The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: Totem
Quick Pitch: Totem — a press pages generator — displays company accomplishments and social facets in one place, cutting out rigorous searches for PR information.
Genius Idea: Totem wants to bridge small businesses and media outlets by providing both parties with a better initial experience with each other.
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
In a world where company "About Us" pages are typically meager and PR contacts are about impossible to find, Totem stands to help spread good news.
Think of Totem as LinkedIn for companies — instead of laying out the amazing accomplishments of one individual, you are laying out what's great about your company. Most importantly, Totem lays out all the pieces of information a reporter would need to put together a great story about the company.
Free and premium accounts allow for a standalone website. Premium accounts come with a customizable sub-domain name, such as press.YourCompanyName.com. Premium accounts allow for more customization and branding opportunities for the company.
"Most press pages suck. The press and influencers are your earliest and most important audience. Yet, they are served so poorly," says CEO and co-founder Josh Jones-Dilworth.
Jones-Dilworth, founder of his own PR and marketing consulting firm, says Totem was created with a "scratch your own itch" mentality. He recalls helping early-stage tech companies with PR endeavors.
Most businesses Jones-Dilworth worked with had no press information online or websites, which made finding logos, videos and bios very hard to find. It was "confounding" to him.
The media is likely to talk to someone else or feature another company because of a lack of an online track record, recent press or contact information.
Totem was created two years ago in Austin, Texas. It offers press page templates that are beautiful and simple, so that updating information will not take a tech genius. Members of a company can collaborate and contribute to the making of a press page.
In the template, there's room for press contacts, general information and items journalists often ask for — staff bios, headshots, logos, screenshots and videos.
"It is absolutely for small businesses and startups. They are the people that get the primary benefits," he said. "If the press loves Totem, it's serving target market."
Like a great business card handed out at parties, Totem shows off recent press articles, achievements and details that company websites usually leave out — physical address, number of employees, founded date and direct press contacts all in one place.
"I think that a best case is to have homepage focused on users and a press page all about press," Jones-Dilworth says. "Most totem users go from no press page to having a great press page."
The Totem team hopes to help at least 100,000 small businesses create press pages and improve their visibility by the end of the year. Though, they note there are millions of startups that don't have utilize a press page.
The development of Totem started two years ago with seed money saved up and chipped in by friends, family and colleagues. The Totem team is proud of making such an elegant, simple product with about $150,000.
Totem is completely free to use because creators want as many people using it as possible.
"This is really about getting people off the sidelines and into game," Jones-Dilworth says, hoping the millions of startups he sees without press pages online will begin to get company information out on the digital social sphere.
Image Courtesy of Flickr, loop_oh.
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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