Last Thursday, Trusty’s debuted to the Washington tech scene. The event was SocialMatchbox, and we, along with a dozen other startups, got a two-minute pitch to a crowd of about 100 (entrepreneurs, investors, and other interested parties).

It went well. Good feedback from attendees, a number of new connections, and a first-hand look at some impressive local Internet companies. I was particularly taken by GeniusRocket, a ‘crowdsourced’ creative design firm where clients submit design projects and receive submissions from designers around the world (much like the LogoWorks model, but for more diverse projects). Also liked Vlytics (data management tools for political campaigns), DubMeNow (’business card’ exchange between mobile devices), and Euraeka (a news editor with artificial intelligence - the site isn’t public yet). 

I had beers with the Euraeka founders, Georgi and Jack, afterwards, and was even more impressed. Good guys with lots of ideas. Very good advice on how to grow Trusty’s reach. Some day they’ll conquer the world!

Perhaps the best thing to emerge from the event was a write-up (and mention of Trusty’s) in the Washington Post this morning: “a local directory where people can find services such as plumbers or landscapers based on reputation, price and location.” Exactly right.

We wanted to build Trusty’s off-shore, we knew that from the start. The main reason was cost, of course — with extremely limited funds, we needed to take advantage of developing-world pay rates. Building and launching successful Internet products requires tremendous work, coordination, and luck, even under the best of circumstances. Doing so in coordination with a team on the opposite side of the planet (with the time differences, language barriers, and cultural  hurdles) seemed just short of impossible. It was daunting and risky, but when you’ve got nothing, the saying goes, you’ve got nothing to lose. 

And once you accept the risk, there’s a powerful attraction: the chance to collaborate in the global economy. I’ve read The World is Flat, and followed the capitalist exploits of Shanghai, Bangalore, and Hanoi enough to know that I wanted a piece of the action. We needed a prototype — a basic web application which we could take to market. We wanted it fast, and we wanted to eventually  extend it — to scale without having to toss out the source code. But most of all, we wanted it cheap.

This was all back in February of 2008, when our business was still on the back of an envelope. But having found an development partner, and experienced first-hand the challenges and rewards of low-budget off-shore collaboration, I wanted to share some of the lessons learned. I’ll start with some thoughts for selecting a partner, and follow up with a post on managing the development. 

We were committed to developing Trusty’s using Ruby on Rails, but these points could apply to selecting any off-shore partner:

1. Define your Product. Before you reach out to potential partners, it’s important that you have a clear idea what you want to build. Agile development and the requisite lack of documentation is all the rage, and there is much to be said for evolving products to suit real users, but doing so with an offshore partner (at least for an alpha, or proof of concept) is recipe for disaster. 

If you’re bootstrapping your business, you need to know exactly what you’re buying, and how much it will cost. In the language of contracts, that means a detailed scope of work (SOW), and a fixed price budget. Don’t leave home without them. 

For the purposes of comparing potential partners, and getting similar proposals (and quotes), the traditional means is with a request for proposal (RFP). I wrote one for trustys.com, but the truth is that any detailed requirements document could serve this purpose (and be repurposed as the SOW). The RFP merely supports the product requirements with additional expectations (coding standards, timelines, team roles) that are worth capturing. (Here’s the RFP we submitted for Trusty’s: http://tinyurl.com/6ujj24)

Not that every last detail of your product needs to be nailed down before you engage, just high-level requirements. Our talented designer, Jane Mount, worked on much of the site architecture in parallel with development, and provided direction (wireframes and design comps) on an as-needed basis, but we were always one step ahead of the development team. Lack of product definition leads to ambiguity, and ambiguity has been the downfall of many well-intentioned off-shore projects.

2. Narrow the Field. When we decided to build trustys.com with Ruby on Rails (RoR), I assumed we would have relatively few off-shore partners to choose from. RoR is a new framework, primarily adopted by Web start-ups, and I wrongly assumed it was incompatible with the enterprise clientele of international development shops. It turns out that googling ‘ruby on rails offshore’ returns more than a few matches, hundreds more, and determining which of the contenders from around the world have the chops to deliver a scalable web application is a time consuming process. 

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to narrow the field to the half-dozen or so companies with whom you’ll want to share your RFP. It’s a matter of reviewing their web sites (and blogs), contacting them for additional details, and then making a gut decision about which ones seem legit. 

