July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Facebook announced today that the company now has one million active advertisers — companies or organizations that have advertised on the social network at least once in the last 28 days.

The company attributed that feat to small businesses, saying that this milestone is due in large part “to the small businesses growing their businesses online and in their local communities via Facebook.”

Apparently, small business does get social.

Facebook’s director of small business, Dan Levy, thanked those businesses:

I know business owners like these invest their hard earned money and time into running their companies. So today, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I want to say thank you to them and to the over one million businesses like them who are active advertisers. You have chosen Facebook as a partner to grow your business. We appreciate the chance to work with you, and we celebrate your success.

Two months ago Facebook announced that there were two billion connections between local businesses and people in the site’s social graph, and in an average week, local business pages get more than 645 million views and 13 million comments. The company did not release new data on those points, but the up-to-date numbers are doubtless higher today.

With Facebook building ever-stronger connections between local businesses and their customers online — and an ever-growing wallet share of local advertising budgets — local search and recommendation engines such as Yelp and OpenTable and the tradition Internet Yellow Pages are potentially getting cut out of their traditional stomping grounds.

Facebook’s local ambitions are also challenging Google Local and Google Places, both of which collect data on local businesses and drive local advertising on Google, Google, Maps, and more for the search and advertising giant.

Photo credit: Andrea Costa Creative via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Ever called a spa or beauty salon to book an appointment and been put on hold or sent straight through to voicemail?

New Yorker Abby Ziff has experienced this time and time again. So she started Beauteeze to help fellow Manhattanites book appointments at nearby salons.

It’s a destination site for consumers, but the team also built a widget that any third-party provider can add to their website, so new and existing clients can book an appointment online.

Beauteeze’s cofounders Abby Ziff and Adi Turgeman

Beauteeze is designed to be a useful marketing tool for the salons themselves, and it integrates with existing scheduling and customer relationship management (CRM) software. Ziff said that most of the local businesses they work with in New York favor Booker.com and shouldn’t have to ditch their current software.

For this reason, the founders believe they have an edge on West Coast competitor StyleSeat.

“If a salon doesn’t want to switch to our software — they don’t have to,” said Ziff. “We have hundreds of integrations so there is no barrier – and that makes us a little different to our competitors.” Note that these integrations are via the widget, and not full-scale developments.

Ziff’s cofounder and CTO is a software engineer from Israel — the pair built the website with less than $70,000 in funding from friends and family. They launched the beta in March, and Ziff says they already have hundreds of salons signed up.

The company makes its charging the software companies it integrates with — a lead generation model. Alternatively, salons can pay $30 a month for access to Beauteeze’s online scheduling tools — a good option for businesses that don’t boast a strong digital presence. “For them, it’s a virtual storefront,” said Ziff.

Beauteeze is currently looking to raise a seed round of funding, so it can add sales, marketing and developer talent to its team.

Top image via Shutterstock

Well, duh.

Facebook fans are the holy grail of small business, according to a recent study. In fact, 41 percent would take the two million fans, almost double the number that would prefer a celebrity endorsement or a million-dollar Super Bowl ad.

The data comes from a study of 500 small businesses by Staples which asked, in part: If a genie granted you one wish to market your company, what would you want?

Source: Staples

Which of the following would you select?

Perhaps most interestingly, small business owners prefer Facebook fans to Twitter followers by almost a four to one ratio. Only 12 percent of the owners picked two million Twitter followers, suggesting that Twitter followers are only 25 percent as valuable as Facebook followers and fans. That makes sense, given recent data that engaged Facebook fans are worth hundreds of dollars each in lifetime value, with some — for brands like Zara and Levis — being worth $300-400.

Compare that to a Super Bowl ad that makes a momentary buzz and then is gone, or Twitter followers who are much less likely to actually see any communications from the brand, and the value is clear.

“The results showed that these savvy business owners are not only utilizing social media in advanced ways but that the understanding of the philosophies behind why social media works and how it can help business were advanced,” a Staples representative said.

Further evidence of that?

Engaging customers via social edged out boosting sales when business owners — who spend 5.5 hours per week on social media marketing — were asked why they invest time, energy, and money in social. That’s a big difference from even a year ago, when increasing sales was the most important reason for most businesses to jump on the Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest bandwagons.

Which doesn’t mean, of course, that small businesses don’t want to profit from social and don’t want to increase their sales. It does mean, however, that they realize the relationship matters more than any one specific purchase, and that nurturing the relationship first will lead to great lifetime value of the customer.

One other interesting point as Twitter ramps up its advertising products, having recently launched more small-business-friendly ad options: LinkedIn is actually the second most frequently used social channel, and Pinterest ranks higher when business owners list social sites that are helpful.

Interestingly, given that many small businesses still today do not have a website (three out of five in this survey did not), 61 percent felt their blogs were their most helpful social media channel.

Image credits: Staples

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Hewlett-Packard is launching a salvo of new laptops for small businesses. The HP ProBook series of business notebooks are aimed at the computer maker’s core market of business users who want functional, well-designed, and inexpensive laptops.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP showed off the new touchscreen products in a briefing with reporters. The PC market has slowed  as smartphones and tablets creep into our lives, but HP wants to keep the core small business market firmly rooted in PCs. These models are 36 percent thinner and 18 percent lighter than previous notebooks.

The new laptops are part of a campaign Meg Whitman, chief executive of HP, is launching to remake the company and stay competitive among strong rivals that include Lenovo, Dell, and Apple. HP’s emphasis isn’t on the monolithic Windows PC anymore. It is spreading its bets across multiple operating systems, multiple devices, and multiple chip sets. That’s why the company is emphasizing that these products come from its Personal Systems division, not just its PC division.

The new laptops have 10-finger touchscreens that won’t bend or give way when you press the screen. They run Windows 8 and are aimed at making touch navigation — swipes, taps, and touches — a regular part of using a computer. HP marketers said the HP ProBook series is designed to balance performance, quality, and good design. It has new print solutions that are integrated into business environments.

HP ProBook 400 Series business notebooks package sleek design, great battery life (up to eight hours), durability, and security features. The series includes five models: the 430, 440, 445, 450, and 470.

The HP 200 Series business notebooks include multimedia tools for the home office. HP is also introducing its HP Scanjet Sheet-feed Scanner and HP LaserJet and HP Officejet printers that make managing print jobs easier.

The HP ProBook 400 Series notebooks come with 17.3-inch, 15.6-inch, 14-inch, and 13.3-inch flat panel screens. They also have a range of Intel and Advanced Micro Devices processors and feature “meteorite grey” cashing with aluminum accents. The 400 Series has a new hybrid hard drive that combines faster flash memory with high-capacity hard disk space. The notebooks are Skype-ready and have DTS sound for video conferencing.

