Things are looking up in the new BatchBlue offices these days. And by things, I mean myself who has to stand on tiptoes when talking to our two most recent hires, each of whom stand a foot above me. Not only are they doubling the size of our mighty tech team, they are helping us fill in the delightfully high ceilings in our new BatchHaüs. For a SaaS company it’s great to find smart guys with their heads in the clouds.
Let me introduce you to:
Alex Taylor (pronounced “tay-lor” and found at @goldenmeanie) is the talent behind the recent BatchBook redesign. Alex is a long time friend of the BatchBlue team, largely because of his excellent taste in footwear. He is our senior designer who will be pushing BatchBook, HTML5 and loungewear to the limits in our super secret new project.
Eric Krause (pronounced “krow-zee” and found at @erickrause) is our new RoR master. We found Eric through the local Ruby group and won his heart with a giant pile of M&Ms (we often bribe with chocolate). Eric will be syncing up some batch integrations and helping train the new recruits as we continue to grow our elite team.
Join us in welcoming Alex and Eric to the BatchBlue family. We have some very exciting projects in the works, so are thrilled to have their tall talents supporting us.
Editor’s note: Wow, KrauSAY! really is taller than Alex!!
We’re excitedly preparing to attend to Chicago-based events later this month. The first, Start-up Weekend, takes place June 25-27 at the Illinois Technology Association. Here, aspiring entrepreneurs get together on Friday to come up with an idea, form teams to build it, and present at the end of the weekend. We love being around folks who are filled with ideas and just starting out (both Pamela and I are on the advisory board for Providence’s own Betaspring accelerator project) so I’m really looking forward to what the teams come up with.
We’re also hoping to sponsoring one attendee, so if you know some one in Chicago who wants to attend, let us know! Be warned, this person will receive our unconditional public support!
On June 26th, we’re also sponsoring Chicago’s first Freelance Camp. Freelance camp is an unconference environment where a bunch of people get together to learn from one another: in this case, people either working as freelancers or building products/services that support the freelance market.
From their website:
Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects.Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde, the weekend is a concept of a conference focusing on learning by creating. It is known for its quick decisions, ‘out of the box’ thinking (oh no, the buzzwords are attacking!), unique facilitation technique and letting the founders show what they can do. The program has already met with success in Boulder, Toronto, New York, Hamburg, Houston, West Lafayette, Boston, DC and more.
At Freelance Camp, we’ll be hanging out and doing cool stuff with some of our favorite Small Business Web partners: MOO cards, FreshBooksFormstack and MailChimp will all be there as well. We always have fun when we get together and hope you’ll be there to join us! See you in Chicago…
This week is National Small Business Week and to celebrate and show our support of small business owners everywhere, we are once again hosting a Small Business Super Hero contest. This contest encourages small business owners to cast off their civilian garb and show off their true super powers so that we can recognize them for the everyday heroes that they are.
You can submit your own story or nominate a business you admire. The entry form is brief and the prizes are many (including a build-your-own custom bike from Republic bike!) so go ahead! Share your story and you just might become a real live Small Business Super Hero.
Now that the weather’s finally getting nicer, more people heading outside to do their thing. A pleasant way to spend some time might be to grab your laptop and head outdoors, fire up the wi-fi and ice up a glass of coffeemilk to check out some recent BatchBlue press. Relaxing AND informative!
BatchBook & Google Apps Marketplace
Our big news of the month was that we were one of the 50 companies selected to launch in the new Google Apps Marketplace. As one of only two New England companies selected, we were excited to be a part of it and our local Providence Business News was there to cover our big moment.
Small Business Web Directory
We launched the new version of the Small Business Web Directory at SXSW last month, which a quite a few folks wrote about. There was great write-up in Inc. magazine by Howard Greenstein, who was nice enough to attend our SXSBW party in spite of being sick.
Web Worker Daily helped us announce the Directory to the world, as did BusinessWeek AND ReadWriteWeb. Thanks, guys! These are some of our favorite resources for small business owners and we’re really glad they found the Directory newsworthy.
There’s also a video of a slightly tired me talking about the launch of the directory on My San Antonio.com. Get that woman some coffee
Beloved BatchBook Customers
Of course, my personal favorite category, for whom our bell tolls etc…posts from our customers about how they are using BatchBook, why they like it, and how it’s made life easier for them.
Big Thinking for Small Business: At first he liked us a little, now he likes us a lot. And all because of the simple TLC we give our BatchBook peeps. We can’t help it, we’re crazy for customer service.
AMEX OPEN Forum: An excellent post on Quick Customer Touchpoints by the consistent bringer of awesomeness Chris Brogan includes a mention of BatchBook. We really like the ideas he expresses here about why staying in contact is so important in the age of social media, especially because it fits so nicely with some of what we’re doing with our upcoming re-design of BatchBook.
So that’s just a sample of some of what’s been written about us lately. Have you written a post about how you’re using BatchBook, or seen one we might have missed? Let us know, we’re happy to include it here and on our press page.
As fans of diversity and champions of doing your own thing, BatchBlue has always loved the idea behind MOO cards, a company that lets you create business cards using your own images. Who says business cards need to be boring? Certainly not MOO, who display the many different ways their customers have used their product to create funky, artistic stand-out business and calling cards in a Flickr group.
Our new MOO cards!
BatchBlue’s latest batch of MOO cards feature Twitter quotes from some of our happy customers. What better way to show off how social our CRM BatchBook is than by displaying some of the nice things people are saying about us on Twitter!
Backstage at MOO (Providence, RI)
Since we’ve been customers for a while, we were thrilled when MOO opened an office right in our hometown of Providence, RI. A couple of weeks ago, Pam and I had a chance to stop by to say hello to our MOO Crew friends Lisa Rodwell and Rebeka Fluet and get a tour of MOO’s new(ish) facilities. If you’re a MOO fan like us, you’ll enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at what goes into making the coolest business cards around!
Thanks for the tour, guys! Keep on doing what you do.
Things are looking up in the new BatchBlue offices these days. And by things, I mean myself who has to stand on tiptoes when talking to our two most recent hires, each of whom stand a foot above me. Not only are they doubling the size of our mighty tech team, they are helping us fill in the delightfully high ceilings in our new BatchHaüs. For a SaaS company it’s great to find smart guys with their heads in the clouds.
