Move over, Uber, two Bay Area startups have found a new ways to rent cars out.

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases  

There are few investments less sensible than car ownership. A new purchase loses close to 9 percent of its value the minute it leaves the dealer's lot, according to automotive-information site Edmunds. Further, most cars sit idle the majority of the time.

Two San Francisco-based startups, RelayRides and Getaround, are working to change these inefficiencies--and snag a piece of the nation's $20 billion car-rental market. Similar to Airbnb, both companies facilitate peer-to-peer transactions through which car owners can rent out their vehicles to those who need them by the hour, day or week. Owners set the rental price for their vehicles; both companies say the average rental runs $8 to $12 per hour and lasts 40 hours.

The model offers big savings for customers--generally half of what a local car-rental agency would charge. Plus, the range on offer allows renters to get exactly the vehicle they want, whether it's a pickup truck or minivan for a jaunt to IKEA or a Porsche or Tesla for a night out.

The business model would not have been possible without a new class of insurance created for this purpose. Every individual's car is insured for $1 million against collision and accident coverage. "When we say the service is all-inclusive, that means the vehicle is covered should something go wrong," confirms Andre Haddad, CEO of RelayRides. "Owners like the peace of mind. And as a customer, considering you usually have to pay extra for insurance with a car rental, this is a big deal."

Founded in 2008, RelayRides operates in 1,500 U.S. cities. Getaround, which launched in 2009, has cars in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Austin and Portland, Ore. While their business models are similar, the companies are executing them in subtly different ways. RelayRides is a big believer in the face-to-face meeting between car owner and customer to pick up keys and sign paperwork. That said, the company does offer a mobile access kit for qualified car owners and allows anyone to use General Motors' OnStar system to remotely unlock GM vehicles--pointing to an acknowledgement that many users may not want to be directly involved in the exchange.

The meet-and-greet is also an option with Getaround (minus the paperwork), but that company would rather see owners install "Carkits" that allow renters to unlock the vehicles remotely and access a hidden set of keys through its iPhone app. "We focus on the app," says Sam Zaid, Getaround's co-founder and CEO. "The way we see it, we want to provide a service, and the app is the most efficient way to achieve that."

The nascent car-sharing industry is not without challenges. Cars have long been sold as "a product that is closely associated with who you are," says Arun Sundararajan, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business, explaining that letting strangers in can uncomfortably infringe on that identity. Perhaps, but RelayRides and Getaround are banking that their financial appeal will help car owners get over it.

[Via - Entrepreneur]

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July 27, 2013 No Comments

FreshBooks review (and coupons)

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

FreshBooks (claim your $50 FreshBooks coupon here) is known for weird titles.Corey Reid, for instance, is Chief Cat Herder. That's Director of R&D Talent for us mere mortals. Saul Colt is Head of Magic. Perhaps you'd prefer Marketing and Customer Experience Design. And don't even ask me what Freshbooks CEO goes by.

So perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that FreshBooks isn't really about bookkeeping. Instead, FreshBooks is really one of the first timekeeping and invoicing software turned SaaS (it'll be interesting how FreshBooks reacts to the recent onslaught of free CRM with invocing).

FreshBook is now used by over 5 million users and known for it's "braindead simple" approach. One of the reasons for that that one year after being launched in 2003, it had only 6 clients. That's six. And 24 months into operation, it had only 10. This is how Mike McDerment recalls these days:

"So we tried a PR firm and I like to say that I got my Masters in Communication through that process because we basically…we didn’t get any awareness built out of it whatsoever. And so we shelved that and we went back to putting our heads down and spending our money on direct response type marketing, like being in an email newsletter or pay-per-click. You know, started trying to learn a little more about who was being successful marketing themselves online. So we started learning more about blogging and that kind of thing."

Two things saved FreshBooks - first they changed their pricing. Not once, not twice but actually four times, and every with every time they'd get more and more paying customers. Second, FreshBook decided to become a 'human' company, meaning that if you call their number, you actually get a human being on the other end. And if you have a question, you can an answer. And corporatespeak was banned at the company as well.

