I got food poisoning and wanted to find a good doctor online. There was literally nothing useful. That frustration became a company worth billions. Food poisoning is underrated as a startup origin story.
Google offered us $500 million in 2009. I said no. People thought I was crazy. But I believed Yelp could be worth more on its own — and it was, until Google decided to build their own version and embed it in every search.
We didn't invent online reviews. We made reviewing a social activity. Yelp Elite events, reviewer profiles, "useful" and "funny" votes — we turned complaining about restaurants into a hobby.
Every small business owner either loves Yelp or wants to burn it to the ground. There's no middle ground. That kind of emotional reaction means we actually matter.
We have 265 million reviews. That's not a dataset — that's the collective dining, shopping, and service experience of an entire country. Nobody else has that depth for local businesses.
People ask why Yelp still exists when Google Maps has reviews. The answer is trust. Yelp reviews are detailed, opinionated, and written by people who care. Google reviews are '5 stars, nice place.' That's not useful.