Interview with eMazeMe Founder Chris Pauly

I had the privilege of having lunch with Chris Pauly the other day. He is one of the founders of a great new local lead generation site called eMazeMe (http://www.emazeme.com). During our lunch we had a great discussion over how eMazeMe got started, some of the technology used, about the eMazeMe team and how they thought of their new and interesting twist to lead generation services. Admittedly, this is one of the most interesting web startups I've seen in the area. Not everyday you see a new quality twist on lead generation. eMazeMe logo eMazeMe is a local lead generation site using reverse bidding. Meaning service providers bid down(price) or across (terms). They're currently targeting the Chicago areas for now, but hope to expand very soon. "But wait, we already have many lead gen sites and services out there," you say. And I agree, but this one is different. Instead of the typical lead gen model which is made for one size fits all, eMazeMe went many steps further a cater to as many different service provider models as possible. But let's start at the beginning, of how I first met Chris and eMazeMe. Note: I've rearranged the lunch meeting below into coherent sections so that sense to you, the reader. UPDATE: I completed a quick video review of the service here. It's all about the actual system, so if you're interested in it take a quick look to see what they have to offer on the inside. Let me show you eMazeMe instead of just telling you about it.

How we were introduced:

One of the best things a startup can do is to get out into the world and get known, Chris and this team did just that. I met the eMazeMe team first at a local Chamber (of Commerce) sponsored event called the Chocolate & Champagne Networking Event, and as you might have guessed it there was a lot of champagne (yey) and chocolate to go around. When I arrived at their table, I was met by Chris who was more than happy to discuss business with me. He had no problems helping me understand this business and why it's different from everyone else. But this being a networking event, so we didn't have much time together (and I wanted more fizzy drinks) so we setup a lunch meeting soon there-after. Fast forward a few days and Chris and I are munching on some tasty meat while talking shop.

About the founders:

Christopher Pauly, Co-founder To be honest, we didn't talk too much about the two founding ... founders. But I did get some interesting information about Chris. He isn't a super hero (sorry Chris!), but he is something more. He's a regular guy like you and I: out there to make a difference in the world. He does have a law degree and passed the bar exam, but chooses not to practice. Rather interesting if you ask me. When I asked him about it, he simply said it's not his passion so he chooses not to pursue it. BUT, then he said something very important. "I don't practice law, even though I can, but I do use the education, knowledge and connections I got ." He said a similar thing about his MBA, he doesn't practice MBA type stuff, but he uses that education and knowledge to better himself and his business. The key, as we agreed, to success isn't money or fame ... it's education. Without it, you can't go anywhere. The other founder, who I didn't get to have lunch with (yet), is Brian Pigott. He and Chris worked on a start-up before, so this is their second one. Best of luck you two! From what I'm told, Brian is rather successful in his own business as a local material handling brokerage business. To be honest, I have no idea what that is but it sounds important and since it works well for him: YEY! Two guys working hard to better themselves and the lives of others, rock on! Both founders currently have day jobs and work on eMazeMe part-time. Once it takes off, which I'm sure it will, they plan to go full-time with it.

Funding eMazeMe:

We didn't get much into funding, but from what I could gather so far eMazeMe is a lot of other start-ups: bootstrapped (ie: self-funded.)

Technology backend:

This is what interested me the most. We here at Chykalophia Group are primarily nerds and the details always interest us, of course we'll dig deep into details! When I first saw the eMazeMe url structure, I was a bit confused by some of their non-seo like link structure. Since I've been doing SEO in this (Chykalophia Group) company for a while, it puzzled me. It seemed almost like some Django structure during development, but all the files ended with .PHP so it clearly wasn't Django/Python. So the first thing I asked Chris during our lunch meeting was: "What was eMazeMe built on? Is it a fully custom job or was it built on a platform?" I was kind of shocked by the answer. Chris said, "it's build on the Joombla platform." Huh ... who knew it could be customized that much. But after I thought about it for a while, it makes sense. Doing so cuts down on costs and has many features built in that would otherwise have had to be custom made. Saves time and money! Woot! eMazeMe runs on Joomla Just like most of the sites that we build here at Chykalophia Group are built on Wordpress, theirs is built on Joomla for similar reasons.