One helpful resource was www.workingwithrails.com, an RoR community with an extensive international footprint. There isn’t much detail on the hundreds of companies indexed on the site, but there’s good insight into the ‘authority’ and ‘popularity’ of principals behind them, and their involvement within the Ruby community.  

Ultimately, we sent the RFP to six companies:

• • Railsware – Kiev, Ukraine (Yaroslav Lazor: yaroslav.lazor@railsware.com)
• • Confiz – Lahore, Pakistan (Muhammad Raza Saeed: raza.saeed@confiz.com)
• • Railsfactory – Chennai, India (Dinesh Kumar: dinesh@railsfactory.org)
• • Vinsol – New Delhi, India (Manik Juneja: manik@vinsol.com)
• • RoRCraft – Sydney, Australia (Rex Chung: rex@rorcraft.com)
• • JoshSoftware – Maharastra, India (Gautam Rege: gautam@joshsoftware.com)

3. Do the Diligence. The responses from companies varied widely in terms of detail, quotes ($7,360 - $45,000), and timeline (7 - 11 weeks). Further narrowing the field to three finalists was straightforward: Vinsol pulled out (too busy), and the two highest bids had the least impressive proposals. 

In the end, we set up skype conferences with Confiz, Railsfactory, and JoshSoftware. I was accompanied on my end by Mohammad Abed, a talented software architect and ruby advocate, and our discussions were primarily with a CEO/CTO duo (though they often introduced proposed team members). The narrative of these discussions followed the proposals – their approach, the team, previous experience, and timelines, but there were a number of questions we posed to all three:

• 1. What do you think of our business, and what do you see as the value proposition?
• 2. What projects have you completed that required similar features and functionality?
• 3. Describe your development process, from soup to nuts, for a typical project.
• 4. How do you handle: project planning, team communication, quality assurance, and change requests?
• 5. What tools do you use for project management, version control, and bug tracking?
• 6. Describe your coding standards for Ruby on Rails and CSS/XHTML.
• 7. Can we review the source code for applications you have completed?
• 8. What RoR libraries or plug-ins would you consider for search and geo-locating?

After the meetings, I followed up with the references they provided, as well as (when possible) former clients they didn’t cite as references. 

In the end, it was a toss-up between Confiz and Railsfactory. We liked the principals at both companies, they had comparable experience, and both seemed capable of delivering a working prototype of the Trusty’s product in a matter of months. Ultimately, the decision came back to cost – one bid was significantly lower than the other. 

Stay tuned for our next post, when I’ll share who we selected, and our experience working with them.

It has been a busy month for our small but diligent development team, with a number of improvements to trustys.com rolling out before Thanksgiving, and then again before Christmas. The most obvious changes are to the rating system (we switched from a scale of 5 to 10, and added a cool slider for selecting a scores), and within the profile (design changes and a ‘request reviews’ feature), but there were fixes and new features addes throughout the site, including:

• reformatting search results pages, and moving ad unit from right column to the bottom
• a newsletter system for communicating with our members
• better geo-locating system, for matching zip codes to towns/cities
• ’search-friendly’ urls for category pages
• administrative tools
• increasing font sizes across the site

As usual, many of these improvements were suggested by our members. We couldn’t be happier with the regular feedback we get from our ‘early adopters,’ and the effort they’ve put into establishing profiles and soliciting references. Any and all input for ways we can improve the site, simplify the experience, or add new features are welcome. 

Thanks again for your support, and best wishes for the New Year!

Hats off to Kim Ung, interior designer and window treatment specialist from Rockville Maryland, who was the 1000th service provider to sign up on Trusty’s. Mr. Ung joined on the evening of November 3, a full ten weeks after we went live with our site. 

Other interesting tidbits about our budding business:

1. total registered users = 1300+
2. most popular category = Home Improvement (416 providers)
3. most popular service = Handyman (102)
4. profiles with photos = 671

We couldn’t be happier about our growth, or more encouraged by the feedback and suggestions we receive from users. Mr. Ung’s membership marks a significant milestone. May he live long and prosper!

Thanks.

The Trusty’s Team

People often ask: “What’s the best way to get my profile (and business)  prominently featured on trustys.com?” The answer is straightforward — establish your reputation. Getting clients and associates to positively review your profile will push it to the top of search results, and get you featured on the home page.  Trusty’s mission is to help people find reputable service businesses (and help those businesses find new clients). Without reviews, a service provider effectively has no reputation. Over time, the more reviews a person has, the higher Trusty’s will rank them. So don’t be shy about encouraging as many people as possible to give you references.

