yoyochimp

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Why Marketplaces Are A Blessing For Small Businesses

EBay and Amazon pioneered the concept of online marketplace two decades ago, and since then hundreds of online marketplaces have sprung up all around the web and are growing and thriving - Shopping.com, Oodle, Shopzilla, NextTag, Overstock to name a few. And while online marketplaces have mostly been dominated by products, services marketplaces are soon taking the center stage. See how Zaarly went from idea to Ashton Kutcher to $14.1 million to Meg Whitman in 7 months.  Then there are other ones such as TaskRabbit, Thumbtack, AngiesList and now even Amazon is entering the services marketplace scene.

 The Emerging Trend

The next trend in services marketplace, is niche-services marketplace. Zocdoc is a marketplace that connects doctors with patients and allows patients to book doctor appointments directly online, without having to wait on hold for hours, eLance and oDesk are fueling startups with their freelance workers, and HomeJoy is helping you keep your homes clean by making it easy to find and book house cleaners online.

Yoyochimp is a new kid on the block helping parents get their sanity back and find more time in their busy lives by bringing after-school activity classes and camps in one place (Disclaimer: I am an investor in this startup - I invest my time, sweat and money as a Founder/CEO of the company!). Yoyochimp is a private community and an online marketplace where parents can research, find and buy local after-school activity classes and summer camps for kids in one place.

 Build or List

Many small businesses assume that setting up eCommerce on their own website is akin to listing their products and services in a marketplace, perhaps due to the lack of knowledge of listing their wares on the marketplace or due to the assumption that selling on own website would be more profitable and less competitive. While there is nothing wrong in assuming these assumptions, the reality is online selling is hard. Businesses may be able to build the storefront but they have to be realistic about whether they have the capacity aka marketing budget, knowledge, skills and time to drive traffic to their website and convert those visitors in buyers. Marketplace builders typically have large marketing budgets to drive paid traffic, and a chest full of SEO skill-sets to drive organic traffic. Amazon receives close to 78 million unique monthly visitors and eBay 42 million. They use proprietary algorithms and historical data to offer personalized shopping experience.  Selling online is becoming more and more competitive given a plethora of choices that buyers have, and if you, as a seller are not listed on a marketplace, you are missing out on being part of their search results, promos and marketing campaigns.

 Critical Ingredients Of A Successful Marketplace

Merely putting together a product catalog full of hundreds and thousands of products and services is not enough. A successful marketplace needs these critical elements as part of its designs to attract a large volume of buyers and sellers.

Custom search: With 40,000 search queries per second, 3.5 billion search queries per day and 1.2 trillion searches annually, Google still accounts for 78% of all searches on web. But one of the most important elements of a good marketplace is customized search. Based on products or services that are listed on the marketplace, a combination of custom search-filter-sort allows customers to quickly find what they are looking for. Amazon lists its millions of products under17 different departments and almost 160 different categories. Each category has additional 3-4 levels of  sub-categories. At each level it includes various set of filters to refine and fine-tune search. For e.g., if you were shopping for a toy on Amazon or eBay, the filters shown on that page would allow you to narrow down your search by age, gender, budget, type of toy, etc., which is different if you were buying music. Then the filters would allow you to search/filter by genre, language, band, etc. 

Shopping cart and payment integration: Amazon of course built the first full-blown shopping cart technology, but shopping cart experience could be different depending on the product or service a buyer is buying. Discounts could vary too. Example on Yoyochimp, we allow parents to add optional add-ons such as extended care, hot lunches, etc. There are several discount types that could apply to classes and summer camps on Yoyochimp – Early bird registration, sibling discount, multi-camp discount etc. Ability to accept online payment via credit cards directly or through PayPal or other 3rd parties is essential as well.

Reviews and recommendations:  Reviews are the heart of marketplaces. Reviews from other users are one of the primary reasons why Amazon is the defacto research platform for buyers. But if reviews are linked to real, verifiable profiles, it makes them even more powerful. We all know controversies surrounding fake reviews on Yelp. While neither Amazon nor eBay has a community where buyers could interact amongst themselves, Yelp incudes user forums where users can ask questions and seek help. Similarly, on Yoyochimp, combining community with marketplace ensures that reviews are written by “real” parents with “real” profiles. 

Personalization: This was one of the most novel and intriguing ideas of its times when Amazon introduced and started inserting recommendations based on buyer’s past and current buying and browsing patterns.  The fact that these marketplaces understand buyer behavior over a period of time makes the experience so much more personal and richer, because from the time the buyer lands on the website and navigates through it, she is presented with content and choices that are relevant, appealing, and useful.

 The Birth Of A New Economy

Thanks to the popularity of marketplaces we are seeing new forms of economies emerge, the latest one being the sharing economy, pioneered and fueled by likes of AirBnb and Uber. There is no limit to what you can buy or sell online these days, anything you own can be traded, rented, shared or given away for free. Amazon and eBay spun cottage industries of their own, enabling millions of people to earn their bread and butter solely by selling their products on these marketplaces, and now services marketplaces are providing more alternatives to Craigslist

 Marketplaces seem to be a win-win situation, both for buyers and sellers. While buyers enjoy the convenience of researching, buying, paying, and managing their purchases in one place, sellers are able to quickly setup their online store by making use of great tools that marketplaces offer - from help with building product/service catalog to payment gateway integrations, shipping and returns, and of course the increased online visibility and a very large set of eyeballs. By taking charge of sales and marketing, marketplaces free up small businesses to focus their precious resources on building and growing the businesses.

