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Silicon Valley Is A Multi-Inning Game, Relationships Are How You Play

A piece I did recently inPEhubI heard two things recently. “Silicon Valley is a multi-inning game, relationships matter.“ And. “I am all business, I don’t care about relationships.” The first statement came from a seasoned venture capitalist with 20 years of experience. His point is relationships matter because you play with the same people over and over again. The second was from the founder and CEO of one of his companies. Relationships are at the core of how Silicon Valley works.  Whe... READ MORE Posted November 14, 2011 at 08:23 AM

Economic Principles Return circa 2001

Originally printed in one of the boom time internet magazines, one of my co workers from the period saw one of my recent articles and dug this one up and send to me.  I wonder if you could right the same thing today... Economic Principles Return by Ben Smith Tuesday, May 08, 2001 Email this article... Print this article... Not so long ago, venture capitalists were chasing ideas faster than they could be generated and stock prices were soaring. High-flying companies like Onvia, VerticalNe... READ MORE Posted November 08, 2011 at 01:28 PM

Its Called Fishing Not Catching

By Ben Smith and originally published onPEHUBIt is called fishing and not catching, and it is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley. Unless your startup hits a grand slam, or you are its founder, CEO or a key engineer, your post-exit payday isn’t more than a few months salary. Then you may lose your job.So why join a startup?The answer became apparent to me again the other day when I got a call from a young engineer who left MerchantCircle after we sold to Reply.com.  This engineer asked me... READ MORE Posted November 03, 2011 at 06:41 PM

Its called Fishing not Catching

       It is called fishing and not catching, and it is the dirty secret of Silicon Valley. Unless you are at a grand slam, if you aren’t the founder of a startup, or running it as a CEO, a key engineer your post-exit payday isn’t more than a few months salary. Then you may lose your job.   So why join a startup?   The answer became apparent to me again the other day when I got a call from a young engineer who left MerchantCircle after we sold to Reply.com. ... READ MORE Posted October 24, 2011 at 09:56 AM

5-Year Anniversary and Merchant Appreciation Celebration!

Please join us for MerchantCircle’s Merchant Appreciation and 5 Year Anniversary Celebration!   Come meet the MerchantCircle team and mingle with local business owners from around the Bay Area to help us celebrate another successful year connecting our network of over 1.6 million local businesses.  Festivities begin at 6pm at Campo Di Bocce. Get started with appetizers, drinks and the early bird raffle. Save room for a delicious buffet of Campo Di Bocce's finest. Selec... READ MORE Posted June 22, 2011 at 01:23 PM

The Deal is Done. MerchantCirlce is now part of Reply!Media.

If you missed this morning's announcement, I'm happy to share the news that we are now officially part of Reply! Media. The last few weeks have been both a time of reflection and a busy time of looking forward to building new products that will change the way local business owners get more local customers and connect to each other. We have joined this new Reply! family, but MerchantCircle as you know it, isn't going away. We're just getting better. As I mentioned in a previous post, our passi... READ MORE Posted June 22, 2011 at 01:08 PM

Some things don't change...

In 2005 the MerchantCircle site looked a whole lot different. In the last several years we've added new products and services, totally revamped the dashboard, built out an active community forum, and we've gone mobile. But what has never changed is our passion for the local business owner. Take a look at our fist MerchantCircle blog where we talk about our favorite local businesses and they really were the corner stones of our neighborhoods. Even now, as we grow into a new, larger organizatio... READ MORE Posted June 14, 2011 at 11:05 AM

Same page from go!

Co-founder Wayne Yamamoto joined us in our reminiscing. He tweeted this image from our first pitch presentation. From the very beginning MerchantCircle has been on the same page as Reply!. We had no idea then, we'd end up as a team and powerful force for connecting local business owners to local customers. READ MORE Posted June 01, 2011 at 07:32 PM

It starts with an idea.

The last few days have been really exciting and extremely busy. There have been meetings and interviews and many thoughtful wishes for a bright future. But. As we always do at MerchantCircle, we're back to work with a sense of urgency. As we whiteboard new ideas, begin to build new products, and work with our new colleagues from Reply!, we've also spend some time reminiscing. From coffee shop talks to VC pitches to moving into a real office space, the MerchantCircle story is one of passion, d... READ MORE Posted May 31, 2011 at 04:35 PM

Thank you!

Yesterday's news was a major milestone and we are so thankful to everyone who reached out. Anyone who knows a MerchantCircle team member can attest to how totally dedicated this group of colleagues has been to our users, our products and to each other.  And while outside of the office we have you, our real families and friends, inside Suite 330, we've got another family with whom we share many of our waking hours. As we celebrated with our MerchantCircle family, we recognized that many p... READ MORE Posted May 27, 2011 at 04:44 PM