While establishing reputation can take time, there are a few simple things you can do to dramatically improve your success on the site:

1. upload a photo - People are far more likely to view your profile if it has a personal photo or company logo. Trusty’s is about establishing trust, and we all like to put a face to a name. Also, only profiles with photos are featured on the home page (under ‘Top Providers’).

2. include a Title on your profile - Your title displays at the top of your profile (in the ‘breadcrumbs’) and gets included in search results. A title provides detail, and establishes your role (whether it’s ‘Owner’ or ‘Master Carpenter’). People like to know exactly who they’re doing business with.

3. add to your Specialties - Your Specialties are like keywords, or tags, and are of vital importance to search results. The words you include should match the words or phrases people search for to find your services. A good example of a profile using Specialties is Patrick, a developer who helped build Trusty’s (http://trustys.com/profiles/pjoyce).

Once you’ve completed these basics, it’s important to get your first review. Without one, your profile won’t be featured on the home page, or ranked well in search results. Asking people you know for references couldn’t be easier:  click on the Invite link at the top of the page, when you are signed in, to get an automated form inviting them to the site. Simply type in their email address(es) and your message, and click ‘Send’.

Hope this helps, and best of luck on Trusty’s!

Last week, with little fanfare, we pushed a number of minor improvements to trustys.com. This is part of an ongoing effort to gradually fix bugs, add features and evolve the Trusty’s experience. We organize these changes to include suggestions from the Trusty’s team, problems we see with the user experience (registration, for example), and direct member feedback. Prioritization at this point is relatively easy: what will make the value proposition clearer, adoption easier, and the site more engaging? This effort of iteratively improving the site and rolling out new features every few weeks is the foundation of our development process. It’s how we continually adapt to member needs and extend the value of our service.

For this most recent iteration, we tackled over 50 issues (bugs and enhancements), that spanned all corners of the site. They included:

• restructure and simplify of the registration process
• refine the geolocating tool (which determines location from a ZIP code)
• improve the algorithm featuring profiles on the home page
• tweak the home page design
• improve search and expand service categories

Many thanks to all our members who provided feedback and made suggestions — ultimately Trusty’s is for you, and we value your opinion. For those of you who have ideas or suggestions about how we can improve, please don’t be shy. The launch of Trusty’s was the first step in a long journey, and we hope you’ll stay with us as we find our stride.

Thanks. 

Kit Cody

At some point on Monday morning, August 18, the password protection was removed from www.trustys.com and the site went live to the world. We have entered the ubiquitous realm of ‘public beta,’ and exposed our nascent web application, warts and all, to the fickle tastes and much desired ‘eyeballs’ of real users. While this simple event may never rank in the annals Great Moments in Business (I’m thinking of the 1984 commercial when Apple launched the Mac) , for those of us who have dedicated considerable time and mind-share to the conception and execution of Trusty’s, it is a satisfying moment none the less. We have a vision: to become the default worldwide destination for finding quality services, and with this milestone we are one step closer to that goal. For those of you who have played a role in reaching beta, thanks for your commitment. For those of you who are here for the first time, WELCOME. Make yourself at home, and let us know what we can do to make your experience more useful or enjoyable.

NOTE: As anyone who read the previous posts probably deduced, we didn’t make it to Techcrunch50. The silver lining to this disappointing news is that we didn’t have to wait until September to launch our site. So launch we did.

After a nerve-wracking day where I lost my internet connection, couldn’t get the web conference software working (microsoft!!), TechCrunch called to reschedule, they called again to un-reschedule, I still couldn’t get the web conference working, and finally opted for the later time slot, the meeting itself went surprisingly well. In the end I didn’t use web conference, but rather had the Techcrunch CMO (Sarah Ross) go directly to our staging site and follow me along as I demo-ed the site. We started on the home page, logged into my account, reviewed the profile, searched for plumber in NYC, filtered and sorted through the choices, selected a plumber, and sent message to one of his reviewers for a follow up reference. Then we logged out, browsed for a tax consultant (Financial / Legal > tax consultant) sorted for ‘best value’ provider, and ended on the profile for a CPA in Ukraine. We were scheduled for 10 minutes, and ended at about 15. She asked a few good questions to wrap things up, then wished us luck. I’d rate the entire exchange an 8 (out of possible 10). We should feel good about that.

