Influencer marketing startup Mavrck raises another $5.8M

Mavrck has raised another $5.8 million in funding, bringing its total raised to $13.8 million.

When the company raised its Series A back in 2015, it was focused on helping brands work with “micro-influencers” who were already using their products. Now it describes itself as an “all-in-one” influencer marketing platform, offering a number of tools to automate and measure the process.

Last month, Mavrck announced new features for Pinterest, where it’s now an official marketing partner. It also says it’s been doing more to improve measurement and detect fraud — on the fraud side, it promises to analyze a “statistically significant sample” of an Instagram account’s followers, and of the accounts that engage with their content, to determine if they’re bots.

Customers include P&G, Godiva and PepsiCo, and the company says recurring revenue has grown 400 percent year-over-year.

“Everything that we have done at Mavrck this year has been done with the intention to drive the influencer industry forward,” said co-founder and CEO Lyle Stevens in the funding announcement. “Every new capability that we’ve introduced, every partner that we’ve started working with, every influencer behavior that we’ve tracked was part of our mission to help marketers harness the power of content that people trust to drive tangible business value for their brands.”

The new funding comes from GrandBanks Capital and Kepha Partners. A spokesperson said this isn’t a Series B, but rather additional capital raised to support increased demand and channel partnerships.

The tactics behind The Athletic’s breakout success in sports subscriptions

Local newspapers may be shuttering and people may be consuming most news on social media, but don’t tell Alex Mather that a subscription news publication can’t grow like a unicorn startup. His 2-year-old sports publisher The Athletic has gained over 100,000 paid subscribers (60% under age 34) and has a 90% retention rate.

Having already raised $30 million in its short life, the company announced a new $40 million Series C yesterday, led by Founders Fund and Bedrock Capital. It reportedly values The Athletic around $200 million.

I interviewed Alex Mather (The Athletic’s CEO) and Eric Stomberg (Partner at Bedrock Capital) to understand what’s behind the breakout success and why they think this publishing startup can scale to become a multi-billion dollar company.

EP: Bedrock makes concentrated, contrarian bets. Explain how The Athletic fits that.

ES: I first met Alex and Adam in 2016 during Y Combinator. The popular view then, as it remains now, was that people just aren’t willing to pay for content online and that to win in media you have to put out a high volume of free articles on social.

The Athletic took the opposite approach. It’s a narrative violation. Everything is part of a paid subscription, with the belief that instead of writers needing to post 3-4 pieces per day, they should focus on deeper stories that add value to paid subscribers over time. That worldview resonated with us. If you can create content at scale that people are willing to pay for, that’s a powerful economic engine.

There’s so much sports coverage already out there, by professionals and amateurs alike, so why are people willing to pay for The Athletic?

AM: While there appears to be an abundance of content, most of it is aggregated, shallow content for a broad audience. We produce fewer stories and target a diehard fan. Our subscribers consistently tell us that no one else produces the same depth on a daily basis.

How did you determine the $60/year price point?

AM: We think of $60/year ($5/month) as less than the average NBA ticket. It’s a meaningful price but not prohibitive, especially when we do discounts in the first year. Like all subscription companies, whether we like it or not, we have to consider how our pricing stacks up against Netflix. For $10/month, you can subscribe to Netflix which is spending $8 billion per year in content.

Is The Athletic profitable?

AM: We expand by launching in local markets. We are in 47 thus far. The operational focus is on building a local team and becoming profitable in each local market. I can tell you that most markets are profitable in the first year–currently all of our markets over one year old are profitable and most of those over 6 months old are profitable.

(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Explain your growth strategy in terms of coverage: which sports did you start with and at which level (local vs national)?

AM: Direct-to-consumer businesses have to work really to earn their subscribers’ hard-earned money. We have to obsess over where we can be different. In the beginning, that was with hockey and baseball, because those have been de-prioritized by the bigger players. That shifted as we gained more subscribers: we needed to become comprehensive. We hired folks to cover the NBA, to cover the NFL, to cover soccer.

Do subscribers usually come just for one local sport or for the broader bundle?

AM: We’ve built a powerful bundle. A local newspaper has local politics, local restaurants, and then local sports. We have just the sports, but add a national perspective and a nationwide bundle. Most of our subscribers are “super bundlers,” meaning they subscribe to content from multiple cities plus at least one national product and usually a college product that’s not local. We provide all that for significantly less than competitors.

Eric — as a VC looking for multi-billion dollar exits, how are you analyzing the potential scale of a subscription publication like this? Even most people who are bullish on subscriptions believe it’s a choice of going for a niche audience and staying small.

ES: There are two things we look for in a subscription business: retention and a positive flywheel.

Retention. In any subscription business, the key question is: can they maintain their subscribers over time? Most of them don’t. Spotify does, Netflix does, and The Athletic does as well. The Athletic is off the charts, which sets it up for scale. You want to see deep engagement over a very, very long period of time — years.

A positive flywheel. The more you build your subscriber base, the more you build your revenue base. That allows you to get better content, to hire unique writers, to build greater depth. In doing so, you attract people who weren’t ready to subscribe in the early days but now you have writers they follow and content they want. Technology is important here too: as you build a bigger platform with more content, serving the right content at the right time to each user is a key advantage. When this flywheel is working it’s actually quite hard to put a ceiling on the business.

