The Smartest Shops You Never Heard Of
Pizza Powered by Tech
Written by Steve McGarry.
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We already know that San Francisco coffee shops are very tech savvy. I didn’t realize pizza shop were too — some even more so than startups!
When I moved to San Francisco, one of my goals was to meet as many people as possible, especially small business owners — regardless of whether they were “startups” or not. This, surprisingly enough, included a vast list of by-the-slice pizza shops that were open late (who can turn down cheap pizza?).
I usually end up at these pizza shops after a night of meeting with — remember, meeting with, NOT networking with! — startup founders and operators. After events, there are mixers. After mixers, there are bars. After bars, there are pizza shops.
This is what thousands of entrepreneurs do every night in San Francisco / Silicon Valley. Why? There are dozens of founder meetups and startup pitching events going on. Every day. Simultaneously.
Pizza shops are everywhere in downtown San Francisco.
These late night wonders are owned and operated by amazing, hard working, business owners. I quickly learned that the employees and owners of these businesses more tech savvy than most entrepreneurs I have met! To be fair, most of the entrepreneurs I’ve met are hungry and passionate, but very new to the startup (and sometimes even tech) world.
This boggled my mind. I had to get some answers to put my mind to ease. What better way than to “get out of the building” and get a data set?
- I went to 10 pizza shops in downtown San Francisco.
- I asked the owners and employees how they were utilizing apps and social media to promote their business.
- Every single shop told me about more apps and social media tricks than I expected; some apps were even new to me!
- The average pizza shop (out of my small data set) is using 5 apps to promote their business. These range from delivery to local rating services.
- The average pizza shop had 6 stickers on the front window promoting these apps and social media tools — some even had up to 20 stickers!
I naturally talked with them about FunnelFeed, Twitter engagement, and how it can help their business. To my utter surprise, some were already using FunnelFeed.
Want to get a free pizza slice next time you’re at a pizza shop? Make them a tool that increases sales by 10%!
Interestingly, they were using FunnelFeed in a way we had not anticipated. When someone is in the car (hopefully as the passenger, rather than the driver) and tweets — Where should I get pizza in San Francisco? #hungray — THEY are the first to engage with that tweet.
Needless to say, I was please to be helping local small businesses.
Next time you’re in a pizza shop, raise a pizza slice for the owners who fuel this beautiful city.
What do you think? Let us know on Twitter (@FunnelFeed).
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