50 Quotes by Jeremy Stoppelman

Yelp has been in this business since it really became something worth thinking about in 2004, when the transition started happening from the world of the Yellow Pages to the world of searching online for local information.

When you read reviews on Yelp, you get a good sense of what's going to happen when you walk in the door of that business. The challenge is that there are fifteen million businesses in the U.S., and its very hard to communicate with all of them about how Yelp works, and why it works the way it does.

I don't feel necessarily it's winner-take-all across the globe, where there has to be one local guide for the entire world. We'll certainly do as many of these markets as we can.

I think by paying attention to the feedback that you get on Yelp, you can very quickly integrate it into your business... The really savvy folks out there, they don't necessarily take anything negative personally, but use it as constructive feedback and adjust their business.

I think my dad did legal work for someone who had a Packard Bell 8088, and they couldn't pay him, so they gave him a computer. I was initially not allowed to touch it, but that didn't last long. I started tinkering with it, and there were many times I screwed up the computer.

Where folks like Google have fallen down is in just putting a little review box up, then closing their eyes and letting the algorithm take care of itself. Yelp is a technology company, but also a company that understands how people want to connect with one another.

Focusing on that one review you feel is unfair misses the value, which is the whole symphony of opinions you get on your page.

There's simply anger over the accountability that Yelp brings and also this feeling of powerlessness because so much power is now being put in the hands of the consumer. But the important thing that gets lost with some of these business owners who are very upset with us is it's the whole picture that counts.

I've been through a couple of mergers - they're not that fun. And it's easy to lose your focus on this grandiose mission you established for yourself as an independent company.