Most publishers did a so-called “pivot to video” over the last couple of years. You’re anchored in writing. Why not more video at the start?

AM: We’re obsessed with the consumer and all our research in the beginning said that people still like to read books and articles. Advertising with text may not be as good as with video, which may be why so many other companies “pivoted to video,” but we think the written word is still the best way to convey certain types of stories. It’s straightforward, it doesn’t require headphones.

There’s an incredible amount of talent out there that can produce these stories and that has been cast aside by many entities. We saw it as an opportunity to give them great jobs and bring value to our subscribers. That has paid off for us.

 

What are your plans for video or other content formats in the future?

AM: We raised this Series C with audio and video in mind. We can tell even more stories when we add in audio and video possibilities. Our goal is to serve the subscriber: some love to read, some love to listen, others prefer to watch. We look up to things like The Ringer, Andre the Giant on HBO, VICE News, Gimlet, and The Daily by the New York Times all as incredible storytelling, and we ask ourselves “how can we do sports versions of those?”.

Why focus on hiring experienced, full-time writers rather than a stable of contributors or curating from the vast pool of content by fans? Lots of amateurs pay close attention to sports.

AM: What’s really important to us is a growth mentality — that by Day 100 on our team a writer is thinking very differently. We’re providing lots of data, lots of feedback. We invest in great people who will figure this out with us over time. Also, scaling so quickly from 0 to 300 editorial staff was possible because we recruited experienced talent who know what to do already.

We do have about 400 contributors as well. These are folks who may be lawyers or accountants but are passionate about the teams they cover. We are a way for them to reach a premium audience. We can pay them really well and give them world-class editors formerly with Sports Illustrated and ESPN.

How are you acquiring your subscribers?

AM: When we expand into a new market, we gain new subscribers by hiring writers who have a following already and by word of mouth from existing subscribers. Then like any direct-to-consumer brand, we are acquiring subscribers through Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

You financially incentivize your writers based on them acquiring new subscribers through their articles or by promoting The Athletic with their followers online. That is very uncommon in publishing. Explain that strategy.

AM: It ties back to our focus on building for the long term and investing in talent that will grow with us. We like to assign incentives that give us the best chance of building a sustainable business and we think about compensation in that way. We give our team equity in the company and for many, we tie a portion of their comp to the performance of their team, sport, city. It’s a great way to share in the responsibility and success of the business.

At the bottom of articles, you ask readers to rate each story as “Meh”, “Solid”, or “Awesome”. I wish every publisher did this. How do you use this data? How do a writer’s scores impact them?

AM: It’s about feedback loops. Our writers gauge feedback when they share on Twitter. This is another data point. It helps paint a more complete picture. NPS alone isn’t enough of course though. We look at whether articles drive new subscribers, drive deep engagement, drive comments, etc. We don’t use pageviews, but we certainly use metrics. Usually, this results in a writer producing very different work on Day 100 than they were on Day 0.

Explain the interaction between subscribers. It’s not unique to have a comments section: there are bad comments sections, good comments sections, and comments sections that go unused. At a tactical level, how do you think about building community?

AM: My co-founder and I met at Strava, the social network for endurance athletes. I ran the product team and we were obsessed with community. We see an incredible connection between community engagement and subscriber retention. The question that drives us is how can we connect users in an authentic way, how can we connect users to our staff in an authentic way, how can we connect users to athletes in an authentic way. We’re doing a lot of experimentation here. We have a distinct opportunity because of our paywall: most of the comments on The Athletic are saying substantive things.

A look at all the companies participating in 500 Startups’ 24th accelerator program

TechCrunch has an exclusive look at the companies participating in 500 Startups‘ 24th startup accelerator batch, which kicked off last week.

Through its four-month seed program, the Silicon Valley seed fund invests $150,000 in exchange for 6 percent equity. The companies below include a mix of industries from cryptocurrency to digital health to e-commerce. 500 Startups says 40 percent of the companies have a female founder, 50 percent have a black, mixed-race or Latinx founder and 31 percent are headquartered outside the U.S.

Here’s a closer look at the 22 companies, which will demo their tech to investors on February 28:

