Chasing Savings

Are Coupons Worth It? - WSJ.com

2010-02-10T14:34:00.000-05:00

Are Coupons Worth It? - WSJ.com

this is a great article that was passed to me this morning... Image - by using coupons to save $25 per week, over a lifetime that is easily a savings of $100,000!!!

Mike

claim feed for technorati

2010-02-10T10:47:00.002-05:00

First I need to add this so Technorati will find our blog - the claim token is 4HAVF3AUSVWF

Now that I have done that... If you don't use Technorati - you should. It is the Google of the Blog world in regards to a searchable directory for topics that you are interested in.

Chasing Savings : Smoothie King

2010-02-03T11:01:00.001-05:00

Chasing Savings :: Smoothie King - We have just recieved a couple great coupons from Smoothie King. Check it Out!

Chasing Savings : Nail Styles - 20% Off

2010-02-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

Chasing Savings : Nail Styles - 20% Off -

Another Great Savings just loaded to ChasingSavings.com - Kevin and Mimi will treat you like a King or Queen and do wonderful work -

Keep Saving!
Mike.

Chasing Savings : Net-Flow Solutions

2010-02-01T14:23:00.001-05:00

Chasing Savings - Check it Out! A Great New Savings.

20% of All Managed Services from Net-Flow Solutions

Alive and Kickin!

2010-01-21T15:10:00.002-05:00

OK - We are LIVE!!!

So, I need everyone to do us THREE BIG FAVORS!

1) Please start spreading the word to all of your friends and collegues about the site - http://www.chasingsavings.com - we have some great coupons already up like Save 20% on all services at Nail Styles in Johns Creek - http://www.chasingsavings.com/NailStyles/ so tweet it up, Facebook it, post it to your groups on LinkedIn...

2) If you know anyone who owns a business, runs/manages one... let them know we are giving 60 days free as an introductory special "Go Live" deal... no strings attached!!!

3) Every business you hsop in take a second to tell the manager/owner about our site and how you would like to see their coupons on it.

More To Come!!!

So what have we been up to?

2009-12-15T11:28:00.003-05:00

Before you all ask, let me go ahead and fill you in on everything...

We have been busy working on fixing a pre-launch "bug-fix" list of around 15 items... with any new freshly coded product it takes a ton of recession testing to verify that the site is using the code as designed and the product is working. There were very few bugs on the front end - aka "Shopper website"... so the look and feel works really well... Most, unfortunately, have been on the backend "vendor system"... where we and/or the vendor can update their profile pages, as well as upload/change coupons & banners... So Jessie has been burning some major midnight oil with the help of David and Anil to get everything updated/enhanced..

In the mean time, we were also selected out of many other companies by Microsoft to attend a week long summit on moving our product to their Azure platform... The Azure platform is Microsoft's cloud platform. What this meant for us was a team of Microsoft developers, a project manager and 5 straight days of education on their latest product - plus the power to take our site and move it to a new platform that would virtually guarantee unlimited processing, ram, database size, storage size and bandwidth.... not to mention greater redundancy... We completed the task in 2 days.

View the interview with Microsoft by David and Jessie - here - at the end of the event, we gave a presentation of our site/product to a panel of Judges and Venture Capitalists... see photo and we were awarded with a project completition aware - see photo to read more about this click here

On the sales front, we have a partnership with a telemarketing firm, and we have been working practically non-stop with them to sharpen the scripts, presentations, and other sales generating tools that we will be using to sell the services of ChasingSavings.com

So as you can see we have been extremely busy on several fronts. Not to mention that we are working on several potential partnerships that could enable other companies to offer our site along wtih their services.

The Long Haul is almost over...

2009-12-15T11:20:00.002-05:00

Sorry for not posting as much as when we first started... One rule about Social Media is to always make a committment to always post if your going to have a blog... it is always easier said than done.

Needless to say - We have sent out all the emails and been using LinkedIn and Facebook to spread the word about our site.

On Janurary 15th, we will officially Launch Live!!! - with that said, we have some coupons coming to you...

Nail Styles - located in Alpharetta - 20% off all services.
Net-Flow Solutions - located in Alpharetta - 20% off all Managed Services
Discount Tire - All Georgia Locations
Rapidrefill - All Georgia Locations
Lenny's Sub Shops

Plus we have 8 - 10 more locations in the pipeline... Plus 2-3 other national chains...

