As we announced a few weeks ago, CitySquares is beginning it’s national roll-out. We’re now happy to announce that the states of Delaware and Maryland are now live on the site!
It’s an exciting and busy time for the development team and we will continue to update you on what states have been launched and when. Until we are national we will do a regular update on states that go live.
To give you an idea of how we’re rolling out, we started in the northeast, are currently knocking down the mid-Atlantic states, and making our way down the coast to Florida. We will then move west towards the great Mississippi River and then jump to the Pacific coast. We’ll be skipping over a few less populous states as we roll-out and circle back to them. Our overall roll-out plan shows us launching about 40 states in 30 days.
Please feel free to reach out with any feedback or thoughts on the expansion and wish us luck.
And last but not least, happy new year from all of us at CitySquares!
CitySquares started in 2005 with only seven neighborhoods on the site. We wanted to provide a useful and relevant hyper-local resource for local residents and for the small businesses. Those seven neighborhoods in Somerville and Cambridge Massachusetts (Davis Square, Porter Square, Harvard Square, Kendall Square, Union Square, Central Square and Inman Square) are now the corner stones of CitySquares. We then progressed into numerous other neighborhoods in Brookline and Boston. The reason we progressed successfully was because we were proving value to consumers and helping small businesses get online. It’s that simple. SMBs were realizing they needed to make a move from print to online advertising and get more for their ad dollars. They may not understand everything about the Internet, and may not know what “SEO” means or “conversion” but they know that consumers are online, and that’s where they also need to be. CitySquares was growing and but vision was barely being realized.
Well, it’s three years later and this past July we expanded the site to cover to all of New England and metro NY. We are one of the top 2500 sites in the nation according to Quantcast and have hundreds of paying customers. Going national seems like the next logical step doesn’t it? What are we waiting for? Grow, grow, grow! It all sounds logical and simple but in fact it’s far from it. What makes CitySquares unique is the value we provide customers. We have cultivated the site around the local communities and earnestly want to see small businesses succeed and grow. So the question wasn’t why don’t we expand, but how do we expand and preserve the essence of who we are? It’s a tough question to answer, one that we’ve been working on for some time. We don’t want to devolve into a just a national directory where the small business is buried under the national players or where the consumer’s opinion takes priority over SMBs. We care about small businesses, they’re our priority. But we also care about real-world community, offline life.
The fact is, we’ve only begun to achieve our vision. There’s so much more for us to accomplish. Our aim is to not be just a business directory or city guide, but to be the ultimate resource for local communities. Whether a county in Montana, a borough in NY, a village in Vermont, or a neighborhood in Seattle, we want to get all the information about that community, that locale, online. Get the geopolitical information online, municipal information, local government, post office, libraries, public schools, trash and recycling collection schedules, historical facts, playgrounds, parking lots, public transportation, local school lunch menus, athletic program information, July 4th fireworks locations, and so much more. CitySquares’ vision is, and has always been, to be “Your Neighborhood, Online.” Not easy, but necessary. And it will happen.
So here we are, starting our national expansion. And why? It’s simple - there is a need. The need for the local tractor equipment company in French Lick, Indiana to be found when someone searches for local tractor equipment in French Lick, Indiana and not find John Deere in Indianapolis, Indiana. It’s about getting these small businesses online, and allowing them to be discovered by local, qualified consumers. Period. But that’s just the beginning. The rest and the best is yet to come. It may not sound or look like much right now, but as we chug along in the next couple months, the next year, and beyond, you’ll see this ultimate vision become reality.
This week CitySquares launched an additional 1.7 million businesses to fulfill the rest of New York and New Jersey as well as the entire state of Pennsylvania. We will quickly be rolling out other states to complete the national expansion. It is an exciting time for us and it’s equally exciting to see so many small businesses, mom-and-pops, across this great nation actually get online - many of them for their first time ever! This is one small step for CitySquares, one giant leap for your communities. You just wait and see.
Our friend Joe Grafton at Somerville Local First sent along this little tid-bit and I thought I’d share it with you. It’s just yet another reminder of the benefits of shopping locally. When you spend your hard-earned bucks locally, that’s more money for the local economy. It’s a system that benefits everyone - there’s no downside. Check it out…
There’s a new study out, further quantifies the benefits of shopping locally. It shows that if 600,000 residents shifted 10% of their shopping locally, the community would experience tremendous economic benefits, such as:
* 1600 jobs would be created
* There would be $137 Million in new economic activity
* There would be $50 Million in new wages earned
Yesterday I attended a press conference held at CitySquares customer, Model Ace Hardware in Allston. Mayor Menino was there to announcethe city’s new Boston Buying Powerinitiative. If you haven’t heard about Boston Buying Poweryet, than listen up! This truly is exciting news for local businesses.
