It’s never been easier to start a business with no capital at all. It’s also never been easier to raise millions of dollars for an idea. But what about the businesses that fall somewhere in-between? Whether you’re opening a restaurant, salon, dental office, or auto shop, you’re probably going to need outside financing. There are plenty of options, but a lot of them are very unfriendly to the business owner. The Business Backer is a Cincinnati, OH based company that “is helping small business owners flourish and grow by re-inventing relationship-based lending for the 21st century.” The company is built on the idea of True Relationship Financing, which a unique underwriting process that evaluates risk and customizes a deal in a way that is very different from most other financial institutions.
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Being the CEO–even of a tiny business like mine–is hard. You have to either be aware of everything that is happening or trust other people to be aware of everything that is happening. Even if you have a team that you can trust, you want to be able to keep tabs on them in the most efficient way possible. That’s what Domo is all about. They’re an American Fork, UT based company that “transforms the way executives manage their business and drives value from the tens of billions of dollars that’s been spent on traditional business intelligence systems.” They pull all of the important data from every important source and put it in one intuitive platform.
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If you’ve watched The Office at all, you know that the office supply industry is not only mind-numbingly boring, but it’s also dying a slow, painful death. And if you pay attention to the news, you know that Detroit is a dying city with nothing good going on. So what if I told you that there is an office supply startup based in Detroit, MI that is anything but boring and growing rapidly? Their name is Chalkfly, and they provide “the supplies you need to do your best work.” There are a lot of narratives working against Chalkfly, but they’re just narratives. Results are what matter, and Chalkfly already claims brands like Foursquare, Moosejaw and Etsy as clients.
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Yesterday we took a look at an online marketing company. Today we’re going to do the same. While today’s company offers many of the same services, the difference is that they tend to work with larger, national clients. This may seem like a small distinction, but the level of competition can make it seem like a different business. WPromote is an El Segundo, CA based company that calls itself “the country’s leading Online Marketing firm, delivering incredible results for [its] Search Engine Optimization, PPC Management and Social Media clients.” That’s big talk, but they must be living up to it if companies like Toyota, Ford, TOMS, Tumi, and Southern New Hampshire University are hiring them to do their online marketing.
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Online marketing seems to keep getting more complex. Now that every big brand is throwing money at every marketing platform they can, it’s getting a lot harder to drive results. What used to be something that a lot of companies could do themselves now requires an agency. One such agency is OneIMS. They’re a Skokie, IL based company that offers “everything from services like branding and web design to online marketing strategies like SEO and PPC.” Their clients range from small local business to national brands with e-commerce companies falling somewhere in the middle.
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If you’ve been looking for a job for any amount of time, you’ve probably interacted with dozens of applicant tracking systems. In case you’re not aware, they’re the software that companies use to post jobs and… track applicants. A lot of them suck for the end user (you), but a few offer pretty good experiences. One of the better ones is The Resumator. They’re a Pittsburgh, PA and San Francisco, CA based company that helps “great people build great companies” by bringing “talented professionals and compelling companies together.”
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I have a soft spot for Detroit, the entire state of Michigan, and Vernor’s Ginger Ale. My Dad’s entire family is from the Detroit area (including a former mayor going way back), but now I only have one Great Aunt still living there. The city has obviously seen better times, but I’m hoping that it will find its way again. So is Team Detroit. It’s an ad agency that in 2006 brought together parts of five legendary agencies that were under the same ownership (JWT, Y&R, Ogilvy, Wunderman, and Mindshare) and already working with Ford. Oddly enough, Team Detroit is actually based in Dearborn, MI, but I don’t think that should take away any street creed. They’ve been winning new clients and getting lots of accolades, so it sounds like they’re a winning team.
