When my wedding invitations went out, they didn’t have just regular stamps. We had special stamps made with our initials on them to give the envelopes a little extra flair. (Yes, I know it’s ridiculous.) You can get nearly anything customized these days, but postage is pretty surprising considering that the USPS is a federal agency. Whether you want your own version of postage, a t-shirt, a wall decal, or playing cards, you should consider Zazzle. They’re the company we used, and they’re a Redwood City, CA based company that allows you to “create amazing custom products with artwork you choose, and prices you’ll love.”
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I used to be perfectly happy to shop at a regular grocery store–I even got annoyed by the fancier stores. As I’ve gotten more yuppified, that has completely changed (it’s actually because I’ve learned to cook). Now I go to Whole Foods for produce and local specialty stores for meat and fish, but most people still do all of their shopping at a single grocery store. These are the kinds of people that big brands want to reach with marketing messages. MyWebGrocer is a Winooski, VT based company that makes that happen. They provide “leading-edge eCommerce and eMarketing solutions to the grocery and consumer packaged goods industries” including solutions like “website design, specialty modules for websites, hosting, sophisticated email strategies and consulting services.”
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One of the worst parts about growing up is that the things that amazed you as a kid are often totally disappointing when you revisit them as an adult. When I was about five, my dad, my friend, my friend’s dad, and I visited the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York, NY (it must have been right after the museum opened). As a military obsessed little boy, it was the best thing ever. (And then we went to a dinosaur exhibit. And then we went to a baseball game! It was a truly awesome day.) More than twenty years later I went back to the Intrepid, and I was still blown away. Instead of being disappointed, I was able to recognize how impressive the aircraft carrier and the museum built on it really are. There’s a reason that nearly a million people people visit every year to see “a snapshot of heroism, education, and excitement.”
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One of my favorite episodes of The Office is when Michael Scott tells his employees to pack a swimsuit for a leadership training trip, and then takes them on a “booze cruise” on Lake Wallenpaupack in January. The staff are obviously pissed at Michael, but for the most part end up having a good time. I’ve been on a few evening cruises, and I’ve always had a great time. I guess that is why Entertainment Cruises is doing so well. They’re a company with “26 vessels serving eight cities with six unique cruise products.” Entertainment Cruises’ offerings range from fine dining and dancing to speedboat tours, with a lot in between. They currently operate fleets in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Norfolk, Philadelphia, and Washington DC.
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One thing that surprises me about today’s crop of college graduates is that as a whole they seem far less willing to move for a job than one would expect (though this blog post says that’s changing). I think the biggest thing holding young people back is that you often have to move to a new city to even have a chance at landing a job there. That’s a big risk to take when you have no money. Things change as you gain more experience and become more valuable to employers. If you do really well, they’ll often try to convince you to move for them. Many will offer relocation bonuses, but only top executives typically get concierge-level relocation assistance. UrbanBound is trying to change that. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that offers “a web-based platform that helps companies offer a comprehensive transition system to their newly hired and transferring employees.” UrbanBound enables employees to plan their entire relocation in one place, and that’s a big deal when we’re talking about such a significant life change.
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Over the weekend I wrote about how important parental involvement is for our education system. I might have been wrong. Today I learned that parents are completely replaceable–and by robots nonetheless. When I first came across 4moms, I thought it might be a later April Fool’s joke, but they’re a totally for real Pittsburgh, PA based company that is “dedicated to finding innovative solutions that make parenting tasks easier and more enjoyable for families all over the globe.” That’s a nice way of saying that they’re building a future in which parents are obsolete. Ok, I’ve completely overplayed the robots thing, but it’s really cool to see how 4moms has used to technology to overcome some of the more frustrating parts of parenting young children.
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When I played baseball in high school, my teammates and I all hated having to “keep the book.” Not only did it mean that you probably weren’t playing, but it also meant that you had to pay 100% attention while you were sitting on the bench. I have to think that keeping the book it a little more fun now that it’s done on tablets and smartphones. GameChanger Media is a New York, NY based company that is bringing high end scorekeeping and stat keeping technology to amateur sports. Not only do they make it ridiculously easy to record everything that happens in a game, but they also allow you to livestream those stats to any fan with an Internet connection (parents must love this!). When the action is over, GameChanger automatically tabulate and displays all kinds of important stats.
