I enjoy when companies include essentially useless numbers on their websites. It’s fun to see how many cups of coffee they consumed last year or how many left-handed employees they have, but it doesn’t really tell you much. Capstrat has one really important figure mixed into their “a few things you should know” section–they’ve increased employee headcount by 23% over the last year. That’s a big number in any industry, but it’s especially impressive at a full-service ad agency. I’ll bet it has a lot to do with being a leading name in the growing Raleigh, NC market. Capstrat calls itself “the agency helping companies succeed at critical moments,” which lines up perfectly with their top billed skill of finding the perfect way to say exactly what needs to be said.
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I use a credit/debit card for almost all of my purchases. It makes it extremely easy to track where, when, and how I spend my money. I actually get annoyed when I have to pay cash. Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one who likes to collect data on my purchases. Pretty much every business that could potentially sell me something would love to have more data about me. Datalogix is a company that collects that data. They are based in Westminster, CO, and they “leverage the power of purchase-based audience targeting to drive measurable online and offline sales.” They started by collecting offline purchase data, but now they’re mixing that data with online, direct mail, e-mail, and mobile. That’s an amazingly powerful combination.
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I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been working hard to get in shape for my wedding. So far I’ve lost about 35 pounds while adding muscle. All of my success has come from the Paleo diet and a personal trainer. I like sticking to the basics when it comes to health, but some people are looking for an answer in a bottle. NutraClick provides such answers. They are a Boston, MA based natural products company that builds “brands by developing winning products and leveraging the power of online marketing to drive offline demand.” So far they have products in Sports Nutrition, Natural Health, Age-Specific Skincare, and Beauty (with a side of social selling), and I’m sure more are on the way.
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My soon to be wife and I are planning on moving to a new place in July, which means that we’ve been spending a lot of time on real estate websites. One thing that I’ve learned in the process is that many real estate agents have no idea how to use the Internet. The web is an amazing medium for showing off a property, yet time after time I come across terrible listings for really nice places. Why would you make the first photo in the slideshow of the bathroom? I have no idea, but real estate agents do it all the time. Apparently, they need all of the help that they can get, and that’s exactly what Market Leader offers. They’re a Kirkland, WA based company that provides agents with “tools to effectively generate, manage, and close more transactions.” They even go so far as to guarantee leads for their clients.
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When I was growing up, if we wanted food delivered, it pretty much had to be pizza. For a couple of years, there was a service called “Bring Me My Dinner” where a guy in a tuxedo would bring you a meal from a higher end restaurant, but it didn’t last very long. Then I went to college and the delivery options got more diverse (I could even get cookies delivered after midnight!). Now I live in a big city, and I can get nearly any type of food delivered to my door. But there’s more to delivery that just food. What if I want flowers, groceries, or something from the hardware store? Delivery.com is a New York, NY based company that has been “connecting people like you with merchants in their neighborhoods” since 2004.
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There used to be three places that you could buy video advertisements: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now there are millions. Nearly every website has the capability to sell video advertising, though very few have a team to sell the ads the way a tv station would (and that’s not even the best way to do it necessarily). SpotXchange is a Westminster, CO based company that makes buying and selling video advertising easy. In fact, they claim to have “the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory, reaching 110 million unique visitors each month in more than 35 countries.” It allows publishers and brands to link up that might never have connected without SpotXchange.
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It seems that geek culture has finally become mainstream. Maybe it’s the fact that engineers are in high demand at companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google. Or maybe it’s the upsurge in popularity of sites like Reddit. Or maybe it’s shows like The Big Bang Theory. I don’t really know, but for the first time in my lifetime, it’s good to be a geek. So good, in fact, that many of the “popular” kids are now claiming geek status. Whether you’re a true geek or a poser geek, you need geek gear, and ThinkGeek is the place to go for that. They’re a Fairfax, VA based company that started with the “simple idea to create and sell stuff that would appeal to the thousands of people out there who were on the front line and in the trenches as the Internet was forged.”
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Some of you (though probably not most of you) should quit your internship search and start a business. It’s what I did, and I can’t imagine having done anything else. That’s why I’ve spent hundreds of hours talking with and helping aspiring entrepreneurs. Yesterday I came across a Quora answer by Noah Kagan that I wish they had all read before I talked to them. It explains why most people who hold off on pursuing their dream of starting a business are doing so for the wrong reasons. There’s a movement called The Lean Startup that preaches a similar philosophy–starting a company doesn’t need to be expensive and you don’t even need a brilliant idea. Lean Startup Machine is a New York, NY based company that is spreading the philosophy not only to new entrepreneurs but also to people working in more corporate positions.