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As I mentioned earlier in the week, media and advertising are all about demographics. Unless you have the targeting capabilities of a Facebook or Google, it’s almost always better to build your properties targeted at a specific group. For SheKnows it’s all about women. They are a Scottsdale, AZ based company that has built a “women’s lifestyle media platform” that “allows brands to distribute authentic content and integrated advertising at scale.” What kind of scale? 40 million unique visitors per month. That’s a lot.
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Most media businesses are about advertising, and most advertising is about demographics. That’s why a lot of media companies focus on owning a portfolio of properties that cater to similar demographics. For Radio One the focus is on targeting African-American and urban consumers. The company is headquartered in Lanham, MD, but they have stations and offices all across the country. If your music tastes are similar to mine, there’s a good chance that you are familiar with one of Radio One’s properties.
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I haven’t worked in a real office since my internships during college, but that office had a great cafeteria. The food was always pretty good, and the view was spectacular. The chef also made really great cookies in the afternoons. A lot of companies aren’t big enough to have a cafeteria, but they still want to offer in-house food options for their employees. That can be a huge hassle, but not with Cater2.me. They are a San Francisco, CA based company that “was founded with the goal of connecting inspired kitchens with the masses.” A lot of companies have complicated systems for ordering food in. Cater2.me does all of the administrative stuff so that employees stay well fed and productive.
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You can do almost anything with someone else’s money–build a house, buy a car, go to school, shop ’til you drop, start a business, etc. Sometimes it’s a good idea, and sometimes it’s a really bad idea. One of the smartest times to borrow money is for upfront business expenses that will pay back over time. This is the kind of lending that Balboa Capital does. They’re an Irvine, CA based company that “has been providing equipment leasing and working capital loans to US businesses for over two decades.” They are in the business of keeping other businesses in business.
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I often find that the best ad agencies have websites with very few words on them. Instead of telling you how great they are, they show you. That’s what they do for their clients, so they should be doing it for themselves as well. A perfect example is Innerspin. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based agency that “is focused on growing global brands through effective brand building and digital capabilities” (those are about half of the words on their site right there). Apparently they won Season 2 of The Pitch on AMC, so they must be pretty good.
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The key to effective marketing and advertising is distilling a brand, product, or service into a simple message that the target customers can relate to. For some products that’s really easy, but there are plenty of markets where it gets really complicated–like healthcare and life sciences. If you’re a business in one of those industries, you can’t hire just any advertising agency. You need people who understand science but still excel at marketing… the kind of people who work at HDMZ. HDMZ is a Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA based healthcare and life science marketing agency. They’ve been around since 1936, but they’ve kept up with the times by excelling at understanding their clients’ businesses.
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I live in the third biggest city in the country, yet I often feel like there’s nothing to do. Part of that is because most of the things that I like to do are outdoorsy and Chicago isn’t the best city for people like me, but most of it is because I’m not aware of all the cool things happening around me. There seem to be a million startups that have tried to solve this problem, and none have really succeeded yet. Maybe UpOut will change that. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that “is changing how locals discover unique events in their city.” They do this by pulling in event calendars from a variety of sources and curating the list to only show the most interesting ones.
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I always enjoy when two people with moderately funny last names decide to get married. There’s always the question of will they combine their names with a hyphen? The best potential that I’ve ever heard of was Weiner-Butt, but the couple sadly did not decide to hyphenate. These funny combos can also be created by business partners. Imagine that a guy with a not very funny last name of Wong and a guy with a pretty funny last name of Doody decided to start an ad agency. They could try to invent some random brand name that doesn’t say much about who they are, or they could smash their identities together and start WONGDOODY (the company logo is equally smashed together). The agency is based in Seattle, WA and “is the most awarded independent advertising agency on the West Coast.” They’re relatively small, but they’re doing some serious work.