Boston Buying Power is an energy buying group designed to allow small businesses to purchase energy at a long-term fixed price through access to the deregulated energy market. Boston Buying Power puts small businesses on a level playing field with the largest of commercial accounts and enables them to take advantage of benefits that until now have been unavailable to the small business community.
“Boston is committed to encouraging and supporting strong business communities. One of the ways we can do this is by advocating for small businesses and providing resources during difficult economic times,” Mayor Menino explained.
“Boston Buying Power is designed to give our hard working small business sector the peace of mind that comes from long-term price certainty and budget stability.”
Enrollment is easy and not only will Boston Buying Power begin saving you money today but they can lock-in that lower price for up to five years providing long term price certainty and budget stability for small businesses. More information can be found at www.bostonbuyingpower.com.
(This blog entry was copied from Ben’s blog at YourSuspect.com)
This weekend is CitySquares’ 3rd birthday! It was October 15th, 2005 and Bob and I had been working extremely long days getting the website ready for its unveiling, but it was entirely on Bob’s shoulders! For the previous eight weeks or so, while Bob and a contractor worked long days and nights to build that first version of the site, my time was spent mobilizing a grass roots sales effort with the help of some freelance sales people, as well as some marketing efforts with the help of Chris. We all worked tirelessly in anticipation of this day - October 15th, 2005. We planned a big party in Davis Square where we’d celebrate the launch of the website but also the underlying principles that CitySquares hoped to embody - principles of neighborly living, of community, of small business, and of friendship and we’d hoped that we could draw out the local residents of the greater Davis Square community in Somerville. Finally, when October 15th arrived, it was cold and extremely wet - it was pouring, downpours, and ferociously windy. There was no way we could hold our party. But we still launched the website (see it here on Wayback Machine).
When the site launched, it launched with only seven neighborhoods on it - Davis, Porter, Harvard, Central, Kendall, Union, and Inman Squares, and barely a thousand businesses listed. When the site launched that Saturday, there was also no traffic - no unique visitors, no page views. There was barely a business model, there were no salaries, no employees. There were a handful of customers who believed in us, and a few people who were eager to see us succeed, and others who were eager to see us fail. There was very little more than a tax ID number, a domain name, a clunky website, and a few pie-eyed believers behind the business that included not just me and Bob, but Chris, my wife Ali, my father, mother, sister, some freelancers like my friend Rahkeen and a couple others. And there were the local businesses, like Carla at Johnny D’s, Heather at Square Nail Studio, Lynn at Chinook, Richard at Massage Therapy Works, Deborah Mason and her dancers. There was Jason Burrell, a talented artist, Lo Galluccio a talented singer and songwriter, and Jack Connolly the Alderman of the Davis Square district, and good friend to CitySquares. There were others too.
The next day, October 16th we held our party in Davis Square. It was sunny, very nice out, but it was still extremely windy. The party was attended by so many people of the neighborhood. We had artists there, musicians, dancers, family, friends, and Cookie Monster (played by my mother). My sister Alison and wife Ali did some face painting, small businesses came out and participated. All when CitySquares was barely more than an idea, and a dream. It was a magical weekend for us, one that Bob and I reflected on this week.
The odds of a business idea materializing into an actual business, with a heartbeat and with people propelling it forward are extremely low. Once off the ground, the odds of the business making it through its first year in business, its second, and its third are also very low. I won’t spout of those statistics because it’s just not important. They’re numbers, and if I paid attention to all the numbers that were stacked up against me in life I probably wouldn’t get out of bed. Ignorance is bliss when your a startup entrepreneur!
What’s really drives this company’s successes and it’s growth are the people. We’re not just a company, just a business, just a startup. We are a tribe! CitySquares is a peaceful tribe, we mind our business, but we’re fierce and our spears are sharp. Our warpaint is ready and we are warriors at heart. It’s that heart, that passion, those guts that drives this company. It started on October 15th 2005, and it continues today, three years later.
This week marks the 3rd birthday of CitySquares.com’s launch, but it also marks a day when Bob and I made a decision that would change our lives forever, and lives of others to come. Today, we have some very special people involved with the company, both on staff, as well as customers, people who use the site, but also on its board of directors, its board of advisers, and among its investors. Our families all support us, our friends, our spouses. CitySquares is three years old, but 100 times more powerful. The future on October 15th, 2005 was so foggy - so massive and overwhelming. Today, the future is more clear than ever, and remains so full of potential and opportunity.
