The Exchanges

Q And what? People, like, your subscribers would just call up during the day, and they would say, hey, I need a plumber or, like, a roofer, and you would say, yeah, yeah, I've got all these options for you.

A Yeah, and it's like, or if I didn't have an answer, and the list was thin, I would go figure it out. I mean, I remember one time, um, you know, this woman called, and she was new in town and wanted to, to sign her daughter up for ballet lessons. And so, uh, um, so I was like, hang on. Luckily, I remembered, because I had signed up all the members, that I had a member who was a part of the Columbus Ballet. So I call her up, and I was like, hey, I've got someone that needs help finding ballet. Ballet lessons. So, you know, we, I would just kind of try to make as a match.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, and it's like, or if I didn't have an answer, and the list was thin, I would go figure it out.”

Q Um, what, what, what changed about the business to kind of warrant that rebrand?

A Absolutely. So, and it was actually something I had thought about even years earlier than that. You know, it was becoming a situation where we felt like list probably dated us. You know, we did more than just a list of contractors. You know, we did more than just give you a name. We would actually help you get scheduled and get connected and, uh, you know, yeah, take you much further in the process. So we're like, how do we, how do we think about modernizing it? And, And giving it a fresh name. And so, you know, we took the same, you know, we took approach that many brands take and kind of shortening their names. Lots of brands over, you know, kind of over time end up shortening their names. So we went with, uh, Angie and, you know, we dropped the E to make it unique. And, uh, and we had brought together, you know, a couple of different brands. We had merged with a home advisor and there was, you know, kind of shifting a brand at, you know, it was It's going to allow us to be much more simplified, much more streamlined, and put our marketing dollars behind a single brand.

AI assessment note: “We did more than just a list of contractors. We had merged with HomeAdvisor”

Q What did you say? What was your pitch?

A And it was like, you know, like, hey, we're starting this business, you know, and, and explain what we were going to do. We're going to help people find, you know, the best contractors in town. And Patty had lived in her house, lived in her neighborhood for her entire life. Hmm. You know, if someone, uh, did not need what we were selling, it was probably Patty. But Patty loved the entrepreneurial spirit of it. So she looked at me, and she was like, this is great. I'm gonna take two memberships. One for me, and one for my son. And I was very thankful because Patty immediately ran and gave me a list of every service provider she'd ever used, uh, and she also gave me her church directory. And she told me that I had to call everybody on her church directory and tell them that she said they should buy a membership.

AI assessment note: “hey, we're starting this business... We're going to help people find, you know, the best contractors”

Q And by the way, when did you go from being a, a newsletter, like a physical newsletter, to being an online company?

A Um, so we put our first website up in probably early 2000 or 1999. It was right in there. And basically, literally, we hired two college kids to build our website. And it was just a basic, like, you know, marketing informational website, uh, you know, had email. You couldn't check the list online. It was just for marketing. Uh, and Bill asked, so how's that website working one day? And we realized it was like, you know, half of our signups were coming in over this little website. And so we were like, hmm, I guess we should actually build a website. So, you know, it was like, yeah, it's probably more interesting to read the reviews than to have Angie read the reviews to you.

AI assessment note: “we put our first website up in probably early 2000 or 1999.”

Q What was that like? Was it, was it weird going there?

A It was weird. And I'm like, you know, I was, uh, you know, I'd lived in Indiana or Ohio my entire life. You know, and it was, it was one of those things where I was like, I was so flattered to actually have just gotten into business school. I grew up, you know, I was a middle class kid. I mean, my dad was a UPS driver. My mom was a bank teller. I was the first in our immediate family to go to college. So for me, it was kind of like, wow, this is kind of a neat experience, and I'm gonna take it for what it's worth. Um, but maybe I had a different perspective than a lot of folks going as well.

AI assessment note: “It was weird. And I'm like, you know, I was”

Q Do you, um, like, when you see a, an incredibly positive review, and also an incredibly negative review, like, how do you know which one to believe?

A What I often find when I look at reviews, um, you know, one, it's really important to actually read the context of the reviews, and, you know, I, I, and I learned this early on, no matter how great you are as a company, you're gonna get complaints, and I honestly believe you learn more when you can see a company that has a couple of complaints here and there than you do about a company that has all glowing reviews. You know, and part of that is like, hey, you know, they might make a mistake, and you really want to know how they're going to handle it when the chips are down. Like, what's going to happen if that, you know what, the countertop was the wrong length, and now they have to redo it? Because that's what you as a consumer fear, right? You fear when the job doesn't go well. And, you know, and on the flip side, you know, years ago, I mean, gosh, early on in the business, we allowed companies to start responding to reviews. You know, because they were like, hey, it's not, you know, I totally understand that the consumer gets to give their opinion, but Don't we get a chance to say our side of the story?

AI assessment note: “it's really important to actually read the context of the reviews”

Q Do you, um, like, when you see a, an incredibly positive review, and also an incredibly negative review, like, how do you know which one to believe?

A What I often find when I look at reviews, um, you know, one, it's really important to actually read the context of the reviews, and, you know, I, I, and I learned this early on, no matter how great you are as a company, you're gonna get complaints, and I honestly believe you learn more when you can see a company that has a couple of complaints here and there than you do about a company that has all glowing reviews. You know, and part of that is like, hey, you know, they might make a mistake, and you really want to know how they're going to handle it when the chips are down. Like, what's going to happen if that, you know what, the countertop was the wrong length, and now they have to redo it? Because that's what you as a consumer fear, right? You fear when the job doesn't go well. And, you know, and on the flip side, you know, years ago, I mean, gosh, early on in the business, we allowed companies to start responding to reviews. You know, because they were like, hey, it's not, you know, I totally understand that the consumer gets to give their opinion, but Don't we get a chance to say our side of the story?

AI assessment note: “it's really important to actually read the context of the reviews”