How eMazeMe got started:

eMazeMe was born from a frustration with the current local service model. How do we, as people, find reputable local service providers, how do we contact them and how do we do business with them without getting screwed over? On the other hand, how do we as local business owners find local clients at a nominal rate and have a safety net to protect us from mean clients? Chris, as he told me, was annoyed with the lack of a good way to offer his services and a great way to find local services. But it wasn't his first online business idea either. At first, he and his first business partners were tossing ideas around for months trying to catch a good idea. First one idea, then another which spurred on a third and so fourth. All in all, they couldn't settle on one idea. Not because but because it wasn't a good fit or it wasn't feasible for them to do. All in all, it came down to this. They needed an idea that: eMazeMe Values * They all agreed upon * They all felt comfortable with * Had a 'twist' they could leverage * Had a real powerful need in the market * Had something they could do on the side (for now) * Something that wouldn't take a bajillion dollars to start * and something they all could wrap their heads around nicely After about 3 to 4 months, an idea hit them! Lead Generation! But, everyone had that already. So they thought it over a bit, and one thing led to another and they finally got to the idea of a local lead generation site where services providers could reserve bid safely, securely and in a way that's cost effective to them. That's something that struck me as a bit odd in our conversation. What did Chris mean by 'cost effective?' Chris went on to explain what makes eMazeMe special.

Talking about the pricing model:

Not only do they provide the usual lead generation model of pay-per-lead, they figured a total of four different lead generations models would fit most services providers: * Flat fee pay-per-lead * Percent based * Consulting based * Hourly rate That should fit most people. Chris went on to explain a little bit more for me. 1) eMazeMe handles the transactions and 2) it's all done with reservations and on in a pre-paid sort of way (think escrow). How eMazeMe works This got me thinking and eventually lead to a long conversation about liability. Chris, having passed the bar exam and is thus now technically lawyer material (even though he's not a lawyer), said it's not an issue. They thought through it all. When a consumer requests a service, eMazeMe will arbitrate it should something go wrong and all money (for the most part) has to go through eMazeMe. For example, let's say you need a plumber. You could jump on the site as a consumer, put your job ad up and then many providers will reverse bid. What is reverse bid? It's when they basically negotiate with you and big against other service providers (usually going down in price for you). You then select the winner (after some possible contract negotiation) and send what they call a "Reservation." In-order to send a reservation though, you have to pre-pay (in full) for the service. But you're not paying the service provider, you're paying eMazeMe (which then pays the service provider). They will hold the money, essentially, in escrow until the work is completed and you sign off on the job being done. This is done via a code that you can give to the service provider, in this case the plumber after he's done fixing your pipes, that he enters on the site to release the funds. If they plumber didn't plumb well, you can hold of on the funds until the job is done right! Great security for consumers. From the service provider side, if the client doesn't want to pay they (the plumber) can contact eMazeMe to step in and release the funds. Should something else happen and all hell broke loose with the plumber and the client both yelling at each other, then as Chris put it, " put measures in place to take care of that." This brought us back to the payment model. Why four? How does it all work? Chris explained that one of the things he saw wrong was just the simple pricing model for lead generation. "It simply didn't fit everyone," and he is right! A flat fee and percent fee per lead doesn't work well for services providers who require to see what needs to be worked on before they can bid! This would include people like our plumber friend, construction companies, architects and others like that where they really have to talk to the client first; where general pricing doesn't always work. But for those, said Chris, that don't require any real consultations and have a set pricing model for things pay-per-lead (flat fee or percent based) works very well for them. Chris went on to explain that even service provides who can only charge by the hour are covered to. They simply list the hourly rate, hours worked and *poof* like magic everything is handled nicely and fairly. Of course though, the work has to be done and the client has to accept it.

Explaining the pricing models:

What struck me as sort of odd during our talk was the pricing model. All I've ever seen were the two usual ones: flat fee pay per (successful) lead and percentage based off of your own price/rate. This is pretty standard across the whole industry. But what interested me was the consulting based pricing model. Since it's not always possible to know how long a job will take, especially in regular consultative type jobs Chris gave me the example of a consulting job that's usually hourly based. Let's say you're a professional organizing consultant, you help people organize their life and office. Well, you and the client agree on a one hour job first because you know it'll take that long at a minimum. But after arriving at the client's office you see it's a scene out of the show Hoarders. If you haven't seen the show, it's about people who are unable to throw anything it out, and I do mean they never ever really throw anything out ... it's rather disturbing. Instantly your one hour consultation job turned into a week long project! Oh noes! Except that's taken care of, at least from the eMazeMe side of things. It that situation, and since you know your business already, you would've selected the consulting feature. The client pays eMazeMe for one hour of your time and makes the reservation, then you go and start the project and any fees extra past the one hour are yours to keep. eMazeMe handles that one hour you and the client officially agreed to through their service. This gives you the flexibility to use eMazeMe as the lead generator, while keeping your consulting type business in place! I thought this was pretty sweet!

Finishing up:

At this point Chris had to excuse himself to get back to his day job. We pleasantly parted ways and I signed up Chykalophia Group on eMazeMe shortly there after. Check out eMazeMe and let us know what you think!