Don’t ever challenge my mother to a game of Jeopardy.  She answers every question correctly almost before you can get the question out.  You’ll leave the game having lost all confidence in your ability to remember highly-specific details or the picayune.  She’s pretty good at ping-pong (sorry, table tennis), too.  At least for an 81 year old. The people that Myndnet has recruited to answer questions for clients are a bit like my mother.  At least that’s my recent experience.  They seem to be able to answer anything.

StorMagic recently used Myndnet to identify IT directors at K-12 schools, at colleges, and universities. The question went live on February 15th and by Tuesday, four days later, they had fulfilled the 200 or so budgeted responses.  If you go to Myndnet, you’ll notice that the question is still up and you can still respond.  StorMagic has the right to reject leads that don’t fit the criteria, and StorMagic might want to acquire additional names, if the first ones work out well.  So why not keep it open for a few days?

Here’s how Myndnet works. They help customers craft questions that will give them the information they need, they work with the clients on setting the right incentive level for respondents, they post the question, and pay out respondents (PayPal or check) if the respondents provide accepted answers.  Respondents with incorrect or incomplete answers receive no payout, and the customer determines whether the answer is correct.  So for the customer, there’s little or no risk.  There’s not much risk for the respondent either, if they answer the question completely.  Just for kicks, I answered one question.  Myndnet had a customer looking for San Francisco-area CFOs in fast-growing tech companies with over $100 million in revenue.  Turns out I know a few. 

Myndnet started in employee recruitment and is very effective there, but as Myndnet’s CEO, Dan Hodges, recently told me when we met in San Francisco, “There’s more money in helping people make money than there is in helping people save money.”  It’s a funny world we live in, but he’s right.

The biggest issue for Myndnet right now is that they need more questions for their network to answer.  Their network is like hungry sharks in a feeding frenzy. So send them some questions!  And if you want to join this network of information experts, just click here to set up an account.  With a few more questions to answer, you might be able to make the car payment or the house payment. Somebody will walk away with four figures on the StorMagic deal.