Featured Startup: BestQuote

Lifelong entrepreneur heads new startup

He’s been interested in startups since middle school.

Jeff Wraley’s very first foray into the world of entrepreneurship involved harvesting pachysandra in middle school. That effort evolved into a full-fledged landscaping business in high school.

“I have ideas all the time and sometimes too many ideas,” Wraley said.

After helping a few friends with their startups as well as working for a boutique startup consulting firm, Wraley decided to make the plunge.

“I guess I have always been working toward an entrepreneurial endeavor,” he said.

Wraley has a construction engineering degree from Purdue and worked in general contracting for many years. He landed on the idea for BestQuote when he was remodeling his house in the Village last year.

“I realized there’s a huge time waste in the quoting process,” he said.

BestQuote is a lead qualification technology for home-service contractors. It helps contractors qualify their leads and save time in the quoting process. The main goal is to increase the contract conversion rate of site visits.

So, for example, if you are looking to renovate your bathroom, you would send all the necessary information to a contractor and they would provide a rough estimate before even coming to your house.

Not only would it save contractor’s time but also homeowners. Wraley mentioned how homeowners are becoming less and less accustomed to door knocks and phone calls.

“It’s an interesting shift and I’m hoping to capitalize on that from the consumer side as well as the business side,” he said.

Wraley said one of the most rewarding parts with this startup compared to his previous endeavors is that he feels more in-touch with the problem.

“A lot of it is having a totally different approach – agnostic to ideas and following opportunities,” he said.

There is one main thing he has learned in the entrepreneurial world.

“I have come to realize you can come up with a great idea with great branding and a great story – you can have all those ideas but nothing else really matters until you have a customer that writes a check,” he concluded.

Wraley moved with his wife and children to Zionsville last year after 10 years in Virginia.

“zWORKS has been great because you can talk to other people in the same boat and other people who know a lot and are willing to meet for coffee,” he said.

For more info, head to the BestQuote website or email Jeff at jeff@bestquoteapp.com.

Getting to know Jeff…

  • He has checked off a marathon from his bucket list.
  • Jeff sang in front of George W. Bush as a member of the Royalaires at ZCHS.