Website provides business-to-business recommendations, discounted deals to Chicagoland business owners and executives

Published: October 4, 2011

MERRILLVILLE, Ind. - The Chicago entrepreneur who founded SitterCity.com and another businesswoman with more than 25 years of business-to-business, or B2B, sales experience have created a free online marketing platform that includes a social recommendation engine and discounted deals for businesses.

The platform, called Contact Karma, provides business owners and executives an online location to read and offer reviews of business products and services for free, and exclusive discounted offers to its members. It was founded by Genevieve Thiers and Maureen Wozniak.

"Our goal in creating Contact Karma is to give business owners and entrepreneurs access to B2B deals of any size when they need them," said Thiers, who founded SitterCity.com. "B2B spending is very need-based and specific. You have to accommodate that when you try to capture some of their buying.

"Another focus with the site is on trust. Entrepreneurs and business owners can see who their colleagues use for different services, which means business people not only buy the value of the deal but the value of their network's recommendations as well."

Thiers partnered with Wozniak in launching Contact Karma. The company is an affiliate of the Purdue Research Park of Northwest Indiana.

Contact Karma lists ongoing deals from firms offering PR assistance, marketing, bookkeeping, website design and services and products. These offers are organized in the site's database.

"Businesspeople access the database to find companies offering these services when they need them," Wozniak said. "Companies are listed using an algorithm we have perfected based on referrals and how much clients love working with them."

The site also features daily offers through email to subscribers.

"The daily offers are both deals that expire within 24 hours and ongoing deals from the database," Wozniak said. "Our daily offers center around employee recognition and client appreciation. Our first offers include gourmet coffee for the office, client gift sets and cookie bouquets."

Wozniak described Contact Karma as a complete circle.

"Business people can list their businesses for free, and they also can visit the site to recommend the vendors they use and find great deals for their business," she said. "Contact Karma helps a business to be found online. It brings clients to companies through the ratings and the offers."

About Contact Karma

Contact Karma is a B2B social recommendation engine that offers business-to-business deals. Business owners and executives in Chicago seeking a good vendor and deal on a corporate product or service can visit the site and enter the vendor type (PR firm, bookkeeper, lawyer, web design firm) they are looking for. We give a series of vendor suggestions and deals, ordered by who in their local business community and network likes and uses the vendor. We also send out B2B flash deals daily on smaller items like event tickets, lunch delivery and office outings.

About Purdue Research Park

The Purdue Research Park, with four locations across Indiana, has the largest university-affiliated business incubation complex in the country. The parks are home to about 200 companies that employ 4,000 people and are located in West Lafayette, Merrillville, Indianapolis and New Albany.

Purdue Research Park contact:

Steve Martin, 765-588-3342, sgmartin@prf.org

Sources:

Genevieve Thiers, 312-725-3482, gthiers@contactkarma.com

Maureen Wozniak, 855-282-2489, mwozniak@contactkarma.com