Becoming a user centric company transformed FreshBooks in a number of ways. Feeback was collected not as a formality, but in order to stay ahead of competition, so it's no wonder that FreshBooks one of the first to offer iPad app, when others weren't so sure about that anyone would use mobile apps for their invoices. Addition of expense tracking and cloud accouting significantly expanded FreshBooks use beyond its core market of small business owners, lawyers, designers and other professionals (my girlfriend uses iOS mobile app to track her daily expenses). With WaveAccounting and Bitrix24, FreshBooks makes the Holy Trinity of SMB and Productivity 2.0 tools that every business owner should be aware about. Oh, and if you want to try FreshBooks, here's your $50 coupon)

[Via - MadConomist.Com]

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June 28, 2013 No Comments

Googler Startups - VinAudit Review

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming service 

http://vinaudit.com
Finance gurus claim that a brand-new car loses about 20% of its original retail value after the first year. Even after being driven off the lot, as a matter of fact. Still, buying a used car is an investment and should be regarded with utmost consideration, especially since with some used cars, more than the initial amount shelled out, safety and hidden costs can be issues.

In the United States, CARFAX is perhaps the leading platform when it comes to conducting history checks on pre-owned cars. Information provided include vehicle registration, title information, structural damage, accident indicators, odometer readings, service and repair information, among a bunch of other things.

For most people, however, shelling out $35 for information on a car that they might not even buy can be a total waste.

VinAudit.com (TRY FREE coupon) thinks so, too, which is why for just a fraction of the cost CARFAX charges, you get the same car history report from VinAudit.com. David Wu, an ex-Googler and VinAudit’s founder, believes that vehicle history data should really be free, just like the rest of the Internet. His company isn’t quite there yet, but David believes that making vehicle history reports as inexpensive and publicly available as possible is a stride towards that goal.

Through a collaboration with NMVTIS, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, VinAudit provides easy access to a national database used by law enforcement agencies to fight car robbery in the U.S. This database contains information supplied by state DMVs, salvage yards and insurance companies. With VinAudit.com, users can now be provided with instantaneous reporting on all available records linked to a VIN (Vehicle Information Number).

Depending on the user’s preference, the generated report can be exported as a PDF file, printed out or forwarded to an e-mail address.

If you’re a car dealer, you can sign up for a dealer account and get bulk vehicle history reports for as low as $20 per month or $1 per report. You can also participate in VinAudit’s reseller program as a hybrid affiliate or reseller. This allows you to sell vehicle reports under either the VinAudit brand or your own brand, including full custom integration of raw vehicle data over the Internet through API (application programming interface).

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

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May 11, 2013 No Comments

Tasty Startups - ChefdUp.com

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://chefdup.com/

A private, unique and memorable dining experience for your guests at your next dinner party doesn’t have to mean booking a reservation at an upscale restaurant or finding somebody good enough to cook for a crowd (if a group of eight to twelve can be considered a crowd). And that’s thanks to Chef’d Up, a startup founded by three Harvard guys: David Snider, John Feeney and David Werry.

With Chef’d Up, you get to bring home premier chefs in the Boston area that include Danya Bader-Natal, a former Clio chef, Katie Barry, former Rialto chef and currently with Lumiere, and Jitti Chaithiraphant, formerly with Radius and Lumiere and now with Franklin Café South End. Chef’d Up has a total of 10 chefs in its roster at the moment.

To book a chef for your event, first, browse through the chef’s profiles, including reviews from previous guests who have experienced receiving the chefs in their homes. Once you’ve selected a chef, you’re ready to provide the initial details of your event on a request form. Your chef will then contact you to discuss the event, the menu and the event price. Once the details are in place, your chef will confirm the agreed-upon event price in the Chef’d Up system, and you finalize the booking by paying via the site prior to the scheduled event.

On the day of the event, your chef will acquire the ingredients, prepare the meals in your kitchen, even clean up if you wish, allowing you to concentrate on hosting.

Chef’d Up, according to co-founder Snider, is a unique way to make high-end dining accessible to a larger part of the population.

Except for a $5,000 award from Harvard Business School’s FIELD program, Chef’d Up is mostly bootstrapped. The company makes money by receiving a portion of the fee paid to book a chef.

