One Day, One Job » local

CityGrid Media

Willy Franzen — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:35:13 +0000

Local businesses are about as old school as you can get–many of them have continued to succeed doing the same thing that they’ve done for decades or even centuries. There have certainly been advances that have changed that–refrigeration, digital cash registers, and the Yellow Pages are just a few, but nothing even compares to the Internet–especially the mobile Internet. Local businesses are now able to reach and interact with customers and potential customers in a way that they only could have dreamed of a few years ago. CityGrid Media is a West Hollywood, CA based “leading media company connecting consumers and businesses everywhere local happens.” You’re probably familiar with at least one of their properties which include Citysearch, Insider Pages, and Urbanspoon.

Fit into the Grid

Beyond CityGrid Media’s own sites, they run a local ad network that reaches more than 140 million people across more than 250 sites. By having a few significant content properties (they have listings on 18 million businesses), CityGrid Media put itself in the position to own the advertiser relationships. Those relationships enable CityGrid Media to partner with other publishers and reach a much broader audience. This page will give you a much better sense of what the ads and the content network look like. Beyond looking at that, you definitely need to browse Citysearch, Insider Pages, and Urbanspoon to get a better understanding for how CiyGrid Media operates. If you like what you see, then head over to their Careers page. Right now they have some great opportunities posted including:

Reseller Account Manager
Configuration Management Engineer
Financial Analyst
Ruby on Rails Engineer (Seattle, WA)
Big Thinking Software and QA Engineers
Critical Thinking Software Engineers (New Grad)

There are also a variety of Account Executive and Inside Sales positions in New York, NY; Atlanta, GA; San Francisco, CA; and West Hollywood, CA. They all require prior sales experience, but they may be worth checking out if that’s something you have.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite local business?

SinglePlatform

Willy Franzen — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 18:17:31 +0000

This is a sponsored post for SinglePlatform.

What’s your go to social media site? For me it’s Facebook. If something interesting happens in my life, that’s where I’ll post it first. I won’t post to any other sites unless it’s really a big deal. I don’t need to. It’s not important to me. Businesses can’t share this attitude. They need to participate everywhere that potential customers might be–and they need to ensure that their messaging is consistent across all sites. With the way that things like menus, hours, and prices change, keeping all of the relevant profiles and listings up to date can quickly become very costly. Why would a business pay someone to do that full-time when they can just sign up for SinglePlatform? SinglePlatform is a New York, NY based company that allows businesses “to showcase their storefronts everywhere online” simply by keeping their information up to date in a single online dashboard.

Get Discovered

SinglePlatform’s motto is “Get Discovered.” That’s why their free offering gained more than 60,000 business users last month and another 10,000 shelled out $495 for SinglePlatform’s premium service that posts these listings across a huge network of sties. $495 is peanuts when you consider the the value that SinglePlatform’s software provides. With a validated business model and a product that customers call “a no brainer,” SinglePlatform is growing at a ridiculous rate. That’s why they just moved from a 3,000 square foot office to a brand new 12,000 square foot office in Battery Park (with a view of the Statue of Liberty). They need room for you.

If you really want to dig in and learn more about the business (and if you’re serious about getting a job, then this is definitely something that you want to do), you have to check out this article on SinglePlatform Founder and CEO Wiley Cerilli and this article on how businesses use SinglePlatform to build a digital presence.

No Experience. No Problem.

SinglePlatform will be hiring 50 new grads this year to help them keep up with the growth.

The position is Inside Sales Consultant. You’ll be connecting with local businesses like restaurants, spas, and flower shops to get them using SinglePlatform. This is a sales jobs that requires excellent communication skills and a drive to crush sales targets. It does not require prior experience.

You can apply by sending your cover letter and résumé to careers@singleplatform.com. Be sure to mention that One Day One Job sent you.

See below for the full job description:

Inside Sales Consultant

What You Will Be Doing:

Identifying and calling local businesses to drive new client acquisition.

Managing the entire sales cycle, from prospecting to meeting and closing.

Performing market research; top performers will help test new products and services.

Acting a key player and contributor to the direction of this growing sales team.

Crushing sales targets on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.

Enjoying frequent company happy hours, nerf wars and good times!

