Can You Help Local Businesses Convert Social Media to Sales? The City of Boston Wants to Give You a $10K Grant
The City of Boston is looking for help from your startup, and they are ready to pay for it.
Most local companies are using Facebook and Twitter to engage their communities. Some of these, like Boloco, are wizards at the trade and require no external help. But plenty of others are having a tough time measuring results and ensuring a positive impact given the timely nature of social media. Boston based StartupBLVD is here to change that. They have recently teamed up with the City of Boston’s Office of Business Development (“OBD”) to help local businesses convert social media in to sales.
The Challenge, which is currently looking for local startups, will give you a $10k grant, visibility via City-sponsored press and events and a partnership with Boston Main Streets, which serves over 3,500 local businesses.
I spoke with StartupBLVD founder Enrique Shadah to get a little more insight into what the ideal candidates are. “We want a startup that of course has a product that currently works, but more importantly a startup that needs the city of Boston. In partnering with the city we are really trying to engage more startups in helping solve community issues.”
The best part of this program is that there can be multiple winners. “We are looking for startups that want to have a direct impact in their local community and don’t want to limit it to just one winner,” replied Shadah.
I am told that this is the first of many similar challenges that we can expect from StartupBLVD. StartupBLVD itself is in its earliest of stages and is aiming to be the “monster.com for companies.” “We want to help your company find opportunities, and there is no better place to look than local right now,” added Shadah.
This challenge is a great opportunity for an early stage startup to beta test or even soft launch a product with actual companies here in Boston. And with a $10k grant, you will be able to extend your runway well past the program.
Applications close on January 31st, sign up today.
from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/01/03/can-you-help-local-businesses-convert-social-m...