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Standard questions like "Where can I get good Vietnamese food?" or "How much is Twitter worth?" can usually be answered with a Google search or a Quora post. But personal questions regarding your health, legal issues, or career changes are often best left to the professionals. That's the premise for Pearl.com, which just raised $25.7 million from Glynn Capital, Charles Schwab (the man, not the company), and Crosslink Capital.
The 9-year-old company was started when founder Andy Kurtzig's wife wished she could ask questions online about her first pregnancy. In order to get real professionals, not random internet trolls, to offer their advice in real time, he created Q&A site JustAnswer. The site had a basic question field and would try to find you the right person to answer the question based on what you asked. In June 2012, the company revamped and expanded its approach, launching Pearl.com.
On Pearl.com you can get advice from thousands of professionals, ranging from specialized doctors and lawyers, to mechanics, veterinarians and computer repair pros. All you have to do is ask your question, set an approximate deadline, and decide if you need a lengthy answer or a concise one.
Depending on the depth of the advice, and how quickly you need your answer, you'll be charged a fee, starting around $15. The highest price for an answer is $80, depending on depth of answer and speed of answer, but most will cost less. An in-depth answer from a dermatologist about an unfamiliar rash costs $58, and a short answer for a computer problem would only set you back $18. The typical response time for a question is under 10 minutes, and the company stands behind its answers with a 100 percent money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied.
Unlike Quora, the darling among the Silicon Valley crowd that draws its answers from the entire universe of folks online, all the answers on Pearl come from professionals. You get to be a Pearl pro after proving you are credentialed or licensed in a particular field, taking some tests, impressing a collection of Pearl questioners, and jumping through a number of other hoops. The idea is you could be a part-time lawyer and field Pearl.com questions in your spare time. On average the experts on Pearl's site make $1,200 per month, though some doctors and lawyers who treat it as a full-time gig are pulling down as much as $40,000 a month, according to Pearl.com.
The concept of matching people who have questions, with experts to answer them, seems to be working: Pearl.com boasts 250,000 questions per month, $100 million in annual revenue, and 123 percent revenue growth year over year since 2008. Quora might be a great place to find out why the Golden Gate Bridge is famous, or if Silicon Valley has a mafia, but Pearl.com is probably the better place to find out if that suspicious-looking rash really might be eating your flesh.