• Alba: A Santiago, Chile-based mobile marketplace for babysitters in emerging markets.
• Assemble: A Los Angeles-based digital platform for automating video content production.
• Back Office: A Palm Beach, Florida-based financial software provider focused on streamlining personal bookkeeping.
• BlockVigil: A San Francisco-based platform for building and scaling blockchain applications.
• Cambridgene: A Cambridge-based developer of clinical-genomic software for personalizing cancer therapy in hospitals.
• Celer Network: A platform for building and scaling decentralized applications.
• Crowdz: Headquartered in Sunnyvale, the blockchain-based B2B marketplace builds digitized supply chains.
• HAMAMA: A San Francisco-based provider of microgreen kits for growing healthy food at home.
• IOTW: A Hong Kong-based IoT-connected cryptocurrency mining platform.
• Kura Tech: A San Francisco-based developer of augmented reality glasses with micro-display and variable focus.
• Memoir Health: A Boston-based behavioral health startup providing physical and virtual mental wellness and substance use services.
• MessageCube: Headquartered in Sunnyvale, the company is building an integration for people to discuss and purchase shared experiences over chat.
• Ovation: A Provo, Utah-based online portal for restaurant reviews meant to help businesses measure customer experience.
• PantyProp: A New York-based seller of underwear and swimwear for women to wear while menstruating.
• Pilleve: A Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based startup using data to help care providers lower the costs associated with opioid addiction.
• Savion: A Livermore-based aviation company bringing green, long-range private jets to the middle class.
• SnapShyft: Headquartered in Indianapolis, the startup provides an on-demand labor marketplace focused on the food and beverage industry.
• Thrive Agric: An Abuja, Nigeria-based crowdfunding platform for farms and farmers in Africa.
• TripAfrique: Headquartered in Paris, the online booking platform helps travelers arrange trips to Africa.
• UTRUST: A Zurich-based cryptocurrency payments platform that offers buyers protection, instant transactions and more.
• Zeuss Tech: Headquartered in Palo Alto, the blockchain-based anti-money-laundering platform targets cash-intensive industries.
• No information is available on the final company, which is in stealth mode.

Here’s a look at 500 Startups batch 23, 22 and 21.

These are the most successful companies to emerge from Y Combinator

Happy 10th birthday, Bitcoin!

Bitcoin turned 10 years old, a milestone for a technology that few have used and even fewer understand. Ultimately, the blockchain it wrought could be the biggest change to banking, finance, and politics ever or it could be a dud. The jury is still out, but let’s take a walk down memory lane and see just how the product grew from White Paper to world beater.

Scared to trade stocks? Titan algorithmically invests for you

Titan could put an end to stock market FOMO. The app choose the best 20 stocks by scraping top hedge fund data, adds some shorts based on your personal risk profile, and puts your money to work. No worrying about market fluctuations or constantly rebalancing your portfolio. You don’t have do anything, but can get smarter about stocks thanks to its in-app explanations and research reports. Titan wants to be the easiest way to invest in stocks for a mobile generation who want an affordable coach to guide them through the market themselves.

“Our goal is to take things that aren’t accessible [in wealth management] and make them accessible, starting with hedge fund” says Titan co-founder Joe Percoco. That potential to democratize one of the keys to financial mobility has won Titan a $2.5 million seed round from Y Combinator’s co-founder Paul Graham, president Sam Altman, and partners including Gmail creator Paul Bucheit. The rest of the capital comes from Maverick Ventures, BoxGroup, and Liquid2 Ventures.

“Titan is where investing meets virality” says Graham. “Those are two very powerful forces.” Since TechCrunch broke the news of Titan’s launch in August, it’s doubled its assets under management to $20 million and hired its first non-founder engineer.

Now it’s launching in-app educational videos so stock market dummies can get up to speed if they want to understand where there money’s going amidst a swirling see of financial news..”There are so many different headlines telling so many different narratives” Percoco tells me. “Everyone is searching for explanations in a voice they trust. An ‘ETF’ can’t talk back. Sometimes a human face is better than writing. A video can really help people make choices.” Here’s it’s two-minute video about Facebook’s Q2 earnings a few months ago, explaining why the share price crashed 25 percent:

Percoco and Clayton Gardner met on their first day of Wharton business school while their third co-founder was earning a hedge fund patent and studying computer science at Stanford. They went on to work at hedge funds and private equity firms like Goldman Sachs, but got fed up just growing the fortunes of the already rich.

So they started Titan to invent a modern, mobile version of BlackRock, the investment giant founded in the 80s. Titan uses the public disclosures of hedge funds to find consensus around the 20 best performing stocks. With as little as $1000, users can let Titan robo-manage their investments for a 1 percent fee on assets. Users provide some info on how big they want to gamble, and Titan personalizes their portfolio with more or less conservative shorts to hedge their bets.

Titan’s simplicity combined with the sense of participation could help it grow quickly. It sits between do-it-yourself options like Robinhood or E*Trade where you’re basically left to fend for yourself, and totally passive options like Wealthfront and Betterment, where you’re so divorced from your portfolio that you’re not learning. Managed hedge funds and fellow active investment vehicles like BlackRock with a human advisor can require a $100,000 minimum investment that’s too steep for millennials.

“Even the best hedge fund in the world is only going to send you a PDF every 90 days” Percoco explains. But Titan doesn’t want you nervously checking your portfolio non-stop. “Our median user checks the app once per day.” That seems like a healthy balance between awareness and sanity. It thinks its education and informative push notifications make it worth a higher required investment and fees than Wealthfront charges.

 

Essentially, Titan is a stock trading auto-pilot merged with a flight simulator so you improve your finance skills without having to fear a crash. Percoco tells me the sense of accomplishment that engenders is why clients say they’re telling friends about Titan. “When I invest, I look for companies that are growing quickly and making a huge positive impact on the world. Titan is one of those companies” investor Altman says. “I think they could improve the financial wellbeing of an entire generation.”

Stripe Teams with Twilio Making it Easier for Small Businesses to Take Payments Over the Phone

Stripe, an online payment processing service, and Twilio, a cloud communications platform, have announced a partnership they say will make it easier for small businesses to take payments over the phone. That partnership has taken the form of new payment service from Twilio called <Pay>.