All that being said, she also brought into focus what we’re up against competing for this conference. In the end, they will invite 50 companies to launch over three days in September. She said that they have received applications from over 900 companies (from 49 countries) vying for those slots. She didn’t say how many of those 900 made it to the interview round, but my guess is hundreds. Despite the fact that they already pushed the announcement date from August 1 to August 11, she made it sound like even that was optimistic. She doubted they would get through all the interviews by then (given the rescheduling issues, I can understand why). She also asked if we were venture-backed, which leads me to believe many of the companies we’re competing against have significantly more capital/connections than we do. 

Which leaves me guardedly optimistic. I will be pleasantly surprised if we get in, and feel like we’ve otherwise given it our best shot based on our funding, timing and resources. It sounds like this conference has quickly become the Sundance of Internet start-ups, and I’m sure the powers that be (VCs, investment bankers, and silicon valley elite) are doing there best to get exposure for their clients. 

We’ll see. The site is functioning very well, and looks better every day. We’re starting getting our first REAL users, and our guerilla marketing efforts are ramping up. Whatever the outcome, we’re thankful to TechCrunch for the opportunity, and the impetus to get Trustys.com up to snuff.

It’s official: Trustys.com applied to participate with 49 other startups at the TechCrunch50 Conference in San Francisco September 8-10. In submitting the application, we’ve commited to a public beta launch at the conference (assuming we’re invited). Good incentive (and pressure) for getting Trusty’s ready for prime time over the next ten weeks.

The application was short but rigorous — an opportunity to further refine our business plan. It asked questions about founders, money raised,  business model, competitors, and why we hope to participate in the conference. The money section is the pitch, and here is what we wrote:

The pitch * What do you do? What problem does it solve? How is it revolutionary? (max 500 words.)

Trusty’s is a services network: a social marketplace where service providers and small business owners create profiles, cultivate reputations, and encourage feedback (reviews and ratings) from clients. Consumers maintain profiles and provide input in order to share knowledge and gain stature within the community. On the front end is a sophisticated search, enabling users to sort and filter provider profiles based on a reputation, location, price, quality of service, and numerous other criteria. Members can communicate, share advice, seek references or build relationships across the community. The application replicates traditional, small-town, word-of-mouth networking, but on a global scale. It also levels the competitive playing field, providing access to rates and reputations that have hitherto been unavailable.

Trusty’s relies on a simple truth: service businesses are built on reputations. By building a transparent system for comparing the relative strengths of providers, and a social network for leveraging the recommendations and reviews of impartial consumers, users make informed decisions about whom they hire.

Trusty’s was conceived to address the ubiquitous challenge of finding reliable help: dentists, plumbers, babysitters, landscapers, tax accountants, auto mechanics, etcetera. The application exploits a timeless truth: the best way to source exceptional service has always been through personal recommendations. But in order to serve our increasingly diverse service needs, this requires ready access to an extensive network, ideally encompassing broad experience with exposure to niche (long tail) providers (how many friends have a favorite salt-water aquarium cleaner?). There’s currently no convenient way to compare service providers based on price, reputation location and experience, and no comprehensive destination for consumers to share services feedback.

Trusty’s is ‘revolutionary’ in two respects:

1. A Blue-collar Linkedin: profiles are established and maintained by service providers and small business owners, not dynamically created from business directories (ie. Yellow Pages). This incentivizes reputation management (like EBay), and encourages viral activity (inviting clients to provide references). It also creates a competitive environment, where providers continually vie for feedback and attention in their market, in order to rise to the top (highest-rated, cheapest, most-reviewed, most-established, etc.).

2. Exploiting a ‘flat’ world: In a global economy, where services are increasingly rendered ‘virtually’, Trustys provides a unique platform for comparing providers in your neighborhood, across the country, and around the world. The prospect of having taxes prepared in Romania (for a fraction of HR Block fee) is less daunting you’re your accountant has credible references, extensive reviews, real-time communication, and funds secured in escrow until satisfactory delivery of work.

The form also enabled you to upload your logo, up to three powerpoint slides, and a video pitch limited to 60 seconds. 

Wish us luck.

Kit