A Shift in Strategic Positioning

One of the challenges the Ask Jeeves team had in attracting development was how we were perceived by potential investors.  Despite Ask Jeeves being differentiated and distinct and having rapid and steady growth in its user numbers, prior to the Roda Group we had not attracted any investors.  A big part of this was the perception that we were just one entry in a crowded “search engine” space which already had some big players.

This can be illustrated by an experience with one Venture Capitalist.  A few minutes into the pitch he stopped us and said, “Oh, this is a search pitch.  If I had realized it was a search pitch I would have never taken the meeting.  Search is done.  Excite has already won.”

Our new chairman Roger Strauch (of The Roda Group) perceived that when talking to the financial community, we needed to explain ourselves differently: As a Question Answering System.  He described the “search space” as having three segments: Directories of which Yahoo! was the dominant player; Search Engines which was a crowded and competitive space; and Question Answering where Ask Jeeves was the leader in an emergent segment with relatively few competitors.  With this shift in strategic positioning and other developments, Ask Jeeves was subsequently able to attract further investments as the company continued to grow.