My New Gig

I’ve recently started at Rated People as their Technology Director.

I find the company fascinating for a bunch of reasons:

1. They are a marketplace that allows people to find tradesmen very easily. It’s shocking how easy for the user it is, in fact – and I speak as someone who has used the service as a user. The model is pretty similar to MFG.com - regular readers will know I’m a fan.
2. But even better than the traditional online marketplace idea, Rated People is more like a dating agency. I don’t go on the site and choose from hundreds of plumbers. The system chooses the best plumbers for me based on my location, budget etc.
3. The upshot of all of this is that the ratings system on Rated People is the best I’ve come across. It is the hardest to fake. Amazon’s ratings are useless – as a manufacturer I could easily hire plenty of people to post positive reviews of my goods. Even on MFG.com I could register myself as a supplier, create a number of fake buyer accounts, award myself some contracts and give myself a great rating. On Rated People you can’t just do this.
4. It’s still sourcing!

On a “small world” note, I was out with one of the guys last night and found out that he once used to be a buyer at Brakes where he used to run their reverse auctions and was involved in the early incarnations of Trade Interchange.

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