I accepted a new job this past week as Manager of Business
Development at Answers.com - NASDAQ: ANSW. Naturally, I wanted to give my attorneys time
to negotiate the agreement and report to training camp before I blogged it,
thus making it officially official:) I first met with Answers.com more than a
month ago. Apparently, I didn’t
sufficiently woo them to get the job initially. When they called me back to schedule a second series of meetings the
week before last, I took a slightly hungrier approach. Towards the end of my upbeat meeting with
Jeff Cutler, Chief Revenue Officer, I pointedly asked him, “so what do I have
to do to convince you I’m the right guy for this job?” I think this question sealed it for me. Sometimes it pays to be forthcoming and
direct.
In truth, I couldn’t be happier about the opportunity. This job search lasted longer than I
expected, and there were times I considered shifting focus all together, but I
remained resilient and ending up at a place like Answers in this role with this
team makes it all worthwhile. At
Answers.com, we are creating the definitive reference tool on the web. We already have more than 3.3 million topics
licensed from respected sources such as Roget’s, Columbia University,
McGraw Hill, Thomson Gale, AMG, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica in
addition to our own proprietary content. The information is cleverly presented based on relevance so a search for
Boeing
787 will first show results from Wikipedia, which is the best source for
information on the new airplane. Similarly, a search on Thomas
Jefferson will show information from Who2 and American Heritage first. Our traffic ranks us in the top 200 of all
internet properties; very impressive for a company less than two years old. Answers.com also has developed several nifty technologies
of their own, including one-click
answers, which enables a user to Alt-Click any word or phrase in any
document on the screen and pull up a call-out window providing informative
explanations and research. This is a
magnificent tool for virtually anyone who reads content on their computers and
particularly helpful for those professionals working with terms and definitions
in addition to any students or other learning-focused individuals. One-click can be downloaded here (or here for Mac
users) and I encourage everyone to do so. It’s a true value-added feature.
Culturally, Answers.com also couldn’t be a better fit. The NYC team is a fantastic group of people and
I’m thoroughly excited to start working with them. With company headquarters in Jerusalem, it also looks like I’ll have the
opportunity to do some work abroad. The
ability to travel to Israel for work certainly wasn’t one of the criteria used in my job search, but it’s an extra nice perk. Expect great things from
Answers.com in the near future.