GuruStorms

GuruStorms Press Kit

GuruStorms: The World's Experts at your Fingertips

GuruStorms is the new brainstorming site that offers a unique crowdsourcing solution: a curated crowd of gurus, consisting of the world's best and brightest online experts. Companies and individuals can post questions on the site that offer rewards up to $5,000. These recognized experts then offer their best ideas by engaging in an online brainstorming session that lasts up to 30 days.

Key Benefits of GuruStorms

For Gurus: GuruStorms is a new channel for Gurus to monetize their expertise that is online and ad hoc (so they can fit it in whenever they have time), not to mention financially rewarding, with up to $2000 for a top-rated idea.

For Questioners: the site assembles an instant, on-demand team of gurus and subject matter experts to engage, brainstorm and carry on an online dialogue with in a way they otherwise could not.

The Market for Crowdsourcing and Expert Networks

Crowdsourcing: Surveys conducted by consulting firms like McKinsey and Forrester Research reveal that executives are showing openness to Web-based collaboration and social networking tools. Forrester forecasts robust corporate spending on Web 2.0 software. It projects consolidated Web 2.0 spending growth at 43 percent annually--from $764 million in 2008 to $4.6 billion in 2013. [Source: Entrepreneur Magazine, May-June 2009 Issue]

Expert Networks: Gerson Lehrman Group is the leading brick-and-mortar expert consultancy, with an "expert council" membership of nearly 200,000. GLG, privately held, has had valuations approaching $1 billion. It also has relationships with Credit Suisse and the other major banks. Last year the company made $284 million in revenues, according to Financial News. Another similar competitor, DeMatteo Monness, has revenue that are thought to be in the $10-50 million range. [Source: Business Insider, June 30, 2009]

VIDEO: GuruStorms at DEMOFall 2009

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Edward Cruz Biography

Edward Cruz is an Austin-based technologist specializing in social commerce -- the fusion of ecommerce and social media. His latest project, GuruStorms, is a new brainstorming site that offers access to experts through a new crowdsourcing solution: the curated crowd. With GuruStorms, entrepreneurs and small-to-medium businesses now have access to curated teams of online experts, create a top-tier knowledge base, like a large Fortune 500 company.

GuruStorms was launched at the DEMOFall 2009 conference as an Alpha Pitch company, and is one of 32 innovative tech startups being featured at the 2010 SXSW Interactive Accelerator, the same program that helped launch Twitter and FourSquare.

Edward has spent his career as an e-commerce guru for startups and Fortune 500 companies, as an IT consultant, and now most recently as an entrpreneur in the social media space. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in Physics an Russian. He enjoys composing music, cooking for his family, and soaking up the South Austin scene near his Bouldin Creek bungalow.