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| Company type | Domestic Limited Liability Company (LLC) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Information collection and delivery |
| Founded | April 26, 1995 |
| Founder | Angie Hicks |
| Headquarters | 1030 E. Washington St., Indianapolis, IN 46202 |
| Key people | William S. (Bill) Oesterle (CEO), Angie Hicks (Chief Marketing Officer) |
| Revenue | $4.6 mil (est.) |
| Number of employees | 65 |
| Parent | Brownstone Publications |
| Website | http://www.angieslist.com/ |
| Footnotes / references | |
Angie’s List is a company which provides ratings of local service companies in 250 different categories. It has been described by the New York Times as a "glorifed Yellow Pages". The company operates in more than 30 cities. Companies are graded on an A-F scale. The A - F ratings come from members who submit reviews on companies they have used. Revenue for Angie's List comes from fees paid by its members and from advertising. It claims to only accept advertising from companies that have a "B" rating or higher. Members can submit information about service providers and receive the magazine. Members have unlimited access to the list via Internet or phone; receive the Angie’s List magazine, which includes articles on home improvement and maintenance, consumer trends and scam alerts; and they can utilize the Angie’s List complaint resolution service. Contractors cannot pay to be on the list, add their own names or report on their own companies, but many people believe that little prevents them from using surrogates to buy memberships and submit positive reviews about themselves and negative reviews about their competitors. Approximately 15,000 reports are submitted every month, but it is unknown how many of these Angie's List chooses to use in grading contractors. Assuming it uses them all, it would take over 77 years for Angie's List to get, on average, a single review on each of the 14 million businesses in the United States. Angie's List claims that an employee reads every report as they come in to check for abuse and inaccuracies, but fails to articulate how they "check for abuse" on 15,000 reports monthly with only 65 employees.
Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, the company was founded by Angie Hicks in 1995. Angie modeled the list after Indianapolis's Unified Neighbors, which was founded in 1974. Initially off-line, Angie Hicks, a recent MBA graduate, claims to have gone door-to-door in Columbus, Ohio signing up members and collecting ratings on local contractors. In 1996, Angie's List purchased Unified Neighbors and relocated the company from Columbus to Indianapolis.
Competitors
Angie's List faces competition from online companies that aggregate reviews on local merchants, including, Yelp, Insider Pages (which has over 600,000 reviews of local businesses) and Judy's Book.
References
- "accessIndiana". Indiana Secretary of State. Retrieved November 7, 2006.
- ^ Schein, Amy. "Brownstone Publishing, LLC". Hoovers.com. Hoovers. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
- Daniels, Mary (January 14, 2007). "5 Things to Know...about home warranties". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 29, 2007.
- ^ Darlin, Damon (August 5, 2006). "Let's Say Your Toilet Backs Up. How Do You Find a Good Plumber?". New York Times. Retrieved January 10, 2007.
- Tribble, Sarah Jane (August 28, 2006). "Angie's List earns an "A" for filling consumer niche". Seattle Times. Retrieved January 10, 2007.
- "Angie's List helps you choose a contractor". KVBC. July 10, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2007.
- ^ Duros, Sally (January 5, 2007). "Mining gold from Chicagoans' word of mouth". Chicago Sun Times. Retrieved January 29, 2007.