FindTheBest

FindTheBest, Inc.
Type Private
Headquarters Santa Barbara, California
Area served Worldwide
Founder(s) Kevin O'Connor
Scott Leonard
Brayton Johnson
Website FindTheBest - About Us
Alexa rank 2382[1]
Available in English
Launched August 2010
Current status Active

FindTheBest is a privately held online research engine that collects, structures, and connects data.[2] FindTheBest.com allows users to research, filter, and compare more than 2,000 topics. FindTheBest compiles prices, reviews, and product specifications from thousands of sources and presents them to users in a visual table with filters and ratings.[3]

FindTheBest is based in Santa Barbara, California and has raised at least $17 million in total funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Pritzker Group, and more.[3][4][5]

FindTheBest was ranked the No.1 fastest-growing company headquartered on the Central Coast of California by the Pacific Coast Business Times, a business newspaper serving the region. FindTheBest reported that its revenue jumped from $65,000 in 2011 to $6.8 million in 2013, a 10,298.5 percent increase.[6]

History

FindTheBest was founded in 2009 by Kevin J. O'Connor, former CEO and co-founder of DoubleClick; Scott Leonard and Brayton Johnson.[7] The site was publicly launched in 2010 with nine comparison categories, including health, education, business, and sports.[8][9] The venture was funded with an initial investment of $750,000 each from the founders, followed by $2 million by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in December 2010.[9] FindTheBest.com has since expanded to over 700 comparisons in the nine categories.[8]

In 2011, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers invested an additional $4 million into the company.[1] FindTheBest also added another $11 million in Series B funding from New World Ventures, Montgomery & Co., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and others.[10] As of May 2014, FindTheBest had reached 23 million visits per month and employed a team of approximately 110 people.[11]

The company has continually added new services. In 2011, it launched FindTheData.org. The AssistMe option was added in 2012. In January 2013, the company made its first international expansion and launched sites in Spain, South Korea, and New Zealand. In April 2013, the company launched sites in Germany and the United Kingdom.[11] It Homes real estate service launched in 2014.

Product

The company's primary service is FindTheBest.com, which lets users research products and services on a desktop or mobile device.[9][12] Specific products and services include cars, colleges, investment advisors, smartphones, computers, and over 700 others. Users can filter their options and view Smart Ratings to assist in narrowing down their product selection. They are also able to add or edit product and service listings. Each edit is reviewed by FindTheBest’s team before it goes live.[13]

FindTheData.org, provides a simple way to browse large datasets on subjects like city crime and job salaries. Much of the information from FindTheData is integrated into FindTheBest comparisons. For example, the FindTheBest colleges comparison contains information on campus safety, faculty salaries, and athletic budgets, each of which is drawn from FindTheData.[14]

The AssistMe feature asks users a few simple questions, prompting them to prioritize the importance of various attributes of a product. The user then receives five recommended products with “Personal Smart Ratings.”[15]

FindTheCompany.com provides visitors with access to information on more than 30 million private and public US companies.[10] Users can search by industry, filter by total employees, search for specific addresses, check annual sales volumes, review company balance sheets, and investigate personal contact information for employees.[2]

The company's Homes site provides real estate comparisons.[16] Unlike competing real estate sites such as Trulia and Zillow, Homes is not affiliated with any real estate agents, so Homes users will have to locate and contact a real estate on their own.[17]

Business model

Kevin O'Connor launched the service in response to poor search results he sometimes received from Google searches. The site attempts to bridge the gap between search engines like Google and review-type services like Yelp. O'Connor describes it as a "research engine", being many services combined into one, but Pando Daily's James Robinson considers it of limited use, since in practice, it often makes the final goal more difficult than using its competitors.[17] For example, while the website can provide travel recommendations, unlike most travel websites, it forces users to third-party sites to actually book the trip. Despite O'Connor's goal of having FindTheBest be the first place internet users go for advice, more than half of its traffic comes from Google. Robinson argues that the company will never change users' lives, and considers it a website that will remain overlooked, and is likely doomed.[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "FindTheBest U.S. Market Research - Alexa". Alexa Internet, Inc. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "FindTheCompany Launches out of Beta With 2.5 Million Monthly Visitors and Enhanced Data on Millions of US Businesses". Yahoo!. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Leena Rao (March 5, 2013). "Data-Driven Comparison Shopping Platform FindTheBest Raises $11M From New World, Kleiner Perkins And Others". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  4. ↑ Steve Lohr (March 10, 2013). "Algorithms Get a Human Hand in Steering Web". The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  5. ↑ "FindTheBest Names the Most Coveted Products for Dads and Grads in Popular Gift Categories". NBC News. April 24, 2013. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  6. ↑ Pacific Coast Business Times (2014-08-25). "50 Fastest-Growing Companies 2014 announced". Pacific Coast Business Times.
  7. ↑ "Company Overview of FINDTHEBEST.COM, Inc.". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Dylan Tweney (December 7, 2011). "FindTheBest upgrades with even more visual comparisons of almost everything". VentureBeat. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Greg Sterling (August 2, 2010). "DoubleClick Founder Launches Structured "Decision Engine" FindTheBest.com". Search Engine Land. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "FindTheBest Lands $11M For Comparison Engine". Socialtech.com. March 5, 2013. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "FindTheCompany releases data on 30M businesses to clue in consumers". VentureBeat. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  12. ↑ "FindTheBest - Consumer Services Comparison Community". AppAppeal. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  13. ↑ Srick Schonfeld (December 7, 2011). "FindTheBest Adds Smart Ratings And A Better Way To Compare Products". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  14. ↑ Melanie Pinola (August 30, 2012). "FindTheData Compares Tons of Data Side-By-Side, Is a Research Gold Mine". LifeHacker. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  15. ↑ Leena Rao (February 21, 2012). "FindTheBest Wants To Personalize Comparison Shopping With AssistMe". TechCrunch. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  16. ↑ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/findthebest-com-expands-real-estate-130000233.html
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Robinson, James (May 13, 2014). "FindTheBest wants to be the future of search, but risks ending up as a smart product few will actually use". Pando Daily. Retrieved November 13, 2014.