Get a Gofer http://getagofer.com/blog   Be Helpful.   Be Kind. Fri, 21 May 2010 05:40:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Moraga Rocks! http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=48 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=48#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 05:39:19 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=48 We recently participated in the Moraga Community Faire put on by the Chamber of Commerce. It was an excellent venue to get ourselves out in front of a number of local residents. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth! We sold some errand packages, which was great. Now we need to focus on getting our new customers to make errand requests. I’m so excited about our business. There’s nothing that feels better than making someone’s life easier.

]]> http://getagofer.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=48 0 Happy Belated Earth Day! http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=42 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=42#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 05:13:11 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=42 Well, things sure have been busy.  We’re thrilled to be getting our business up and running.  We’ve been busy marketing and now we’re members of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce and the Moraga Chamber of Commerce.  Both are filled with *amazing* people who really care about what they do.  I love what we do, and can’t wait until it really takes off.


Earth day was fun-filled family event (literally).  Lafayette held a celebration in downtown.  We got the kids, and one of their friends, in earth day t-shirts and had them run around handing out free seeds and Get a Gofer brochures.  I’m really proud of them.  They had great attitudes and really got into the salesmanship of marketing our services.  What a great experience for them!




Next week we’re starting to concentrate on marketing specific neighborhoods in Lafayette with door hangers.  If you show up at home and there’s a “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door, it’s from us.  Don’t throw it away! :-)

]]> http://getagofer.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=42 0 We got (then lost) our first customer! http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=36 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=36#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:27:01 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=36 Ironically, during our weekend of testing we had our first real customer make a real errand request.  We assumed it was test data, until a week later when we went into Salesforce to do clean-up.  I couldn’t figure out who this person was who had created an account.  Then I read the task information only to realize it was a REAL request.  It was a lady from Walnut Creek who signed up for our hourly service.  She wanted us to come and wait for AT&T to service her home.  She couldn’t afford to miss anymore work, as her father had recently passed away.  Needless to say, I felt horrible.  We missed an opportunity to help someone.  I called her and emailed her immediately.  I wanted to give her two free errands to make it right.  I haven’t been able to connect with her yet, but I’m thankful that she was at least able to find us.  I didn’t think we were showing up yet in search results.  But we are!

For anyone developing a website and trying to increase their search ranking, Google Webmaster Tools are a must!

To our first customer (rosebud), please come back!  We have free errands for you.

]]> http://getagofer.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=36 0 Get a Gofer http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=29 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=29#comments Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:47:16 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=29 This weekend we’ll be putting our website through initial usability testing with our neighbor / friend.  We’ll do another round of usability with a wider audience afterwards.  Then we’ve got to get some friends to use the service (gratis) a few times so we can work out any kinks before we actually ‘go live’.  There are still features I want to add to the technology, but I realize we’ve got to cut loose otherwise we’ll never launch.  Neither of us can wait to get going.

Valentine’s day is this weekend.  I’ve almost forgotten.  Between the full-time job, three kids and trying to launch Get a Gofer I must remember the things that really count.  My loving husband and three wonderful children.  I think I’ll declare Sunday, February 14th an official holiday in our house.  No work, ONLY play.  When you’re passionately working towards a goal it’s easy, unfortunately, to NOT stop and cherish simple moments.  I’ll do my best to make this Sunday full of simple, wonderful moments and STOP to cherish them.

]]> http://getagofer.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=29 0 Anxious Anticipation http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=22 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=22#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:48:11 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=22 Steven and I have been spending many late nights over the past couple months working on our website.  I thought my part was pretty much done, then Steven inspired me to take the design up a notch.  So we redesigned the site and are now re-integrating all the various pieces. 

After so much careful planning we’re both anxious to launch and actually start running errands! I’m stressed, but in a good way.   The clock is ticking.  We were suppose to have launched already.  We’re paying for software services on the backend.  We gotta get this show on the road! I’m also stressed about our pricing model.  Our services are *cheap*.  Can we make money this way?  We are a for-profit company after all.  My hope is that if it looks like we’re going to crash and burn with the current prices, we can get feedback from our customers about what they think we should do.  Just raising prices on people seems like a really lame thing to do.  No, wait, it is a really lame thing to do.

Our lives are about change pretty drastically. I can’t wait! :-)

]]> http://getagofer.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=22 0 Getting Going http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=4 http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=4#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:25:32 +0000 pinkpurse http://getagofer.com/blog/?p=4 If you’re coming across this blog now I’m happy!  We haven’t even launched yet and here you are checking us out.  Steven, my husband, and I have been burning the midnight oil trying to get our service launched.  Steven more so lately, since he’s the programmer putting in our shopping cart functionality and tying it to our backend CRM.  We implemented Salesforce.com to help us manage your errand requests, and I have to say I’m in love with the service!  Especially with all the great apps that are available to plug into it.  It’s simply amazing what entrepreneurs these days can do on  a shoestring with technology.

It seems like it’s been a long road, but it really hasn’t been that long.  Steven came home after work 5 months ago and said something about wanting to start our own business.  It was the moment I’d been waiting for! I’d been wanting, searching, desiring this for us for quite some time.  So I jumped on it. 

Steven found a long list of potential businesses to mull over.  There were ideas for Welcoming Wagons, Time Management consulting, and Dip Mixing (which actually kind of appealed to me).  I love chips ‘n dip!  But the one for errands really stuck. 

Running errands can be a real pain, especially for time starved families.  So this business solves a valid time / value issue.  Also, I actually almost started running an errand running business while in college.  I even sent away for a pamphlet on how to start an errand business, but never followed through.  We spent a few days coming up with names.  Get a Gofer was actually the one we like most.  I couldn’t believe the domain name was available!!!  It had just expired.  What luck!  We also went through several iterations of the logo. 

Behold the logos we axed…

1st axed

But wasn't that gofer sooo cute!

 2nd axed

 

3rd axed

4th axed

5th axed

In steps my lovely friend and professional designer Donna to save the day!  Thank you Donna!

Approved!

The official Get a Gofer Logo...finally!

So fast forward 5 months, and we’re about to launch Get a Gofer!  The website is still a work in progress so you can’t purchase and requests errands just yet.  Yes, I know, we should put up an ‘Under Construction’ page, but things just kinda got going fast on the site and we haven’t had a chance.  Anyway, feel free to poke around.  You’ll know when we’re live.

Our mission: Make your life easier.

Our long-term goal: Be the FedEx for errands.

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