Grasshopper Blog

What’s the best part about owning your own business?

At Grasshopper, we love getting to know our customers and learning about their stories. In fact, we created an entire page Tell Us Your Story page on our site so that we could better learn about our customers and their entrepreneurial journey.

If there’s one thing that always stands out to us in our customer’s stories, it’s how they got started and why they went into business for themselves. There is one thing however that we don’t hear a lot about and that’s why you all stay in business for yourselves and what the best part about owning your own business is. So we took to our Facebook page the other day to find out what it is you think is the best part about owning your own business.

Here’s what our Facebook fans said:

Now, we want to hear from you! Fill in the blank: The best part about owning your own business is __________.

Is it Time For You to Add A QR Code?

Originally developed in Japan, QR (Quick Response) codes have just recently started to generate some buzz and make their imprint here in the United States. Even if you don’t know what they are, you’ve most likely seen them; they’re the black and white Rorschach-looking square images seen on a growing number of products and media advertisements.

In brief, a QR code is a two-dimensional (2D) barcode of pixelated squares that mobile phone users scan to retrieve website URLs, product information, music, text, videos, coupons and much more.

While QR codes are still a relatively new trend, QR code use grew by 1,200% during the second half of 2010 [tweet], and a 4,549% increase in QR scanning traffic was seen in the first quarter of 2011, according to a report from Mobio Identity Systems, an international marketing and mobile payments company.

With smart phone adoption surpassing 100 million owners (Comscore), it may be time for your small business to consider adding a QR code to your marketing mix.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons:

Pros:

Easy to use. QR codes can be adopted to just about anything, from coupons to napkins to emails.
Myriad of uses. There are hundreds of uses for QR codes, and many of which haven’t even been thought of yet. While business cards, customer mailings, website visits, For Sale signs, and product specs are more common QR codes uses, other creative applications include T-shirts, loyalty programs, and personalized voice gift messages.
Inexpensive marketing. Since QR codes are rather simple to set up, they’re a cost-effective marketing tool. There are plenty of sites on the web that will set up a QR code for your business for free.
Appeals to consumers with high disposable income. According to Mobio, the highest demographic users are those in the 35 to 44 age group, who often have more disposable income to spend.
Gain a competitive edge. Small businesses who adopt QR codes while still in its early stages can develop a competitive edge.
Curiosity factor. The newness of the unique-looking pixelated square images cause mobile phone users to scan them to see “what they’re all about”.

Cons:

Opens the door for malicious QR codes. Malicious QR codes can be infused with malware that not only puts a user’s computer or mobile phone at risk, but their privacy too.
QR code scanning can be time-consuming. Users with slow connections or a variable 3G signal may get frustrated with waiting for the code’s landing page to appear.
Users must download a QR code reader. In the future, smartphones will no doubt be equipped with built-in QR code readers. For now, though, users must download an app to be able to scan QR codes.
Lack of QR code awareness among consumers. Although roughly 14 million consumers in the U.S. are scanning QR codes, that only represents 6.2% of mobile users in the U.S. [tweet], reports comScore, a global digital marketing intelligence measurement company.

There are tons of creative ways you can use QR codes to your advantage and although they may not be right for every business, they’re certainly something to think about! So, how are other businesses using QR codes?

Let’s take a look at some of the good, bad and interesting uses of QR codes:

Good

As we mentioned above there are a lot of great ways to use QR codes for your small business. Why not use a try using a QR code to grab customer’s information and in exchange offer them a coupon like The Cure Starts Now Foundation?

Want more reviews for your business ? Just create a QR code that links to your Google places or Yelp and make it easy for your customers. You could put this QR code on the table at your restaurant, or on the door of your store.

Make your customers lives easier when purchasing something from you by putting a QR code right next to your product so they can easily learn more about the product like Best Buy does. You could even put a QR code next to the product and have it link to a product demo so your customers can see the product in action.

Bad

When it comes to bad QR codes, we think Scott Stratten covers this topic much better than we could. Watch this video for some examples of how NOT to use QR codes. (This video is pretty awesome.)

Interesting

It looks like they’ve thought of everything! What about using a QR code to help farmers when their cows go to auction? Think we’re joking? T-Mobile came up with the idea to spray cows with QR codes before going to auction instead of using the expensive chips farmers currently use to identify their cows. The QR codes can be read by any smart phone and would link to a page with all the information a buyer would need on that cow. Cool idea, right?