The new service will not only help businesses integrate phone payments, it will also include security protocols to ensure PCI compliance, the companies say. This is particularly important for small businesses as they continue to increase their mobile presence.

If a small business owner is not able to meet the PCI standards, credit card companies will not allow their cards to be used. This in turn greatly limits the earning capability of the business.

What is PCI?

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was launched in 2006 to improve payment account security throughout the transaction process.

The PCI DSS is a standard which ensures any company which accepts, processes, stores and transmits credit card information maintains a secure environment. And it applies to any organization, no matter how big or small or the number of transactions it carries out.

Twilio <Pay>

Phone payments are essential for any business, but for industries such as food and retail, they are especially important. And with mobile phones now in the hands of virtually ever person, businesses need to make payment on these devices seamless for their customers.

Twilio <Pay> eliminates the exposure to security and compliance risks as well as the complexities businesses face with phone payments. By ensuring the flow is secure and PCI compliant, businesses can accept payments from the millions of people on mobile phones.

When a customer orders over the phone, the Twilio <Pay> can be activated by the employee so it can start accepting the payment information. At this time, Twilio will automatically prompt the customer to input their card number, expiration date, postal code, and security code.

The customer uses the keypad to enter their payment info, but the employee can’t see or hear the details via dual tone – multi-frequency. This is the tone generated when you press the buttons on your phone.

A dual tone – multi-frequency redaction feature prevents employees from listening and figuring out the numbers and other information the customer is entering into the prompt.

Once the customer enters the information, Stripe’s technology generates a token so your company can charge the card. Best of all, only one token is generated for each transaction and the sensitive data never hits your servers. This ensures your compliance with PCI and it is one less thing you have to worry about when it comes to protecting customer information.

Currently, nine major credit cards are supported under the new solution with a fee of $0.010 for a successful <Pay> transaction or tokenization.

Image: Twilio

This article, "Stripe Teams with Twilio Making it Easier for Small Businesses to Take Payments Over the Phone" was first published on Small Business Trends

Lendix is now called October

French startup Lendix is changing its name to October. The company is using this opportunity to redesign its branding assets and refresh the design of the website for new users. The product remains the same — a lending platform connecting individual and institutional investors with small and medium companies.

From what I’ve heard, October had to change its name due to some trademark issue. But the company used this opportunity to move away from its original, pretty boring name. Lendix is a straightforward name that suggests that it’s all about lending money.

But there are so many companies with “lend” in their names that it quickly became a disadvantage — Lendopolis, Unilend, Lendosphère, LendingClub…

October is easy to understand and to write down in a casual conversation. If the company wants to branch out and start offering other financial products, it won’t be awkward.

That’s about it. I just wanted to note the change given that I’ve covered October a few times over the years.

9 Key Signs to Look for When Determining Vendor Interest

As experienced entrepreneurs know, not every deal works out. Vendors may lose interest or not have the money or the time to make a deal happen. It is important to know which signs may indicate the vendor’s focus is shifting elsewhere. That way, you don’t need to waste time pursuing a deal that’s unlikely to come to fruition. To help, we have asked 13 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

“Not every proposed business deal works out: Not everyone is interested, or has the setup or time needed to pursue the idea. When talking to a vendor, what is the key sign you look for when trying to discover whether they’re going to want to agree to the deal? Why is that sign so important?”

Determining Vendor Interest

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Economic Alignment

“If both parties have a collectively held end outcome and understand how each party contributes to that outcome, then both parties will grow. In this way economic outcomes are perfectly aligned. If your vendors do not care about your customer outcomes and strictly view you as the end customer, things will fall apart quickly. If your vendors believe they win when you win, then that’s a great sign.” ~ Eric Mathews, Start Co.

2. Follow-Ups

“When gauging someone’s interest in a deal, I look for follow-ups. Do they have follow-up questions? Do they contact me to follow up on this idea? You don’t ever want to beg someone to be involved in your idea; you want them to want to be there. If you pitch your proposed deal to someone and they follow up, odds are they are interested.” ~ Ben Landis, Fanbase

3. Interest Beyond Pricing

“When vendors are interested in no more than the pricing aspect of a project, it’s best to be a little wary. When a prospect is interested in facets such as research, development and implementation, then you know you’re dealing with someone who is not out there to waste your time. The more questions I get asked, the more confident I feel about landing a deal.” ~ Derek Robinson, Top Notch Dezigns

4. What Else Is on Their Plate

“Asking a potential partner about what they’re already working on is crucial. If you get even a hint of them being overextended, you can assess their availability. It doesn’t matter how dedicated a potential partner is to the idea if they don’t have hours in the day to spend on it.” ~ Thursday Bram, The Responsible Communication Style Guide

5. Interest in Discussing Specifics

“I never fully trust that anything is done until a contract is signed. However, when a vendor I am pitching to begins talking in specifics, it’s usually a good sign they are onboard. When I hear them speaking specifically about numbers and ideas, that’s usually a good sign.” ~ Colbey Pfund, LFNT Distribution