 In my mind, marketplaces are the best thing to happen to mankind since Focaccia bread (you can tell I don’t care about sliced bread much)!

image source: By Gaël Chardon (originally posted to Flickr as IMG_9105) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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If They Come, We Will Build

This article is part of my blog series, “Idea to CEO”. In my earlier article I spoke of ideas and inspiration, and how my own pain and frustration led me to build a startup to solve the problem for other parents. In this article I provide some techniques and insights that I used for my idea validation of Yoyochimp. I have split this article in 2 parts as there is lot of ground to cover on this topic. This is a long article, but with lots of golden nuggets and inspiring stories to help you with your idea validation.

The boom of 2k

It so happened that in 2002 when I started my earlier startup, Amnel, with my husband, nobody had heard of the beast called “idea validation” or any validation for that matter. Then, all you did was, learn to spell World Wide Web, find a domain name, and you were all set to open doors to VC money. Back then it was the VCs who prepared shiniest of the pitch decks to lure entrepreneurs into taking their money! Ok, I am exaggerating, but just a bit.

And the bust

It's 2014 now, and idea validation is a pre-requisite to building your startup. Now it means that you try to build products by asking your prospective customers whether they will buy your product, yes I mean BUY, with cold hard cash, and not just use it for free. The “build and they will come” humble attitude has been flipped on its head to a more egotistical “If they come, we will build” attitude. But that’s how most of the big name startups are building their businesses, and surprisingly it is working!! It is all about Lean Startup movement pioneered by Eric Reis and promoted by Stanford professor, Steve Blank. Lean startup is all about doing more with less, by building products iteratively – build, measure, learn over and over again, so that you build products that will actuallysolve customer problems and one that your customers will actually pay for. There is a ton of material out there on Lean Startup topic at the links above. Lean Launchpad, a free course on Udacity, by Steve Blank, is amazing!

Houston, we have a problem

If your idea comes from a problem either you or your friends are facing, you still need to verify whether the problem exists on a large enough scale that justifies building an entire startup for. In case of Yoyochimp, it was very clear that this was indeed a large problem for both working moms and small businesses. If you do find enough people facing this problem, find out how they are solving the problem today, what tools/apps are they using, what’s wrong with those tools. This will also help you gain insights into your competitors’ weaknesses. Their weakness could help you find your strengths or differentiation. It is important that you limit yourself to just understanding your customers’ problems and not asking your customers to suggest a solution.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

- Henry Ford

Define and refine your target audience

So now that you know there is indeed a problem, do you know if you are solving the problem for the right audience? Do you know if your target audience is an individual consumer, a small business, or fortune 500 enterprise? If it is an individual consumer, what is their demography – age range, gender, income, education, job, etc.? The more specific and clear you are about your customer persona, the easier it will be to solve the problem and acquire customers. It is ok to start by targeting a very small niche audience but make sure that it constitutes a large enough market size in dollars (either due to high revenue/customer or due to large number of customers). Not knowing your target audience or targeting a very large, generic market, for example, targeting “everyone”, is one of the most common and fatal mistakes entrepreneurs make. At Yoyochimp, one of the customer segments that we have identified is made up of working moms aged 30-45 years with school-age kids 5-13 years old and an annual income of 120K+. Yes, that specific!! We may later expand to offer services for other kids’ age groups as well, but this is our starting point for now.

Build a low-cost, low-effort prototype

If you’re a techie/expert and capable of building a low-cost/low-effort prototype in a few days, that could be your aid in communicating your idea. Depending on your product – hardware, software, drug, service, drone, robot, app, virtual currency, etc., it may or may not be possible to build a low-cost, low-effort prototype but I have heard stories of people successfully using easily found materials like paper, plastic, etc. to build complex hardware prototypes and using them to demonstrate their ideas. Web and mobile apps are a no-brainer.

Get out of the building

As Steve Blank says, “Get out of the building” and talk to your customers. The key is to not to pitch your product, but to get them to talk to you about their problems. Starting your pitch with “I have an awesome product that will solve your problem” will not take you far. Instead start with inquiring about their business problems. What keeps them awake at night and would they pay if someone offered them to solve that problem. There are plenty of tricks and techniques that you could use to find your customers. Though many times it starts with cold calls, cold emails, cold walk-ins, etc., over time you will find out what works or doesn’t work for you. Read how Aaron Patzer of Mint.com interviewed his customers at train station. For Yoyochimp I used a lot of cold calling and cold walk-ins to my customers’ (class and camp providers) offices located in strip malls and was surprised to see how willing these businesses were to share their problems with a complete stranger.

Build a landing page

Another neat trick that entrepreneurs use today is to create landing pages to validate their idea. Here is how it works:

Create a simple web page explaining your idea with graphics and text. Write a simple but crisp message explaining how your product works.

Create a simple form for visitors to sign up for, just name and email address, not a mile-long form

Now promote this page as if it were a real product/website/app, through Google adwords or social media. Spend no more than $100 on advertising.

If you get enough signups from your visitors, you know you are on the right track.

It is important your message and value proposition is simple yet compelling that users are willing to give their email address to you. Do spend time and effort crafting your one-page landing page.

There are quite a few websites that will let you easily build and host landing pages for free. There are free site builders such as Weebly, Wix, Strikingly, etc. you can use to build your 1 or 2 page website for free and start collecting leads.

