Audio for this transcript available
Russ: This is a BusinessMakers WebXTRA, a continuation of the radio interview with Bennett Greenspan, founder and CEO of FamilyTreeDNA.com. Bennett, we were just finishing and you were sort of describing your database, and you said you had 220,000 people that have their characteristics as part of your database, and I do know that along the way you've certainly had people that have copied your formula and you have competing businesses. Is there any movement between the companies to share databases?
Bennett: What we've done, Russ, is we've created a free public database that people who test with our company or people who test with other companies can all put their results into for free, so you have to test with someone. Once you've tested with someone, you can put your data into this free collective Website, although I will tell you when you put your data into a free collective Website, anybody can search for you, they can get your email address and that kind of stuff. Also, the FamilyTreeDNA database is much larger than this collective Website because a lot of people are very, very concerned, as we are, about privacy and confidentiality.
Russ: Sure sure, I can understand that. So if somebody wants to keep their genealogy confidential that means that they don't show up as a match to anybody else that came into your company, right?
Bennett: The way our system works is that we have a release form, which means that if you want anyone that you match to see your name and email address, you have to sign the release form so it's opt in. This way you'll get to see your matches and they'll get to see you. They'll get to see you under very, very tight parameters that we have created, so we're not going to let you see someone that you're not nearly related to. You're only going to get to see people that you are related to because our assumption is you're interested in people that you're related to and you're not that interested, genealogically speaking, in people from different countries that your ancestors were never in.
Russ: Right. Okay, so was step number 1 in this venture that you mapped out your genealogy top to bottom?
Bennett: I did but actually, the step 1 was testing my cousin, my reluctant cousin, in California, who initially refused to do a DNA test—and perhaps I should tell you about that—and then the people in Argentina. Argentina was having a terrible depression in 1999 and 2000, so they were just elated to think that they had relatives up here in the good old US of A, but my cousin in California said, "Look, Bennett. I don't know you. You don't know me. We found each other online. I'm a sheriff over here in Culver City, and I know what can be done with DNA. I'm not going to do a DNA test." So obviously, it takes 2 to tango, and I had the people in Argentina who were very excited about working with me. My cousin in California was saying no, so I called him back one day to convince him. Actually, I called him to beg for him to do a DNA test. He was out washing the car, but his lovely wife answered the phone, I explained this to her, she said, "That sounds like a great idea," and I said, "If your husband would only think it sounded like such a great idea." She said, "What did he tell you?" I said, "He told me no." She said, "Bennett, you just send me that DNA kit. He'll do the test." And I said, "How can you be so sure?" at which point she said, "I'm his wife. I can guarantee it." And truly, the rest is history.
Russ: And it was a match, right?
Bennett: And not only did I get the test kit back in a few days, but it was a perfect match, which proved that my cousin in California was related to these people in Argentina, and the Argentineans claimed that they knew that they had relatives who had come to the United States. We didn't know we had relatives there, but our family left Europe before their family did and for some reason, North America wasn't big enough for both families. They could come to the Americas but they had to travel 7,000 miles to end up 5,000 miles from him in California.
Russ: Okay. Were there any other surprises in your genealogy?
Bennett: It's very interesting. My last name is Greenspan and we know when but we don't know where my great-grandfather Greenspan came from, so I have been giving DNA test kits— I know I'm an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs are supposed to make money, but I'm vested in this and so I give a DNA test kit to any man named Greenspan who is willing to do a DNA test kit. I have tested 50 men named Greenspan and yet, the only man that I'm related to with the name Greenspan: my dad, my brother, and my son.
Russ: Wow.
Bennett: I don't match, for example, Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, his real name is Jason Greenspan. I got his brother to test. He doesn't match me. I've tested famous Greenspans or infamous Greenspans out in California. Alan Greenspan—I sent him a DNA test kit and he didn't send it back, so I'm hopeful, but at this point I'm going to have to say yes, I might be related to him because I can't prove otherwise.
Russ: Okay, cool. Well, I've got to tell you and I've already commented that I love hearing you talk about it because you obviously love doing it, but it is a business and from what I can tell, it's a thriving business. Would that be accurate?
