If you’re a small business owner, there’s nothing more important than making a lasting connection with your customers. New startup Spontaneus is aiming to do just that, sending free certificate incentives from businesses to their target audience. Founded by Julian Erickson and Mike Wolf, Spontaneus is providing a new, transparent and exclusive marketing option for…
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Facebook announced Monday that it will be giving away up to $10 million in free advertisements – $50 for 200,000 businesses – starting in January 2012. “Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and we believe that Facebook can be a tremendous tool to fuel their growth and success,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook…
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Two of the biggest challenges facing small businesses are cash flow visibility and access to financing. Bilbus is a company using technology to solve these problems by bringing businesses and lenders together online. Using Bilbus, small business owners can track and view the status of their invoices as well as plan and forecast their collections and…
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Anyone who has ever launched a website for their new business can tell you how expensive, time-consuming, and, for the non-technical, confusing the process is. For small businesses, even moreso. Enter Central.ly, a small business’s front door on the web. They make it easy to create a web presence, connect to online profiles, and seamlessly…
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Social commerce has been on fire as daily deal sites have been helping to sell excess inventory for local businesses. LivingSocial along with Groupon have been leading the charge. We have been keeping our eye on both social commerce giants as they have both been valued at over a billion dollars. I got chance to…
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There are a number of options when it comes to social media marketing and managing all the various options can be a task in itself. That’s where Postling comes in. The New York based startup has made it’s mission in helping small businesses manage and measure online marketing efforts. We’ve had the pleasure of following…
Read MoreNetwork Solutions just shared their State of Small Business Report with the University of Maryland Robert H Smith School of Business and it’s not pretty. But it is optimistic. Here’s why. From the first paragraph of the report: The competitive health of America’s small businesses is as low as it has been since the SmallBusiness…
Read MoreOver the past 10 years, Tomer Yogev has worked with several startups, owned his own small business consultancy, and spent time in venture capital. Recently, he launched TandemSpring, another small business consultancy. In this video interview, Tomer explains how the individual can be more important than their idea or execution, and techniques for moving past…
Read MoreWhen a business owner tells you how much their product or service costs, have you ever just responded in a surprised tone, “How Much?” Try it. It’s an amazingly useful little ploy. It doesn’t matter whether you believe the price is fair or not, you will be surprised how many times, a person with full…
Read MoreSitting outside my apartment is a stack of yellow pages. They were delivered a few weeks ago but nobody has picked one up. As they collect dust I am reminded of how useful they use to be and how dominant those books were. Even more, it reminds me of some striking changes in the online…
Read MoreWe are excited to be working with the Consumer Electronic Association this year as we look to show off some of the latest innovations at the 2011 Consumer Electronic Show at the official CES Tweetup on January 7th. This year’s tweetup will be bigger and better than ever, and we can’t wait to see you…
Read MoreHave you ever worked at a job and thought “I could run this place better”? Robert Groth and Carter Robins did just that. Robert and Carter are technical theater guys (not business guys). While working on a theater show 3 years ago and seeing how much the company they were working for was making off…
Read MoreCrowdsourcing is nothing new but the Web has made it easier than ever to tap into a crowd of people for help. This article looks at a number of different businesses that leverage crowdsourcing but left out some of our favorites which include GeniusRocket and CrowdSpring. Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com Tapping the Wisdom of the Crowd…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This video episode was created by Tim Jahn, a longtime Chicago TECH cocktailer and storyteller who produces the online video series, Beyond The Pedway focused on better telling the local business stories in Chicago. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @timjahn. In this episode, I’m chatting about e-learning with the folks at NogginLabs,…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was written by Bob Meighan, CPA and Vice President of Intuit’s Consumer Tax Group. Meighan is the past chairman and current member of the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee. Meighan has been featured on ABC News, CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg Radio, and countless local and national television and radio programs, as well…
Read MoreEditor’s Note: This article was written by Shashi Bellamkonda. A prolific Twitterer, blogger, and product innovator, Shashi speaks seven languages and ardently works to turn his hobbies into his profession. He blogs at: blog.networksolutions.com and shashi.name. You can follow him on Twitter at: @shashib. At this time of the year there is a flurry of…
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There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More
Coming off of one of our biggest Tech Cocktail mixer events in Chicago this past week, which showcased 14 early-stage start-ups, we thought it would... Read More