From: Ken Pappas
New startup
whojini.com

Hi Everyone,

As many of you know, over the past couple of years I’ve done some part-time work on a new startup. We’ve been running lean and mean with most everyone on the project working part-time. Now we’re launching the website and I wanted to introduce it to you AND ask for your help. 🙂

The Basics of the Site:
The site is www.whojini.com It is a free website that you can use to trade referrals with trusted friends and family on services like doctors, lawyers, contractors, housekeepers, etc. – essentially services where you wouldn’t just trust a referral from an anonymous person on the web. You connect with people you trust so you build a list of great service providers that you can always go back and refer to in the future – it’s kind of like a great rolodex where don’t have to try and find the business card of that electrician, handyman, massage therapist, etc. that you used a year or two ago.

How it works:
1. You go to whojini.com and put the type of service into the search field
2. You see the results – if you’re registered and have connected with friends, you’ll see the referrals they’ve already made for that service
3. If none of your friends have recommended a service provider for that category yet – or you want more to choose from – you can click on the link to ask your friends for referrals
4. The site creates a message for you – you can edit the message if you want to add a personal touch – to ask for a referral
5. The site sends the message to the people you’ve included in your list of trusted friends and family
6. Friends and family click on the link in the email and fill in a quick form on whojini.com – their identity on their recommendation is known to those in their network of friends but people who are not connected do not see their name so it creates your private network
7. You get notified in email when your friends and family respond to your request

How this is different from websites like Facebook:
– I refer to the site as social networking with a purpose. Facebook is for entertainment and socializing but whojini.com is to get a specific task done.
– whojini.com won’t occupy a lot of your time – you really only need to access it when you need a service provider or when your friends ask you for a great service provider
– You’ll probably have a different list of contacts on whojini – getting a referral from a high school classmate that lives 2000 miles away probably won’t yield great results when you’re looking for a great local dentist

How to Help Me Now:
1. Sign up for the site
2. Invite your friends, family, co-workers to join you on the site
3. Add at least one referral or “Gem” to the site – more if you like. Since the site is brand new, there is not much content yet. Adding content will make it more attractive to new users as we promote the site.
4. Send me information on any bugs, issues, things you hate, things you like, etc.

Hints to Get Started:
The best way to sign up and invite your friends to join your network is to start by asking them for a referral. Think about a service you’ve wanted but don’t know where to start – personal trainer, dentist, housekeeper, massage therapist, doctor, contractor, etc. Choose the category of the service in the search box. Since the site is so new, you’ll most likely go right to the request screen where you put in the email addresses of the people you want to give you a referral and also register. If you actually see a referral, you can use it or ask more friends by clicking the “Ask for Gems” button.

Thanks so much for your help and support on this. The site is running a little slow right now but over the next month as more people use it we will be optimizing it.

Ken

How Whojini works

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Type the service provider you are looking for into our search box.
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We’ll show you every recommendation your friends, friends of friends, and fellow group members have already given.
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You can ask for more recommendations from your brain trust with just two mouse clicks. We add them to your private directory so they’ll pop up instantly the next time any one of you has a need.

There’s a little more you should know…

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Your identity on Whojini is private—only your brain trust can see who you are recommending—or warning against.
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Our “public comments” section allows you to see anonymous comments and ratings from other networks, so you can still get the wisdom of the crowd.
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We collect category-specific ratings and recommenders’ situations to help you make the best choice.

And best of all, Whojini is free!