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We’re pleased to be a part of the latest software bundle from appsumo.com. Called the “Start Up” bundle, this one was created with entrepreneurs in mind. In addition to BatchBook, the deal includes some of our favorite wep app friends.
There’s a nice write-up about AppSumo over on TechCrunch today, but in a nutshell: AppSumo works with the best web app companies around to 
offer great deals on amazing services.
And, 5o% of each bundle sale for this particular bundle will be donated to the National Wildlife Federation to help animals affected by the recent Gulf oil spill. We’re aiming to reach $50,000 to donate to NWF.org!
The Startup Bundle includes 6 months of service for BatchBook (reg. $90), MailChimp ($140), FreshBooks ($120) and Formstack($84), plus 100 MOO Mini Cards + free shipping ($25.49). That’s $459 worth of software for only $55!
A suite of sweet small business applications
These services together are perfect to get your business going or to take it to the next level:
If you’ve been holding off on becoming a BatchBook customer, now is a good time to do it! The offer extends until August 2, 2010 or until 5,000 accounts are sold so act fast! You’ll meet a lot of other cool companies making great software for small businesses as well as play a key part in helping out a very good cause.
Please note this is for new accounts only. Already a BatchBook customer but want to contribute to the cause? Visit nwf.org to see how you can help.
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Tags: appsumo, entrepreneurs, freshbooks, mailchimp
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, FreshBooks Formstack 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…
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Tags: batchblue, chicago, Community, freelance camp, freshbooks, mailchimp, moo, small business web
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.
Other prizes include:
Enter here before June 1st. The winning entry will be posted on the BatchBlog. Good luck, Super Heroes!
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Tags: batchblue, chris brogan, Contests, mailchimp, MOO cards, small business, small business super hero, small business week
Recognizing our "Most Connected Customer" Brandon Dunlap at the SXSBW Happy Hour
In preparing for the launch of the new Small Business Web Directory and for the SXSBW (South by Small Business Web!) party that we co-sponsored at SXSW last week, we came across someone who we think just might be our “most connected” customer, Brandon Dunlap from Brightfly, Inc. Brandon uses several of the Small Business Web members applications to run his business.
We were delighted to bring Brandon to the party as our Special Guest of Honor and showered him with all sorts of hip and useful schwag from the thirteen sponsoring companies of the party.
Here’s Brandon’s story:
Very well-connected
Brandon Dunlap, managing director of research at Brightfly, Inc., logged nearly 100,000 air miles last year crisscrossing the country for business meetings, conferences and other professional events. He is constantly networking, which in turn helps the research and consultancy firm grow its contact base by thousands each year.
To foster and grow all of these relationships, Brightfly relies on a number of solutions offered by The Small Business Web, an open collective of businesses aimed at connecting Web applications to help small businesses bloom and grow. The integrated solutions, which work together through their open APIs, help Brightfly maintain mountains of contact data and more efficiently and personally stay engaged with each person.
“Being a relationship-driven company, we don’t have a sales team managing all of our data. without the help of BatchBlue, this would be an arduous task. The companies of The Small Business Web give us a single point to manage all the ways we get in touch with our friends and colleagues in the field,” said Dunlap. “Since The Small Business Web solutions can ‘talk’ with each other, I can get back to people faster, even while I am on the road. The time savings are phenomenal.”
For example, Dunlap might collect a batch of business cards while at a information security conference in San Francisco and send them off to Shoeboxed before he gets on a plane to return home to Texas. Once back in the office, he can take all of the contact data that can be scanned and digitized by Shoeboxed and seamlessly enter it into his BatchBook social CRM account by BatchBlue. BatchBook enables him to tag each person by what event he met them at, what types of materials they requested or any other follow-up or other identifiers. He can then build and manage e-mail lists using MailChimp, another Small Business Web partner, to stay in touch with contacts with key research developments as they occur. Recently, Brightfly has kicked off a Competitive Compliance survey project leveraging the relationship between MailChimp and Small Business Web member SurveyGizmo to glean research insights from leaders in the information security and audit field.
Data in Brightfly’s is also imported into a Freshbooks account for recurring invoices, while Small Business Web partner Clarity helps Dunlap and others try to forecast and look for trends in their revenue streams.
“Everything in our business is done on personal connections. For everyone on my team to share all that information in one location and to be able to pivot across that data is huge,” said Dunlap. “The Small Business Web network of solutions helps us maintain currency and relevancy with all the individuals we need to contact at a price and service level better than a single-source solution.”
It was great to meet Brandon in person and be able to learn first-hand how the Small Business Web is helping small businesses like his succeed.
What about you? Are you using multiple web apps to help your small business bloom and grow? Let us know, we want to hear from you!
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Tags: batchbook, freshbooks, mailchimp, small business, small business web, SXSWi
Today, live from the action at SXSWi in Austin, we launched the new version of The Small Business Web. This site has grown from a single page put together on the fly at last year’s SXSW, to a full-blown Directory that includes categories, screen shots, pricing info, links to integration information and more.
Helping small businesses navigate and use technology has always been part of BatchBlue’s mission. It’s why we write our “Blue Papers“, it’s why we started the Twitter chat for small business owners #SBBUZZ and it’s the reason we’re now so excited about the new Directory. We think it will be very useful for folks looking for ways to grow and manage their businesses using some of the best tools out there.
Here’s a short video our friends at MailChimp put together to help explain what the Small Business Web is all about:
We hope you will make many good connections through the new Small Business Web Directory. We look forward to helping you hook them all up.
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Tags: batchblue, mailchimp, small business, small business web, SXSW, SXSWi
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