Our Investment in Operator

Today from my smartphone I can talk to my friends and coworkers in so many ways — calling, texting, snapping, messengering, tweeting, slacking, and more. But if I want to talk to a business nearby, I usually have just one option — find their phone number and call them.

Robin Chan and Garrett Camp have a plan to change this with their new app Operator. They want to make it just as easy to talk to businesses around us as we can talk to our friends. A text message can be better and faster, and asynchronous. It should be easy to share a picture of what you are looking for. If you want to buy something, it should be easier and safer than reading your credit card out loud every time.

When Robin and Garrett first showed me what they were working on, I knew I wanted to be involved. At Greylock, we look for ideas that can become large networks and platforms, connecting millions and millions of people. Just as consumer to consumer messaging (C2C) has been reinvented, we think it’s time for consumer to business messaging (C2B) to evolve. As Operator builds out their request network, we believe they can map out an important commercial graph that sits alongside our social graphs.

We are excited to lead the Series A, partnering with Garrett and Expa. I’m personally thrilled to join the board and support Robin and the very talented Operator team to achieve this mission to make commerce conversational again.

Operator is rolling out to users starting today. When you make a request on the app, it will route you to a person who can help you make a decision — either someone who works at the right store, or an operator who can help connect you to the right product and purchase it directly. Operator brings back the convenience of telephone operators from a century ago who helped route your call to the right place, right away.

Sign up for the beta waitlist and get notified as soon as Operator is ready to help you find what you are looking for.