Mojo Pages marries social networking with business search

San Diego Daily Transcript (subscription) – San Diego,CA,USA
Another had high praise for Leucadia Pizzeria Italian
Restaurant, saying: It’s great for everyone because (sic) you can
get the greasy and carb-loaded …

it’s hard to write about Mojo Pages founder Jon Carder without bringing up his age. After all, there are plenty of serial entrepreneurs in San Diego and a lot of them have made millions, but few of them did it before reaching their 30th birthday.
With his latest project though, Carder, 28, is looking to be known less as a young surfer kid who struck it rich an Internet company, and more as the person who took on the time honored institution of the Yellow Pages.
“The Yellow Pages industry is $20 billion. It’s massive,” Carder said. “That’s the industry we’re going after. But (Mojo Pages) is a better business model than I’ve ever had before. It has all the makings of a company that could reach into the billions of dollars.”
Jon Carder
Jon Carder
Carder has had two other businesses. His first company, started when he was 19, sold baby products at swap meets and online. His second, Client Shop, was similar to Lending Tree in that it matched people with a bank that was right for them. In early 2006, Carder sold the $8 million company to Internet Brands and tried retiring. But even though he was living his dream life of surfing in Indonesia, he was spending part of the day filling notebooks with ideas for a new company.
That new company would eventually become Mojo Pages, a site designed to combine the viral nature of social networking sites with the business search concept of the Yellow Pages. It works by not only showing you what businesses are in your area, but also allowing customers to rate the businesses based on quality, value and service.
Mojo Pages has been live for about a month and has 1,000 users signed up. Clients can upload reviews, pictures and video, and tell each other if they found a review helpful or not. Some local examples include a user who warned others about Western Towing: “By all means if you are ever in trouble on the side of the road and need a tow, do not call these guys.” Another had high praise for Leucadia Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant, saying: “It’s great for everyone because (sic) you can get the greasy and carb-loaded meals, but you can also order a terrific salad with half the calories.”
Carder continued by explaining the idea behind Mojo Pages. “Why isn’t there a place where we can all share our experiences that we have with these local businesses?” Carder asked. “Mojo Pages kind of takes a Yellow Pages directory online — we’ve got 15 million businesses — and then it combines it with a kind of social networking and some other Web 2.0 technologies.”
Mojo Pages is currently privately funded and its business model is based heavily on Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG). Users subscribe to the service for free, and some businesses pay to have their businesses bumped up in a sponsored area after a search. Carder said he plans to use conventional advertising but mostly word-of-mouth to spread the news about the site.
Though Carder is young, he said one of the keys to his success has been surrounding himself with a team of older, more experienced workers. His executive staff has a combined total of 100 years of experience. “We have some what I call ‘grey hairs’ on board,” he said with a laugh. “The older, wiser guys who kind of fill in for