The HP 200 Series business notebooks have 15.6-inch and 14-inch screen sizes with a range of wireless capabilities and processor choices. The laptops come pre-installed with multimedia software features and can connect to larger high-definition displays via an HDMI port.

Both the HP ProBook 400 Series and HP 200 Series are expected to be available in the U.S. this month. The HP ProBook 400 Series starts at $499, while the HP 200 Series starts at $249.

HP is selling a new HP LaserJet Pro multifunction printer, the M521, which allows people to print from a variety of devices, including smartphones and tablets via HP ePrint, AirPrint, and DirectPrint technologies. The HP M725 is an enterprise-class device with more functions and higher volume printing. And the HP Scanjet Pro 3000 s2 Sheet-feed Scanner enables scan-to-cloud support for applications like HP Flow CM Professional. That means it is easy to scan a document into the cloud and print it or edit it. HP’s other new Officejet Pro printers offer up to 50 percent lower cost per page than laser printers. The new printers and scanners are available between now and July.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

All the indicators are going in the right direction as modern-day yellow pages Angie’s List, which helps people find trustworthy carpenters, dentists, mechanics, and more, reported its first quarter results today.

Revenues were up 68 percent to $52.2 million, paid memberships were up 60 percent year-over-year — hitting two million just two days ago — and its cost-per-acquisition was down 12 percent. Even total revenue per average paid member (consumers pay a subscription fee to belong to Angie’s List) was up.

The only negative number — a net loss of $7.9 million — was also up, from $13.5 million in Q1 2012. That loss is due to heavy marketing costs as Angie’s List continues to pursue quick growth.

“Our business grew very well in the first quarter, achieving new records for membership, service provider revenue and total revenue, due to continued strong and consistent operating metrics,” Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle said in a statement.

While subscriber revenue was up 47 percent to $14.6 million, Angie’s List makes most of its money from service providers — the plumbers and roofers doing the work, who pay to advertise on the site and pay fees when consumers purchase their services on Angie’s List.

That revenue was up as well, increasing 78 percent to $37.5 million.

Consumers must be happy with the service, as the average first-year membership renewal rate is 73 percent, the same as a year ago, and the average overall membership renewal rate is slightly higher, at 75 percent. That does, mean, however, that Angie’s List needs to grow its 2,000,000 members by 500,000 in 2013 just to grow by 25 percent, and marketing costs that the company anticipates reflect that.

Source: Google Finance

Angie’s List stock price over the last three months.

For the second quarter, the company expects revenue of $58.5 million to $59.5 million, with marketing expenses of $27.8 to $28.8 million. At the company’s current customer acquisition cost of $72, that would translate to almost 400,000 new users in the second quarter alone.

“We will continue to invest in acquiring new members, adding advertising service providers and innovating products to drive further scale and penetration, while maintaining secure levels of liquidity,” the company’s interim CFO, Chuck Hundt said.

That will probably translate into another net lost next quarter, but the company is approaching profitability within perhaps just a few more quarters.

As mentioned above, the service just passed two million members on April 22. At the time, Angie Hicks, who co-founded the site with current CEO Oesterle, said that the company’s growth was accelerating exponentially:

“It took us more than 16 years to get to one million paid households but just 18 months to double it.”

Investors have driven the stock, which debuted at $13, from around $10 to the $20 level in the past three months.

If you’re a user of the location-based social network Foursquare, that is.

Apparently, I eat a lot, spend a lot of time outdoors in parks and recreation facilities, visit quite a few offices, and — more than anything else — shop. How depressing. Fortunately, there’s a little bit of travel thrown in there as well to add spice to an otherwise mundane life.

Foursquare has released a special badge for 4sqDay 2013 — see it to the right — and has special shwag for those holding Foursquare day parties, as well as suggestions for businesses that are holding 4sqDay promos.

I’m nowhere near that passionate, but it is interesting to see your year in review and see what you’ve done and where you’ve been. Getting that information does, of course, require that you check in at every location you visit, but Foursquare has made that a lot easier in its latest iOS app update.

Foursquare users have checked in well over three billion times, and left tens of millions of tips, all of which is helping Foursquare build a local search and recommendation engine which is helping it transition from the once-I’m-there app to the where-to-go-now app.

To get the 4sqDay 2013 badge, simply check in anywhere, today.

Image credit: John Koetsier

This is a guest post by SilkRoad’s co-CEO Flip Filipowski

In the past, small businesses could afford a certain lack of sophistication in their human resources processes.  It was common practice to rely on Excel and labor-intensive reporting, but health care reform is changing the game.

Compliance reporting, benefits administration, and managing employee data are just a few of the back-office tasks that will become more difficult for small businesses to handle manually once further requirements of the Affordable Care Act take effect.  The first open enrollment in the health plan exchanges are expected in October and for penny-wise small business owners, throwing additional manpower at these challenges isn’t the answer.

If you haven’t already, now’s the time to enter the age of HR automation.

The new health care exchange — what’s the goal?

A central feature of the new Affordable Care Act is the government’s new health care exchange. While the finer details are still being worked out, the goal of the exchange is to empower citizens to choose affordable benefits from an array of state-sponsored plans. 

So what does this mean for small business owners?  It means that the onus is on you to ensure that your employees are offered an employer-sponsored plan and offered information on the exchanges as an alternative option.  Having a systematic way of tracking, reporting and communicating this data will be essential to the bottom line.

First, you’ll need to provide a report to Uncle Sam including basic demographic and health coverage data for employees and their dependents.  Tracking these details will be a time-intensive burden, unless you can automate your reporting.  Beyond that, you’ll need to provide proof of enrollment or risk paying $100 per day, per employee for non-compliance.

You’ll also need to make the complete details of health care plans readily available to your employees.  Chances are, you already share the details of your own offerings but, later this year, you will also need to provide employees written notice on the state health insurance exchanges.  Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) can be set up to provide information on all of an employee’s health care options.

You can also expect each state to have unique reporting requirements to supplement federal mandates.  This might be manageable if you have a single office location, but take notice if your company is spread across the country, or if you have a remote workforce. Your ability to meet the specific criteria will be tricky unless you have technology that can track data and provide customized reports to meet each state’s standards.

Pay vs.play?

For many small businesses, the big question of 2013 is whether it’s more costly to play along with new health care reform mandates or pay the penalty taxes associated with eliminating employer-supported health benefits altogether.  If you have 50 or more employees, one thing is certain – you’re going to have to change the way you do things.

