Ellie Cachette

Parature continues to soar since they first launched customer support tabs on Facebook back in May 2010,  Parature is one of the industry’s leading providers for customer engagement online and now strategically pairing up with Evernote to power their customer support needs and shorten response times. With over 16MM users internationally and a recent funding round of $50MM, Evernote has raised over $95MM in capital to date and is on a massive path of growth and scaling needed for a multi-lingual customer service provider platform. Evernote, an app that helps you remember everything, is the one place for notes and tasks. 

Parature working with Evernote positions itself as a leader in social customer support online with the ability for breadth: from customer support within social games on Facebook like earlier this year with Konami, to raising questions about pharmaceutical support on Facebook, to mainstream consumer web support like Evernote and even Threadless.

Working with Evernote is example of how Parature tries to differiente itself from ZenDesk by becoming known for large support networks with enterprise platforms. Parature also differentiates itself from ZenDesk and other support vendors like RightNow (recently an acquisition target by Oracle) by providing product modules like Parature for Facebook that allow support teams to interact with and solve customer issues through popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

“Multi-language support is very important to us. Evernote adds new languages to its products on a regular basis, which means that we need a customer support solution that can address the needs of users in various geographies,” said Phil Dean, Evernote’s VP of Customer Satisfaction. “We also value Parature’s excellent email support.” Since the Parature and Evernote integrated customer service has already seen a huge improvement which can also be measured by Parature’s reporting tools. 

Since the two integrated, Evernote is now meeting 100% of their SLAs for premium inquiries.  Additionally, they have decreased training time by focusing agents on specific skills-based queues. As agents gain experience, Parature provides easy-to-manage functionality to add queues for each agent. Evernote’s customers are also benefiting from Parature’s Knowledgebase and EasyAnswer feature which allows its customers to search a comprehensive FAQ and find their own answers, cutting down on the number of tickets that need to be submitted and processed.

“Evernote is a great example of a global company that needs a cloud-based, multi-language support system that can service clients anywhere, anytime,” said Duke Chung, Co-Founder and Chairman of Parature.  “We are proud to power Evernote’s customer support portal, and are thrilled they’ve already seen improvements in their response time to customers as well as gains in internal efficiencies.”

As more commerce shifts to online so does it support, could Parature eliminate the customer support 800#s?

There’s something happening in New York Tech Scene: The female community is finding and establishing itself among the ranks of the techies in the Big Apple.  

For a lot of reasons New York is not Silicon Valley, where the culture has matured to the point that everyone seems to look and dress the same; engineers rock their T-shirts or hoodies while VCs strut their nice leather belts. Everyone has their part to play. The culture is so cemented that it can replicated in startup communities around the world. It’s as if Silicon Valley is almost a nouveau social class which can be spotted nearly anywhere by a seasoned veteran.

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App battle is all the rage. You know, when you whip out your smartphone and race to see whose map application can find directions to the Panda Express first, or whose app finds the best reviews? Or whose app finds discounts on General Tsao’s chicken?There’s an app for almost anything except finding the right apps. App overload. Now, some mobile app makers have made it easy to find apps using Crosswa.lk. The new app available for the iPhone helps you discover apps based on your personality as well as what your friends use and like.

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Who isn’t tired of emoticons?  Want to say more than a smiley face? Vizlingo, a NYC based startup is trying to make sending notes and emotions easy with video, allowing users to create quick video messages based upon keywords. The concept is interesting, and similar to Pandora’s “genome” for music, Vizlingo is creating its own genome for video clips.

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With the onset of the age of information overload and the trend toward location-based review services, brands and companies find it more and more difficult to communicate with customers and get feedback from them.

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ShopNear.me launched its location-based shopping application last month, but that’s not all they are looking to do they’re looking to do in the coming months; they’re trying to take over the mobile shopping scene.

ShopNear.me provides mobile users a way to shop at local boutiques and stores by finding deals and new clothes on their phones. It takes traditional online clothes browsing one step further than other shopping deal aggregators and combines it with geo location, making every sale and every shirt relevant to where a user is.

“Social media has evolved as one of the very important marketing channels, especially for the fashion industry,” said Yuan Zhang, co-founder of ShopNear.me.

At Chloe Rose Boutique in San Francisco, Owner Marissa Olson said that ShopNear.me helps fulfill the store’s marketing goals.

“It is a competitive retail world out there,” said Olson. “Social media allows me to connect with customers, allows them to view what is new and lets us have a really strong personality.”

Shopping apps have started and died before, like the now defunct MyNines which in years past aggregated deals for shopping. There’s also FollowStyle, Luck at Your Service and ShopStyle, but Shopnear.me thinks its different because of its integration with technology.

“The fashion industry is going through a lot of innovations right now,” said Zhang. “We tapped in something very interesting.”

Based in San Francisco at Dogpatch Labs, Shopnear.me will have to deal with the same issues as many startups at Dogpatch when they’re forced out of their tech hub home on Sept. 30. The San Francisco Port Authority gave the boot to all tenants of Pier 38 including Dogpatch Labs, Polaris Ventures, Automattic, True Ventures, and many more. Instagram, the popular location-based photo application (which ShopNear.me loves), once called Pier 38 home as well.