Create a 2-minute video explaining your concept with graphics, audio, or your product demo and add this to the landing page, it could do wonders. See how Drew Houston’s video got him VC attention. Fiverr could be your friend to find help with some of these things for cheap.

Eavesdrop on LinkedIn groups or industry forums

There is quite a lot of learning you can achieve just by listening, reading and observing. Join industry forums and LinkedIn groups, monitor the conversations or best yet participate and ask questions, you will be surprised how much you get to learn from others.

These are the techniques that I used for my idea validation, but be creative and go wild, that’s why you are an entrepreneur – you don’t follow rules! Now that you know that the problem indeed exists on a large scale, your next step woud be to find out how big a market, in terms of dollars or other currency, is this, and who your competitors are. That is the topic for part 2 of the idea validation topic that I will publish next. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, share in the comments, if there are other techniques that you came across or used for your startup. Any out-of-the-box, creative ideas that worked for you?

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From Idea to CEO - Finding Your Inspiration

Who doesn’t dream about writing a blog series called Idea to IPO, but some of us don’t have it that easy. For us the day we can afford to quit our full time job and openly let the world know (through a change of title on LinkedIn) that we have a dream, is a BIG milestone! For me that day was a few months ago when I quit my job at HP to start Yoyochimp.  This blog, in honor of that milestone, is a series of many small steps and mis-steps that I took along the way to reach this stage. I hope this blog will help aspiring dreamers and doers to learn a few things from my mistakes or inspire others to make a few because…

 “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” 

― Albert Einstein

   On Ideas

 Most of the startup ideas come from the problems that you often face yourself, either in your personal or your professional life. Mark Zuckerberg was frustrated that he had to spend so much time finding “real” friends in real life, and thought to himself, "wouldn’t it be great if one could make friends with her friends’ friends online and skip the awkwardness of talking and socializing face to face", or, "how cool would it be to be able socialize while in the bathroom"!  And so, Facebook was born! Similarly, some folks had such hard time coming up with more than 140 characters at a time that Twitter was a natural answer to their shortcoming!  Ok, for the disclaimer,  having gone through this life myself, I have nothing but respect for any and all entrepreneurs out there,  and especially for Mark Zuckerberg, so no hard feelings there, right, Mark? Now, if you have tough time coming up with ideas for your business, look around and see what bothers you and what you wish could be done better. But seriously, thinking of becoming an entrepreneur and then looking for an idea is like tail wagging the dog. 

  My inspiration

Mine is a little less dramatic story compared to Mark or the Twitter founders – my idea came out of my own pain and frustration of trying to find alternate care or camps for my kids during summer/winter break when both I and my husband went to work or to find other activities to keep kids busy during weekends and after school. I spent way too much time researching, finding and booking these camps and classes for my kids. Finding these classes was one thing but scheduling drop-off, pickups, coordinating with friends and family, tracking payments, cancellations, refunds, make-up classes, etc., was a project by itself. I was forced to use some really sophisticated tools such as post-it reminders on the fridge, Google Calendar, Excel spreadsheet, etc., to manage the project. It was a great learning experience though; I learned how to manage time conflicts between me and my husband, to balance a shrinking budget, and to make optimal use of limited resources, such as my husband’s time. After suffering for almost 2 years, and talking to other parents who felt the same way, I thought this was the perfect solution to build for busy, working parents, and hence, the idea for Yoyochimp was born!

  And then there was the  business school

 It was 2012 and I was a year away from completing my MBA at UC Berkeley when I was overcome with the idea of doing something of my own. That’s what business schools do to you – they brainwash you and make you believe that your current job absolutely sucks and that you deserve a much better job, or that you were born to be an entrepreneur, that it’s your calling and if you don’t follow it, you are doomed.   I bet anyone who goes to business school, at some point of time dreams of striking it out on their own.  No, my job did not suck, in fact I enjoyed it, but  over time I was so consumed with this idea, that my job finally did start to suck.  The more I thought of this idea, the more my job sucked. I guess that’s a very natural phenomenon that happens to every entrepreneur who tries to start a startup while holding a full time job. You cannot like 2 jobs equally at the same time, just like you cant love 2 people at the same time (you know what I mean). But, I could not afford to say goodbye to my full-time job, not yet, the timing was just not right.

 They say ideas are cheap, until you make something of them. So that was the easy part - coming up with an idea! Now what? Well, the challenge was that mine was a “real” problem that many moms faced, hence I was a little skeptical as to whether this idea could really make it as big as Facebook or even take off the ground. So I set out to validate my idea, aka to find the product-market fit (start-up lingo).

Stay tuned to read my next article in the series where I tell you how to validate your startup idea, conduct market research and how to estimate the market size. 

Meanwhile, let us know what inspires you and where do your ideas come from? Do you have a formal method to evaluate your idea. Share your tips in the comments and I may end up including it in my next article, "How to validate your startup idea".

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A Mother's Musings on Father's Day!

While I don’t need an official “Father’s day” to praise the father of my kids, it is a perfect time to pay tribute to all dads out there, who despite their role in their kids’ lives haven’t seen much praise or recognition come their way. And not that dads are complaining about it, but it’s a perfect time for us moms to stop complaining about things that dads don’t do and step back and recognize all the great things that they do.

 A few decades ago, families with kids were mostly mom-oriented, primarily due to the fact the dads went out to work or to war and so moms had to stay back home to take care of  kids. Moms cooked and cleaned and helped the kids with their homework. And though both stay-at-home (SAH) and working moms continue with the same responsibilities today, things have started to change. A new trend of stay-at-home (SAHD) dads is emerging and it is catching up fast.