If you’re considering reducing your workforce by moving employees to part-time or contract status, consider this: the IRS will be watching.  Employers will be required to track employees’ hours, and full-time or part-time status, and report to the IRS.  “Variable hour employees” need to be carefully monitored and only those that work less than 30 hours in the designated period may be excluded from eligibility for health benefits.  If you have less than 50 employees, your decision to play could pay off –you may qualify for a 25 to 50 percent small business tax credit, which would help offset the cost of your insurance plan.

Pay or play, accurate reporting will be the lynchpin of your success in avoiding costly penalties, or cashing in on valuable incentives.

HR automation tools aren’t just for the one percent

As the chairman of an HR technology company, I know most small business owners consider automating anything beyond their payroll to be a luxury.  However, in the age of health care reform, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

HR automation is no longer reserved for companies with big budgets and lots of employees.  Cloud-based solutions have alleviated the need for businesses to build expensive HRMS system in-house. Today, you can find a scalable, subscription-based HRMS to suit your needs for as little as $10 per employee, per month. These systems will keep you compliant and ease administrative burdens, freeing up time to allow you to focus on taking care of your most valuable resource — your employees.

Flip Filipowski is Executive Chairman and Co-CEO of SilkRoad, a leading global provider of cloud-based social talent management solutions. 

A high-tech entrepreneur and philanthropists for more than three decades, Flip was the Founder and CEO of PLATINUM technology, inc, which he grew into the 8th largest software company in the world at the time of its sale to Computer Associates.

photo credit: Dell’s Official Flickr Page via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Facebook loves local business, apparently. And local business love Facebook.

Facebook cracked the lid on some of the data from its massive social graph today, and the results are astonishing. There are two billion connections — essentially, likes — between consumers and local businesses, and in an average week, local business pages on Facebook get more than 645 million views and 13 million comments.

In addition, a strong majority of Facebook users, more than 70 percent, are connected to at least one local business in their community.

That’s impressive.

It’s also worrying, if you’re a business involved in local search — for example, like Yelp, the traditional directories, the various Yellow Pages/White Pages websites, or OpenTable.

However, Facebook is likely first going after other, slightly less established targets, such as smarter services like Google Local and Apple’s Siri.

The strength of the social graph that Facebook is building — correction: that we are building on Facebook’s platform — is massive, and it is just starting to be unleashed on local business and the connections between people, places, and commerce.

Which, Facebook says, is exactly what small communities like Dixon, Illinois, are using to build community, strengthen local business, and connect people to small shops they care about. Businesses in Dixon have come together to create a monthly event, called Second Saturday, for shopping, arts, and community. The town is using Facebook to spread the word and build buzz.

Facebook’s graph is also increasingly being tied to additional data sources to help businesses both small and large find, target, and sell to consumers. Facebook recently announced Partner Categories, which will help advertisers target people in the market for specific classes of products based on both their offline and online behavior, and it is testing retargeted ads in the middle of the new news feed.

photo credit: asmythie via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

New occupations have flourished on the web; among them, merchants on online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.

But these new occupations are not supported by Main Street’s banks, and sellers are often deemed too risky for a loan.

To meet the demand, organizations like Atlanta, Georgia-based Kabbage are providing working capital to small-business owners so they won’t need to put personal assets on the line, like a house or car.

And Kabbage just announced it has closed a credit facility of $75 million, its largest to date. After just two years of operations, Kabbage claims to deliver more advances than any other provider in the industry. For this reason, Kabbage was named the winner at VentureBeat’s recent Innovation Showdown at our CloudBeat conference.

The company says it has extended more than 60,000 advances and expects to provide more than 100,000 by the end of the year.

CEO Rob Frohwein explained in a recent interview that the engineering team is analyzing all the data it can gather to make “educated guesses” about a loan applicant’s future growth. Ideally, it is looking to fund merchants who are making about $1,000 a month through their online store.

“When we tap into the data, we can see how you [an online merchant] were doing six months ago and project how you might fare a year from now,” he explained. Kabbage provides funding to about 80 percent of the small businesses that apply — the big question, Frohwein admits, is how large the loan should be.

Kabbage monitors how merchants are interacting with their customers on social media sites, selling on UPS, or managing their finances in Quickbooks (Intuit’s accounting software for SMBs), as well as their transaction data from sites like eBay, Amazon and Etsy, to determine whether to give out a loan.

“There is a clear void in the market as traditional financing sources remain reluctant to lend,” said Victory Park Capital’s Tom Affolter.

Victory Park Capital led the funding round, and equity investor Thomvest Ventures also contributed.

The new site includes a short Twitter 101 overview for those to whom “tweet” and “hashtag” are still Greek. And an overview of what Twitter’s 200 million active users actually do while posting 400 million tweets a day. There’s also an overview on how to write good tweets: They should be conversational, funny, shareable, and exceptional.

There’s been a definite acceleration in Twitter monetization efforts. The company released new self-service ad tools just two weeks ago that allow small business advertisers to finely target their campaigns by geography, gender, device, and interests. And Twitter’s new Ads API for larger clients and agencies has been live for just over a month.

One interesting thing about Twitter’s new business user intro video is how the social network now sees itself as a “global dialogue where people talk about their deepest interests … including your business.”

Whether your company is one of people’s deepest interests may be of some debate. But the new Pope was announced via Twitter, so why not your business?

Here’s Twitter’s new intro video for business:

Image credit: Twitter

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Small business software giant Intuit has announced a partnership with LinkedIn to help small business owners make better hiring decisions.

The initiative, known as “Hire Smart,” kicks off with a free event featuring a host of speakers, including “Apprentice” winner Bill Rancic, Intuit CEO Brad Smith, and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner (Weiner also serves on Intuit’s board). HR specialists, lawyers and accountants will also be on hand at the event to answer any niggling questions.

Attendees will receive a discounted membership to LinkedIn’s First Hire package of talent-finding software and discounted job listings, as well as three free months of access to Intuit’s online payroll service. This all amounts to about $400 in discounted software.

According to Smith, the event is just the beginning of where the partnership could go. “This event is our initial foray,” he said by phone. “Then we’ll pull back to make decisions on offering similar programs and discounts.” It’s reminiscent of Microsoft’s BizSpark program, which offers free software and support to startups.

Smith said the companies are currently brainstorming other cost-effective ways to help solve problems for potential employers who are competing for talent with large franchises. He said they already have a “leg up,” as small businesses are the preferred employer. Currently, 19 million people in the U.S. work at a small company.

The inaugural event takes place on April 27 at Intuit’s Mountain View headquarters, and registration starts now.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

For small businesses, a hardware failure can cause an extended period of downtime, and worse, an irretrievable loss of data. 