How many times have you heard this... We are almost live???

2009-10-20T10:44:00.002-04:00

Ok readers... no more joking around, this time we are serious... last night we put a ton of static content on the test site, and tonight we migrate one last time from our test servers into production... the light at the tunnel is visible...

but there is still a ton of work to be done... we are looking to send out a blast to 8800 business owners and use certain social media networking tools to send the same contact out to more than 250,000 business professionals...

Our pre-recorded webinar will be pushed to the site tonight as well... I will make sure I post it here, there, and everywhere...

Keep Saving!
Mike

The Site is getting closer to being live...

2009-10-16T01:14:00.003-04:00

Ok, so we are a few weeks late, but a lot of progress has been completed over the last few days... the development team has been working non-stop, and tonight we have been working again non-stop to get the latest code drop on the site... Hopefully by this weekend the site will be "live"... Once we go live then we will be in business!!!

A Great Leader... and a quote to think about..

2009-10-12T12:46:00.002-04:00

As some of you may know, I follow several key CEO's and leaders. When I say "follow" I mean I try to read as much about them as possible to try to learn from them through the press they receive as well from their own writings. Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, Michael Dell, Bill Gates, etc... Today in Fortune.com, there is a great article...

In the article - a CEO of one of Mr. Buffett's companies states that he sends this or something similar every few years to his CEOs...

We can afford to lose money–even a lot of money. We cannot afford to lose reputation–even a shred of reputation. Let’s be sure that everything we do in business can be reported on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter. In many areas, including acquisitions, Berkshire’s results have benefited from its reputation, and we don’t want to do anything that in any way can tarnish it. Berkshire is ranked by Fortune as the second-most admired company in the world. It took us 43 years to get there, but we could lose it in 43 minutes.

What I would like to say to our employees is that everyone in Chasing Savings should believe in what is stated here... although we are a start up and can't afford to lose money... Our reputation is just as important as earning money... That every client is a more than just a client, and every member of our website is more than just a "user"... they are both "PARTNERS" in ChasingSavings.com

Keep Saving!
Mike

Another Sunday spent working...

2009-10-12T01:58:00.002-04:00

We are getting closer to having a finalized live site...

And we have completed our first webinar... I will post links to it, once i have all the locations... facebook, youtube, microsoft bizspark, etc...

quick post

2009-10-06T16:14:00.002-04:00

Just found this great article... thought I would pass it on to you...

If shoppers have money, downturn is a boon There has never been a better time to be a consumer. America is on sale. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33127705/ns/business-personal_finance/from/ET

Chasing Savings - New Account Presentation

2009-10-05T15:22:00.002-04:00

Check out the ChasingSavings.Com - New Accounts Presentation:

Chasing Savings - New Account Presentation

View more presentations from Net-Flow Solutions.

It's been non-stop 18 hour days!!! But we have a live site!!!

2009-10-02T17:52:00.003-04:00

GREAT NEWS!!! After 6 straight days of 18 hours, we have a live site... Now we will spend a few days making sure all the feature functions work before we load client advertisements to the site...

Some thanks that need to go out...

Microsoft - Thanks for putting together the BizSpark program... Also - Windows 7 is the best OS since XP... :)

David - Dude, you rocked getting the site live... this guy put in the long hours with Microsoft, the hosting companies - in the middle of deploying the site we had to switch hosting providers due to limitations in administrative rolls on the dedicated servers.

Jessie - Simply an amazing job on everything you have done, from documentation, to project management, to working on marketing material... BTW - thanks for buying David and me lunch today :)~

Jim - Great work today in leading the talk with the potential client... I am feeling extremely confident in our sales team...

Anil -Thank you for all of your efforts in leading the development team... Being a week behind and catching up over a weekend was amazing work.

Development team - The site looks very good, thank you guys...

Our sales team - Go Get Them!!! - Beth, Brian, Erin, Kevin, Jenna, Jerry, Kathy, Kurt, and Michael... All of you are out there trying to make this company a success, I know that you can...
I love the team effort I am seeing, and the creativeness that is starting to flow...

I also guess I need to catch all of you up to date on our progress... so much has been going on, that I had to decide if it was worth getting 20 extra minutes a day of sleep or to post... at 4-5 hours a night of sleep on average, sorry the sleep won out...

As you can see, our sales force has grown... we are now focusing on local, regional, and national accounts, so if your a small, medium, or large business representative, expect a call from someone from Chasing Savings!!!

