Tucson: Launch of Social Network for Business

Local, online biz buzz

Network site links entrepreneurs in Tucson area

By Phil Villarreal 8/20/09

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A Tucson businessman has designed a free social network for Tucson professionals who feel faceless in Facebook and unlinked at LinkedIn.

Using Tucson as a testing ground, Andrew Avella hopes to expand the network nation­wide.

MyTucsonBiz.com is the creation of Avella, 42, a jour­nalist and financial-service specialist who started an off­line networking group in Octo­ber, then decided to take it on­line in February.

What started as a 50-mem­ber organization has mush­roomed to 800, said Avella, who also is running a smaller group in Phoenix (MyPhoenixBiz.com).

“Tucson is kind of the guinea pig,” he said. “Business owners link up and build net­works in pods of cities across the country.”

The idea for a locally fo­cused networking site came to Avella while he was viewing other online social networks.

“I looked at Facebook and MySpace and scratched my head. I wondered why busi­ness- oriented social networks were so hard to find when it was so easy to find social-ori­ented social networks,” he said. “Why wasn’t there a business­oriented social network? I de­cided, ‘ Why not try it out?’” Avella said he took the best aspects of his favorite social networks and blended them into MyTucsonBiz. He wanted the professionalism of LinkedIn, the customization of MySpace and the ease of use of Facebook.

He also aimed to make the site more useful for Tucson’s business community by mak­ing the group somewhat exclu­sive. To join, you have to live and do business in Southern Arizona and can’t be involved in anything illegal or adult-en­tertainment- oriented.

And he has several happy customers.

“Basically, it’s an ocean of people in the network. It’s free, and it caught my attention,” said Jesse Montañez, a member who runs Unique Photography along with his wife, Bettina.

“I’ve run into some people al­ready who had been networking with me on the site. We commu­nicate with each other and ex­pand our networks, start build­ing relationships.”

Montañez said he has gener­ated 35 clients from the site. Sev­eral paid Montañez $95 to shoot their MyTucsonBiz profile pic­tures.

Small-business owners also can use the site to create a Web presence without having to pay to design and maintain a site.

“The main advantage, versus LinkedIn — which right now is the leading social Web site for business — is LinkedIn is very formatted and very structured,” Avella said. “But on our social network, the customization level is very high. You can take your logo, implant it and almost make it look like your own Web site.”

That’s a major benefit for Will Dobbs, who was laid off from his job as an operations supervisor of the Interstate 10 widening project.

Dobbs, who started his social­media- focused public-relations organization, Collective Cloud Consulting, in July, uses My­TucsonBiz to promote his busi­ness and network with potential partners rather than channel his energy into creating a Web site. Dobbs has been with the group since before it went online.

“It’s a very nice group of peo­ple, and they gave me all sorts of really great ideas,” Dobbs said. “It was surprising to hear how many people were really offering some great pieces of advice. The best was, more or less, keep go­ing.”

Avella makes money on the site by selling corporate spon­sorships. For example, El Charro Café pays him to advertise on the site, and Avella holds some of the group’s monthly networking meet-ups at the restaurant.

He hopes to have networks in 10 cities by the end of the year and 50 by the end of 2010.

Contact reporter Phil Villarreal at 573-4130 or pvillarreal@azstarnet.com