6. Interest in the ‘Small Print’

“I look for signs that prospects are interested in the “small print” of a deal such as delivery date, specifications, warranty or other specifications on the contract. When they’re too focused on the big picture, then it suggests that they’re still shopping around. When they want to know the finer points, it means they’re ready to move forward.” ~ Shawn Porat, Scorely

7. Transparency

“We’ve all had the experience of asking someone to explain what they are thinking, and then they break eye contact. They throw up obstacles. They can tell you haven’t assumed their authority, so they start smoke screening. I’m out the door at the first sign of a lack of transparency. By contrast, I feel great when they explain their reasoning and they make perfect sense.” ~ Zev Herman, Superior Lighting

8. Ability to Offer Solutions

“One sign to look for is that the vendor offers solutions when you ask for any sort of personalization for your business, which is almost always needed in some way, shape or form. If they don’t respond at all or do not propose something that sounds like it will specifically work, you may want to move on.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

9. Genuine Passion

“Most importantly, I gauge their passion. We only work on projects we are passionate about, and I expect those we work with to share that feeling. It’s easy to tell when someone is just going through the motions. Without both sides on the same page, it’s impossible have a successful and long-lasting working relationship. ” ~ Justin Lefkovitch, Mirrored Media

Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "9 Key Signs to Look for When Determining Vendor Interest" was first published on Small Business Trends

Prices on Small Businesses Reach a 10 Year High, Report Says

The Third Quarter 2018 Insight Report from BizBuySell.com reveals yet another record when it comes to the selling price of small businesses.

BizBuySell Q3 2018 Insight Report

According to the report, this has allowed small business owners to ask and receive a record amount of money. BizBuySell.com is attributing the current market conditions to strong business financials in the third quarter.

For small business owners looking to cash out, this might be a great time. However, if the current trend keeps going the way it has for the past several quarters, there’s no telling how high prices can go. And with more people looking to buy a small business, there could be many more quarters with record highs to come.

Bob House, president of BizBuySell.com and BizQuest.com, addressed the possibility of even higher prices in the press release. House said, “We’ve now had a few record-breaking years in a row in terms of transactions and it appears 2018 will be no different. The fact that small businesses are selling for the highest price to date and demand hasn’t slowed shows how much confidence both sides have in today’s market.”

The data for the quarterly Insight Report from BizBuySell comes from an analysis of around 45,000 businesses for sale and those recently sold across the US. The statistics are from business-for-sale transactions reported by participating business brokers across the country.

The report focuses on more than 70 major U.S. markets with publications on local, regional, state and national data.

Third Quarter Data

The biggest data point is the high selling price for businesses. The median selling price for a small business went up to $249,000 in the third quarter, which is a 10.7% increase from the same period last year.

According to BizBuySell, this is the highest amount since the company started collecting sales data in 2007.

The asking price is also the highest since 2007, which now stands at $269,000 for the third quarter, a growth of 7.6%. This is a 93% sales-to-ask ratio, meaning buyers and sellers are on the same page when it comes to the value of the business.

They are seeing eye-to-eye because according to the report, the median revenue of business sold in the quarter was $530,995 with a cash flow of $116,229. This is an increase of 7.4 and 2.8 percent respectively for revenue and cash flow year-over-year.

As to the number of businesses which changed hands in the quarter, a total of 2,685 owners and buyers agreed to make deals and close. This is a 3.7% increase from the Q3 2017, which is on pace to break the record for the most businesses sold for the year.

Challenges Looking Ahead

In the report, BizBuySell points out several possible challenges as the year ends. In the fourth quarter a number of events can influence the current upward trend.

The first is the November elections. As President Trump continues to get rid of regulations he has created a more positive environment for many small businesses. The election results can stop or slow down the continuation of his agenda.

The second issue is tariffs. Currently, the President enjoys support from small business owners, with 76% approving how the President is handling the situation. The support even comes from business owners who will be negatively impacted by the tariffs.

Even with these challenges, BizBuySell says its data shows an active market for the foreseeable future.

Image: BizBuySell

This article, "Prices on Small Businesses Reach a 10 Year High, Report Says" was first published on Small Business Trends

Spotlight: Paperwallet Puts New Spin on Old Product

Some businesses invent completely new products, while others just improve ideas that have been around for years. Paperwallet is an example of the latter. The company makes wallets out of an innovative material that allows it to be both thin and durable. Read about the business idea and journey in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.

What the Business Does

Sells a line of wallets.

Founder and CEO Elad Burko told Small Business Trends, “PaperWallet sells one-of-a-kind artist-designed slim wallets and thin wallets for men and women. Our wallets are made of durable Tyvek material, making them stronger than leather but half the size.”

Business Niche

Offering a durable product with attractive and unique designs.

Burko says, “PaperWallet was the first to use Tyvek to make a paper-thin wallet. So our product itself is extremely unique. We also don’t do licensing of other brand’s designs – we work with real artists from all around the world creating fresh work that stands out.”

How the Business Got Started

To reinvent an old product.