A startup that provides one click backup and recovery for small and medium-sized businesses, known as Quorum, has swiftly been gaining traction. Today, the company announced it has raised $11 million in its second round of funding. 

According to a recent report issued by the company, most small and medium-sized businesses experience one downtime incident a year, which can set them back over $70,000 per year. Prolonged system failure can be caused by a number of reasons. Hardware and software failure are among the most common, but a natural disaster can also wreak havoc.

Quorum claims its hybrid cloud service can get its customers up and running again in a matter of minutes, not hours of days. Small businesses can also choose to backup online or to tape or external media, but CEO Larry Lang describes this as an “old world” solution.

The most recent funding round was led by Toba Capital, an investment arm funded by the former CEO of Quest Software, Vinny Smith. Quest was acquired by Dell for $2.4 billion. With the funding, Quorum will expand its sales and marketing team, and recruit additional engineers.

Small business disaster image // Davi Sales Batista, Shutterstock 

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

This is a guest post by Rene Reinsberg, CEO and Co-Founder at Locu

There has been a lot of talk lately about how the best business technology, historically only available to big corporations, has become increasingly available to small businesses.

Jeremy Levine, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners, recently told me that “innovations in software UI, online distribution and application development will drive massive new software offerings for small businesses.”

So let’s take a step back and understand the technology tools that can benefit the largest group of people who have been hardest hit by large enterprises and new technologies: the tens of millions of local merchants all over the world.

A few weeks ago, Angelica’s, my favorite small café a few blocks from Union Square, stopping making their trademark sandwiches (trust me, they made to order and made with love) to selling only pre-made, wrapped items. Why? The old way of doing things took too long, and lost them revenue.

But what they really lost is the quality of the food and the personal experience that made Angelica’s special. The good news is that there are myriad technology tools that allows local businesses to be more efficient without sacrificing what makes them unique.

The digital equivalent of the big, friendly sign?

For local businesses, discoverability is key — both offline and online. If Angelica’s Café were bordering Union Square, it wouldn’t have difficulty attracting the throngs of pedestrians — a big, friendly sign would probably do the trick. Most local businesses are not that easily discoverable.

They need to leverage the digital equivalent of the big, friendly sign to ensure they are easy to find online. This will most likely still end up being solved by an online assistant – “Hey Siri, where can I get a massage nearby?”

A quick search on Google Maps, Yelp, and Foursquare or specialty sites like OpenTable, TripAdvisor and Citysearch are often consulted by consumers before they settle on a local business. It’s crucial for our café to be on the digital map and listed everywhere with up-to-date information, including price list and menu data. Companies like Infogroup, Yext, Constant Contact and my own, Locu, can help local businesses manage and distribute their information online.

Beyond the third party sites, a local business’s online presence matters. Does the business appear reputable? Website builder tools like WordPress or Squarespace have become more and more versatile and easy-to-use and have started to offer vertical-specific functionality. A great web presence will drive a lot of online visits (that may translate into offline visits) via search, and can be complemented by online advertising, either directly using Google’s Adwords or Facebook Ads, or online marketing facilitators such as Yodle, ReachLocal, or ThriveHive.

How about about social media?

Purchase intent is also increasingly triggered by Facebook and Twitter — it probably hasn’t been too long since you’ve heard someone say, “I really want to buy those pants I recently saw pinned on Pinterest” or “I just got this deal from Groupon today, this could be a great place to visit this weekend.”

Making live updates to Angelica’s web presence is not the kind of thing a busy local merchant has time to do, but it’s so important.

I recommend posting menu changes online, instead of just on their menu board, with photos of specials to allow their customers to easily find and share the information. This is where where automating and optimizing a merchant’s web presence based on the customer, time of day, and other contextual cues will drive foot traffic to a merchant.

It’s all about the transaction

Once the decision where to buy has been made, it is all about the transaction. Whether booking a yoga class on SpaFinder, making an appointment with a hair stylist on StyleSeat, scheduling a car repair via YourMechanic, finding a photographer on Thumbtack or making a reservation at a restaurant with OpenTable, more and more transactions are initiated and facilitated by smart technology. Plenty of companies, including GrubHub, Seamless and Eat24,facilitate take-out and deliveries for restaurants.

The point-of-sale (POS) market has been undergoing a huge transformation, with many of the new solutions operating on non-proprietary tablet devices, such as AppleiPads, reducing the hardware cost and increasing usability.It’s never been easier for a local business to set up areliable POS system and leverage its data to gain insights into its sales and identify areas to improve profitability. The newer POS systems like Square’s Register, Groupon’s Breadcrumb and Instore come with a set of intuitive analytics, and startups like CoPilot Labs can offer additional insights based on POS data (even from the old-school POS systems).

One specific example of how Angelica could benefit from all this would be to allow customers to pre-order sandwiches. It would not only reduce the waiting time but also help Angelica sell more sandwiches during the busy lunch hour.

Loyalty shouldn’t be the last marketing tool

Chris Luo of FiveStars points out in a recent blog post that “loyalty has often been the last marketing tool deployed, and the methods used to drive it have been rudimentary.”  While there have been a number of startups, including Belly, Punchcard and Cardify, that provide digital loyalty programs in all shapes and forms, I still see a lot of businesses hand out physical punch cards.

Digital loyalty systems can help merchants provide customized, relevant promotions, in turn increasing engagement, and ultimately driving word-of-mouth.

What’s next? Integration

It’s easy for local merchants to be overwhelmed by the seeming laundry list of technologies they should adopt to make their lives easier.   In fact, there’s a wide open market for integrating the many tools and signals a merchant has access to, so that they can start to get insights from multiple channels.

Wouldn’t it be nice for a local business to know at the point-of-sale where a certain customer has been, and how frequently they have made a purchase? Some of the new POS solutions have taken an integrated approach, looking to offer a seamless end-to-end solution. As more and more data surfaces at each interaction point between merchant and consumers, and becomes available through analytics tools, local merchants will be able to gain actionable insights to increase revenues.

Marc Andreessen, an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, referenced the classic ‘Walmart versus local retailer’ example in an interview with TechCrunch, pointing out that “Walmart’s advantage in logistics and in pricing and in data analytics was just so great that they could kill small retailers at will.“ But perhaps not anymore, and he adds, “There is an opportunity here for a shift of the balance of power for big businesses to small businesses.”

The world is a much more interesting, vibrant and beautiful place because of local businesses like Angelica’s café.

Rene Reinsberg is the CEO and Co-Founder at Locu, a startups that helps local businesses manage and distribute their menus and price lists across the web and connect directly with current and prospective customers.

Locu’s API gives developers access to the world’s largest real-time, structured repository of local business offerings data, leveraging a patent-pending technology platform that digitizes and structures real-world content.

