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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., January 19, 2018 – BRR Inc. (Bizratereview.com) announced today that it has agreed to acquire Top Twenty, the consumer media company for people to find, rate and review businesses through a Web experience, for an undisclosed amount. Following the acquisition, Top Twenty will operate independently to preserve its successful brand.

The acquisition combines one of the fastest growing online business directory communities with BRR’s expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users, and will offer new opportunities for businesses to advertise their services to reach a vast new audience.

“The Top Twenty team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements BRR’s mission to organize the world’s business information,” said Jonathan Cole, Chief Executive Officer of BRR. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience.”

“Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people find businesses and services in South Africa. We have developed exciting new technology models that organise large volumes of business data. By joining forces with BRR, Top Twenty can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners,” said Marthinus Strydom, CEO of Ingaro (Pty) Ltd, the owner of Top Twenty. “I’m confident that with this partnership Top Twenty will have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue their goal of building the next-generation business platform. We are very excited that our locally developed innovation has been noticed internationally.”

Top Twenty will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing BRR’s own fast-growing directory services investments. Top Twenty and the UAE team from BRR will move to Cape Town during the first quarter of 2018. All Top Twenty employees will remain with the company. With BRR’s technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, Top Twenty will continue to build on its success as one of the fastest growing directory services in South Africa, expanding to the rest of Africa and then globally.

About BRR Inc.

BRR’s innovative directory and advertising technology investments connect millions of people around the world with information every day. BRR’s targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users. BRR is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia and the UAE.

About Top Twenty

Founded in December 2015, Top Twenty is a consumer focussed company for people to find, rate and review businesses and services in South Africa. Operating mainly in the Western Cape, Top Twenty has grown rapidly to become the fastest growing business directory service in South Africa with enormous global growth potential. The proof-of-concept technology was developed in Stilbaai in the Southern Cape and organically expanded into the region. The innovative technology developed by this South African start up is internationally competitive, scalable and ready for the global stage.

Press Contacts:

BRR Media:
Arnold Shim
press@bizratereview.com

Ingaro (Pty) Ltd. (Top Twenty):
Marthinus Strydom
press@toptwenty.co.za

Good businesses do more to promote tourism in a small town than anyone else. Bad businesses destroy tourism.

Let me sketch a scenario for you. Joe saves the entire year for a holiday and decides to visit your town during the holidays. He arrives with his family full of excitement and anticipation. Before Joe decided to come to your town he researched a number of other options. He spoke to his friends and family and he asked Google as well.

So Joe decided that your town is the place where he will spend his hard earned cash. While on holiday Joe decides to take his family for breakfast. He drives around town and decides to go to Mary’s Coffee Shop. It looks nice and cozy and there are lots of people having breakfast. In no time the expectation of a great family breakfast turns into a disaster. The food is bad. The coffee is terrible and the staff have a serious attitude problem. Clearly Mary has no intention of servicing or keeping customers. What Joe didn’t know is that Mary has never run a coffee shop and doesn’t know a thing about making a good cup of coffee. Mary thought that it will be romantic to own her own coffee shop, but Mary shouldn’t own a coffee shop, ever.

This all sound too familiar don’t you think? It gets worse, because Joe has a number of these really bad experiences in your little town. There are more than 30 coffee shops and restaurants in your town and they all complain that business is bad. They seldom seem to survive past the holiday season. The next season there is another coffee shop that opens where Mary’s Coffee Shop used to be. And so the cycle continues.

What has happened here? In the first place, Joe went home feeling that he has been robbed of his idyllic holiday. The entire experience has left a bad taste in his mouth because of the bad service he received. He tells his friends and his family and instead of your little town turning Joe into a prophet, you have turned him into a terrorist. He is going around telling everyone he knows how bad your town actually is. So Joe never comes back because Joe has many, many choices. Why on earth will he come back to a place where the service is so poor?

In the meantime the towns business chamber hear about these things all the time but instead of acting, they turn a blind eye. Why? Because it’s not in the interest of the business chamber to expose businesses. The chamber collects membership fees and they won’t collect as much if they chase their customers away! So, these bad experiences are carefully swept under the carpet. Everyone in the little town knows that the emperor has no clothes, but they say and do nothing.

Top Twenty changes all that. Joe will in future search on Top Twenty for a place to eat breakfast and he will find those with the high ratings. He finds Susan’s Coffee Shop just off the main street. Susan is passionate about her business and loves serving customers. She has a high rating and many positive reviews. Now Susan gets all the business and the bad coffee shops get nothing. What happens? They don’t survive and some of them close down – for good reason. They shouldn’t have been in business in the first place. Susan on the other hand is starting to make good money and is steadily growing her business.

Bad businesses are everywhere, but in small towns they can cause enormous damage to the tourism industry of a town. Top Twenty ensures that good businesses are rewarded for good service.

Marthinus Strydom, President of Toptwenty shares his special knowledge and insights about rural tourism on his blog at www.toptwenty.co.za. Top Twenty assists small towns and their businesses in the development and marketing of their local business communities.