Type Privately Held | Area served United States | |
Industry Business ratings and reviews Founded San Francisco, United States (November 2010 (2010-11)) Founder Jay Gierak, Nathan Labenz Headquarters Detroit, Michigan, United States | ||
Stik.com (legally known as Knew Deal Inc.) is a US-based review site for local professional services. Stik brings traditional word-of-mouth business referrals online by aggregating verified consumer reviews of individual local professionals (e.g., realtors, mortgage brokers), helping local professionals and small businesses establish their online reputation. Integrated into Facebook and LinkedIn, the company also helps consumers find trusted professionals recommended by their friends and family. As of August 2013, Stik hosts 2.5 million reviews and recommendations, and nearly 700,000 professional profiles.
Contents
Overview
Founded in 2010, Stik aims to bring authentic consumer reviews to the local professional services market. Instead of focusing on whole businesses (e.g. restaurants) the way Yelp, Inc. and Urbanspoon do, Stik focuses on “consumer transactions that are infrequent, expensive, and have a high cost of failure” (e.g., taking out a mortgage, purchasing a home). Stik is free for both consumers and professionals, though the site has recently introduced new premium options available to professionals for a fee.
Stik requires that all users "verify" their identity by linking their review or professional profile to their personal account on Facebook or LinkedIn. The company claims that this integration reduces the number of anonymous fake reviews, which undermine the credibility of online review sites. In September 2013 the New York Attorney General levied charges against reputation management firms anonymously posting fake content on sites like Google, Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo.
History
Harvard alumni Nathan Labenz and Jay Gierak co-founded Stik in November 2010, on the back of a $500,000 round of seed funding led by venture capitalist Timothy C. Draper.
In September 2012, Stik co-founders Nathan Labenz and Jay Gierak relocated operations from San Francisco to their hometown of Detroit. In so doing, Stik became the first Bay Area startup to move to the Motor City’s “burgeoning tech hub.” The office was formerly located within the M@dison building and relocated around the corner in September 2013 as part of the Opportunity Detroit initiative after the expansion of the sales and development team.
In March 2013, Stik closed a $2.3 million Series A round, co-led by Detroit Venture Partners and North Coast Technology Investors. Draper Associates, MEDC, First Step Fund, and Automation Alley also participated in the round.
Controversy
In 2011, Stik posted review requests directly on people's Facebook walls, which some users felt was spam. Stik subsequently switched to sending all review requests via e-mail. There has also been some controversy about the Facebook permissions Stik requires, which include sharing your friend list.