The tribe is as united as ever, the company as lean and mean as ever. We’re powerful, we’re proud, we’re competitive. And we have more heart and passion than any other company I’ve ever been involved with. More people will join our tribe in the days, weeks, months, years to come. Other milestones will be reached, birthdays celebrated. I can’t wait.
With July now in full swing, it’s time for our final update on the Buy Local Challenge. For those of you who haven’t been following it, we here at CitySquares gave ourselves a challenge to buy only from local businesses for the month of June. Below are words from my fellow CitySquares staff members.
“Even though I was apprehensive about only buying local, I actually really stuck to it aside from this past week in California…I mean lets be serious I had to try Inn and Out Burger’s secret menu and dine amongst the stars at Mr. Chows. That aside, when in Boston I got the majority of my groceries from a local store called Symphony Market and on the way back from the beach in Rhode Island on the weekends I would stop at the farm stands and buy my fruits and veggies for the week. I stopped going to Starbucks all together and now go to Espresso Royale. Even though I really enjoyed the local markets, now that the challenge is over I will probably start going back to the larger super markets, simply because they are more affordable and convenient.” - Caitlin
“Buying local was easy in the dining out and bar scene since I live in a city. The biggest upset is that I wanted to buy flowers locally and didn’t know where a local florist was. Since I was out of town, and driving, I used GPS to find one but it was 15 miles away. I ended up going to a Shaws and spending a fortune on a floral arrangement that I probably could have gotten cheaper from a local florist.“ - Alexandra
“I am buying entirely local more successfully. I’m eating at local establishments, buying at only local businesses including Tags Hardware andPorter Square Books, I’m even buying local beers. I’m starting to really enjoy it and the more I practice this kind of Buy Local behavior the more I find myself objecting to non-local purchasing/commerce. It’s starting to just become routine. I’m not finding myself purposefully working at it as much now, it’s just sort of happening on its own.” - Ben
“Coffee is my thing. I need to have GOOD coffee in the morning, afternoon and some evenings. I felt this was the best way to test the local waters. Buying local meant that Starbucks was out of the picture. Enter Greenlight. The Pete’s Iced Coffee is self-poured and the cups are prefilled with ice. No frills, just coffee. In just about any other setting this would come off as kind of a pain. However, once you take your simple coffee to the register you are greeted by a smiling and friendly, non-uniform wearing fella who knew my name after my first visit. My morning coffee became more like what a morning coffee used to be, a daily social activity, not just a caffeine binge. The coffee was half the price as Starbucks and frankly just as strong as my Venti Iced Black Eye (One big coffee with two shots of espresso). I won’t lie, it will be hard to completely nix the Starbucks, but Greenlight has a new loyal customer.” - Steve
Overall, this Buy Local challenge was a success. Buying locally is something that’s really baked into CitySquares’ DNA. Because we work with locally owned businesses all day long, every day, it’s a constant reminder. And what’s fun about working at CitySquares too, is that it really puts a spotlight on the communities we work with, and the local businesses within them. Even so, we need a reminder sometimes. Buying things like toothpaste, flowers, greeting cards, groceries, things like that are all matters of convenience. We’re consumers, and we tend to not think about our consumer behaviors. But when we do, when we intentionally monitor those behaviors and try to be a bit more socially responsible with them, we find ourselves enjoying our consumer lifestyles a bit more. As Steve pointed out above, he found his morning cups of coffee to be more social and friendly, and as Ben realized, the more he altered and practiced his consumer behaviors the easier it became.
When we first discussed doing this challenge there was a lot of debate about where to buy certain products. Some of us didn’t realize how much opportunity there really was to buy locally. Ultimately, we all learned some lessons here and we’re better consumers because of it.
Amended 7/22/08: New version of the animation posted, with a new ending.
A couple of months ago we had an idea to put a bit of an animation together that demonstrates how we feel about traditional print media, specifically the phone book and local newspapers. We didn’t want it to be too serious or lengthy, so Jason, Amber, and myself put a storyboard together and found someone who could help us get it done. We’re really happy with the final result, and we hope you are too. It’s only a minute and a half long. Check it out!