Burko explains, “We wanted to change the boring and outdated black/brown leather wallet. Our mission was to give the conventional wallet new life. I envisioned a product that was thin and comfortable, yet functional and durable. It took quite a bit of R&D to find a material that would work for this vision. It needed to be strong, durable, lightweight, water-resistant and eco-friendly. I tested different materials for months and nothing fit our bill of requirements. I finally realized that the answer I was searching for was there all along. The envelope the sample materials came in was made of Tyvek, an unbelievably durable, space-grade material that is also eco-friendly. Having found the perfect canvas, we needed to make it stand out. That’s when we began collaborating with up-and-coming and well-known artists around the world.”

Biggest Win

Getting the first few artists on board.

Burko says, “This was crucial because before we had a product we needed these artists to believe in us – and they did! We wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for the artists support!”

Biggest Risk

Focusing solely on launching the business.

Burko adds, “This required 110% devotion to the idea and if we failed we’d have to start over or enter the job market. Thankfully our concept was accepted by customers who love our products and we’ve been growing ever since.”

Lesson Learned

Be cautious about who you add to the team.

Burko says, “The one thing that I’ve learned is that good people are hard to come by and you need to really do your due diligence and be selective about who you bring into the family.”

How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000

Expanding their offerings.

Burko says, “If I had to spend it all on one project, I would put it towards research and development for a new project we have in the works. The extra funds could help us take the project to new heights–so to speak– allowing us to create something even more creative.”

Communication Strategy:

Welcoming everyone’s ideas.

Burko explains, “We have a really open policy when it comes to product development. Many times the artists themselves come up with the idea for a new wallet design. Everyone in the company, regardless of position, is encouraged to brainstorm new design ideas.”

* * * * *

Find out more about the Small Biz Spotlight program

Images: Paperwallet

This article, "Spotlight: Paperwallet Puts New Spin on Old Product" was first published on Small Business Trends

4 Reasons You Need Business Continuity Planning

What happens if a natural disaster keeps all of our employees at home for days — or weeks. Meanwhile, your key services are hampered due to damage sustained at your office. How are you going to contact all of your employees — not to mention customers? What will be the most efficient ways to put the pieces of your business back together, following an emergency?

This is business continuity planning. Good business continuity planning should look at the business as a whole — with a goal to support business resilience. Business continuity describes a complete solution for backup and disaster recovery. A business continuity strategy will protect data on-premises in physical and virtual servers and in the cloud. Whether data is on servers or in SaaS applications, it needs to be backed up. Business continuity goes a step further and offers you the ability to restore your data, which is termed disaster recovery.

Whether a business is faced with a natural disaster, or a cyber-attack, strong business continuity practices will have you up and running in minutes, particularly business continuity solutions that leverage the hybrid cloud – guaranteeing a quicker restore time. The severity and length of business disruptions caused by any disaster can vary considerably. To be prepared for extended or permanent facility damage, businesses should maintain continuous off-site backup of data, applications, and server images, as well as have arrangements in place for re-routing incoming calls to an alternative site and/or to employees’ mobile phones. Data is essential for all types of organizations today, so ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is critical.

Still, it’s just one piece of the business continuity puzzle. Evaluating your company’s ability to restore IT operations can be a good starting point for company-wide business continuity efforts. In fact, many business continuity planning efforts start by conducting a business impact analysis or risk assessment — these studies can reveal weaknesses in your organization’s ability to continue operations that go far beyond IT.

What are 4 reasons you need business continuity planning?

1. Downtime is really, really, expensive: If your employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact on productivity and revenue. While this sounds obvious, many organizations do not consider the actual costs of downtime. Some modern business continuity products offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored. Choosing a business continuity solution aimed at reducing downtime makes good business sense.

2. Data backup alone is not enough — not nearly enough! You’d be hard pressed to find a business today that doesn’t conduct some form of data backup. But, what happens if a flood wipes out your primary and backup servers? Sending a copy of data offsite for disaster recovery should also be considered essential. Historically, this meant sending tapes to a secondary location or tape vault. As previously mentioned, modern business continuity products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers, and some can extend this capability to the cloud. The ability to run applications in the cloud while onsite infrastructure is restored is widely considered to be a game changer for disaster recovery. As CEO, you don’t want yesterday’s backup technology. Backup and business continuity are not one in the same. Your business needs both — all the time.

3. Disasters actually do happen — and they most times are not natural! Not every disaster is broadcasted on news and weather channels. Most IT downtime is a result of common, every day actions like accidental (or even intentional) data deletion, damage to computer hardware and poor security habits. For example, a CompTIA study found that 94% of respondents routinely log into public wifi, in spite of security risks. And, 69% of this group accesses work-related data over public wifi. A ransomware attack or virus can halt operations just as easily as a tornado or a power surge. These disasters are typically a result of human error, which in unpreventable.

4. Business continuity impacts everybody — especially your customers! Data is essential for all types of organizations today, so ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is critical. But it’s just one piece of the business continuity puzzle. Evaluating your business’ ability to restore IT operations can be a good starting point for company-wide business continuity efforts. Good business continuity and disaster recovery planning should look at the business as a whole – with a goal to develop business resilience. In fact, many business continuity planning efforts start by conducting a business impact analysis or risk assessment—these studies can reveal weaknesses in your organization’s ability to continue operations that go far beyond IT.

Keep in mind, failure to protect your business from human error, hardware failure and/or natural disasters can be detrimental and impact every single stakeholder. Implementing a business continuity and disaster recovery plan will help you sleep a little better at night.

Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "4 Reasons You Need Business Continuity Planning" was first published on Small Business Trends

Thinking About Facebook Messenger Chatbots for Your Business? Here are 12 You Can Clone

You can launch your first Facebook Messenger marketing chatbot in minutes, with no coding necessary, using a Chatbot Builder and these fresh new line-up of industry-based chatbot templates/

Ready-Made Facebook Messenger Chatbots

These Facebook Messenger bot templates serve specific types of businesses and their marketing needs.

Here you’ll find out what’s inside 12 bot templates designed for various businesses to help you start using chatbots to grow your business within minutes.

Jump to the end of this guide to see where to get the templates with quick instructions on how to add them to your Facebook Messenger marketing mix, all for free in MobileMonkey.

1. Real Estate Bot Template

Explore the real estate chatbot in Messenger here.

Real estate professionals handle tons of inquiries from prospective buyers and sellers every day.

Chatbots can take care of a lot of the initial work that goes into the process of a home sale.

That’s why our real estate chatbot template includes pages for buying, selling, and renting properties.

If you’re in the business of property sales or rentals, use this real estate chatbot template to:

• Collect contact info for a new client looking to sell a house
• Collect contact info for a new client looking to buy a house
• Collect contact info for a client interested in a property rental
• Provide listings of available homes for sale

When a user first interacts with this bot, they can choose which of these options best matches what they’re looking for.

Then, if they’re interested in buying, selling or renting, you can use the bot to showcase individual listings in a way that’s more engaging than scrolling through a website.

You’ll have their contact info to follow up, and if something catches their attention, they can get in touch with an agent to learn more.

2. Lead Generation Bot Template

See the lead gen chatbot template in Messenger here.

Collecting contact information from a prospective client enters them into your sales funnel and gives you the chance to move them through the buying process faster.

That’s what our lead generation chatbot template is designed to do.

In the lead-gen chatbot template, our fictitious business is hosting an event to get new leads.

You can customize the bot to offer a download or webinar, for instance.

This bot can collect leads on autopilot even while you’re heads-down with existing client work.

In fact, the bot is set up so that it emails you a notification when new leads sign up so you can reach out and get in touch with them when you’re available to talk.

3. Ecommerce Bot Template

Size up the ecommerce chatbot template in Messenger here.

The ecommerce bot template is designed to help you showcase specific products and guide customers to the ones that are right for them.

First, you can create product galleries, complete with photos of each item, a brief description, and a link to its product page on your website.

This way, users can easily learn about what you have to offer. If they find something they like, they can quickly navigate to your site and purchase it.

Bots made from this template can also assist customers when they contact your business about existing orders.

The bot can collect order information and pass that info along to your customer support team so that when an agent is available to step in and help, they already have all of the information they need.

4. Beauty Salon Bot Template

View the beauty salon chatbot template in Messenger here.

Setting appointments and attracting new clients, that’s the lifeblood of any spa or salon.

Here’s how to get more appointments and automate appointment setting and some amount of customer service and FAQs for clients of a salon or beauty service provider.

The beauty salon bot template contains customizable pages to help users learn about all of the different services you offer and any promotions you’re running.

This way, clients can choose the exact service they want and find pricing information they need.

The template includes a scheduling page that lets clients request appointments for specific dates, times, and services.

Whenever a customer requests an appointment through your bot, you get a notification via email.

Then you can add the appointment to your schedule and reply with a confirmation. Or, you can automate the process by connecting your calendar and appointment setting service directly to the chatbot.

Smooth as silk.

5. Auto Repair Shop Bot Template

Rev up the auto repair shop chatbot template in Messenger here.

The auto repair shop bot helps customers schedule appointments at the shop.

You can customize it further with specific qualifying questions such as the make and model of someone’s car.

This way, when you receive their appointment request, you’ll be able to get an early idea of the work involved and cost estimate if necessary.

The template also allows customers to submit questions, which you can later answer when you’re available.

And the bot helps you with marketing for the shop by inviting customers to leave reviews about their experience.

Add those reviews to your bot so new potential customers to your bot can see the feedback of happy customers.

6. Dentist Office Bot

Brush up on the dentist chatbot template in Messenger here.

The dental or medical office bot will help with appointment setting and answering common questions an office gets, like hours and address.

Doing these common and repetitive tasks with a bot can ease the cost or burden for front-office staff.

Customize the dentist chatbot template with basic office information like your hours, location and services.

Tell clients or potential clients a bit about each of the dentists at your practice, including their experience and a friendly photo.

Did you know that for many people, simply being able to put a face to the name they’re reading can go a long way in helping them feel more comfortable scheduling an appointment?

And when a client is ready to book an appointment, your bot can help with that, too! The dental office chatbot template includes pages that enable users to schedule both first-time visits and routine appointments.

The template also includes pages to customize with any promotions you’re offering, like a first-time client cleaning or teeth whitening package, to encourage contacts to take advantage before they expire.

7. Gym Bot Template

Exercise the gym chatbot template in Messenger here.

Stay in touch with your gym members, notify them of new classes, programs or facility upgrades, and encourage new member referrals by implementing the gym Messenger chatbot.

