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5 Mobile Payment Apps That Cost Less Than Credit Card Fees

June 19th, 2013 | Posted by jasmine in Apps | small business | Smartphone - (0 Comments)

One of the biggest expenses of doing business for small business owners is credit card fees, but it’s hard to do business without them.  Elizabeth Palermo reviewed “5 Mobile Payment Apps for Small Business” for the Fox Business Small Business Center.  While none of the apps have made significant inroads into the mobile payment market yet, each has features that could make it an alternative to the traditional credit card transaction.

The first is Dwolla, which allows direct transfers from customer bank accounts to businesses at a flat rate of $.25 per transaction, with transactions under $10 free. Its market penetration is only about 1 million users, so it’s not popular enough to bid farewell to credit cards.  LevelUp is another payment system which can process credit transactions, but they make their money from a member rewards program that pays them when rewards are redeemed, rather than through credit card fees.

Or you can go with virtual wallet apps, like Bitcoin Wallet or Google Wallet.  Bitcoin, a digital currency good around the world, does have a transaction fee of .99%, compared to Square’s 2.75%.  Google Wallet isn’t yet iPhone compatible, but it does now have a way to send money via email.

But the real gamechanger, according to Palermo, is Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX).  Created by a consortium of large national retailers including the likes of Walmart and Dunkin’ Donuts, the app will link customers’ smartphones directly with their bank accounts.

It won’t help the small business, However:

“If consumers are willing to pay for a prescription or a cup of coffee with their smartphones, what’s to stop them from using other mobile wallets — like Dwolla, LevelUp, BitPay or Google Wallet — for shopping at smaller retailers?”

It is only a matter of time before mobile payments become the norm.

Laura Abrahamsen, June 19, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT, developer of Beyond Search

Energy in a New Economy: Jeffrey Hoffman Talks Food Trucks and Power Fractionalization

June 18th, 2013 | Posted by admin in Entrepreneur | Green technology | Internet economy | Investor | Start ups | Technology - (0 Comments)

Mike Dubrovsky recently won the attention of the attendees of StartupPalooza in NYC in late May. We asked the bright minds behind Simply Grid  to give us a bit of insight into their winning innovation.

What’s the history of your firm? What problem did you set out to solve?

Mike Dubrovsky started the company. He has an engineering background and developed our technology. My background is in operations – I’ve been an attorney, the CEO of a web development studio, and an exec in another energy startup. I joined to provide operational expertise and milestone focus.

We wanted to solve the problem of the provisioning and control of electric service in markets where metered electricity is either not available or there is significant overhead in providing it.

When did you become interested in power fractionalization and charging for limited use access? Can you describe how you developed your love/interest/expertise in fractionalization and charging for limited use access?

Mike lived out in Brighton and there were several food trucks near him using very noisy and polluting generators. He ran the numbers and realized that if we could somehow provide them with electricity, we could both eliminate the noise and pollution as well as save the food truck vendors money on their energy costs. At first we were just going to use standard off the shelf electricity pedestals from Eaton. However, we quickly realized that the legacy 3rd party metering and control system included in their pedestals would not meet our needs. Therefore, we stripped out the legacy 3rd party hardware and built our own custom hardware controller and cloud-based software management system. This gives us a turnkey solution for provisioning, metering, and billing – and we realized that this could be a much bigger business than just selling electric access to food trucks.

Your firm has been investing in fractionalization and charging for limited use access. What are the general areas of your research activities?

Hardware development for our controller and software development for our cloud-based management system. We are also beginning to explore other areas such as wireless electric service.

What is the primary application of your firm’s invention / innovation?

Right now our focus is in food truck rodeos and food carts in metro markets. We have revenue generating deployments at the Atlanta Food Truck Park in Atlanta, GA and the Moontower Saloon in Austin, TX. In the next few weeks, we will be launching a pilot deployment in Union Square in NYC in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. We are also targeting marinas and RV parks where, although they do already offer electric service, their method for provisioning, control, and metering is often antiquated. For example, the metering is often done by an employee walking around to each service point and recording meter readings on a clipboard.

Without divulging your firm’s methods or clients, will you characterize a typical use case for your firm’s technology?

A food truck park or municipality that wishes to provide electric service to food trucks/carts to eliminate the noise and pollution nuisance. A marina or RV park that wishes to enhance their metering model or their ability to provision and control electric service to their customers.

What are the benefits to a commercial organization or a government agency when working with your firm?

For the food truck/carts in particular, there is significant demand by consumers to have these amenities available, particularly in metro areas, which is counterbalanced by the desire to do it in as “green” a method as possible without the noise and pollution nuisance. Our solution directly solves this issue, and it’s why so many municipalities are interested in what we can provide.

How does an implementation project with your firm move through its life cycle? What’s unique to your firm’s approach?

If we are dealing with a public/municipal site, there is a specific permitting process we need to go through. If a private lot, we don’t have the permitting process, but the remainder of the implementation would be the same. We first need to verify the location makes financial sense for deployment. We then work with a local contractor to implement our hardware on the ground and connect it to the grid. We then sync up the on the ground hardware with our cloud-based management system via 4G/3G or wifi and we’re off to the races. Our customers then use their mobile phones to initiate/terminate electric service from the particular outlet in our pedestals they wish to use.

