SUMO Heavy Industries, Bart Mroz and crew building new e-commerce development firm

If Bart Mroz was pushed to give you a piece of advice, it just might be to limit yourself.

The founder of the recently re-branded SUMO Heavy Industries says a lot of firms doing web work get caught up in trying to do too many things and come up short doing them well.

“We started as a web development company that did all kinds of things like brochure sites and app development for different clients,” Mroz tells Technically Philly. “Then we decided to only do e-commerce work — the best decision that we made.”

In March 2008, Mroz co-founded round3media and by last November, Mroz had learned his greatest skills were focusing strictly on e-commerce site development. After his two partners in round3 wanted to work on different projects, Mroz started anew, launching e-commerce heavy SUMO with new partner Robert Brodie and creative director John Suder.

With a new name and a freshly announced, local client, Mroz is — and forgive us for this — entering the dohyō and fighting to build his company’s name as the top e-commerce development company in the region.

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Brownstoner, Brooklyn real estate blog, launches in Philly

Something about “rowhouser” didn’t sound right to Jonathan Butler.

So today, the founder of popular Brooklyn real estate, renovation and restaurant blog Brownstoner, launches a Philadelphia edition under the same brand. That expansion, Butler says, will dictate greatly the direction of the five-year-old site.

Launched in October 2004, Brownstoner is no small force, pulling roughly 200,000 unique visitors and 1.5 million page views a month, Butler says — see the always debated public traffic figures for the site from Quantcast and Compete — and it just so happens to not be the only blog born in New York to open up shop in Philadelphia this year.

Like Midtown Lunch, Brownstoner brings a brand name with a decidedly New York tone to a city not known for a healthy appreciation for its younger brother to the north. So, its expansion just might make for a hell of a conversation on authenticity and the future of growing hyperlocal news. And it all came about because one of the site’s contributors wanted to move.

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Technically Not Tech: Kendra Gaeta and KidsZillions on branding and allowance saving

Kendra Gaeta is facing branding issues with her allowance service for kids but remains bullish on the idea. Here she presents her concept at Ignite Philly 3 on May 3, 2009 in Fishtown's Johnny Brenda's.

Updated 3:02 7/20/09 for copyright clarification

It’s KidsZillions now and legal vagaries may force that to change once more, but that doesn’t make Kendra Gaeta any less passionate about the mission.

You may have seen her present at Ignite Philly 3 in Johnny Brenda’s on May 3 (where we declared her to have given the best performance), but the allowance chore management savings site for kids that Gaeta described was then called KidsMoney.

During her presentation, she briefly alluded to the possible name change then and made the move not long after, respectfully forfeiting the brand to a juvenile financial management author with a similar mission.

Her team is now dubbed KidsZillions, but some legal advice has left them feeling compelled to make another jump.

An e-commerce company called GiftZillions owns their similar trademark, and while it doesn’t appear to have anything near the same education mission as KidsZillions, Gaeta is getting more advice that branding may be a problem there, too. (Her company is tweeting at the far less distinctive @KidProject)

“I’ve been told we could have enough of an e-commerce edge that users would see us as a kids versions of GiftZillions,” she says. “It stings a bit, that we [could] have the copyright for a name we really like and yet are told we shouldn’t do anything with it.

“But I know building the project is more important.” So that’s what she’s doing.

While the name debate continues and their Web site’s interactivity features remain in development, the company, which is part of the second class of University City incubator DreamIt Ventures, this week launched the Allowance Project, a video blog that will feature interviews of a broad, diverse cross-section of people explaining their savings and spending habits as children.

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Technically Not Tech: Kevin Kiene CEO of EZ Landlord Forms

If you build a great product, your customers will be your best advertisers.

That’s something Kevin Kiene has learned. The founder of ezLandlord Forms, an online provider of property-management legal documents, remembers a time before that lesson was entirely his.

“In the beginning, we were marketing and advertising before we had a great product,” he said of his Web site, which will turn three this August. “We have a great product now.”

There were usability and design concerns and nowhere near the breadth of options the site now offers. But a lot can change in three years.

Last month, they launched a complete site redesign and are in the process of becoming a green certified business and doubling their staff. This month, they surpassed 300,000 members, many of whom are paying into its subscription model, pushing year-to-date sales by more than 225 percent. In September, HGTV’s Designing Spaces will be shooting a segment on the site to air at the year’s end.

“Business,” Kiene says, “is good.”

The company, which has office space in Cinnaminson, N.J., currently features seven employees who work from their homes across the country, including a Willow Grove-based Web developer and Kiene, 40, a native of Fox Chase in Northeast Philadelphia.

But Kiene, who now lives in Frankford, is proud to talk about the site’s national appeal, in addition to its growing traffic and how the idea for ezLandlord Forms came to him because he could never find a lease that would square away who was taking care of the damn lawn.

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Technically Not Tech: Sustainable learning with Solar States

Kensington-based solar startup Solar States fuses education with a unique business plan. Photos courtesy of Solar States.

The growth generation of the region’s solar-tech work force is going to be trained in Northern Liberties, if solar startup Solar States has anything to do about it.

This Saturday is the first of a four-session training course called “Green by Example” held in the NoLibs Community Center by Solar States. The $350 class, taught by LEED For Homes expert Sam Klein, will give participants the shot at learning the latest in solar technology and weatherization. Guest speakers from top green building companies will join the party, too.

It’s the education arm of a fully-fledged solar business.

See, Solar States Solar States aims to become an independent solar power producer by 2010, and the plan is to do so with the help of Philadelphia high school graduates and others who might want the work but don’t have the training.

Saturday’s beginning of the adult vocation course is another step in that mission of developing this city’s sustainable workforce.

But the company is more than education. Its founders say what they’re developing will help shape the solar energy industry for the better.

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Technically Not Tech: How Happier.com will make itself money and you, well, happier

They offer a path to happiness, for five bucks.

Based on research from a noted University of Pennsylvania psychologist and coordinated by a team of three telecommuters in various Philadelphia neighborhoods, Happier.com is on the forefront of positive psychology and research dissemination.

Last week, the site rolled out a Freemium-style revenue strategy to its 20,000 users — a $4.99 monthly subscriber charge for full access to the site..

“The best researchers get up everyday trying to figure out how to get a grant, write a paper, be seen to fund their work,” said Andrew Rosenthal, a co-founder. “We get up everyday building tools for people to use this research.”

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