2009 bGreen Year in Review

Back when we were young whippersnapeprs spending summers in Brookline, NH, Barry used to do a Week in Review for all the staff.  Well, it seems fitting that we do a quick Year in Review for bGreen.  Without further adieu...

• Just under a year ago bGreen was nothing more than a figment of our imagination.  Over a few beers and a few burgers, we hatched the idea for a company made it easy to go green.



• We actually had a name before the company even existed.  bGreen.  Be Green.  Barry GREENstein.  It seemed to work.  Now we just had to build a business around what we thought to be a clever name.



• Again, before the company even existed, we took a trip to LA to see what the green movement was like out there.  It really blew us away, we met a ton of cool people, like the guys from The Green Hive and The Green Life. Aside from making us totally pissed about living in Boston and not California, the trip made us shift gears and come up with the bGreen online store.



• In June, we hired a team of lawyers from the VC Ready Law Group to hammer out our business details.  What they (and we) thought we be a straight forward agreement turned into a month long ordeal.  I think it worked out well for everyone.



• In July, we officially became bGreen Group LLC.  We had our funding in place, our legal details hammered out, and now we just had to do something.



• We spent the next several months developing a website, developing an online store, scrapping a business plan or two, tweeting our little hearts out, and trying to spread the word about bGreen.  We learned some valuable lessons during this time, and make our fair share of mistakes.  But as the great Bob Ross used to say, "We don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents."



• The Fall months brought us quite a bit of good times.  We launched our website, lined up all our inventory, launched our online store, made our first sales (thanks moms!), networked like crazy, had a few people tell us our idea was lousy, and had a few more people tell us our idea was awesome.  We're leaning towards the awesome side.



• We took a trip to Arizona in Novemeber to attend GreenBuild.  Again, we met a bunch of people, saw that there's really something behind the green movement, and solidified our plans for moving bGreen to the next level.



• December's been interesting.  We launched the bGreen Weekly Deal.  Each week we're selling one green & eco friendly product at a deep discount, with the hope of helping people go green quickly.  We love the models setup by companies like Woot and Steep & Cheap, so we figured why not have a green one of those.



• But the biggest thing December brought us was our entry into 2010.  We have the most exciting aspect of bGreen in place.  In the tech and VC world there's a term a lot of people use for crazy new stuff.  Disruptive.  Changing the way people thing about certain things and changing the way we do business.  We think the next phase of bGreen is disruptive, and we look forward to sharing that with you in the near future.

Thanks for all your support, Happy New Year, and we wish you continued success in 2010.



-Barry & Lee

The bGreen Weekly Deal

One of our goals with bGreen is to make "going green" easy, affordable, and accessible.  So with that in mind, we're happy to bring you the bGreen Weekly Deal.  Each week, we'll hand pick one item from our store, and sell it to you for a really low price, until we're sold out.  How low of a price, you ask?  Well, basically at our cost.  "Well bGreen, if you sell something to us at your cost, doesn't that mean you don't make any money on it?"  Yes, indeed it does.  But sometimes that's ok!



We really think our weekly deal products need to be in your home, so we want to make it easy and affordable.  We know you'll love the products, so we trust that we'll become your one-stop-shop for green and eco-friendly products.  So head on over to our Weekly Deal site, and take a look for yourself.  New deals launch every Monday at noon, so be sure to check back often.



Got a product you'd love to see as a weekly deal?  Just let us know!  Tweet us, Facebook us, or email us.  Your choice!

Klean Kanteen Wine Karafe

Admittedly, this is one of our favorite products we sell over at the bGreen online shop.  While it's not every day that we are hiking through the woods and want to get after a nice bottle of Cabernet, it's really nice having the option.  The Klean Kanteen Wine Karafe is deceptively large, and easily fits a full bottle of wine.  Check out the video below.







Turns out that the Klean Kanteen Wine Karafe is also the bGreen Weekly Deal product for this week.  You can find our brand spanking new Weekly Deal site at http://bit.ly/bgreendeal.  Enjoy!



P.S. Not our finest video shoot, but with bad lighting, no script, and an iPhone, this ought to win an Oscar for Best Short Film.

The Latest Klean Kanteen Products

We received a sample package today that had a few of the latest Klean Kanteen products.  We really love what Klean Kanteen is producing of late, and it's the only water bottle we take with us these days.



The first product is the new Klean Kanteen Insulated bottle.  We opted for the 20 ounce size.  It's certainly not like an old school thermos.  It's sleek and light-weight, although it's somewhat larger than we expected.  It's more along the size of a standard 27 ounce Klean Kanteen.  We opted to add the Café cap, as I think it'll be mostly used for hot drinks., especially up here in Boston in the middle of winter.



The second product is the new Klean Kanteen Sport Cap 2.0.  Our two biggest complaints about the original sport cap were 1) no loop to hold it, and 2) the god awful noise that it makes when you're sucking down your drink.  We're happy to report the Sport Cap 2.0 has a loop, and the noise appears to be diminished slightly, although it's still there.



Both of these products are in stock over at the bGreen online shop.  The Klean Kanteen Insulated Bottles start at $21 and the Sport Cap 2.0 is $4.  You can use the code BLOG10 at checkout to receive a nice 10% discount, now through 12/31/09.



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Top 5 Sellers Through 12/21/2009

We wanted to share with you our top selling products. We figure if some people like these, maybe even more people will like these.  We're all about sharing and spreading the love.  We'll be publishing this list every two weeks.  If you'd like to see it more frequently, please let us know in the comments.  You can buy any of these products in our store and get 10% off your order for being a loyal blog reader with coupon code BLOG10 at checkout.

1. Klean Kanteen Wide Insulated Bottles



2. Free Charge 12 Volt (currently out of stock)



3. Solar Hybrid Flashlight



4. EPIC All Purpose Cleaner



5. Zogoflex Dog Toys

Thanks, and bGreen!



[gallery link="file"]

Quick Thoughts on Google AdWords

As part of our marketing plan we've been experimenting with Google AdWords. While we've only been at this for about two weeks, I would classify the results thus far as "crash & burn."



Some quick statistics, since 11/23/09:



Clicks: 428 - good

Impressions: 190,000 - awesome

Click Through Rate: 0.23% - poor

Cost Per Click (CPC): $1.04 - seems average for a hot industry

Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM): $2.35 - seems high

TOTAL SALES: $0 - Crash & Burn



[caption id="attachment_257" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="bGreen Google AdWords Statistics"][/caption]



We've slowly scaled down our daily cost, from $40 to $25 to $5. We're at $5/day now, while we try and learn about what we can do to increase our Click Through Rate, and most importantly, our Conversion to Sales rate. It's a shame that our initial campaign hasn't worked, but we're determined to make our PPC and SEO strategies work.  Suggestions?

