Angie's List: Angie Hicks (2016)

In 1995, Angie Hicks spent months going door-to-door in Columbus, Ohio, trying to get people to sign up for a new home services referral business. Today, Angie's List is a household name, referring millions of members to plumbers, painters, and more. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Joel Crites who created the app Micro Fantasy, where fans can make predictions about what will happen next in a baseball game. (Original broadcast date: November 28, 2016) See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Hey, everyone. So if you've ever tried to get people to buy something by going door to door, you know that this can be demoralizing. It can be utterly exhausting. But this is exactly how Angie Hicks first tried to get her business off the ground back in 1995. And back then, she was lucky to get like two takers a day. But of course, over the years, Angie's List grew to millions of members and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. And the company's story has changed a little bit since we first ran this episode back in 2016. So we'll update you at the end. But for now, enjoy.

• 0:40Guy Raz?

  People started calling you, and you are the only person manning the phones?

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Literally, in like a 100-square-foot office basement. We didn't have a phone system. We had a phone. And so when we needed a second line, we got a second phone. So I do remember times when I'd be like sitting on the floor in the office, literally toggling between two physical phones with no hold button.

• 1:06Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 1:20Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Angie's List grew from that 100-square-foot office to a massive home services referral brand.

• 1:35Guy Raz?

  So in the summer of 1995, Angie Hicks had just graduated from college in Indiana, which is where she's from. And like a lot of college graduates, she was looking for a job. Now, the previous summer, she interned at a small venture capital firm in Indianapolis. And her boss there was a man named Bill Osterle. Bill was just a few years older than Angie, but he already had a lot of business experience, and he became kind of a mentor to her. So they kept in touch. And with Angie job hunting after college, Bill was giving her advice about where to apply, who was hiring, that kind of thing.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  And, you know, it was back in the day where you would literally send your resume and cover letter by mail. So I sent out numerous letters and resumes. And then Bill calls me up one day and says, hey, Angie, I have an idea. And at that point, he had moved to Columbus, Ohio. He said, like, why don't you move to Columbus and we can start a business? I'll raise a little bit of money from, you know, friends and enough to get you through the first year, but I want you to commit for a year.

• 2:39Guy Raz?

  So what'd you think?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  It was a little out of the blue. And, you know, and I would never have defined myself as an entrepreneur. A lot of times when I thought of classical entrepreneurs, I was like, hey, they're risk takers, they're big idea thinkers. And I was like, okay, I don't fit that. So I just wrung my hands about that decision and talked to my parents about it. And they're like, well, you know, you know, Bill, well, you know, he's not going to lead you astray. And then I talked to my grandfather and he was incredibly conservative. I mean, lived through the depression, just, you know, like, like to pay cash for everything. And, you know, he looked at me without even hesitating and was like, well, you should, you should do it, Angie. I mean, what's the difference between being 22 and looking

• 3:22Speaker 01

  for a job and being 23 and looking for a job? And I was like, huh. So, literally, like, loaded up all of my worldly possessions and my Ford Escort and off I went.

• 3:33Guy Raz?

  Hmm. So at that point, did Bill actually have a business in mind? Or was he just like, hey, come to Columbus and we'll figure it out?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  We had a couple of ideas.

• 3:42Guy Raz?

  Okay.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  But then landed on what became Angie's List when Bill was trying to renovate his house in Columbus. It was the second house he'd owned. His house in Indianapolis was also a fixer-upper. But in Indianapolis, he was introduced to a little business called Unified Neighbors that had been around since the early 70s, which was basically a list of who was good and who wasn't in the city for home improvement. And so when he moved to Columbus, he just kind of assumed there was something like that in every city.

• 4:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  And, and there wasn't. And so he's like, we're gonna try to start our own.

• 4:16Guy Raz?

  So, okay, so this is like, like 95?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 4:19Guy Raz?

  So you get to Columbus. What did you do there? Like, how did you start?

• 4:24Speaker 01

  So we, we started just talking to people that we knew. So, you know, the first stop on my, my tour was to Bill's next door neighbor, Patty Bowman.

• 4:33Guy Raz?

  What did you say? What was your pitch?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  And it was like, you know, like, hey, we're starting this business, you know, and, and explain what we were gonna do. We're gonna help people find, you know, the best contractors in town. And Patty had lived in her house, lived in, in her neighborhood for entire life. You know, if someone did not need what we were selling, it was probably Patty. But Patty loved the entrepreneurial spirit of it. So she looked at me and she was like, this is great. I'm gonna take two memberships, one for me and one for my son. And I was very thankful because Patty immediately ran and gave me a list of every service provider she'd ever used. And she also gave me her church directory.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  And she told me that I had to call everybody on her church directory and tell them that she said they should buy a membership.

• 5:22Guy Raz?

  And how much was a membership at that time?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  $19.

• 5:25Guy Raz?

  So 19 bucks?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  $19 for the year.

• 5:27Guy Raz?

  For the year. And that bought you?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  We were a magazine and a call-in service. So during the day, you'd call in and you could ask me for the name of a plumber or an electrician. And then the, in the evening, I would go out door to door and also ask for reviews.

• 5:40Guy Raz?

  So you, you did everything. You, you wrote?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I did everything. I, I assembled the mag, I wrote the magazine. Like, magazine is a very generous term for what it was.

• 5:49Guy Raz?

  It was like a brochure-ish?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  More like a little, like, you know, neighborhood newsletter.

• 5:52Guy Raz?

  So how did you, how did you get more subscribers?

• 5:55Speaker 01

  So I, I literally, for the first three or four months, I basically went door to door every day.

• 6:00Guy Raz?

  What was that like?

• 6:02Speaker 01

  You know, remember, I'm an introvert.

• 6:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  It was probably one of the most miserable experiences of my life.

• 6:08Guy Raz?

  Were you miserable because you just weren't gaining any traction? Like, you'd go door to door and people would just say, like, buzz off or something?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, like, think about door to door in the mid 90s. Like, I, now I like to look back on it and call it a character building experience, you know? Yeah, it was hard. And there was a moment in the fall and, you know, it's like you think about, like, I was 22 and I kind of realized that this is my life. I'm like, this is my career. I certainly didn't need to go to college to do what I was doing.

• 6:38Guy Raz?

  Did you know anybody in Columbus?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Bill and his wife.

• 6:41Guy Raz?

  So you were just like on your own in the city?

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Totally transplant, yeah.

• 6:46Guy Raz?

  Just working all the time?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:48Guy Raz?

  Going door to door?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:50Guy Raz?

  As an introvert?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:52Guy Raz?

  You were totally miserable.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  I was. So I called Bill up one day and I appreciate the fact that he realized that I was upset. So he suggests that we meet like at the little bakery down the street. And so we get there and, you know, as soon as I sit down, I just start crying. And like, I don't even get anything out. And he just starts talking and he's just like selling me on why we were, it was gonna be great. And, you know, and he talked for probably, you know, 30 minutes. And everyone in the bakery are looking at us like, what is wrong with those two?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And, and, and he likes to tell the story that like, at the end, all I could muster to say was that I was not gonna quit.

• 7:33Guy Raz?

  So, so what happened after that conversation? Did you just go back out on the streets and start selling door to door?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, like, I tell people all the time, like, I used to measure success by one or two memberships a day. Like, if I sold two memberships in a day, it was a banner day.

• 7:49Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  So, you know, so we fast forward a little bit and we're like, okay, this is probably not the marketing plan that's going to work. So then we're like, okay, we're gonna have to market.

• 7:57Guy Raz?

  And I read, like, I mean, you didn't raise insane amounts of money. It was like $50,000.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  We raised $50,000, yeah. And so, you know, where can we market that we can do it in an economical way that we won't burn through $50,000 really fast? So we, we lucked out. I mean, Columbus, Ohio has, at that time, had these little weekly newspapers. And so, so we put an ad in the back of the weekly newspaper and it was, you know, neighborhood by neighborhood. And it was this little two by three ad that said, tired of lousy service? So were we. So we decided to do something about it. And the phones started ringing.

