Yonatan Stern emphasizes that the core value of companies like ZoomInfo or CardScan lies in letting users run queries against unique, structured databases to find previously inaccessible information. In recruiting or sales, this allows customers to generate lists of specific candidates or prospects efficiently. In SEO, database rows represent entities (people, companies, addresses), columns represent attributes or content, and queries can automatically generate millions of targeted web pages to capture long-tail search traffic.
Operationally, databases are populated through crawling, scraping, robotic automation, and manual or hybrid entry, with enrichment via attributes to enable sophisticated filtering and identification of Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). The query itself becomes a product feature, turning structured data into actionable business insights.
