Alike, Inc.

alike enables you to use the places you like to find new places you’ll love.

Keywords suck.  First, they are too simplistic.  When you search for a coffee shop a keyword based engine won’t know if you wanted the best java in town or a nearby place to crank out some emails.  Second, they are too vague.  Google returns 12,938 results for coffee shops in San Francisco.  And finally, they are generic – with rankings based on popularity/SEO rather than relevance. None of the current options let you organize results to find what you really want.

The alike engine takes search beyond the keyword to solve this problem.  Using alike anyone can simply enter the name of something they enjoy, alike will identify this ‘entity’, and then alike will provide the user with similar ‘entities’ that they will love.

The alike search engine has developed a semantic understanding of many different entities (places, products, people) and their attributes (locations, cost, reviews, preferences).   

Maria Zhang - CEO

Maria has 15 years experience in designing and building large-scale machine learning and data mining systems to bring value to millions of individual consumers. At Microsoft, Maria led the Personal Relevance team for MSN content. At Zillow, she led the data team responsible for data integration, warehousing, processing, mining and ad targeting. She has BS\MS in Computer Science and Mathematics from Tsinghua University and E. Michigan Univ.

Tom Huseby - Chairman

Founder of SeaPoint Ventures. Co-founder and first CEO of Metawave. First president and CEO of Innova.  Group Vice President of the Industrial Products Group at Raychem Corp.Tom is currently Chairman of the Board of Zumobi and a board member of Airspan, Groundtruth, Glympse, Hubspan, Kineto Wireless, Mojix, Photobucket, SeaPoint, and SinglePoint. He is past chairman of Qpass, SNAPin Software, and Telecom Transport Management.

The primary revenue source will come from affiliate messaging.  As alike becomes the first app a hungry user opens on an iPhone - we will become the entry point for the restaurant ecosystem.  This position lends itself naturally to taking a lead generation fee from publishers and merchants.  Alike has already had significant revenue committed by advertisers.  Also Alike has other mobile app developers licensing the alike engine in shopping, navigation and social planning mobile apps on both iPhone and Android. 

alike is made most distinct by our comprehensive data.  With Hundreds of Terabytes of data categorized by 20 Million US locations there is no cold start problem.  alike is useful for the first user with no need to wait for your friends or millions of other people to use the application. alike instantly deliver value to consumers.  Also alike offers a unique combination of simplicity, relevancy, and enjoyment that similar products fail to offer.