Comments on: Angie’s List Gets $35 Million in New Investment From Battery Ventures

By: Angie’s List - 7/10 « Jayscore

Angie’s List - 7/10 « Jayscore — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:44:17 +0000

[...] TechCrunch has an article noting that Angie’s List recieved a $35 Million dollar investment. They also noted that they have been around since 1995 and currently support over 600,000 members. They don’t mention any reviews of the actual service. Basically, this just means that someone believed in the quality of their service enough to give them a decent amount of money to expand. >>> [...]

By: Wil Courter

Wil Courter — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:22:14 +0000

I visited Angie’s List Website and did not subscribe. Then the e-mails to me started – and continue to come – trying to get me to sign up for $25 off the usual price, with better offers following after that.

I also searched Angie’s List on the Epinions.com site. They are MANY people unhappy after using Angie’s List for a variety of reasons, including trying to get your money back when you are not satisfied (as their say you can).

So beware!! Research first. And wait for a better offer after you first visit their site.

All the best !!!!

By: Stephen Sieber

Stephen Sieber — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:03:28 +0000

I hope Angie’s List disclosed to all of these investors they go on trial in early 2009 for libel, tortious interference, and conspiracy along with the Washington Post in a $75,000,000 lawsuit Case 2549B in the district of columbia. It’s good to know they will be able to pay the judgement that will rendered aganist them. You will see this case all over the media any day now.

By: me

me — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:26:37 +0000

the paid memberships protect against companies that ask all their friends, families and employees to make reports for their own company so they can get fake reviews up, and hide bad ones like on Service Magic and Kudzu. the paid memberships make the list more reliable for consumers -so they know even if a company did cheat – and get one up there -they’d have to spend a whole lot of money to fake the whole thing on Angie’s List.
The paid memberships ALSO protect companies from being sent off on wild goose chases by unscrupulous companies that create fake leads by pretending to be a customer on Service Magic and Craigs List, sending their competitors chasing the wrong ones. The paid memberships protect companies from their competitors making false reviews about each other on the list, to dog out another company to get rid of competition -those are things that go on all day long on those FREE lists, because all you have to do is create a new email on yahoo or something and sign up for those. No way they’d ever know.

As far as Angie’s List website – I think it’s very focused – a lot more focused than Service Magic, or Craigs list -etc. my gosh =-you can hire a hooker on Craigs list or a hit man! Angie’s List stays focused on what their member base has a need for -most of it looks like “home related” services, or things like Auto. When I looked at Kudzu, and Craigs List -they are way way way too cluttered with a lot of blah blah, ‘call now for your free trial and lose 10 lbs in 10 days kind of crap” – Angie’s List is clean – all related info – very easy to use if you have a membership. And it keeps out the riff raff that are looking to hire someone to kill their husbands!!!! hahahha

By: Oliver's Stuff » Angie’s List was founded in 1995, and provides users with customer...

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:43:00 +0000

[...] to comScore, its traffic has been flat, with only 214,000 unique visitors in February. — Angie’s List Gets $35 Million in New Investment From Battery Ventures June 28th @ 9:40 [...]

By: Bisi

Bisi — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:23:12 +0000

Skip – I don’t really know if its like a mercedes . I have not test driven yet, but I can tell you that Angieslist is in the business of making money . Angie and her people are not concerned about having the most uniques or pageviews or even the most reviews . They are only worried about paid subscribers . Obviously I would like to believe they are doing something right . If I had to pick a revenue model I would go with Angieslist because they are obviously making money and getting valued very high for equity purposes . Sometimes the most profitable companies are not the coolest and many times the coolest companies are not making any money . They are just cool .

By: LOL @ Silly People

LOL @ Silly People — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:42:24 +0000

@ 25 Daniel – you couldn’t because your traffic probably has a crappy eCPM.

By: K

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:30:38 +0000

I don’t understand how you refer to Angie’s as “one of the largest sites for local service provider ratings.” By your own charts you show them with 200k UV’s. Then you show Kudzu & Yelp with numbers that dwarf that.