 According to recent United States census data, the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000 in the last decade. These are not your under-the-cover, Mr. Mom type of dads, who are shy to admit their role or status, instead these are the dads who proudly display their SAH status on their Facebook and Twitter profiles, these are the dads who take pride in doing arts and crafts at home with kids while moms are stepping out to go back to school or to carve out better careers, these are the dads who go crazy taking pictures and making movies of their kids’ smiling in their sleep,  throwing tantrums or of their pearly tear drops, just like this dad who filmed his baby everyday for 1 year and put together this movie and this dad who turns his toddler son into a super hero almost every day.

 The fact is, things will never be equal; moms, whether working, or at home will always end up spending more time or agonizing over kids more than dads do, because that’s how moms are, they worry a bit too much; they are perfectionists and so want things done perfectly; they feel guilty for not cajoling their kids enough. And just because moms agonize more doesn’t mean dads care less about their kids.

 In US, the notion of nucleus families has brought dads into the mix much more than it is in other countries, such as in India, where it is common for large families of mother, father and married sons to stay together along with their wives and kids, and share the cooking, cleaning and child-care responsibilities.  In US and other developed nations, dads are involved right from the time the baby is conceived; of course the fact that they have played a major role in the conception itself cannot be denied, but from initial doctor visits during pregnancy, to cutting the umbilical cord, or researching and making decision on baby item purchases, dads do play a major role.  Which family doesn’t have a picture/video of a dad dressed up in scrubs holding mom’s hand in delivery room or massaging his wife’s back when she is squirming in labor pain. Well, its unfortunate that men can’t enjoy this pain ( I say enjoy because its much more difficult to see other person go through the pain and watch helplessly), but that’s how God has made us moms… what can poor men do about it!  All a man can do is take Lamaze class with his wife, wake up to her mid-night cravings or repaint the nursery for the 5th time when the color doesn’t match up perfectly to mom’s expectations!

 But think about it, dads are the ones that have taught our kids to be brave and let those training wheels off as soon as the kids have learned to pedal the bike 2 feet straight without falling. Left to us moms, the teenagers would still be riding bikes with training wheels. And even though moms are labeled as “soccer moms”, it’s the dads who teach our daughters and sons to bend it like Beckham,  to shoot like Michael Jordan and to catch like Yogi Berra. While moms have to put up with the kids’ tantrums in the toy isle, it’s the dads who teach our kids to build stuff, from toys to tree-houses and from racing carts to rockets. While moms teach their daughters to bake the perfect cookies, it’s the dads who give away their daughters’ away to be the perfect wives.

 And though the world will continue to worship moms for a long time , dads have and will continue to play an irreplaceable role in our and our kids’ lives. They too are equally deserving of a foot massage, a back rub, a salute of respect, a warm hug and a special Dad’s Day!

Here’s wishing a VERY Happy Father’s Day to all the amazing dads out there!   Go Dads!!

[yoyochimp]

5 Things You’ll Need to Know to get a Tax Break on Camp Tuitions

Summer is supposed to be more relaxed, but for working parents it can get really complicated, since you have to find coverage for those hours usually spent in school and aftercare.  Most parents fill in the blanks with camps, daycare, vacation time, etc. and all of that takes planning.  In all the planning, don’t forget that your camp tuitions may be tax deductible.

 Here are some things to think about if you want to write off camp fees:

  1.       Your child must be going to day camp, not overnight camp. No, posh sailing camps in the Bahamas don’t count!

2.       Your child must be younger than 13. Yes, this is unfair, but in most states, kids older than 13 can stay at home by themselves. Scary thought, we know.

3.       Both spouses/partners must be working or looking for work. One spouse/partner can be in school. We think stay-at-home moms and dads deserve a break too, but at the moment, the IRS doesn’t agree with us.

4.       If you are divorced, usually only the custodial parent can take the credit.

5.       Child care tax breaks are credits, not deductions, so you can subtract them directly from the taxes you owe. This definitely makes it worth the time it takes to be organized with all the paperwork. For instance, you will need to know the tax ID number of the camp. If the camp won’t share that information, you might want to take a closer look at the camp.

For more information, here’s a good place to start: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/taxes/T054-C001-S003-get-a-tax-break-on-child-care-costs.html#L2YkO5R5P7GBzVg7.99

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What A Teacher Wants - A Teacher Thinks About Teacher Appreciation Week

 May 7 is Teacher Appreciation Day, and many schools observe the whole week as a chance to recognize teachers. For parents, of course, this becomes another trip to the store for “teacher gifts,” and that of course raises the questions of which teachers to gift, how much to spend, what would they want, etc. What if your child doesn’t like one of his teachers? What if your child likes only ONE of her teachers?

Well, to put one fear to rest, I have perused some of the “Teacher Appreciation” articles and websites and Pinterest ideas, and I can tell you that no teacher really wants most of those cute crafty ideas. What is cute and crafty for one, when multiplied by 25 or 30 (or multiples of 30 if you teach middle or high school) just become wasteful and overwhelming.

 After almost 10 years of teaching, I can tell you that most of the scarves, cheap jewelry, and obvious re-gifts have moved on to Goodwill.  But what I really want and cherish are these:

Thoughtful and Personalized Hand-made Gifts What I HAVE saved, and what I look at and use frequently, are some coffee cups that groups of my students made together that they personalized with their names and some kind words. If you have the time and the means, taking a study group to one of those pottery-making places can result in a practical souvenir that will always be treasured. Also, anything handmade by my students was wonderful.

