2 Dudes and a Prius - ChowNow Road Trips to the 2012 NRA Show

The life of a startup is not a glamorous one, but it sure is fun.  While we may not be flying first class and staying in fancy hotels, we are sure to make the most of our time and enjoy every step along the way, as we strive to make ChowNow the best company it can possibly be. 

With this in mind, we embark on an epic journey for the 2012 National Restaurant Association Show, May 5-8 in Chicago, IL.  But flying is too easy.  We’re driving.  That’s right, 2 full size men, a lot of tradeshow gear, and Eric’s bad taste in music.  All packed on top of a 43 horsepower, 87mpg hybrid beast that is known as Prius.

Mind you, I have my concerns on what is about to take place.  Will we make it on time?  Is everything going to fit?  Will Eric ever stop singing?  Valid concerns.  But we are men on a mission, and failure is not an option.

“Whatever it takes” is a common theme among startups, and we’re no different.  We’re going to save a nice chunk of change by driving ourselves, and all our gear over there, but that’s only part of it.  Building these memories with my good buddy and colleague will give us many good times to reminisce about once we take ChowNow to the next level.  

Stay tuned, day 1 starts right now…

Is Los Angeles the New Tech Startup Capital?

For years Silicon Valley has been considered Techy Heaven.  Many amazing companies were born and raised there and it was truly the Capital of Tech Startups.

Times are changing and  L.A. is making it’s mark on the Tech scene.  With the emergence of several local incubators/accelerators, such as LaunchPad LA, companies like ChowNow are encouraged and rewarded for staying and growing in Los Angeles.

Here’s a great article in Forbes by Tara Tiger Brown discussing why Los Angeles is set to become the next hot spot in the Tech World.

Click here for full story

New Digs at LaunchPad LA

It’s an exciting time for ChowNow as we have moved offices from our humble beginnings on Abbot Kinney to powerhouse LaunchPad LA headquarters, right down the road in Santa Monica.  The move marks a milestone in our growth, as joining forces with LaunchPad LA is a dream opportunity that any startup is grateful to have. 

LaunchPad LA is an accelerator and mentorship organization founded in 2009 by Mark Suster, with its goal being to help young, talented startup entrepreneurs get funded, build relationships, and grow, while remaining in Southern California.  It allows early stage companies, such as ChowNow, to gain insight and knowledge from some of the best business minds around.  Top VC’s in Southern California, experienced CEO’s, and a select group of service providers will all be part of the LaunchPad LA program.

ChowNow joins 9 other startups in this venture and the chatter and buzz have been lighting up the office from day 1.  To be in an environment like this is both motivational and inspiring.  Being able to engage with other top entrepreneurs is an amazing tool to have in itself.  Throw in the fact that we all have access to some of the most successful and brightest business minds in the country to help guide us along the way is something that is a once in a lifetime opportunity that nobody around here is going to take for granted.

For more information check out Mark Suster’s TechCrunch article about LaunchPad LA.

Welcome 2012, We’ve Been Expecting You…

All of us at ChowNow would like to wish our friends, family, restaurant partners, Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers a very Happy Holidays.  This has been a great year and things are only going to get better.  A big Thank You to everyone for being with us and making us what we are today.  Looking forward to what the New Year brings! 

Wishing everyone health, happiness and success!

Cheers,

ChowNow

Claiming Your Vanity URL for Your Restaurant’s Facebook Page

When you create a Facebook account for your restaurant, you are assigned some random ID such as this, facebook.com/pages/My-Business-Name/909932628188.  This used to be no big deal and probably not something you, as a business owner, would even think twice about.  But nowadays it’s imperative to keep up with the ever changing digital world in order to stay on top of the competition.  Here are 3 reasons you need to claim your custom Facebook URL, ASAP!

1.  Marketing - You should be doing as much marketing as possible.  If you ever need to use your FB URL on printed advertising or online posts, which you often should, you don’t want it to say, facebook.com/pages/My-Business-Name/909932628188.  It just doesn’t look right and nobody is going to take the time to write down or copy that lengthy behemoth.  Changing it to facebook.com/MyBusinessName is much easier on the eyes and something that will not only help your branding efforts, but make it much easier for people to refer others to your page.

2.  Competition - Chances are you aren’t the only person out there who has thought of “My Business Name” as your company name.  And as you probably have no shot at claiming the domain, MyBusinessName.com, you may still have a shot at claiming it on Facebook as, facebook.com/MyBusinessName.  Do it…do it.

3.  Search Engine Optimization - The search engines, like Google, place a high value on URL’s when determining rankings.  If your URL isn’t exact match, or very similar, for what you’d like to be found for, (such as My Business Name), you aren’t going to rank very well.  By claiming that exact match URL you have a great shot at ranking highly for your restaurant’s Facebook page.

Now that you understand why it’s so necessary to claim a custom URL, here is how you do it:

*IMPORTANT:  You only get to make this change once so watch for typos and make sure you’re happy with it before you save the change.*

1) Login to Facebook under your administrator account for your business page.

2) Go to your Facebook business page.  (Make sure you are signed in as your business page and not your personal profile!)

3) Click “Edit Page” at the top right.

4) Click “Basic Information” on the left sidebar.

5) Change the username to your liking.  Again, be careful, you only get to make this change once so watch for typos and make sure you’re happy with it before you save the change.

After you change the username, you should be able to see the new Facebook url in your browser’s address bar like this:  facebook.com/MyBusinessName.

Here’s a few more tips for changing your Facebook username and getting the most benefit from it:

1) Make it short.

2) Make it memorable.

3) It should match the common name of your business or be very similar.

4) Capitalize the first letter of each word to make it more readable.

5) No spaces or special characters. Only a-z and 0-9 are allowed.

6) Double and triple check for errors before you save your new FB business page username because, again, YOU ONLY GET ONE SHOT.

Bonus Tip: Try to match your FB restaurant username to your Twitter restaurant username, your YouTube restaurant username and any other social media usernames. Consistency helps with branding.  Also, if the name you want is already taken, just choose the next best option and something that still closely represents your brand.  In our case, if facebook.com/MyBusinessName was taken, we could try /MyBusinessNameInc or /MyBusinessNameLosAngeles.  The goal is to have the name in there somewhere and have it match as closely as possible to the actual name.

Good luck!