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In my day… Macs and PCs used completely different file formats. Writing a paper on my Mac (I was one of the few back then) and printing it on one of my school’s PCs was always a risky proposition. If I didn’t convert the file properly, I might end up with no homework and a really lame excuse for my teacher. We’re well past those days, yet many people still struggle with PDFs and other files. A simple request to sign a form and send it back can lead me down a half hour process of trying to find any way possible to avoid buying a new ink cartridge for my printer. Next time I’m going to try Nitro. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that builds “easy-to-use products that help people work smarter with digital documents.” Whether it’s for personal use or for a corporation with thousands of employees, Nitro offers a simple, affordable solution.
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When my wedding invitations went out, they didn’t have just regular stamps. We had special stamps made with our initials on them to give the envelopes a little extra flair. (Yes, I know it’s ridiculous.) You can get nearly anything customized these days, but postage is pretty surprising considering that the USPS is a federal agency. Whether you want your own version of postage, a t-shirt, a wall decal, or playing cards, you should consider Zazzle. They’re the company we used, and they’re a Redwood City, CA based company that allows you to “create amazing custom products with artwork you choose, and prices you’ll love.”
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One thing that surprises me about today’s crop of college graduates is that as a whole they seem far less willing to move for a job than one would expect (though this blog post says that’s changing). I think the biggest thing holding young people back is that you often have to move to a new city to even have a chance at landing a job there. That’s a big risk to take when you have no money. Things change as you gain more experience and become more valuable to employers. If you do really well, they’ll often try to convince you to move for them. Many will offer relocation bonuses, but only top executives typically get concierge-level relocation assistance. UrbanBound is trying to change that. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that offers “a web-based platform that helps companies offer a comprehensive transition system to their newly hired and transferring employees.” UrbanBound enables employees to plan their entire relocation in one place, and that’s a big deal when we’re talking about such a significant life change.
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Lately it seems like we’ve looking at companies with previously trendy business models. We did the subscription gift box (Glossybox), the flash sale site (Rue La La), and now we’re doing the daily e-mail (obviously my favorite model). What usually happens when a business model gets hot is that a ton of copycats come along and quickly oversaturate the market. Most of them eventually fail, and people see that as evidence that the original business model was unsustainable. It’s really just that most people who copy other business aren’t very good at running businesses. PureWow is a lot like DailyCandy or even Thrillist (they even have the same backers), but they’ve chosen a distinctly different market. The New York, NY based company realized that most women-focused online content was made for the under 30 crowd, so they decided to change that.
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Marketing is all about attention. It used to be that marketers would try to interrupt you while you were paying attention to something else (like a tv show or baseball game), but that’s changing as most of us get better at ignoring distractions. Brands are realizing that if they want attention, they have to earn it, and that’s why they’re turning to social. And if they need help with that, they may want to turn to an appropriately named full-service media agency called Attention. Attention is based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA that “drives measurable business results by integrating social behavior across the customer journey.” Even they’re willing to admit that it’s not just about the attention.
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About 10 years ago I walked into a random McDonald’s in upstate New York and was shocked to see that the menus were on flat screen TVs. I’d never seen that before, and this was the last place I would have expected to see it (I’m pretty sure this was a test McDonald’s or something). Today digital displays are cheap and everywhere, as they provide an easy way to communicate messages that might change over time or require interactivity. At least it’s supposed to be easy, but technology often gets in the way of itself. Industry Weapon is a Pittsburgh, PA based company that offers a platform called CommandCenterHD that makes controlling digital media simple by centralizing and organizing it.
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Read our latest article that uncovers a potential internship scam.
I often tell people that I don’t like sandwiches. The truth is that I don’t like bad sandwiches, so most sandwich chains are out for me. The only one that I’ll somewhat regularly eat at is Potbelly Sandwich Shop. It’s hard to beat one of their Meatball sandwiches with an Oreo milkshake. I’d never heard of Potbelly until I moved to Chicago, IL, which is both where they’re headquartered and where they got their start. The first store opened in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1996 when Bryant Keil bought the store that they started expanding the business.
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If there’s anything that the Internet is perfect for, it’s finding hotels. Whether you’re looking for a place off the highway to stop for the night or a luxury vacation, you’re going to be better off if you use the web. Since so many people go online to find hotels, the competition for attention is getting really tough (especially now that Google has entered the market and inserted their product at the top of search results). Most hotel owners aren’t Internet marketing experts, so how do they make sure that people find them? They use buuteeq, a Seattle, WA based company and “easy-to-use web application that improves your hotel’s online marketing on the web, on mobile devices, and on Facebook.” It gives hotel owners everything they need to compete with the major chains who have huge teams dedicated to online marketing.
