10 Questions with upillar.com CEO Trevor Milton

Recently, I was able to sit down and talk with the founder and CEO of upillar.com, Trevor Milton.

RS: First off, WHAT is upillar.com?

TM: upillar.com is a free nationwide online classified website. Items are listed both locally and nationally allowing buyers and sellers to reach the broadest possible audience absolutely free! upillar.com never takes a portion of the sale. We provide our services 100% to the public. Whether you are buying or selling; Motorized vehicles, Clothing, Electronics, Real Estate, or looking for your next job, upillar.com’s free online classifieds are the place to go.

RS: What made you decide to develop upillar.com?

TM: I was going to college trying to make college payments by buying and selling stuff. Nothing was available at the time. The only free services were very cumbersome and difficult to use. I decided the public deserved a place to go where everything was free, and actually easy to use.

RS: Why the name upillar?
TM: The letter “u” signifies “you” or “yourself” , the word “pillar” gives reference to a sign of strength. So you are what makes our free marketplace strong.

 

RS: What is your background? Did you work at an internet company previously?

TM:No internet background whatsver. I ran with this as a dream, and was able to put together the entire site from scratch during 4 1/2 years of development with a whole team of programmers.

RS: What is your vision for the future of upillar.com?

TM:We hope that upillar.com becomes THE place to buy and sell goods for free. With major releases soon coming, upillar.com will offer sections that specifically cater to Real Estate & Jobs. Although you can find those categories in our current classified section, the new release will customize an entire section of our website dedicated to those categories giving some of the biggest names in the internet a run for their money.

RS: What were some of the major obstacles you encountered while starting this site?

TM: Some of our biggest problems were; Name, Trust, Organizing our website, flow(How users click through the website),and credibility. With our newest release coming the first week of December, we hope to improve many areas of our current system.

 

RS: What is on the immediate horizon for upillar?

TM: upillar.com has just signed a major national advertising campaign that will begin the first week of December. We would be happy to tell you more about it once the official releases go out! We anticipate millions of listings in our first quarter of next year.

RS: What sets upillar apart from ebay and Craig’s list?

TM: upillar.com is often referred to as a hybrid of craigslist and ebay at first glance.

upillar.com’s services are completely free like Craigslist.org, but has some major functionality differences between the two. First; when you list an item for sale, the item is placed into a category instead of a city. This enables users to list an item once, and it immediately becomes searchable both on a local level and a national level. Second; You can place up to 20 photos for free on each listing. upillar.com also gives buyers easy access to the seller by providing a safe way to communicate with the seller without giving up personal information.

upillar.com also offers a very powerful keyword search technology that enables users to find what they are looking for in under 30 seconds. This is accomplished by “category narrowization” . Ebay has a great platform where this technology has proven to be valuable. Since upillar.com is a classified website, sellers dont have to worry about monitoring their listings to make sure minimum dollar amounts are met. Just list your item and let it be until someone emails you or calls you.

 

RS: What was the first item sold on upillar?

TM: First item sold on upillar.com was my own personal Sony camera. First public item sold was a purebred Labrador puppy.

RS: Technologically speaking, what was the biggest issue you’ve had thus far?

TM: Biggest problem so far has been our patent pending technology of displaying book values on all our motorized vehicles. Teaming up with NADA guides, upillar.com was able to create the first ever website that shows what each car,boat, motorcyle, or ATV is worth without ever leaving that listing. Need to know if what you are buying is a good deal? You’ll never have to worry about it again on www.upillar.com. We have since figured the technology out and by January first the values will be displayed in each motorized listing. (Values are currently available on upillar.com, but can be somewhat confusing to some users. The fix will come January 1, 2010 for that specific technology.

Check out the site at http://www.upillar.com