San Jose Startup Seeks to Change Face of Local Advertising

Jan. 8, 2014 - PRLog -- Remember the big book that gets thrown at your front door every year? We are seeing less and less of that as people begin getting more comfortable using their computer to get information. Experts predict that the advertising business model for traditional media, those venues where advertisers still channel most of their spending will rapidly fall apart in the coming five years. The Yellow pages are steadily on the decline and local professionals are seeking other methods to get their businesses out to potential customers. This creates an opportunity that spawned many startups within the past few years. Millions of dollars were invested by venture capitalists to these startups every year in hope to get a piece of the market. Many of them however struggle to get a piece of the pie. The traditional advertising model, in which list the businesses in a directory online does not seem to attract these local professionals. A new start up based in San Jose, California called Sixfolio, has a unique idea that they think could change the industry.

Directories like Yelp, Google, Yellow Pages, and Thumbtack makes it difficult for small businesses to distinguish themselves from others. Instead of a list of names or reviews in text format, they list their search results by pictures of projects done by the local business or professional. Professionals can manage their project and track the stats of each project they share on Sixfolio. Sixfolio believes that this will help small business owners and professionals get discovered based on their quality of work and skills rather than their advertising budget. Sixfolio simplifies the discovery process for businesses giving them more ways to gain exposure for their business. Sixfolio also includes modern ways of connecting local businesses to potentials customers by integrating social media. Users of the site can like and share projects with their friends.

Sixfolio’s founders says “Technologies are advancing fast and traditional directories like Yellow pages are not working to adapt to the changes, we figured a solution to integrate new technologies to our website to make finding a professional more modern and fun."

“We don’t list our search results by just their business name; we show results by the picture of their project. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and we think users can get a better understanding of the business by looking a picture of their past project rather than just their name”

That’s not the only thing that makes them unique. Sixfolio includes a Facebook Integration feature on their website that allows users to “discover and find” professionals socially. Users are able to see the projects their friends liked and the professionals they followed. Businesses and professionals can track their stats of their projects, promote it and build a following.

“We included this function because people are always looking for ideas when they need something done. Integrating this allows users to recommend and share interesting ideas with their friends.”

The founders of Sixfolio are college graduates from all over California and local business owners themselves. Sixfolio is composed of college graduates from San Jose State University, UC Irvine and Golden Gate University.

“We are not trying to solve this problem as college graduates but as business owners who was frustrated at the lack of advertising venues. As business owners we understand the frustrations of distinguishing ourselves from our competitors. We look into all the complications and we fix that on our website.”

"Sixfolio hopes to see the local market advertising break away from their comfort zone and try new things to help business owners. Like many traditional directories, businesses with a larger advertising budget would outbid and eliminate their small competitors. This doesn’t allow small businesses to grow. On our website we don’t make businesses compete with each other for an ad space, we want them to stand out by their quality of their work rather than the size of their pocket."

For more information about Sixfolio visit http://www.sixfolio.com