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When online video really started taking off, a ton of companies went to work figuring out how to monetize all of the new content. Most were focused on advertising, and they generally seemed to converge on the pre-roll ad as the most effective (and possibly most annoying) format. For every type of media, advertisers will try to find a way to use it to get their messages noticed; however, images seem to have been largely ignored even though they’re a huge part of the Internet. Sure, a lot of companies have put ads alongside images, but Luminate is putting them in the actual images. The Mountain View, CA based company has had a lot of success with this format considering that they are “serving more than 180 million users and over 6 billion image views each month.”
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You’ve probably looked at thousands of ads already today, but chances are that you haven’t thought about how they got in front of you. Behind all of those ads is a group of people who made a complicated set of decisions to get that specific message to you in a specific place at a specific time. Managing those kinds of decisions at scale is really hard. Centro makes it easier. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that works “to improve the lives of those working in the advertising industry by building media management software that helps marketers engage with audiences across all digital channels in the most successful manner possible.” The goal is put all of the options in one place so that advertisers can make the best decisions for themselves or for clients.
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Have you ever thought that you accidentally liked something on Facebook because a post suddenly showed up in your feed from a site that you recently visited? It’s creepy, right? It’s called retargeting, and it’s amazingly effective. For at least the last few years, advertisers have been tracking your movement around the web and showing you ads based on where you’ve visited. Taking to Facebook was the obvious next step, and that’s the specialty of Triggit. They are a San Francisco, CA based company that “enables advertisers and agencies to build, run, measure, and optimize retargeting-driven display campaigns from a single platform.”
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We all have a story to tell, but sometimes it’s better to let someone else tell it for us. That’s why so many brands use marketing and advertising agencies. Not only are they professional storytellers, but they are also able to offer an outside perspective (at least at first). Haberman is a Minneapolis, MN based agency that calls itself “modern storytellers for pioneers.” This means “creating integrated marketing programs in partnership with the leading entrepreneurs, innovators, healers and heroes of our day to help their companies and organizations grow and succeed.” I guess Haberman is a bit picky about the kinds of stories that they tell.
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Travel decisions are almost always open to outside influence. If you know where you’re going, you may need help figuring out how to get there or what to do once you get there. If you don’t know where you want to go, the possibilities are truly endless. That’s why marketers love the travel market (it helps that travelers are often exceedingly willing to spend money to travel). Just like in every other industry, marketers in the travel space are getting much more sophisticated. Sojern is a San Francisco, CA based company that is leading that trend. They have developed a “robust audience engagement platform [that] is powered by machine-learning technology, enhanced programmatic buying (real-time bidding), and data insights.” The goal is to engage travelers and affect their decision-making process, and it seems to be working.
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It’s Tax Day! I’ve always done my own taxes, but Amy has always worked with an accountant. Since we’re filing jointly this year, we went with the accountant–and he saved us a good amount of money. Doing my own taxes was easy because I have a pretty solid system for tracking all of my business’ financial transactions (and I have a pretty simple business). When things get a little more complicated, software is usually the answer, but most software is built for individuals or huge businesses. inDinero is a San Francisco, CA based company that fills the middle ground. They are a virtual back office, which means that they’ll “take care of your accounting, file your corporate tax returns, and manage your payroll.” It’s exactly what I would want if my company was a little bigger.
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Apparently a guy named Asa Candler invented the coupon in 1887. He was one of the founders of Coca-Cola, and it was his marketing tactics that put the brand on the path to where it is today. Coupons are ingenious for two reasons. First, they influence people to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do. Second, they allow companies to track the success of different marketing strategies and tactics. Here’s a simplistic, old school example. A company runs the same coupon in two competing local newspapers for the same cost. One gets twice as many redemptions. The company now knows where to spend their ad dollars. RevTrax is a New York, NY based company that is taking a more modern approach to using coupons to track customer behavior.
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Last night Amy was bragging to me about how popular one of her pins on Pinterest has been. Apparently she was the first to pin something repinned by thousands. Pinterest always struck me as having far more commercial potential than most other social media sites (LinkedIn being the biggest exception). Yet most of the software developed for marketing on social media sites seems to be focused on Facebook and LinkedIn. Ahalogy is a Cincinnati, OH based company that is “pioneering the science of discovery on Pinterest.” It’s not “some do-it-yourself suite.” Instead it’s “a marketing service, powered by [their] network and technology, and paid for performance.”
