Contractor Directory BuildZoom (YC W13) Raises $1.4 Million Seed Round

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/25/yc-backed-contractor-directory-buildzoom-raises-1-4-million-seed-round/

by negrit • 13 years ago

31 7 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

kxu• 13 years ago

Congrats, you guys rock!

jeremyt• 13 years ago

Cofounder of thumbtack here.

I wish these guys the best of luck. We often get asked if we are worried about this company or that company that seems to be positioning as a direct competitor, and the answer is no. In fact, the best advice we ever got was from a competitor.

The market is so big that there's room for a lot of players to make a lot of money. Though, ultimately, we think that the market will be led by one major player (In the same way that eBay is where you go to buy used things and Amazon is where you go to buy new things), which is the reason we have consistently chosen not to narrow our scope either geographically or by vertical.

It's also interesting that they chose to seed the database from contractor records. We thought about doing this, but wanted to be able to say that every service provider on our site was real. Not sure what we would've done if we had to do it over again, but it appears they've had some success (25,000).

The hardest part is yet to come, though. We've been at this for five years, and the biggest take away is that it's not really about getting service providers or getting consumers - the important part is what happens in the middle. That's what we've spent the most time working on.

jiyannwei3• 13 years ago

I'm a big fan of what you guys have built at Thumbtack. In fact, prior to BuildZoom, I remember looking at Thumbtack and really digging the interface & design. Its a great company with great leadership, heading in the right direction.

I do question the premise of the services market as whole being a "winner-take-all" space. I do believe this becomes more viable in a more narrowly defined segment of the overall local services market.

I think the marketplace examples of a "winner-take-all" (e.g. eBay and Amazon) are a bit questionable (it isn't the first time I've heard this perspective).

When I want to buy something used (for example), I have probably turned to Craigslist just as many times as I've turned to eBay. When it comes to new items, I always look at Amazon but the overall query covers a much broader space, which will include more specialized e-commerce sites.

mildavw• 13 years ago

Congrats! We built contractor finders for several cities/states as contract work. E.g. https://energyupgradeca.org/county/los_angeles/vendors#h-v=2... This is not our focus so we haven't pursued more like this, but I wanted to give you a heads up for potential partnerships. Governments like to put construction workers to work, especially doing environmentally friendly stuff.

jiyannwei3• 13 years ago

I'd love to chat. Can you hit me up? @jiyannwei?

viggity• 13 years ago

so I'm curious, getting contact info for every contractor via the various state agencies is clever, but how do they go about getting the individual contractors to sign up? Due to CAN-SPAM, I don't think they can email them out of the blue. Direct Mail, phone calls and sponsoring builders associations would all be expensive. What is the most optimal way?

jiyannwei3• 13 years ago

Right now, it's primarily through referral and search. It is a well networked industry so figuring out how to get users to refer other users is one key. Also, with most paid channels (which we haven't used very aggressively yet), keep in mind that the cost of user acquisition and be offset by a. conversion into an upgraded account and b. the lifetime value of an upgraded user.

Contractor Directory BuildZoom (YC W13) Raises $1.4 Million Seed Round

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