By Maureen Aylward

David Dodson is a private investor, Stanford University professor, and founder of Project Healthy Children, a non-profit that works with governments and private industry to establish food fortification programs that improve the health of women and children around the world. Dodson has used the Zintro platform in a number of capacities.

“The first time I used Zintro was during a situation in which I was looking at an investment opportunity. The company I was interested in was about to embark upon a manufacturing relocation project, and I had questions about that move. There were issues, and I needed to talk with someone, but had no idea of who to turn to,” says Dodson. “Then I thought maybe Zintro could help. I went on the site, typed in my question, and very quickly I had about 15 highly qualified professionals who were able to answer my question. I was impressed because my question was esoteric and narrow, but the experts who responded knew how to answer it and gave me thoughtful proposals. I ended up speaking with multiple experts, not just one.”

Dodson used Zintro a second time when he and his team came across a challenge at Project Healthy Children. “We were in the middle of a complex technical project in which we were developing a specialized project that used injected molded plastic with electronics. This product was to be implemented in small mills in the developing world. We had never before developed a product and this was sophisticated technology. We were lost and did not know how to proceed,” remembers Dodson. “I remembered the success I had with Zintro the first time, so I did it again. We were flooded with quality responses. I spoke to multiple experts, as many as six people, to get the information I needed. The experts were extremely helpful and saved us from making mistakes. They helped us move our project forward about six months and that ended up in a savings of tens of thousands of dollars.”

Dodson says that Zintro is like having your own expert panel. “The diversity is important.  I was able to connect with people from all over the world and find the exact information that I needed for each of my challenges,” he says.  “I video chatted with nearly every expert I connected with and used the Zintro platform for communication as well. There really are no barriers to using Zintro, and I found it to be very easy to receive the information I needed.”

Dodson used Zintro on another occasion even when he thought the question he wanted to post was just too narrow of a subject. “I figured that I would post it anyway because I had such great experiences. My very narrow question received 12 responses, which I found amazing because of the specificity of the project. I called several experts and found a successful match to my issues. In all my interactions with Zintro experts, I have met people with whom I will do business again. It was not just a one time thing, and I value their input highly and will use them again,” he says.

Zintro has a big enough data base that you can trust it to deliver on a narrow question, Dodson says, and he encourages clients to go ahead and ask for something specific. “Getting responses from fewer highly qualified experts saves time and gets the right people who help you with your issue.”

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