As mentioned above, two weeks ago Thursday, Jessie determined that we were running about a week behind the project plan - which on our rushed schedule meant that we were actually about a month to two behind... Anil and the development team added more resources and over a weekend basically caught back up for the deliverable time... Very Good Job!!! Anil, you have proven that 1) Jessie was right in recommending you, and 2) you have proven to be an asset to Chasing Savings

Anyway - It is time I get reacquainted with my wife and daughter... everyone have a great weekend... and Keep Saving!!! - Mike Holland - CEO of Chasingsavings.com

Two Sales In 1 Day!

2009-09-09T14:04:00.002-04:00

A Job Well Done needs to go out to Kathy Dannelly and Jerry Cloud - Both are Account Managers for ChasingSavings.Com - Kathy was the first Account Manager to bring ChasingSavings.Com our first sale!!! A little while after Kathy reported the first sale, Jerry called in with his first sale!

So Big Congratulations to both Jerry and Kathy!

To update everyone - we are adding sales people to the Atlanta market - If your interested in a full time sales position with a fantastic startup, check out the job description here I would like to welcome the following Account Managers to the ChasingSavings.Com TEAM:

Brian Cleary
Erin Melton
Jerry Cloud
Kathy Dannelly
Michael Connolly
Kurt Gashler
Kevin Cobb

Report on Development - It looks like everything is on track according to Dave & Jessie - we should have a completed Administration site by next week, and Go Live Date is still tracking for October 1st!

Keep Saving!
Mike

100 hour work weeks - but great news

2009-08-28T17:16:00.002-04:00

Wow, I am so exhausted that i just wrote the post, and as I was hitting the spell check button, i hit the erase button...

Anyway, time to rewrite this post...

interviews and interviews... prep meetings for first sales meeting... lining up graphic designers... writing contracts and reviewing with lawyers... itemizing budget items... creating an estimated timeline of company goals, that will track our projects against real-world statistics... running a second company... working a full time job... being a mother or a father... a husband... a wife... or a significant other... That is what we are all going through right now. It seems that 4 hours of sleep is the norm for all of us...

After being apart of several start-ups, I must say that my hat is off to this team of executives... we have all been working hard towards a common goal... the success of Chasing Savings. Time to say "Good Work Everyone!"

I need to also make an announcement that I think will really help Chasing Savings grow the business. My other company is a member of several Chamber of Commerce groups. I just received an email that congratulated me on being selected to be on the 2009-2010 CEO Roundtable for the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce. I am extremely honored that I was nominated and selected, and will be proud to fill the seat.

Anyway, it is time to turn off the computers, join my wife on the couch and relax for at least until tomorrow - I have an interview set for noon on Saturday... maybe I might sleep until 10... lol

Best Regards & Keep SAVING!
Mike

R.R.& I.

2009-08-26T21:14:00.003-04:00

Review Resumes and Interviewing... that seems what this entire week has become... Although, what is extremely strange... We posted a sales position to multiple job sites, and we are getting a dozen or so resumes... We then post a graphic artist position to a single job site, and we have been flooded with resumes...

Honestly there just seems to be not enough hours in the day... Sept 1st will be our first sales meeting - where we are going to do a introduction/training session... In the mean time we have a long long list of things that need to be completed before we have that 10AM meeting...

Update on the site and stuff - The FaceBook group has grown to over 100 members!!! The membership sign-ups on the temp site has been growing at the same rate!!! do a search on Google for "chasing savings" and we are the #1 result... so go ahead and click on the link! Let's see we are getting around 12,000 impressions a day just from Facebook, we started a LinkedIn group, and it has grown to 11 members in just a few days... so that too will grow...

More New Hires

2009-08-25T21:26:00.002-04:00

Today I would like to welcome - Stephen Weinberger and Mike Connolly to the ChasingSavings.Com sales force!!!

a busy few days

2009-08-22T13:19:00.003-04:00

It has been a busy few days, and sorry for not posting as regularly as I have in the past... To catch everyone up to date. We are looking at having between 10-20 account managers coming on board day one. I know that seems like a large variance in numbers, but Jim and Dave have interviews scheduled all next week and honestly don't know how many offers we will make. I can say that we have added Kurt Gashler to the team as an Account Manager... so welcome aboard Kurt and welcome to the ChasingSavings.Com team!

