iBegin has been doing all the right things, right from the beginning. It wasn’t that iBegin had the perfect business model from the start, they didn’t. Very few startups do, but instead of getting stuck on one idea, they have transformed within their niche and have shot in to profitability.
iBegin started out as an experiment: a user generated local search site for Yorkville, a ritzy 4 block neighborhood in downtown Toronto. The number of visits to the hyper local site surprised Ahmed Farooq, the site’s founder, so he started exploring purchasing business listings to expand. Dealing with the data providers proved to be a big hassle. Worse still, the data providers used opaque variable pricing schemes and demanded princely sums. And so iBegin discovered a business opportunity, hassle-free fairly-priced business listings: iBegin Source.
iBegin charges $1000 per state or province, $40,000 for the entire US, and $8,000 for all of Canada. Customers love the transparent pricing. iBegin has already made over 50 sales, 80% of which required no interaction or hand holding. And it is not just customers that have noticed iBegin… this year Ahmed received (and turned down) a buyout offer in the low seven digits.
As a local search engine, iBegin used to compete with Toronto based and venture backed startup Ziplocal, which has undergone several redesigns and appear to be struggling with the local search business model.
It is worth reading iBegin’s philosophy. Notice what they didn’t have from the start: “iBegin was not created by a dozen people brought together to work on it. It didn’t have a CEO and CFO and other related positions. It didn’t have bankers and venture capitalists backing it with millions, helping finance user research groups, and hiring expensive and unneeded consultants and advisers.”
Ahmed is no one trick pony. He has a number of other ventures including: vB Skins, Is My Home, and the Bloggy Network. Building a stable of successful businesses and reinvesting those cash flows, instead of raising outside financing, has allowed allowed iBegin to experiment, iterate, and evolve. Getting to product/market fit is a significant achievement.
There are many opportunities for iBegin going forward. Next year we’ll see iBegin expanding into other English speaking countries and offering categories (e.g. health, legal) in addition to regions. How does Ahmed do do it? By listening to customers and bootstrapping his way to a big success.
Contact: Ahmed Farooq
Blog: www.techsoapbox.com
Canadian startups? Who knew? :p
Canadian startups? Who knew? :p
Disclaimer: I’m an ex employee of Ziplocal.
I find it ridiculous how you base your assumptions on compete.com’s data. If you go to their web site they say themselves that they have too little data to give an accurate analysis and that more people need to download their browser plugin to have the correct data.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ziplocal.com+ibegin.com/?metric=uv
“We have little data for ziplocal.com, so these are rough estimates. With more data, we can cover more sites. Try the Compete browser plug-in to participate.”
Try the Alexa.com web site and it paints a very different picture: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/yalicoo.com?site0=ziplocal.com&site1=ibegin.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3m&size=Medium
And I can tell you for a fact that Ziplocal.com developers don’t have either the alexa.com or compete.com toolbar installed.
Disclaimer: I’m an ex employee of Ziplocal.
I find it ridiculous how you base your assumptions on compete.com’s data. If you go to their web site they say themselves that they have too little data to give an accurate analysis and that more people need to download their browser plugin to have the correct data.
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/ziplocal.com+ibegin.com/?metric=uv
“We have little data for ziplocal.com, so these are rough estimates. With more data, we can cover more sites. Try the Compete browser plug-in to participate.”
Try the Alexa.com web site and it paints a very different picture: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/yalicoo.com?site0=ziplocal.com&site1=ibegin.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3m&size=Medium
And I can tell you for a fact that Ziplocal.com developers don’t have either the alexa.com or compete.com toolbar installed.
No doubt, gathering reliable data about site traffic is difficult.
But who cares what toolbars the ZipLocal developers have installed? And what bearing does that have on whether Compete, Alexa, or Quantcast provide somewhat reliable traffic data. Speaking of toolbars… “Compete data is not based solely on Compete Toolbar users. Compete balances multiple data sources, including ISPs, ASPs, Opt-In Panels and the Compete Toolbar. We strongly believe in our multiple data source strategy and its ability to detect and correct for bias across diverse data sources to ensure accurate projections.” Anyways, I prefer Compete over Alexa because Compete’s chart is easier to read.
