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.
Repeat Business . . There is No Secret
November 24, 2010 by admin · 2 Comments
Interesting post at American Express Open Forum titled “The Secret to Repeat Business: Grow Your Fanbase.” I completely buy Paul Rosenfeld, CEO of Fanminder’s, premise that small merchants are “soured by $500 rate cards and the 50 percent cut that flash sales sites take from merchants.”
He then puts forward two principal ideas that businesses who are succeeding excel at: 1) Engaging customers through fan lists that inform and provide deals; and 2) Growing their fanbase.
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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Local Business Battered, Bruised But Alive!
November 16, 2009 by admin · Leave a Comment
MerchantCircle released the results of their most recent “Merchant Confidence Index.” Of the 12,000 plus local merchants who participated in the survey, some highlights:
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- Overall economic sentiment continues to be low
- Low expectations for holiday sales
- Some glimmers of hope appearing to emerge
- High expectations for business survival
- Some plan for modest hiring
- Overall economic sentiment continues to be low