 Office Supplies In addition, I always appreciated office supply gift cards.  Every teacher spends a lot of their own money on class supplies, so help with that is always appreciated.  Grocery store cards are great too – all that Kleenex adds up! If you must buy something, gifts of colorful paper clips, sticky pads, colored pens, whiteboard markers, scissors and glue sticks would probably be very appreciated. Scissors and staplers tend to walk out of classrooms for some reason, but they are always needed. And office supplies are easy to divide into plastic bags for multiple teachers.

 Nice Notes But really, what every teacher wants, and what I have always saved and cherish, are notes, which are free. Whether they are handwritten on stationery, scribbled on yellow pads, or emailed, they mean the world to me. Remember, teachers exist in a world where it is very easy to get appreciation and affection from children and teens, but not recognition from adults. Just a note to say one thing you noticed the teacher is doing that had an impact on your student, will make a huge difference to that teacher. And you can easily send notes to some teachers but not others if you want. If you email the note, the teacher can forward it to her principal or mentor when she or he is having her periodic performance reviews. That can be very, very valuable, particularly in large schools where principals don’t get a chance to spend time in most classrooms.

So as you buy or make your teacher’s day gifts, think of all the wonderful things your child has learned and experiences she has had that she will cherish through out her life and then just share those experiences with the teacher in the form of a gift– THAT is your greatest gift to the teacher which he/she will really appreciate and cherish!

 -By Kathryn Peyton

--Kathryn Peyton taught in both middle and high schools  in Fairfax County Public Schools (VA) from 2004-2012. 

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8 bay area bookstores creating magic in the age of Kindle

“The Bookshop has a thousand books,  All colors, hues, and tinges, And every cover is a door That turns on magic hinges.” 

― Nancy Byrd Turner

While bookstores in other parts of the country have struggled, the Bay Area is still home to an amazing assortment of independent booksellers.  Some are well-known names, such as Green Apple Books on Clement in San Francisco, which won the 2013 Best of the Bay award (as usual), Book Passage (The Bay Area's liveliest bookstore) in Corte Madera, and Kepler’s in Menlo Park.

 We’ve put together a list of eight or so other bookstores worth a notice, and maybe a drive, for families who read.

Omnivore Books for the foodie in you (San Francisco): This is a reading cook’s paradise, with new, used and antiquarian cookbooks and other books on drinking and eating. They also offer a unique assortment of magazines and journals sure to get your taste buds tingling.  If you’re a foodie, get on their mailing list because they have great events with local and national chefs and food movement types. Located in the very family-friendly neighborhood of Noe Valley in San Francisco, this would be a great morning outing for coffee and cooking inspiration.  3885 Cesar Chavez Street, SF.

Borderland Books for teenagers (San Francisco): If you have teenagers, head to this haven in the ultra-hip Mission District for lovers of science fiction, fantasy, horror & mystery books. It’s open seven days a week until 8pm, so plenty of chances to fit it in between sports and theater practices. Like many independent bookstores, they carry new and used books in their genre, and they have a cat! The employees are highly informed, and there’s a laid-back café to read in afterwards.  866 Valencia Street, SF.

Marcus Book Stores, the community bookstore (San Francisco and Oakland): Founded in 1960, the San Francisco bookstore is the oldest black bookstore in the country, and they have a second location in Oakland. The SF location is presently in jeopardy, but the Oakland store is a community institution, hosting school field trips and generously supporting Oakland schools. According to the SF Bay Guardian, “every black writer and intellectual in the US knows the store; celebrities, activists, athletes, and literary giants — including Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Walter Mosely, Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, and Toni Morrison — have all passed through the doors.” 1712 Fillmore Street , San Francisco; 3900 Martin Luther King Junior Way, Oakland.

The Book Shop, the old-fashioned, charming kind (Hayward): Another community institution, Hayward residents love to talk about their childhood memories of this store, which is now 54 years young. The Book Shop is the place to go if you want your kids to experience a real old-fashioned bookstore, the way they were before Costco and Amazon. Readers love their “classic book smell” and the bookseller Renee, who’s been there since 1995. Great kids’ section, great selection of books in Spanish, and staff who know every required book on the reading list of the local schools.  1007 B Street, Hayward.

The Reading Bug for little cuties (San Carlos): For the younger set, you can’t beat the charming Reading Bug, which is a specialty shop for children’s books.  Filled with cute nooks, and mushroom shaped stools and a play area, this store is a delightful way to get your younger children excited about book shopping. They even have a room for birthday parties. Ask them about books with strong girl characters, or the best books for early readers. 785 Laurel Street, San Carlos.

Hicklebee’s for the entire family (San Jose): Hicklebee’s bills themselves as a place for “extraordinary books for the entire family, but they are best known for their children’s books. Of particular note is their Hicklebee’s Hall of Fame. You can find the acorn that fell on Chicken Little's head, Charlotte’s web, and the magic pebble Sylvester held, among many other wonderful things. Authors and illustrators have added to the collection. 1378 Lincoln Avenue, San Jose.

