Photo - iTRUSTit Social, Inc.
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iTRUSTit Social, Inc.

A Word-of-Mouth connection of people, businesses and orgs

USA, California
Market: Internet and IT, Information and media, Real estate, Other, Mobile applications
Stage of the project: Prototype or product is ready

Date of last change: 17.03.2020
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Idea

A business search and referral platform that eliminates fake reviews and automates trusted word-of-mouth referrals by combining all your friends trusted data and organizations in 1 click, whether you need a plumber, a realtor, an accountant, or great restaurant. It’s free to join and without affecting the integrity of the data, each user, whether an individual, business or organization can benefit from our backend residual revenue-sharing engine.

Current Status

in Pre-Beta now.
On track for Public Beta launch within 9 weeks.

Market

Businesses spent over $90 billion dollars on digital marketing in 2017 – Forbes.
Direct competitor annual revenues: Yelp- 839 Million, Angie’s List- 763 Million, yp.com – 556 Million.
Meta-competitor annual revenues: Groupon- 2.8 Billion and Trip Advisor- 1.6 Billion.
Capturing just 0.19% of Yelp, Angie’s List and yp.com puts iTRUSTit at $4.1 Million revenue in 2019 and just 2% in Year 2 = $43.2M revenue

Problem or Opportunity

Problems: iTRUSTit: 1 solution solving 4 problems.

1- Businesses:
Problem: How to capture and leverage the all-powerful personal referral/Word of Mouth Market. How to enable their clients, friends and organizations they support to promote their business in a fast, easy and effective way? Businesses spend over $90 billion per year on digital marketing with little traction.
Most smaller businesses lack marketing resources necessary to capture the attention of local consumers and are forced to rely almost solely on word-of-mouth referrals.

2- Real Estate Companies and Agents Problems:
1) How to get their friends, clients and organizations to constantly promote them?
2) How to better service their clients through providing good referrals quickly to their clients and friends?

3- Organization Problems:
Membership organizations and associations are on a constant quest to:
1) Acquire and retain members,
2) Increase awareness and engagement,
3) Deliver value to members and
4) Increase non-dues revenue.

4- People/Consumer Problems:
1) Existing 1-off referral solutions are incomplete and lacking at best.
2) Writing reviews to share with your friends takes valuable time.
3) Fake reviews waste time researching and cost money with bad selections. 1/3 of the consumer reviews online are FAKE - New York Times. Consumers are challenged to find timely and highly reliable recommendations and referrals for businesses, services and products in existing traditional and social media.

Solution (product or service)

1- Business Solution:
iTRUSTit Strengthens reputation through client & friend referrals and associated organization connections. Quick and Effective, True Word of Mouth Marketing online.

2- Realtor Solution:
iTRUSTit is their preferred provider and trusted business directory for their clients and friends. iTRUSTit provides instant, mass Realtor and friend-sourced referrals to better service their clients.

3- Organization Solutions:
iTRUSTit is a new free benefit – A socially connected and relevant Member Business Directory that:
1) Connects members to affiliated businesses,
2) Increases awareness and visibility on a massive scale and
3) Creates non-dues revenue. All at no cost.

4- People Solutions:
1) iTRUSTit delivers mass friend-sourced referrals from friends and organizations they are a part of to deliver Instant Trusted Results from ALL Their Connections AT ONCE. It’s like calling all their friends and organizations for a personal referral every time they need something only much faster and easier.
2) iTRUSTit’s 1-click-to-Trust system is easy and quick enabling more trusted data to be shared.

Competitors

Competitors: Companies such as Yelp (acquisition offer of $500 million (16x revenues) by Google and 1 billion (32x revenues) by Yahoo both in 2009, just 5 years after it launched), Angie’s List, yp.com and Kudzu are online directories that aggregate user reviews of local businesses. Yelp provides limited social web functionality with their online community, and none offer the type of trusted friends and organizations network that is at the core of iTRUSTit. Yelp, in particular, is the subject of controversy over illegitimate negative and anonymous reviews – a common problem given the anonymous nature of most Internet sites. “1/3 of consumer reviews online are FAKE” – New York Times. Sites such as LinkedIn and Xing focus on professional networking and not consumer-business referrals. Google and Facebook provide search capability and social networking, respectively, and are seen as potential acquisition partners.

