Monday, January 23, 2012

Regreen Corp

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http://regreencorp.com/

What it does: Energy savings for businesses
Founders: Sean Neman, 25; Kevin Refoua, 25; and David Duel, 24 (Pictured left to right)
Based: Los Angeles
Revenue 2011: $15 million

David Duel and Sean Neman, business students at the University of Southern California, started Regreen with their friend Kevin Refoua in 2008 to convince business owners that going green could be profitable. Backed by $400,000 raised from family and friends, ReGreen audits companies to identify ways they can lower energy costs and then provides engineering and construction teams to install enhancements such as reduced-flow toilets and low-energy lighting. “Most companies don’t have the in-house expertise to understand how to integrate these new technologies,” Duel says. ReGreen has worked with about 3,000 clients, including property managers such as Douglas Emmett and Transwestern. ReGreen now has about 110 full-time employees and Duel says its next big push will be designing, engineering, and installing solar power systems.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Mint.Com Review

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http://mint.com

A TechCrunch conference held in San Francisco is abuzz with tech experts, exhibitors, and speakers; and everyone has their opinions about the winners and newest innovations for the year. However, not all joined in the fun. Far left of San Francisco Design Center Concourse’s hall is a thirty-something tech geek, a cameraman, and a reporter. They are currently filming his testimonial about Mint.com.

"Hi, I'm Tammer from Zong Mobile Payments, and I am a Mint user...I've actually found it very easy to use, it's very clean, very easy to interface with. It's especially useful for younger people, because getting into managing your finances at a very young age can be very difficult. It's better if you can avoid the missteps with some kind of a service. I highly recommend it."

In case you're wondering what he was talking about, he’s talking about the most popular financial service on the Web today. Mint.com, in a nutshell, is a site that helps use rs manage and save their money online in an easy and secure way.

Time Magazine included it in the 50 Best Websites list in 2008, 2009, and 2010. It was the top pick of Money Magazine in 2008, a PC Magazine Editor's Choice in 2008, and PC World's Top Rated Online Finance Service in 2008. It won a Webby Award in 2009, and bagged other award categories from 2008, as well. TechCrunch 40 awarded it “Best Presenting Company” in 2007.

Mint currently has five million users, starting from its initial launch in September, 2007. It was acquired in September 2009 by Intuit, making it the biggest growing service of its kind. Aaron Patzer, the founder and visionary of the company. He started it when he was just 25 years old, after getting fed up with the time it took him to get all his personal finances in order.

“Mint was born out of a personal frustration of using personal finance tools which entailed way too much work. Maybe ther e was a problem when you have to go through 50 screens of setup.”

Mint reduced those long setups to two. Registering takes less than five minutes, and once you have an account, you can see how much you spend on all your transactions, such as your groceries, gas, electricity, and etc. It allows you to check on your credit card, bank, and other investment balances and get notifications and updates for every dollar added – or deducted from your accounts. It even calculates and advises you on how to budget your expenses, with graphs that give you visual representations of all your expenses. You can even use your mobile phone to stay up to date.

And the best thing about it is that it’s free.

Taking advantage of Mint.com's full features requires you to enter very sensitive and private information, such as your bank account usernames and passwords. This raises a lot of red flags, especially when it comes to security.

Patzer, h owever disagrees. “Mint uses bank-level security. If you’re comfortable with your banks’ online banking service, you should be comfortable with Mint. Also, users are anonymous on Mint. We never ask for your name, SIN number or other personally identifiable information, and all data is encrypted.”

Mint also has taken steps to add more fool-proof security. Users have read-only aggregates of their accounts, and they don’t display account numbers. They also cannot transfer money from the bank.

"I see no problem trusting mint.com. Like others have said, why would it even especially matter if someone did somehow crack their security and could see my transactions there? Someone could see the same by going through my trash for my bank statement, and if they want to go through the hassle of diving or hacking to see that I spent $2.50 on apples yesterday, then it's fine with me,” says JD Jackson a Mint user from Tennessee.