Digital Guru  for the geeky ones(Sunnyvale): At the other end of the spectrum, if you have an older child who wants to geek out and can’t find the right technology books in your local bookstore, take a field trip to the temple of nerd-dom.  With the demise of Borders, it is harder and harder to find good tech books. While Amazon has an awesome selection, with tech and programming books, layout and presentation really matter, so it’s nice to thumb through them before you buy. Located in Sunnyvale, natch, Digital Guru is one of the last technology bookstores in the country. Closer to the city, you can check out the Stanford University Bookstore, the area’s largest bookstore (although much of the real estate is dedicated to Stanford swag) in Palo Alto. Digital Guru is at 546 Lawrence Expressway #3, Sunnyvale.

Copperfield’s for wine-lovers(various North Bay locations): A decent-sized chain of independent bookstores managing to survive in this tough time? Who knew? Copperfield’s is primarily located in Sonoma and Napa counties, but they just opened a store in downtown San Rafael (Marin). A bookstore makes a great place to kick back and rest before, after or during a day of wine tasting (which can be really boring for kids if you bring them along). Our recommendations are the Petaluma store, which is large, airy and has a great used book department, and Healdsburg, because it’s Healdsburg. 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma; 106 Matheson Street (on the square), Healdsburg.

Image Courtesy: Flickr.  El Ateneo bookstore, housed inside an old Theater, on 1860 Santa Fe Avenue in Barrio Norte, is a feast for the eyes for all book lovers. A must see while in Buenos Aires

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Facebook wants you to pay, …or fail!

You don’t have the time, but you know it’s important, so you invest a lot of effort into creating engaging, amusing, action-oriented content for Facebook.  You develop an impressive list of followers and you’re happy to see your posts getting attention, and maybe even some coupons or other “calls to action” get used.  Then all of a sudden, you’ve hit a brick wall, and no matter what you post, it seems to go nowhere.  Sound familiar?

 Most businesses on Facebook experienced a dramatic drop in the circulation of their content this spring, thanks to a new strategy (and some new math) Facebook is using. Basically, only posts that receive an inordinate number of shares, clicks, comments etc. will be routed to more than a small subset of your followers. So if you have 5000 followers, you will probably be lucky if 10-20% of them see most of your precious content.  Unless, of course, you start paying Facebook to “boost” your content to your own fans and others.

 Why did they do this to us?

The newest format of the News Feed, with its larger fonts, bigger pictures, etc. is designed to help Facebook compete against the more visual social media like Instagram and Pinterest. The new format takes up a lot of room on a screen, which made it more difficult for Facebook to fit all the other content most users have asked to see. And of course, Facebook also must continue to put “sponsored” posts in front of users, making the News Feed “real estate” even more precious. From Facebook’s view, they are rewarding those who can create content their users are willing and inspired to interact with. And of course, being a public company now, Facebook needs revenue and profits, and this change will undoubtedly force many marketers to increase their ad buys for Facebook. 

 Impact on Small Businesses

 As we all know, major strategic shifts like this often have unintended consequences. Intended or not, this change falls particularly hard on smaller business and nonprofits who work with families and children, as well as other businesses with lofty missions. In addition to the increased time needed to produce better content, which is already a rare commodity, staying relevant may force you to be more controversial, glib, outrageous, and superficial.  This may be ok if you’re a pizza restaurant, but if your brand depends on being trustworthy, this can be troublesome. We know our summer camps and other small businesses work very hard to cultivate a relationship with their customers based on reliability, competence and sensitivity.  Your customers may enjoy seeing your updates on Facebook but appreciate that you aren’t always trying to get them to “like” or “share” things. Some of them are also are probably not going to appreciate it if you post silly things about cats, babies or Hollywood stars, or if you post things that make fun of others or have a political slant, unless those topics are relevant to your main mission. Trying to stimulate audience participation can undermine your brand and alienate or confuse your customers.  In addition, the new changes will mean that your Facebook presence must be monitored fairly constantly, to assess what is working and what’s not, and to boost potentially popular content (if you have the budget). We imagine this will be very burdensome to small businesses who are already challenged to stay current on the various social media platforms.

 What to do?

 Your followers are probably a unique group with focused interests and preferences, so it is difficult to fashion “across the board” guidelines that will work for everyone. The first rule is obviously to pay attention to your followers and give them what they want. Here are a few other things to try, some of which seem contradictory, but they are based on our own experience and other helpful ideas we’ve gleaned along the way:

Concentrate on posting original content on your status updates.  Facebook is evidently still rewarding fresh content, and they are penalizing pages that recycle popular memes, graphics, etc.

For every post, ask yourself, “will anyone care?” Don’t publish what no one will care about.

Post your photos and videos, as they tend to motivate your followers to click the “like” button.  

Link to other Facebook posters who have attracted interaction, but in our experience, you should avoid linking to newspaper articles and other mainstream content unless you think they will attract controversy or affection. Our posts that link to small organizations which have similar concerns seem to get more traction than our links to the New York Times or other popular sites.

If you can do it without hurting your brand, link to fun quizzes, puzzles etc. that require your followers to click on your page and get directed to another site. These types of “post reach” interactions seem to be favored, but keep the above comment about mainstream media in mind as well.

Avoid “like-bait.”  Facebook is penalizing people who ask users to “like” content, or who expressly request users to comment or share. (Yes, this does seem unfair since they are only promoting posts which get liked, shared or attract comments.)

Re-assess the value of Facebook to your marketing strategy. Consider de-emphasizing Facebook in favor of LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, or other social media sites.

If all else fails, follow the famous example of the Eat24 blog, which discontinued using Facebook with a breakup letter that went viral. 