Cyber Monday Promotion

In an attempt to capitalize on this new thing called the Internet, we're offering 15% off all orders and Free Shipping on orders over $100 with coupon code CYBER09. Enter the code at checkout and enjoy!

bGreen Interview with American Clay

American Clay is one of those really cool products that you just have to see in order to appreciate. American Clay comes in a variety of colors and textures, can be applied by the DIYer or professional, and has a number of uses in your home construction or renovation. We're excited about the prospect of showing people American Clay in all it's glory. Check out the video to see just how cool this product is. Hint: It involves a wall with American Clay, a red Sharpie, and a bit of magic.







bGreen Interview with American Clay

bGreen Interview with EcoWineRacks.com

Here's our interview with EcoWineRacks.com from GreenBuild.  We only wish we were able to sample the wine they were storing on their Bamboo racks.  Sleek looking, fully customizable, and sturdy.







bGreen Interview with EcoWineRacks.com

bGreen Interview with PaperStone

While at GreenBuild in Arizona, we were forutnate enough to have a few companies speak with us about their products.  Below is the bGreen interview with PaperStone.  We love this product.  The way it's make, the look, textures, applications, etc.  Well done!







bGreen interview with PaperStone

LAUNCH!!!

After months of development, a trip to California, a thrown out business plan, meetings, more meetings, a change in strategy, weeks of test orders, a trip to Arizona for GreenBuild, 417 trips to Il Panino Express, three failed launch attempts, and a whole lot of love and hard work, bGreen is happy to announce that we're open for business!

You can checkout the store at http://shop.bgreenlifestyle.com.

As a special thanks, please use the coupon code BLOG10 to get a 10% discount on everything you buy. As always, orders over $100 ship free.

We'd love to hear what you think, so either leave a comment on this blog, or drop us an email at bgreen@bgreenlifestyle.com.

Happy shopping, and thanks from the bGreen team!

Online store released to public

bGreen reveals their online store, http://shop.bgreenlifestyle.com, to the public.  Happy shopping!

Hit 500 followers on Twitter

Congratulations to @suntanya for being our 500th follower on Twitter and the proud winner of a Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Water Bottle, courtesy of bGreen!

bGreen heads to GreenBuild 2009 in Phoenix, AZ

http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/

FIRST SALE!!

So what if it was to one of our significant others?  A sale is a sale, and we'll take it!

Web Store released to Friends & Family

We took another step in making bGreen a reality today by releasing the web store to our friends and family for testing.  We decided to open the store to 20 or so of our close friends, who won't abandon us when we screw up their orders and work out the kinks!

Launch....not

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="237" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption]

So you may have noticed that we were lacking posts titled "T Minus 1 day to Launch" and "Launch."  Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we just couldn't get a fully functional, decent looking, non-embarrassing store out the door by Saturday night.  You may have seen our tweet:

Followed by this tweet:

Followed by this tweet:

That was posted after we called it quits on the scheduled launch.  It really had nothing to do with a Halloween party.  The decision to bag the Saturday launch was actually made late Thursday night, after finishing up a 17 hour day.  According to my research, even NASA only launches the Shuttle on time less than 40% of the time.  So, I figure if the world's smartest minds can't launch on time, how could we, admittedly not two of the world's smartest minds, launch our website on time?  Seems like that would just be disrespectful to NASA.



Needless to say we are working hard to get the store launched and live.  We're working with our entire team and partners to make sure this happens soon.  Virtually round the clock.  When, you ask?  Well, we're done making predictions.  Oh, and Philles in 7!

T Minus 2 Days to Launch

Woke up this morning, and thought "no way in hell."  There's just too much to to do to get the store done by Saturday.  Granted, technically Saturday lasts until 11:59:59 PM.  But we'll see.  I'm really hesitant to launch the store, even a small, intimate launch, if it's not nearly perfect.  I guess there's always the launch first and ask questions later mantra.  Better to get a product out there that's 99% of the way done and spend the next few days/weeks fixing that last 1%.  We shall see.



Yesterday we made some progress.  We began loading our products into our e-commerce server.  Pretty cool to see the site with more than just a couple test products up there.  (Sneak peak: http://twitpic.com/ncasz) We have a lot to do re: the products.  We need to work on descriptions and images.  We need to make sure everything is in the correct category.  It's daunting, and we're only talking like 25 or 30 products to start out.



We also attended the Boston EcoTweetup last night at OM in Cambridge, MA.  Really great place, and a great crowd.  Cool to see the robust green community in Boston, and we'll be looking for their support when we launch our store to the public.  We met a ton of people and made a few good connections.  We may have even found a major part of bGreen's Super Secret Phase II, so that's cool.  Also met the elusive @BostonTweet.  Amazing this is the first time we've run into each other, but it was good to finally connect.



Until tomorrow...

Boston EcoTweetup

Tonight is the second Boston EcoTweetup.  We'll be there spreading the gospel about bGreen.  We hope to see you at Om in Cambridge, MA tonight.



Here's the link to sign up: http://calendar.boston.com/cambridge-ma/events/show/89119736-bostoneco-tweetup-a-green-networking-event

T Minus 3 Days to Launch

There was a time yesterday, just after we thought we managed to delete all the work our developer had done, that we thought a launch on Saturday would be impossible.  Fortunately for us, we did not in fact delete said work, we just managed to hide for a short while.  It was a bit touch and go.



We actually got a bunch accomplished yesterday.  We setup the domain for our store, no small feat in itself.  We're tech savy, but not tech guys.  The store address will be http://shop.bgreenlifestyle.com.  Don't bother checking the link yet.  There's nothing there and it's password protected.  Don't want prying eyes getting a look at our new baby until it's fully done.



We started uploading all our product info to our Network Solutions site.  We got approved for our Merchant Account, which is critical, otherwise we'd be giving away our products.  We came up with a launch plan for Saturday.  Twenty five people or so, mostly family and a few friends, will get our super secret password to visit the store and put it through it's paces.  They'll be more forgiving if we screw something up along the way, which we're certain we will.  We're only going to offer a limited number of products, say 30, and make sure we really nail the whole process before adding more people and products.  We'll call it the beta launch.



We also met with Brian Kramer, our PR guy, at the Roadhouse in Brookline, MA.  Good venue, good food (loved the nachos), and the Celtics were on TV.  Good stuff.  Brian has been gracious enough to help us along with our launch for the promise of future riches. We hammered out a plan to try and get our story in some of the local papers and hopefully get featured online in a few venues.  More on this later, and I'm going to try and persuade BK to write up a blog post about his PR efforts.



Another busy day ahead, and we'll be sure to share our progress with you tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

T Minus 4 Days to Launch

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day for us.  Our last email was sent at 1:10 AM, which I guess is technically today.  Oh well, life in the fast lane.



We are now officially schooled in Merchant Accounts.  What a pain in the ass.  There are literally hundreds of choices, and each one seems more convoluted than the next.  Fortunately, our e-commerce host, Network Solutions, integrates only with a half dozen or so providers.  In fact, they offer their own Merchant Services.  More on that in a second.



Now, if my company offered merchant services, I'd want to make my website as user friendly, intuitive, and informational as possible.  We were able to eliminate basically all but two providers without even doing a lot of work.  Terrible websites combined with  difficult contact options means we will exclude you 100% of the time.  Sorry.  On our own site, we give like 127 ways to contact us.  Really.  Check it out.



