AlikeList

Way back in August ’09 when AlikeList was in it’s toddler phase, co-founder Jim Delli Santi wrote a blog post explaining AlikeList’s mission when it was founded. He lamented that he and the other co-founders always had a hard time finding good local restaurants, doctors, auto mechanics – you name it – online.

All three of us agreed that today’s local offerings were falling short of making life simpler… It’s easy to get overwhelmed with too much information, too many local choices and too many reviews to read from people we don’t know or trust.

We set out to build AlikeList, a place where like-minded individuals and groups of people can share and find trusted local recommendations through word-of-mouth. Just like they do offline, only better because we make these local recommendations searchable, available 24 x 7, and accessible from anywhere.

Now, six months later, the AlikeList staff is finding trusted local businesses through AlikeList almost every day. Since most staff members are friends with each other on alikelist.com, we each have at least 30 AlikeList friends. That creates an incredibly valuable database of recommendations from

Mission Ranch in Carmel, CA

people we actually trust. No more sifting through reviews or random business listings for us!

With the constant chaos of a start-up, and the coming and going of off-site employees, we can all truly see and experience the value of AlikeList.

Take Jeff, our Director of Business Operations, for example. He was in need of two new mattresses for his growing daughters. He looked on AlikeList and saw that our Director of Social Marketing was a friend of Jim, the manager at Mancini’s Sleepworld in Saratoga, CA and highly recommended the store. So Jeff put it on his TryList, and on the same day went into the store and got a great deal on two top-notch mattresses – for two happy daughters at home.

Last weekend, I was heading down to Carmel, CA and on Friday afternoon, realized I didn’t have a clue what to do there. I sent out an Ask to 15 people, asking them to recommend a good place to get a drink. Within an hour, I had 10 responses. One of the best ones said to get a drink at Clint Eastwood’s Mission Ranch, on the back deck, during sunset if possible. That kind of recommendation would have taken me hours of researching online to find – and even then I wouldn’t have trusted it because it would have come from a complete stranger.

For the AlikeList staff, it’s really nice to know that whenever we need anything local – a restaurant, chiropractor, auto mechanic – we know exactly where to look. We don’t even have to bother asking one another, which is good because we’re always so busy! (In fact, I should get back to work…)