About You:

You are a recent grad who wants to get into sales – no sales experience required!!!

You are coachable, flexible and self-motivated. You can hit the ground running, and your drive to succeed is off the charts!

You’ve always thought that sales is something you would be good at and wanted to try. In this position you will be selling all day, every day.

You are an excellent communicator with professional phone skills.

You are an achiever: if you participated in competitive sports, the Greek system, or school government, we want to hear from you.

Enthusiasm is your middle name; you’re the type of person that gets excited about anything and everything that interests you.

Thinking on your feet isn’t just something you’re good at, it’s something you love. When faced with new challenges, failure simply isn’t an option.

Why Work At SinglePlatform:

Too many reasons to list, but let’s start with five:

Awesome leadership: work for people you believe in, who believe in you.

We’re a meritocracy: this is a place where you will be recognized for your achievements. We’re are growing quickly, and anyone who comes in now will have a direct and measurable impact on the organization. Did we mention UNCAPPED commission?!

We have vision: this is a small team that really enjoys working together and is committed to the vision of changing how local businesses present themselves online.

You will get training and autonomy: we give you the tools and the framework, and you can synthesize it whichever way makes you the most successful.

It’s FUN!!: We’re exciting, fast paced, fun, AND located in the middle of it all — in the financial district in NYC.

Compensation:

$40k with on target earnings of $53-60k (uncapped!) plus full benefits – Health, Vision, Dental and participation in company 401k.

You can apply by sending your cover letter and résumé to careers@singleplatform.com. They love One Day One Job readers, so tell them where you found out about them.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Where do you go to find information about local businesses?

Yodle

Willy Franzen — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:50:53 +0000

I keep finding myself talking about local marketing, and there’s a good reason for it. It’s an industry that has taken off in the last couple of years. Previously, the Yellow Pages and newspapers dominated local marketing. The web has eroded large parts of those businesses, but it has taken a while for new options to reach critical mass. Then businesses like Groupon and Yext realized that they could use the same sales strategy that the Yellow Pages and newspapers used, but sell marketing products and services that are results focused. Yodle is another one of these companies. They’re based in New York, NY (with offices across the country), and their mission is “to connect local businesses with consumers so simply and cost-effectively that business owners can’t imagine any other way to advertise.” They aim to achieve this by making online advertising a whole lot simpler for the average small business owner.

Can You Yodle?

Yodle got its start because a kid was helping his dad’s car dealership with online marketing. This kid, Nathaniel Stevens, realized that what he was doing could be applied to lots of different types of small businesses, so he came up with a plan to start a company that would work at a big enough scale to help all kinds of business owners attract new customers. Apparently Yodle is doing a good job, since they seem to keep growing. They do everything from building websites for businesses to running search advertising campaigns to setting up social media presences. You can learn more about their offerings here, and you can read some client case studies here. You’ll also want to be sure to check out Yodle.info, where they put the spotlight on some of their employees. If you like what you see, head over to Yodle’s Jobs page. They have a ton of opportunities for new or recent grads including: Sales Development Representative (Scottsdale, AZ), Sales Representative (Scottsdale, AZ; Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Charlotte, NC; and New York, NY), IT Analyst (Austin, TX), Software Engineer (New York, NY), Marketing Associate (New York, NY; Boston, MA; and Scottsdale, AZ), Search Marketing Analyst (Boston, MA; New York, NY; and Scottsdale, AZ), Search Marketing Consultant (Boston, MA; New York, NY; Charlotte, NC; and Scottsdale, AZ), Customer Support Specialist – Temp to Perm (Scottsdale, AZ), Organic Associate – Temp to Perm (Scottsdale, AZ), and Executive Assistant/Office Manager (New York, NY). There are a lot of options here, so hopefully something will fit your interests.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Yodle?

Balihoo

Willy Franzen — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:27:53 +0000

Yesterday we talked about social media marketing. Today we’re going to dive into local business marketing. I’m far more excited by the latter–maybe it’s because there’s something that I love about small businesses or maybe it’s because the payoff from local marketing seems like it can come much more quickly. We’ve seen a variety of companies including Groupon, SinglePlatform, and BrandMuscle that have developed products and services to help local businesses market themselves, and today we’re going to look at a company that has taken a slightly different approach to local marketing. Balihoo is based in Boise, ID, and they are “the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs.” In other words they help big companies with lots of locations tailor their marketing efforts to specific locales.

