Changing the Des Moines Small Business Landscape

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."

That is a quote from a 1900th century German Poet Christian Friedrich Hebbel.  This is true of my companies newest business venture.  We are attempting to change the landscape of Des Moines small business by taking a more socially responsible and 100% local approach to the Groupon and LivivngSocial group coupon buying model.  Our new startup is called DSM Daily.  Hopefully you have heard of us if you are from around Des Moines.  

In two and a half months we will have gone from a non-existent company to launching with over 10,000 people from the Des Moines area signed up.  With the vast majority of our sign-ups coming through the use of Social Media.

So how are we changing the Des Moines small business landscape, and why can we only do it with tons of passion?  

When you tell everyone  you know that you are starting a local Groupon competitor, they tend to look at you one of two ways.  "What's Groupon?" or "Good luck with that (dont' forget to visualize their smirking grin!)".  Then you tell people that you only want to offer deals from locally owned businesses and charge half the commission that Groupon charges and they really start to look at you like you are crazy.  So without passion we would be left with reason, and reason tells you that a local startup with a lot less money, and a lot less advertising could never compete with Groupon and LivingSocial.  Then you start to travel down this path and tell people what it is all about, and all of a sudden they are sharing it with their friends, and you see peoples passion in supporting something local.  

We want to draw attention to and build sustaining relationships with the businesses we offer deals with.  We want the consumers who buy our daily deal to go into it knowing they are supporting a locally owned business, and we want the consumer to go in with the mind set of potentially becoming a life-long customer to the business offering the deal.  Sustainable and successful communities support each other and shopping locally is the epitome of creating a sustainable community.  

From a business prospective, we are giving businesses the chance to get their name in front of thousands of potential customers, and do it at a pricing model that is significantly more affordable than Groupon's.  Ultimately our success will be driven by the consumers who have signed-up and our ability to find local businesses that people should be and are interested in supporting.  Our goal in 6 months time is to have 30,000 or more people signed-up.  No other advertising model besides large events (like the Super Bowl) will be able to reach more people in the local community on a daily basis.  This can dynamically change a business overnight!  Thousands of new potential customers will see your product, learn who you are, and be challenged with supporting you over sending their money out of the community.

We launch April 18th, if you have any questions you can find me pretty easily.

Aaron