Our story

I cut hair by day. I built a search engine at night.

My name is Joseph DiFilippo. This is how ALGR started, in my own words.

Chapter 1. The bench

I slept on a bench to get here.

I sacrificed, and I worked my way all the way up. I am not telling you that so you feel sorry for me.

I am telling you so you know I do not quit.

Today I cut hair in downtown Los Angeles. I am behind the chair every day.

Nobody in LA is from LA.

Everybody came here from somewhere else to act, to make music, to make something.

Those people talk to other people.

At night I built my first search engine. I called it TOW$.

It started as a lead engine.

You put a lead in, and a business that needs it picks it up.

Then I connected xAI, so people could ask anything, make images and write code right in the search box.

I handed out flyers, left and right.

59,000 new visitors a week

In a little over four months, TOW$ was getting 59,000 new visitors a week.

People in California. People in New York. About 3,500 people from China and Saudi Arabia.

People are really sick of Google.

Then, this week, it stopped.

My registrar parked my domain.

My links stopped going through in direct messages.

I am preparing a lawsuit, and that is all I will say about it here.

I am not panicking. Life is good.

But nobody is stopping my dream.

So I am building it again, bigger and better, with a better name.

ALGR. Say it like algorithm.

That is the whole idea.

Joseph DiFilippo, founder

See the vision Try a search

Written from our call on October 1, 2026. Joseph, change any word you want.