
Contractor Directory BuildZoom (YC W13) Raises $1.4 Million Seed Round - negrit
http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/25/yc-backed-contractor-directory-buildzoom-raises-1-4-million-seed-round/
======
jeremyt
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.

~~~
jiyannwei
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
Congrats! We built contractor finders for several cities/states as contract
work. E.g.
[https://energyupgradeca.org/county/los_angeles/vendors#h-v=2...](https://energyupgradeca.org/county/los_angeles/vendors#h-v=2156203947&p-v=1&per-v=10&s-v=p164)
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.

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

------
viggity
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?

~~~
jiyannwei
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.

------
kxu
Congrats, you guys rock!