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Climbing The Walls - These 5 Benefits May Surprise You

The first time I ever visited a climbing gym, I was six years old and attending a birthday party. I remember walking in and staring in wonder at the towering climbing walls. For the next several hours I did my best monkey impression, climbing everything in sight. By the end of the party, with my bountiful youthful energy completely exhausted, I came away with only one thought: indoor rock climbing is serious fun!

More than a decade later, indoor rock climbing is now a serious nationwide obsession.  Here are some reasons why you’ll love it when you try it:

The thrill of reaching the top of a wall after a challenging climb is something everybody can appreciate, regardless of gender or age. This makes it a perfect family activity; going indoor rock climbing means no more bickering about who wants to do what. When you or your children reach the top of a wall, it’s all smiles.

The level of entertainment is matched only by the health benefits that come from a day of climbing. When you are up on a wall, you’re working every muscle in your body.

Working out your whole body is crucial, but what is often overlooked is that climbing also works out the most important muscle in the body: your brain! Climbing a wall can be like solving a puzzle, and in the process of figuring it out your child will learn valuable skills such as problem solving, self-confidence, trust in others, and perseverance.

Most gyms feature automatic climbing walls which do not require the assistance of a belayer (the person who secures the rope and ensures the safety of the climber), so first-timers can simply walk in and start climbing!

The price of planning family activities can sometimes be pretty daunting. However, indoor climbing gym can provide you with hours of fun for surprisingly low prices. In fact, at City Beach in Fremont, a climbing day pass is only $17. With IMAX and 3D movie tickets exceeding that price nowadays, the solution to your rainy Saturday boredom should be obvious.

And of course “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”  ― Ed Viesturs, No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks

If you haven’t gotten your family climbing the walls yet, it’s high time to round up the kids and check out this great sport. Top Bay Area Climbing Gyms include City Beach Rock Climbing in Fremont, Planet Granite in San Francisco, Vertex Climbing Center in Santa Rosa, and Touchstone Climbing in San Jose. 

TJ Brown is a student at Santa Clara University and writes for the Kenwood (CA) Press and other local publications.

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6 Super Simple Easter Projects For The Craft-Impaired

Easter used to be a fun holiday where you bought the PAAS® egg-dying kit, picked up some marshmallow Peeps, stuffed your kids’ baskets with fake green grass and chocolate, and called it a day.  Now, of course, thanks to the craft craze and Pinterest, Easter has become yet another holiday for people like me to feel like incompetent losers.

 I’m not kidding when I say I’m “non-crafty”.  I’m the gal who tried to “color wash” the walls of her baby’s bedroom, a la Martha Stewart, only to be asked what kind of anti-mildew I was using on the walls. When I tried to dye Easter eggs with “natural” dyes made from tea and onion skins, my eggs came out looking like toxic sludge.  In short, my attempts at being one of those crafty moms have landed me solidly in the world of PinterestFail

 For other parents out there who break out in hives at the thought of wielding a glue gun, I’ve compiled a list of 5 “even I could do this” Easter projects. 

This Funny Bunny Hat is really cute, and calls for nothing more exotic than construction paper and maybe a couple of pipe cleaners

Easiest egg idea ever, but still cute.  Cut little hearts out of masking tape and attach them to hard boiled eggs before you dye them

Another easy-squeezy egg project: wrap rubber bands around eggs to make interesting stripes on your dyed eggs.  This website is so awesome, they even tell you how to hard boil an egg

Slightly more ambitious, but even I can fritz paint off a toothbrush to create speckled eggs. The tricky part would be to get the specks on all sides of the egg, so this can’t be done at the very last minute

 This project might veer into the toxic sludge category, but who would care since mushing around in shaving cream is so much fun

 Finally, this is my “personal challenge” for this year.  I’m going to forgo the yucky pastel melts, but I think these would look great using regular melted chocolate and pretty Easter candies.

I’ll let you know how it goes. And I’m still going to pick up those Peeps!

More easter craft ideas on our Pinterest page

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This summer, be a proud survivor! Find and plan your kids' summer camps on Yoyochimp and make your kids proud!

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3 Misconceptions about Autism we bet you are guilty of too

The UN declared April 2 World Autism Awareness Day in 2007. The “day” has since morphed to Autism Awareness Month, and now autism experts would like us to see the month as not about “awareness” but about “acceptance” and “appreciation.” Autism advocates think the condition has been presented too negatively and too dramatically in the past, partially to attract investment in research, resulting in negative stereotypes and misconceptions.

 We are learning new things about autism all the time, of course, and it may be difficult to stay informed for those not directly affected. 

 Misconception # 1: Autism is a mental Illness

We know that autism is a neurological condition, not a mental illness, with a broad range of characteristics that vary widely in severity. The hallmark characteristic is impaired social interaction.  People with autism have “revealed abnormalities” in brain structure and neurotransmitter levels.  The causes of the condition have not been identified, although there is a lot of “bad science” on this topic.

  Misconception # 2: Environmental factors contribute to Autism

Genes may have something to do with it, as parents with one autistic child are more likely than the general population to have another one. No environmental factor has been proven to contribute to the incidence of autism. Boys are four times more likely than girls to have an autism spectrum disorder. We know that the number of diagnoses of autism has increased dramatically in the last thirty years, but there is controversy over whether this means there has been an increase in cases, or whether the diagnosis process has improved. A new CDC report, based on 2008 data, raised the official estimate of autism prevalence among children in the United States from 1 in 110 to 1 in 88.

