Digital Marketer Rolls Out Deal With Tire, Car Groups

An Irvine-based digital marketing startup sealed a partnership with the Bowie-Md.-based Tire Industry Association.

Rallio is working with the association to roll out its platform to approximately 24,000 tire dealerships across the country, Chief Executive Chuck Goetschel said.

It developed software that will drive what’s known as an Automotive Social Portal, which is scheduled to go live sometime this quarter in a joint effort with the Automotive Marketing Foundation. The portal will provide a cloud-based infrastructure to consumers, enabling the association to create and distribute content through its dealer network. The content includes consumer education and information on national, state and regional governmental issues.

The portal is free to all independent dealers in North America. It’s also open to other content providers, such as tire manufacturers.

“Our mission is not to merely make a small impact on businesses, but to create efficiencies and digital connections throughout entire industries,” Goetschel said via email.

He launched Rallio in early 2013. It closed its second seed round of funding last summer and just opened a third round this year to angel investors.

Streetwise

A Buena Park-based apparel brand is “softly” debuting its product in anticipation of an official launch in March for what it’s promoting as the “World’s First Exclusive Streetwear Club.”

Streetbox Club is a subscription service that delivers a discounted box of streetwear clothing to customers each month. Streetwear refers to the latest trends that start with youth and eventually cross over to mainstream America, founder Peter Perez Jr. said. He explained that its roots were in skateboarding, then branched out to realms including punk music and gangsta rap.

Perez said he considers his service “exclusive” because “within the streetwear niche, there’s really no subscription-based model that delivers exclusive products to its members,” he said, via email. There are a handful of streetwear companies that deliver a package of various items from select streetwear brands, such as Los Angeles-based Thread Beast, but Streetbox’original items differentiate it, he said.

Memberships start at $69 a month. The highest-end offering is a limited membership for $999 a month. That’s a collection of Streetbox Club’s “finest products along with the best products from around the world.”

Perez said he’s bootstrapped Streetbox Club. He also founded small-tech accelerator Blasmo, through which he said he’s been helping dozens of entrepreneurs create startups with his grassroots techniques, such as, “Work with what you have,” and, “Bootstrap it.” The accelerator works virtually for now, going to startups’ offices and coffee shops, and is in the process of obtaining a space in Irvine.

Perez’ background is in fashion, software design and web and app development. Business partner Brian Ortencio has more than a decade of experience in the clothing and action sports industries.

Hairy Endeavor

A Seal Beach company that’s designed an interactive software platform for the marketing and management of fundraising campaigns by pet shelters and rescue organizations launched a gift card program and donor effort.

PoundWishes created the card program for those who want to give the gift of helping animals. Anyone can purchase a gift card for any occasion and send it via email to a recipient, who can use the funds to donate to any of the company’s campaigns, which are listed on its website. The campaigns are for animals in need around the country, such as one for a dog named Ray Charles in South Florida that needs emergency hip and eye surgery.

Its Project Donor Seek program is a marketing effort to help shelter and rescues partners find more supportive local donors, founder and Chief Executive John Hussey said.  

“It is important to shelter and rescue operations that they continue to find new donors, yet they are time and resource constrained,” Hussey said via email.  

The company continues to seek out more ways to facilitate donations. A goal for this quarter is to devise a way for people celebrating a birthday to request funds for a specific animal or shelter in PoundWishes’ network in lieu of a birthday gift for themselves.

Hussey launched a trial run of PoundWishes in early 2014 with an accompanying website. The company raised almost $50,0000 in donations that year, he said. The following year, he said he built a suite of “cutting-edge” fundraising tools and raised more than $150,000 for his network. PoundWishes raised over $500,000 last year.

Hussey notes that there are more than 13,000 animal shelters and rescue organizations in the U.S. PoundWishes targets the small and medium-sized ones. It takes 10 cents of every dollar raised to cover the cost of credit card transactions and reinvests that in marketing to help attract more donors, he said, adding that the for-profit enterprise has attracted almost 70,000 potential donors to its site in just under three years.