Firstly, a reminder of what Jigsaw is. As we noted in our previous post: Jigsaw works on a "pay or play" principle. You can just pay to get access to the contact information, as with any list. Unlike traditional lists, you can buy just one name. So this works well for selling high value stuff to senior people, not good for mass market spamming. Play means earning points by contributing contact information back into the system. They seem to have evolved good systems for managing this to avoid gaming and bad data.

Push Marketing

Marketing/sales can work on both pull and push. The big trend in Web 2.0, driven by search, was "pull". You pull in interest based on content and then convert that interest to revenue. In the old days, almost all marketing was push. You found people who might be prospects and contacted them. The ratio of push to pull is different today, but in the Web 2.0 world we might think it is 100% pull. Outside, in the real world, push marketing is alive and well. If you do any push marketing, you should consider Jigsaw. If you think push marketing is dead, this is not for you.

If you need to contact people that you don't already know, you need their contact details. That is where Jigsaw claims it can help.

What we like about Jigsaw

Here is what we like about Jigsaw:

1. Simple, clear, memorable, bold and differentiated mission. Jim was totally clear that Jigsaw only wants to offer the 11 fields that make up a basic contact record. They will partner with and link to any service that has greater richness and depth (such as ZoomInfo and LinkedIn). While that is a very narrow objective, Jigsaw doesn't lack for ambition. They want every basic contact record on the planet.

2. Jim Fowler. He started this business to solve a real problem that he had faced during many years running a sales team, he got VC funding when it was tough to get in late 2003 and 5 years later he is still running the business and in the latest quarter they have turned that corner to profitability. Jim's "yea, no more dilution", was spoken like a true gritty entrepreneur of the old school.

3. A solution that one can believe will succeed. Based both on parallels in other industries as well as initial success, Jigsaw has a shot at kicking the ball into the net. The traditional method of the data vendors is labor intensive, with fixed costs. The data vendor contacts the companies to get the right contact data. They are like traditional Encyclopedias. Jigsaw is like Wikipedia. That is a great sound bite and a great theory. Is it working in practice? When does the tipping point come when this new approach beats the old approach in practice? The fact that Jigsaw has hit profitability indicates to even the most cynical that maybe that tipping point is close.

OK, But Does Jigsaw Really Deliver?

Jim understands that the devil is in the details and that execution is everything. He clearly admires how LinkedIn beat Facebook in the business market when everybody in the Valley (including Jim) thought Facebook would eat their lunch.

In our first review of Jigsaw it came up short. The bottom line at the time - not quite compelling yet. But it looks worth another try. Wikipedia-like approaches do take time to mature. In Part 2 of our series on Jigsaw we delve into the details a bit to see what works and what doesn't work in Jigsaw.

In a word - profit. We are looking for companies that have some Web 2.0 characteristics. But we can be loose in that criteria. We are not looking for a "pure" Web 2.0 characteristics. Whatever works, works. But something that is using online technology to disrupt an existing market, maybe using SaaS, user generated content, social media, whatever works in the Web 2.0 bag of tricks.

But we do want to write about companies that have crossed the most important threshold, the one where cash flows from the business and not from investors. So, as we don't believe in overnight sensations, the company was probably founded before 2004. We want to hear from the CEO, who maybe the original founder or somebody who took over when the original business had failed.

We want to hear about massive skepticism, huge mistakes, changes of tactics and even of strategy, near death experiences, all the usual tales of derring-do.

The company can be bootstrapped, or funded by angels, friends and family or VC. No matter where the financing came from, the entrepreneur can now say to them a) no more dilution, and b) thanks for your help, enjoy the ride.

We are launching this series later today with a profile of Jigsaw and their Founder CEO, Jim Fowler. Our earlier profile of Zoho (Part 1 and Part 2) fits the bill too.

We will also give unsolicited advice to these gritty entrepreneurs about the Great Credit Crisis (we're hoping you help us out in the comments on this).

We Want Names

If you know any gritty entrepreneurs, or you are one yourself, we want to hear from you. Send us an email or leave a comment below.

Obligatory cat pic: pasma

UPDATE: Gritty Entrepreneurs: Jigsaw, a Profitable Web 2.0 Venture; the first post in this series

Jigsaw came in for criticism when it first came along around 2006. But most services are raw when they debut, what matters is a) is the fundamental concept sound and b) can the management team continuously improve.

Jigsaw has top tier VC financing, so they can go the distance.

I chose Jigsaw to try because LinkedIn did not give me what I needed. I was searching for senior level contacts at a large company. LinkedIn gave me plenty of Level 3 contacts but I have learned from experience that Level 3 (somebody I know knows somebody who knows the contact) is not useful and can be a real time sink. So I only bother when I see a Level 2 contact.

I could pay LinkedIn to send an InMail to these contacts, but that is no better than sending a cold-mail and why spend money when there are free alternatives?

So my next stop was to Google the names. I saw Jigsaw coming up a few times so decided to give it a try. Fairly quickly I was able to get - at no cost - the contact details I needed. That is not as good as an intro but cold calling/mailing in limited doses can still do the trick.

There were some niggling irritations as with many relatively new services, but I did get value and the basic concept seems like it could be viable. Jigsaw works on a "pay or play" principle. You can just pay to get access to the contact information, as with any list. Unlike traditional lists, you can buy just one name. So this works well for selling high value stuff to senior people, not good for mass market spamming. Play means earning points by contributing contact information back into the system. They seem to have evolved good systems for managing this to avoid gaming and bad data.

So the data is user generated, as it is with LinkedIn, as opposed to scraped data from services such as ZoomInfo. Scraped data has value as well - you get the contacts that don't put themselves into LinkedIn.

However, data created by other people is not usually as good as data created by the person in question. I noted too many errors in my short stay on Jigsaw. I earned some points by correcting them, but this also made me question of the value of the data I had extracted.

I see some value in Jigsaw, if they can keep improving. I don't know how viable Jigsaw is as a business. It strikes me as an inexpensive service to run, so reaching profitability may not be too hard. But I don't know whether this can be a really valuable business in its current form. It is too easy to get email addresses in other ways (Googling the name and just using the corporate email standard) and you can always call via the company receptionist.

What has been your experience with Jigsaw? Have you worked with other alternative services?