So we narrowed our choice down to two providers: Network Solutions & PayPal.  Both offer the same services, priced competitively.  PayPal offers an all in one fee (we estimate it to be around 2.5%), slightly higher than that of Network Solutions base fee (2.05%).  However, with Network Solutions, you pay extra for things like Amex charges & corporate card charges.  While we don't love this, we do feel that the majority of our customer purchases will be consumer, not corporate, and, although we love Amex ourselves, we're not in the majority.  Most purchases will most likely be Visa or Mastercard.  So we'll take the lower base fee offered by Network Solutions and see where it gets us.  We had one other hangup with Network Solutions.  They make you sign a 3 year deal, with a $99 cancellation fee.  No big deal, but not ideal.



In the end, our decision came down to customer service.  With Network Solutions, we got a Live Chat session going, and within 30 seconds we were getting answers to our questions.  In fact, we even setup a call with them later in the day.  They called us, we hammered out some details, and signed the deal.  PayPal, on the other hand, was a 17 minute wait to Live Chat with someone, and frankly, their Live Chat was lame.  They sent us a link back to their website for information.  Uh, thanks.  They did, however, respond to us via Twitter, but we hardly want that to be our main mode of communication wtih our provider.



We also got Quickbooks up and running last night.  Went with the online version for a trial before committing to buy the new snazzy Mac version.  This is probably worthy of it's own post once we get up and running, so stay tuned for that.  Riviting stuff!

T minus 5 Days to Launch

As we mentioned last week, we were literally sitting on our hands looking for things to do.  Well, that all changed early yesterday morning when we received an email from our developer, The Hype Lab, saying that our site was ready for review.  It's not often I work from the comfort of my Bob-o-pedic, but I fired up the laptop and eagerly checked out the site.  The design looked great, and it's a really solid base to build on.



After combing through the site later in the day, we put together a list of probably thirty items that need attention.  Who knew that there were so many pages and layers to a decent online store?  Most of the issues centered around alignment and spacing, a problem that is easy to fix.  We did come across a few issues that see to be more Network Solutions issues than design issues, and we'll be spending the next couple days working through those.

Image via Wikipedia

We need to get better at operating within the Network Solutions software.  Yesterday we got hung up on setting up our shipping options, and couldn't make the checkout process work.  Apparently Boston isn't a destination that the US Postal Service can ship to.  Hmmm, that strikes me as odd, since I got about 400 pieces of junk mail last week via the good old USPS.



We'll also be working on our roll out plan.  Right now, I think our best bet is to start small, with a limited number of products and a limited number of customers.  That way, we can see exactly how the process works from start to finish and basically make sure we don't screw it up.  No one hates a bad online shopping experience more than we do, and we'd hate to be the cause of the crime.



Check back with us each day this week, as we'll be posting a "T minus" blog each day until our launch.

Twiddling our thumbs

I cringe when I even start to type out this blog post.  What the heck could two budding entrepreneurs be doing twiddling their thumbs just weeks before their online store goes live, and their quest for world domination begins?



Well, frankly, we've been wondering the same thing.  We're really just in a holding pattern for the next two weeks or so.  It's maddening.  We keep calling each other just to try and come up with something about the business we should be discussing.  The calls are really pathetic.

me: hey, what's up



him: not much since two hours ago



me: hmm, really?  what's happening with the store?



him: uh, nothing since the last time you called



me: oh, ok.  is there something we can do?



him: uh, i don't know.



me: ok, i'll go write a blog post about something

It's tough.  We're really anxious.  We want to get the store live, start selling some products, and actually see if we can make something of this.  The store is in the hands of our developers.  The products are waiting in the wings.  Our PR guy has his wheels spinning.  We're really just stuck here looking at each other.  We've even taken to going to the Apple Store to look at how our site looks on the new iMacs.  Sad.  We know.  There's no doubt that next week we'll be working our butts off checking for bugs in the store, making sure our showroom floors are sparkling clean, and getting ready to reveal the store to friends and family.  Until then, I guess we''ll just enjoy the few days of peace and quiet.

F. Rock Bags, not your daddy's briefcase

These days, if you're a dude, you've got limited choices when it comes to carrying a bag.  Go for a backpack, and you look like a freshman lugging around your books and the local bully's books.  Go with a messenger bag, and you look like you may as well be delivering packages rather than ruling corporate America.  Coach, Tumi, Jack Spade...been there, seen that.  Gucci, Louis Vuitton?  Come on.  You're an urban semi-hipster, not Birdman.  So where does that leave you?  If you want something hip, unique, and, if you're from Boston, local, look no further than the latest offerings from F. Rock.



Started earlier this year by Nicole Keane, F. Rock is what all these other bags aren't.  They're local...all the labor is done in Massachusetts, and most of the materials are sourced here.  They're green...the leather and fabrics are all reclaimed.  They're priced right...bags start in the low $200's.  And perhaps most importantly, they're unique...you can have the bag custom designed to your specs, just as we did.



When I asked Nicole what she wanted to do with F. Rock, this is what she had to say:

"The most important message that I try to convey, and will be developing further, is 1) sustainability and style can coexist and do in F. Rock.  One need not sacrifice style for sustainability as a consumer or as a business owner; it just requires a touch of creativity and inventiveness and 2) sustainability is and should be not a product-only commitment. It is a 360 concept that integrates one's business, environment, community and product into one closed-loop system.  I feel as if these touchstones keep me honest (as the saying goes) and keep my business decisions always focused on and connected to my core brand values. Also, the bag is Boston-based and inspired by the city and vintage days gone by."

Needless to say, we love the bags, and are psyched that we're going to be able to offer them to our customers as well (yeah, these would make a sick Hanukkah or Christmas gift).  Hopefully we'll offer you a bGreen collection, a few styles we put together that you can buy right off the rack.



If you're looking for a completely custom bag, we can set you up with that too.  The process is super easy.  Pick your bag style, pick your leather, pick your fabric, pick your hardware, and you're done.  It took a few weeks to get the bags.  After all, they are custom made!  Nicole is great in dealing with any special requests or tweaks to your design.



We designed two bags, and they couldn't have been more different.  One says, "what up boardroom" and the other says "what up classroom."  Check out our gallery of our bags, shot in Boston's North End, and if you're interested in your own, you can customize and buy them here.



[gallery link="file" columns="4" orderby="ID"]

Because I said so!

Growing up, whenever I protested doing a chore or activity, I, like many children, would ask why and most times heard back "because I said so".  "Because I said so" is used far too often as an easy way to get someone off your back.  For a long time, "because I said so" was all anyone heard about the environment.  Why should I use florescent bulbs?  Because I said so.  Why should I recycle?  Because I said so.  Why should I care about the environment?  Because I said so.  OK, you get the point.  We can't fault people for not treating the environment right if no one ever taught them why.



