Jigsaw was a data company founded in 2003 that raised $18 million in venture capital funding. It employed 145 people and was acquired by Salesforce in 2010 for $175 million. Jigsaw compiled public records data crowdsourced from users to build a database of over 21 million records, which it provided to customers as a data-as-a-service through an open API. The company focused on building partnerships and experienced challenges common to early-stage startups like maintaining focus and dealing with acquisition negotiations.

1. The Jigsaw Story
Jim Fowler
Data2.0 – San Francisco
April 3, 2012

2. Brief Jigsaw History

3. Overview
• Founded in 2003
• $18M in VC funding (3 rounds)
• 145 Employees
• Purchased by CRM in 2010 for $175M

4. What was Jigsaw?

5. 21M Records
• New
• Updated
• Dead

6. Crowdsourcing by Community

7. Compilation Model

8. Superheros

9. Data-as-a-Service (DaaS)

10. DaaS in Practice

11. DaaS Vision
Open API

12. Positioning

13. Lessons Learned

14. Early Stage Mental State

15. Focus

16. The Christmas Tree Effect

17. Pioneers Take Arrows

18. Partnerships Suck

19. Be Ambivalent During M&A

20. Data Observations

21. Data Business Models
Compilation > Aggregation

22. Big Data?
Jigsaw Contact Growth by Quarter
25,000,000
20,000,000
15,000,000
10,000,000
5,000,000
-

23. Where’s the Innovation?

24. Data Needs Personality

25. Thank You!
 www.infoarmy.com
 @InfoArmy
 www.jimfowler.com
 @fowlinator