UW MBA Student Leaves the Most Anticipated IPO to Start ZenoPlanetcom



Online yellow pages and business listings have become a way of life. However, they either provide very little or provide very biased information and ratings on the businesses. It is very hard to find trustworthy doctors, dentists, eye specialists, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and good businesses such as day cares, schools and restaurants. It becomes even harder if you are new in the country or the city or you are the first time buyer of these services.

However, an MBA student at University of Washington and alumni of Seattle University has left his job at The Cobalt Group, the most anticipated IPO in Seattle area to start a Bellevue startup www.zenoplanet.com which is going to address these problems.

With a goal to build local online communities and a database of unpaid and unbiased business ratings, Sukhjot Basi better known as "Joti Basi" to the technical community has been working from his basement for last three months to launch the beta site of www.zenoplanet.com. Unlike his other competitors he has chosen to bootstrap the startup by getting help from friends, ex-coworkers and classmates at UW. As expected, users are already participating and posting reviews. In addition to the reviews it also offers classifieds, community calendar, photos, discussion/question answer boards and a medium for users to share their expertise.

Named after the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea, who was a strong believer in freedom; the desire to start ZenoPlanet.com came out of his own experiences while shopping for a home and dealing with service providers. He has tried using services from other heavily funded startups and well established review companies to find the best service providers, but found them to be very biased as the listings and reviews were not driven by actual consumers. Instead, businesses were paying for getting those good reviews published.

With a slogan "Information: By People - For People," Joti is committed to make ZenoPlanet.com a platform which will put consumers in control and increase the power of their purchasing dollars. The site is fee to consumers and allows them to post reviews, classifieds, events, pictures, start discussions and share their expertise.

ZenoPlanet.com also provides a platform for self-employed service providers such as Headhunter/Recruiter Farhana Satti to attract business by demonstrating their expertise in Expert Opinions section." It is very hard to for a new service provider to crack into the market. Due to their limited budgets it is very hard for them to generate any business. "By demonstrating their expertise online at ZenoPlanet.com they can easily communicate their value proposition to the customers and start growing their business," says Joti Basi.





UW MBA Student Leaves the Most Anticipated IPO to Start ZenoPlanetcom