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

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April 02, 2013 No Comments

Cool Startups - FohrCard.com

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http://www.fohrcard.com/

Nowadays, if a brand is solely focused on traditional marketing, i.e., television, radio, billboard and print advertising, chances are it’s not tapping its full potential. Online marketing, with the growing popularity of blogs and other social media platforms, has become critical for brand advertising as well.

Fohr Card, an analytics platform created by James Nord, a blogger and photographer, alongside Rich Tong, Tumblr’s former fashion director, and Holly Stair, a social media manager, aims to bring brands and bloggers together to form a partnership that can include advertising, sponsored content and gift giving.

With Fohr Card, bloggers are given the chance to be found by brands, where they can showcase their social media following across different social media platforms (Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), including their real-time traffic stats. When joining Fohr Card, bloggers agree to divulge their private Google Analytics figures to eliminate numbers-fudging.

While Chris Black, a social media marketing consultant whose clientele includes Gilt Groupe and New Balance, firmly believes that big numbers don’t necessarily equal engaged users, the Fohr Card team assures brands that not every blogger is invited to join the platform. Alongside popularity, every blogger’s Fohr Card is reviewed to guarantee quality and original content.

For brands to gain access to Fohr Card’s roster of more than 1,800 fashion and beauty bloggers, an annual membership fee of $5,000 (more for large companies and agencies) is required. They then gain access to the bloggers’ numbers. Fohr Card also allows them to sort through the numbers by region, category (DIY, menswear, nail art, etc.), and traffic on certain platforms. Puma and Oscar dela Renta are just two of Fohr Card’s brand launch partners.

Mr. Nord also divulges that they plan to eventually recruit travel, food, mommy bloggers and others to turn Fohr Card into a global marketing tool.

[Via - NicheGeek.Com]

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March 07, 2013 No Comments

Hot Startups - Swipp.Com Review

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://swipp.com

You probably remember how free social intranet provider Bitrix24.com has become the fastest growing social enterprise tool in 2012. But it's 2013 now. Aside from being “social,” Facebook, Google+ and just about every company in the social arena have something in common – to become the social layer beneath every service on the Internet and provide real-time social data that’s measurable, can be referenced and helpful to marketers and data analysts spanning a broad range of industries. Facebook’s recent release of Graph Search and everything else Google has been doing since Google+ was released in 2011 are adding up to this mounting evidence.

Launched on January 23, 2013 in 45 countries and 5 languages, Swipp is a brand-new social media analytics and sharing platform whose main objective is to find out how the general population feels about a given topic real-time. User sentiment is analyzed, and coupled with structured data that is readily available via sites like Wikipedia, app developers should be able to come up with more intuitive applications that can better predict users’ needs.

Despite the fact that companies providing consumer sentiment analytics have sprung up from here, there and everywhere, a lot of social data is unstructured, which means that making comparisons – let alone, drawing conclusions – from such data is easier said than done. Swipp’s answer is to recreate the way things are shared via social media to generate more consistent and functional data.

Technically speaking, you, the social media user, are still allowed to post random thoughts about random things – unstructured data, essentially. Swipp, then, would have you tag your post to signify that it’s under a subject that exists in its humungous library of structured web data. After which, to explicitly address the sentiment analysis side of things, it also would make you rate how you feel about your post using a scale of 1 to 10. And once the data is entered, Swipp lets you know how other people from different parts of the world feel about the same subject.

While Swipp may be able to give its users extra and relevant data, it doesn’t have the follower base Facebook has for Graph Search nor the user data Google has for every meaningful thing it has in store for Google+. Swipp is coming from nowhere and may need to beat insurmountable odds to become a major player in the social space.

Then again, as per Swipp co-founder and CEO, Don Thorson: Every big idea looks impossible up until the exact moment it looks inevitable. Whether he’s right or wrong is left to be seen.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

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January 29, 2013 No Comments

Freelancers are going 'Donanza'

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

http://donanza.com

Freelancing can be a lucrative career, if you know what you’re getting into. Advantages to freelancing include the freedom to choose your work schedule and the projects you agree to, how much time you invest in each of the jobs you take on, the freedom to work anywhere you deem conducive – at home, at a coffee shop, even out of town. You may also start working straight out of bed, if you so please, with your pajamas on.

