News and Analysis
GTCR Acquires Majority Stake in Simpli.fi
GTCR, a Chicago-based private equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in Simpli.fi, a programmatic advertising platform that helps brands master local marketing at scale. The Simpli.fi management team, headed up by co-founders Frost Prioleau and Paul Harrison, will remain in charge of the company’s operations.
At Liftoff, a Classic Formula for Company Culture
It’s never too early to be intentional about establishing and promoting the key values you want your team to emulate, says Liftoff’s CEO Mark Ellis. It provides a set of criteria against which to assess candidates from a cultural fit perspective, as well as a rationale for promoting certain employee behaviors and discouraging others.
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Village Soup Today: The Pot Is Full and Bubbling Again
Counting all his revenue streams — online and print subscriptions, paid business and nonprofit briefs, display ads and licensing for publishing software — Reade Brower says he has achieved, in a few months’ time, the sustainability that eluded former Village Soup owner Richard Anderson in 14 years. “Everything is very steady,” Brower said. “The money is good.”
Hyperlocal Retail Directories Go After ‘Shop Local’ Consumers
Two key reasons why consumers shop local is immediacy of purchase and physical confirmation of product, (i.e. making sure a shoe fits). Fab and Etsy can’t ship their products to you for delivery this afternoon — and it’s tedious for a consumer to filter product offerings based on retail location. That leaves room for hyperlocal retail directories like GatherLA.com , which curates designers in Los Angeles for discovery by local consumers…
Angie’s List Revenue Up 75%; Partners With Square to Integrate Payments
Angie’s List narrowly beat market expectations announcing stronger than expected earnings in Q3, bringing in $42 million in revenue on a $18.5 million loss. That’s a 75% jump in revenue year-over-year. While losses ticked up 6%, the reviews firm showed strong growth among its service provider segment with revenues nearly doubling on a quarter-over-quarter basis…
Yahoo Shouldn’t Be So Quick to Turn Away From Local
Local offers Yahoo one of the few great markets where no obvious winner has emerged. Yes, Google owns Maps, Android and local search. Meanwhile Apple is moving to lock up the mobile local search segment (including voice recognition with Siri). But neither has really owns local content yet…
Why a Renaissance in Local Delivery Points to a Resurgent Main Street
We’re seeing an explosion of activity in the logistics space with a handful of key startups expanding; Walmart piloting a same-day delivery option; and eBay opening its own delivery service, eBay Now. What’s driving the resurgence however, is not the e-commerce framework that sunk Kozmo and continues to hinder Amazon’s efforts. It’s a new push to improve connectivity, and transparency, within existing local marketplaces — not build new ones…
The Role of Directories in the New Local Ecosystem
Marissa Mayer’s announcement that Yahoo would be moving its focus away from local search, along with some other significant factors in the developing local ecosystem, calls into question the continued viability of a robust marketplace of local directory and search sites. Here are a few harbingers of a potentially more consolidated future…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Buys Qype, SMBs Warm to Facebook
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp Buys Website Qype for $50 Million to Grow in Europe (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Local Businesses Start Warming Up To Facebook Ads: 300K Tried Promoted Posts, 75K Were New Advertisers (TechCrunch)… Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Preparing for an Online Christmas (AllThingsD)…
Shining a Light: ByteLight Goes After ‘Holy Grail’ of Indoor LBS
Forget about the “last mile,” this Cambridge, Mass.-based company plans to close the last meter, with light-based technology to target shoppers within a a few feet. Street Fight sat down with CEO Aaron Ganick after the dust had settled on their recent funding announcement to find out whether his product could change hyperlocal commerce — or if it was just technology searching for a problem…
Case Study: Clothing Boutique Collects Customer Reviews
Online reviews allow e-commerce retailers to establish themselves as authentic and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers, but getting customers to leave feedback when they purchase products online isn’t always an easy task. Reve Boutique owner Meital Benaroya says she uses Zuberance to identify and reward her biggest “brand advocates.”
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