The Harbus noticed that one of our classmates, Jeremy Stoppelman (OI), has gone missing. We tracked him down in San Francisco where he is putting the finishing touches on a new website: Yelp!
Harbus: So you started a company this summer – what is this company?
Jeremy Stoppelman: Yelp! (www.yelp.com) is the first online service to help users contact their friends for recommendations on local businesses.
Harbus: Why did you start Yelp!?
JS: I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to try my hand at entrepreneurship, so when all the right ingredients came together I had to give it a shot.
Harbus: Who else is on your team?
JS: Our team is largely comprised of Internet veterans that I worked with at PayPal.
Harbus: How did you start Yelp!?
JS: It grew out of my summer internship. A friend asked me to join his tech incubator and “help out”. When I arrived, we started brainstorming daily for new ideas. After a really frustrating first month, I finally hit on something we both thought could be really big.
Harbus: What is your vision for Yelp!?
JS: Yelp! leverages the collaborative power of the Internet with traditional yellow pages. The end result is a fundamentally better way to find local businesses.We expect to launch by Tuesday (10/12). Yelp! is designed to spread virally (friends send it to friends) so the more people we can introduce to Yelp! at launch the better. Please try out the site, tell your friends, and send me feedback! Also, anyone that is interested in employment opportunities should feel free to contact me at jstoppelman@mba2005.hbs.edu.