One challenge to those involved with “green energy” and “environmentally friendly approaches” is getting organizations to invest. How are you dealing with this?

As I noted previously, one of the great things about our solution is that it actually saves the vendors money over their existing energy source. Therefore, it’s a no brainer for them to use our service, which means we generate revenue from day 1. While we love the “green” and “environmentally friendly” aspects of our business, the fact that we make a very solid margin is what gets organizations to invest.

How does your firm see the main trends in power fractionalization over the next 12 to 18 months? What products or services will you be focusing on to deliver on your next vision?

While our initial markets are food trucks/cars and marina/RV parks, we believe there will eventually be a significant demand in the EV space as well. Our technology is well placed to take advantage of the projected growth in EVs over the next several years as the demand for more charging locations increases. As mentioned previously, we are beginning to investigate the possibility of replacing electricity pedestals with in-ground wireless charging stations. While this technology would require our customers to up-fit their existing infrastructure with a piece of hardware, we think this might be the future of our service in metro locations.

Where does a reader get more information about your firm?

http://simplygrid.com

Jeffrey Hoffman
COO – Simply Grid
http://simplygrid.com

Constance Ard, June 18, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT, developer of Beyond Search

Making Vine Work for Your Business

June 13th, 2013 | Posted by jasmine in Facebook | marketing | Social media - (0 Comments)

Take a tip from Lowe’s to incorporate Vine’s 6-second videos into your social media marketing.  The home-improvement giant has embraced the platform to provide actual useful information to its customers, according to Jay Baer, author of YoutiLity and founder of Convince and Convert.

Baer posted “How You Make a Customer Smarter in 6 Seconds” on the Convince and Convert blog.  In the post, he embeds two of Lowe’s Fix in Six Vines, demonstrating the elegance of sharing practical information in a mere six seconds.  Baer also commends Lowe’s for taking the concept of their Facebook campaign Shareable Solutions, a tip conveyed in a single photo, and adapting it to the Vine platform:

“But, the Lowe’s initiative around helpful content is even broader, as they’ve produced hundreds of how-tos on Youtube, including a new Springtime series of “3 Tips in 30 Seconds” videos that are somewhat like elongated Vines, with voiceover.

Facebook. Vine. YouTube. For Lowe’s, it all works together as parts of a master plan to win hearts and minds by teaching more and promoting less.”

If you haven’t considered Vine as part of a social-media marketing strategy for your business, Baer’s post may really open your eyes about the ways in which it can show your potential customers exactly how you can solve their problems.

Laura Abrahamsen, June 13, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT, developer of Beyond Search

 

How an Entrepreneur Should Approach Hiring

June 12th, 2013 | Posted by jasmine in employment | Entrepreneur | Start ups - (0 Comments)

Michael Fertik, founder and CEO of Reputation.com, offers practical hiring advice for start-ups in his blog post “The People You Need Working for Your Start-Up” for the HBR Blog Network.  I’m willing to take Fertik’s advice, because, as he calls himself, he’s a “serial  tech entrepreneur,” so he understands how and when to grow a company.

Fertik advises picking a complementary co-founder, so that you start with a broader range of strengths.  He also counsels against hiring friends from school based only on that friendship.  It’s a great way to sink a company and a friendship. His best advice, however, may be about the timing of hires:

“Don’t hire people you don’t need. From the very outset and for some considerable time afterward, early startups are quivering on the brink. That’s perfectly appropriate. While certain hires are buoyancy later in a company’s development, there’s no doubt that in the beginning phases, they’re ballast you don’t need. That’s why you usually do not need to hire a general counsel, finance lead or PR person until you hit a more stable patch. Seriously.”

Finally, make sure your chief technologist is up to the demanding hours and workload of your start-up, because without him or her, you have no product.

Laura Abrahamsen, June 12, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT, developer of Beyond Search

SRCH2 Offers Patented Search Software Designed for the Modern Business

June 11th, 2013 | Posted by jasmine in Interview | search | Technology - (0 Comments)

On May 23, Chen Li and Dev Bhatia recently spoke with Stephen E. Arnold, a search expert, to discuss the recent launch and early success of the search engine technology provider SRCH2. The complete interview can be found in the Search Wizards Speak article “SRCH2 An Interview with Chen Li and Dev Bhatia.”

SRCH2 was founded in 2008 and is now entering its 3.0 release cycle. The company’s patented search software enables “rich search” features including instant forward search (using a full-text forward index cached in memory), configurable error tolerance, rapid geo search, configurable rankings, and more.

After the interview, Arnold gave his stamp of approval:

“SRCH2’s technology does bring many Google-like features to enterprise and mobile search. The company’s approach sharply reduces deployment time. Instead of talking about a one-day installation, the SRCH2 approach delivers on quick and painless roll out and integration. The system’s response time and its time-saving features such as auto-suggest make the experience seamless and fluid.”

With the move to mobile apps, Cloud-based, and location-based services, it is imperative that search savvy companies invest in solutions are uniquely designed for these applications. Otherwise they will be left behind. SRCH2′s search technology excels when faced with these challenges by including rich search features that are not being provided anywhere else.

Jasmine Ashton, June 11, 2013