• 8:32Guy Raz?

  And people started calling you and you are the only person manning the phones?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I literally, in like a hundred square foot office space that the people in the other offices around me thought my parents rented for me to do my homework in. I had a card table. We didn't have a phone system. We had a phone. And so when we needed a second line, we got a second phone. So I do remember times when I'd be like, sitting on the floor in the office, literally like toggling between two physical phones with no hold button.

• 8:59Guy Raz?

  And what, people like your subscribers would just call up during the day and they would say, hey, I need a plumber or like a roofer. And you would say, yeah, yeah, I've got all these options for you.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, or if I didn't have an answer and the list was thin, I would go figure it out. I mean, I remember one time, you know, this woman called and she was new in town and wanted to sign her daughter up for ballet lessons. And so, so I was like, hang on. Luckily, I remembered, because I had signed up all the members, that I had a member who was a part of the Columbus Ballet. So I call her up and I was like, hey, I've got someone that needs help finding ballet lessons. So, you know, I would just kind of try to make a match.

• 9:38Guy Raz?

  You were like a human.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  However, I could.

• 9:40Guy Raz?

  You were a human Google.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:43Guy Raz?

  You were the like, the person, like when you type it into Google, you were the person on the other side who was answering that question.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:50Guy Raz?

  And what was the company called, by the way, at that time?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Oh, sure. It was called Columbus Neighbors. So, you know, kind of just a, a simple knockoff of the Unified Neighbors name. And, you know, we debated names. One of the guys that was involved in companies on the board, you know, he was like, let's call it The List. And, you know, like.

• 10:07Guy Raz?

  That's a pretty good name, by the way.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  That is a pretty good name. That is a pretty good name. Maybe harder to copyright, but yeah.

• 10:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And then Bill throws in, he's like, well, we could just name it Angie's List, since Angie's who you talk to and it does make a good story. And, you know, no matter what happens, I could always relate back to, you know, Angie was the first one that answered the phones. So, you know, probably not knowing what I was getting into, like, that was the decision we made.

• 10:38Guy Raz?

  So when you ran these ads and you started to see more subscribers, how long does it take before you start thinking, this is actually working? This is actually generating some cash for this business?

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we ended up signing up 1,000 members in the first year. And so we're like, hmm, this could be a go at it. So then we started thinking, like, maybe we should go and see if we can acquire Unified Neighbors.

• 11:01Guy Raz?

  In Indianapolis?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Right, right. So we ended up accomplishing it about a year after we started in Columbus. So then, you know, I kind of wake up one day in July of 1996 and I've got, you know, two offices, so I had to start advertising to hire some help. And, you know, I'm 22, I don't know how to hire anyone. And so I placed a little ad in our newsletter to hire people. And I had this one woman that came in, her name is Maggie. And I hadn't interviewed anyone before, so I'm like asking questions like, oh, this is great, blah, blah, you know? And I'm like, so we finish up the interview and I'm like, I'll get back to you in a few days. And I just remember she looked me in the eye and she's like, if you're going to hire me, you need my phone number.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  And I was just like, that's exactly right. So the next day, I hired Maggie. And, you know, Maggie is now, this year, celebrating her 20th anniversary at Angie's List.

• 11:58Guy Raz?

  So in those early years, you must have just been working like a maniac.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:04Guy Raz?

  Because you had to deal with billing, writing the magazine, getting new subscribers, expanding to Indianapolis.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  And selling, don't forget, I was selling advertising, too.

• 12:12Guy Raz?

  Selling advertising, like, did you move to Indianapolis when you guys acquired Unified Neighbors?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  No, I actually, I just drove back and forth. I spent half my week in Columbus and half in Indianapolis.

• 12:24Guy Raz?

  How long does that drive, by the way?

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Three hours.

• 12:26Guy Raz?

