Archive for the ‘Whozat’ Category

SocialDiligence experiencing many repeat buyers, grown 19,400% in two months

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

SocialDiligence.com has seen a significant number of repeat buyers, showing that customers find our social search reports worth paying for not just once, but repeatedly.

SocialDiligence.com traffic has grown by a median of 68% per *week* for the last 8 weeks, even through the holidays, for a total of 19,400% growth in two months.

–Alex

Whozat: A New Way to Work

Monday, November 30th, 2009

When Elance asked us to tell a story about a new way to work, Whozat came to mind. Our team is spread out from Kyrgyzstan to California. It consists of an Argentinian, an Italian, three Americans, a Spaniard, a Kyrgyz and two Russians –our next hire will likely be Peruvian. Contrary to common wisdom that high-tech start-ups are started by single males, Whozat counts four women (soon to be five) in its team, two thirds of the initial team-members brought a child to life in our company’s first two years, and the three initial team-members now count seven children in their families. What we share is a passion for making information about people easily and globally accessible.

Whozat started in an invention factory in a garage, pictured below:

Our first Board room was in the founder’s dining room.

When Whozat raised financing, it did not go to Sand Hill Road. It raised money from successful entrepreneurs who already knew firsthand how to grow a successful business.

When AT&T approached us about testing our people search engine, they tested more thoroughly than we had had time to test it –they even called us on a Sunday night to find out when our site would be back up –luckily, the answer was in a few minutes. So imagine our delight when they told us they found that “Whozat worked the best, and hammers it every time, while other people made a mess”. Talk about outsourcing: we had outsourced our Q/A to our prospective partners.

Need further proof we’re, well, a little different? Hear our co-founder Marzia Polito sing an Ode to Whozat on her guitar.

As people-persons, we believe in family. So every year, Whozat’s founders spend a couple of weeks in their native Argentina and Italy. When we needed travel arrangements, we were too busy to find the best deal ourselves. So we followed Tim Ferriss’ advice in The 4-Hour Workweek and hired a virtual assistant on ELance, and went from job post to booked travel arrangements in hours.

If we win ELance’s competition for a year’s worth of healthcare, that will be the company’s first healthcare plan. Meaning ELance and your vote could be, well, good for our health. Vote for us at http://vator.tv/competition/show/elances-new-way-to-work-competition .

Then find out what Whozat knows about you at www.whozat.com . To paraphrase Harvard Professor of Computer Science Harry Lewis, you may learn things about you you didn’t even know yourself. Or, if you’re *really* serious about learning everything there is to know about someone, upload their resume, bio or simply a few keywords about the person you are looking for at www.SocialDiligence.com .

–Alex Bäcker

Founder.

http://www.whozat.com/search/?task_id=42740&eventname=evalresult&object=2017&value=no

Follow Whozat updates

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Sign up at http://vator.tv/pitch/show/whozat-inc .

Dave Rosenthal Joins ab|inventio Team

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Dave Rosenthal, an engineer and MBA by training who has held positions as product manager, program manager, alliance manager, Sr. Consultant, Director of Development and VP Ops at Xerox, Deloitte & Touche and other companies including early stage start-ups, had joined our team to lead administration & finance. Welcome, Dave! 

–Alex

Using Social Networking Sites in Recruiting Is Here to Stay

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Susan Masterson, a recruiter with TeamHealth in Knoxville, Tenn., said using social networking sites is a “strategy that anyone in recruiting, whether it be physicians or otherwise, needs to incorporate in their plan. It’s here. It’s here to stay.”http://ow.ly/tZIe . SocialDiligence.com makes this easier for recruiters, finding many profiles in one search and filtering out irrelevant results based on a candidate’s resume.–Alex

Whozat beats Google again as an answer engine

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Whozat search for the OpenTable CEO’s last name gives the answer, Jordan, as the largest word in the concept cloud. Google gives instead a 9-yr-old page about Jeffrey Edwards.There are some things money can buy –I happily use Google’s calendar, email and maps on a daily basis. For everything else, there’s Whozat.–Alex