Ease the burden of front-office staff by answering frequently asked questions like gym location, hours, and pricing, and the ability to collect new member inquiries so your sales team can follow up.

The gym bot template comes with a page that offers a free trial membership or free health evaluation.

This way, even if the user is testing the waters, you capture a lead that you can follow up with motivation to check your gym out in person.

The template also comes with pages you can customize with information about specific classes, pages to introduce personal trainers, and forms to sign up new members.

8. Personal Coach Bot Template

Hop over to the coach chatbot template in Messenger here.

For personal trainers, the personal trainer bot helps establish and maintain personal relationships with individual clients.

This same template can be modified for anyone who coaches, trains, educates, motivate or otherwise consults with individuals.

Personal trainers can use this template to collect basic information from prospective clients like age and experience level. You can collect lead information and encourage them to schedule a free consultation.

And as you customize the copy within the template, you can use MobileMonkey chatbot personalization techniques to tailor the experience to individual users.

This template can be customized so your bot also shares fitness tips with users and encourage them to sign up for your subscription updates list.

This way, you can not only share additional content via newsletter but can also reach out personally to learn more about their fitness needs and goals.

9. Restaurant Bot

Sample the restaurant chatbot template in Messenger here.

Restaurant owners and employees don’t have time during a busy shift.

But you can use this bot template to help your customers get the information they need and complete a few important tasks, even when your staff isn’t available to assist them.

Add image-rich information about your menu to make it easy for customers to browse and whet their appetite.

When they see something they like, your bot can direct them to the appropriate places to make reservations and place online orders. This way, customers can take those actions without the assistance of an employee.

The template also includes a simple customer survey. Your bot can encourage customers to complete surveys or provide reviews in exchange for coupons and discounts.

10. Marketing Agency Bot Template

Test out the agency chatbot template in Messenger here.

Marketing agencies are often the first to take advantage of new marketing tools and trends.

Chatbots for Facebook Messenger are a natural tool to providing prospects and subscribers with industry research and high-touch lead nurturing.

This is why we made a chatbot marketing template specifically for marketing agencies.

This template is intended for digital marketing professionals offering digital marketing and advertising services, from web design and maintenance to SEO, PPC, content, social, PR and branding.

The chatbot can be customized to tell prospective clients about each of the services that you offer, and help prospects determine services best-suited to their needs.

When users are interested in a quote or more info, they can fill out a contact form with additional details about their project.

This makes it easy to collect information about prospective leads for your marketing agency.

And when your sales team is ready to reach out, they’ll have a lot of helpful information to have an informed conversation.

11. Survey Bot

Survey the survey chatbot template in Messenger here.

Customer feedback is extremely valuable for every business. Collecting it isn’t always easy.

Our survey bot template has everything you need to ask and collect customer feedback in a way that’s so easy and streamlined for customers that it increases the rate of completed surveys.

In this template, you’ll find pages for gauging a customer’s experience and knowledge, getting their opinions on specific products, and gathering general customer feedback.

Of course, you’ll want to edit the questions to be specific to what you want to learn about your audience.

Compared to email surveys, Facebook Messenger chatbot surveys are an alternative that’s not only faster and easier but also more likely to reach the intended audience while being much more engaging.

Not to mention, the survey feedback isn’t anonymous and once a user has completed your survey, you can send follow-up messaging, content and offers that are hyper-relevant to your contact’s interests and needs.

12. Contest Bot Template

See the contest chatbot template in Messenger here.

Contests can skyrocket exposure, earn followers, and drive new leads.

But running contests can be complicated and hard to execute.

The contest bot template has the framework for a contest run through Facebook Messenger.

Within the contest chatbot template, you can choose to run either a comment-based contest or a giveaway contest promoted by other means.

How does a comment-based contest work? Create a Facebook post and set up a comment autoresponder in MobileMonkey.

When someone leaves a comment on your post, your bot will automatically send the contest entry to that person in Facebook Messenger.

If they’ve never messaged your page before, you’ve gained a new Messenger contact. If they’re an existing contact, you’ve gained an engagement that opens up the opportunity to send follow-up promotional messaging. Wins all around!

Regardless of the style of contest you choose, your bot can confirm to users that they’ve been entered, and provide any details they might need, like when the winner will be announced.

How to Use Facebook Messenger Chatbot Templates

If this is your first time creating a bot from a template, it’s easy to get started.

Log into your MobileMonkey account and select “Create Chatbot” from your dashboard:

Select “Start from a template,” and you’ll see a drop-down list with all of the templates available:

Each of these templates is designed to be the basic framework for a bot and can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Choose the one that’s best-suited to your business and goals, and use the chatbot builder to customize the content to your own business.

Simply edit the default text, pages, and menus to reflect your brand, and add any additional content you need.

Facebook Messenger marketing is one of the best ways to reach cultivate new customer relationships today.

And with a few of the ready-made Facebook Messenger chatbot templates available in MobileMonkey, getting started is easier than ever.

Just point, click, and personalize with your business info.

And like that, you’re set to launch a list-building, FAQ-answering, conversion-driving Facebook Messenger marketing chatbot.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Thinking About Facebook Messenger Chatbots for Your Business? Here are 12 You Can Clone" was first published on Small Business Trends