As you can see the possibilities are endless for QR codes. But, before you create a QR code don’t forget to think about how people will actually use it and make sure it makes sense!

What are some ways you’re using QR codes for your business? Have you seen any creative uses of QR codes?

Update Mode Testing This Sunday 04/01

MAINTENANCE ALERT: On Sunday, April 1st from 1 PM to 2 PM EST we’ll be testing out our backup feature Update Mode to ensure it works as designed.

Please note that this test will only affect a small number of our customers. During this maintenance window, if your account is affected, your calls and voicemails will be forwarded to the backup phone number and email address listed in your Update Mode settings.

Check your Update Mode settings now >>

Details

When: Sunday, April 1st
Time: 1 PM – 2 PM EST
Who: Only a small number of customers
What: If someone calls your Grasshopper number while Update Mode is live, they’ll hear a ringing tone while we attempt to reach you at the backup number on your account. If you can’t be reached, your callers will hear the following voicemail message: Thanks for calling. Our normal phone system is currently being updated, so there may be a delay before we’re able to return your call. If you know another way to reach us, please do. Otherwise, please leave a message after the tone and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Any voicemails received during Update Mode will be forwarded to the backup email address on file.

Check your Update Mode settings now >>

What’s Update Mode? You can learn more about our backup feature here.

Have a question? Give us a call at 800-820-8210 or shoot us an email to support@grasshopper.com.

Meet: David

It’s Meet the Employees Monday here at Grasshopper. This week’s employee spotlight is on David Janelle. David works on the user experience team as the Interaction Designer. David designs all of our websites, banner ads and print materials for Grasshopper. It’s his job to make sure everything fits with our brand while looking as appealing as possible. He’s working on some pretty awesome stuff right now, so keep an eye out for it!

Let’s get to know David…

What’s the one item you can’t live without?

My phone or some other device with music on it. My life has changed (for the better) since I discovered Spotify.

If you were an animal, which one would you be?

A river otter, without a doubt. They’re clever, playful and can swim super-fast (though that last part might be wishful thinking).

How old would you be if you could be any age?

Probably 9 or 10. You never appreciate recess and being able to play when you get home from school until you’ve grown up.

If you could be any key on the keyboard, what one would you be?

Caps Lock. I switch between being quiet and loud pretty fluidly.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A fighter pilot. My dad was a commercial airline pilot and we went up in small planes all the time, so I always wanted to fly really fast fighter jets. Apparently you need decent vision, though.

Fun facts – have anything interesting people should know about you?

I had a cheeseburger named after me when I was in high school. I was a dishwasher at a local restaurant and because I kept doing such an awesome job, they’d make me whatever I wanted. I always asked for cheeseburgers, and one day the cooks thought it would be funny to take a 16oz hamburger, a loaf of bread and a couple thick slices of cheese and make an absurd cheeseburger. They called it the Dave Janelle and put it on the menu. I don’t think they had any takers.

Connect with David:

Contest Results: And the winner is…

Thank you to everyone who submitted a startup dream team and to all those who voted! The results are in and the winner of our Take Your Dream Team to the Final Four contest is Paige Piper. Congratulations to Paige and her startup dream team, the Flyers! Paige won two tickets to both the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four & National Championship games as well as a 4 night stay at the Omni Royal Hotel in New Orleans.

Paige’s winning startup dream team:

Team name: Flyers

CEO: Gary C. Kelly (Southwest Airlines) Location: Washington, DC Product type: Web app Funding: Angel Investment Exit strategy: Go public Pitch:

Flyers is an incredibly unique and winning business idea. Flyers will create an application for the web to store all of your media as well as sync systems so that all electronic devices that have the necessary capabilities can have the multiple forms of media on them. Up until now Apple has been one of the only successful companies to sync multiple devices with an easy interface, yet many consumers have switching costs and may prefer to use a more socially responsible company. Flyers can make this happen. With a dream team led by Gary C. Kelly of Southwest, a known successful leader who consistently strives to outperform the competitor, there will be a unique, dedicated team of workers. Flyers will set a new standard and allow consumers more freedom of choice and force companies to innovate to gain brand loyalty.

We couldn’t have held this content without voters, so thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for the startup dream teams! Anyone who voted for a team was eligible for 1 of 4 $50 Amazon gift cards. The winners of these gift cards are:

Tori Pierce
Mike Krupit
Sean Jeffries
Paul Cryer

Congratulations to everyone who won and thank you all for participating!