Small business owner via mangostock, Shutterstock

So this is why it’s hard not to get at least a tad excited for Foursquare for Businesses, Foursquare’s new companion app for its existing merchant dashboard.

With the app (which is only available for iOS and Android, alas), business owners can monitor Foursquare check-in activity, check out top customers, and monitor analytics data — all from their smartphones. Owners can also use it to activate and deactivate specials, which they’ve only been able to do from their computers.

The app’s release comes a few weeks after Foursquare started giving businesses more detailed check-in data on users.

Foursquare’s angle should be pretty clear: Businesses are becoming massively important to Foursquare’s bottom line. The more information Foursquare gives them, the more attractive Foursquare becomes. That means an actual way to make money — and perhaps confirmation that Foursquare has a sustainable business model behind all of these check-ins.

Photo: Nan Palmero/Flickr

Radius has raised $12.4 million to measure these ripples and turn them into actionable sales insights.

Radius crawls the Internet for information about small businesses. The engine collects data in real time from over 22 million businesses and indexes it into a goldmine for sales teams. The information is highly searchable and, when combined with lead generation tools and CRM integrations, makes it much easier for companies to identify potential customers and partners.

The brain behind the company is Darian Shirazi, Facebook’s first intern, who forsook college to pursue life as an entrepreneur. Forbes recently named Shirazi one of its 30 Under 30 tech pioneers. Shirazi swung by the VentureBeat offices to chat about his startup, the funding, and the future of small businesses in America.

“There are big challenges today for business trying to sell to or work with small businesses because there is no good deep information about small mom and pop businesses,” he said. “We are trying to add as much data as we possibly can from all over the web to track the small business economy, which represents 70% of the American economy and is responsible for eight times as many jobs.”

Amassing data of this kind is difficult — many of these companies have a weak (or no) online presence, and their churn rate is extremely high. Shirazi said that 10% of small businesses either move, die, or come into being every month, making it a monumental task to keep up with the rapidly changing index. Furthermore, Radius faces challenges like variations in labels (such as “and” vs. “&”) and distinguishing between multiple stores with the same name. Shirazi and his team, however, are passionate and up for the task.

“My family has started businesses for hundreds of years,” he said. “I care about the small-business economy and I care about data. There isn’t really a way to do this halfway. We have spent the past three years working on this database. This funding will help us build a sales team for ourselves, add engineers, add new data sources, and build up a data science team to build the best data product out there for small businesses.”

Using Radius, sales and marketing teams targeting small businesses can apply specific filters like ratings, increasing/decreasing traffic, minority-owned etc., to pull up lists of businesses that fit their criteria. Based on the results, they can build informed and actionable lead lists. Target customers include daily deals and e-commerce sites, business insurance agencies, web hosting companies, and payment platforms.

The financial sector represents a major market for Radius’ technology, which is why American Express significantly contributed to this round. While Shirazi did not comment on whether this was a strategic partnership, he did say there was “alignment” and “overlap” between his product and American Express’ goals.

Radius’ data is valuable for a huge range of applications. As small business owners become more tech-savvy, this is just the first toe dip into the pool.

Existing investor Blue Run Ventures also participated, after throwing in for Radius’ first $6 million round along with Comcast. Radius is based in San Francisco and has 20 employees.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

How often do you check online reviews before dining out or booking a hotel room?

If your answer is never, you’re probably 75 or older and think “yelp” is a sound a dog makes.  But for the rest of us, we know that reviews are critical in influencing purchase decisions.  So critical that someone even started a business writing favorable book reviews called GettingBookReviews.com (charging, of course, $99 a pop).

If you’ve ever thought about paying for inauthentic endorsements like this, you better pump the breaks because third party review sites are now making it as obvious as Snooki’s spray tan that you’ve invested in fake reviews.

Yelp recently created consumer alerts for business pages that remain for 90 days when they sniff out phony reviews. The alert reads the following: “We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business. We weren’t fooled, but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”

Similarly, TripAdvisor says they have “zero tolerance for fake reviews.” If they believe that a hotel review is contrived, they will remove the review, ensure that the property is penalized in the site’s rankings, and possibly even post a message alerting millions of travelers on what they’ve found.

Considering the clout online reviews hold in consumer purchase behavior, it’s no surprise that some business owners feel compelled to invest in sham reviews:

• A one-star increase on Yelp leads to a 5% to 9% increase in revenue (source: Michael Luca, Harvard Business School).
• 70% of global consumers trust online reviews, an increase of 15 percent in four years (source: Nielsen).
• 80% of consumers change their mind after reading a single bad review (source: Cone Communications).
• One negative review can cost you 30 customers (source: Convergys).
• 7 in 10 who read reviews share them with friends, family & colleagues thus amplifying their impact (Deloitte & Touche)

But here’s the bottom line:

A few “positive” reviews won’t stop customers from continuing to complain about your crappy service or overcooked food. Instead of taking the easy (and sleazy) way out, listen to the concerns your customers are voicing and improve your business. Social media and third party review sites have put the power in the hands of the consumer. Forever. If companies don’t become customer-focused, customer-centric, customer-obsessed, they risk tarnishing their brand reputation and ultimately, losing their company.

 How to improve online ratings the honest way

The problem that many business owners face is that reviews on third party review sites might not legitimately reflect the satisfaction of their customers. Many know they have happy diners or guests; but as the saying goes, “Haters gonna hate.” Pissed off customers are sometimes more inclined to write a damaging review while the satisfied customers will recommend the restaurant or hotel at a cocktail party instead of putting their praise online.

Here’s the solution:

Find those customers who are enthusiastic about your brand, product, or service (AKA your authentic Brand Advocates), and make it drop dead easy for them to write raving reviews.

1. Ask your customers via email, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, website, or elsewhere: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to your friends?” Those who answer 9 or 10 are your Advocates.
2. Give Advocates the tools to rate and review your product or property, or direct them directly to the relevant third party review site where they can give you a 5-star review.
3. By identifying your Advocates, you’re creating a virtual marketing force that you can leverage for much more than just reviews. They’ll gladly share offers or other announcements like a new location opening, a new chef, or a remodel of your hotel with their social networks. They’ll create personal stories about how they rekindled their love at your resort or made a new friend with one of the gregarious employees who waited on them.

Whatever you do, don’t pay for reviews or recommendations of any sort. There is no longer room for businesses that don’t understand the importance of authenticity and transparency in the era of social media.

Instead, tap into the enthusiasm of your highly satisfied customers and empower them to fight negative word of mouth for you.

By Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance (@carafuggetta)

photo credit: Dave77459 via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday falls … Small Business Saturday.