What’s the Balihoo About?

Much like Offerpop, whom we discussed yesterday, Balihoo offers integrated marketing solution through software-as-a-service. They’ve built a variety of tools that enable businesses to optimize their marketing and advertising for specific geographies. They’ve worked with major names like GEICO, Chevron, Quizno’s and Kohler and I’m sure that client list will keep growing as the need for local marketing services becomes more and more apparent. Overall their clients represent “more than 25,000 local affiliates and more than $180 billion in revenue,” so Balihoo has already grabbed a good sized chunk of the market. They’ve also made it easy for themselves by focusing on only selling their products to major enterprises with lots of locations. It has to be a lot easier than selling to individual small businesses. If you’re interested by what Balihoo is doing and intrigued by the lifestyle you could have living in Idaho (gotta love the outdoors), then check out Balihoo’s Jobs page. Right now they have a few opportunities for new or recent grads including Account Coordinator, Digital Marketing Specialist, and Software Quality Assurance Analyst. Before you apply be sure to check out their culture, Hiring FAQ, and Core Values.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What have you heard about Balihoo?

Metromix

Willy Franzen — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:22:43 +0000

My two biggest problems in life are figuring out what to wear and where to go. Since we covered the former yesterday, today it’s time to cover the latter. Ok, those aren’t really my two biggest problems in life, but I sometimes get frustrated that I live in a city the size of Chicago and feel like I can’t come up with a good idea of what I should do on a given weekend. There are a million opportunities out there, but figuring out what’s worth your time is difficult. That’s why Metromix was started as a joint-venture between newspaper behemoths Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. Metromix covers 60 different geographic areas (each individually) and offers a “guide to local restaurants, bars and clubs, events, concerts and movies.” While sites like Yelp have been built off the backs of their users, Metromix has an editorial staff generating content for each of their sites along with some user-generated content; however, smaller cities seem to get less original content. I must admit that Metromix isn’t my go to for what’s happening in Chicago, IL (which is where Metromix is located), but they seem to generate a ton of traffic and they have the resources of two major publishing/ad sales businesses behind them.

Get in the Mix

It’s kind of tough to get a full read on Metromix as a company. Once you’ve gone to one of their local sites, like the Austin, TX one you get redirected there whenever you try to go to Metromix.com. I guess this makes sense for a normal use case, but it means that you can’t really find any general information about Metromix beyond their Wikipedia page. The world of local publishing can often be a bit decentralized, and that certainly seems to be the case with Metromix. They don’t even make it easy to find where they’re headquartered (I had to check their LinkedIn company profile). If you start looking through their staff on LinkedIn, you see a lot of Chicago, but you also see a lot of other cities. My guess is that they hire a lot of freelancers to hone in on local markets. Metromix directs job seekers to their Careerbuilder page, which shows an even more decentralized approach to hiring. Most of the jobs that appear are posted from local tv stations or newspapers. I guess Metromix farms out some work like ad sales and marketing to other affiliated businesses. I don’t quite get it, but the opportunities are worth checking out, especially the Metromix Marketing & Promotion Coordinator position in Denver, CO and a couple of Account Management positions in Cincinnati, OH. If you’re looking for something else, you might find it difficult to track down the right person to contact, but it could be worth it.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Metromix?

Foursquare

Willy Franzen — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:08:55 +0000

Usually I try to tell you about jobs at cool startups before they get big, but I missed the boat with Foursquare, which is based in New York, NY. I guess I was too busy checking in everywhere to remember to look at their jobs. For a while I was really into the location-based social network. I used it to run into friends who were nearby, get free stuff from restaurants, and even meet some new people. Eventually, though, I got sick of telling my Foursquare friends and Twitter followers where I was no matter how boring the place might be. But for old time’s sake I’ll tell you where I am right now. I’m at Cool Beans in Bellefonte, PA. They don’t have any Foursquare specials, but they have free wi-fi and a nice atmosphere, which is exactly what I was looking for in a pitstop as I drive from Connecticut back to Chicago today. I doubt my check-in today will lead to my meeting someone interesting, but you never know.