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I used to be on top of all of the latest web technologies. When a new social network or tool came out, I’d figure out how to use it and add it to my repertoire. I can’t keep up any more–there are just too many cloud-based services out there. While you’ll never be able to master all of these technologies, you can get up to speed in about a minute thanks to Grovo. They’re a New York, NY based company that “produces one-minute video lessons covering every change to the world’s most popular websites, mobile apps and online tools.” Grovo’s content is updated in real-time, so when Facebook announces a new feature or a long awaited new iPhone app is released, they’re on it almost immediately. So far they already have more than 3,000 videos covering more than 100 web products.
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Traditionally the goal of marketing has been to get someone to take an action at some point in the future, but that has changed a lot over the past decade. The web has enabled businesses to push consumers to take immediate action, which is why online marketing has taken the best ideas from traditional marketing, direct marketing, and sales. 90octane calls it “conversion-driven marketing.” They’re a Denver, CO based agency that executes “online marketing campaigns including online advertising, email marketing, microsite and landing page development, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.” They were founded in 2000, and have held on to many of their clients for quite a long time–that is pretty unusual in performance marketing.
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Job searching and looking for love can be similarly painful. There’s the fear of rejection, the lack of useful feedback, and the constant pressure to make something happen from family and friends. While there’s no holiday that makes being unemployed feel like being alone on Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of day to day reminders that you need to get a job (hopefully these e-mails are a positive reminder). I think that one of the reasons that people struggle to find both love and jobs is that they try to do it alone. What if you had a few friends to help you along the way? That’s what Grouper is proposing. They’re a New York, NY based dating startup/social club “that sets up drinks between 2 groups of friends.” They don’t even use the word “dating” on their homepage, and I think that’s a brilliant branding decision–it’s all about meeting new people. I’m especially fond of Grouper because they’re running with the fish theme.
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When I was a junior in college, I broke my wrist. It was actually a lucky break because it healed completely… and my pathetic inability to cut my own food attracted a lovely lady whom I’ll soon be marrying. Still, the medical care that I received was abysmal. It started when the orthopedist told me that he didn’t remember if he could cast me before sending me for a CAT scan (that’s your job dude), but the most frustrating part was when I went to get follow up X-rays to see if the fracture was healed. I ensured at least four times that they were sending the X-rays to my doctor at home who I felt was more qualified to look at them. After waiting a few weeks for my doctor to get back to me, I followed up and he told me that the hospital never sent the x-rays (they just put them in a file). I called the hospital, and they told me that I had to drive over to sign a release so that they could send them to my doctor. Face meet palm. A lot of people’s frustrations with the healthcare system can be solved with technology, and that’s exactly what Practice Fusion is doing. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that provides “a free, web-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) application to physicians.”
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As I see it, there are two kinds of jewelry. The expensive kind that a guy might buy for a girl (reminder: Valentine’s Day is in three days), and the kind a girl might buy for herself. I realize that is an arbitrary distinction that doesn’t cover a lot of jewelry buying activity, but it’s a quick mental model that works for me. (I believe the more formal distinction is fine jewelry vs. fashion jewelry.) BaubleBar sells jewelry that falls into the latter category. They’re a New York, NY based company that was started by two friends who realized that “fashion jewelry was the one accessory that had yet to capture meaningful space in [their] closets.” They identified a number of things that were wrong with the market, and decided to build a business where women can “buy high quality pieces without a high price tag.”
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Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, there was a car alarm going off for at least half an hour. I don’t know if it stopped or I fell asleep first, but I’m now convinced that car alarms cost society more in annoyance than they benefit it through prevented thefts. Why can’t there be a theft deterrent that creates positive externalities? Oh, wait, there is. It’s called LoJack. They’re a Canton, MA based company that offers “recovery systems for cars, trucks, motorcycles, equipment, cargo, and laptops.” LoJack is based on radio transmitters that are activated when something is reported stolen (I assumed they used GPS, but here’s how it works). Police are able to find the frequency through special hardware, and recover it (and hopefully arrest the thieves at the same time). LoJack not only helps customers get their things back, but it also increases the overall risk of stealing stuff–that makes us all better off, even if we don’t use LoJack.