  So, like, were you sleeping like four hours a night?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  It was a lot. I mean, you can find yourself, you can just work, work, work. There's a lot of time in the day and you can work a lot of hours. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, you know, in retrospect, I couldn't have picked a better time in my life to do something like that. You know, it was like, no family, you know what I mean? It was like, you're at a point in your life where you're kind of geared to do that.

• 12:51Guy Raz?

  It's funny, though, because you are so different from almost every entrepreneur that we've interviewed in that you were not incredibly optimistic about the success of this company early on. You were kind of thinking about maybe... Packing it in, you were not a natural hustler, but you were doing all of these things.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, because in retrospect, when you think about kind of like what makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur, like honestly, I think a lot of times it comes down to perseverance.

• 13:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  And I think a lot of times, people can have the big idea and they can have, you know, kind of that initial kind of fall in love and with their idea for starting something, but they don't ride it through the hard part. And they give it up.

• 13:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  So while I might not have had the big idea and while I might not have been the big risk taker, I had perseverance. And, you know, I think that's, that is my entrepreneurial trait.

• 13:54Guy Raz?

  In just a moment, how Angie Hicks almost got downsized out of her own company. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 14:13Guy Raz?

  It's How I Built This from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So about three years in, Angie's list had expanded from two markets to four markets. And so they decided to build a bigger management team. Bill Osterle came to work as the full-time CEO. And as far as Angie, she says the crazy hours and the hard work of the early years had really started to take a toll.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  I was super burnt out. And so, you know, Bill's like, hey, Angie, I know you've thought periodically about business school. Why don't, why don't you think more seriously about it? You know, I was not prepared to do that. Hadn't taken the GMAT, hadn't done anything. But, you know, basically decided in September that I would apply that fall.

• 14:52Guy Raz?

  Wait, here's what I don't get. So you, you're applying for business school in the fall of 98, like three years after you launched this company, which is now really gaining traction and looks like it's going to. Become something, I mean, like, I guess you could argue that those three years were kind of like your business school, right? Like, why did you feel like you wanted to go to business school?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  You know, for me, if I hadn't kind of taken that time, I probably wouldn't have stayed.

• 15:17Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  You know, you kind of need perspective. How did I learn to be a manager? Because I was forced to be a manager. You know, like, I had gone through an acquisition. I'd raised capital. But did I really understand everything that I was going through? Probably not. And so it was a great time for me to step away and kind of gain perspective. So I ended up applying to two schools. So I applied to Kellogg and to Harvard. I ended up not getting into Kellogg. I got into Harvard.

• 15:47Guy Raz?

  What was that like? Was it weird going there?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  It was weird. And I was, you know, I was, you know, I'd lived in Indiana or Ohio my entire life. You know, and it was, it was one of those things where I was like, I was so flattered to actually have just gotten into business school. I grew up, you know, I was a middle-class kid. My dad was a UPS driver. My mom was a bank teller. I was the first in our immediate family to go to college. So for me, it was kind of like, wow, this is kind of a neat experience, and I'm going to take it for what it's worth. But maybe I had a different perspective than a lot of folks going as well.

• 16:25Guy Raz?

  When you were at business school and you would like run these models of how businesses ran or how to be a leader, were you, like, were there times where you thought, wait, that's not how it works in the real world, because I've been there?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was fascinating to watch, where you'd have these conversations of, the company needs to cut 20% from its, you know, from its bottom line. You know, here's the alternative. People are, people are like, well, we should just cut 20% of the staff. And I look at them like, have you fired someone before? Have you actually done that? Because that's really hard to do. And, you know, yes, sometimes you have to do it. And sometimes that's the right decision. But let's make sure we really understand the context of what that means.

• 17:06Guy Raz?

  So while you were there, were you involved with Angie's List?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Well, I was actually, I was still keeping the books.

• 17:13Guy Raz?

  And was it your intention to go back?

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Well, that was interesting. So Bill and I, you know, had this arrangement that like, hey, you should go and explore what there is to offer. You know, like, we're here, but you should go see what there is. So I did interview. And I realized, like, sometimes you don't realize what you have until you kind of look around. So I decided I was gonna go back. By that point, Bill had hired a chief operating officer who had conservatively modeled the business in such a way that after I had agreed to come back, Bill had to call me and say, we may not be able to afford you.