Sure, lets compare apple’s to apple’s. iBegin has a significantly higher Alexa Rank than ZipLocal. The chart you linked to was only for the last 3 months… Here is a link to Alexa (iBegin vs ZipLocal) for the last 2 years: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ibegin.com?site0=ibegin.com&site1=ziplocal.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3y&size=Medium
The opinion I hold of ZIP is the result of careful research. I have read their financial statements, used the website, reviewed their latest marketing programs, read blog posts by the developers behind the latest site refresh, and unearthed comments from ex-employees. I even considered surveying their customers but, quite frankly, was afraid of what I would find.
I think you missed this post’s point. It was about iBegin. About doing more with less, creating something from nothing, and iterating to find a market. iBegin is worth celebrating. And there are some great lessons here for other entrepreneurs.
No doubt, gathering reliable data about site traffic is difficult.
But who cares what toolbars the ZipLocal developers have installed? And what bearing does that have on whether Compete, Alexa, or Quantcast provide somewhat reliable traffic data. Speaking of toolbars… “Compete data is not based solely on Compete Toolbar users. Compete balances multiple data sources, including ISPs, ASPs, Opt-In Panels and the Compete Toolbar. We strongly believe in our multiple data source strategy and its ability to detect and correct for bias across diverse data sources to ensure accurate projections.” Anyways, I prefer Compete over Alexa because Compete’s chart is easier to read.
Sure, lets compare apple’s to apple’s. iBegin has a significantly higher Alexa Rank than ZipLocal. The chart you linked to was only for the last 3 months… Here is a link to Alexa (iBegin vs ZipLocal) for the last 2 years: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ibegin.com?site0=ibegin.com&site1=ziplocal.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3y&size=Medium
The opinion I hold of ZIP is the result of careful research. I have read their financial statements, used the website, reviewed their latest marketing programs, read blog posts by the developers behind the latest site refresh, and unearthed comments from ex-employees. I even considered surveying their customers but, quite frankly, was afraid of what I would find.
I think you missed this post’s point. It was about iBegin. About doing more with less, creating something from nothing, and iterating to find a market. iBegin is worth celebrating. And there are some great lessons here for other entrepreneurs.
Hi Jonas, I think you made an important point. In fact I think you made several:
Local search – at http://www.findnearyou.com we have had a similar experience, how he saw traffic suddenly starting to go up. We also started this site with a simple aim of providing service numbers for people since we couldn’t find any at a notice, saw an opportunity to expand, did so.
We have no ceo, cfo, no venture funding so far. We have climbed well in alexa rankings and think we have hit a sweetspot. What ibegin has done is the exact opposite – found an opportunity in sourcing the data and jumped there. We would love to talk to them about data on Indian shops & establishments in Canada and the US.
Lesson – find a sweet spot – grow organically – bring in tech/marketing guns blazing when you hit a critical mass – say a million users. Makes sense.
Ziplocal is an interesting site with humongous potential. iBegin and Ziplocal are two different animals competing in two different market places at different levels.
Hi Jonas, I think you made an important point. In fact I think you made several:
Local search – at http://www.findnearyou.com we have had a similar experience, how he saw traffic suddenly starting to go up. We also started this site with a simple aim of providing service numbers for people since we couldn’t find any at a notice, saw an opportunity to expand, did so.
We have no ceo, cfo, no venture funding so far. We have climbed well in alexa rankings and think we have hit a sweetspot. What ibegin has done is the exact opposite – found an opportunity in sourcing the data and jumped there. We would love to talk to them about data on Indian shops & establishments in Canada and the US.
Lesson – find a sweet spot – grow organically – bring in tech/marketing guns blazing when you hit a critical mass – say a million users. Makes sense.
Ziplocal is an interesting site with humongous potential. iBegin and Ziplocal are two different animals competing in two different market places at different levels.
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