Edina Native's Heroic Startup Takes Word of Mouth Online

The Internet is full of reviews, opinions, ratings and “expert” advice.  It’s where we turn to find answers and collect information.  Ideally, when looking for a new hair stylist, plumber, caterer, or other business or service, we would call up a friend, or chat with a neighbor to get their top recommendations. Sometimes, though, we end up online, scouring review sites and taking advice from strangers. In the summer of 2012, Justin Barrett and three business partners set out to bring these familiar and friendly referrals online, and make local services more efficient.  They entered the Minnesota Cup, a statewide competition that promotes innovative business ideas, and were runners up in the High Tech division.  Their second place finish motivated them to start their business, and Heroic was born.  Barrett and co-founders Ethan Otterlei, Dan Linstroth and Reed Robinson raised investments and built up technology to launch the web page in early 2013.   “The bottom line is that people prefer to get recommendations from friends and neighbors when looking to hire businesses,” says Barrett, an Edina native.  And that’s exactly what Heroic does.  Users can sign in with Facebook and instantly see the recommendations of their friends, or they can sign up using their email address, and select the friends they would like to follow.  Heroic provides different categories such as fitness, home, weddings and more that users can browse, or they can search for friends and follow their specific business recommendations.  The media company, based out of downtown Minneapolis, differs from review sites like Angie’s List and Yelp because of the social aspect of following friends, the free membership for users, and the lack of reviews.  Because Heroic is not a review site, there are no negative comments, just things you would recommend over the fence to a neighbor.  The site takes advantage of the power of these referrals to help local businesses and highlight uncovered services.  “Our goal is to drive as much business to small and medium size businesses as possible,” Barrett says.  “That’s really what customers want the most.” Since the release of its webpage in February, Heroic has been growing quickly, and they hope to expand to 30,000 users in the next 15 months.  “It’s a great service,” says Edina resident Andrew Murphy.  “What’s to complain about? It’s free referrals for something that’s hard to track down or expensive in other places.” Murphy began using Heroic to organize his favorite service providers in one place, but as more friends joined, he’s browsed their networks and found helpful recommendations.  The biggest advantage of this online compilation for Murphy is its convenience, something we all value in our busy lives. “I’ve used word of mouth a lot,” Murphy says.  “But then you’ve got to bug your friends, and they have to do a chore for you.” Heroic is now making it easy, and more beneficial, for users to get started.  The site’s referral program that started in April awards two hours of free house cleaning to any member who refers three businesses and invites three friends to join Heroic.