Help Grocio & Make Money (From Home)
We’re working on a new product here at Grocio and it may just present you or someone you care about an opportunity to make a little in between money.
What’s needed:
- An Amazon Mechanical Turk account;
- Fast, fast, accurate, accurate typing skills;
- Ability to spend 15 or 20 minutes of focused time to punch out each assignment.
Rather than describe the assignment here… Better to direct your attention to our assignments on Mechanical Turk. If it says someting like “Your search didn’t match any HITs”… that simply means all our assignments are checked out. No worries, there are plenty and I’ll edit this posting once it appears we have some predictable scheduling to offer.
Food Oriented Sites Abound
Ever hear of RecipeBridge.com? How about Foodista? Or, Foodzie? How about Kraft’s iPhone app for that matter.
Seems I’m far from alone in my love of good food. Frankly, I love bad food (if you get my meaning). I suppose, at the end of the day, I’m an equal opportunity eater. But, I certainly appreciate food that’s good for you and food that’s prepared with a lot of mind toward flavor and presentation. And, the sites catering to us foodies are exploding.
I remember a day when the web had a handful of travel sites. Now you can’t turn around without a bumping into one. I see the same thing happening with food sites. A year ago there were very few and now… Well, now there are so many it’s hard to know which is better than another without spending mountains of time evaluating them and sinking a fair bit of your life finding those few that really work for you. So, for that, I turn to YOU!
What food sites are you liking these days? Could be recipes. Could be photography. Could be anything (food related). So, spill the beans folks! Dive in.
Grocio’s Private Beta Launched
It’s the wee hours of the a.m. and we’ve just christened the private beta of Grocio by selecting 1,492 of our previously registered shoppers to beat the daylights out of the site. 
I chose not to open it up to everyone simply because I’m not able to adequately address the concerns of everyone who would send in feedback and had to draw the line somewhere. I had thought to have 1,500 people and then the symbolism of 1492 (the year Columbus set sail) sunk in as being suitable. This number of people will surely draw enough scrutiny to smoke test Grocio.com adequately for a quick follow-on launch.
I’ll be sending out the invites late night Tuesday. If you’re with a grocery chain or the media… feel free to email me (gerald at grocio dot com) and I’ll be happy to schedule a demo.
Thoughts On Startups
We’ve had a GREAT run this past week and it seems it’s foreshadowing things to come for us. When all the pieces start falling into place I find myself catching my breath and thinking this is just too cool! But, it’s a testament to all the hard work and prep that’s gone into making Grocio happen in the first place. But that hard work had a genesis somewhere…
In Tulsa we have a really neat program to promote entrepreneurism and big thinking. It’s called the Tulsa Entrepreneurial Spirit Award and draws on people far and wide to come forward with their business ideas and vie for a $30,000 cash prize. Grocio won last year. And, Seeking Sitters won the year before us. They’re an amazing outfit and I have all the admiration in the world for Adrienne and David and their franchisees.
Tulsa is a great place to start a business. We don’t have the baggage of the national economy around our necks. The local business leaders recognize it’s the small and medium sized businesses that will shoulder the nation out of the funk we’re in and they’re quick to invest in sound ideas. The cost of living here is fantastic. We’re wired for bandwidth out the ya ya. Our citizenry are engaged and actively building UP the city instead of in-fighting and letting the place crumble around us. We have a LOT of work to do. But, we’re DOING it! We’re getting it done!
So, it’s time to welcome the next generation of business ideas to the limelight here in Tulsa. To encourage those ideas to take shape, form into a viable business plan and wow the world.
If you’re considering entering the Tulsa Spirit Award I’d encourage you to put your idea in for consideration. What’s Your Big Idea? UNLEASH IT!
Local Television Interviews
What a neat week this was. My fellow Tulsa entrepreneur, Noah Everett (TwitPic’s founder) was being interviewed by KTUL anchor Cindy Morrison. They tweeted bits of the interview and I congratulated them both.
Next thing I know Cindy’s arranged the interview for Grocio. We shoot it, it airs and man-oh-man does it take off! Chattanooga, Denver, Detroit, West Palm Beach, Huntsville, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati and a few other cities’ ABC affiliates pick up the story and run with it. Cindy said it might even draw the attention of Good Morning America. Can she call it or what? Because that’s exactly what happened next!
We haven’t scheduled anything yet. But, once it’s a done deal you can bet we’ll be tweeting and blogging and such.
Now we just need the angel funding, more grocers and an intern. There’s a George Strait song in there somewhere
We Need an Intern
Time to start adding to the team. So, am kicking that off by adding a permanent part-time position of Unpaid Intern.
Plenty of things to do and never a dull day is what we have to offer (and a stocked fridge with RedBull, GreenTea, Root Beer and Starbucks). This is an unpaid internship (although, I will pay your parking… but not your parking tickets!). We’re a bootstrapped startup intent on getting big, fast. So, if you’re interested in building your resume with a stint at one of Tulsa’s newest (and I might add most interesting) startups… I’d like to have your resume. That can take the form of a traditional emailed resume (boring) or a video audition via something like YouTube (make sure you tag that with “GrocioIntern”) or whatever other video method you’re clever enough to come up with. No guarantees this leads to a full time gig. It could happen that way though with the right timing and right person. I’m in a hurry to fill this slot and am putting fliers in all the local colleges, dorms and laundromats. Also, am casting it wide on Twitter @grocio and @geraldbuckley. This won’t take long to fill. If you’re serious, you better hoof it!
Here’s what I’m specifically looking for: Someone who’s willing to put in some time at the office (<15 hours/week at The Collaboratorium, downtown Tulsa) performing research, data input, writing letters (by hand… so good penmanship matters), who’s willing to get familiar (or make us MORE familiar) with social media like Facebook, MySpace, etc., competitive intel gathering. HTML and/or CSS skills preferred. Mac proficiency preferred. Browser, IM and SMS proficiency REQUIRED.
One benefit you should be aware of… The Collaboratorium is going to fill up fast with Tulsa startups. It’s a fantastic environmenet to get to know LOTS of other business owenrs/operators and network. That, in and of itself, for the right person is gold.
Internet Coupon Fraud Alert
The National Grocers Association has issued an alert to their membership to be on the lookout for fraudulent coupons printed from the internet. [EDIT: the poster was created by the Association of Coupon Professionals.]
They’ve created a poster for the grocers to build awareness among their employees (which can be downloaded here as a PDF).
Awareness of this can only serve to help the consumer and is the primary reason I’m promoting it here.
Remember to follow us on Twitter @grocio
Google’s Tip Jar
While Grocio is all about saving money on the grocery bill and improving general food awareness we’re happy to suggest other sites (even competitors, direct and indirect). It’s not like you don’t already know about them!
So, when Google introduced their bit to tackle the household budgetary assualt we’re all enduring, I knew it was going to get some serious airplay here at the Grocio blog. It is with a glad heart that I introduce you to Tip Jar (and my first recommendation there).
This One’s For The Locavores
While in Vegas I was tipped of to a terrific site called LocalHarvest.org
It’s all about local farmers’ markets, locally grown food products (most seem to be organics) and local farms. Not sure that I’ve ever seen such a well-rounded and thorough source on the subjects. And, believe me, I’ve been looking. Completely possible I overlooked this one.
In Oklahoma? A publication you’ll find handy comes from BuyFreshBuyLocalOK.com. It’s VERY informative with times, locations, phone numbers, etc.
Finally, if you have a more locally specific oriented link to add… promote it in the comments!
