When people think of social media, Facebook is what comes to mind. Enter Bitrix24, a Facebook-like application exclusively designed for work-related purposes. Bitrix24, just like Facebook and other popular social media sites, has been created for one sole purpose: ease of communication. Needless to say, for a business, great or small, to survive and win in a cut-throat industry where innovators emerge on top, it is imperative that communication never become a broken link.
What is Bitrix24?
Bitrix24 is a cloud-based social intranet that allows companies to stay in touch with team members in a convenient, fun and engaging way. Because it is cloud-based, there is no need for installation, and the application can be used anywhere where there’s Internet connection. And yes, that includes mobile devices. Plus, it’s free for companies with 12 employees or less.
Features and Functionalities
Internal Social Network
They say a nation is as great as its people. I say a companyâs as great as the potential of its people. And what better way to unleash that potential than through constant employee engagement and communication? With Bitrix24, employees get to discuss developments as they happen and correct mistakes before they escalate into full-blown catastrophes. Employees build engaging relationships, and communication lines are kept open 24/7.
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| CRM |
One-Stop Workstation
Weâve probably all been there â keeping several different passwords for different applications, updating different worksheets for this process and that. Even worse, because of all the disparate tools employees utilize, reports generation takes longer than one would care to admit. This archaic practice requires a lot of employee log hours and doesnât do much for efficiency. Bitrix24 replaces all of the separate tools you use for correspondence, contacts, projects, tasks, everything. A single platform, and at the end of the day, whatever information you need is right at your fingertips.
CRM
CRM, or customer relationship management, is a tool that allows businesses to manage their interactions with clients, customers, agents, sales prospects and other contacts. Without CRM or the efficient usage of CRM, most businesses are doomed to die a natural death. With Bitrix24’s CRM functionality, contact history, interaction and new events such as messages, phone calls and/or meetings are logged, stored and managed.
Sales Funnel
Sales funnel, commonly referred to as sales process, is another Bitrix24 functionality that serves as graphical representation of the performance of transactions and the stages they are in. And because itâs graphical, data interpretation is easier than itâs ever been.
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| Sales funnel |
Security
Cloud-based data storage is fast becoming the trend nowadays. And when people think about storing, disseminating and managing sensitive data through the cloud, the questions that are oftentimes foremost in their minds are, “How safe is it? Does it really work?” Bitrix24 employs a seven-layer security system that is perhaps unparalleled in the industry, so that even in unsecured connections such as public Wi-Fi, e-mail and data access is as safe as access on a secure server.
Convinced already? Like, seriously? Believe me, you ainât seen nothing yet. The features I described above are just a few of so many. But don’t just take my word for it. Head on to their site now and see for yourself what they’ve got.
LifeHacks - How To Use Bitrix24.Com As A Free CRM, Intranet And Task Manager.
Entrepreneurism runs in Melody Hsieh’s blood. Her parents operated an auto parts factory in Taiwan, where she once worked at the age of 8.
“I learned early in life that hard work and smart work are the essential ingredients to running a successful business,” she said.
So after college in 2000, Hsieh decided to start a company, with family money, that sold scooters. By 2003, sales at her ASA Products surged to $3 million.
But in the next three years, annual sales quickly plummeted to $300,000. “My mistake was that I had no long-term strategy to build my brand,” she said. “I was just pursuing a hot trend, and not paying attention to competition, customer service or marketing.”
In 2006, she took a hiatus from her company and went back to school for her MBA. In late 2006, she relaunched a new product — Mobo Cruisers — a line of three-wheeled cruisers for kids and adults. “This time I applied what I learned in school about marketing, operations and research before I launched the brand,” said Hsieh.
Today, Mobo Cruisers is sold through Target and Toys “R” Us and expanding into Canada. Hsieh, who’s a new mom to her three-month-old son, said she’s busier than ever now. “Women can do it. It’s hard but you don’t have to give up one role for the other,” she said. “Have a routine that works for you and stick to it.”
[Via - CNNMoney, HT - Easy Money]
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Before Apple released the iPad 2, Garrett Gee made a lucky guess. âI knew it was going to have a camera, and because of that I just imagined that there would be a blog post or something similar on the top 10 new apps for the iPad 2,â he says.
Gee wasnât just the average college student geeking out. A student at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, he is one of the founders of Scan (scan.me), which allows iPad, iPhone and Droid users to scan quick-response (QR) codes.
Geeâs push to get his hands on the iPad 2 and get it to his iOS developer was motivated by his desire for Scan to be the first QR-scanner app available specifically for the deviceâthereby earning a spot on those top 10 lists. Thanks to two sleepless nights, he succeeded.
Geeâs path from student to entrepreneur started in 2009, when he received a smartphone for Christmas. With that device, the then-freshman scanned his first QR code and realized there could be apps and software that were less clunky and easier to use. At a web-design conference, he met Twitter creative director Doug Bowman, who encouraged him to pursue his idea.
Gee recruited classmates Kirk Ouimet and Ben Turley to help launch Scan in February 2011. The idea was to use simple online and mobile tools to give users a better option for scanning QR codes, and to offer a polished option for businesses that wanted to create those codes.
âThere are many, many sites where you can go and create your own QR code,â Gee concedes. âRemember when Facebook and Twitter were first getting popular, and businesses large and small all hopped on and started creating Twitter accounts and Facebook pages? They didnât really know how or why; they were just doing it because they thought it was important. Itâs been the same story with QR codes. People see them popping up all over the place, and theyâre like, âYeah, we should probably use QR codes for our marketing.ââ
Gee, Ouimet and Turley took second place in BYUâs business plan competition in April 2011âa status they parlayed into funding. After 16 trips to pitch to investors such as Google Ventures, Menlo Ventures and the co-owner of the Boston Celtics, they had $1.5 million. Gee waded through the offers while balancing school and travel as a forward on BYUâs semiprofessional soccer team, often taking conference calls in airport bathrooms along the way.
The team used that capital to build a platform and user base that earned Scan 10 million downloads in the first year. The actual scans derived from those downloads grew from 12 million to 21 million between September and October 2011. The next move is to develop a monetization plan. Today the software to read or create codes is free of charge; future options will include premium content and mobile-commerce templates.
Gee, now 25, is working toward graduating from BYU. For now, the dual student-CEO role is serving him well. âPeople relate to the student world quite well,â he says. âYou could say I play the âstudent cardâ quite often when Iâm meeting with big companies. It definitely scores me empathy points.â
[Via - YoungEntrepreneur.Com]
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Trademarkia is an online search engine that helps small-business owners sift through the more than six million names, slogans and logos that have been trademarked in America since 1870. The Web site, which went live in September 2009, grafts a user-friendly interface onto a colossal database, built with free information provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It also serves as a lure, steering visitors who want to apply for their own trademarks to the law firm of Trademarkiaâs co-founder, Raj Abhyanker, and offering other fee-based services such as domain registration, logo design and automated alerts that notify trademark holders when marks similar to their own are filed.
Employees: Eight full-time. In addition, in the last three years, Trademarkia has generated enough business to help Mr. Abhyankerâs law firm grow from a solo practice to an international operation with more than 190 employees, including more than 60 lawyers.
Founders: Mr. Abhyanker, 36, Trademarkiaâs chief executive, is a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who previously founded FatDoor, a social networking site for neighbors. (In 2007, Mr. Abhyanker was ousted as chief executive of FatDoor, which later transformed into The Dealmap and was purchased by Google in 2011.) He founded Trademarkia with Dongxia Liu, 39, a software developer and the former vice president of engineering at Imagekind. Ms. Liu now serves as chief technology officer.
Location: Trademarkia is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., in the same building as Mr. Abhyankerâs law firm, which also has satellite offices in India, China and France.
Pitch: âWe want to make applying for a trademark as easy as getting a domain name,â Mr. Abhyanker said.
Traction: Based on the strength of Trademarkia, which gets nearly three million page views each month, Mr. Abhyanker expects his legal practice to file for more than 13,000 trademarks this year (about 10,000 American and 3,000 overseas). âWeâre basically the law firm that represents the most small businesses in terms of intellectual property,â he said.
Revenue: In 2011, according to Mr. Abhyanker, Trademarkia brought in $1.3 million in revenue and the law firm brought in $5.5 million, excluding government filing fees that passed through both companies. He said he expected both figures to grow by 50 percent this year.
Financing: No outside money. âI had a bad taste about venture capital,â Mr. Abhyanker explained, after losing control of FatDoor. He bootstrapped Trademarkia with about $25,000 in seed money. As for the law firm, he added, that began in 2005 with $1,000 from his savings, a small office over a Palo Alto rug store, a used desk from Craigslist and a Web site he built himself. While he doesnât plan to pursue venture capital, âIâd like to have investors that are other lawyers,â he said, adding that, heâs considering using crowdfunding from California-licensed attorneys.
Marketing: Trademarkia spends roughly $1 million each year on paid search advertising, mostly Google AdWords. Even so, Mr. Abhyanker said, most of Trademarkiaâs traffic relies on word of mouth and in-bound links from other sites, such as Wikipedia.
Competition: Online rivals include LegalZoom, the legal documents company that offers a smorgasbord of services, and The Trademark Company, which offers registration packages starting at $149, undercutting Trademarkiaâs basic offering by $10. Competitors also include big international law firms, such as Greenberg Traurig and K&L Gates, which have dominated the trademark space.
Challenge: Mr. Abhyanker isnât shy about his ambitions. âOur goal, in the end, is to build the biggest law firm in the world,â he said. He wants to do that in two ways: first, by making other types of public data â including patents, copyrights and incorporations â âmore interesting and accessibleâ to consumers. He also plans to rebrand Trademarkia with a new name, LegalForce, and wants to pivot the company into a hybrid with both a strong online presence and brick-and-mortar storefronts serving mostly business owners, available for franchise by independent attorneys. He envisions the latter as âthe Apple store meets H&R Blockâ and hopes to have between five and 10 of them open within 18 months.
[Via - NYTimes.com]
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All venture capitalists have got startup business plans piling on their desks every single day. But how many of them are the breakthrough ideas worth investing in? Australian BigCommerce has proven right to the Massachusetts based venture capital firm General Catalyst. âWe quickly signed up our first 1000 customers within three months,â says Eddie Machaalani, the co-funder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, âand now weâre about to hit 20,000 customers after just 17 months.
Mitchell Harper, the other co-founder and co-CEO, explains âyou can set up your own online store in a few clicks. Weâre growing so quickly because weâve made it really easy to sell online.â
If youâve got a product and you need an easy way to sell it and advertise it, BigCommerce might be exactly what youâre looking for. All the marketing tools have been built in and the list of features is countless which targets all potential kinds of client s.
There are e-commerce newbieâs looking for tools to start with: web-based control panel, automated email marketing and almost one hundred store designs. There are e-commerce owners hoping to update and refresh their software with push to Facebook and eBay, SEO and Google Website Optimizer. And there are website designers looking for a ready platform to work with; theyâll look into painless software updates, unlimited design flexibility and premium hosting. To cut the long story short, BigCommerce has got everything for everybody.
The company overview does sound like a clichĂŠ online success story. Two IT geeks, a brilliant idea, a lot of hard work, right place, right time, huge demand and a spot on investor. (General Catalyst have also believed in BigFish, airbnb, iWalk and many others). This is how Eddie Machaalani speaks of the beginnings of their cooperation. âWhen we made the decision to raise capital and did our U.S tour to pitc h different VC firms, General Catalyst had already done a ton of due diligence on the market opportunity, our company and our competitors. They were very eager to invest in the company.â
BigCommerce have recently announced $2M integration fund to follow the market developments and create new better features. The software has now got built-in Pinterest and Quickbooks integration, referral system, a live chat, abandoned cart plugin and many other improvements. They tent to release new features every two weeks.
The software seems to be ahead of its competition (Shopify, Zencart, Magento) according to various online discussions, blogs and comparisons and is only getting better and smarter. E-shopping cart is gaining the whole new meaning. And what does it mean to you? Only one way to find out. (Here is a link for $100 coupon or 30 day free trial provided by BigCommerce for our readers).
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[Via - Madconomist.Com]
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