The website membership continues to grow, along with membership to our Facebook group! - which both have over 80 members! The stats on both just seem to be growing as well, which is fantastic news. From Facebook we are generating more than 13,000 impressions a day... The minor Search Engine Optimization we did on the Temp site has worked as plan to... if you Google - "Chasings Savigns" we are number 1 on results, this blog is number 2.

Also, we have secured meeting room space for the next month, and possibly office space for when we are ready for that instead of working out of a "virtual office" or my house.

Anyway, just wanted to post to keep you up our Chasing Savings family up to date.

IF you have any suggestions or comments please post here, or on the Facebook group. One thing we all agree upon is the development of future enhancements and offerings on the site will be driven not only by our ideas, but the ideas and comments of our Chasing Savings family - the member as well as the vendor who advertises on the site.

Keep Saving!
Mike

And the countdown clock starts...

2009-08-18T22:31:00.003-04:00

Well the countdown clock has now started, we have a 7 AM conference call with the development team, and it looks like we will have a product in 4 short weeks. Yet, there seems to be so much to accomplish in that short time on an operations side of the fence.

We have made a decision on a Sales Director or VP of Sales, I want to welcome Jim Keenan to the team. Jim has more than 10 years in leading and developing sales teams at a variety of businesses. I look forward to working with him.

So what all needs to be done? Our target is to have at minimum 10 sales reps hitting the streets within the next two weeks. We need to finalize all marketing materials, pricing, quotas, order business cards, setup email accounts, etc. Then we need to look at sales tools like Hoovers or LexisNexis, CRM products - to use MS Dynamics or Salesforce.com... and the list never seems to end.

The next few weeks are going to be extremely busy, which for some reason, I am craving starting the day and don't want to stop at the end of the day...

Keep SAVING!
Mike.

Ramping Up...

2009-08-17T14:40:00.005-04:00

Well all you Savings Chasers, I must say that this has been a long journey just to this point... but things are going well... David and Jessie spent a large amount of hours this weekend, pumping out back end architecture and mocks... Hopefully it looks like a release at the end of September...

On the business front, we have been busy reviewing resumes, interviewing, and making offers. We have also been busy drafting up marketing materials as well as working on the social networking promotional side.

As you may or may not know, we have a ChasingSavings.Com group on Facebook. I have been very impressed by the numbers thus far, and what is really cool, is we have signed up to use their advertising agent... We are getting 12,000 impressions a day, and converting some to members which is way cool! In regards to stats on the site, we are seeing a few new members join each day, which is a positive for us... I can't thank everyone enough on this endeavor! Simple Site Statistics provided by the hosting company show that we are getting about 1800 unique hits a day! It is not a million yet, but considering we only have a temp site up and been less that a week, with ZERO Search Engine Optimization / advertising dollars spent, I am very impressed.

Anyway, just wanted to post this real quick... time to get back to work on the site...

Keep Chasing!
Mike.

A little advice for job hunters

2009-08-14T19:28:00.005-04:00

We received several resumes today - which is great news for us...

However, as I review them I am dumbstruck by the carelessness of the spelling/grammar in these documents.

I have held a position of a hiring manager since 2000 in one capacity or another and I have always wondered why individuals seeking employment would not just double check but triple check their resume.

There is a saying that the hiring manager will make up his/her mind on a potential employee in under 1 minute... However, I disagree with that statement... in the typical situation, the resume is the first introduction from the potential employee to the hiring manager. This document should be as professionally crafted as possible by the potential employee. Perhaps even taken to a professional service to have it drafted for them.

When I receive the resume the first thing I do (especially if it is a Word document) is hit the spell check button... if I come across any grammar/spelling errors I typically lose interest almost immediately and it goes in that "special filing cabnet" beside my desk.

Now upon meeting the candidate, I do agree that a decision is made within 60 seconds or so... how the person is dressed, are they an extravert or intravert, do they outwardly show confidence that they know what they are doing, do they hold eye contact, is their handshake firm... 60 seconds...

a post a day keeps the ... away?

2009-08-13T23:39:00.004-04:00

and you thought I would miss a post didn't you? I have like 20 minutes to say something and hit that publish post message.

First off, I want to personally thank everyone who is joining our online membership at Chaisng Savings as well as those Facebook users that have joined the Chasing Savings Group. The outpouring of members has been a shock, and I think I am getting addicted to logging into both sites every couple of hours to see how many new members have joined. So a true heart-felt thanks! only our users will make us a success in the end, and unlike most businesses, WE KNOW IT!