That said, however, don’t let the good stuff lull you into believing freelancing is all milk and honey or where the grass is always green. Freelancing comes with disadvantages, too – the most common of which is failing to land regular, if not long-term, gigs to keep your money vessel replenished.

There are sites like oDesk and Elance that connect clients and freelancers. And then, there’s DoNanza.com, a freelancing search engine that allows anybody to find available freelance jobs that match his expertise or field of interest. Being a search engine, DoNanza pores through as many cracks in the Internet to get the most comprehensive set of results. It doesn’t, in any way, compete with Elance, oDesk or other freelancing platforms. Instead, DoNanza “completes” them as it ultimately directs traffic back to these platforms.

Aside from its basic listing services, DoNanza also offers 1Click Advertising, a feature  that allows freelancers private job requests – meaning, no competition, minimal effort, more job prospects and more chances of landing a job – for a fee.

As well, DoNanza integrates several freelancing apps like Conduit Mobile, which makes your DoNanza site mobile-friendly; Fanzila, a Facebook fan page app that helps you create a powerful social media presence; KashFlow, an app that automates credit control, billing and payment reminders; Paymo, which provides project management, invoicing and time-tracking tools; Base CRM, which easily manages your contacts, sales and customers; and a whole lot more.

If you’re a publisher, DoNanza’s Publisher Program allows you to integrate either the DoNanza widget or project board into your site. Publishers are compensated when a reader posts a job via the widget or a freelancer starts a job that he/she found on the publisher site.

If properly utilized, DoNanza can be your springboard to a successful freelancing career.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

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January 15, 2013 No Comments

How BigCommerce Got Big

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency


http://www.bigcommerce.com/

All venture capitalists have got startup business plans piling on their desks every single day. But how many of them are the breakthrough ideas worth investing in? Australian BigCommerce has proven right to the Massachusetts based venture capital firm General Catalyst. “We quickly signed up our first 1000 customers within three months,” says Eddie Machaalani, the co-funder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, “and now we’re about to hit 20,000 customers after just 17 months.

Mitchell Harper, the other co-founder and co-CEO, explains “you can set up your own online store in a few clicks. We’re growing so quickly because we’ve made it really easy to sell online.”

If you’ve got a product and you need an easy way to sell it and advertise it, BigCommerce might be exactly what you’re looking for. All the marketing tools have been built in and the list of features is countless which targets all potential kinds of client s.

There are e-commerce newbie’s looking for tools to start with: web-based control panel, automated email marketing and almost one hundred store designs. There are e-commerce owners hoping to update and refresh their software with push to Facebook and eBay, SEO and Google Website Optimizer. And there are website designers looking for a ready platform to work with; they’ll look into painless software updates, unlimited design flexibility and premium hosting. To cut the long story short, BigCommerce has got everything for everybody.

The company overview does sound like a cliché online success story. Two IT geeks, a brilliant idea, a lot of hard work, right place, right time, huge demand and a spot on investor. (General Catalyst have also believed in BigFish, airbnb, iWalk and many others). This is how Eddie Machaalani speaks of the beginnings of their cooperation. “When we made the decision to raise capital and did our U.S tour to pitc h different VC firms, General Catalyst had already done a ton of due diligence on the market opportunity, our company and our competitors. They were very eager to invest in the company.”

BigCommerce have recently announced $2M integration fund to follow the market developments and create new better features. The software has now got built-in Pinterest and Quickbooks integration, referral system, a live chat, abandoned cart plugin and many other improvements. They tent to release new features every two weeks.

The software seems to be ahead of its competition (Shopify, Zencart, Magento) according to various online discussions, blogs and comparisons and is only getting better and smarter. E-shopping cart is gaining the whole new meaning. And what does it mean to you? Only one way to find out. (Here is a link for $100 coupon or 30 day free trial provided by BigCommerce for our readers).

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - Madconomist.Com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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January 13, 2013 No Comments

Cool Starups - Omaze.com

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http://www.omaze.com/

If, by some stroke of luck, you're given the chance to play tennis with superstars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf, hang out backstage with Lady Gaga, or perhaps discuss Latin American future with Mexico's former President Vicente Fox over a cup of coffee, or, say, spend some time with a Nobel Prize winner at MIT's Robotics Lab, will you grab the opportunity? Most folks would, given these are once-in-a-lifetime experiences that can change their lives forever.

