One question kept coming up: “Why would I ever want to write a review?” This grew into the million dollar question. How could we build Yelp’s foundation of real and authentic reviews and opinions — from actual everyday people — without paying them?

For people to get behind something, they have to believe in it as if it was their own creation.

Yelp had to stand for something, and just as importantly, it had to stand against something. Like we said: real people, real reviews.

in order to be truly authentic, money could not sway the incentive.

Bringing humanity to Yelp would become the secret sauce of Yelp’s slow-growth engine. Yelpers interacting IRL would pump up each other’s tastes and insights.

in the early stages of each city Yelp launched into, we want to emphasize a sense of belonging and purpose that was qualitative and not necessarily that quantifiable.

In the beginning our goal was to identify the heavy lifters on Yelp as the tastemakers in San Francisco. Our theory was that we’d be better off finding and nurturing 100 super reviewers than 1000 average ones.

These Elites had to feel like royalty, or mayors in a more city-centric sense. We wanted to convey that great businesses were built by the people, for the people. And the place for that to happen was Yelp.

By adding faces to fellow members and the businesses themselves, we were building loyalty and connectivity.