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Yellow pages are steadily on the decline and local professionals are seeking other methods to get their businesses out to potential customers. Experts predicted that the advertising business model for traditional media those venues where advertisers still channel most of their spending will rapidly fall apart in the coming 5 years. The decline on traditional media shows that local business owners are looking for other ways to advertise their business. Many startups has tried to take advantage of this new opportunity yet no has been successful. A new start up based in San Jose, has a unique idea that they think could change the industry.
Sixfolio focuses on the small business owners who have struggled to compete against larger competitors with a larger advertising budget. Directories like Yelp, Google, Yellow Pages, and Thumbtack makes it difficult for businesses to distinguish themselves from others. Sixfolio simplifies the discovery process for businesses giving them more ways to gain exposure for their business. Sixfolio includes modern ways of connecting local businesses to potentials customers by integrating social media to the formula. Sixfolio offers a platform for local businesses and professionals to show off their work to potential customers, and users of the site can like and share it with their friends. Local businesses and professionals are given the option to stand out from their competitors based on the quality of their work rather than their name simply listed on a directory.
Sixfolio’s founders says “Technologies are advancing fast and traditional directories like Yellow pages are not working to adapt to the changes, we figured a solution to integrate new technologies to our website to make finding a professional modern and fun.
“We don’t list our search results by just their business name; we show results by the picture of their project. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and we think users would get a better understanding of the business by looking a picture of their past project rather than just their name”
That’s not the only thing that makes them unique. Sixfolio includes a Facebook Integration feature on their website that allows users to “discover and find” professionals socially. Users are able to see the projects their friends like and the professionals they follow. Businesses and professionals can track their stats of their projects, promote it and build a following.
“We included this function because people are always looking for ideas when they need something done. Integrating this allows users to recommend and share interesting ideas with their friends.”
Based in San Jose, the founders are local businesses owners and college graduates from all over the California. Sixfolio is composed of college graduates from San Jose State University, UC Irvine and Golden Gate University.
“We are not trying to solve this problem as college graduates but as business owners were frustrated at the lack of advertising venues. As business owners we understand the frustrations of distinguishing ourselves from our competitors. We look into all the complications and we fix that on our website.”
Sixfolio hopes to see the local market advertising break away from their comfort zone and try new things to help business owners. Like many traditional directories, businesses with a larger advertising budget would outbid and eliminate their small competitors. This doesn’t allow small businesses to grow. On our website we don’t make businesses compete with each other for an ad space, we want them to stand out by their quality of their work rather than the size of their pocket.