• 17:53Guy Raz?

  Wait, what?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:55Guy Raz?

  Well, why was that? Because you had an MBA at that point?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  No, he was just like, he was literally like, we now have too much overhead.

• 18:01Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  And I was like, you know, Bill, are you just being you? Or is this serious? And he was just like, no, Angie, like, this is what, this is what the model says. And I'm like, you know what? I'm coming back. Click. I hung up.

• 18:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't think I would've said that to Bill. I would've been like, Bill, screw you. You were like, I co-founded this company, Bill.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Needless to say, you know, the guy that ran the model was incredibly conservative on it. So we were all fine. But it was, it was a funny moment.

• 18:35Guy Raz?

  So, so when you got back, what was your, what was the title they gave you?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  So, so the chief operating officer position was filled, so I just decided to be the chief marketing officer.

• 18:46Guy Raz?

  This is gonna be a hard question for you to answer, but it's just my observation that you must be a person with almost no ego. Right? Am I right?

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. I mean, I joke around, it's like, you know, I don't, I don't worry about titles. I worry about getting stuff done. You know, there's too much stuff to worry about, to worry about little things like that. And maybe that's, you know, I often remind myself, you know, because people will ask me as they come into the business, like, what's it like to work here? I'm like, I'm like, the last person to ask. Like, I tell people at orientation, I'm like, I am really shy. If you see me in the diner, you need to come talk to me.

• 19:21Guy Raz?

  Okay, okay, so you come back to the company after business school. This is the early 2000s, right?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we, so at that point, we started opening markets on a more frequent basis. We were opening one or two a year.

• 19:34Guy Raz?

  And by the way, when did you go from being a newsletter, like a physical newsletter, to being an online company?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  So we put our first website up in probably early 2000s, or 1999. It was around there. And basically, literally, we hired two college kids to build our website. And it was just a basic, like, you know, marketing informational website, you know, had email. You couldn't check the list online. It was just for marketing. And Bill asked, so how's that website working? One day, and we realized it was like, you know, half of our signups were coming in over this little website. And so we were like, hmm, I guess we should actually build a website. So, you know, it was like, yeah, it's probably more interesting to read the reviews than to have Angie read the reviews to you.

• 20:21Guy Raz?

  Because people were getting, people were either getting the mailing, or they were just calling up the number.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 20:27Guy Raz?

  And what's interesting about, about taking this online is that, like, the business model, right, is based on basically building a community of trust. And you kind of did this before the Airbnbs and the Ubers and the, you know, these, or the sharing economy kind of took off, right? So, at the beginning, were people skeptical of this?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. I think there was actually even an article written, gosh, it was probably 10 or 12 years ago, about the fact that, you know, there was a fascination as to why consumers were willing to share their opinions with us. They're like, they're paying you for information that they are giving you.

• 21:07Guy Raz?

  Right, yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  I mean, that was the crux of the, of the article. And it was like, there was something special about the service. And at first, I thought it was like, oh, it's Columbus, because I know all the members, or, oh, it's Indianapolis. But there's almost, there is, there is a sense of belonging and obligation that became a culture of the service. And it, and that, and it replicated itself in city after city. And, you know, one of the values we had was the fact that we started when we did. I mean, we started pre-internet days. In many ways, when we looked at who we were going to mimic for our business model, we looked at journalists. You know, like, every story has a source, right?

• 21:46Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  It didn't even occur to us that we should allow people to review anonymously. And that proved incredibly powerful.

• 21:56Guy Raz?

  But why do you think people were willing to write these reviews that, you know, essentially, they're paying for?

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Because if they didn't, then the next person wouldn't. And if you think about the kind of decisions you're making around your home, I mean, I call these like the high cost of failure decisions, right? I mean, it's a time when you probably know the least about what you're buying, you're spending a lot of money, and if it goes wrong, it could potentially ruin your largest asset: your house.

