G2 Crowd Could Spell the End of the Magic Quadrant

Andrew Cross Mar 5, 2013 Tweet

With hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs milling around at Built in Chicago’s monthly Launch events, it can be tough to pick anyone out of the crowd. The team at G2 Crowd, the first of five presenters at the February pitch event, made sure that wasn’t the case, with matching red track jackets that sported the word “Gartner” within a red circle with a line through it near the lapel.

It was a public statement that speaks to G2 Crowd’s primary goal of simplifying the process of vetting and purchasing enterprise software products by making necessary information readily available. Premium research packages start at $99, making the data significantly more affordable for the masses than traditional analyst research.

User reviews, combined with a product’s level of adoption, comprise a score referred to as the G2 Product Rating, whereas the G2 Vendor Strength Score is a result of the particular vendor’s momentum, scale and resources. Both scores are plotted on a Magic Quadrant-esque axis to make for an easy visual interpretation of a given product relative to its competitors.

Despite being relatively new – the site is still in beta and launched early in 2013 – G2 Crowd boasts hundreds of active users.

Users earn points for reviewing products in a number of categories, including CRM and E-Commerce, Business Intelligence, IT Security, and Professional Services. Through contests, enough points can earn you an Amazon gift card or even an iPad Mini. To maintain content quality, users are required to log in through their LinkedIn profiles.

Vendors also have the opportunity to submit their products for inclusion in the G2 Crowd database.

G2 Crowd is bootstrapped with $2 million from company founders Godard Abel, Matt Gorniak, Mark Myers, and Tim Handorf of BigMachines, and Mike Wheeler of TapJoy.

To learn more, visit the G2 Crowd website.