Check-in at Foursquare

Since Foursquare really took off, they’ve seen competition from the likes of Facebook, Yelp, and Gowalla. Still, it seems like Foursquare has become the dominant player in location-based social networking. They’re still adding a ton of users, even if they’re losing some of the early adopters like me. My take is that there was a lot of value in the service early on, and there will be a lot of value when more of my friends join, but for now it’s in an awkward stage–at least for my use case. I fully expect Foursquare to get through this, and I’m certain that location-based social networking will be a very significant business. Not only can it be insanely useful for people who are out and about, but it has amazing potential for local marketing and advertising. Foursquare is the leader in a really exciting market space, and it’s going to be fascinating to see where they are in a few years. If you want to be part of that story, then you’ll want to take a look Jobs at Foursquare. Your best bet as a new grad is if you have Software Development skills (there are a number of relevant positions – this one in particular), since the posted positions in Marketing, Product Management, and Business Development all require at least a few years of experience. But if you’re convinced that you’d be a good fit even though there isn’t a position for you, you can apply for an unlisted position.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use Foursquare?

SinglePlatform

Willy Franzen — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:21:43 +0000

This is a sponsored post for SinglePlatform.

There’s no doubt that the web has changed the way that people find and make reservations at restaurants, yet most restaurants seem stuck in 2002 when it comes to handling their own web presences. It doesn’t make any sense considering how competitive the food industry is. You’d think that restaurant owners would want to use every possible advantage to capture customers and encourage people to eat at their restaurants. The only answer is that managing a web presence is too complicated for the average restaurant owner. That’s why SinglePlatform was founded. They’re a New York, NY based company (with job offerings across the country) that “provides hotels, restaurants, bars and PR firms one stop to manage their digital presence and gain customers.”

One Platform, One Job

SinglePlatform may sound familiar. That’s because we already featured them last December. (You can read the original post here.) They loved the response, and now they’re sponsoring us so that they can reach more of our awesome readers. SinglePlatform has a ton of positions for new and recent grads, and they offer the opportunity to get in early at a startup that is growing rapidly. You can get all of the details on SinglePlatform’s Careers page, or you can take a look at their available positions below.

SinglePlatform is currently recruiting Inside Sales Consultants in:

New York, NY

SinglePlatform is currently recruiting Outside Sales Consultants in:

Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Dallas, TX
Houston, TX
Los Angels, CA
Miami, FL
Minneapolis, MN
Philadelphia, PA
San Francisco, CA
Seattle, WA
Washington, DC

If you’re interested in any of these positions at SinglePlatform, you can apply here.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you find restaurant web presences frustrating too?

The Hotlist

Willy Franzen — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 16:44:57 +0000

What are you up to this weekend? I know that it’s getting to be that time where professors cram in mid-terms (or prelims as we called them at Cornell) before Spring Break, but that’s no excuse to stay in the library all weekend. You need to get out and have some fun, and that means knowing where to go. Finding a good time on a college campus usually isn’t too hard, but once you move into the real world going out and organizing friends can get really frustrating. You’d think that Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other social networking sites would make it easier to meet up with friends and find cool events/places, but they haven’t really done that yet. That’s where The Hotlist steps in. They’re a New York City based startup that has developed “a social discovery engine that enables you to view what’s happening today, tomorrow and throughout the week among your Facebook friends and the entire world!” The Hotlist was name one of the Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 by PCMag.com, and they’ve received a ton of other press mentions. But it’s really up to you to judge how hot The Hotlist is.

Are You on The Hotlist?

The point of The Hotlist is to show you where your friends are, where they’ve been, and where they will be. In addition to friends, you can also see where crowds are forming. Maybe it’s that new French restaurant that opened two weeks ago or a dive bar that has been discovered by yuppies. Wherever there’s social network action, The Hotlist will find it. One of the coolest features is called Girls/Guys. It tells you the gender breakdown at a given place, which is valuable information for a lot of people. If you’re all about combining your online social persona with your real-life social persona, then The Hotlist is for you. The business behind the site still isn’t apparent, but it’s pretty clear that there’s a ton of advertising potential. If you’re excited about The Hotlist, then check out their Jobs page. Right now they’re looking for a Community Manager, a Data Engineer, a MySQL Database Engineer, a Software Engineer, and a Backend Engineer. They make working with them sound pretty sweet, so check out the jobs.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use The Hotlist?

