Welcome to MeritScore: Where Great Local Businesses Finally Get Found

The story of why we built Arizona's first merit-based business ranking platform – and how you can help

February 15, 2024

Hello, Arizona!

I'm John, and if you live in Eastmark or anywhere in Queen Creek, we might have crossed paths at Barney's, grabbed coffee at Press, or waved at the school pickup line. I've called this community home for the past 8 years with my wife and two kids.

Today, I'm excited to share something I've been building for our community – something born from frustration, refined through experience, and designed to solve a problem we all face.

Welcome to MeritScore, Arizona's first business ranking platform where great service earns top spots, not big marketing budgets.

The Problem We're Solving

How many times this month have you seen a post like this in your neighborhood Facebook group?

"Looking for a good plumber – GO!"

"Need AC repair ASAP – who do you recommend?"

"Anyone know a reliable contractor?"

If you're like most of us, you see these posts weekly. Neighbors helping neighbors, sharing their experiences, warning about bad actors, celebrating the heroes.

But here's what drives me crazy: all that valuable wisdom vanishes into the Facebook void within days.

Meanwhile, when you actually Google "plumber near me," you get:

• Whoever paid the most for ads (usually $300 per click!)

• Companies that gamed their reviews

• The same big chains that spend fortunes on marketing

• But rarely the local hero your neighbor swears by

The best businesses in our community – the ones with 20 years of neighbor trust – are invisible online because they're too busy doing great work to play marketing games.

What MeritScore Does Differently

We're building something radically simple:

🏆 Rankings You Can Trust

Our MeritScore AI analyzes real customer experiences to rank businesses based on actual service quality. You can't buy your way to the top. Period.

🏘️ Powered by Your Neighbors

Every recommendation from our community makes the rankings smarter. That contractor who saved your neighbor's basement? They'll finally be visible where they belong.

💰 Fair for Businesses

Instead of charging contractors $100+ per lead (looking at you, Angi), we offer simple, affordable tiers that any local business can afford. The playing field is finally level.

🎯 Actually Useful Results

Find exactly what you need: emergency services, best value, highest quality, most trusted by locals. No more scrolling through ads to find real businesses.

Why I'm Building This (The Personal Part)

Last year, our house caught fire.

Over the following months, we worked with 37 different contractors to rebuild. The experience taught me something profound: the correlation between online visibility and actual quality is completely broken.

The contractors who literally saved our family – who showed up at 6 AM, who worked weekends without asking, who charged fair prices – these heroes were buried on page 4 of Google. Meanwhile, mediocre companies with big marketing budgets dominated the results.

I started keeping detailed notes. Building spreadsheets. Screenshotting every Facebook recommendation. I became obsessed with the question: Why can't the best businesses win?

That's when MeritScore was born.

What Makes Us Different

We're not another Silicon Valley platform trying to extract value from local communities.

We're not venture-funded with pressure to squeeze every dollar from small businesses.

We are:

• Built by your neighbor who understands the problem firsthand

• Focused solely on Arizona communities (starting with ours)

• Committed to transparency in how rankings work

• Dedicated to helping great local businesses thrive

Here's What's Coming

Over the next few weeks, we'll be:

📍 Week 1: Sharing the full fire story and what we learned about finding quality contractors

📊 Week 2: Revealing data about the "recommendation chaos" in local Facebook groups (spoiler: it's worse than you think)

🚀 Week 3: Launching our first rankings for Eastmark and Queen Creek

🎓 Week 4: Teaching local businesses how to get found online (for free)

How You Can Help Shape This

MeritScore will only work if it truly serves our community. That's why we need you.

For Neighbors:

• Share your experiences with local businesses (good and bad)

• Tell us what you want in a local business platform

• Be among our first 100 "Founding Neighbors" with lifetime benefits

• Help spread the word to build something genuinely useful

For Local Business Owners:

• Claim your free profile (no strings attached)

• Share your story and what makes you different

• Help us understand your challenges with current platforms

• Join us in creating a fairer system for everyone

For Our Community Champions:

• Those of you who already answer every "looking for..." post

• Your knowledge is gold – help us make it permanent

• Become a verified reviewer with special recognition

• Shape the categories and features that matter most

This is Just the Beginning

I believe every community deserves a place where:

• Great businesses get recognized for great work

• Neighbors can easily find who to trust

• Local heroes aren't buried under corporate marketing budgets

• The playing field is finally, truly level

MeritScore isn't just another business directory. It's our community's answer to a broken system.

Join Us on This Journey

Whether you're:

• A neighbor tired of asking the same questions

• A business owner frustrated with pay-to-play platforms

• Someone who believes local businesses deserve better

• Or just curious about what we're building

Welcome to MeritScore. Let's fix this together.

---

Stay Connected

📧 Get Updates: Join our newsletter for weekly insights and launch updates

[Subscribe Here]

💬 Join the Conversation: Follow our Facebook page for daily discussions

[Facebook.com/MeritScoreAZ]

🤝 Become a Founding Member: Be among the first 100 to shape what we build

[Join as Founding Neighbor]

📍 Business Owners: Claim your free profile today

[Claim Your Business]

---

Questions? Ideas? Want to grab coffee and chat about this? Reach out anytime at john@meritscore.ai or catch me at school pickup. I'm the guy always talking about supporting local businesses.

Here's to building something that actually helps our community.

– John

Founder, MeritScore

Your Eastmark Neighbor

P.S. – If you've ever recommended a business in a Facebook group, you're already part of the solution. Now let's make those recommendations permanent and useful for everyone.