Advantages or differentiators

Competitive Advantages: iTRUSTit possesses numerous competitive advantages:
1) A patented referral platform that combines person-to-person, word-of-mouth marketing for businesses, organizations and consumers.
2) iTRUSTit delivers instant, highly-trusted and relevant results that none of its competitors can match including organization connections in 1 click.
3) iTRUSTit’s users are highly incentivized through social recognition and opt-in revenue sharing to promote iTRUSTit to every person, business and organization they know and more.
4) iTRUSTit’s residual revenue sharing engages its users and leverages the Gig Economy like no other company out there with a sense of ownership and connection that will drive viral growth, sales and ensure long-term user retention.

Finance

iTRUSTit is seeking a $150,000 bridge of a $1,500,000 financing to launch, market to the real estate industry, scale the platform, show proof of concept and integrate revenue streams. Within 5 months of public launch iTRUSTit will then raise the balance of $1,350,000 to upgrade functionality, further scale, increase marketing and hire key management and staff. This investment will take the company through month 24+ and positive cash flow. *The current monthly burn rate is based on minimal management and development.

Business model

iTRUSTit’s goal is to create the most trusted online referral network in the world. In doing so, iTRUSTit will capture marketing and advertising dollars spent on social media, an addressable market of nearly $30 billion per year. iTRUSTit also derives revenue by offering premium services to help users expand their reach and improve their marketing effectiveness.

Studies show word-of-mouth marketing is a primary factor in nearly half of all purchasing decisions. Plus, 92% of consumers say they are much more likely to trust recommendations from people they know versus only 70% who say they trust reviews posted on sites such as Yelp, and the skepticism is growing. By one estimate reported in the New York Times, one-third of the consumer reviews online are FAKE

Built on iTRUSTit’s patented technology platform, iTRUSTit makes it easy for friends to share reliable referrals and recommendations for local businesses. Unlike social media sites that embed advertising into their user-generated content and that are often saturated with “professional or automated reviewers,” iTRUSTit enables consumers to create their own “personal referral directories” comprising the businesses that they know and trust. In turn, businesses and membership organizations benefit from this highly credible, targeted and affordable crowd-sourced online marketing. iTRUSTit’s self-policing friend filters help ensure our users against fake information.

iTRUSTit works in communities everywhere, large and small, and is designed to incentivize organic and sustainable growth. iTRUSTit rewards its members with an innovative revenue-sharing model for simply getting new users to join independent of the Trust data.

Money will be spent on

$150,000:
- Improve UI/UX for Mobile, Tablet and Desktop
- Continued development of the product
- Marketing & Sales
- Public Launch +4 months, 60,000 users
- APPS & Revenue

$1.5M:
- 50MM users
- Cash flow positive
- Hire key employees
- Marketing and Sales
- Continued development of the product

Offer for investor

For first $150,000:
- Convertible Note
- 10% interest
- 20% discount
- 10k minimum

For next $1.5M:
- Convertible note
- 8% interest
- 15% discount
- $50k minimum

Team or Management

Won the competition and other awards

3rd place in City Summit Pitch Competition

Invention/Patent

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A REFERRAL NETWORK IN A SOCIAL NETWORKING ENVIRONMENT

Product Video

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Idea
Current Status
Market
Problem or Opportunity
Solution (product or service)
Competitors
Advantages or differentiators
Finance
Invested in previous rounds, $
Business model
Money will be spent on
Offer for investor
Team or Management
Mentors & Advisors
Lead investor
Risks
Incubation/Acceleration programs accomplishment
Won the competition and other awards
Invention/Patent
Photos
Product Video
Presentation