A couple of weeks ago, I went to watch the Hartford marathon.  It was a great day for the city of Hartford.  People were everywhere and everyone was enjoying themselves.  Later in the day, we were walking through Bushnell Park and saw a few people playing "football" with a roll of toilet paper.  Each time the roll went into the air, toilet paper came streaming off and landed on the ground.  And the “players” just walked away from the mess.  I asked them to pick it up and they said, "why, it's not like it's going to make a difference, it's a mess here anyway."  My response was that we should be responsible and not add to the mess.  I may have added some "colorful" language to make my point but that is neither here nor there.  The point is let's be clear about why it matters to not toss toilet paper all over a city.  It's wasteful, careless, irresponsible, and just plain stupid.



This is just a minor incident, but it's a good example of what we are trying to do with bGreen.  We want to make people understand that there are steps you can take to help the environment you live in rather than add to the mess we've created.  One component includes being responsible when you are out and about and another entails thinking about what goes into the products you purchase.  Don't be responsible because I said so, do it because you want to make a difference in the world you live in.



I think I got too preachy here.  Well, it's our blog.  If you don't like it, go blog reading elsewhere.



Love,

bGreen

Shipping Up To Boston

Actually, we're shipping out of Boston.  As much as we like the Dropkick Murphys, our real dilemma is how to get our products out of Boston and into our customers hands.  We've recently engaged in a hot debate about how to handle the cost of shipping our products to our customers.  In a perfect world, we'd never charge shipping, and hope to earn enough of a profit margin from each product that this could be a reality.  Sadly, never charging for shipping would most likely put an end to our quest for World Domination.  Our virtual doors would be closed before they even had a chance to open.



It's a tricky game, and part of the problem we face is that our cost of shipping is really unknown.  Depending on what each customer orders, the cost could vary widely.  We're talking like Grand Canyon wide.  What if one customer orders some cleaning supplies - heavy liquid stuff?  And another customer orders some recyclable packaging - really light, fluffy stuff?  Both size and weight are vastly different, and so are our shipping costs.



We've looked around the internet at how some of the biggest companines, like Amazon.com & Zappos, and some of the smaller, more up-starty companies, like Lululemon &  Rue La La, handle their shipping.  The real answer is that everyone does it differently.



[caption id="attachment_157" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Amazon.com Free Super Saver Shipping"][/caption]



Amazon offers their free Super Saver shipping on most orders over $25, presuming the product is sold direct through Amazon.  They also offer a premium membership option, Amazon Prime, that gets you 2 day shipping on everything.  And just yesterday, Amazon announced that they are offering same day local delivery in certain cities.  We're curious how that will work out, as we used to be huge fans of Kozmo.com back when you could order a single DVD and have it delivered within the hour.



[caption id="attachment_162" align="alignright" width="174" caption="Zappos.com Free Both Ways"][/caption]



Zappos used an easy solution to solve a difficult problem.  How do you buy shoes online without trying them on?  Easy, offer free shipping in both directions, and make returns a snap.  Why not just order the same pair of shoes in two sizes, try them on, and send back the pair that doesn't fit.  Easy, smart, effective.



[caption id="attachment_165" align="alignright" width="201" caption="RueLaLa.com"][/caption]



Smaller companies such as Rue La La will ship your order for $10, and return shipping is now free.  When they first launched, if was $10 shipping, but you had to pay return shipping, seriously driving up the cost of your order is the clothes or other goods weren't to your liking.  We love their site, and have certainly spent a pretty penny there, and free return shipping makes it that much easier.  We're still bummed about the "merchandise credit only" policy, but I guess it's a small price to pay for some of the great deals.



[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignright" width="180" caption="Lululemon Free Shipping"][/caption]



Lastly, we want to just quickly mention Lululemon.  An email recently came to our inbox (yes, we get Lululemon emails, so what?  Did you know that Victoria's Secret sends their catalog to more men that women?) that announced they'll be offering free shipping for the next month for all online orders.  Pretty sweet deal, and certainly a costly promotion for them.  So that's one way to handle it - charge for shipping most of the time and offer a freebie once in a while.



So that brings us back to bGreen.  We're not really sure what method of shipping we're going to go with.  Probably some crazy hybrid combo method of all the existing methods out there.  Like free shipping on Tuesdays between 8:27 and 9:01 as long as you buy two pairs of recyclable shoes and promise to return one for store credit.  My guess is we'll be experimenting with what works during our first few months of existence.  We'll see, and we'd certainly love your feedback on what shipping options you like (aside from free, obviously) and how much you'd be willing to pay to have your order shipped.

Network Solutions in da house

A couple weeks ago we blogged about our experience in choosing an e-commerce provider ("The Late 90's are Awesome").  At the time, there were really two options in the mix - Network Solutions and Shopify.  We tested them both, got (and gave) some good feedback, and ultimately made our decision based on a couple factors.  For now, we've decided to use Network Solutions.



Earlier we had talked about two the two main factors in our decision, which in our minds are User Experience and Customization.  Both solutions offered varying degrees of both.  Network Solutions website is far more technical and powerful, but Shopify's seemed "friendlier."  We chose technical and powerful.  Both products are totally customizable.  Our developer, The Hype Lab, has had their hands full with trying to code our site into the framework provided by Network Solutions.  To quote them, they're basically "reverse engineering" the NS code to then put in our code.  Good thing we had a good tech support phone number!  While Shopify may have been easier to code for, we think in the long run NS will be a better fit.



A couple other factors ended up carrying some weight in our decision.  The 1% transaction fee Shopify charges, the integration of Network Solutions with one of the distributors we're working with, and the ability for NS to handle gift certificates.  We really just don't understand the 1% fee, and 1% is 1%.  For a new business, 1% could be the difference between Ramen noodles and Wagamama for dinner.  While integration with a distributor isn't critical, it will help us streamline our processes of order processing, shipping, and inventory management - all critical customer experience factors.  Finally, gift certificates just seem like a critical component of online shopping.  Maybe we'll never sell a single one, but we certainly want to provide that option to our customers.  As we all know, customers are key.  Happy customers = recurring business = successful business.



Hopefully when they're done working their asses off for us, the good folks over at The Hype Lab can share their thoughts on working with the Network Solutions platform.  Computer geeks (yes, we put ourselves in that category) - be on the lookout!

Search Results. Where the heck are we?

While chowing some Chicken Parm over Penne with an Arrabiata sauce at Il Panino Express the other night, we were talking about search, ads, and search results. Turns out, it's harder to find us via search than it is for A-Rod to get a hit in October. While we acknowledge our site isn't SEO ready, we really expected better results than what we got. Below are a few search terms we thought we should/would like to show up under. Check it out. Pretty interesting, and something we're going to have to throw some resources at going forward.



Search Term: green boston



Top 5 Results: Green Dragon Tavern, Boston Green Tourism, Boston Green Building, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Making your trip green - Boston Globe



Search Term: green home



Top 5 Results: GreenHome.com, HGTV Green Home 2009, GreenHome.org, Sierra Club Green Home, The Green Home Guide



Search Term: green building



Top 5 Results: U.S. Green Building Council, Greenbuilding.com, Green Building - EPA website, Green Building - wikipedia, Thegreenbuilding.net



And the most disappointing one of all...