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I bet I have at least 100,000 baseball cards still at my parents’ house. I hold out hope that they’ll be worth something some day, but it’s not looking good. The problem is that card manufacturers produced a ridiculous number of cards in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. At that point everybody knew that baseball cards could be valuable, so they put the best cards in protective sleeves and tucked them away. Because the only source for price information was a few price guides that were published monthly, people believed that their cards were far more valuable than they actually were. And then the manufacturers started putting out “rare” cards on purpose in the form of “inserts.” When the baseball card started to move online, the bubble burst. My cards aren’t worth all that much these days, but I still remember how much fun I had collecting them. Upper Deck is certainly part of those memories. They were the first premium card manufacturer–every card had a beautiful glossy photo and a hologram on back to protect against counterfeiting. The Carlsbad, CA based company has had to adapt a lot over the last decade, but they’re still one of the leading brands in sports and entertainment collectibles
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Have you ever wondered where merchandise goes when you return it to a retailer? If it’s unopened, it probably goes right back on the floor, but most stores won’t risk restocking goods that are no longer pristinely packaged. Instead they send it off to a warehouse to be tested, repackaged, and sold off in bulk. But how do you sell a pallet of returned merchandise? You use Liquidity Services Inc. (here’s a video explaining how it works). They’re a Washington, D.C. based company that enables “businesses and government agencies to manage, value, redeploy, and sell excess inventory and surplus assets using the world’s most transparent, innovative, and effective online marketplaces and integrated services.” Put a little more simply, they help clients sell stuff that is typically hard to sell. Returned merchandise is just a small part of the business.
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My high school had an excellent community service program. We were all supposed to do at least 25 hours per year, so there was a mix of in-school and out-of-school service opportunities. One of the organizations that we worked with was AmeriCares. I can’t for the life of me remember what project we worked on, but I know that I had a t-shirt with their logo on it that ended up covered in paint (that may have been from a completely different service project). AmeriCares is a Stamford, CT based “nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization which provides immediate response to emergency medical needs – and supports long-term humanitarian assistance programs – for all people around the world.”
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I didn’t have a teacher accept an e-mailed assignment from me until my Senior year in high school. When I went to college all of my classes were supposed to be on Blackboard, but most of the professors didn’t use it because it was a terrible piece of software. Even by the time I graduated, most of my professors weren’t using much technology beyond e-mail to communicate and interact with students. I hear that’s changing, and I’ll bet that a lot of it has to do with how far technology has come over the last decade. We’ve all seen teachers try to get a video to play in class. When classroom technology doesn’t work, it brings learning to a screeching halt. Schoology is a New York, NY based company that does the opposite–they provide teachers with “the tools and connections to engage students more efficiently and improve educational effectiveness on both a large and small scale.”
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I made it through my first two years of college with entirely bare walls. At some point during my Junior year (probably when I got a girlfriend), I decided that I need to take interior design a little more seriously. I nailed my old Club Baseball jersey to the wall, and that was that. One of a kind pieces like that are hard to find, but if you’re looking for something similar, you may want to check out Vedere. They’re a New York, NY based company that offers “an online design community and global marketplace unlike any other.” They’ve created a place where “architects, interior designers, craftsmen, lighting specialists, sculptors, and textile and accessories designers” can offer their wares to a broad audience of people interested in art, design, and decor.
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Yesterday we looked at WCG, a strategic communications firm that helps brands embrace “the positive future of communications.” Today we’re going to look at another company that helps brands achieve similar goals but with a very different approach. Percolate is a “thoughtful technology company that’s building a new kind of technology platform.” They’re based in New York, NY and they provide software to “help brands create content at social scale.” I have enough trouble keeping my own Twitter feed interesting, so major brands are able to develop compelling content for dozens of profiles across dozens of networks. Percolate takes a lot of the busy work out of community management while providing tools that spark creativity. It seems like a huge win for companies that do social media on a major scale–brands like IBM, GE, American Express, Ogilvy, and Budweiser (all Percolate clients).
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Over the course of your life there will be a few financial decisions that will have an oversized impact on your personal wealth. Not buying coffee from Starbucks or turning the thermostat down two degrees will have a small fraction of the impact. You absolutely have to get the big decisions right. But how do you know what the right decisions are? SmartAsset is a New York, NY based company that provides “all the information and analysis you need to make the best possible financial decisions.” In my opinion, they’re not quite there yet, as they’re still in beta. But they have started with home buying which is definitely a high impact decision.
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Yesterday in our post about A+E Networks I told you about all of my favorite reality tv shows. A lot of them are pretty embarrassing, but I have no qualms about telling people I watch Top Chef. It’s a great show (sidenote: I swear I saw Beverly Kim from last season at Whole Foods yesterday). This week was the start of a two episode “Restaurant Wars.” The rules change from season to season, but typically the cheftestants have to come up with a restaurant concept and build it from scratch in just a few days. Everything gets supplied by sponsors, but if that wasn’t the case they might want to check out The WEBstaurant Store. They’re a Lancaster, PA based company that offers an “innovative, easy-to-use website to meet the purchasing needs of food service professionals throughout the United States and Canada.”
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