Fuel Price Site Started By Dudley Friends
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A screenshot of Fuelstart.com, which was started by two Dudley residents earlier this year.
Last year Ryan Finlay and Carlo Vivenzio bought houses next to each other in Dudley and found they didn’t know much about the heating options open for their homes.
Their resulting hunt for oil and propane prices and companies, solar heating systems and wood pellet stoves was somewhat frustrating.
“There was no one place that combined all that information,” Finlay said.
Online Upstarts
So the two IT guys created Fuelstart.com, where consumers can look up oil prices at different companies, and oil companies can list their prices, as well as other fuels. And it’s free for both consumers and companies listing prices.
They have already sold advertising to a couple of oil companies and have a devoted handful of users that help find fuel prices and enter them into the site, Finlay said.
They launched the web site in March, and so far they’ve raised enough money through the ads and the low cost web sites they offer companies to pay for the operation of the web site, Finlay said.
“We both work full-time so we work on [Fuelstart] part-time when we get home from work,” he said.
The site also features forums for users to talk about fuel prices, but also about alternative heating methods, greener heating methods and dealer announcements.
In part, the fuel prices forum also serves as an outlet for people to complain about oil prices and whether locking in home oil prices is worthwhile. And there’s been a lot to discuss given the recent drop in prices.
“We want it to be a user-friendly, one-stop shop for fuel, but we want to build a community as well,” Finlay said. “We have a lot of users that are really getting involved and who help answer questions and post oil prices.”
Finlay and Vivenzio hope the web site will make enough revenue to let them hire a person to work on marketing and return phone calls.
The Street.com, an investment web site, mentioned the site in a story about fuel prices calling it “well-intentioned but imperfect,” probably because it is trying to tackle gathering prices for all areas of the country but the data for some areas is scant or non-existent.
Microsoft has singled out Finlay and Vivenzio because it uses the software giant’s Ajax product to run the site.
WBJ Web Partners
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