Executive assistant superstar sought

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Someone very trustworthy, smart, organized, who is not picky about what they do or do not do but rather has a good attitude to getting things done, who has command of basic arithmetic and proper English spelling and grammar, who can do everything and anything that I can delegate. Yeah, attitude:Like, this is mine too. Your success is ours/mine.  When I answer correspondence or the phone I make the person/customer/client/colleague feel like I am their personal assistant and that their agenda is important to me, their convenience is on my mind, my efficiency for them counts.And as to smart: very smart. And by smart, there are different smarts. Needs to be savvy about technology or conversant with it, but there is street smart-make sure they see things coming I may miss- they take the work to heart-it’s more than a job and they have a history of acting and feeling that way. ideally someone who has been an EA to a successful executive before.  Someone who can get to know key clients and leaders sometimes better than me.  Someone who has worked in senior positions before a plus.Someone who anticipates what I do not. Who is proactive. And upbeat, stable and fun. Who can be light hearted and can be serious and know when.Promises future growth in one of the world’s fastest growing companies in a fun, casual environment and a desire to change the world for the better. Getting honored for Best Business Innovation of 2009 and beating Google at their game in a 3rd party-evaluated blind test was just the beginning.For multi-talented applicants, job may include work in accounting, accounts receivable and payable, process design, documentation, customer support, IT, office management and appointment-setting.Send a resume to careers {at} abinventio.com for more details.** Special thanks to the always fabulous Robert Fisher for tips on this job description. rfisher.com 

Using Whozat’s concept cloud to answer questions

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

I was just trying to remember the name of the Woodstock music festival and Woodstock did not come to mind, so I Whozated rock festival 1960s, and Woodstock came not only as the #1 result but also as the top concept cloud word. So remember: If you can’t think of a word, Whozat’s semantic concept cloud can often remind you.  Just today, I was looking for James Walter’s title at K-A. Google would not show a single result about him, at least not on the first page. Whozat gave the right answer on its top result .

QLess adds largest customer yet and is in the press again; Whozat posts double digit monthly revenue growth for 4th month in a row

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Whozat’s revenues have grown consistently for each of the last four months by an average of 419% per month and a median of 161% per month. 

QLess, in the meantime, appeared in the press again, this time in Nation’s Restaurant News, where one of our customers was quoted saying “It’s helped keep customers from walking away,” said Ngo, who was concerned about theft or abuse of restaurant-issued pagers. 

At the same time, we broke two records: first we closed a new customer, eggtc, in the shortest time since lead to customer ever, which also launched faster than any previous customer, with our installation done in less than 24 hours, as usual, but this time they were up and running themselves within 48 hours of that –kudos to Joe. Second, we added our largest individual customer yet, the legendary 58-year-old Zagat-Best-Restaurant-Award-Winning Montgomery Inn, which was named the #1 rib restaurant and the #1 restaurant featuring barbecue in the entire Unites States, and #22 in volume among independent restaurants in the entire US, by “Restaurants & Institutions” magazine, the benchmark of the foodservice industry. Montgomery Inn also broke the customer acquisition timeframe record again, going from lead to customer in a meager 4 days: it doesn’t take the pros long to recognize value when they see it. This reduction in time to sale and time to deployment speak about both about the market’s increasing receptiveness to mobile queueing and to our own increasing understanding of how to position and deploy QLess.

eggtc’s launch has proved the greatest QLess-induced reduction in no-shows yet, with seated rates increasing by 53% on the first two days of QLess deployment.

Continuing with our tradition of highlighting an extraordinary and entrepreneurial person or company who has helped make abInventio a reality, today we focus on Jeff Suto, attorney at law. Jeff compenetrates himself deeply with the companies he works with, becoming an integral part of the team. His advice ranges from the strategic to the legal and yes, even the psychological. He is tremendously fun to work with, and has become a true friend in the years we have worked together. He is a true independent, not bowing to large interests but always true to his clients, and is always making new connections and introductions that might help his clients. He also possesses the valuable ability to dare tell you when he thinks you are wrong. All of which make us extremely privileged to count him among our founding team members.

User about Whozat: “Much easier finding people than Googling!”

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

I really enjoy the service, much easier finding people than Googling!

–Jim 

Thanks, Jim! By the way, apologies to users who found some queries hanging up over the last few days; the problem has been fixed.

 –Alex