Reconnecting Online

Jeff Tinsley: A mother found her daughter after looking for 50 years. She looked everywhere else, she actually found her through reunion.com. Zorianna Kit: Hi, and welcome to Dog and Pony, I am Zorianna Kit. Jeff Tinsley is chairman and CEO of reunion.com, a highly successful networking site used for reconnecting with people from the past. Jeff, welcome! Jeff Tinsley: Thank you for having me. Zorianna Kit: Let us talk about Reunion. Jeff Tinsley: We started the company in 2002, started by buying the top two competitors, competing sites to classmates. And so we originally were reconnecting high school friends but with broaden service to connect old friends, people from down the block. We help people find their long lost family members, find anyone only through the site. Zorianna Kit: So, how did you acquire those two sites? It is highschoolalumni.com and planetalumni.com. Jeff Tinsley: We did. We bought the primary property High School Alumni from a company called Snowball, they turned into a company called IGN. And we bought that property for about five or so million registered users. Zorianna Kit: Now back then, when you decided to do this, did you imagine how successful it would get? Jeff Tinsley: Absolutely not. I mean we actually now have 37, right around 37 million registered users. Most people do not know we are adding about 50,000 to 60,000 new registered members mostly in the US every single day. Zorianna Kit: Was that your strategy like to grow it to that? Jeff Tinsley: We have just been fortunate. The business has grown more than a hundred percent a year. No, we just did not expect that. We were ranked the fourth fastest growing business in Los Angeles. We are in the Inc 5000. And no one had this site that no one had the idea that this was going to turn into such a big deal. Zorianna Kit: And why do you think it did? Jeff Tinsley: You know, we have come to find out that everyone has lost touch with other people important to that. I can help you find them. So, it’s really has a broad appeal. Zorianna Kit: And what is it? You simply just register your information and you are on there so if someone types your name because they are looking for you, you come up? Jeff Tinsley: Most people go to the site because they are looking for someone in particular. And so they type in their name or actually the only side on the internet that can let you know if anyone is looking for you. So, you can go to the site, type in your name. We will check and see if anyone actually searched for your name and so it is pretty powerful. Zorianna Kit: It will tell me also who those people were that were looking for me? Jeff Tinsley: You can register free to find out if anyone has searched for you in order to actually see who they are and there is the business model right of course to see which people in particular looked for you, you actually need to be a premium member for that. Zorianna Kit: So, what do you get for free registration? Jeff Tinsley: There is a lot that you can do with a free registration. You can search for people. You can see who is listed in your school, create your profile, share it, share your photos, pictures, announcements with people that you know. If you want to find other people that you lost touch with, reconnect with them and pull them back in. A lot of those services, the ones that require premium membership. Zorianna Kit: And what does that cost? Jeff Tinsley: It is $60.00 a year so it is $5.00 a month. Zorianna Kit: What makes it better or different than searching for somebody on MySpace or Facebook for example? It does not cost anything. Jeff Tinsley: The big difference is that no one does people search better than we do. They search a very small number of users. We do not just search our database of 37 million people. We actually search all of the social networks. We search the public records as well as our own database. We are searching everywhere. We are searching literally billions of records to find the people that you lost touch with. And we have a unique set of services that none of these other guys have. We let you know when we find new people that you have been looking for. We notify you on an ongoing basis when someone actually searches for you. Zorianna Kit: So, do you often get compared to classmates.com? Jeff Tinsley: We do because most people do not realize that we are not just a High School reconnection site. We actually can find anyone that you used to know that you have lost touch with. Zorianna Kit: If people are looking for adaptive parents like birth parents? Jeff Tinsley: We literally have thousands and thousands of success stories. We reunited millions of people. A mother found her daughter after looking for 50 years. She looked everywhere else, could not find her, hired private investigators. She actually found her through reunion.com and it caused her $60.00 for the year to do that where she had spent thousands of dollars trying to find her in other places. Zorianna Kit: Wow, any other cool success stories? Jeff Tinsley: We even had a story about a family that had to give up their youngest daughter for adoption. And after more than 30 years, they finally found her through this, through our site. They had four siblings. The siblings had never even known their youngest baby sister, so they found each other through our site and had a big reunion down in San Diego. We get stories like that every single day and that is the exciting part of what we do. That it would actually works. Zorianna Kit: Have you reconnected with people? Jeff Tinsley: I reunited with my best friend from fifth grade and found out he turned out to be a police officer, has two kids. I found just so many people. Zorianna Kit: Can there be danger in that? Jeff Tinsley: People can find you on the site and actually send you a message but they never get your e-mail address. Zorianna Kit: So, we are going to play a game called None of your Business. Jeff Tinsley: Okay. Zorianna Kit: I am going to ask you a series of questions and you can either tell me it is none of my business or you can answer them. Jeff Tinsley: Oh wow! Zorianna Kit: How much did you pay for High School Alumni and Planet Alumni? Jeff Tinsley: We spent a million dollars on High School Alumni and a hundred thousand dollars for the database of Planet Alumni. We were really at the right place at the right time. Zorianna Kit: What is the most important thing you learned in high school? Jeff Tinsley: In high school I learned that I could not get the head cheer leader and at my reunion, I actually reconnected with her and she is my wife. Zorianna Kit: Has anyone contacted you from high school that you really wished just hadn’t? Jeff Tinsley: It is interesting; I have not had a bad experience yet. Zorianna Kit: How much money do you make? Jeff Tinsley: I make a standard CEO salary actually. Zorianna Kit: Which is? Jeff Tinsley: That one is none of your business. Zorianna Kit: Alright. Thanks for playing None of your Business. Jeff Tinsley, founder and CEO of reunion.com. Thank you so much for joining us. Jeff Tinsley: Thank you. Zorianna Kit: If you have questions, comments, or ideas for guests, please e-mail us at info@dogandpony.com, I am Zorianna Kit. Thanks for watching.