Yes, that’s actually a thing now: Created (and trademarked) by American Express in 2011, “Small Business Saturday” is an attempt to encourage people to do their holiday shopping at small businesses. It’s set for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. So after you go on a mall-shopping binge on Friday (or perhaps after you stay home knitting in observation of Buy Nothing Day), head downtown on Saturday and buy some stuff from local merchants.

And to help out, Twitter is offering $1 million in free ads for small businesses. The first 10,000 eligible businesses in the U.S. will get $100 in free advertising credits each, which they can use for promoting tweets or for promoting their own Twitter accounts. Nice, huh? You don’t even have to claim the credits this weekend — Twitter will keep the offer open until December 14. Click over here to apply for the program.

It’s a sweet gesture from Twitter to the vast engine of economic growth that is made up of America’s small businesses. But it’s also a canny promotional ploy for Twitter to call attention to its own advertising services, isn’t it?

But, let’s not be too jaded about this. After all, we’re talking about an imaginary holiday invented by a credit card company, but at least it’s one that might benefit some actual mom-and-pop shops.

Now, who wants to start a campaign for Startup Sunday?

Photo credit: American Express/Small Business Saturday

Marketing software company VerticalResponse surveyed almost 500 small businesses, finding that 66 percent are spending more time on social media this year than last.

In fact, more than half of small business owners and managers spend more than an hour a week on social media, and a staggering 43 percent spend more than six hours every week blogging, sharing, and tweeting about their business. Those are massive numbers — I’ve spent some time in the local search industry working with small business owners, and many were not willing to look at Facebook and Twitter for even 15 minutes as little as two years ago.

More than half have a blog and, as mentioned above, most are on Facebook and Twitter.

But small businesses are virtually ignoring LinkedIn (participation at just 4 percent), Google+ (3 percent), and Pinterest (one percent). In other words, owners and managers are still very focused in their digital market efforts … and that’s likely leaving some vast untapped resources for savvy marketers.

There are some, however, who wish that social media wasn’t such a high-maintenance squeeze. A full third wished they’d like to spend less time on social media … which, I suppose, means that they are not yet seeing the kinds of returns that justify their investment.

Even so, the number of small businesses that have increased their social media budgets is four times higher than those that have decreased their budgets. So something is definitely working.

Full details here in the infographic:

photo credit: Vainsang via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

If given the choice, I will always patronize a small, local business over a national corporation. However, many small business owners lack the technological or social media expertise to effectively manage their online presence.

LocalVox, a startup that gives local businesses tools to wage online marketing campaigns, hopes to help and has just raised $7.4 million.

The company functions as a subscription service. Business owners load information into their profile, including descriptions, photos, testimonials, social media accounts, and keywords. The platform then distributes this information across multiple online channels, as well as through its network of local publishers. When businesses want to update their profiles, make announcements, or offer deals, they can log in to the dashboard and the information is published to various locations.

“There are 4.9 million businesses with less than 99 employees and every local business is struggling with how to manage the constantly fragmenting world of online marketing,” said founder and CEO David Pachter. “Life used to be simple when all they had to do was buy a Yellow Pages ad.  Now there are hundreds of services and so many seem mandatory (a website, SEO, Facebook, Yelp, FourSquare, Google Places, email marketing, Twitter, and most recently mobile). It’s far too complicated and moving far too quickly for a local business to keep up.”

This helps LocalVox’s list of 700 small businesses communicate with and engage their existing customers, as well as attract new ones at a reasonable cost. Since the target is a local audience, LocalVox has partnered over 20 local publisher partners, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. It not only works with restaurants, bars, galleries, and gyms with a single shop, but also with franchises such as Whole Foods that want to reach people in specific locations.

LocalVox is headquartered in New York and has solutions for businesses in the New York Metropolitan Area. With this funding, it will expand into new markets. The investment came from media company Talus Holdings, which is backed by Blackstone affiliate GSO Capital Partners LP.

The app gives freelancers and small business people the capability to create invoices and document expenses, fill out time sheets, organize expenses, and process payments on the go. But it’s safe to say that most business expense reports don’t include parachuting — or pedicures.

To promote the app, Freshbooks has launched a “new 4 Ps of marketing” promo. It’s a take-off on the old Ps: price, product, promotion, and place. These new Ps, however, have nothing to do with anything but spoiling entrepreneurs.

The first 40 people who log expenses for pancakes, parking, parachuting, or a pedicure via the new app will have it paid for by Freshbooks. The contest starts September 1 and runs through to the September 21.

Little tip?

Parking and pancakes are easy — meals are common expenses. And 40 pedicures could be soaked up pretty quickly. The P that may last longest is parachuting. So if you’ve ever had a dream of jumping from a perfectly good airplane, here’s your chance to get someone else to pay for it.

All you have to do? Treat yourself and expense it via Freshbooks.

Full contest rules are on FreshBooks’ Facebook page.

photo credit: Theophilos via photo pin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

FreshBooks launched an iPhone app today so businesses can balance their books on the go.

The announcement states that the app adds the “any time, anywhere ability to create invoices, record expenses and track time on projects.” My initial reaction was “why would you want to?” However, upon a deeper examination, I realized that rather than encouraging workaholism, it in fact is a tool to keep work at a manageable level.

For both employees and administrators, it’s easy to let accounting materials stack up into a daunting pile of paperwork or a stuffed inbox. The new mobile version enables professionals to create invoices, document expenses, collaborate on time sheets, and organize expenses and process payments as they happen. This can prevent backlog and a miserable end-of-month spent catching up.

With the app, freelancers can continuously update their hours and business travelers can file expense reports from the back of a cab or after a client dinner. Business owners and accountants can process things whenever it is convenient, as opposed to only in the office.

All the data is stored and secure and can be integrated with over 70 partners, like Zendesk and Google Apps. While third-party developers have used its API to make FreshBooks mobile compatible in the past, this is the first app developed and designed in-house.

Since its founding in 2004, the company has provided cloud accounting services to over 5 million users worldwide. It is one of the most popular online bookkeeping products on the market, primarily competing with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online. FreshBooks is based in Toronto.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

ThriveHive, a startup that provides a comprehensive marketing platform for local businesses, just announced that it’s closed a $1.5 million seed funding round today. The money will contribute towards customer acquisition and further developing the software, which creates custom marketing plans and marketing tools for small businesses.

ThriveHive customers answer a set of questions about their current marketing practices and receive an initial assessment. Businesses can begin with a 30-day free trial and then choose from multiple subscription options, ranging from $99 to $699 a month.

The ThriveHive platform offers big data analysis in addition to monthly marketing performance reports, support for marketing campaigns, and organizational tools that help local businesses manage their activities. It also looks at what strategies will be most effective for growth based on the idea that each local business is unique and the marketing should be unique as well.