RecycleBank

Willy Franzen — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:05:00 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I try to recycle when its convenient. Like the time my college roommates threw a huge party and I stole all of the empty cans and returned them for the nickel deposits. It was easy money. But I must also admit that I’ve thrown away plenty of recyclables when there wasn’t a proper receptacle for them. Environmentalism is great; however, people respond to incentives, and a healthy Earth a century down the road isn’t much of an incentive for the average person. People need a push, and that’s exactly what RecycleBank does. They’re a New York, NY based company that rewards people for “taking positive green actions.” By doing things like recycling at home, you can earn RecycleBank points. Those points can be redeemed for rewards ranging from Amazon Gift Cards to museum memberships, with lots and lots of other options in between—you can even donate your points.

Take It to the RecycleBank

Now, RecycleBank doesn’t make it all that clear how their business works—even their How It Works page doesn’t do a great job of describing the basic idea. From what I’ve gathered, RecycleBank is all about partnerships. They start with municipalities and haulers, since they’re the ones in charge of local recycling programs. This way you can keep bring your recyclables to the curbside like normal, but RecycleBank works with haulers to record exactly how much you are recycling (and you don’t need to sort your recyclables). The next set of partnerships is with Material Recycling Facilities that end up processing all of the recyclables that go through the RecycleBank program. Then come the advertisers (both local and national)—these are the companies that supply the rewards. They get new market exposure to environmentally conscious consumers in return for providing rewards for RecylceBank members. That’s the only cost. Finally, there’s you, the end user and recycler. If you sign up, you can earn 2.5 points per pound of recyclable material up to an annual cap of 5,400 points per year. It’s hard to find out what those points are actually worth without signing up, but I’m sure you can get some pretty good stuff.

If you’re excited about the nexus of marketing and recycling, then you should check out jobs at RecycleBank. They have quite a few positions open, though most of them require a decent amount of experience. The Outreach Specialist is probably the best fit for a new or recent grad (and they say they want 3 years of experience). There are also some Software Development positions available, but those also seem targeted towards more experience hires. The best option is to reach out to them without applying to a specific position. You can e-mail jobs@recyclebank.com and tell them what you think that you can add to their team. It can’t hurt—they’ve had a lot of interns in the past, (in Community Outreach, Finance, Social Media, and Design) so they certainly value young talent.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you recycle?

JustSpotted

Willy Franzen — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:58:43 +0000

Yesterday I was playing beach volleyball when my girlfriend ran up to me as excited as could be. She had taken a walk and spotted a celebrity on the way. Ok, celebrity may be a bit of an overstatement, but Jill Zarin of Real Housewives of New York City is certainly famous. So, we grabbed our camera and tried and failed to get a good paparazzi shot. Back when I lived in Connecticut, a celebrity sighting beyond Paul Newman or Don Imus was pretty unusual for me; however, now that I live in downtown Chicago, I’m seeing famous people left and right. I see Oprah and Jesse Jackson at the gym. I’ve had breakfast next to Charles Oakley, seen Greg Olson out on the town, and dined at the same restaurant as Johnny Damon. Celebrity chefs like Rick Bayless and Graham Elliott have restaurants a few blocks from my apartment, and I’ve even seen the entire Chicago Blackhawks team with the Stanley Cup. If I wanted to share all of those sightings with you in real-time, I could do it on JustSpotted. It’s a celebrity-spotting site run by a San Francisco, CA startup called Scoopler.

Whom Have You Spotted?

Scoopler was originally a real-time search engine. Apparently, that idea didn’t pan out, but they pivoted and used their technology to develop JustSpotted. On the home page you can see where your favorite celebrities have been or who’s in your neighborhood. It’s a really cool idea, and it truly takes advantage of the power of mobile. I’m not sure what their business model is, but celebrity gossip sites are doing well monetizing their traffic, so I have to think that JustSpotted should do well if they can build a critical mass. Right now they’re looking for a Javascript / HTML / CSS Front-End Superstar and a Rock Star Software Developer, but they also have a Celebrity News Analyst Internship posted, so there is the potential for non-technical jobs too. You can find everything that you need to know about the positions on JustSpotted’s Jobs page.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Whom have you spotted?