So, today, what to talk about... well David just left the "office" after a 3.5 hour conference call with Anil and Jessie... looks like they are going to try to get 30 hours in this weekend... FANTASTIC! Thanks TEAM!

David met with what looks like our first sales person in an interview today, I will be meeting him next Tuesday or Friday depending upon schedules. We have posted job ads at two sites, and have seen 10-15 good resumes, and are calling those tomorrow.

Well with 15 minutes to spare for the day, I will now say:

Keep Saving!
Mike.

and hit that publish post button. :)

And the count starts to climb!

2009-08-12T17:38:00.003-04:00

Ok, so yesterday we worked from 8AM till after 7PM straight through the day... alot of good progress both on the site and other marketing areas. We created a group on Facebook.com and as of right now have 46 members on this site!!! Visit it and JOIN!!! - Chasing Savings Group.

On the website we have had 19 new members in less than 24 hours... all without having any Search Engine Optimization!!!

Also, we have placed ads out to find sales professionals, and have already received a few promising resumes... so we now starting the interview sessions...

Keep Saving!
Mike

What a day...

2009-08-11T19:29:00.002-04:00

Wow, what a day... it started at 8 AM with David, Jessie and I started working, and they just left the "office" a few minutes ago... a ton of work was completed, looks like we have banged out 100 hours on the project plan, just 340 or so more to go...

We have also started interviewing for account managers, so if you are looking for a full time or even a part time job in sales, shoot your resume to us at caeers@chasingsavings.com.

Also, our Facebook group was created so check it out and join! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116528140874

Keep Saving!
Mike

Temp Site is LIVE!!!

2009-08-11T09:07:00.002-04:00

Fantastic news!!! The temporary website has gone live... And it only took 4 or 5 hours to get all the bugs worked out with the hosting company... thank you Mr. Murphy!

Anyway - please give us feedback...

Keep Saving!
Mike

Welcome Anil

2009-08-10T10:11:00.003-04:00

I want to take a few seconds to welcome our latest member to the Chasing Savings family. His name is Anil Tumati.

Anil is bringing 10 years of experience to our development team. His background will add extensive business process knowledge, technical experience and a proven track record of building application in short duration of time. He utilizes leadership, communication and interpersonal skills to build teams that meet/exceed goals, while having the skills to formulate business requirements and support project documentation, manage project scope, stakeholders, risks and issues.

His primary rolls will be to help build out the Windows Communication Framework with Jessie and then work with David & Jessie on the administration controls.

Again, Anil - welcome to the Chasing Savings family.

Keep Saving!
Mike

Website Update

2009-08-07T18:02:00.003-04:00

Time for a quick update... if I am speaking Greek here, please excuse me...

There are several components to the website.

UI - Front End User Interface
Admin Site - Where Chasing Savings staff will make edits to the site's content and pull reports.
Customer Site - Where Chasing Savings' clients will have access to edit their account information, upload coupons, etc.
Backend - the massive databases that drive the site content.

Right now, Jessie and David have been working pretty much non-stop on the Backend and the UI. The UI has a massive amount of "controls" which pull data and create the page within the style sheets... In just two weeks most of these controls are complete! and the Databases are pretty much finished as well.

We are adding another developer to speed delivery of the site. I will have more on that Monday... in the mean time have a good weekend.

Keep Saving!!!
Mike.

Just how important is the name of a company and URL?

2009-08-07T17:46:00.004-04:00

So my friend, just how important is the name of a company and a URL? Personally, I think a name and a URL represents everything about the company. It can be the first thing that a customer or a vendor hears or sees... When the customer or vendor typically first hears about the company.. it is either via your web presence or through some type of advertising or perhaps through a cold-call... Even if you are meeting the customer/vendor face to face for the first time, the first words out are "Hello, I am Mike from Chasing Savings". I feel that you want a name that can be easily recognized as a brand identity. When you think of search engines, you think of Google or Yahoo. When you think of web browsers you think of Internet Explorer. Imagine if Nike didn't start off as Nike? What if the founders called the company something else. Nike was a perfect name for a shoe company that was one of the first to concentrate specifically on running. Nike is defined as "the winged goddess of victory". The logo "Swoosh" is a classic example of simplifying corporate identity, Nike with the Swoosh, a positive check-mark with the goddess of victory... then the company slogan of "Just Do It" rounded out the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid attitude that has made Nike, its logo, or slogan A BRAND that is recognized around the world.