• 22:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  And there's bad information, and, you know, like, there's not a great way. I mean, because a lot of these companies are small companies, so how do I find out whether, you know, XYZ Plumbing is any good? There's lots of places to get information, but people are willing to pay for quality information.

• 22:42Guy Raz?

  So, as you guys started to expand, did you go out and raise money?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  We did. You know, that was one of the things that, you know, Bill having a venture capital background was incredibly valuable for us. Because usually, you know, our raising money came around, you know, wanting to grow the marketing spend.

• 23:03Guy Raz?

  Okay, so what you're saying is you didn't need money to manufacture a product, you were primarily spending money on marketing?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  We needed it to market, because effectively, I mean, you know, it's a recurring revenue business. We were acquiring members who were going to stick around for a long time. But we had to upfront the marketing to acquire them. So, once we were able to scale to national marketing, then it became a race to open markets. So, in about 18 months, we opened 100 markets.

• 23:29Guy Raz?

  What were some of the mistakes that you made while you were in that, in that sort of period of expansion?

• 23:35Speaker 01

  So, you know, we waited a number of years before we opened Chicago because we were really uneasy about the cost of expanding into a city that big. And, you know, what we realized when we opened there was, you know, it just took off like crazy. Why did most companies start on the coast? It's because there's, that's where the population is. And then they move into the Midwest. We did the absolute opposite there.

• 23:59Guy Raz?

  And clearly, that strategy worked. How many members, by the way, do you have today?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  We have over 3 million paid members. We cover every, just about every city.

• 24:10Guy Raz?

  Do you, like, when you see a, an incredibly positive review and also an incredibly negative review, like, how do you know which one to believe?

• 24:21Speaker 01

  What I often find when I look at reviews, you know, one, it's really important to actually read the context of the reviews. And, you know, I, and I learned this early on, no matter how great you are as a company, you're going to get complaints. And I honestly believe you learn more when you can see a company that has a couple of complaints here and there than you do about a company that has all glowing reviews. You know, and part of that is like, hey, you know, they might make a mistake. And you really want to know how they're going to handle it when the chips are down. Like, what's going to happen if that, you know what, the countertop was the wrong length and now they have to redo it? Because that's what you, as a consumer, fear, right?

• 25:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  You fear when the job doesn't go well. And, you know, and on the flip side, you know, years ago, I mean, gosh, early on in the business, we allowed companies to start responding to reviews.

• 25:13Guy Raz?

  Ah.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  You know, because they were like, hey, it's not, you know, I totally understand that the consumer gets to give their opinion, but don't we get a chance to say our side of the story?

• 25:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  And so, we introduced that, which proved to be incredibly valuable to the consumer because you do want to know how they're going to respond, right? But I do spend a lot of time talking to service companies and kind of encouraging them not to respond on first response because...

• 25:36Guy Raz?

  Because usually, that's when they're angry.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  No one likes negative feedback. I always suggest they go get a cup of coffee, come back, think about it before they write something because what they say can be more powerful than 10 reviews.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Might ever be.

• 25:49Guy Raz?

  Do you, like, when you have to get something fixed in your house, do the contractors who show up, are they freaking out? Like, are they super nervous? They're like, oh, my god, Angie is gonna ruin me. She can ruin me.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Right. And I'm just like, I'm like, hey, my reviews aren't way the same as everyone else's. And, but yes, you know, a lot of times, my husband is the one that's home when we have work done. And Hicks is not my married name. So, so that helps until they kind of look around the room and start seeing, you know, kind of pictures and stuff. And they were like, oh, wait, hmm.

• 26:23Guy Raz?

  They're like, holy crap, it's Angie.

• 26:29Guy Raz?

  Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie's List. The company now offers free membership. And last year, it merged with one of its chief competitors, Home Advisor. So Angie's new title, Chief Customer Officer at Angie Home Services. And by the way, despite her best efforts to avoid the spotlight, Angie says she can't go to grocery stores or really anywhere without someone asking her advice about finding a contractor.

• 26:56Guy Raz?

  I'm getting some bathroom tiling done. This is True Story in Washington, DC. Just off the top of your head, do you-

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Off the top of your head.

• 27:02Guy Raz?

  Do you happen to know a good bathroom tiler?

• 27:16Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for How You Built That. And today, we're going to update a story we ran just over a year ago. And that story came to us from Joel Kreitz. Hi, guy. Joel is from Cleveland. He's a huge Cleveland sports fan. And a few years ago, he was at an Indians game with his 16-year-old son, Koby. It was a beautiful summer night of baseball, and Joel was loving it. But Kobe?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  He just wasn't into the action of the game. He didn't really care about the outcome. You know, wasn't into the standings.

• 27:49Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, he just said, "This is boring. Let's go."

• 27:52Guy Raz?

  Oh.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  And I said something to the effect of, "No, I paid to be here tonight. You're gonna sit there and like it."

• 27:58Guy Raz?

  OK, many of us have been in a similar situation. This is no fun for Kobe. It's no fun for Joel. So in that moment, Joel suggested a game. He turned to Kobe and he said, "Hey, why don't we try to predict what the next batter is gonna do? Strikeout, hit a homer, walk, whatever. And whoever predicts correctly wins."

• 28:18Speaker 02

  And he said, "Fine." And within the very next at-bat, we were laughing and high-fiving, and I thought I had just struck gold.

• 28:26Guy Raz?

  And so after that, every time Joel went to see baseball, he'd play the game with his other kids as well. And he started to tell his friends about it, especially friends with kids. And he realized that a lot of fans were already doing the same thing.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  People have told me, "Oh, I play this with my grandpa, where we predict the at-bats and we use, you know, this and that to keep track of the score." And people in the bullpen, who are bored when they're watching a game, they'll do some version of it.

• 28:51Guy Raz?

  So about a year later, he wondered whether he might turn this idea into a smartphone app, an app that you could play at home or in the stadium against other fans who were all watching the live game in real time. But he needed to set up a way of scoring how many points for a predicted strike or a homerun or a double play. Well, fortunately, in his day job, Joel is an accountant.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  I quickly got out my spreadsheets and started downloading statistics to figure out what should the different predictions for an at-bat be worth based on their statistical likelihood. So there's ground out worth 2 points. Strikeout is 3 points. Single, 4 points.

• 29:34Guy Raz?

  Anyway, Joel eventually hired a developer to build out a smartphone app. And after some tinkering, he put it out into the world.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I literally printed off flyers and I stood outside of our local stadium just asking people to play. And that's how I got it off the ground initially.

• 29:50Guy Raz?

  So Joel, can I just raise one thing? Because I'm a huge baseball fan and I take my boys to a lot of games. And there's something beautiful and magical about being in a stadium or an arena.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:03Guy Raz?

  And just watching the game and having our devices off. I don't know, I just, Joel, I feel like you've surrendered. You've said, nope, this is the reality and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go with it.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  In some ways, I have, but in the times we live in, I mean, the baseball average age of a viewer nowadays has gone from age 53 to 57 in the past decade. So you gotta find the way to reach the kids. And this is, this is what I've come up with.

• 30:31Guy Raz?

  Joel's app is called Micro Fantasy, and so far, he's licensed it to a few college level baseball teams. And he's made about $10,000 from that. But since we last spoke with him, he started to develop the app for other sports like tennis and basketball. And he may even pitch the app to his own Cleveland Cavaliers. If you want to find out more about the Micro Fantasy app or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howibuiltthis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review.

• 31:14Guy Raz?

  You can also write to us at [email protected]. And if you want to send a tweet, it's at how I built this. Our show was produced this week by Casey Herman with original music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Thanks also to Noor Kutsi, Neve Grant, Sanaz Meshkentpour, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is J.C. Howard. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  If you're looking for your next binge watch, or you want the latest on all the big movies and albums, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour has you covered. Every weekday, we are your guide to all things entertainment. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.