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In the world of marketing, it’s easy to get distracted from the end goal. Increasing sales. There are a number of commercials that repeatedly make me laugh, but I can’t name the brand of the advertiser even 5 seconds after the commercial airs. It’s easy to get caught up in the vanity of marketing, but the only thing that really matters is results. G2 is “a marketing communications agency created with one purpose: to help [its] clients sell more.” They have offices in New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Philadelphia, PA, and they “have serious experts in every communications channel delivering fresh, compelling work that creates greater awareness, consideration, sales and loyalty for our clients’ brands.” G2 is yet another company that has consolidated its entire website to a single page. It’s definitely a recent trend, and I kind of like it. It makes it easy to get a quick overview of the company.
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I went to a funeral for a friend’s relative yesterday. It was lovely service in memory of a long, full life; however, the only thing that identified the service as being in 2013 and not 1995 (or 1972 even) was that the minister did all of his readings from an iPad. There isn’t a lot of innovation in the funeral industry. I thought online obituaries and guest books were the state of art, but I learned today that Platinum Innovation Group is a Detroit, MI based company that is bringing new ideas to the industry. They’re also working in “the areas of telehealth, telemedicine, health and beauty, film industry, real estate, and genealogy.” They do this by operating “a diverse set of businesses that are powered by innovation and change.” I also found the company using the brand Hello Innovation, so I’m not sure what that’s about. Maybe they’re in the process of rebranding or something.
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I love candy, which is why I’ve already profiled companies like Just Born Quality Confections, Jelly Belly, Russell Stover, and the PMCA at Easter time and Mars, The Hershey Company, NECCO, Charles Chocolates, and Vosges at other times of the year. This year my Mom asked me what kind of candy I wanted, and I told her that she should take it easy since I’m trying to drop a few pounds before my wedding. Maybe I should have asked her to just get candy from UNREAL Brands. They’re a Boston, MA based upstart that is aiming to get candy “unjunked.” What does that mean? They want to take all of the crap out of candy (corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil, artificial ingredients, GMOs, and preservatives), but still make it taste good.
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Lately it seems like we’ve looking at companies with previously trendy business models. We did the subscription gift box (Glossybox), the flash sale site (Rue La La), and now we’re doing the daily e-mail (obviously my favorite model). What usually happens when a business model gets hot is that a ton of copycats come along and quickly oversaturate the market. Most of them eventually fail, and people see that as evidence that the original business model was unsustainable. It’s really just that most people who copy other business aren’t very good at running businesses. PureWow is a lot like DailyCandy or even Thrillist (they even have the same backers), but they’ve chosen a distinctly different market. The New York, NY based company realized that most women-focused online content was made for the under 30 crowd, so they decided to change that.
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I first learned about the “subscription gift box” when I profiled Birchbox in mid-2011. Since then the subscription business model has gained a ton of momentum with companies like Beachmint and Quarterly offering different takes on a similar idea. Glossybox is pretty much the same take on the same idea. They’re a New York, NY based company that offers subscription boxes with “exclusive cosmetic samples and perfume samples from the best makeup brands online.” The company is a Rocket Internet venture, which means that the Samwers are behind it. They are brothers who have a reputation for cloning American startups and bringing them to International markets at an insane pace (just look at Rocket Internet’s portfolio companies to get an idea of the scale on which they operate). Glossybox has been around for just about 2 years, and they’ve already raised more than $70 million and shipped more than 2 million boxes.
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Marketing is all about attention. It used to be that marketers would try to interrupt you while you were paying attention to something else (like a tv show or baseball game), but that’s changing as most of us get better at ignoring distractions. Brands are realizing that if they want attention, they have to earn it, and that’s why they’re turning to social. And if they need help with that, they may want to turn to an appropriately named full-service media agency called Attention. Attention is based in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA that “drives measurable business results by integrating social behavior across the customer journey.” Even they’re willing to admit that it’s not just about the attention.
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About 10 years ago I walked into a random McDonald’s in upstate New York and was shocked to see that the menus were on flat screen TVs. I’d never seen that before, and this was the last place I would have expected to see it (I’m pretty sure this was a test McDonald’s or something). Today digital displays are cheap and everywhere, as they provide an easy way to communicate messages that might change over time or require interactivity. At least it’s supposed to be easy, but technology often gets in the way of itself. Industry Weapon is a Pittsburgh, PA based company that offers a platform called CommandCenterHD that makes controlling digital media simple by centralizing and organizing it.
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This morning I was about to buy something but changed my mind because the checkout process was too annoying. While I probably shouldn’t be so lazy, that should never happen. E-commerce software is a solved problem. Why would a retailer invest in building their own proprietary site when they can license it from a provider like Demandware? They’re a Burlington, MA based company that offers an “enterprise-class cloud commerce platform” that powers “more than 150 retail brands across more than 575 sites around the globe.” If you regularly buy stuff online, you’ve almost certainly come into contact with Demandware’s platform. You probably had no idea, and that’s just how Demandware wants it.
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For as long as charitable organizations have existed, they’ve been feeding people. Yesterday we looked at Food & Friends and how they’re feeding people who are suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other illnesses. Today we’re going to look at an organization that is more focused on the quality of food that we eat. Seattle Tilth aims “to inspire and educate people to safeguard our natural resources while building an equitable and sustainable local food system.” The organization is all about maximizing the health of the community through agriculture that respects the environment.
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Most college kitchens are filled with decades old hand-me-down tools (at least mine was). They’re not the best, but they get the job done. That used to be the way that all kitchen tools were. OXO changed that in 1989 with the launch of their Good Grips brand. Their focus on design helped take kitchen tools from a commodity to a product where brand matters and grow from startup to acquisition. A lot of the credit for the success has to be attributed to Oxo’s working with Smart Design, “an award-winning design and innovation consulting firm with offices in New York, San Francisco and Barcelona.” Smart Design has been around since 1980, and in that time they’ve worked “with companies of all sizes and across diverse industries to create human-centered design solutions that delight customers and help companies achieve their business goals.”
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Right now I’m in the process of getting some of my friends together to coordinate my bachelor party. I have less than zero interest in the traditional approach, so I’m looking for some good outdoor activities for a bunch of dudes. We haven’t decided where we’re going yet, but ideally we’ll rent a house instead of staying in a hotel. One of the best places to find vacation rentals is HomeAway. They’re an Austin, TX based company that offers “the world’s leading online marketplace of vacation rentals, with sites representing over 711,000 paid listings of vacation rental homes in 171 countries.” I figured that VRBO.com was their biggest/most similar competitor, but it turns out that they own them. I guess maybe the biggest competitor is Airbnb then, though they serve a slightly different market (more apartments fewer houses).
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We live in a strange time. The stats tell us that investing in higher education is one of the best investments that an individual can make, yet so many young people are saddled by student loans and under or unemployment. Something is going to have to change, and I’m not sure what it will be. American Student Assistance is an organization that will likely play a role in the change. They’re a Boston, MA based “private nonprofit whose public purpose mission is to empower students and alumni to successfully manage and repay their college loan debt.” ASA was founded in 1956 as the Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation and has served as a loan guarantor for much of its history. That ended in 2008 with a change in Federal law, but it hasn’t stopped American Student Assistance from offering SALT, its “innovative financial literacy and default prevention program.”
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One Day One Job is hiring a paid intern/part-timer to work on a few Marketing projects. If you’re interested, e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com outlining one idea for how you can help grow the site (including your résumé won’t hurt). Check out our past job posting for more background info.
Yesterday we looked at a chain of sandwich shops that started from a modest single location. Today we’re going to look at “a neighborhood boutique” that opened in 1935 and has grown to more than 1,000 locations across 37 states. The company is Rainbow Shops, and oddly enough, I’ve never heard of them. That’s not a bad thing considering that females are their target market and I don’t spend a lot of time in shopping malls. The Brooklyn, NY based retailer offers an “assortment of clothing for juniors, plus sizes, and children, as well as an extensive shoe collection.”
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Read our latest article that uncovers a potential internship scam.
I often tell people that I don’t like sandwiches. The truth is that I don’t like bad sandwiches, so most sandwich chains are out for me. The only one that I’ll somewhat regularly eat at is Potbelly Sandwich Shop. It’s hard to beat one of their Meatball sandwiches with an Oreo milkshake. I’d never heard of Potbelly until I moved to Chicago, IL, which is both where they’re headquartered and where they got their start. The first store opened in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1996 when Bryant Keil bought the store that they started expanding the business.
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I’m looking for one or two paid interns/part-timers to help me grow the ODOJ/ODOI audience. If you’re interested, e-mail me at willy@onedayonejob.com outlining one idea for growing the site and how you can help (a résumé won’t hurt). For more background see here (but note this is from a year and a half ago).
While I’m sure Macklemore’s Thrift Shop has made it more fashionable to buy secondhand clothing, the fact remains that most of us buy clothing that has been marked up every time it moves through the supply chain. For a designer shirt that can be up to eight times. We all know that clothes don’t have to be expensive, but we keep coming back to the designers and brands that we like. Everlane is a Los Angeles, CA and San Francisco, CA based “luxury clothing design and manufacturing company” that “aims to provide low-cost, high-quality goods by cutting out middlemen.” They offer simple lines for both men and women that focus on essentials that almost everybody needs.
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I didn’t watch the Oscars last night. (I can’t stand award shows, and I rarely go to see movies in the theaters.) But I hear that advertisers are treating the event like the Super Bowl for women. Entertainment is a massive industry that only keeps growing, and what I find most interesting about it is how much attention begets attention. Argo probably wouldn’t have won Best Picture without Ben Affleck’s name attached to it, and nobody would read stories about a drug addicted mess if her name wasn’t Lindsay Lohan. That’s how Hollywood works, and that’s why marketing and advertising are so important. Trailer Park is a Hollywood, CA based “entertainment marketing agency” that serves “a broad spectrum of clients, including theatrical, television, home entertainment, videogames, publishing, music, brands and more.” They work with huge names and know how to keep the attention flowing.
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While there are plenty of non-profits that want to save the world in one way or another, many are content with focusing on their communities. Some focus on a specific need, and others try to do their best to offer a complete range of programs and services. The Educational Alliance is a perfect example of the latter. They’re a New York, NY based organization that “currently serves 50,000 New Yorkers annually via 39 programs, including preschools, camps, after school programs, senior centers, health & wellness programs, arts & culture classes, and addiction recovery programs.” They may only reach a small slice of New York City’s population, but anywhere else that’s a huge number.
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If there’s anything that the Internet is perfect for, it’s finding hotels. Whether you’re looking for a place off the highway to stop for the night or a luxury vacation, you’re going to be better off if you use the web. Since so many people go online to find hotels, the competition for attention is getting really tough (especially now that Google has entered the market and inserted their product at the top of search results). Most hotel owners aren’t Internet marketing experts, so how do they make sure that people find them? They use buuteeq, a Seattle, WA based company and “easy-to-use web application that improves your hotel’s online marketing on the web, on mobile devices, and on Facebook.” It gives hotel owners everything they need to compete with the major chains who have huge teams dedicated to online marketing.
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I used to be on top of all of the latest web technologies. When a new social network or tool came out, I’d figure out how to use it and add it to my repertoire. I can’t keep up any more–there are just too many cloud-based services out there. While you’ll never be able to master all of these technologies, you can get up to speed in about a minute thanks to Grovo. They’re a New York, NY based company that “produces one-minute video lessons covering every change to the world’s most popular websites, mobile apps and online tools.” Grovo’s content is updated in real-time, so when Facebook announces a new feature or a long awaited new iPhone app is released, they’re on it almost immediately. So far they already have more than 3,000 videos covering more than 100 web products.
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Traditionally the goal of marketing has been to get someone to take an action at some point in the future, but that has changed a lot over the past decade. The web has enabled businesses to push consumers to take immediate action, which is why online marketing has taken the best ideas from traditional marketing, direct marketing, and sales. 90octane calls it “conversion-driven marketing.” They’re a Denver, CO based agency that executes “online marketing campaigns including online advertising, email marketing, microsite and landing page development, search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.” They were founded in 2000, and have held on to many of their clients for quite a long time–that is pretty unusual in performance marketing.
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I wonder how many great books were never published because major publishing houses didn’t think they would sell enough. Even Harry Potter may have never been published if it weren’t for an 8 year old nagging her dad to get her another chapter. But it’s not always about shortsightedness. Some books are extremely important, but don’t have mass market appeal. That’s why publishers like The New Press exist. They’re a non-profit that “publishes books that promote and enrich public discussion and understanding of the issues vital to our democracy and to a more equitable world.” The New Press is based in New York, NY and has been publishing important books since 1992.
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I’m the first person to admit that I’m not the best about energy efficiency. I may turn off the lights when I leave the house, but I still drive an SUV and use incandescent bulbs. I need someone to make it easy for me, and luckily more and more utilities are starting to do that. It’s a little odd that a company that sells you something wants you to use less, but that’s what’s happening. One of the best ways for utility companies to help their customers reduce energy consumption is through web-based software. It would be silly for every utility company to create their own custom software, which is why EnergySavvy exists. They’re a Seattle, WA based company that provides utilities with software that enables them “to engage with their customers, keep track of their data and optimize their operations.”
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Job searching and looking for love can be similarly painful. There’s the fear of rejection, the lack of useful feedback, and the constant pressure to make something happen from family and friends. While there’s no holiday that makes being unemployed feel like being alone on Valentine’s Day, there are plenty of day to day reminders that you need to get a job (hopefully these e-mails are a positive reminder). I think that one of the reasons that people struggle to find both love and jobs is that they try to do it alone. What if you had a few friends to help you along the way? That’s what Grouper is proposing. They’re a New York, NY based dating startup/social club “that sets up drinks between 2 groups of friends.” They don’t even use the word “dating” on their homepage, and I think that’s a brilliant branding decision–it’s all about meeting new people. I’m especially fond of Grouper because they’re running with the fish theme.
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