With all of this in mind, we set out to try to create the same achievement as Nike in regards to a BRAND... So how did we come up with Chasing Savings? Well, if you have been reading the blog, the first name was probably the easiest since it was also the original concept of the site (Trade-a-coupon.x)... however, once we realized the issues with the idea of trading coupons... David and I sat down in my kitchen with one of our laptop and a notepad, and then started checking for URL availability. Our goals were simple:

1. Keep the URL short and company related
2. Create a company name/URL that is memorable and easy to create a brand

So we sat down for hours, typing in names finding that the URL was either already sold or was to long, or simply wasn’t a good name. Here are some of the names we considered (note: I am listing out names that we thought for a NANO-Second and didn’t take to serious.)

Lazydogcoupons.com
Letsleepingdogsliecoupons.com
Chasingcoupons.com
2menandacoupon.com
Ourwivesusecoupons.com
Whatisacoupon.com

And the list went on and on… After a few hours of coming up with different names, my wife came in and we ran them all past her. She looks at both David and I, and goes how about "ChasingSavings.Com"... David and I look at each other and go "That's IT!". I think we have an incredibly great name for the business and a great chance at brand recognition.

Have we created a company name, logo, and slogan that rivals Nike? Well, let me answer that one if say 5 to 10 years... In the mean time...

Keep Saving!

Mike.

Website Update

2009-08-06T10:08:00.003-04:00

Thought I would update everyone on the site today as well. David and Jessie have been crunching some serious code... I have built a few websites over the years, but never one that interacted with databases, had user controls, or required user authentication... Never would I have thought that a coupon site would be so labor intensive in regards to not only the UI - User Interface (the look and feel) but the back-end (database) and middle-ware (business logic that flows between the UI and the DB)...

Anyway, we feel that something temporary needs to be put up... why? Well, first off, we are getting hits already to the Chasing Savings domain name... so there is risk that we could be losing members and potential vendors. But the bigger risk is if Google, Yahoo, Bing! or any other major search engine picks up the url from sites like this or facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc... then the search engine will see a 404 error, which is bad...

So over the last few days Jessie and David have been pouring over their PC's writing real code for a real site, I got out my What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get website editor - Microsoft Expressions Web, and through something together... Hopefully by this weekend we will have that loaded. It is EXTREMELY BASIC but at least we will have a presence on the web..

Keep Saving!
Mike.

The first concept for the website - an almost oops

2009-08-06T09:16:00.004-04:00

I mentioned in the first post how we came up with the idea of Chasing Savings... well, let me go into more detail about the initial thoughts and ideas. The original concept was to promote "trading coupons" and the site was going to be called "Trade-a-Coupon"... Personally, I thought it was a great idea and everyone I pitched the concept to thought it was a good/great idea... that is until we started looking at different models of revenue generation... such as setting ad rate fees for vendors - whether they were purchasing space for coupons or banner ads, straight banner ad sales, Ad Sense, and Affiliate programs... I know you just went huh? So let me explain.

The original concept of the site, was to allow for coupon trading. There would be two types of users - Standard (aka Free Membership) and Gold (aka Paid Membership). Standard membership would have very basic search capabilities and be required to trade (aka upload) a 1 to 1 coupon ratio... in other words, for every coupon the Standard Member would download they would have to upload one... While the Gold Member would not have the same ratio - something like 5 downloads to 1 upload, they would also get access to other tools like a savings calculator, newsletters, twitter alerts, and the list goes on. The overall concept at this point wasn't too bad... If people would purchase a $5 a month membership, AND we had a membership equal to our competitors - example, most coupon sites after the first year have between 100,000 and 500,000 members, there are three sites that are more than 2 years old that have 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 members. The first problem with this solution would be if everyone became gold, then the site would face not having coupons. With this primary model, if we hit a 50% ratio between paid and full and hit the 100,000 mark, then we would see yearly revenues of $3M... Not bad for a start-up in its first year. However, we would be dependent upon Standard Members being loyal to our site enough to constantly upload coupons. Administratively, it would also be a head ache because ever upload would have to be checked by administration before publishing. Then the question came into play, why would someone pay to be a member of a coupon site, especially if the competitors were offering Free Membership... Hmmm.. As we continued to look at the revenue models of the site, we thought about selling space on the site to vendors to upload the coupons... now here is the BIG GOTCHA! Why on earth would any vendor PAY to upload a coupon to a site, when they could create a Standard User Account and upload as many as they wanted! - As Homer Simpson would say "D'oH!

