HoodFind

2007 – 2008

My second startup, HoodFind offered a new approach to local discovery that set out to answer the question “what are the best things local businesses are offering today?” Finds included things like sales, unique items and standout services.  With this approach, HoodFind provided the ability to go beyond general business information and reviews to communicate fresh, actionable content. The underlying magic of the system was that both local businesses and consumers could post a “Find” at any time which could be easily shared, purchased and rated.

Although HoodFind met with success in it’s initial live demo phase in Chicago, it was eventually deadpooled frankly because of an inability to execute along with all the typical startup problems as told here.  Many painful lessons learned of course, many of which still haunt me regularly. Another startup we met with at the time called The Point was just beginning to hone in on an idea in local discovery as well. And that idea ended up becoming Groupon – merely the fastest growing company in the history of business.