For Mint.com discount, specials and promotions, follow this link.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Cool Startups - iContact.com

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http://icontact.com

Icontact.com is a website that was made to facilitate the needs of people wishing to get into email marketing. Icontact simply provides the tools that are necessary to initiate an email marketing campaign, track its effectiveness as the emails are sent out to customers and last but not least improve on your campaign so as to attain better results. The degree of ease that you will experience when using icontact may make you believe it is a tool for beginners. However icontact is more than that and will provide more than enough to satisfy even the needs of the more experienced email marketers.

First and foremost icontact simplifies the process of designing your marketing campaign. It's step by step process allows you to utilize plain text, HTML, templates or a web page in the creation of your campaign. Icontact also allows you to create an email that matches your website. This is especially useful if you would like to maintain a certa in theme in your products. Should you make use of a template you can store it for future use and you can also preview your email after you have completed the design process.

Marketing is only useful if it effectively reaches the customers. This is why icontact has one of the best tracking systems that can be used in email marketing. Icontact provides up-to-date reports on all the messages that have been sent or forwarded and also tell you which messages have been delivered and which ones have bounced. There are also many other statistics useful to marketers that icontact provides using tables and charts that can easily be read even by marketing beginners. You can also use icontact to track your marketing campaigns in social media sites such as Facebook and twitter.

Apart from the necessities, icontact also provides various features that can further boost your marketing campaign such as making and sending surveys so you can know customers' reactions to y our products. Icontact also assists in adding forms for signing up on your website and this is useful in gathering recipients for your emails. You can also upload recipients from excel/CSV files. The ability to define various target markets, adding social media features and autoresponders are just a few other features availed by icontact. The spam test feature is also quite useful for checking your email and ensuring it doesn't contain elements of spam/junk mail.

One of the best features of icontact.com is the fact that it is so easy to use. It has multiple features for accomplishing each function so that both those who are versed in marketing and coding and those who are new to it will be comfortable as they make their campaigns. The user interface is quite friendly and well designed so it's easy to navigate the site. For the more experienced individuals there are various features that they can use to further improve their marketing effectiveness such as being ab le to customize the HTML code.

When you run into any problems while using icontact you can sit pretty knowing there is a wide variety of tools at your disposal to help you with anything. From the user manual, articles and the knowledge base to the video tutorials and the webinars (live or recorded), there is plenty of information around the website to get you out of any fix. The step by step instructions will ensure that you always get it right.

When all is said and done, icontact has managed to bring the idea and capabilities of email marketing down to the inexperienced individual while also empowering the experienced ones. For those who make use of it, icontact will prove decisive in taking their marketing efforts a step further.

For iContact coupons, discounts and promotions, follow this link.

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SitterCity Review

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http://sittercity.com

"I work 12-hour shifts early, so I need someone to be here really early and stay really late." says Beaje Mayo in an interview aired at a local TV news station.

Mayo is a full-time nurse and a local military wife with one big problem: finding a nanny for her two young boys.

"It was extremely difficult. The first time my husband was deployed, I went about five or six different either day care centers or providers."

That's when she found out about Sittercity.com.

Sittercity.com is the biggest online provider of babysitters and nannies in the US today. It has an estimated 2 million caregiver profiles across the nation that offers babysitting, pet care, housekeeping, senior care, and even tutoring services. The site helps match these caregivers to the right families, and the family that hires them will negotiate the salary.

The site al so has a corporate program that ties with companies and organizations, such as Fox, Avon, and MasterCard.

Sittercity has been mentioned by well-known media sources, such as FOX, Today, ABC, and CBS, getting glowing reviews. Even the US President recognized their site and gave them a big thumbs up. Apparently, it was a really big one, because today, the US Department of Defense pays for the annual memberships (worth $140) of all its active soldiers and their families to the site.

Beaje Mayo’s family was one of them.

This is quite a feat for someone who started out as a college sitter. Genevieve Thiers, the founder of Sittercity, was a babysitter when she saw a pregnant woman walking almost 200 steps at Boston College to post ads for a sitter. Thiers took the flyer from the woman and posted it for her, and the idea for Sittercity was born.

Child nannies are the most popular of their services. Parents can choose from 40 criteria, such as whether the babysitters can be available on holidays, or they know certain languages. Parents can even add smokers or non-smokers in their list. The site also offers information, references, and feedback from other clients about the sitter’s quality of service.

Most of the caregivers who find work at Sittercity are university students, stay-in moms and retirees. When asked what they think about the site, many say they couldn’t have been happier.

K.J., a Chicago-based nanny agrees. "I have used Sitter City for a few years and am pretty pleased. With my last job posting for an occasional sitter I received almost 40 applicants! You can really get your pick of the litter with response rates like that!"

Sittercity has three payment options: a yearly plan ($140), a 3-month membership ($70), and a monthly plan ($35). There is also an additional $9.99 fee for each background check of your candidates -- something that a lot of parents find a bit expensive. Others, however, take it all in stride.

"It's well worth it. I've wasted a lot of time on Craigslist, getting zero response to my ad, and never hearing back from most of the people I reached out to,” wrote a parent in TimeMom.

So does Sittercity.com live up to all its hype? Mary from parentplaza.com believes so. "SitterCity is like an Amazon.com for finding babysitters. Not only are you likely to find what you're looking for, you're likely to find more than you'll ever need.”

For SitterCity coupons, discounts and promotions, follow this link.


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Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

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How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

SocialFlights.com Review

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http://socialflights.com/

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to fly on those fancy private aircraft that rich people use for getaways such as skiing or beach weekends, a new Web-based company in Smyrna aims to put you in the jet set — at prices that rival those of regular airline seats.

SocialFlights.com allows individuals to book vacant seats on private charter airplanes via the Web and ride point-to-point, avoiding layovers, plane changes and even those long security lines.

For instance, on Friday, one-way flights from Smyrna to Rifle, Colo., on Jan. 2 and from Nashville to Hilton Head Island, S.C., on Jan. 4 were listed on the website for $300 per seat, while a trip from Destin, Fla., to Nashville on Jan. 1 was going for $200.

The service, which began a beta test in February and goes to full operation in January, offers flights to and from airports all over the U.S. — not just the Nashville area.

Besides selling unused seats on charters, Social Flights also has initiated a weekend scheduled service between Smyrna and Knoxville, using a 29-seat Jetstream turboprop plane. The fare is $50 for the round trip, and the flights operate on Fridays and Sundays.

Nationwide, more than 91 private air-charter firms, which operate 627 private aircraft with 30 seats or fewer, have already signed up to offer their empty seats to Social Flights users, said Jay Deragon, chief executive officer and a co-founder of Social Flights.

More than 12,500 people have registered to use the service, he said.

“We’re essentially using social networking to fill vacant seats on private aircraft that go all over the place every day, often with nobody on board,” he said. “A company or group might charter a jet to take them to California, but then that plane flies back empty. With Social Flights, people can buy individual seats on the return trip, giving the charter company revenue it wouldn’t have had.”

Social Flights calls it hassle-free flying because these airplanes don’t use the big airport terminals that the airlines use. They fly out of the private-aircraft terminals at airports all over the country — including thousands that have no airline service.

On these charter flights, passengers don’t have to go through metal detectors or X-ray machines, Deragon said. Their names are run through the TSA’s no-fly list, however, so any suspected terrorists would not be able to board the planes, he added.

“We say, ‘Just show up 15 minutes before your flight and walk right on,’ ” said Deragon, a social media expert who came up with the idea of Social Flights along with Allen Howell, founder and chief executive of the Smyrna-based Corporate Flight Management, one of the Southeast’s largest charter operators.

Each flight has a crew of three — two pilots and a flight attendant.

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Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

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How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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