I still think it is a great concept but there are too many "ifs" and to many holes in the potential revenue to become a working business.

So today the Chasing Savings business model, is free membership for all users of the site - revenue will be directly generated from ad space on the site - banners, and coupons from vendors. We are still looking at the affiliate models, but have decided completely against Ad Sense from Google at this time...

Keep Saving,
Mike.

The Cast of Characters...

2009-08-05T14:18:00.002-04:00

Well yesterday we started the blog, but today let me catch you up to date on the cast of characters.

Michael K Holland, CEO - Almost two decades of working in the technology arena. His background includes concentrations in MS Networking Design & Infrastructure support, along with Managerial Experience. It is easy to say that Mike has had the entrepreneurial bug since birth, considering not only both sides of his grandparents owned and operated successful businesses, but his mother and father to date still run two successful businesses in their late 60's. With that said, Chasing Savings is his forth start-up adventure and hopes that it is the largest success. (your blogger)
David Bailey , COO - David aka "Spivey" has more than a decade of working in the technology arena, mainly in the areas of MS .Net Development, MS SQL Server, and MS SharePoint Server. His specialties include: Visual Studio Extensibility (Addins and Packages), Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 C#/VB.Net, WPF, Ajax SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008. He holds the following certifications: MSCD .Net, MCSE, and is a MCTS in SQL and SharePoint.
Jessie Hill, CTO - Jessie has over a decade of experience in software development industry using Microsoft technologies including leading and managing multiple full lifecycle projects. Her experience includes development for front end, business tiers, sql server, service oriented architectures, windows and web applications. She holds the following certifications: MSCD .Net

And now you have the current cast of characters. We are currently looking for Sales Professionals to join our Motley bunch... So if you are interested please send email with resume to careers@chasingsavings.com.

Regards,
Mike

What is ChasingSavings.Com and How did it start?

2009-08-04T18:21:00.001-04:00

Man that is a good question... First off, let me again welcome you to our Blog for ChasingSavngs.Com, L.L.C. - soon (I hope) to be located at http://www.chasingsavings.com/.

ChasingSavings.Com is an online coupon website that is currently under construction by a team of hard working developers. The site will offer users access to coupons that they can download and print, creating a ton of savings for our members! Our site will differentiate itself by providing the following benefits to our members:

Provide a Greater Variety of Coupons - We will aim to provide coupons from not only Grocery stores... stores that you (the member) frequently use. Such as, nail salons, beauty salons, lawn care providers, store-n-locks, dry cleaners, restaurants and the list goes on and on...
Provider easier search & navigation - our site will use the latest in Web 2.0 technologies that use a combination of traditional search and navigation tools to provide our members with easier access in finding the coupons that they are chasing.
No Google Banners
No POP-UPS
No Software to Download to your PC
Localization by City/State

So how did it all start? Well, I will try to keep this short and sweet. In addition to ChasingSavings.Com, I am the Managing Partner of Net-Flow Solutions, which is a leading IT Consulting/Managed Services firm headquartered in Atlanta, GA. One day, I was onsite with a client that is an Asset Management firm here in Atlanta when I received an email from their head trader. In that email was a manufacturer's coupon that saved 20% off the purchase of their product. I sat back in my chair and thought, "gee, this is a great coupon." Please understand, that I am someone that has never thought about using coupons in my life. However, on a $200 product, that is $40 off and in this economy, $40 is a good savings. Next, the entrepreneurial gears in my mind started grinding together with questions like:

How many people would use this coupon but will never get to know about it?
How many websites out there have coupons? - uh there are a lot, BUT... then I thought...
How many of these sites offer coupons besides grocery stores? Not Many..

...and so the questions kept coming and the research started! After a few weeks of running numbers, looking at the competition, researching competitive pricing, and spending hours formulating a business plan in my head I felt that I was ready to start talking to people about the concept of ChasingSavings.Com.

After all the research and processing the ideas until a plan was formulated, I went to two developers that I know and sat down with them to have a discussion about starting a new company... and thus ChasingSavings.Com was born!

Best Regards,

Mike Holland, CEO
ChasingSavings.Com