Search Term: bgreen



Top 5 Results: NatureUSA.net, bgreenapparel.com, bgreentoday.com, B Green Design, B Green Hangers



Without boring you too much, it's not until you search for "bgreen lifestyle" that we begin to show up.  I'd give us a F- right now.  We need to be an A- within the next few months if we're hoping to drive traffic to the site via search.  Stay tuned.

Adding AddThis

We're happy to be adding features to this blog that will hopefully allow us to reach more people. One such feature we just recently added is AddThis. AddThis allows you, our loyal reader, to share our blog posts via e-mail, Twitter, facebook, and literally hundreds of other services. While this in itself isn't really blog worthy, the service we received from AddThis is.

We admit we're no experts when it comes to web development, blogging, CSS, etc. We do our best, but sometimes we just need a little extra help. Such was the case with AddThis. We were able to get the standard toolbar to work, but we really wanted the fancy pants version. Very simply, we contacted AddThis, and within a matter of minutes we had a response back from one of their tech guys, Rahf. We granted Rahf temporary access to the admin section of our blog, and a few email exchanges later, we had our fancy pants toolbar that you see now under each post. While it wasn't perfect at first (our blog sidebar mysteriously moved to the bottom of the page), Rahf worked hard to make sure it was just to our liking.

So thanks to Rahf and the entire AddThis team. Hopefully you'll use their product to share this post and many others to come. Give it a try!

Testing Wordpress iPhone App

Just testing out the Wordpress iPhone app. When we head to Phoenix in November we want to be able to share our experiences at Green Build AZ from the road. Testing, testing, 1,2,3.

Partnering with The Hype Lab

Since starting bGreen, we've made no secret about our love/hate relationship with free/delayed payment labor.  We've worked successfully with Stephen of Greenstein Consulting to develop our website and blog.  We think he did a mighty fine job.  We've been working with Brian Kramer, our PR guru, to try and get our name out there, and at the same time learn a bit about what makes the PR machine tick.  We've been moderately successful working these connections through friends and family.  Aside from a little bickering amongst friends and a few dinners on the company, the only other cost to this "free" labor has been time.



While discussing bGreen with another entrepreneur, he suggested we stop just thinking about how much actual money we've put into the company, and start thinking about how much time money we've put into the business.  The reality is, our time is worth money, and we've certainly spent plenty of it trying to get the company off the ground.  We've spent probably hundreds of hours working on bGreen, and our free labor has probably postponed our launch by a couple months.  All that time spent equals money spent/lost/not earned.



We decided that to get bGreen to the next stage, we needed to take a serious look at how much more free labor we could handle.  Our plan was once again to leverage the "free" labor and have a friend develop our web store.  Fortunately for our friend, his real job has been keeping him quite busy.  Unfortunately for us, this was going to delay our launch even further.  The decision for us was an easy one.



Enter The Hype Lab.  We met Paul from The Hype Lab a couple months ago at the Boston EcoTweetup.  Paul has been in advertising, design, and web stuff for many years, and his company sounded right up our alley.  They're into the eco-friendly stuff, their design skills are top notch, they're local, and Paul seemed like a good dude.  We contacted Paul a couple weeks ago and pitched him our ideas of what we wanted in our store.  Over drinks a couple days later, we hammered out even more details.  Paul got back to us the next day with a price quote, and we were pleasantly surprised that it jived with what we had been thinking of spending.  The rest is history.



Hopefully this is the start of a great partnership between bGreen and The Hype Lab.  We're eagerly waiting to see what Paul and the rest of The Hype Lab team come up with for our design, and we've even more excited about sharing that with you.  It won't be long now.  Stay tuned.

Blog Facelift

Today we are very pleased to reveal our new and improved blog.  We thought it was terribly important to integrate our blog right in with our website.  We're still rocking the Wordpress back-end, but Stephen, from Greenstein Consulting, has done a terrific job of taking our blog from an ugly little duckling to a beautiful swan (yes, I just walked by the Swan Boats in the Boston Public Garden on my way to get lunch, hence the corny reference).  We're still going to be blogging away as usual as we build our bGreen empire from scratch.  In the coming days and weeks, we'll be adding even more features to the site, including the Disqus comment system, which we really think is an awesome addition to any blog.  So check back often.  We hope you enjoy.

Hacked!

I woke up this morning to the following email:

From: Barry 7:37 AM

(no subject)

Were you up all night tweeting?
---
Sent from my iPhone

No, of course I wasn't.  Any good entrepreneur knows that you needs at least 9 hours of beauty sleep, so I most certainly was not interfering with that by tweeting at all hours of the night.  However, I was curious as to what he was referring to, so I fired up the old iPhone, loaded up TwitterFon, and sure enough, there were a few tweets from @bgreenstore throughout the night.  Hmmm, that's odd.

• Green Building Products http://bte.tc/aWb #RTW about 1 hour ago from web


• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk -Harry Morris Warner #quote about 2 hours ago from web


• SmartyPig Decreases Interest Rate to 2.01% APY http://bte.tc/axk #RTW about 4 hours ago from web


• Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. -Natalie Goldberg #quoteabout 5 hours ago from web


• How To Become A Green Shopper http://bte.tc/dTw #RTW about 9 hours ago from web


• Is A Greener Product Green Enough? Our Greenwashing Series Wrap-Up http://bte.tc/agW #RTW about 9 hours ago from web

Yeah, so that's a bit strange.  A couple of those tweets could be confused for ours, but quoting people?  That's not really our thing.  They funny thing is that one of those quotes got re-tweeted a couple times.  Thanks, I guess?

So by my estimation, there are four possible scenarios that could have led to those tweets:

1. Some people sleep walk, maybe one of us sleep tweets.  Not likely.


2. Maybe those crazy lawyers duped us, and we really have a third business partner that we didn't know about.  And he/she decided now would be a good time to reveal him/herself.  Possible, but not likely.
   


3. The ghost of Po Po Potanipo suddenly took up tweeting instead of haunting camper's bunks.  Maybe, but we're not sure he has thumbs.
   


4. Someone hacked our account.  Most likely scenario.

Wow, someone actually took the time to hack our account!  How Cool!  Yes, I know this should piss us off, but it really is pretty cool.  I picture a dude in a room with 20 computers, wires running everywhere, odd lighting, and fingers moving furiously over the keyboards.  Maybe there's even an Angelia Jolie type character right over his shoulder.  Something right out of the movie "Hackers." Sadly, this probably isn't the case, and it's probably some old gross dude living in his mom's basement with nothing better to do that try and hack a budding entrepreneur's twitter feed.  Needless to say, we've changed our password, and made it ultra cryptic this time.  Got to protect what's ours.  Lesson learned.