“We believe that local business marketing is broken today,” said ThriveHive CEO Max Faingezicht in a press release. “The current choices for these small business owners to grow their businesses are either one-size-fits-all solutions or point solutions that do not address all their marketing needs.”

In addition to big data analysis, the three founders of ThriveHive also use their expertise to tailor custom marketing plans. Faingezicht and COO Adam Blake are graduates of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. They are both entrepreneurs who grew frustrated with the current model and marketing tools available for small businesses. Third founder Maria Battaglia has experience as a marketing executive at large companies Monster.com, NBC, and IBM.

Competitors include Hubspot and Intuit, a provider of business and financial management tools for small businesses, which acquired marketing software-as-a-service company Demandforce for $423.5 million this past April.

The first round of investors included MIT Professor Ed Roberts, Mitch Roberts, and Jean Hammond, as well as seed stage venture capital groups Founder Collective and IBCC. ThriveHive was founded in 2011 and is based in Cambridge, Mass.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Small business startup Wave Accounting has raised $12 million in its second round of funding, the company announced today.

Wave, which offers free accounting software for small companies,  feels that managing “the books” is a complicated and dreaded task that isn’t any easier thanks to desktop accounting software.

“I experienced the pain first hand of trying to run your books and I really despise all those back office tasks,” said co-founder Kirk Simpson in an interview with VentureBeat. “[I wanted to] simplify the administrative tasks that small businesses despise.”

Simpson thinks high-end accounting software is so complicated that most business owners need to spend far too much time learning how to use it. He created Wave as a simpler solution that clueless business owners could use to manage their accounting.

“There’s a disconnect between small businesses owners who hate doing this and yet they are being asked to pay hundreds of dollars to pay for desktop and cloud [accounting] software,” said Simpson.

Competition in this space ranges from high-end offerings like Salesforce, Zoho, and NetSuite, to cheaper and free services from Kashoo and Outright. Wave bets on its completely free offering and super-simple design to help it stand out. Wave makes it money solely from advertising services to its customers.

Social+Capital Partnership led the $12 million round. Charles River Ventures and OMERS Ventures also contributed.

Wave Accounting is based in Toronto, Canada. The two-year old company has raised $19 million in funding in the last 18 months, since its launch.

Man with financial chart image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Manta, a website that connects customers and small businesses with company profiles, just raised $44 million. The company helps small businesses gain visibility and attract new customers, as well as create a community of small business owners.

Think of Manta as a “LinkedIn meets Yelp for small businesses.” The service acts as a directory for businesses that exist all over the web. For example, one business profile is for an Etsy shop called Modest Chicks, with the founder’s name and location are displayed as well as a few of the products the shop sells. Like LinkedIn, you can write a recommendation for the company, and employees can even connect with their company. For small businesses that may not have a strong social media or web presence, Manta helps them get more customers. Customers can go to the site to search for a business based on location or category.

Also like LinkedIn, Manta encourages business owners to connect with others to grow their network, share knowledge, and get advice. More specifically, Manta can help advise users about marketing or human resources.

The company’s rivals include Angie’s List and MerchantCircle, both of which connect customers to small businesses within a local area. Likewise, Yelp and Facebook Page’s help small businesses get noticed, and because both services are so widespread people often to flock to them first to find and connect with businesses.

Norwest Venture Partners led the round, which will likely be used to grow the company. Norwest Venture Partners’ Jon Kossow and David Su also joined Manta’s board of directors.

Manta was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. This is the first reported funding round for the company.

Business people book cutout image via Shutterstock

Small is the new big thing on Twitter, as the company is, at long last, providing small businesses with a way to advertise on the social network.

Twitter is rolling out its self-serve advertising product to a select group of small businesses, the company announced Monday. American Express, Twitter’s launch partner for the program, is handling the notification process and both companies will invite more small businesses into the fold in the weeks ahead.

The self-serve platform democratizes two of Twitter’s ad products — Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts — and makes them accessible to businesses of all sizes, regardless of their budgets.

The two ad products allow for geographic targeting of tweets and accounts, and are offered on a pay-per-engagement basis. With Promoted Accounts, a business pays when a Twitterer follows their account. With Promoted Tweets, an advertiser pays for each click, retweet, reply, or favorite. Advertisers can set daily spend limitations and specify how much they’re willing to pay for each engagement.

The self-serve ad platform is Twitter’s first real attempt at becoming a contender in the online advertising war. In finally creating a hands-off system, Twitter has the opportunity to beef up revenue without additional overhead and, in theory, can now challenge Facebook and Google for online ad dollars. Realistically, the self-serve ad platform, when launched in full, will chip away at Yelp’s advertiser pool before it makes an assault on Facebook or Google.

But we’re getting a tad ahead of ourselves. The platform remains exclusive to American Express cardmembers and merchants until Twitter opens the offering more broadly later this year, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat.

Twitter has 140 million active users who send 340 million tweets per day. The information network is anticipated to bring in $259.9 million in revenue in 2012, according to eMarketer.

Photo credit: wildxplorer/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Three-year-old business services provider FeeFighters has been acquired by daily deals giant Groupon for an undisclosed sum.

“Our goals have always been to help small businesses run more efficiently, and by teaming up with Groupon, a pioneer in local e-commerce, we are able to execute on that goal even better than we were as an independent company,” FeeFighters co-founder and CEO Sean Harper said Friday in statement.

Chicago-based FeeFighters operates a reverse auction marketplace where small business owners can pick a merchant for credit card processing. The company also offers its own payment gateway. The products will remain operable, Harper said.

The obvious connection between the two companies is their joint interest in catering to the needs of small business owners. Groupon has, of late, demonstrated a strong interest in developing tools for its merchant community and just launched a scheduling tool (the product of a previous acquisition) for taking online reservations. In theory, Groupon could employ FeeFighters to help merchants process payments when customers book appointments.

FeeFighters had raised more than $1.5 million in Angel and seed funding prior to its sale. Groupon confirmed the acquisition to VentureBeat but did not disclose terms of the deal and declined to provide additional comment.

[via TechCrunch]

Photo credit: swanksalot/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Software-as-a-service company Jobber has raised a seed funding round.

SalesForce and other services like it have been around for several years to manage contacts, calendars, task, and invoicing. But, most services are aimed at business executives and startup companies, not smaller businesses. Jobber’s goal is to bring business management and customer relationship management tools to “field-services” providers, like handymen, painters, and landscapers.

“We provide field service business owners with a powerful modernization tool that is enabling growth and providing a competitive advantage,” co-founder and chief executive Sam Pillar said in a statement, “We’re making our customers happier business owners.”

