[cmbaus]

I think buildzoom is going to be big. I'm remodeling a condo in Florida, and it has been a nightmare to find contractors.

In fact on the flight on the way home I penciled out some ideas to improve this that aren't too different from what buildzoom is offering.

Edit: After reviewing my notes, one thing I considered was that for better or worse, a lot of the industry is under the table and transient. Maybe buildzoom will force the industry more into the open.

[arbuge]

I am wondering how they are already getting 500k uniques per month & 1000 contractors a week signing up:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/14/buildzoom-connects-homeowne...

I mean, how on earth do you that? Some kind of mystical SEO? Befuddles me...

[jiyannwei]

This is one of our goals: mitigating the information asymmetry in the remodeling sector (georgewfraser's articulation). If you are interested in comparing notes, I'd be happy to chat.

[bri3d]

What about Redbeacon (squarely aimed at the same place), or Thumbtack or Yerbid?

This isn't a particularly new space, although I'm sure BuildZoom can do well in it.

[jiyannwei]

There are several players in this space. Perhaps the largest are HomeAdvisor (formerly ServiceMagic) and Angie's List.

There are some distinguishing factors: one of the biggest is that we use a heavily data driven approach. One of our goals is to consider every single licensed contractor in the United States. In most areas, the actual number of contractors who are licensed to practice is an order of magnitude (or two) higher than what is considered by most sites. We actually just look at the actual population of contractors to help a homeowner determine the right choice.

[cmbaus]

I've never heard of these, which is part of the benefit of YC I guess. What that said, none of them seem to offer what BuildZoom does which is a list of all the contractors in my area sorted by reputation. Even if their reputation metrics are questionable at this point, at least they are making an attempt at it.

I just contacted a painter through buildzoom. Let's see how it works out. Contractors in my area (Tahoe) are notoriously hard to track down.

[jiyannwei]

Tahoe has been a little tricky. You need a contractor who is regulated in CA however a lot of the contractors near Tahoe are licensed in Nevada (although a number are licensed in both states).

One of our advisors has a house up there and we've been working with him to create a better experience in that region. If you want to let us know a bit more about your project, I'll make sure we get a great contractor out.