 Misconception # 3: Medical practitioners are always right about diagnosis

Janet Price-Ferrell, Executive Director of FIRST, a nonprofit supporting people with disabilities and their families in Asheville, NC, takes the CDC numbers with a grain of salt. She is concerned that, on occasion, children are incorrectly diagnosed with autism when they actually have other conditions, including seizure disorders.  She fears that parents may be seeking an autism diagnosis for their child because there is less stigma against, and better support for, autism than for mental illnesses and other conditions that may have some of the same symptoms.  In the worst case, she fears, some children who have behavior issues caused by neglect and abuse are receiving an autism diagnosis instead.

 For more on current knowledge about autism, we recommend the following:

 The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, edited by Shannon Des Roches Rosa and others

The Neurotribes blog on the Public Library of Science website

 Loving Lampposts: Living Autistic, a film by Todd Drezner

RethinkingAutism.com

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5 Tips For Surviving A Day At The Museum With Little Kids

“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.”  ― Orhan Pamuk

We love NPR’s excellent Tell Me More news-talk program hosted by Michel Martin.  Tell Me More often has great features for parents, offering sound and sensible advice from fresh and diverse voices.

 With Spring Break around the corner, Michel recently organized a group of moms/museum experts to talk about an activity we all WANT our children to enjoy—visits to museums.  Realistically, however, museums are not naturally appealing to many younger children. Museums have come a long way toward welcoming families, but a little preparation can help make these visits even more productive and enjoyable.

 Here are some pieces of advice from Michele’s panel:

 Most important, review the museum’s website beforehand to chart out which exhibits might appeal to your kids, where they are in the building, and what special child-oriented activities might be available. Look for interactive activities, especially.

Do not assume that strollers can be accommodated in all exhibits

Be aware of the potential for sensory overload and overstimulation. Have a plan for what you want to see and inform kids ahead of time about what they will be seeing. Don’t try to see too much.

Allow children to experience the museum in unique ways. For instance, bring crayons and drawing pads and let them draw what they see. Some kids like to ask questions and be drawn into a conversation.  Some kids like to learn about things ahead of time and then explain them to their family members and friends during the visit.

Play a game called “Bet you Didn’t Notice.” Say you’re looking at a right whale at the Natural History Museum. You can go back and forth with ideas like – “oh, I bet you didn't notice the whale's belly button, did you,” or “I bet you didn't notice those whiskers on that whale's chin.” This is a good way to connect more with an object, and it also requires everyone to slow down and look a bit more closely.

 If you’d like to hear more, check out the Tell Me More transcript of the show on NPR.com

If museums still scare you, you can find other activities on Yoyochimp to keep your kids away from screens of all sizes!

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Thousand miles to go....

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Laozi

.....that single step for us is the launch of Yoyochimp, and I sincerely hope that we have more than a thousand miles to go! 

It all started 2 years ago when one day I took a day off from work to plan summer vacation for my kids, not the kind with family and all, but for the kids to spend their summer away from home… at summer camps. As a working mom, I had no time to entertain kids at home nor listen to their constant bickering about boredom. I started the planning very late. It was almost May and I was frustrated that I could hardly find any good camps for the kids. The ones I liked were filled up, others had long wait list and the rest ....well there weren't too many good options left. I kept hopping from one website to another in hopes of finding something that kids would enjoy (so that I could feel less guilty!).

The straw that broke the camel’s back

After spending an entire day browsing, searching, Facebook’ing and texting friends, filling forms, calling camps, mailing checks and creating spreadsheets with all the information, I thought I had enough, something had to give, and that day I decided to take the matter in my own hands!

I and my co-founder started conceiving this idea of building a one-stop shop for kids' classes and camps where parents could find activity classes for their children, enroll kids for the camps and activities and then pay online - all in one place, without having to spend an entire day searching and filling out dozens of forms. The idea kept brewing in my head for 2 years, before I had courage to take my first step. And I am so glad that I did take that first step.

Blood, sweat and glory

It has been a long, arduous journey until here – the one filled with fear, frustration, excitement, and countless sleepless nights. The website which was initially supposed to be a quick and dirty prototype turned out to be a solid, complex product with sophisticated architecture and cutting-edge technology. We had actually ended up building 2 products - a Facebook and a Yelp, all in in 6 months with 5 people, 2 of us holding full time jobs and managing families! It was no small feat by any means, but that's also why it was fun and exciting!

I couldn’t wait to start showing off my new baby! I started demonstrating my product through mockups even before it was ready.  Businesses instantly liked what they saw. One of the businesses got so excited on seeing the demo that they instantly wanted to severe their business relationship with another big partner because they thought that Yoyochimp was the perfect outlet and marketing tool for their business and they didn't want to pay through their nose to this other partner. Others were so excited that they started referring me to other contacts in the industry, even providing contacts for VC funding! It was indeed an overwhelming experience!

The road ahead…

Only time will tell where this road leads to, but just being a traveler of this journey has been a lifetime experience for me and I consider myself lucky to have had this opportunity - an opportunity to build and create something that I am so passionate about and so deeply care about. There is no greater joy than being a parent but it also comes with its own share of trials and tribulations. I hope Yoyochimp will help make your life as a parent at least a tad bit easier if not a whole lot and that you will keep us  company in this journey!

Here it is…. to happy kids, and happier families!

Give your child a gift of unforgettable camp memories! Find the right one for your child at www.yoyochimp.com