Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Welcome to the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight, curated by HackerNoon’s editors to showcase noteworthy tech solutions to real-world problems. Whether you’re a solopreneur, part of an early-stage startup, or a developer building something that truly matters, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is your chance to test your product’s utility, get featured on HackerNoon, and compete for $150k+ in prizes. Submit your project to get started! Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon spotlight Proof of Usefulness Hackathon Proof of Usefulness Hackathon $150k+ Submit your project to get started Submit your project to get started In this article, we catch up with Emmanuel Corels to discuss WayaVPN. WayaVPN. As the internet becomes more conditional, many users are discovering that simple connectivity is no longer enough. In practice, what matters is not just getting online, but getting online in a way that feels natural, usable, and compatible with real-world workflows. That is the problem Emmanuel Corels is tackling with WayaVPN, a privacy and connectivity platform built around residential VPN access, HTTP(S) proxies, and SOCKS5 proxies under one ecosystem. Designed for remote workers, marketers, testers, and digital operators, WayaVPN aims to offer a more flexible alternative to conventional datacenter-based access. WayaVPN We spoke with Emmanuel about what WayaVPN does, why residential routing matters now, how he thinks about traction, and what comes next for the platform. What does WayaVPN do, and why is now the right time for it to exist? WayaVPN is a privacy and connectivity platform that combines residential VPN access with HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 residential proxies under one unified account. It is built for users, remote workers, marketers, testers, and digital operators who need more natural ISP-based routing, flexible pay-as-you-go or subscription pricing, and support across mobile, desktop, and OpenVPN-compatible environments. This is the right time for WayaVPN because the internet has become much more conditional. In many real-world workflows, standard datacenter connectivity is no longer enough. More users now need access that looks and behaves more like normal ISP-based traffic, whether for privacy, remote work, testing, verification, research, or digital operations. That gap is exactly what WayaVPN is built to address. What traction has WayaVPN seen so far? How many people are you reaching today? WayaVPN serves a growing base of users looking for residential VPN and proxy access for privacy, remote work, testing, automation, and broader digital operations. Our reach currently comes through direct website traffic, support channels, community engagement, search-driven discovery, and referrals. At this stage, the strongest signal is not mass-market scale yet, but the consistency of demand across multiple user types. We are seeing interest from both individuals and small teams who need flexible ISP-based routing, cross-platform access, and a model that supports both light usage and more advanced operational workflows. Who is WayaVPN really built for, and what is most exciting about your users? WayaVPN is built for privacy-conscious users, digital nomads, freelancers, marketers, QA testers, automation users, and online businesses that need more realistic residential routing than typical datacenter VPNs provide. What is most exciting is how broad the usefulness is without losing clarity. Some users want simple privacy and access while traveling. Others need HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 proxies for testing, verification, research, or browser-based workflows. Small teams also value the ability to use VPN and proxies inside one ecosystem rather than juggling separate tools and vendors. That mix of everyday usefulness and advanced workflow value is a big part of what makes the product exciting. What technologies power WayaVPN, and why did you choose them? WayaVPN is built on a custom infrastructure stack that combines VPN and proxy systems with Linux server environments, Docker-based services, RADIUS-based authentication, billing and usage tracking systems, and web-based dashboard tools. We also use OpenVPN for secure connectivity and support HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 proxy access for users who need more granular routing options. These choices were driven by practicality. We needed a stack that could support secure access, flexible account management, multiple connection methods, and scalable deployment. Instead of treating VPN and proxies as separate products, we built the platform so they could function together as part of one access system. Who has been noticing WayaVPN around the web? WayaVPN is still in the stage where traction is being built more through product usage and direct discovery than broad public attention. Users are currently finding the platform through the main website, pricing pages, proxy offerings, downloads portal, and support interactions. What matters most right now is that people are not just landing on the site — they are exploring the access model, comparing VPN and proxy options, downloading clients, and looking for workflow-specific solutions. Public visibility is still growing, but the early signs of product-market relevance are already there. WayaVPN scored 35.36 on the Proof of Usefulness scale. How do you feel about that score? WayaVPN scored 35.36 I think the score is fair for where the project is today. What the result tells me is that the usefulness of WayaVPN is clear, but the public proof layer is still catching up. The product solves a real problem, and that was reflected in the utility and market relevance parts of the score. Where we lost ground was in publicly verifiable traction, revenue visibility, and broader