Pre-Registration Opens at Grocio.com

For those of you who haven’t heard, I launched a little startup today called “Grocio” (pronounced Grow-See-Oh). Registration is free!

We’re a comparison shopping engine for groceries. Starting with your zip code and shopping list, we’ll identify the least expensive local grocer. At the same time we MATCH coupons to the EXACT items you’re shopping for. So two things are happening here:

• You’re saving a TON of money at the checkout counter by picking the right grocer.
• You’re adding to the savings with coupons you didn’t spend an hour trying to find in the newspaper.

We’re in a local business plan competition (kind of like TechCrunch50) and could use all the registrants possible. If you like the concept, drop in and give us a vote of confidence by registering please.

What Do YOU See?

This isn’t some Rorschach inkblot test or anything like that. I’m curious to know how the following graphical concept is interpreted at this stage before it advances any further. Thanks in advance for your comments!

Hey Buddy… Help My Startup Eh?

Watched a fun couple of videos of Vidoop: another startup also here in Tulsa. Their’s is an online security angle. Pretty cool stuff.

Unlike Vidoop, GROCIO’s in one of those seams I’m working my ass to get out of. Those who diet will know this as a “plateau”. To get from here onto the riser toward the next milestone you gotta work your ASS off. Yeah, that’s where GROCIO is right now. There’s a big puddle of ass on the floor of the garage right now… That’s how hard I’ve been working this thing. Fun. No complaints. Good, healthy, hard work. (Thank you sir, may I have another! kind of fun.)

For those of you wondering just what the hell GROCIO is… Think comparison grocery shopping for the whole checkout basket (not just a can of soup). The whole enchilada. Combine that with context sensitive coupons (after all, like Google, you’ve told us what you’re looking for)… and you have our business model. Way short of an easy task. A fair bit of heavy lifting involved, yada yada.

More than anything we need to get the cashflow going and our prospective investors reinvigorated. Here’s how you can help:

If you use coupons please consider bookmarking and using THIS LINK. It doesn’t cost you a thing. It could save you a good deal of money at the checkout counter (it has in our household). Or, simply copy THIS LINK ( http://print.coupons.com/alink.asp?go=12756jt0010 ) and bookmark it. If you share it with friends and family do so knowing your helping a startup… well, startup. GROCIO sees revenue only on redemption of the printed coupons. Again, it doesn’t cost you a thing. And, could very well help us illustrate some important metrics back to the investors who don’t quite “get it”. Transactions they understand. Helping us rack up some numbers will help the investors get over their hangups on the business model.

If you don’t use coupons… hey, no problems there. I can’t make horses drink water they don’t want. Also want to be mindful I don’t “AmWay” you, as Mr. Scoble so nicely puts it. But, this is the business I want to go into. I’m not going to be shy about it. Maybe you know someone who DOES use coupons. Passing along the link above will still help us get to where we need to be. Which at the end of the day will be a mighty cool place. One where people can find the least expensive checkout basket + a heap of relevant coupons they no longer have to clip themselves.

Save money. Save time.

Technorati Tags: Coupons, GROCIO, grocery, Shopping

POLL: Grocery Coupons? Yes? No?

Met with VC last week. Among other things they were curious to know how many people use coupons at the grocery checkout. So, how about it? Do you? If not, why not? (A few leading suppositions… inconvenience, time, not worthwhile…) If so, source? Newspaper, online?

Your answers will help GROCIO get its seed round of funding. So, my thanks to you in advance.

POLL: Do You Shop With A Grocery List?

Michelle and I a stingy. REALLY stingy. I’m the guy picking up the stray penny off the parking lot. She’s the coupon cutter upper. We make lists for the grocery store and stick to them.

Most people I see in grocery stores who have more than the express lane will allow have shopping LISTS.

Do YOU use a grocery list?

Just curious…

Grocio Lives!

Some time back I shared an idea with Robert Scoble, John Battelle, Jeremy Zawodny and a few others. Some had nice things to say. Others wrote in emails back, “Good luck with that one.” It’s certainly turned out to be a bigger challenge (and bigger fun) than I had ever imagined.

Well, I can now say Grocio.com is going into a very productivity driven, stealth mode.

Just what is Grocio?
Online grocery comparison shopping. We’ll help you get a little closer to your local grocers and in the process connect you with the least expensive shopping basket (time and again).

There are some demo reels. And, there is some background already out in the public by way of this blog.

That said, Grocio is diving deep to execute on the business plan. See you on the other side.

Meanwhile, I’ll still be blogging Apple. Specifically Leopard (which, btw, Grocio will be served on once it’s at the ‘go to market’ stage).

Grocio… One More Thing!

Well, two more things… Was looking at the stats on the site. It passed the 1,000 zip codes submitted mark early in the week. Cool! Seattle area is heavily represented (and oddly enough, 90210… Beverly Hills? c’mon!)

LOTS of MSN referrals. Checking into it I see why… we’re high on the first page of results for “grocery comparison shopping”. That was EASY!

How Much Did You Say!?

Over at Makeyougohmmm TDavid says wifey bought some stuff via Amazon Groceries. And his first question was, “How do their prices compare?” I gotta get this Grocio.com site into public beta!! TDavid needs comparison shopping RFN! A new demo reel is coming this weekend!

I’ve been tinkering with Amazon’s grocery site for the past week and their “most popular” items aren’t shifting around. Which seems to mean to me one of two things. Either the most popular items remain most popular (kinda makes sense) OR no one’s buying anything (also kinda makes sense).

Grocio Update Demo/Feature Reel

Picked up a few new people recently in the Digg fest. For those new to the g-WH!Z blog — WELCOME! It’s mostly about the universe of technology in and around my life. Grocio.com is the biggest, non-family deal I have going. Grocio is an online grocery comparison shopping engine. Tell it your zipcode, which stores you want to shop locally, and what you want to buy and it tells you at which store(s) you will find the best checkout price. It’s outside my day job and occupies a huge amount of my kids’ sleeping hours. The demo reel (below) is the best method of peeking under the sheets to see what we’re up to… Enjoy!

New demo reel available (30.3 Mb streaming .mov Don’t worry, it autostarts… you don’t have to wait to download the whole thing before viewing). Added store ratings, rss feeds for the store rating, a method to take things OFF your shopping list or add more than what you originally specified (duh! missed that one somehow) and the niftiest of all… a way to shop Grocio by email (VERY COOL!).

REALLY want to thank those who have been so generous with feature suggestions and recommendations on how to make the video better. You folks are great! and I’m anxious to get version zero point something out the door sooner rather than later.

New Grocio Feature Reel (Inspired By Feedback)

Bart wrote in to say he’s beginning to really see the light with mobile devices:

…My blackberry has replaced my laptop and once sites like Grocio.com allow me to perform queries by email, IM or SMS I think you’ll have something peole will use as readliy as if it was web only. My grandma does email but not web. You’d totally miss her!…

Well, thanks Bart! What a totally cool way of looking at the problem. Here we are all wrapped up with delivering a rich online experience when really what we want to do is make it super simple for people to comparison shop with whatever method they prefer on their computers.

So, I worked with Bart on what he thought would be a reasonable solution and here’s the proof of concept we came up with. Would love to know what you think about this new feature and if you have any other gems to pass along(?).

Enjoy and keep that feedback coming!