The Late 90's Are Awesome

Last night the bGreen team got together to take the next step in our quest for world domination.  We've decided to get involved with this new thing called "e-commerce."  What's that you say?  It's not 1997?  Oh.  Well, maybe e-commerce isn't a new concept, but it is new to us.  This will be our first attempt at launching an online store, and we want to make sure we do it right.  While we're not serial online shoppers, we do know what we like and what we don't.  In our opinion, it's all about the user experience.  Screw that up, and you're bound to lose customers and not make a sale.  Provide a smooth, easy to use experience, and you're bound to keep people coming back.  Seems simple enough.  Unfortunately, finding the right software package isn't quite that simple.

Last evening we had the pleasure (or not) of playing around with two software packages.  One from Network Solutions, called nsCommerceSpace, and the other from Shopify.  Our first impression?  We're screwed.

While we have some technical experience in our backgrounds, neither of us is really proficient in HTML, CSS, Java, Liquid, or any of the other 500 programming languages needed to truly make one of these two e-commerce packages a fully customized bGreen store.  Designing websites for companies in the mid 90's doesn't equate to being able to customize a web store today.  Sadly we weren't able to get the store to mimic our website design, so we were left to just putz around in the "dashboards" of each program, and try and learn as much as we could about each.

Each program has some shortcomings, and last night we simply put the two up against each other.  The best analogy would be Shopify is a Mac, and NS is a PC.

There are two big categories for us: User Experience & Customization.  From a user experience standpoint, Shopify wins.  Their dashboard is clean, easy to follow, and very user friendly.  We found the NS user experience to be a bit overwhelming.

Both claim that the shop design is completely customizable.  Maybe that's the case, but we sure couldn't figure it out.  The default templates that both offer really look like something from the mid 90's.  We think they really need to update these.  We got Shopify to look a bit more how we wanted, but neither was really very good.  We'll chalk this up to OUR lack of programming skills, rather than a flaw with either solution, and call this point a draw.

A couple more notes from last night:

• NS seems far more powerful/customizable than Shopify


• NS can handle gift certificates, Shopify can not - this seems crazy to us


• Cost is about the same, except Shopify charges a 1% transaction fee


• Shopify has a Wiki, which seems to be mainly a development resource


• The NS salesman got one of our last names wrong


• Both offer up a 30-day free trial for testing & development


• Both allow you to do batch uploads of product images and descriptions


• Both offer some sort of intergration with shipping & fullfillment

So after four hours of playing around, those are our first thoughts.  Neither solution has won us over yet, and we'll be meeting again tonight, this time with our developers, to see if we can make a little more progress in making our web store a reailty.  Stay tuned.

Twitter Interaction

So the weather here on Cape Cod has been abysmal all day, so I figured this would be a great opportunity to, what else, look through our twitter @replies and see if there is anything that can be learned from them.  There are basically two groups of people we get @replies from: our moms, wives, girlfriends, and other friends and family.  Then there are the "others."  It's the others that are really interesting.

The first interaction I want to look at is one with @DunkinDonuts from the other day.  After I tweeted a tweet (is that the proper way to say that?) about DD using a stryofoam cup to insulate my plastic cup on an iced coffee I ordered the other day, I got an almost immediate tweet back from DD.  I was able to learn that, as a company, Dunkin Donuts doesn't support "double cupping."  While this is good to know, the bigger issue is why this multi-national company is still using styrofoam in the first place!  There are literally hundreds of alternatives to stryrofoam cups, and DD needs to seriously make a change.  A followup tweet from someone at Dunkin says they are actively researching alternatives.  Good to know, but I'm skeptical of seeing real progress here.  Dunkin Donuts, please prove me wrong.

The second interaction I want to look at is one that will directly impact our business.  We sent out a twitter poll the other day inquiring about which e-commerce solution people use.  We got several responses from users.  In addition, two e-commerce companies actually reached out to us.  Network Solutions and 3dCart tweeted US about their products.  Really amazing that twitter is being used as a sales tool.  There is a third company, Shopify, that is in the mix as well.  While we will give all three a thorough look, I must admit the scale is tipped towards Network Solutions and 3dCart.  Reaching out really does make a difference, and Twitter enabled them to do that quickly and effectively.  When we do make a decision, we'll be sure to blog about why.

Finally, it's great to be involved with Twitter as the medium continues to evolve as an effective means of business communication and development.

P.S. This is the second time I wrote this blog.  The first time was on my iPhone, and it somehow got lost on the interweb.  I think the first version was slightly better, but hey, that's technology.  Win some & lose some.

9 Things We're Excited About

1. Green festivals and events (Boston Greenfest, Greenbuild)


2. The Newest Member of bGreen, Maggie


3. Inventory


4. Warehousing


5. Getting our F. Rock bags (should be any day now)


6. Sorting through the various web store options (Network Solutions, Shopify, etc)


7. PHP


8. Giving this blog a facelift


9. The positive response to our website

ReBlog: The Cultural Revolution

Just came across this great article by Scott Kirsner of Boston.com.  Thought it really captured how we're trying to operate and create bGreen.  We talk a lot about "old vs. new" and Scott hits it right on the mark.  Enjoy.

----------------------

The Cultural Revolution: Which Side Are You On?

Email|Link|Comments (0) Posted by skirsner August 13, 2009 10:55 AM

There's a cultural revolution afoot in the Boston innovation economy.

One culture is dying out, and another kind of culture is emerging.

The old culture was clubby and insular. To get funding, you had to know someone who knew someone at one of the venture capital firms perched high atop Mount Money in Waltham. To get anywhere, it helped if you'd already had one or two successes on your résumé. The typical employee or executive went to work in Hopkinton or Burlington, put in a solid eight or nine hours of work, and went home. They weren't well-connected outside their own company, didn't go to industry networking events, and didn't make time to mentor up-and-coming entrepreneurs. In technology, the focus was almost always on developing products for the world's biggest customers, whether they were banks, telecommunications firms, or health care providers. The old culture felt it needed non-compete agreements to create artificial employee "loyalty." The old culture was reluctant to boast about what it was achieving, or Boston's prominent place in the global economy. And Boston's metabolism was slow: only a year or so after a trend emerged in Silicon Valley, a handful of companies had been formed here to pursue it.

Lots of people still live and work in that culture. They're sort of like people who still break out the seersucker suit on the first hot day of July...people who still wait in line at toll booths to hand over their crumpled dollar bill... or those Japanese soldiers who didn't realize World War II had ended.

Are you part of that world -- or are you part of the new culture? Here's what defines it:

The new culture is open, fast-paced, and encouraging of first-time entrepreneurs. It's about blogging and tweeting and digitized networks of people sharing information about what they're interested in, and where they're investing. It's about informal "unconferences" popping up to discuss the latest tech trend. It's populated by people who see the value in having broad networks of friends and acquaintances across lots of companies. Employers who operate in the new culture realize that the way you keep people motivated and maintain your position in the marketplace is by giving them interesting projects to work on and rewarding them appropriately -- not by forcing them to sign lengthy non-compete agreements. The new culture isn't afraid to spread the good word about the innovation that happens here in Boston.