documented evidence. So I do not see the score as a negative result. I see it as an accurate reminder that the product is ahead of the public proof. As we publish more evidence, user stories, metrics, and ecosystem content, I believe the score should improve meaningfully. What excites you most about WayaVPN’s long-term usefulness? What excites us most is that WayaVPN addresses a real gap between simple connectivity and usable connectivity. In many modern internet environments, ordinary datacenter access falls short. By combining residential VPN access, HTTP(S)/SOCKS5 proxies, flexible pricing, and broad platform support, WayaVPN can serve both everyday users and advanced digital workflows in one ecosystem. Its usefulness increases as more remote workers, marketers, testers, automation users, and operators need access that is not just secure, but also more compatible, realistic, and adaptable to actual online conditions. What is your clearest proof that people genuinely need what you have built? The clearest proof is repeated usage from people who come in for one access need and then continue using the platform across different workflows. That matters more to me than raw signups. When users move from simple VPN usage into proxy generation, location-specific tasks, testing, or recurring operational use, it shows that the platform is solving a practical problem rather than attracting curiosity clicks. That kind of behavior tells us WayaVPN is not just interesting on paper — it becomes part of how people actually work online. How do you distinguish real adoption from casual signups? We think about adoption in terms of continued operational use, not just account creation. A tourist signs up, looks around, and disappears. A real user comes back to reconnect, top up, generate proxies, test locations, or keep using the service across multiple sessions and devices. Our retention story is still developing, but the signal we watch most closely is repeat behavior tied to real tasks. When people continue using the product for access, testing, proxy workflows, or multi-device connectivity, that is meaningful adoption. Over time, we want to formalize this more publicly with clearer retention benchmarks and usage reporting. If HackerNoon re-scored WayaVPN in 12 months, what would improve the most? The biggest improvement should come from evidence of traction. evidence of traction Right now, the product’s usefulness is easier to see than its public metrics. Over the next 12 months, we plan to close that gap by publishing more content around use cases, growing our public community presence, documenting milestones more clearly, and building a stronger public footprint around adoption, workflows, and monetization. The product already solves a real problem; the next step is making the proof more visible. How did you discover HackerNoon, and what has the experience been like? I came across HackerNoon through its reputation as a platform where builders, founders, and technical operators can publish ideas in a more thoughtful way than on most short-form platforms. The experience has been positive because it pushes projects to explain themselves clearly. It is not just about saying a product exists. It is about showing why it matters, who it helps, and what signals of usefulness are already visible. That makes it valuable both as a publishing platform and as a forcing function for sharper thinking. What traction milestone are you most focused on next? The milestone I care most about is reaching a stronger and more publicly documentable base of recurring users across both subscription and pay-as-you-go usage. That matters because WayaVPN is not built around one narrow billing pattern. Success for us means showing that users are consistently returning for residential VPN access, proxy generation, and location-based workflows, whether they are individuals or teams. Once that recurring usage is visible at a stronger scale, it becomes much easier to demonstrate broader validation. Which segment is growing faster right now: individual users or small teams? At the moment, individual users are the easier entry point, but small teams are especially interesting because they often have more repeatable operational use cases. Individuals usually come in for privacy, travel, flexible access, or specific workflow needs. Small teams, on the other hand, tend to care more about repeatability, multiple devices, proxy use, testing, and predictable access patterns. That is influencing how we shape the platform — not just as a VPN product, but as a broader access system that can support both solo users and team-based workflows. What use case have you found WayaVPN solves especially well? One of the clearest use cases is localized testing and verification. That includes checking how websites, landing pages, offers, or digital experiences actually appear from different regions through residential routes instead of obvious datacenter traffic. This is especially useful for marketers, testers, and operators who need more realistic visibility into how content, access, or user flows behave in the real world. That kind of scenario captures the core reason WayaVPN exists: not just to connect users, but to give them access that behaves more naturally and usefully. Final Thoughts WayaVPN sits at the intersection of privacy, connectivity, and practical internet infrastructure. What makes the project interesting is not just that it offers VPN and proxy access, but that it is being built around a more realistic view of how people now work online: across regions, across devices, across tools, and under growing platform scrutiny. For Emmanuel Corels, the opportunity is clear. The market does not just need more VPNs. It needs better access models — more flexible, more compatible, and more aligned with the real conditions of the modern internet. 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