I did have a free membership to Angie’s a while back but let it lapse. I just didn’t see the value in reviews only. While Yelp’s nice for finding he scoop on bars, I prefer using Kudzu to find service people. The reviews help, but it’s the profiles that really let me narrow down my decision. I’ve found a variety of folks from a tile guy, to a great photographer for holiday photos, to a maid service I’ve kept for longer than my subscription to Angie’s list. For the maid service, the reviews were key, but for the other ones, it was the profile. – imagine hiring either of those without being able to preview photos!

I finally put a profile up for my design firm and have gotten business out of it. As a business, I’m happy to pay Kudzu, but as a consumer, I just don’t see paying Angie.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:42:15 +0000

The review site are old school! Most good reviews are made by the listing companies own employees and the bad ones are from customers you could never make happy even if you gave the service away for free!

The next service directory site is http://www.mycityfaces.com no reviews, clean, simple and easy to navigate. Profiles are like “Electronic Billboards”

By: Skip

Skip — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:58:15 +0000

Note to Bisi.

It’s true that Angie’s list is alone in its model (i.e. not a clone) — could there be a reason? And do you really think it’s like Mercedes?

Whatever, obviously Battery does — given the luxury class price.

By: Bisi

Bisi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:41:38 +0000

LOL !
People never ever do any research ..

Angieslist is not a clone . The site is 13 years old for goodness sake .

They Bring in about 15M a year .

A lot of people think that making money on the internet is all about eyeballs . This is not true .

A busier site does not mean a more profitable one . If I open up a free restaurant beside one that charges for food I am sure I will have more customers .

Free sites are not necessarily competing with paid sites even though there can be an overlap of potential customers . There are those who dont mind paying and there are those who are just cheap .

Its like saying a Mercedes dealership will flop because a Hyunda dealer just opened next door .

Saying that Brusters with their $5 ice cream will flop because you can buy a whole bucket of ice cream from Walmart for $5 .

Or ..Ok last one

Saying that no one will pay for 1st class when there is economy .

Ok …Last One

Its like saying no one will go to private school because there are public schools .

The list is endless . You just have to know your market .

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:14:22 +0000

Is it just me — or does Angies list feel very “Web 0.2″?

Their site is sparse. Their traffic is light. Their monthly .pdf magazine is quaint, I guess. Probably just a case of having selected a name close enough to Craig’s to get some halo effect.

There’s heat in this space no doubt. ReachLocal and Yelp are overvalued too. Blame it on the $14B in print yellow page advertising that sits waiting to be poached.

Kudzu.com is interesting. Not really “national” yet — only has critical mass in markets like Atlanta, Phoenix and San Diego. But when you look at its depth in those markets, it makes Angie look quite weak. And unlike Yelp, appears to have real advertisers — not just restaurant reviews.

But, in fairness, this is hard.

By: Inversión de 35 millones en Angie’s List

Inversión de 35 millones en Angie’s List — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:34:08 +0000

[...] List ha recibido una inversión de 35 millones de dólares de parte de Battery Ventures, lo que suma una financiación total de 48 millones de dólares. [...]

By: Lyn Smith

Lyn Smith — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:52:04 +0000

So if they got $35m with approx. 350,000 unique visitors each month, that should mean that with my 4,000 unique visitors each month, I can get $400,000 – sweeet!!

By: Daniel Larsson

Daniel Larsson — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:45:32 +0000

I have a blog-network in the entertainment niche with 3 million page views a month and will totally sell it for much less than $23 million

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:27:48 +0000

What the heck do they need all that money for?

But anyways…I can see how the reviews could be much better because those in the system are paying to see the reviews so are probably offering better reviews themselves.

I’ve never had much need for sites like these myself as word of mouth between friends and family has been able to connect me with everything I need.

But you can’t argue with the success of Angie and Yelp.

By: B

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:25:20 +0000

While it’s true that you can get free reviews on Yelp, there is something to be said for having a bar on reviews from other people paying $35 a year (instead of Yelpers who review the restaurant that hosted that last Yelp party).

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Angie’s ListがBattery Venturesから$35M調達

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Angie’s ListがBattery Venturesから$35M調達 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:21:38 +0000

[...] [原文へ] [...]