The new culture is about seizing opportunities, not reinforcing hierarchies.

When I think about things that represent the new culture of innovation in Boston, here are ten that come to mind:

- TechStars Boston, a summer program to help give young entrepreneurs a jump-start. It's taking place for the first time this summer, with support from people like Bill Warner (founder of Avid Technology), Shawn Broderick (founder of TrustPlus), and Brad Feld (an MIT alum co-founded the Colorado VC firm Foundry Group.)- Web Innovators Group, a free monthly gathering that attracts roughly 500 people to see new start-ups demo their products. Run by venture capitalist David Beisel of Venrock.

- Stay in MA, a program funded by Flybridge Capital Partners that makes it free for students to attend seminars, workshops, and conferences.

- Blogs exposing the inner workings of venture capital and entrepreneurship, from local leaders like Larry Cheng, Bijan Sabet, Jeff Bussgang, Dharmesh Shah, Healy Jones & Prasad Thammineni, and Leah Busque.

- OpenCoffee, an entrepreneurs' gathering that happens every Wednesday morning in Central Square, introduced to Boston by Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital and Conduit Labs founder Nabeel Hyatt.

- Biotech Tuesday, a monthly schmooze-fest for life sciences types, founded in 2002 by Seth Taylor and Peter Kolchinsky.

- The Mass Technology Leadership Council's annual Innovation Unconference, held for the first time in 2008. One focus of the event is on encouraging successful entrepreneurs and executives to share their experience with up-and-comers.

- Microsoft's New England Research & Development Center (NERD). Yes, it's surprising that the Redmond, Washington behemoth would be contributing to the new culture of innovation in Boston, but the honchos at Microsoft's Kendall Square outpost have made it clear that they want to be part of the fabric of the community here. Their first-floor conference center has regularly hosted conclaves like CloudCamp Boston, a forum on how federal stimulus is affecting the cleantech industry, a June dialogue about the future of IT in Massachusetts attended by Gov. Patrick, and this weekend's GameLoop conference. (Many events are free, and they're listed here.)

- Highland Capital's Summer Entrepreneurship Program and Spark Capital's Start@Spark, two programs designed to support fledgling entrepreneurs.

- EurekaFest and the Cambridge Science Festival, two local events targeted at young people and families that celebrate the excitement of invention, science, and engineering.

There are, of course, a lot more people, events, and institutions contributing to the emergence of this new innovation culture in Boston -- from Mass Innovation Nights to Hubspot.tv to Betahouse to the Awesome Foundation.

What else am I missing? How are you contributing to (or participating in) this new culture? What are the signs that the old culture is stumbling towards irrelevance? (Or perhaps you believe that it's here to stay...) When did this cultural revolution begin?

Leave a comment if you would--

You said what? Getting Schooled in Website Development

I wrote the below post a few days before our website launch but never posted it. We got busy trying to get the actual site up. In all we are really happy with how it turned out but we still have some work to do.  We look forward to the comments and feedback now that we are officially out there.
------
We are days away from our initial website launch and, as we put the finishing touches on the site, I can't help but reflect on the decisions we’ve made that have gotten us to this point.

Like many new small businesses, we have accepted free help when available. One individual who’s been a huge support to us is my brother Stephen, our website developer. Quick shout out - check him out here: Greenstein Consulting. He'll create a killer website for you and, at no extra charge, tell you you're stupid. Oh, I kid. That's special treatment only brothers get.

Starting off, we had some very clear items we wanted to incorporate into our website. Being avid users of social media, we were insistent on our site incorporating as much social media as possible. And we’ve done just that. One social media item we are not sure how to utilize, though, is Facebook. It's easy to use for a personal account, but man they make it a pain to set up for a business. We'd write the whole thing off if they didn't have so many subscribers.

In our past lives, we both have had experience building websites, either writing the HTML code or working on a design with a developer. With that experience behind us, we thought creating our own website would be a piece of cake. Not exactly. We certainly had the knowledge in terms of what general things to include but here's where we got schooled big time: the back-end of the website. Basically, what's under the hood...what makes our website work. We finally had the website to a point where we thought it was good to go only to find out that we hadn't made sure it was put in a code that would give us the flexibility we need for the future. We need .php and have .html. What is that you ask?  Everyone tells us something different. What the hell does php stand for? According to php.net, "PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML." I know what you're thinking - that clears things up. Needless to say we still have some learning to do, but what we have gathered is that php will allow us to have a dynamic website and just plain html makes our site static. Static = bad, dynamic = good.

Now, it's easy to sit back and say "why didn't your web developer advise you on this?" Fair question and to some extent a good point. However, as a small business owner you should NEVER fully trust a task to your vendor. At the end of the day, it is your job to know every aspect of what you are getting yourself into. We should have done the research to know what type of website we needed.

So, yes we got schooled. Our website has been delayed a few weeks and, once it's launched, we will have to fix some stuff behind the scenes. As stressful as this has been overall, it's good that it happened. I'd rather learn this lesson now than later, when serious time and money have been invested in the job.

At the end of the day, our website is going to be awesome and Stephen has been a huge help, but in the interest of full disclosure, these are some of the hiccups we've encountered along the way.

Getting Schooled in SEO

While we acknowledge that SEO is a hot topic and is totally necessary, we also acknowledge that we know very little about it.  We think the goal of any site is to be at the top of the Google food chain.  Currently, we're not even on the plate for consideration.  So, continuing with our "Getting Schooled" series, below is a conversation we had today with Mike Gerstenblatt.  Mike is helping us along with this project and a few others related our existence on the Interweb.

bGreen: Opening this up for discussion.  What can we do in the short-term to get our SEO going?  Currently when you google "bgreen" we don't come up.  Let's figure out how to change this.

Mike: Well google page rank is determined by many things, but I think the most important is inbound links, proper use of keywords, and properly structured pages (including H1s and images with titles, alt tags, etc)

First, I think the site should be optimized to follow the guidelines established in Google's SEO Starter Guide.

Second, you need to organically build up inbound links. That is, find ways to get other sites to link to bgreenlifestyle.com. Use twitter, facebook, yelp, blogs, whatever. This is obviously harder and takes more time. I'm not sure if there's an established methodology to get this done, but I think it begins with great, dynamic content that people will want to link to.  (Speaking of which, I think you need to move your wordpress blog so that its under your own domain {so its blog.bgreenlifestyle.com not bgreenstore.wordpress.com} or at least link to your main site from the blog in the meantime.)

Lastly, you need to identify relevant and popular search terms and modify your content appropriately. For example, if people are searching for 'Boston green stores'.  Have "Boston green stores" somewhere on the site.

SEO isn't that hard, it just takes an investment of time.

So this is what we'll be working on in the coming days, weeks, and months.  Hopefully with Mike's help, we'll soon be at the top of the SEO world.  Stay tuned.

bGreen Launches! World Domination Begins.