And if you're like most folks, you probably would be elated to know that with Omaze, an L.A. startup founded by two college friends, for as little as $5, you get the chance to live out dream experiences while making donations to charitable causes.

After college, co-founders Matt Pohlson and Ryan Cummins moved to L.A. to get into film. Soon, they discovered they both had a passion for “cause content,” which essentially are stories that both entertain and impart social messages. As was pretty much inherent in the cause content space as a whole, while they were creating a lot of awareness for the causes that have chosen to partner with them, they weren't necessarily creating a lot of impact. Hence, their decision to go to business school to hopefully be exposed to innovative ways of thinking.

While in business school, they went to a benefit for the Boys & Girls Club of America hosted by Magic Johnson, where Magic auctioned off the opportunity to sit alongside him at a Lakers game and have dinner with him after. Being die-hard Lakers fans, with Magic their childhood hero, hanging out with him for a night would be a one-of-a-kind experience, a dream come true. Literally. Being broke grad students, however, they could do nothing but watch. The bids escalated until the winning bid finally clinched the deal at $15,000. Two questions consumed them on the way home: (1) Why were life's most awesome experiences accessible to but a select few? (2) How could such a priceless experience raise a mere $15,000 for the Boys & Girls Club?

And then it hit them. They could make the same opportunities available online. For a donation of $5, everybody gets the chance to make their dream experiences happen. As well, they help to generate substantially more money and awareness for worthy causes.

From every experience, Omaze earns 20% of the net proceeds, which is industry standard for professional fundraisers, while the remaining 80% goes to the charity.

[Via - NicheGeek.Com]

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January 13, 2013 No Comments

Savings.Com Story

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http://savings.com

When Loren Bendele started online coupon company Savings.com in 2007, he wondered why traditional paper coupon companies didn't have more of an internet presence. It was a simple idea that filled a niche in an established market.

While his marketing plan initially was designed to attract customers, it also was meant to gain the attention of prospective acquirers--and it did. In June 2012 Bendele sold Savings.com to Cox Target Media, parent company of Valpak, for a reported $100 million.

"We always thought the traditional coupon players would be looking for ways to migrate their business," Bendele explains. So he intentionally built his company to sell.

Ken Wisnefski, meanwhile, has flipped two companies and now runs Mount Laurel, N.J.-based WebiMax, which provides internet marketing services such as search engine optimization. His first tip on building a business to sell? "You should treat [each company] as though you are going to keep it for 100 years," he says.

In other words, starting a company with the intention to flip is not so different from starting any company, but it does come with its own set of guidelines.

"With very few exceptions, startups get bought, they don't go public," says Nat Burgess, president of Bothell, Wash.-based Corum Group, which provides mergers and acquisitions advice for the software industry. "The ones that go public go through so many funding rounds and recapitalizations that they are thoroughly vetted by the time they file for IPO. For the other 99 percent of startup companies, proper planning and strategy are critical to a successful sale. Without a good business, quality team and solid execution, there is no exit."

Nate Redmond, managing partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures in Santa Monica, Calif., was one of the venture funders of Savings.com. He stresses that the business itself is more important than any exit strategy. "Rarely do we make an investment with the stated intent to sell," he says. Instead, the investment decision is based on market conditions, competitive position and company execution. "The best companies are bought, not sold," he adds. "We believe it is important to keep the focus on the long-term horizon until buyers come calling."

However, nearly every entrepreneur and investor who has been through a sale says there are crucial ingredients to any exit plan. Above all, the company needs an easily adaptable product or concept, clean books, good old-fashioned buzz, delegated authority and attention to the customer mix. Finally, the details of daily management have to support a company's long-term growth. "Startups get acquired because the acquirer believes they can scale up the company," Burgess says. "If the company is held together with duct tape and baling wire, it won't scale. Even though they start small, entrepreneurs have to think big from day one."

[Via - Entrepreneur]

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November 24, 2012 No Comments