Startups whose business model requires engagement with geographically specific businesses (online or offline) and/or consumers interacting with these businesses
Topics:
What are examples of successful startups with local business models?
Common challenges faced by local startups and strategies for addressing them, including:
Identifying businesses and consumers in regions relevant to your startup
Targeted marketing to local businesses and consumers. Can this be done through strictly online marketing or does it require a physical (sales/marketing) presence in the target region? How can this physical presence be outsourced for 'ultra light' entrepreneurs?
Dealing with varying levels of technology capability in local businesses and consumers. What are there 'lowest common denominator' problems that are unique to local business models? What level of technical capability can be assumed of local businesses and consumers?
Developing a 'critical mass' of users in a target region. Making a locally targeted service useful even with a small number of users. Leveraging a critical mass of users in one region to generate usage in another.
What features of mobile devices and applications facilitate engaging local businesses and consumers?
Capabilities of mobile advertising networks and niches where startups have been successful working with them.
What challenges are unique to business models targeting local businesses vs local consumers?
Moderator:
Murat Aktihanoglu, Founder and CEO of Centrl Inc and organizer of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable
Court Cunningham
Court is CEO of Yodle.com, a leading provider of local online advertising services. At Yodle, Court oversees all aspects of operations and strategy, including technology, product development and sales and marketing. Prior to joining Yodle, Court was COO of CommunityConnect, a niche social networking company, where he lead consumer marketing, product management and development efforts. Before that, as SVP/GM of the Marketing Automation group at DoubleClick, he was instrumental in establishing DARTmail as the industry leading email marketing solution.
Mark Josephson
Mark joined Outside.in as CEO in April 2008. Outside.in is a platform to aggregate, organize and distribute hyperlocal media. Prior to this, Mark was President and CMO of Seevast Corp, a holding company for online marketing services firms and EVP & GM of About.com, one of the largest producers of original content on the Web.
Mark Potts
Mark is co-founder and CEO of GrowthSpur, a new company that provides business support for hyperlocal sites. He was co-founder of Backfence.com, a pioneer in the field of user-generated, hyperlocal citizens media, and a member of the founding teams at The Washington Post Co.'s digital division and the @Home Network. Mark has also served as acting VP-editor at Philly.com and as head of the digital division at Cahners Business Information (now Reed Business Information). He blogs about the intersection of traditional and digital media at www.RecoveringJournalist.com.
Landy Ung
Landy is Co-Founder and CEO of 8coupons.com, a mobile coupon platform and online network of hyperlocal deals. Prior to founding 8coupons, Landy spent 8 years developing and executing interactive marketing strategies at Verizon and American Express. Landy also organizes the Hyperlocal Roundtable, a collaborative forum for leaders of the local advertising industry.
Murat Aktihanoglu
Murat is the founder and CEO of Centrl Inc, a funded location-based
social networking startup based in NYC. Centrl enables its user base of
425,000 people keep in touch with friends, get money-saving offers
around them and also access useful data layers like restaurants,
concerts, gas stations around them on their iPhone, BlackBerry,
Android and web in 8 major social networks. Prior to founding Centrl, Murat spent 16 years building multi-user
virtual and mirror worlds for SGI, Sony and various startups,
including his own TheNextWeb.com. Murat also organizes monthly meetings for entrepreneurs and investors in NYC, called Entrepreneurs Roundtable.