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Every time that Amy and I move (four times over the last six years), we say that we’re going to do a great job setting up our new place. When we move to the next place, we end up repacking the framed pictures that we never got around to hanging on the wall. Interior design isn’t our strongpoint. Next time we move, we’ll have to use Houzz for inspiration. They’re a Palo Alto, CA based company that offers “a collaborative platform for home remodeling and design, bringing homeowners and home professionals together in a uniquely visual community.” It’s kind of like Pinterest, but only for home design and decor.
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A few days ago we looked at a company called Groundspeak that uses GPS data to “to make everyone an explorer and to put an adventure in every location.” There are lots of other ways to use location data, and an obvious one is advertising. It used to be that you knew an ad would target a specific locale because it was on a billboard or a local radio station. Today it’s possible to advertise to people all over the planet with a few mouse clicks, but what if you want use where they are to your advantage? xAd is a New York, NY based company that allows advertisers to pinpoint “target audiences at pivotal moments during the consumer’s decision-making journey.” It’s a kind of targeting that seems to get far less attention than it should.
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Right now I have a shot at winning $1 billion. My bracket is 100% correct… though no games have been finished yet. In case you haven’t heard, Quicken Loans has put up that amount for anyone who gets a perfect bracket (and Warren Buffet backed it with one of his insurance businesses). It sounds like March Madness until you crunch the numbers. There is essentially zero chance that someone will win the prize, yet millions of people entered… and shared their information with Quicken Loans. That’s exactly why the Detroit, MI based company sponsored the contest. New leads are the lifeblood of a mortgage business, even if you’re already the “#1 online retail lender.”
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When a group of people or businesses have a shared interest, they often form an association. Even in extremely competitive markets, it can make sense to come together and work towards common goals. As a result, there’s an association for nearly every possible interest. The problem with associations is that they can be hard to manage–administration can drain a lot of resources. Why should every association build its own management structure when that can be outsourced? Kellen Company is “an employee-owned professional services company serving associations, companies and foundations” with offices in Atlanta, GA; New York, NY; Denver, CO; Chicago, IL; and Washington, D.C. They provide essential services so that associations can focus on the important stuff.
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Ordering food over the phone has always caused me anxiety, so when a site called CampusFood.com offered free food for my first online order, I jumped. I haven’t turned back. Online ordering is pretty much the best thing ever in my book, which is why I use GrubHub all the time. What I never really think about is what online ordering looks like on the other end. That’s what Olo offers: “Reliable, fast, and secure digital ordering for restaurants. Seamlessly synced with your operations, systems, and brand.” The company is based in New York, NY and powers 100s of brands while serving millions of customers.
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One day I hope to have a business that makes real products. There’s something extremely alluring about designing and selling something tangible. Even though it may seem like every new company is operating entirely online, there actually has never been a better time to build physical products. Not only is it easier than ever to connect with manufacturers, but prototyping has been revolutionized with 3D printing. There’s still a barrier to entry in that it’s expensive and time consuming to get into 3D printing, and that’s why you can go to a studio like FATHOM in Oakland, CA which uses its “expertise in 3D printing and additive manufacturing to help customers innovate faster and more efficiently.”
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Chocolate and Valentine’s Day are the perfect couple. Whether you’re looking for a gift for your sweetheart or a way to stop feeling lonely, chocolate is the answer. And if we’re talking about chocolate and romance, it’s hard to think of a more romantic chocolatier than Godiva–I mean their logo is a naked lady on a horse. While the company originated in Belgium nearly 90 years ago, it is now headquartered in New York, NY and does all of its U.S. production in Reading, PA. They’ve also opened close to 300 retail locations across the country.
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