With great excitement we are officially launching bGreen lifestyle + building!  What began as a conversation on a cold winter night in January 2009 has now become a reality.  Our mission at bGreen lifestyle + building is to provide the latest green and eco-friendly products for everyday living, construction, & renovation.

Being green isn't just for Ed Begley Jr. anymore.  Green is going mainstream and bGreen will help you get there. Within every aspect of your life there is an opportunity to make a "greener" choice. Why not try Bio Bags in lieu of your regular trash bags? They offer 100% biodegradable kitchen and dog waste bags. Or, if you're getting ready to redo your kitchen, try Paperstone countertops made from 100% post-consumer recycled cardboard.

Be an active participant in the products that you use in your life. Good decisions now will ensure a greater world later.

We invite you to follow our progress as we begin to build this business. Please check out our Website, Twitter, Blog, and YouTube. If you would like to receive email updates from us, please sign up here.

Today we launch our Website, later this summer our web store, and next Spring our super secret phase 3!

We welcome your comments and feedback.

bResponsible
bConscious
bSmart
bGreen

- Barry and Lee

(Please forward this to anyone else who might be interested)

----

bGreen Group LLC
Boston, MA
bGreen@bgreenlifestyle.com
bgreenlifestyle.com
twitter.com/bgreenstore

bgreenlifestyle.com Launch

Today we launch http://www.bgreenlifestyle.com.  After several months of design and development, we really like the way this came out.  Please share your thoughts and feedback.

The Social Media Atom

We have made no secret about our love of and reliance on social media.  It's a core part of our strategy at bGreen.  We're involved with Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, and YouTube.  We think that these four components really make up the core of social media.  The nucleus, if you will.

We recently engaged in an internal debate on the value of Facebook as a core social media tool.  There are countless articles on why you NEED Facebook for business, but we just weren't sure.  What's the point?  We're attracting followers on Twitter (400+ so far), our blog is having a moderate amount of success (150+ hits on one particular day), and we're set to launch our website shortly, which will really be the main portal for all things bGreen.  So where does Facebook come in?  We're not looking to share pictures of us from Spring Break '98 and we're not looking to reconnect with our nursery school sweethearts.  I think we were really just over-thinking it.

Everyone is on Facebook.  My mom, your mom, my 82 year old grandfather.  Everyone.  Allegedly the user base is over 100 million strong.  Imagine if you get 0.0001% of the people on the service to notice you.  What about 0.01% or 0.1%?  That's a serious amount of people catching a glimpse of what you're doing, and frankly, it's a market you can not overlook.  So, perhaps to our chagrin and despite Facebook's massive shortcomings on the business application side, we'll be there (we're currently putting the page together).

This morning, while thinking about some other social media applications, I got to thinking about where some of the other services will fit into our strategy.  There are applications like Flickr, Tumblr, LinkedIn and even TwitPic to some extent, that offer great services and are gaining in popularity.

Flickr, as most people know, is a photo sharing service.  Perhaps it's most valuable feature is search.  Fred Wilson, of avc.com, when talking about image search says, "When I look for an image, in the past, I would go to Flickr first and Google second. In the future, I'll go to Flickr first and Bing second."  So there is value in using Flickr.  We obviously want to leverage this value and get people seeing the pictures we're posting, but there hosted in variety of other places as well.  They're on our blog, in our Twitter feed via TwitPic, and some will end up on our website.

Tumblr falls somewhere between Twitter and Blogging, and seems to be popular amongst early adopters and those heavily involved with other forms of social media.  I look at it as a place for short bursts of info; a picture, a link, a video, that may otherwise not qualify for a blog post, but requires a more permanent home than a tweet.  Their software and interface are great and their iPhone app is snap.  My verdict is still out on Tumblr, and I'm not sure where (or if) it will fit into our mix.  Perhaps I'm overlooking some of their core services.  If so, please correct me and fill me in.

I can see the value in LinkedIn as well.  It connects professionals with other professionals.  It's like Facebook, but stripped down to resumes and networking.  We think it's important, and we're working on setting up a profile.  However, I hardly see this as part of our core social media strategy.

Perhaps in all these additonal services lies the solution.  We have our nucleus (Twitter, Facebook, the blog, and YouTube) but we also have the orbiting electrons (like Tubmlr, Flickr, LinkedIn, and TwitPic) that make up the rest of the Social Media Atom.  We'll focus on the nucleus, but perhaps it makes sense to complete the atom and bring the electrons into the mix just a bit.

Steps in the Right Direction

This post is nothing more than a brief status update on the newly formed bGreen Group LLC.  We've had a lot going on in the last few weeks, and this seems to be a good forum for updates.

First, in case you missed our previous posts, we are officially an LLC now.  You can read all about that here, and if you want to read about how we were almost not an LLC, you can read about that here.

Today, we took the next step in corporate reality and got our EIN, or tax ID.  This is a relatively simple task, however, as we're learning, nothing goes off without a hitch.  We had one small question related to how we wish to be taxed.  As an LLC, you can opt to be taxed as a Partnership or as a Corporation.  After a quick call to our accountants (which apparently interrupted a golf game), we were informed that we should file to be taxed as a Partnership.  Perhaps when we learn more about the difference, we can do a follow-up post.  But for now, we're just going with what the experts tell us.

The next step for us is to setup our banking, and we're working on setting up meetings with various bankers in the Boston area.  We're looking at Sovereign, Citizens, Bank of America, and Chase.  If anyone has comments or experience with any of these banks, please let your thoughts in the comments section.

Our website launch is slated for early next week.  We are literally putting on the finishing touches, going over the copy, and trying to figure out what anyone puts in the "terms of service" and "privacy" sections that you see on the bottom of every web page.  We've been to the Apple store countless times to make sure the site looks good on every size monitor, up to 24".  We're really focused on making sure the user experience is enjoyable, easy, and informative.  The more we read about what makes successful sites, products, and companies, the more we realize it's all about user experience.  As recently as last night, we saw two companies, Zappos and Amazon, that provide the pinnacle of user experience, join forces.  From a small business standpoint, we're excited to see what the two can do when their forces are joined.  It also gives little companies, like ours, a hope of one day being acquired for $800+ million dollars.  Yeah, that would be nice.

We've been networking like crazy, trying to meet as many Boston-based people as possible.  We're dead set on making sure that we are a leader online, but also a leader in our local community.  We had a great meeting with Nicole Keane of F. Rock Bags.  Her bags are made locally, are completely customizable, look great, and are a pretty good deal.  We even ordered a couple for ourselves.  We'll post pictures of them when they arrive.  We're really excited about working with great people like Nicole, and if they're based in Boston, that's just an added bonus.  Over the next two weeks, we've got meetings set with bankers, a big-wig in the community service field, a developer, and hopefully one or two other networking meetings.  We saw the great folks at Nexus Boston the other night at the showing of "The Greening of Southie" at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.  Great movie, very educational, funny, and it's always great to see the think Boston accent on the big screen.  If you have an opportunity, be sure to check out this film.

These are exciting and busy times at bGreen, and we'll be looking to blog and tweet more frequently as we get going.  Stay tuned.