SinglePlatform

Willy Franzen — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:00:17 +0000

Last night I went out to dinner with my girlfriend and her family. It was a restaurant that I’d never been to before, so I looked it up online to see what I should expect. The user experience on the restaurant’s website was pretty terrible. It was built in flash, and had a splash page that took forever to load. The menu was an image instead of HTML, and I never could load any pictures of the food. This doesn’t surprise me, because restaurants aren’t web businesses. They should excel at being a restaurant and leave the web stuff to someone else. That’s where SinglePlatform comes in. They’re a New York City based company that “provides restaurants one stop to manage their digital presence and gain customers.” SinglePlatform not only enables restaurants to publish all of the information that they want to share, but it also syndicates the restaurant’s content throughout a publisher network of “review sites, mobile applications, and related local guides.”

A SinglePlatform for Your Career

Now, it doesn’t appear that SinglePlatform replaces a restaurant’s website, but it does provide the opportunity to acquire lots of new customers. SinglePlatform has taken a page out of Yext’s playbook, and built their business on a pay-per-call model. That means that when the content they syndicate leads to a potential patron’s calling a restaurant, they get paid. This way restaurateurs can stick to running their restaurants while SinglePlatform takes over the online marketing. The brilliant thing is that the content that the restaurant is already creating anyway—new menus, specials, photos, etc—are all that SinglePlatform needs to help them find new customers. Instead of offering deals like most local marketing companies are these days, SinglePlatform is focused on showing diners what they’re missing out on. If you want a job in the restaurant industry without having to wait tables, check out SinglePlatform’s Careers page. Right now they’re looking for Internal Sales & Business Development Consultants in New York, NY and Sales & Business Development Consultants in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. These are Sales jobs, so you better be willing to work hard and have an outgoing personality.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you seen SinglePlatform in action across the web?

Demandforce

Willy Franzen — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:57:33 +0000

Yesterday we talked about one way that brick and mortar businesses are catching up with their online counterparts, and today we’re going to dig deeper into how the Internet is changing the landscape for local businesses. In the past we’ve look at companies like Yelp, Groupon, Yext, and even Google that help local businesses do a better job of marketing themselves. Today we’re going to take a look at Demandforce, a San Francisco, CA based company that helps “service businesses thrive in the Internet economy.” How do they do this? Demandforce provides software-as-service that transforms a business’ customers into a powerful social network. By encouraging referrals and reviews from existing customers, the software helps attract new customers. While it also helps businesses retain existing customers by making it easy to stay in touch with them.

Demand a Job

Some of the businesses that are best suited to Demandforce are Dental Practices, Automotive Repair Facilities, and Spas & Salons. If you’re still not clear on what it is exactly that Demandforce does, check out this short video that explains it pretty well:

Basically, Demandforce is an automated platform that encourages customers to take specific actions. Apparently it’s so effective that Demandforce promises $3 in value for every $1 that a company spends on Demandforce. That’s a great return, much like Demandforce’s 816.7% three-year growth rate. If you like what you see with Demandforce, than you should definitely consider working for them. They have a number of job opportunities including entry level positions in Client Services and Sales. There’s also a Facebook Application Engineer position available along with a few other mid-level opportunities.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use the web to find local businesses?

LivingSocial

Willy Franzen — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:46:06 +0000

I’m an unabashed Groupon fan. How can I not support the Chicago based company that started the group-buying frenzy? Moreover, I’m just flabbergasted at the amount of value that they’ve been able to build in such a short time. The only problem with creating an extremely lucrative new market when you have little or no IP is that the competitors come out in droves. There are a lot of Groupon wannabes. A lot. Many of them will fall by the wayside as they realize that they’re not capable of building out the kind of sales/business development team needed to grow a group-buying business, but there are a few competitors that seem to be doing quite well. One of them is LivingSocial, which is based in Washington, DC (maybe they should focus on group-bribing of politicians, or is that called lobbying?). They now offer daily deals in 52 cities, and they have nearly $50 million in venture funding. They weren’t profitable yet as of March, but you have to think that they’ll get there soon.

