealing spa, Notting Hill, London

Filed under: Spas, Wahanda — Tags: , , , — busterbuster @ 11:59 pm

I was walking past hydrohealing Spa in Notting Hill, and spotted our Wahanda Spa Voucher sticker in the window.
Always good to see!

hydrohealing just joined as one of the over 300+ venues that accept the Wahanda Voucher, and also have a great offer at the moment: 2 treatments for the price of 1, including facials & massages.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

August 5, 2009

Wahanda window sticker at Good Vibes Powerplate Studio

Filed under: Spas, Wahanda — Tags: , , , , — busterbuster @ 9:08 pm

Always nice to see some of the Wahanda Fitness & Spa Voucher window sticker at places.
This one is the Good Vibes Fitzrovia – interestingly there is also an endorsement from Elle Macpherson.
There are four Good Vibes in London.

Ah, also there is a offers for a free introductory power plate & Pilates sessions

See and download the full gallery on posterous

May 28, 2009

Wahanda is hiring a Java Developer – London

Filed under: Wahanda — busterbuster @ 6:45 pm

Senior Java Developer – Wahanda www.wahanda.com (Central London)

To apply send your CV and something that gets our attention to: jobs@wahanda.com

What exactly is a Wahanda?

Wahanda is an ambitious year-old online company developing an e-commerce, content and community marketplace for the beauty, health and wellness industries. Founded by veterans of lastminute.com and Yahoo!, Wahanda is looking to revolutionise the way consumers search and book health & beauty treatments by connecting customers with wellness businesses and professionals. Wahanda is backed by some high profile investors including the former technology founders of Skype, the investors behind last.fm, a founder of lastminute.com and a former worldwide director of Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts. Oh, and to find out what “Wahanda” means, click here

 

THE ROLE

We’re looking for someone who knows the web inside out, but we’re not looking for someone who studied Java just because it’s an easy way to get well-paid work. We’re looking for someone for whom IT is one of their passions, who has an interest in everything from development methodologies, through website design, down to the current state-of-the-art in CPU design.   Java is the language that most of our software is written in, but we also have a fair amount of PHP. We’d expect you to be expert in at least one other mainstream language (C, C++, Ruby etc) and have decent knowledge of a scripting language (Python, Perl etc).

As a modern Internet business, we also understand the importance of a rich user experience and use a number of client side technologies to achieve this. You should be highly proficient in the basic UI technologies (CSS, HTML, JS) and should have good experience with a JavaScript based UI framework (JQuery, GWT, Prototype).

An understanding of the principles and application of SEO would be a big advantage.

Our platform is Apache, Tomcat, Spring, Velocity and MS SQL Server. It’s quite an unusual combination, so we won’t expect you to have direct experience with all those technologies, but the more the better. 

We’re committed to an agile development process with a strict two-week release cycle. We use a variant of Scrum, so some experience of agile development methodologies and techniques is required.

You’ll be joining a team with a broad range of skills and experience and will be expected to take active role in mentoring the junior members of our team.

This is a great opportunity to work with and learn from very experienced professionals who are also excited about learning from you!

Who will you be working with?

The founding team of Wahanda have considerable experience in the ‘online world’ of content, community, search & booking, and are looking to add energetic people to the growing team who are passionate about the online space and want to quickly get up to speed to start adding value. The founding team have run large business units within lastminute.com and Yahoo! Search, and have strong prior experience in the technology & media sectors. Together we are building the most comprehensive and essential global online health, beauty & wellness resource.

To apply send your CV and something that gets our attention to: jobs@wahanda.com

March 29, 2009

Wahanda Window Sticker at Scin Spa in Notting Hill

Filed under: Spas, Wahanda — Tags: , , , — busterbuster @ 5:37 pm

Late Saturday night I was walking past Scin Spa in Notting Hill, London and spotted one of our Wahanda stickers in the window!

"We're always open on Wahanda"

We created various “We are always open on Wahanda” for all of our partners who accept the Wahanda fitness & spa voucher, which includes over 300 spas, salons, gyms, yoga & pilates studios, clinics, etc.

Its always good to have a bit of free organic advertising, and hopefully we will see more stickers in windows in the coming months. We got the idea from the likes of TimeOut, Qype, Google Local, etc, and think it’s a great way to let passing shoppers know where they can find more information and buy online, even when the venue itself is closed.

March 10, 2009

The BMW family, adultery and an Austrian spa

Filed under: Europe, Spas, Wahanda — Tags: , , , — busterbuster @ 11:41 am

No, this is not a new novel I am working on, but actual news, “ripped from the headlines” (for my American readers who require a grandiose lead-in)

Turns out that on Wahanda (my company – a spa, health, beauty & wellness website), we noticed a sudden and pronounced spike in searches of the Lanserhof Spa & Health Centre in Innsbruck, Austria. Now, the Lanserhof is a lovely and luxurious medical destination spa, but still we were wondering why the sudden spike.

68th richest person in the world...

A little bit of digging led us to find this story here about how the heiress to the Quandt BMW family fortune, and Germany’s richest woman (not to mention the 68th richest person in the world), Susanne Klatten, was being blackmailed by a Swiss gigolo who she had met in 2007 at the now infamous Lanserhof Spa & Health Centre.

The ultimate pulling machine

This story actually reminds me of a French movie I saw recently with Audrey Tatou called Priceless or Hors de Prix – great movie.

I am not quite sure who was searching for the Lanserhof on our site – curious consumers, or other would-be gigolos who are perhaps doing some research?

Either way, sometimes truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

The Lanserhof relaxation area (below)

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