“On a large scale, an ad-supported product serves the company that serves ads, but it doesn’t serve you.” With that in mind, Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, IIT alumni and former Google executives, are ready to launch Neeva, an ad-free, private search product that, by mid-year, hopes to offer a paid service and the customer’s alternative in the first place, at a time of growing concerns about the control exercised by technological megaliths.
“The ad model has been great for taking search to everyone on the planet, but over time, there is more and more pressure to show more ads and not exactly what the user wants. Our thesis is that we can create a much better research product, focusing exclusively on the client’s needs ”, says Ramaswamy, the CEO of Neevatalking on a video call from his home in California. This is a domain that the 54-year-old knows well, having been senior vice president of advertising and commerce at Google, and also directed his travel, purchasing and research infrastructure teams.
Raghunathan studied at IIT Mumbai and was vice president of monetization for YouTube.
“So, it’s actually a wide range of experiences. Likewise, Vivek was the first technology leader in what is now called Google Assistant. In fact, we are working on the search for both sides, ”says Ramaswamy, a graduate of IIT Chennai. That’s why they felt “confident enough” to build the technology relatively cheaply, he adds.
With a team of 45 people in the United States, the plan is to launch Neeva in “four and five months”, first in the United States’ 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 supporters,” says Ramaswamy. Neeva has raised $ 37.5 million so far, with equal investments from Greylock, Sequoia Capital and Ramaswamy himself.
The product will be different from what people are used to, offering a single window for searching and querying personal data on services like Dropbox and email accounts, says Ramaswamy. “We have to rethink central technology. And at some level, things like how you crawl the web, how you index the basics are similar, ”he says. Like Google, Neeva will also use AI and machine learning to create the secret sauce – search rankings.
Regarding the concerns that may arise in relation to personal data, Ramaswamy says: “We guarantee that the product and the company are designed in such a way that personal data is indexed to serve its results and for nothing else … We are creating a company that, from the beginning, is a first customer and only a customer. We are very adamant in ensuring that this is the only source of revenue. “
A blog on Neeva also reiterates its commitment to be ad-free, guarantees that “your data will never be sold in any way” and promises that your search history will be deleted by default after 90 days. (Google’s default is 18 months.)
Having spent 16 years at Google, Ramaswamy says he has come to believe that “it is not healthy” to have large technology platforms with so much control. “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 a choice. “And giving that choice 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, Ramaswamy says, for him that is the motivation. He cites the example of services like Spotify and Dropbox, which have been successful in segments where there was no shortage of free options, and hopes that Neeva will also force its competitors to reduce ads. “… You can’t say now, I’ll show you a page full of ads … Users will opt for a paid option, because too much is too much.”
Ramswamy adds: “We are sure that a certain segment of the population will see value in a superior product. And, especially in the current environment of concern, about how big and influential technology companies are, we feel that we can have enough people who say ‘I just want a simple alternative, a service that I use and pay for’. And that is it, there is no more concern for the data, no more concern for what else is happening. “