By: M

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:00:10 +0000

For those of us (me included) that don’t think it makes sense to pay a fee to look at reviews, there are always people who will pay when others won’t.

I met someone who loves Angie’s List. She had 1 kid, 2 nannies and also paid to watch her kids play in a public park. Oh to have money. If this is Angie’s demographic then there is more value possible around that subscription fee.

Maybe it’s what’s not there that Battery is after. Isn’t that what invested capital is for…

By: Bisi

Bisi — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:58:21 +0000

LOL !
People never ever do any research ..

Angieslist is not a clone . The site is 13 years old for goodness sake .

They Bring in about 15M a year .

A lot of people think that making money on the internet is all about eyeballs . This is not true .

A busier site does not mean a more profitable one . If I open up a free restaurant beside one that charges for food I am sure I will have more customers .

Free sites are not necessarily competing with paid sites even though there can be an overlap of potential customers . There are those who dont mind paying and there are those who are just cheap .

Its like saying a Mercedes dealership will flop because a Hyunda dealer just opened next door .

Saying that Brusters with their $5 ice cream will flop because you can buy a whole bucket of ice cream from Walmart for $5 .

Or ..Ok last one

Saying that no one will pay for 1st class when there is economy .

Ok …Last One

Its like saying no one will go to private school because there are public schools .

The list is endless . You just have to know your market .

References –
http://en.wikip....org/wiki/Angie’s_List
http://www.coll...s.org/x5883.xml
http://www.angi...tail.aspx?i=114

By: jro

jro — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:52:18 +0000

@16: I think your math is a bit off. They’re claiming 600K users and get $35/year in fees. That equates to $21MM in recurring annual revenue. The 10x revenue math puts their value at 210MM.

But, if you’re company is bringing in $21MM in revenue annually, and you’ve taken $13MM in investment thus far, taking $35MM in another round makes zero business sense. Unless, of course, those revenue numbers are potential, i.e. based on the 1-year free registrants, but not actually being collected.

They’re doing a good job in a tough business (local search), though. Got to give them credit for that.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:25:58 +0000

Hot Damn…. There is more than corn in Indiana. Congrats AL.

By: Noah "Like The Ark"

Noah "Like The Ark" — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:24:50 +0000

I would love to get that much in investment money!

By: Mary Baum

Mary Baum — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:51:39 +0000

I canceled my Anglie’sList subscription some time back after I realized that the contractors might be well-rated, but they were no more accessible than the ones in the phone book. Only a limited number of them were willing to work in my inner-ring suburb, and almost none of them had email or any web presence. That meant I was back to calling phones that weren’t necessarily answered, leaving messages that didn’t necessarily get returned — not even Web 1.0 service. Why would I pay AngiesList for that?

Contrast that with ServiceMagic, which I used before to get new central air, gutters and some interior ceilings replaced. It’s no contest.

By: Matt Moog

Matt Moog — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:24:39 +0000

At $50-$75 annual subscriber fee Angie’s List is likely to be generating $30mm+ in annual revenue. If you believe the 10x revenue comps in for pure web plays, than a $300mm+ valuation would be possible. I would suspect they have more revenue than the other leading local review sites including Yelp the media darling.

As much as the “free-tard” comment made me laugh, I too don’t understand why consumers would pay $50+ a year just for reading other consumer’s reviews of local service providers. One would think that the long term availability of free content that is not only comparable but better will be a strong head wind for Angie’s List. I say better because free consumer reviews sites will eventually get more reviews from more consumers because their audience will be larger than 500,000 subscribers.

All that said, I can tell you as an entrepreneur who has raised $5 million dollars in the last 18 months to launch a consumer reviews start up, there is a siginicant amount of room in the space for innovation. At Viewpoints we have built an audience of 500,000+ uniques in our first six months since launch.

Angie’s List publication might be a bit dated, and the premium subscription product out of step with the current thinking, but you cannot argue with their success in generating real paying customers and in the process building a understated, credible and well known brand.

As is the case with many of web business models, it comes down to execution, innovation and staying power. With this latest raise, they certainly have staying power. We will all have to stay tuned to see if they can be innovative and execute in a constantly changing competitive enviornment.