Tag: Tapinko

Why am I smiling on a Monday Morning? (HINT: it has nothing to do with the Phils)

posted by David Speers  |  Comments (0)

Despite the euphoria of the past week, not even the first official Monday of the Phillies reign as World Champions was enough to cancel out the weekly weekend withdraw. No, it would take something just as exciting but a little more personal to chase away a chronic case of the Mondays. Something like this note from our friend John Valentine over at Philly startup Tapinko :

“I just wanted to follow up and thank you for the awesome press you gave us. Within a couple days of the Phillypreneurs TapInko post, we received some unsolicited phone calls from investors on both coasts interested in feeling us out for potential investments. The blog has amazing breadth in readership! TapInko is still going strong as we continue down the LORE, BFTP, and angel funding paths.”

We obviously can’t take credit for any of Tapinko’s success but it does a blogger good to know that our little passion could be apart of helping others pursue their’s, so much good that the smile that’s stretched across this face might last long enough to make a dent in next week’s inevitable Monday too. Here’s to continue success in Tapinko.

david Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and start-up junky that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia businesses. Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.

Philadelphia, have you met Tapinko?

posted by David Speers  |  Comments (1)

No? Well then, let me be the first to introduce you:

What is Tapinko?
Tapinko is an online management SAS for purchasing and managing a variety of offline ads (e.g. multiple newspapers, billboards, text messages, etc). In other words, Tapinko is an offline ad management application. Tapinko has initially focused on the college Newspaper market, including UPenn, Harvard and Tufts. It’s one of the early stage start ups to graduate from the first DreamIt class at the beginning of the month.

Who is Tapinko?

Peter Groverman (Co-founder), Nicolas Warren (Co-founder) and John Valentine (Corporate Development). Peter first felt the need to simplify offline ad management as a student. After only being able to sell eight months of advertising for a twelve month calendar, Peter realized that there had to be a much better way to sell offline advertising, whether it be newspaper, billboards or urinal ads. Bingo (insert light bulb), create an intuitive and user friendly market place for offline ads online. After some prodding from his friends and family, Peter embraced his entrepreneurial passion and recruited his friend, and web guru, Nic Warren to start work on what would become Tapinko. It wasn’t until after his first year of Villanova Law school and recruiting a promising classmate, John Valentine, that Peter was ready to make an all or nothing bet on Tapinko.

Who do they have to beat?
Google Print Ads, Google Audio Ads, Google TV Ads, Tactician,

How are they different?

Instead of embracing the obvious broker model of connecting publishers and businesses directly, and therefore cutting out the traditional and entrenched sales reps, Tapinko has created a tool set that existing ad sales teams (or anyone) can use to organize and execute their buys.

How are they paying for it?

Friends, Family, DreamIt and Visa cards are at the ready if it comes to it. Now that’s the sound of an entrepreneur who’s got the start-up bug! Before it comes to that though, they are actively pursuing Angel and VC funding.

Peter Groverman pitching on DreamIt funding day.

To the whole Tapinko team we wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing about your many successes!

david Dave Speers is an online marketing consultant and start-up junky that has worked with a wide variety of Philadelphia businesses. Dave spends most his time annoying really smart people at Indy Hall co-working collaborative.