Social Networking Your Small Business: an interview with Graham Lawlor

By: Russ | Published: June 7, 2010 | Filed under: About small businesses, Events, Networking

During Social Media Week 2010, Sunshine NY was fortunate enough to get to host a panel on interactive social media for start-ups and small businesses featuring Vaynermedia, Yipit and Brightmap.We at Sunshine have been excited about the launch of Brightmap for a while, as it serves an exciting and needed purpose in the landscape of social tools–to network businesses to one another. Launched by Ultra Light Startups’ Graham Lawlor, Brightmap is, company by company, connecting businesses, services and vendors in important and revolutionary ways.On Tuesday June 8th, during Internet Week, Ultra Light Startups and Brightmap are hosting a discussion on “Social Networking Your Business”. Featuring Sunshine’s own Cheni Yerushalmi and one of our resident Shiners Sabir Semerkant, this event is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn how to unleash the power social tools like Brightmap truly hold for their businesses. We asked event coordinator and Brightmap/Ultra Light Startups’ own Graham Lawlor a few questions about his history in business, his work as an entrepreneur and the future of social media for small businesses.Sunshine: What’s your history in business and interest in small businesses?Graham Lawlor: I think my first business started when I was 3 years old.  I took kindling wood my father had chopped for the fireplace and offered it to our next door neighbor for ten dollars a bundle.  They offered ten cents and I immediately accepted.  It’s much easier to move down in price than to move up, I always say! After various lemonaid stands, paper routes, and car washes, my first profitable business after college was in real estate.  I was living in Chicago, moving apartments, and met a real estate broker.  He kept showing me apartments in all these identical 3-unit buildings in a rough area of town.  In places they were literally building for of these right next to each other on one side of the street and another four on the other side simultaneously.  I inquired about the economics of the building and the broker offered to sell me one on the spot.  I bought it with a partner, my live savings, and lots of leverage.  It turned out to be a good idea, as I lived in it free and it’s been profitable from day one.  I still own it and my equity has multiplied many times, even after the current real estate bust.  Later I invested in several other real estate developments, all with good returns, until I moved to New York and sold everything except the first building, which is still going strong with my partner managing it.Sunshine: As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?GL: I recall wanting to be an underwater welder at one time.  I took a welding class in high school and made the strongest weld in the history of the school (they kept track).  I heard welding underwater sounded crazy yet fun.Sunshine: How did the project that began as Techo ecosystems and is now Brightmap come to be?GL: I call it a spinoff of my other project, Ultra Light Startups.  Ultra Light Startups is a networking group for technology entrepreneurs that has been going for almost two years.  In that time I know dozens of business deals that have taken place there.  Mainly between startups and professional service providers – lawyers, accountants, web developers, designers, PR firms, media firms, etc.  The ‘social directory of companies’ concept was initially a feature of a new Ultra Light Startups website that I was designing.  It was a way for members of Ultra Light Startups to connect and collaborate online.  After many rounds of design, usability testing, and redesign, I came to realize the directory was its own product, that would live separately, outside of Ultra Light Startups.  In many ways, BrightMap and Ultra Light Startups are the same business just done in different ways.  They both connect businesses, but one does it at in-person events while the other does it online.  There are many synergies between the two and I uncover more every day.Sunshine: how do you envision Brightmap helping small businesses, specifically?GL: Think of two categories of companies that might use BrightMap – B2B companies and B2C companies.  B2B companies are lawyers, accountants, web designers, PR firms, recruiters, office space providers, etc.  They all sell to businesses.  Then B2C companies buy products and services from the B2B companies (and B2B companies also buy from other B2B companies).  BrightMap will make it easier for consumers of B2B services to find the right providers and it will make it easier to vet these providers through references and personal connections.  And it will make it easier for B2B service providers to market themselves and demonstrate their skills, client lists, and references.  Finding the right providers is critical to any business’s success, and BrightMap will make that much easier.Tickets are on sale now for “Social Networking Your Small Business”.