Are You LivingSocial?

LivingSocial isn’t all that different from other group-buying sites. Their biggest point of differentiation (besides the deals that they offer and the cities that they’re in) is that they you get your deal for free if you can convince three friends to buy in. I guess that’s what it means to be LivingSocial. The thing that I love about startups in the group-buying space is that they provide fantastic job opportunities for new and recent grads. They need talent in a variety of areas, and they offer the ability to learn by doing. LivingSocial is no exception. Their Jobs page shows quite a few exciting opportunities. These include Account Executive positions in London; Washington, DC; and New York City along with positions like Customer Care Consultant, Desktop Support Specialist, Production Coordinator, Sales Coordinator, Traffic Coordinator, Assistant Editor, Financial Analyst, Human Resources Generalist, Designer, and Research Analyst. You can find more detailed descriptions of each of the positions on the LivingSocial Jobs page.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you use LivingSocial?

Groupon

Willy Franzen — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:46:22 +0000

If you’re not already a Groupon member, here’s an invitation link.

In February of 2009, when I had only been in Chicago a few months, I got invited to an event for Chicago tech startups hosted by a local incubator named midVentures. I felt awkward when I walked in because I didn’t know a single person, but I quickly got to meeting people. One of the people I talked to was named Andrew Mason. He started a collective action site called The Point that allows you to put up money for big ideas with the qualification that you only have to pay if a certain threshold is met. That way you can put up money to build a collapsible dome over Chicago for the winter, but not have to worry about shelling out the cash unless the project is actually going to happen. At that point Andrew was working on an offshoot of The Point called Groupon. In some ways it was much like One Day, One Job. Instead of offering its readers a new job every day, it offered a deal. It was growing really fast, and he and I both knew that he was on to something pretty neat, but I don’t think either of us appreciated how big it could be at the time. Now, a year later, Groupon is valued at over $1 billion dollars. That would be nine zeroes if you ignored the fact that their actual valuation is around $1,350,000,000 (only 7 zeroes, ha!). The company is growing at an insane rate, and they always seem to be hiring. I’ve pinged Andrew and one of his recruiters a couple of times to let me know when they have positions to feature, but I get so many requests on Groupon that I’m just going to pull the trigger.

Get Your Groupon

For those of you who don’t know what Groupon is, it’s pretty simple. Every day they offer a new deal from a local business—it’s essentially a heavily discounted gift certificate. The business gets new customers, you save money, and Groupon gets a big cut of the sale. That’s what is so impressive about Groupon. Their growth is based on real revenue. Most startups as early as Groupon are losing money, while Groupon would probably be less profitable if they had a money printing machine. They’re not hiring people on a hope and a dream. They’re hiring people because they’re leaving money on the table otherwise. This may make them sound like they’re all serious, but Groupon also happens to be one of the goofiest startups out there. Humor is a key part of the company, and that clearly comes from the top, as Andrew is a pretty goofy guy.

Another key to the company is sales. Groupon is all about helping local businesses reach customers, and that means that their sales force has to kick butt. That’s why you’ll notice that most of Groupon’s postings on their Jobs page are Account Executive positions. They have Inside Sales positions in Chicago, and Outside Sales positions all across the country including cities like Birmingham, AL; Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; Denver, CO; Honolulu, HI; Indianapolis, IN; Jacksonville, FL; Kansas City, KS; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Nashville, TN; New Orlenas, LA; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Pittsburgh, PA; Portland, OR; Raleigh, NC; Sacramento, CA; San Diego, CA; San Franisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; and St. Louis, MO. The Inside Sales positions seem better suited to new grads that the Outside Sales positions, but I bet that they’ll happy to talk to you if you’ve proved that you can sell. Groupon also has a variety of other positions that might interest new or recent grads like Copywriter, Factchecker, Reviews Researcher, Customer Service Representative, Recruiter, Loyalty Marketing Coordinator, SEM Specialist, Affiliate Manager, Front-end Developer, QA Engineer, Software Developer, User Experience Designer, and Visual/Graphic Designer. There are a ton of jobs, and I’m sure there will be plenty more in the near future. It may seem like you’re too late, but remember that Groupon hasn’t even been around for two years.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

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