The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: FindTheBest.com
Quick Pitch: FindTheBest is a socially curated comparison engine helping people make faster and more informed decisions, unhindered by marketing bias.
Genius Idea: A few years back Kevin O’Connor — the man who founded DoubleClick and sold it to Google for $3.1 billion — noticed that he repeatedly had a difficult time comparing objective information on product and services on the web.
That problem prompted O’Connor to create FindTheBest, a site that serves up comparison grids for everything from smartphones to e-readers to venture capital firms to colleges to dog breeds to ski resorts to cities.
FindTheBest is really self-explanatory: People can use the site to find the best [insert anything here]. Whatever the topic, visitors can look at comparison charts for products and services — which the startup refers to as “comparison apps” — that highlight all sorts of variables and allow for advance filtering, making the service both practical and amusing. Those curious about comparing dog breeds, for instance, can browse all breeds, select a few to compare side-by-side or sort and filter breeds by dog qualities such as height, weight and temperament.
Human editors are responsible for building the more than 450 comparison apps, but FindTheBest encourages consumers and companies to supplement the available data and even add their own ratings and reviews. Ninety percent of users are adding accurate data, so in next UI release, FindTheBest will start promoting these consumer editing features to encourage even more member engagement, says O’Connor.
The startup will also eventually add in social elements so users can better surface information on the products their friends like. The comparison apps are designed to be objective in nature and pull from publicly available data sets, but O’Connor believes that users will want ways to sort and filter items based on their friends’ input.
Earlier today, FindTheBest announced that it closed an undisclosed round of funding as part of Kleiner Perkins $250 million sFund for social innovation. The funding will allow O’Connor and team to accelerate product development.
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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