Jobber realized that many small businesses in the field-services industry use either old software or pen and paper to manage their business, so it set out to bring these companies up to date. Jobber’s product includes a CRM tool, task management, job tracking, sceduling, invoicing, and QuickBooks integration for accounting, all of which are targeted specifically at small businesses. The company puts a lot of emphasis on easy to use software that anyone can start using with minimal training. The entire service is web-based, is available for all the major mobile platforms, and costs $30 per month.

The company said it is steadily growing its customer base and trying to go after the 75 percent of companies, according to a Gartner survey, that don’t use software to manage their business.

Service Auto Pilot and Click Software are among Jobber’s closest competitors, though Jobber told VentureBeat in a statement that its competition is ”split between web and desktop based software. The desktop offerings are dated, ill-supported and lack innovation but still have a relatively strong following despite their lack of sophistication.”

The company’s funding was led by Vancouver venture capitalists, entrepreneurs Boris Wertz, Vik Khanna, and Pankaj Agarwal, and venture capital firm Point Nine Capital. Jobber will use the seed funding to expand its team, develop new features, and improve its user experience.

Jobber is based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and was founded in 2010 by two freelance programers, Sam Pillar and Forrest Zeisler.

Lawn mower image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Stitch Labs, a startup that helps small businesses manage inventory, orders, and shipping, announced today it has raised $1 million in seed funding from True Ventures.

Co-founder Jake Gasaway told VentureBeat in an interview that Stitch Labs really took off after it integrated with Etsy and Shopify. Many of the millions of Etsy users began making their way over to Stitch Labs and became paying customers, which helped the company gain attention from venture capital firms. Stitch Labs attributes its seed funding to showing VCs that they could build a business that generates revenue and could convert people into paying customers.

“Something that was pretty much consistent with our users, is that they loved our product. Once we integrated with Etsy and Shopify, we gained new customers — not just sign ups, but paying customers,” said Gasaway, “We spent time last summer talking to people, networking with small businesses to pave our way.”

Stitch Labs manages contacts, inventory, sales, invoicing, and shipping for online businesses. It displays all relevant information in a dashboard, so business owners can manage orders, payment, and many other aspects of their operations. The company also integrates with the shopping cart platforms from Etsy and Shopify and can manage data from several different business, both online and off, in one dashboard. Pricing starts at $12 per month for single-person businesses, up to a monthly fee of $80 for larger companies.

Co-founder and chief executive Brandon Levey began working on Stitch Labs in 2011 when he was running his own design and manufacturing company. He was frustrated with the lack of software available to small businesses to manage inventory and sales.

“We see a lot of changes going on the e-commerce world, we want to make it easier for them to succeed,” Levey told VentureBeat.  ”We take a more holistic approach to all the ways businesses sell their products, offline and off.”

Stitch Labs will use the funding for product development and customer growth. The company is also hiring new employees.

Stitch was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, California. This is the first round of funding the company has received.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Jamie Sutherland

Xero, an online-accounting service for small businesses, announced today it has received $16.6 million in its latest round of funding. PayPal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel participated in the round.

“Xero was started by a few entrepreneurs who struggled to get the right financial information to make business decisions. They set out to build accounting software that caters to small business and accountants,” said Jamie Sutherland (pictured right), Xero’s President of U.S. Operations in an interview with VentureBeat.

Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, Xero gives business and independent contractors an online dashboard that they can use to manage expenses, invoicing, and bank transactions. The service is for all types of businesses, including small retail stores, one-person operations, and larger companies. Xero also offers tools for professional accountants to run their businesses.

The service emphasizes ease of use and a clean design to help anyone manage their business expenses. Xero gives small businesses and their financial advisers the ability to view the same information at the same time so they can collectively make smart business plans. There are three pricing levels available starting at $19 per month for one-person businesses, and up to $39 per month for larger teams.

Peter Thiel has previously invested in the Xero, and this new round comes from Thiel’s New Zealand venture fund Valar Ventures. Thiel is a well-known tech investor and startup founder who co-founded PayPal and has invested in Facebook, Yelp, Yammer, and LinkedIn.

“This money will be used to accelerate our U.S. growth, and execute our business,” said Sutherland, “We have a team of six in San Francisco and [with the funding] we will be expanding our team.”

Xero was founded in New Zealand in 2006. Globally, Xero has more than 170 employees, including a team of six at its United States office in San Francisco. The company boasts more than 60,000 customers in more than 100 countries. This latest funding round was led by Peter Thiel, Sam Morgan of Fairfax Media, and Craig Winklerthe, former co-founder of MYOB. Since its founding, Xero has raised $70 million.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Being successful in business is about knowing what your competitors know and being able to act on it. If you could find out what kinds of work tools are helping your competitors stay lean and mean, it could be a real leg up. You can’t just call up a competitor and ask. But a new startup called BestVendor is creating a Yelp-like recommendations network around work apps to make that kind of tool discovery possible.

BestVendor wants to make it easier for any business to find the right software to get work done, based on the experience of professionals at similar companies.

“When it comes to desktop Web and mobile applications there are new things coming out all the time,” BestVendor co-founder and chief executive Jeff Giesea told VentureBeat. “There’s a lot of noise, but some of them can be really helpful to businesspeople.”

The BestVendor signup page is simple and elegant and asks you to submit three work-related apps you love. Then it helps your build a profile by connecting your LinkedIn account to the service. The information about your company size and industry helps BestVendor match you with similar companies in similar industries. From there it’s quick and easy to see what tools companies like yours are using and to try them out for yourself.

BestVendor is solving a problem for businesses, but it is also bringing new customers to the app makers. Rather than spend money on marketing their products through traditional channels, developers can use BestVendor to connect with the people most likely to buy what they’re selling by finding them at a time when they need it.

In 2008 there were 27 million small businesses in the U.S., according to the Small Business Administration. A small business is one that employs fewer than 50 people. It’s fair to assume that most American small businesses don’t have a procurement department whose sole job it is to find and test the best work tools.

“Ten years ago it would have seemed weird that we all share our resumes online using Linkedin. We’re working towards a world where professionals are sharing the tools they’re using online and it becomes part of their identity,” said Giesea.

Right now BestVendor  has 4,100 users, but the site launched in an open beta at the beginning of November. BestVendor is based in New York City, and has three employees. The company received $600,000 in seed funding from Peter Thiel, Ron Conway’s SV Angel, Lerer Ventures and Softbank Capital.

Giesea recently shared the 25 most beloved work web services and work apps on VentureBeat. BestVendor has also compiled a list of top tools for developers, and the results of its 500-person survey were compiled in an infographic released today.