Before getting the boot and before ShopNear.me, Zhang pioneered Lookville, a social website that lets users upload photos of themselves and have them rated by other Lookville’ers. This crowd-sourcing approach to fashion worked to help decide what’s hot and not for the upcoming season, but it couldn’t provide a way to decide where to purchase that snazzy blazer.

Olson said the app takes the  ”thinking” and the “searching” out of real brick-and-mortor retail, “I like to think of it as a mobile form of window shopping but the shopper isn’t limited to viewing just the items that have been chosen to be on display” compared to other mobile shopping applications.

Leveraging existing social media channels, ShopNear.me lets users push clothes and deals they find to Facebook and Twitter; they even maintain a blog on Tumblr to cover their social network bases- a strategy works for them. Social enough? There’s more to come.

Users can download the application and begin following shops in their city. They’ll get instant notifications on new arrivals or sales in shops they follow in their area. It’s only available in San Francisco and Las Vegas right now, but the mobile application will launch in New York City soon and shows promise of hitting other large cities around the country.

“Social networks are critical to our business model. Being local and personal is what our product is all about.  Our best marketers are our users who love our app and can’t wait to tell their friends about it,” said Zhang

The newest version of ShopNear.me allows users to reserve clothes in stores near them and even get exclusive deals, going beyond the one-day urgency of many location-based shopping applications. The makers of the application plan to incorporate a full blown shopping feature into their application soon, but for now, the community-based fashion app will keep users satisfied.

Zhang said the application will further consumer engagement and company transparency by unveiling two-way discussion features between a customer and a store.

And for the slightly envious, anxious Android users, ShopNear.me should launch on the Google platform in the next six to nine months.

Many startups on the path of fundraising will endure a fair share of comedy and pain. Some investors will seem incredible savvy and others will tout themselves as “internet investors” specializing in Consumer Web – then ask you what SEO is. Some will say your cap is too high and others won’t understand your business model. 

Here is the truth: you are storytelling and “she with the better spreadsheet” wins.

If it’s your first startup, fundraising is a game and the best way to play it is by getting fans.

Investors will follow – and here’s the seven types of investors you’ll find on this journey:

1) First Timer
Their company was just sold, they got acquired by Zynga, or an aunt died. Whatever it is, they have entrepreneurial experience and some liquid cash. THEY WILL NOT INVEST IN YOU.

More questions will pop up. They will refrain from investing in you for “business reasons” and ask for more spreadsheets or decks. Stop – it’s not worth it.  At the end of the day, they will write a check to their best friend – the one they love and always talked about partnering up with through college.

2) Don’t Know SEO
These are the “internet gurus” or Angels specializing in “Consumer Web” but will ask what SEO is. You work in Internet and if part of your business model or strategy involves SEO, then the meeting is potentially pointless. Explain what it is and find a way to cut the meeting short.

3) Mr Decks a-lot
This is the sneaky angel or associate that before anything else – even the promise of a call – needs plenty of materials. These are Deck Snatchers. They will try to see what information they can get from you and share with friends and startups they are going to invest in. I like to make a mini deck or a product deck for   these types – or share public video clips. There’s a couple reasons why:

1.) it shows you are organized
2) explains your product without giving out too much information.

If they ask for a spreadsheet before a call, you are doomed. This is your business model – hold it closely.

4) Mr. Addressable Market
This is a casual topic that should come up after a relative amount of information has been shared. If you have gotten less than $500k in funding or are less than 2 years old, you are likely still testing different parts of the addressable market.

This is also a fancy term that investors learn in business school. Most entrepreneurs can do the math:

100 billion annual market = tons of opportunity = $$$$$. Addressable market = a lot.

For MBAs, they should know the default is usually to assume 1% of the market can be addressed. But if they have to ask, they don’t understand markets or at least the one you are interested in at all. 

5) Confused Connie
She can’t find the dial-in number, mixes up dates, responds to emails in multiple responses (before you have a chance to respond) and is overly worried about details that are not within your core business model.

This investor is the worst kind because they drive you nuts before they have even invested. Imagine if they write you a check? Best thing to do is build a friendship and see if they have leads or people within their network worthwhile.

Confused Connie will also confuse your team and group: it’s contagious.

6) Earthlink or Yahoo Email Address
It’s not a myth. If you are a internet startup using Yammer, Evernote, 99Designs, AppSumo, VIMEO, social networks and widgets, how are you going to explain your current status to an investor that hasn’t realized they can have a Gmail account which includes easy to use chatting?!

If they have a Yahoo, Hotmail, Earthlink, or AOL email address, walk away. See also Confused Connie.

7) I’m too Sexy for..
You know who these investors are. They like to be cool and invest in hot things but usually can’t get in on the super hot startups and want to make you think they are, indeed, in short supply.

They want to brag at cocktail parties about their “awesome startup” they own and unless you can keep their A.D.D in control, they will bug you quickly for an exit or PR mention or huge traction stone.

They don’t care about long term value – they’re in it for the valor. The interest of these investors is flattering and a very good sign, but pick someone who gets what you are doing and sees the dream and passion – not the TechCrunch headline.