Bennett: I think that would be accurate. We're doing somewhere over $10 million a year in DNA testing.
Russ: Nice
Bennett: We're shipping kits all over the world. About 85% of our kits are sold here in the United States, but every day we're shipping kits to England, Scotland, and Ireland. Recently, the Middle East has become very active. We've been shipping kits at the rate of 10 or 20 or 50 kits at a time to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Everyone can play in this game and so we're trying to, in effect, link the whole world together through DNA because all of us, Russ, have a shared common ancestry if we go back far enough.
Russ: Right. Well, is your whole revenue source the DNA test itself or is there sort of an ongoing participation charge for being in your database? I think you already said it's free.
Bennett: No, there is no participation charge. We send out the matching emails whenever 2 people have matches. We don't charge for that, but what we find is that once people get their enthusiasm piqued and their appetite whetted, they keep coming back to us. A man will start looking at his Y chromosome and he'll find it very interesting. He'll decide to upgrade from our initial test to a secondary test or another level of testing, and then he'll decide to look at his mother's DNA line. So we have other products that people can order based on their DNA, but there's no charge for our newsletters, there's no charge for the matching service. It's all absorbed by the cost of testing fees.
Russ: So you mentioned an upgraded DNA test. Is that more than the $129?
Bennett: Yes, the initial test, let's say, is $129 and then if someone wants us to take their already extracted and preserved DNA and look at a greater number of markers, there will probably be a $50 or $60 charge for that. What that will give the individual is it will allow us to then predict more tightly when 2 men with the same last name likely shared a recent common male ancestor.
Russ: Okay.
Bennett: Another whole segment of our business relates to people who were adopted. You know, Adoptees don't know anything about their history and so they might want to know, "Is my mother's mother's mother Native American?" "Are we from Ireland?" "Are we from Scotland?" "Are we from England?" And truly, with the courts sealing all the adoption records, the only way for an adoptee to find out some glimmer of information about his or her past is to do a DNA test. We didn't expect that this would be a market, but after you have a couple people who have found biological family, it makes you a believer.
Russ: Oh, that is so cool. It sounds to me like once you got into business that this business, unlike most start-ups, and I know you have some other start-up experience, just seemed like it grew and got better and better. Did you not run into any of those typical start-up roadblocks and huge challenges?
Bennett: I would say that the only roadblocks and challenges we ran into were in the education of the marketplace because we were working with a marketplace of genealogists. Genealogists aren't people in their 30s or 20s; they're generally people in their 60s and 70s. I was the youngest person at every genealogical convention that I think I've ever been to and that may be yet including this day and so I was trying to teach a new concept, based on biology, to people who hadn't been in school for 50 or 60 years and that was the challenge. But once those folks understood what it could do for them and the time that it could save them, they were just all over it, and it's really been wonderful to see.
Russ: That's cool. Do you have people that actually give testing away as gifts to family members and that sort of thing?
Bennett: I do want to say we kind of treat this as the thinking man's or the thinking woman's Christmas gift, and that's because you may think you know about your ancestry, but until we actually look at the DNA, we don't know for sure, and quite often we can tell you something about your DNA or your history that you didn't personally know.
Russ: Wow. So I assume if we have a listener out there that's totally intrigued with this, all they've got to do is show up at FamilyTreeDNA.com, right?
Bennett: Actually, it's even easier than that. They can go to the Website, they can order online, they can send me an email. I'm bcg@FamilyTreeDNA.com, and I personally answer about 80 or 100 emails a day, but it's a mission of love. I absolutely love what I get to do, and that's why I get up every morning and work until the wife calls and says, "Are you coming home?"
Russ: I've got to tell you it's a great story, and I really appreciate you giving us some of your time.
Bennett: It's my pleasure to be here.
Russ: You bet. We've been speaking with Bennett Greenspan, founder and CEO of FamilyTreeDNA.com, his start-up that he's totally passionate about, and I think he has a whole bunch of happy customers. Thanks a lot, Bennett.
Bennett: Thank you.
Russ: You've been listening to a BusinessMakers WebXTRA, and this is the BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.