Earlier today ThriveHive and David Mihm announced that he would become the new VP of product strategy for the company. I’ve known David for years and consider him one of the most thoughtful people working in local arena. He’s also pretty independent. So, I was curious about what attracted him to ThriveHive and why he decided to take…
We’ve just concluded Wave III of the Tech Adoption Index survey of small businesses. The survey tracks the shift of local businesses to cloud-based services across multiple operational categories and verticals. The data will be presented at LSA’s upcoming Tech Adoption Summit in San Francisco on November 6 – 7. Anyone selling services into the small business market should attend. We…
Today in New York Facebook held its Global Partner Summit. There were a number of announcements coming out of the event: Creative Compass (tool to measure the impact of ad creative) New Marketing Partner categories: Facebook Marketing Consultants and Facebook Pros It’s the latter two announcements that are most relevant to this blog. Marketing Consultants are individuals…
This week Salesforce is holding its massive developer and partner conference Dreamforce in San Francisco. In conjunction with the event, the company has released a survey (reg. required) of 490 small and medium size business owners (SMBs). It explores technology adoption and other issues. The surveyed SMBs range in headcount from 2 to 199. Many of the findings are segmented into…
With four months left in the year, our event schedule is still going strong. We had great shows in Chicago (LSA18 and MarketingBitz Bootcamp) and London (Place Conference), and have six more events before the end of the year. Whatever you’re looking to do (network, learn, partner, sponsor, exhibit, etc.), there is likely an event…
Gusto is one of the most celebrated business operating in the small business cloud software space, having raised more than $300 million to date and generating ample press for its approach to disrupting the payroll and HR space. Last week we visited Gusto’s impressive new offices in San Francisco’s waterfront to sit down with the HR startup’s…
What happens when the 50-plus crowd leaves the corporate world and either starts or acquires small businesses? Will their adoption of cloud technology to run these businesses be more like older owners of existing small businesses, who tend to be reluctant to move their business operations to the cloud? Or will their behavior be more…
The Above the Cloud podcast is back this week with a new episode featuring Josh May, co-founder & CEO of POWr, a San Francisco based start-up that builds website plug ins for self-service website users, mostly small business owners. Josh sees POWr’s role as helping SMBs make their sites more competitive with big businesses. Josh started his…
Square is buying website creator Weebly. Weebly has free and paid website products. The transaction is valued at $365 million, comprised of a mix of cash and Square stock. Square said in its press release that it will now be able to offer “one cohesive solution to start or grow an omnichannel business”: Today, it…
Now widely reported, Amazon for the first time disclosed how many Prime members it has around the world — more than 100 million. It didn’t provide a regional breakdown but third party estimates suggest the bulk of Prime subscribers are in North America. The number was presented in a shareholder letter (.pdf) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission:…
