Ghost of Midnight

… about neighbors, community and Front Porch Forum

Advice for Local Online Entrepreneurs

Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008 by No comments yet

Andy Sack, founding CEO of now-shuttered Judy’s Book, offers this advice for folks looking to get traction in the “local reviews and word of mouth referrals business”…

i) GET TO CRITICAL MASS

  • Do this by limiting geography — stay in one geography for 3 years. Yes, 3 years. Do not expand geography for the first 36 months. Every successful online local business has been in one geography for 3 years.
  • Do this by limiting the number of categories or professions you’re trying to get word of mouth on. Do not try and do the entire yellow pages. Choose at most five categories. I might suggest: restaurants, dentists, doctors, auto mechanics, and real estate.
  • Do this by aggressive customer acquisition. Whatever your strategy for customer acquisition, get aggressive about. Do not sit in an ivory tower and expect to get to critical mass.
  • Aggregate content from other places on the web so you can avoid the empty database problem
  • Spend as little money as possible

ii) Go back to step i

Posted in: Front Porch Forum, Local Online, Local Reviews, Peer Reviews, Social Media


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *