I Like It Like That!

I discriminate just as much as the next guy.

"That store had an indignant employee. That one has food that was too dry. That one has better bread than that one. That one had an uncomfortable toilet seat."

The list goes on and on.... So for all of our discriminating palates, we decided to let our merchants list their favorite stores. Afterall, if we, as customers, like the standards of a particular store - it would make sense to take notice of the stores they recommend.

Check out some of our merchants who are using one of our new 'Local Favorites' feature:

- Eagle's Space, LLC - Owosso, MI

- Family Fun Airbrush Tattoos - Martinez, CA

Sincerely,
Kevin Leu
Community Relations

P.S. My favorite toilets seats are the ones that don't curve down into the toilet. It's too hard to get the sani-wrap to cover the entire toilet seat. Thank you.

200,000 Strong - Together We Stand

It's funny, but every once in awhile folks in the office will reminisce about the old days. Things like, 'I remember that merchant, back when we had 500.' It's kind of like the cliched 'I walked to school, uphill in the snow, both ways!'

Well folks, MerchantCircle is now standing tall at 200,000 business owners signed-on all over the US. While we can't say it was an easy process, we can say it's been a memorable and enjoyable one. We've created a number of new features to make sure that you can reach new customers - and old - all over the web.

As we grow, we're committed to not lose sight of what's in the best interest of you, the small business owner, and who we feel is the heart of this nation. Continue to engage your fellow merchants in our forums and make sure you know, that you'll always have a web presence with us.

Take a look at Northern Mist Gifts if you get a chance. They're out in Wasilla, AK - I couldn't tell you how to pronounce it, but just like many of you, they come from a small city. They built coupons, newsletters, and wrote blogs on their MerchantCircle page and even use our widgets on their official website.

They embody everything we envisioned for MerchantCircle when 'it was just a few hundred merchants': The mom and pop shops finding new customers and not being left behind in this digital revolution....... Now getting home from school in the snow, is a whole other story.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

What's Not to Love?

I joined MerchantCircle about three weeks ago. It happened as one of those serendipitous moments in life akin to finding a future love or a sale item you can't resist buying. As I came closer to finishing my MBA at Stanford Business School, I decided to pay attention to my entrepreneurial gut and satisfy my curiosity for innovation and the startup world. I met Ben, Doug, and Walt at MerchantCircle on my birthday and four days later I was working away.
So, three weeks later I finally decided to synthesize my experience at MerchantCircle and think about answers to the questions I repeatedly get asked: "What have you learned? "Why MerchantCircle?"

In these three weeks I have learned that one of the most important things is to know your customer. As a new business grad student I learned that understanding local business is pivotal, and something we work hard at. And when I say understanding our industry, I mean getting to know what merchants like, what they don't like, what is important to them and their customers. That is why we are such a big family and growing- almost at 200K merchants!!

I also learned that with passion and determination there is nothing you can't learn and change fast! Part of getting to know your customer is the discovery process. At MerchantCircle nobody takes that for granted and learning about merchants, is a dynamic process in which gathering feedback, developing solutions, and executing fast are what makes our relationship work. On a personal note, this is what I was taught at the d.school at Stanford and what makes working for a startup so exciting...

I also finally understood that local businesses are at the core of our day-to-day lives, like family and best friends...you can't live without them. Local businesses are like our good old neighbors. However as children play video games and adults become dependent on the internet, we no longer take time to stroll around the neighborhood and get to wave at our neighbors. Instead, we email, chat, and find them on Google maps. That is why we must seek to keep our local communities alive as an extension of our lives, which nowadays translates to being online and adopting new technologies.

So, in saving the best for last, I can now answer why I like MerchantCircle. I love the people, their energy, good spirit, determination, and creativity. I love our merchants, who are passionate about their work and about caring for their customers like they care for their families. At MerchantCircle every day brings a new challenge and a new laugh, but I also know that everyone is working towards the same goal. What is there not to love?

Sincerely,
Irit Epelbaum
Product Manager

Trading Love

I love you.... no, not you.... you over there. Ahhhh, what the heck, we should spread the love all around! It's clear there's a lot of networking and business partnerships being formed on our network and we're excited to be a part of it. Business owners continue to use MerchantCircle to recommend their favorite businesses to their customers.

People helping people - it's one of America's most endearing characteristics.

We wanted to show our appreciation for the praise you've heaped on us, (you can read them here), and as part of our ongoing efforts, we're recognizing the business owners who exemplify our network of 170,000 strong.

Read about our latest highlight merchant, Angel's Affordable Web Design, here.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

150K... Yeah, We Passed That

With all the new developments recently, including 3 new employees (we're still hiring), new product features and heavy summer itinerary, we're delayed in announcing our growth past 150 thousand merchants across the country. In fact, we're about to pass 165 thousand merchants, but I thought 150K was a much rounder number for an announcement!

This growth means a stronger network of merchants for you to network with as we continue to be the fastest growing and largest online network of business owners in the country. Many of our merchants are finding new customers by customizing their pages and showing up higher in search engines. Don't forget to keep adding new content, like pictures, building coupons and writing blogs - all of it helps.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

We've Gone Mad From All Our Tinkering!

We have some of the coolest features in the works set to debut this summer, which explains the lack of recent blog posts. It’s super busy and really exciting around the office. Our 3 new employees and intern are now fully in the swing of things and the team gave the okay on releasing some advance buzz on one of our newest features.

You may already know about our MerchantCircle forums, where small business owners across the country are helping each other and trading ideas, but we’re going to take it to the next level - the local local level that is, or hyper local. Now that we have merchants in almost every city in the US, we know that there’s a real need for merchant discussion within cities.

Our city pages to begin with are pretty cool, take for instance this one in Colorado Springs. You can see all of the city's coupons, blog posts, top merchants and ads, but now they'll be even more informative as community members and business owners can post anything going on in the community. Say for instance a street fair, or block party, or maybe a huge sale, you can post whatever you want. Look for this interactive community engagement to be released over the next few weeks.

Let us know what you think as we make your community the strongest it can be.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

Stanford and Berkeley can Coexist

As the summer heat is making life unbearable in many parts of the nation, we decided to turn up the heat a little in our office. We just welcomed aboard a few new team members this week, including a fresh faced intern from Berkeley and a grad student from Stanford.

As you may know, around here in Silicon Valley, there's a friendly rivalry between the two schools. What's great about adding these two members is that now we can represent more colleges around the nation, including Northwestern, LSU, University of West Florida, UC San Diego, UC Davis and even lowly Santa Clara (just kidding).

Let me take a few moments to introduce Irit Epelbaum who joined us from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she completed her MBA. She got her Bachelor's in Economics from Yale University. Which translates to - she's much smarter than me. Not that that's any kind of achievement.

Irit will be focused on getting you, our merchants, more customers through our subscription plans. We're proud and excited to have her on board. But we're not done yet, our team is growing to make sure we continue to be the best place for a business to find new customers. Take a look at another of our job openings by clicking here. (If it says 'looking for Community Relations Manager,' I'm in trouble.)

Recently, we've also started to make sure we profile more of our 150,000 merchants. Take a look at this press release to see what I mean.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations