I've been shopping around for a credit card merchant for awhile now, and to be frank, the whole system seems rather opaque and rife with potential for fraud, waste, or both. I was glad to find this Forbes article a couple days ago, which does a decent job of giving a primer on the whole process. Some links to preferred merchants and examples of best rates would have been helpful (as would have some notes on e-commerce businesses specifically), but it was good nonetheless. I recommend it to anyone who is looking to set up a merchant account in order to accept credit cards.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Primer on Accepting Credit Cards
I've been shopping around for a credit card merchant for awhile now, and to be frank, the whole system seems rather opaque and rife with potential for fraud, waste, or both. I was glad to find this Forbes article a couple days ago, which does a decent job of giving a primer on the whole process. Some links to preferred merchants and examples of best rates would have been helpful (as would have some notes on e-commerce businesses specifically), but it was good nonetheless. I recommend it to anyone who is looking to set up a merchant account in order to accept credit cards.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
What is Referral Union?
Probably the most common question I get is "What is Referral Union?" There are several answers to this, and each serves a different audience. Let's explore a few possible audiences and the responses, but first the short answer:
Short Answer AKA the Elevator Pitch (This is probably the toughest one and is always in flux): Referral Union is a community of job-seekers and current employees of companies who offer referral bonuses. It introduces applicants, who benefit by getting a foot in the door to a great new job, to those working for their target companies, who are fiscally rewarded by their HR departments for referring qualified new applicants.
A bit more detail: Referral Union maintains two databases--one each for both applicants and current employees. Much like match.com, members of both databases can browse, search, and message anyone they're interested in, which will hopefully lead to successful pairings. From time to time, you will receive suggested candidates in your inbox; these are based on some keywords you entered when you created your profile. Yes, if you have a job but are looking for something new, you can create both accounts. You sly dog.
Potential Current Employees: Referral Union is a way for you to find qualified applicants to fill openings with your firm and earn the referral bonuses associated with them. Referral bonuses range from around $500 to as much as $10,000 and are one of the easiest ways to supplement your income. In addition to the fiscal rewards, many companies include such company-involvement activities on their yearly assessments, so you look good while taking an active role improving your company/practice/division/whatever. Once you create an account and upload your profile, which includes your contact info, your company's info, and select your account type, we will help you identify and screen the candidates. All of your contact information is kept confidential until you chose to release it to applicants.
Potential Applicants: Referral Union is a way for you to guarantee your resume gets put in front of an actual person. Instead of submitting it to a corporate career site where it might disappear or waiting for someone to email you after posting it on Monster or CareerBuilder, you can partner with someone who has an active interest in getting you hired. Because the current employee you link with has a financial interest in getting you hired, she will help you customize your resume and put it in front of as many people as appropriate. Don't think referral bonuses are a big deal? A search on Google for "referral bonus" returns over 900,000 hits. Some of these are unrelated, so let's narrow it to "'referral bonus' hire". Google returns over 100,000 hits. Even the Army offers one. Once you create an account and post your resume you can choose to either seek out potential matches or wait for them to come to you. Just like current employees, all your contact info is kept confidential until you choose to release it to a current employee.
My Friends: [see short answer above]. Also, why you never see me anymore.
Various Management Types not Interested in Receiving the Bonus but Who Want Good People Working for Them: Referral Union is a way for you and your company to make on-boarding more efficient and effective. Referral bonuses have long been a way for companies to bypass traditional methods of hiring new candidates, and their merits are well-known and documented (otherwise you wouldn't offer them). By flattening the professional market, we encourage the maximization of information sharing. This, combined with sophisticated filtering systems--both human and otherwise--increases and optimizes your candidate pool.
My Mom: I'm sorry I don't call enough, and I promise I'll send back your house keys as soon as possible...
Short Answer AKA the Elevator Pitch (This is probably the toughest one and is always in flux): Referral Union is a community of job-seekers and current employees of companies who offer referral bonuses. It introduces applicants, who benefit by getting a foot in the door to a great new job, to those working for their target companies, who are fiscally rewarded by their HR departments for referring qualified new applicants.
A bit more detail: Referral Union maintains two databases--one each for both applicants and current employees. Much like match.com, members of both databases can browse, search, and message anyone they're interested in, which will hopefully lead to successful pairings. From time to time, you will receive suggested candidates in your inbox; these are based on some keywords you entered when you created your profile. Yes, if you have a job but are looking for something new, you can create both accounts. You sly dog.
Potential Current Employees: Referral Union is a way for you to find qualified applicants to fill openings with your firm and earn the referral bonuses associated with them. Referral bonuses range from around $500 to as much as $10,000 and are one of the easiest ways to supplement your income. In addition to the fiscal rewards, many companies include such company-involvement activities on their yearly assessments, so you look good while taking an active role improving your company/practice/division/whatever. Once you create an account and upload your profile, which includes your contact info, your company's info, and select your account type, we will help you identify and screen the candidates. All of your contact information is kept confidential until you chose to release it to applicants.
Potential Applicants: Referral Union is a way for you to guarantee your resume gets put in front of an actual person. Instead of submitting it to a corporate career site where it might disappear or waiting for someone to email you after posting it on Monster or CareerBuilder, you can partner with someone who has an active interest in getting you hired. Because the current employee you link with has a financial interest in getting you hired, she will help you customize your resume and put it in front of as many people as appropriate. Don't think referral bonuses are a big deal? A search on Google for "referral bonus" returns over 900,000 hits. Some of these are unrelated, so let's narrow it to "'referral bonus' hire". Google returns over 100,000 hits. Even the Army offers one. Once you create an account and post your resume you can choose to either seek out potential matches or wait for them to come to you. Just like current employees, all your contact info is kept confidential until you choose to release it to a current employee.
My Friends: [see short answer above]. Also, why you never see me anymore.
Various Management Types not Interested in Receiving the Bonus but Who Want Good People Working for Them: Referral Union is a way for you and your company to make on-boarding more efficient and effective. Referral bonuses have long been a way for companies to bypass traditional methods of hiring new candidates, and their merits are well-known and documented (otherwise you wouldn't offer them). By flattening the professional market, we encourage the maximization of information sharing. This, combined with sophisticated filtering systems--both human and otherwise--increases and optimizes your candidate pool.
My Mom: I'm sorry I don't call enough, and I promise I'll send back your house keys as soon as possible...
Value Added
While mulling over the conception of a Launch Party sometime over the next couple months, I came up with an idea of how to add value to both our applicants and current employees.
In order to extend the Referral Union community beyond the internets, I'm going to explore the idea of regular (perhaps monthly) happy hours that both applicants and current employees can attend. This would include drink specials, free appetizers, etc, and give both parties an opportunity to interact in a real-world environment. This would also help ensure applicants are good fits for the companies to which they're applying.
From a marketing standpoint, I might encourage members to bring a guest or two and include a free drink (or two) for each guest that registers. It's also a good way to get the word out about the site and encourage some 'buzz.'
The social and professional scenes in the Washington, DC area (where we're based) are very happy-hour-centric, and this sort of event is right up the young professional's alley.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Changes to the Logo
After a long couple weeks, I believe we have hit on a logo that works a little better than the current one, here:
Oana worked hard creating several good options from two sites, here and here, which sparked a great deal of creative energy. Both of them required a subscription or purchase, though, and I frankly was not impressed enough by either to justify the capital outlay required. I thought we could do better on our own.
I pulled a good amount of useful information from Ben Hunt's site on web development, which covers myriad topics and is a very handy resource. I began by reading his handy article on creating a web 2.0 site, which may very well influence how Referral Union looks in the end. His take on what web 2.0 sites do, which I like:
The small one will be used for smaller locations, icons, and branding while the larger one, which spells out both words will be used for other promotional activities where space is not a priority.
Here are my thoughts on how it measures up to Hunt's four criteria:
Shape: The logo, particularly the simplified one, provides a simple, recognizable shape. The synergy between the R and the U are brandable and the logo has texture without getting too complicated.
Presence: The logo makes good use of space and fills almost the entire area with meaning. There are no distractions--the first, and only, thing the customer sees is the company's name or initials.
Weight: Possibly the weakest area. Three colors are perhaps one too many (unless you don't count white, which my seventh grade art teacher might not have), and the 3dish effect might distract from the logo's overall boldness. Some of these distractions fall away with the simplified logo.
Contrast: On its own, the logo has good contrast--nothing really bleeds into itself. When placed against a white background, there exists the possibility of the yellow fading away a bit, so it will be important to ensure it remains vibrant in those situations.
I don't pretend this is the final iteration of the Referral Union logo, but I believe it is a significantly positive next step.
Oana worked hard creating several good options from two sites, here and here, which sparked a great deal of creative energy. Both of them required a subscription or purchase, though, and I frankly was not impressed enough by either to justify the capital outlay required. I thought we could do better on our own.I pulled a good amount of useful information from Ben Hunt's site on web development, which covers myriad topics and is a very handy resource. I began by reading his handy article on creating a web 2.0 site, which may very well influence how Referral Union looks in the end. His take on what web 2.0 sites do, which I like:
- They enable designers to shoot straight for the site's goals, by guiding the site visitor's eye through the use of fewer, well-chosen visual elements.
- They use fewer words but say more, and carefully selected imagery to create the desired feel.
- They reject the idea that we can't guess what people want from our sites
The small one will be used for smaller locations, icons, and branding while the larger one, which spells out both words will be used for other promotional activities where space is not a priority.
Here are my thoughts on how it measures up to Hunt's four criteria:
Shape: The logo, particularly the simplified one, provides a simple, recognizable shape. The synergy between the R and the U are brandable and the logo has texture without getting too complicated.
Presence: The logo makes good use of space and fills almost the entire area with meaning. There are no distractions--the first, and only, thing the customer sees is the company's name or initials.
Weight: Possibly the weakest area. Three colors are perhaps one too many (unless you don't count white, which my seventh grade art teacher might not have), and the 3dish effect might distract from the logo's overall boldness. Some of these distractions fall away with the simplified logo.
Contrast: On its own, the logo has good contrast--nothing really bleeds into itself. When placed against a white background, there exists the possibility of the yellow fading away a bit, so it will be important to ensure it remains vibrant in those situations.
I don't pretend this is the final iteration of the Referral Union logo, but I believe it is a significantly positive next step.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
March Madness On Demand VIP Registration
This is rather off topic, but I think it is worthwhile nonetheless, particularly considering the March Madness promo I am considering next month. Also, according to statistics, after job hunting, watching March Madness is the second biggest time waster in the workplace (note: statistics made up).
CBS Sportsline, which runs March Madness On Demand (MMOD), has begun VIP registration for this year's tourny. MMOD allows you to watch the first three rounds live via the internets even if the games aren't broadcast in your area. Last year, bottlenecks reached into the thousands which made watching the games very difficult. VIP access will bump you to the front of the line. So sign up for VIP membership, sign up for Referral Union, and participate in our bracket competition.
Also, Go UCLA.
CBS Sportsline, which runs March Madness On Demand (MMOD), has begun VIP registration for this year's tourny. MMOD allows you to watch the first three rounds live via the internets even if the games aren't broadcast in your area. Last year, bottlenecks reached into the thousands which made watching the games very difficult. VIP access will bump you to the front of the line. So sign up for VIP membership, sign up for Referral Union, and participate in our bracket competition.
Also, Go UCLA.
Founding, Equity, Vesting, and other Things that Make your Brain Hurt
Today I stumbled upon an informative piece by Joseph Hadzima, a Senior Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management. It provides a good overview of some of the inner workings of founders' compensation, vesting, the law surrounding such matters, etc.
He contends most" ventures fail because of people issues and are really a failure of the relationships among the team members" and says the best way around this is fully discussing and disclosing equity structure from the start. Good, common sense, advice that apparently goes unheeded too often.
He contends most" ventures fail because of people issues and are really a failure of the relationships among the team members" and says the best way around this is fully discussing and disclosing equity structure from the start. Good, common sense, advice that apparently goes unheeded too often.
Site Updates #2
Manish, my web guy, came back with more site updates yesterday. While it appeals to my sense of compartmentalization and order, I agree with Oana that to most people it is cluttered, boring, and way too blue and white. It sort of reminds me of Google's personalized homepage, which is full of feeds, boxes, and other widgets. It also doesn't really highlight the networking function of the site. From the homepage, it looks just like any other job site, which is the exact opposite of what I want it to do.
Further, the site undergoes some goofy formatting issues when viewed by Mozilla's Firefox browser for some reason.
In the next iteration, we're going to shoot for something that looks a little more interesting, isn't drowning in a sea of blue, and better highlights the site's main value--the democratization of the hiring process by empowering current employees and applicants.
I am also thinking about changing the splash page to look something like this, which is simpler and more to the point. It would allow Job Seekers or Current Employees to choose which part of the site to go to right away.
Please feel free to poke around the demo site and provide your feedback below. If nothing else, it looks better than Google's original page, which is something....
Further, the site undergoes some goofy formatting issues when viewed by Mozilla's Firefox browser for some reason.
In the next iteration, we're going to shoot for something that looks a little more interesting, isn't drowning in a sea of blue, and better highlights the site's main value--the democratization of the hiring process by empowering current employees and applicants.
I am also thinking about changing the splash page to look something like this, which is simpler and more to the point. It would allow Job Seekers or Current Employees to choose which part of the site to go to right away.
Please feel free to poke around the demo site and provide your feedback below. If nothing else, it looks better than Google's original page, which is something....
Monday, February 5, 2007
Eco-Friendly Advertising
Joshua Jaffe, who writes for the VC Ratings blog, posted a story on Hangar Network, "a startup that sells advertising on biodegradable dry-cleaning hangers." This story can be found through either "Reads" list to the right or by clicking here.At first blush, putting ads on biodegradable hangars sounds like sort of a dumb idea, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to me. Pretty much all the hangars I have in my closet are from the dry cleaner, and who knows how many times I walk by them every day. Seeing "We [HEART] our Customers" gets pretty old after awhile--why not ads instead? And they're biodegradable, which is nice I guess.
More to the point, dry cleaning hangars could be an extremely efficient way to market directly to my target audience--young professionals in upscale, yuppyish parts of town. According to their website, Washington, DC is their number 8 market. I've put in an inquiry for a rate card; who knows, if the price is right, you might see the Referral Union logo under your next suit jacket or blouse.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Flyers
During my first week as a marketing intern at Referral Union I began working on increasing the number of pre-registrants by creating flyers aimed at both applicants (see sample) and employees in the DC area.
The flyers targeting applicants will be posted on bulletin boards at local universities, and possibly also distributed through their career centers, while those targeting employees will be given out in restaurants and cafes that are popular with professionals during their lunch break, and in bars downtown during happy hour, where they go after work.
This is just a start in our effort to raise awareness about the site, I am glad to be a part of the RU team, and look forward to many exciting and successful projects in the future!
The flyers targeting applicants will be posted on bulletin boards at local universities, and possibly also distributed through their career centers, while those targeting employees will be given out in restaurants and cafes that are popular with professionals during their lunch break, and in bars downtown during happy hour, where they go after work.
This is just a start in our effort to raise awareness about the site, I am glad to be a part of the RU team, and look forward to many exciting and successful projects in the future!
Tinkering: Worthwhile Reads
If you look to the right, you'll notice I've added two new sections to this blog: Worthwhile Reads and Good Reads. The first is through Google Reader, and the second is through WidgetBox. Google Reader allows you to share selected items from your various daily reads list while the widget pulls all the items from whatever RSS feed you select (in this case, one that aggregates Venture Capital items).
I'll keep experimenting with each in order to (a) hopefully provide some interesting/useful items and (b) explore how or if they might work on the final Referral Union site once it's launched.
If you'd like to use either of these, click the links above. They were both rather painless to set up once I figured out RSS feeds (almost all news sites support them now). WidgetBox has its own cache of supported feeds (about 1000 at the moment). While you're at it, sign up for my feed!
I'll keep experimenting with each in order to (a) hopefully provide some interesting/useful items and (b) explore how or if they might work on the final Referral Union site once it's launched.
If you'd like to use either of these, click the links above. They were both rather painless to set up once I figured out RSS feeds (almost all news sites support them now). WidgetBox has its own cache of supported feeds (about 1000 at the moment). While you're at it, sign up for my feed!
Dissapointment
One of the two interns I decided to bring on was disallowed by his academic department. The department refused to give him academic credit interning for a company less than three years old. This is rather disappointing from one of Money.com's "10 Cool Colleges for Entrepreneurs." The university also recently submitted an application to the Kauffman Foundation for a grant to
"assist in developing the Institute for Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Innovation (ELI Institute). This Institute will unify the university's current approaches to stimulating entrepreneurial behavior on campus and throughout the extended community."Shame the university's policies do not reflect its rhetoric.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Design Updates
I received the updated design for the site today, and I think it looks rather sharp. I had quite a few comments on the design and layout, but I think things are coming along well.
If you have any thoughts on the design, please feel free to leave a comment below.
If you have any thoughts on the design, please feel free to leave a comment below.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