Buying local is what CitySquares is all about. We talk about buying local with our customers and with community members daily. Earlier this month, we gave ourselves a challenge, to buy only from local businesses for the month of June. While there have been some mishaps (it’s called a challenge for a reason) I’m happy to report that everyone on staff (all 14 of us) is still trying to practice what we preach.
The easiest part of this challenge has been the restaurants. From Pescatore and Redbones BBQ in Somerville, Union Oyster House in Faneuil Hall, even all the way to Barnacle Billy’s in Maine, we’ve had an unlimited supply of local spots to dine. Downtown Wine and Spirits and local bars like The Draft (which just opened their new outdoor patio, by the way) and The Fours next to the Garden (Go Celts!) were obvious choices for entertainment. Groceries have been relatively easy as well with markets like Foodies in the South End. Farmer’s Markets like the Union Square Farmer’s Market have also been a big help during our buy local challenge.
Aside from a few blunders; a flat screen from Best Buy, a window air conditioner from Home Depot and some last minute Father’s Day cards at CVS we’ve made some major improvements. We’ve kicked our Dunkin Donuts habit and in exchange we’ve been frequenting places like the Buttery. We’ve replaced our Exxon Stations for neighborhood gas stations like Teele Square Auto. One of us even went so far as to drive to HampsteadNew Hampshire to buy a power tool from East Coast Lumber! It hasn’t been an easy few weeks, but it’s definitely been a learning experience. We’ve got two more weeks to go and many more lessons to learn. Be sure to check back for more updates this month.
How about you? Do you feel like you try to shop locally when you have the choice? If so, why and if not, why? There’s no right or wrong answer either, so please, be candid!
As pointed on on several blogs and in the print media, CitySquares has expanded our website beyond the Metro Boston area and into the rest of New England as well as the Metro NYC area! This is a big and exciting step for us! This expansion of the website brings the total number of businesses from about 64,000 to 1.4 million! Thats a 22x increase!
With this expansion we’ve had to build a new home page at the root of CitySquares.com. Historically, when you go to CitySquares.com you’d be brought directly to the Boston page on the site, or to your favorite neighborhood, if you’ve saved one. Now, the new home page will bring users to the very top of the site, and allow the drill down by state, region, city, and neighborhood. The home page is very dynamic too, with a clever Top Cities and Quick Look feature.
The real objective behind this expansion is to meet the demand we’re seeing in communities outside of metro Boston to bring our Buy Local message, local search solution there. Both businesses and consumers have made themselves heard loud and clear, and this is just a first step in meeting their needs.
With this expansion we’re following our original model of taking a bottoms-up approach to building an online community based on neighborhood and community locales. With so much data, it’s a challenge, but that’s why the product team (Bob, Justin, and Michael) has literally slept in the office to accomplish this, and they did a fantastic job! We’re very proud of those guys for their efforts and for going above and beyond to get this done.
We’re excited to see the search engines sink their teeth into this data and ultimately bring the value of CitySquares.com to consumers across the northeast! If anyone has any questions about this expansion, or about advertising, or anything else, please don’t hesitate to email me or call me at (617) 459-4922. There are some small wrinkles we need to iron out too, so expect to see some nice little tweaks over the coming days and weeks.
I was recently asked, along with two coworkers, to try and put together a new flash demo that would help better explain the benefits of being a member of CitySquares. After working on it for a while and tossing around several ideas, we realized that we kept coming back to the same two points. Number one: Where are all of the small business advertising dollars really going and who exactly are they reaching? Number two: being online and targeting a qualified, local audience is really where they get the most bang for their buck.
Working on this project, I started to draw a few conclusions. It is not that consumers have no interest in local business, it is that they don’t know where to find you, and they forget. It used to be that customer loyalty was gained simply by being an active member of your community in a physical sense. It is obvious that the definition of a community is rapidly changing. Whether it is MySpace or Facebook or any other site, people are congregating in these online communities where they feel some sort of connection or draw. CitySquares is quite literally an online playground for local business owners and consumers looking for them. The kid who used to play jacks outside your storefront is still out there, he just happens to be sitting on his Mac for a few hours while he plans out his day. The point is that CitySquares gives you a chance to be found by people who want to find you.
The flash demo storyboard came together nicely. It really will offer a new outlook on the benefits of becoming part of our community! I am excited to see what it looks like when it is finished. Keep an eye out for it!
As we announced a few weeks ago, CitySquares is beginning it’s national roll-out. We’re now happy to announce that the states of Delaware and Maryland are now live on the site!
Ben Saren
Amber Killingsworth
Justin Leider
Michael LeBarron
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juliecaroline
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