There is something about the original story behind Angie’s List that we really appreciate.
It started with a very simple problem:
How do you know who to call when you need a local professional you can trust?
In 1995, Angie Hicks and William Oesterle launched what was originally called Columbus Neighbors in Columbus, Ohio. Oesterle had previously used a contractor referral service in Indianapolis and saw an opportunity to create something similar in Columbus.
Hicks, then 22 years old, went door to door recruiting members and collecting information about local contractors.
Eventually, the service became Angie’s List.
The idea was rooted in something people have been doing forever: asking other people who they trust.
And it worked.
What started as a local service grew into a nationally recognized brand, became a public company, combined with HomeAdvisor, and eventually became the Angi we know today.
That's an incredible entrepreneurial story.
And in some ways, it starts with a question very similar to the one we're asking at WhirLocal.
But we've taken it in a different direction.
What Angi Has Become Today
Today's Angi is much more than the original list.
Angi is a large home-services marketplace designed to help homeowners get projects done. Consumers can use the platform to research local service professionals, compare options, request quotes, book certain services, read reviews, research project costs and connect with professionals.
Angi says its nationwide network includes more than 200,000 skilled home professionals and that it has helped more than 150 million people maintain, repair, renovate and improve their homes.
That's a very different platform from where the company started more than 30 years ago, and an impressive evolution.
For home-service professionals, Angi can provide another way to get in front of homeowners who are actively looking for help.
WhirLocal is built around a different opportunity.
Not Someone Else's List. Your List.
At WhirLocal, we keep coming back to a simple idea:
Not someone else's list. Your list.
Instead of creating one central list that tells everyone which local businesses to consider, WhirLocal helps individuals and businesses build their own lists of people and places they trust.
A homeowner can create a personal list of the local businesses they recommend.
A Realtor can build a list of contractors, lenders, inspectors, landscapers, restaurants and other local businesses they confidently recommend to clients.
A contractor can publicly show the other trades, suppliers, Realtors, property managers, businesses and organizations they trust.
A local business can also show Who Trusts Us, making the relationships they've built throughout their community more visible.
Each list belongs to the person or business building it.
But those individual relationships also become part of something larger: an interconnected local trust network on WhirLocal.
Two Different Models
That's probably the biggest distinction between Angi and WhirLocal.
Angi helps homeowners find professionals for a project.
WhirLocal helps people and businesses organize and share who they already trust.
One might start with:
“I need a roofer. Who can help me?”
The other starts with:
“I know a great roofer. Let me show you who I trust.”
Both are valuable.
They're simply different approaches to helping people make better local decisions.
Making Word-of-Mouth More Visible
The original Angie’s List took the traditional ask-a-neighbor idea and found a way to make those experiences available to a much larger audience.
We love that idea because word-of-mouth is still incredibly powerful.
WhirLocal is approaching the opportunity from another direction.
Rather than soley building one massive list, we're giving everyone the ability to build and share their own.
Your recommendations.
Your relationships.
Your reputation.
Your list.
Then we connect those individual trust relationships together.
If a local Realtor trusts a particular roofer, that relationship can be visible.
If that roofer trusts a local electrician, that relationship can be visible too.
If neighbors recommend the roofer because they've personally had a great experience, those relationships can become visible as well.
Over time, you don't just have a directory of local businesses.
You begin to see the trust relationships that already exist throughout a community.
That's what we mean when we talk about digitizing word-of-mouth.
Public, Shareable and Portable
Another important part of the WhirLocal model is that these trust relationships aren't meant to be useful only when someone is actively using WhirLocal.
WhirLocal Trust Profiles™, WhirLocal Trust Networks™, and neighbor WhirLocal Trust Lists™ are public and can be shared with others.
Businesses can share their network through a direct link or QR code.
They can add a WhirLocal Trust Card™ to their own website showing how many businesses and neighbors trust them.
With eligible plans, businesses can even display their WhirLocal Trust Network™ directly on their own website.
That means someone can discover a contractor's trusted relationships without needing to start their search on WhirLocal.
Neighbors can add their trust list as home screen icon on their phone to make it easy to access (no app download required).
We think that's important.
Trust should be able to travel with you.
What About Reviews?
Reviews still matter.
Angi incorporates reviews into the experience to help homeowners evaluate service professionals. WhirLocal also provides businesses with tools for collecting and displaying customer reviews.
But WhirLocal Trust Networks™ add another layer.
A review can tell you:
“I had a great experience with this business.”
A trust relationship can tell you:
“This is someone I know and recommend.”
And a visible network can begin to tell an even bigger story:
“Look at the people, businesses and neighbors throughout this community who trust them.”
Those signals can complement each other.
Does a Business Have to Choose?
Not at all.
This isn't an either/or decision.
A home-service professional might use Angi as one way to connect with homeowners who are actively looking for help.
That same business could use WhirLocal to make the trust relationships and reputation they've built in their local community more visible.
The platforms are solving different problems.
And that's really the purpose of this comparison.
From a List to a Network
We have tremendous respect for what Angie Hicks and the team behind Angi have built.
More than 30 years ago, their story began with a simple local question about finding trustworthy service professionals.
Today, Angi has grown into a massive national home-services platform.
WhirLocal is much younger, much smaller and pursuing a different vision.
We're building a network around the recommendations already happening every day between neighbors, businesses, Realtors, contractors, organizations and other people throughout a local community.
We're not trying to create the list.
We're helping you create your list.
And when thousands of those individual lists and relationships begin connecting with one another, something interesting happens.
They become a local trust network.
Not someone else's list. Your list.
About this comparison
This article is intended to help readers understand the differences between WhirLocal and other platforms. Information about third-party products and features is based on publicly available information at the time of publication and may change. All trademarks and brand names belong to their respective owners. WhirLocal is not affiliated with or endorsed by the companies mentioned unless otherwise stated.