Speaker 2
And what's interesting about taking this online is that like the business model, right, it's based on basically building a community of trust. And you kind of did this before the Airbnb's and the Ubers and the, you know, the sharing economy kind of took off, right? So at the beginning, were people skeptical of this?
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. I think there was actually even an article written just probably 10 or 12 years ago about the fact that, you know, there was a fascination as to why consumers were willing to share their opinions with us. They're like, they're paying you for information that they are giving you. Right. Yeah. I mean, that was the crux of the, of the article. And it was like, there was something special about the service. And at first I thought it was like, oh, it's Columbus because I know all the members or, oh, it's Indianapolis. But there's almost, there's, there is a sense of belonging and obligation that became a culture of the service. And it, and that, and it replicated itself in city after city. And you know, one of the values we had was the fact that we started when we did, I mean, we started pre-internet days in many ways when we looked at who we were going to mimic for our business model. We looked at journalists, you know, like every story has a source, right? Yeah. It didn't even occur to us that we should allow people to review anonymously.
Speaker 2
And that, and that proved incredibly powerful. But why, why do you think people were willing to write these reviews that, you know, essentially they're paying
Speaker 1
for? Because if they didn't, then the next person wouldn't. And if you think about the kind of decisions they're making around your home, I mean, these, you know, I, I call these like the high cost of failure decisions, right? I mean, it's a time when you probably know the least about what you're buying. You're spending a lot of money. And if it goes wrong, it could potentially ruin your largest asset, your house. Yeah. And there's bad information and, you know, like there's not a great way. I mean, because a lot of these companies are small companies. So how do I find out whether, you know, XYZ plumbing is any good? There's lots of places to get information, but people are willing to pay for quality information.