Fanminder | 5 Questions for Paul Rosenfeld & Tracy Grover
I met Paul Rosenfeld last year when he came to pitch Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop before it opened in Mountain View, CA on the merits of his new mobile marketing service called Fanminder. Always being one to extend and try new things and wanting to dip our toe into the mobile world, I said yes (plus Paul is very passionate and convincing). He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fanminder. He spent about 15 years working for two of the best companies catering to small businesses — American Express and Intuit. At American Express Paul helped lead its first gift card program for merchants and worked in the Small Business Services division. At Intuit, he was General Manager QuickBooks Merchant Account Service; QuickBooks Online Edition; and led development of the FinanceWorks online banking suite.
Tracy Grover is Co-Founder and COO of Fanminder. Most recently, Tracy was Vice President of Product Management for AccountNow. Previously she served as Director of Marketing for LoopNet, which automates online marketing tools for small real estate businesses to help them compete with the big guys. Before that Tracy built, launched, and marketed online banking solutions for small businesses (for Bank of America & Silicon Valley Bank), a secure mobile application used by doctors & public officials (Certicom) and the first mass market online credit card, NextCard.
I recently sat down with Paul and Tracy and fired off 5 questions for them . . . .
1) What was the genesis of Fanminder?
Paul: Tracy and I started Fanminder literally in the teeth of the recession, in October 2008. We had very good paying jobs – I was the Chief Marketing Officer and Tracy was the VP Product Management for a local start-up. We saw how all the larger, Fortune-sized retailers were rushing into mobile and social marketing but when we “walked down main street” we didn’t see any local businesses doing anything.
Mobile . . The Next Big Thing (Just Not The Only One)
November 22, 2010 by admin · 2 Comments
I was pleased to meet Paul Rosenfeld during the spring of this year. We had just launched a new Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop at the foot of Castro Street in Mountain View, CA. As a tech product guy and part-time wine marketing sloth, I am always on the lookout for ways to connect with new customers. Mobile marketing always sounded simple. But when I’d kick the tires on potential solutions, they usually fell down in one or more dimensions:
- complexity to configure
- administrative time required to manage
- lack of fit with other marketing activities
- cost
- inability to actually reach target consumers.
Daily Deals | 3 Tips for Small Businesses
August 16, 2010 by admin · 5 Comments
After experimenting with Groupon late last year and blogging about Savvy Cellar’s experience, I was immediately inundated with comments and questions from small businesses all over the world. Since that time, we have seen the “Daily Deal” space grow with such fervor and frothiness that I can’t help but imagine it is heading towards an inevitable meltdown (or at least significant contraction of the numbers of competitors playing in this space). Simple consumer logic dictates that one can only view and consume so many coupons on a daily basis . . but who knows.
I was recently interviewed by MSN Business on Main writer Barbara Schenck in her article “Daily Deals Propel Coupons to New Heights“. Barbara pressed me to provide practical advice to small business owners as to how they should approach this emergent form of marketing. It got me thinking . . are there best practices that small businesses could follow? Read more
Game On With Groupon
December 3, 2009 by admin · 26 Comments
As co-owner of Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop, I get to experiment with promotional services that are designed to help local businesses. Over the course of several years we’ve tried (no particular order): Google Adwords, Yahoo! Local, MerchantCircle, Local Newspapers, Local Magazines, Email, Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Peninsula Shops, Movie Theater Advertising, Rumbafish and now Groupon.
Groupon is an online coupon site. It is organized by major metro markets in the US. Each day they feature something unique to do in the local market (restaurants, spas, entertainment, etc.) at a special “group” price. There is a minimum level set for each offer – meaning that a certain # of people have to sign up for the daily groupon in order for everyone to get it. This drives sharing among friends on social networks. If enough people opt to take the offer, then the offer is “on”. At the end of the day, everyone who took the offer is charged. Then Groupon takes their cut 40-60% and pays the merchant the balance.
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