“On a large scale, a product with ads serves the company that shows you ads, but it doesn’t serve you.” With that in mind, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, IIT alumni and former Google executives, are set to launch Neeva, an ad-free private search product that is expected to offer paid customer service by mid-year. first alternative to the customer, at a time of growing concern for the control exercised by technological megaliths.
“The ad model has been great for getting search on everyone on the planet, but over time, there’s more and more pressure to show more ads and not really what the user wants. Our thesis is that we can create a much better search product, focusing solely on what a customer needs, ”he says Ramaswamy, the CEO of Neeva, speaking on a video call from his California home. This is a domain he has known for 54 years, as he has been Google’s senior vice president of advertising and commerce and has also led his travel, shopping and search infrastructure teams.
Raghunathan studied at IIT Mumbai and was previously Vice President of Monetization at YouTube.
“So it’s actually a broad set of experiences. Similarly, Vivek was the first technology manager for what is now known as the Google Assistant. So we’ve really worked on research on both sides, ”says Ramaswamy, a graduate of IIT Chennai. That’s why they felt“ confident enough ”to be able to build the technology relatively cheaply, he adds.
With a team of 45 people in the United States, the plan is to deploy Neeva in “four to five months,” first in the U.S. domestic market and then in English-speaking regions such as Western Europe, Australia and India. “Fortunately, we have a great team of engineers, designers and product managers and very good sponsors,” says Ramaswamy. Neeva has raised $ 37.5 million so far, with equal investments from Greylock, Sequoia Capital and Ramaswamy himself.
Ramaswamy says the product will be different from what people are used to, as it offers a single window for searching and querying personal data from services like Dropbox and email accounts. “We have to rethink basic technology. And on some level, things like how to explore the web and how to index the basics are similar, ”he says. Like Google, Neeva will also use artificial intelligence and machine learning to create the secret sauce: rankings for searches.
Regarding any concerns that may arise about personal data, Ramaswamy says, “We guarantee that the product and the company are designed in such a way that the personal data is indexed to serve your results and, for nothing else … “From the beginning, we are the first customer and the only customer. We are very firm in making sure that this is the only source of income.”
A Neeva blog also reiterates its commitment to having no ads, guarantees that “your data will never be sold in any form” and promises that your search history will be deleted by default within 90 days. (Google’s default is 18 months.)
After spending 16 years at Google, Ramaswamy says he has come to believe that “it’s not healthy” to have very much control over technology platforms. “There are good people there, that’s not the problem. If you need to make more money, the temptation to show one more ad is very strong, “he says, adding that what Neeva offers is an option.” And giving that option creates a richer Internet. “
He is aware of the challenges of offering a paid product and the need to ensure that it is “excellent”. However, says Ramaswamy, for him this is the motivation. He cites the example of services like Spotify and Dropbox, which were successful in segments where there was no shortage of free options, and hopes Neeva can also force its competitors to cut ads. “… Now you can’t say I’ll show a page full of ads … Users will opt for a paid option, because too much is too much.”
Ramswamy adds: “We are confident that a certain segment of the population will see value in a superior product. And, above all, in the current environment of concern, about the size and influence of technology companies, we believe we can get enough people to say, “I just want a simple alternative, a service that I use, that I pay for.” And that’s it, there’s no more worry about the data, no more worry about what’s going on. “