After a long wait you can view where all the Seattle Startups Rank on the September
Seattle Startup Index.
For the third time, we are changing the way we compute the rank. Before we average the Alexa and Compete rank to get the SSI Rank of a company, but that has proven to be problematic because Alexa and Compete have their own set of issues. Now we are computing the SSI Reach, which is the estimated number of unique visitors a site gets each month, based on some nasty normalization of Alexa and Compete reach data.
Do you remember we used to rank websites? Well, now we rank Startups. So, many of the startups that have multiple websites will benefit of this new ranking, like Robot Co-Op, Jackson Fish Market, Pet Holdings and others. Although, you can still view the website rankings by clicking on "View By Website".
This month we won't be mentioning ups and downs because we changed the way we compute the ranking, and there would be too much change. But it's worth noting the top 10 companies on the list: Zillow, iLike, Robot Co-Op, Pet Holdings, BuddyTV, Picnik, Wetpaint, Smilebox, ActiveRain and PayScale.
Over the next few months we'll also be trimming down the list. A lot of people have requested that we only rank "real startups" as opposed to "hobby website". Let's face it, 1/3 of the companies on the list are not real companies. They won't raise money, they won't be acquired, they won't have employees and the founder spent just a few hundred hours putting it together. We do want to showcase all the great websites by the smart people of Seattle, but that has to be on a separate list.
And just to remind everyone, this list continues to suck for companies that build Widgets, or that have a Facebook application, or that are not web-based consumer company. It also doesn't measure the value of company by any means. Each unique visitor on Redfin (#20) is certainly well more valuable than each visitor to Zillow (#1) simply because Redfin is doing transactions of tens of thousands of dollars, while Zillow is advertising based.