NEWS

Localvore defines daily deals in local terms

DAN D’AMBROSIO

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that Dan White would end up in Burlington, starting a company based on buying local. He cut his entrepreneurial teeth in Madison, Wisc. and Boulder, Colo., both known as progressive towns with a focus on green products and sustainable local economies.

Dan White is founder of the Groupon-style deals start-up Localvore Today, which is headquartered at Main Street Landing in Burlington.

Just like Burlington.

White's company on Lake Street, Localvore, offers Groupon-style deals for local businesses in five categories: Food & Farm, Health & Happiness, Art & Culture, Home & Lifestyle, and Fun & Games. White has a partner, Michael Nedell, who focuses on the technical side of the online business, building websites and creating digital marketing campaigns, while White focuses on selling local merchants on participating in the "daily deal," as the offers on the website are known.

"Our social mission is to cultivate thriving local economies," White said. "So unlike a lot of the national brands we compete against, like Groupon, we focus on the local merchant, using our platform to support the local economy and the community that these businesses are the fabric of."

Earlier this week, there were no offers in the Art & Culture or Fun & Games categories, but the other three categories had a variety of deals, the most in Food & Farm, which makes sense, given White's business plan. Localvore Today has worked with 500 merchants since its first campaign in September 2012, White said, but his focus has been on food and farms.

"We just featured Kitchen Table Bistro in Richmond, one of the best farm-to-table restaurants in the state," White said. "There's a heavy focus on local food and farm-to-plate, but we're also here to support other local business owners and small businesses that are part of our local economy."

One offer under Farm & Table, for example, is for Revolution Kitchen in Burlington, where $15 will get you $30 worth of food under the Localvore Today promotion. As of Tuesday at 3:40 p.m., 115 people had taken White up on this offer, with seven days, eight hours and 17 minutes left until the offer expired.

The offers include a Google map to show you how to get there, and quite a bit of description. The Revolution Kitchen page starts off by saying, "The eclectic menu at Revolution Kitchen is inspired by Peter, a graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute in Manhattan, and Debra, a self-taught baker with a mean recipe for banana cream pie. There isn't just one flavor in this buzzing kitchen — you can find Asian, Mexican, and Italian-inspired dishes that are simultaneously simple and loaded with flavor."

Farther down in the copy, Localvore Today gets to its mantra: "You'll find the dishes at Revolution Kitchen using ingredients from Half Pint Farms, Pitchfork Farm, Pete's Greens, and Vermont Creamery!"

The offer even includes a bit of the ambiance: "There's a certain vibration cycling through the restaurant with its exposed brick walls and cozy bar area."

Ted Kenney (left) and Dan White drink beer in The Localvore Today offices at Main Street Landing.

First big investor steps up

The Revolution Kitchen offer was the most active on Tuesday. At the other end of the spectrum was an offer to pay $25 for a $45 hot towel shave with James at Bugatti Barbers — the only place in town where you can get one! — which at 3:55 p.m. on Tuesday had attracted just nine takers, with three days, eight hours and three minutes left to go before the offer expired.

Localvore Today has 20,000 subscribers on its email list for daily deals. White doesn't charge merchants out-of-pocket, but instead takes a portion of each sale.

"They have metrics, everything they need to work with us to measure the financial investment they're making," White said. "It's a measurable formula."

Investment in White's start-up is measurable too, with a $250,000 commitment coming from a lead investor earlier this month as part of the company's first significant round of venture funding, known as a Series A offering. White declined to name the lead investor, but said the person is a Vermont resident.

"We're actively raising five hundred grand," White said. "We just started and have commitments for $300,000. We're doing well."

White started his company with $25,000 of his own money, saved as the result of a frugal lifestyle, living with his parents when he returned home after leaving his job in Boulder, and staying with a friend's family when he moved to South Burlington.

"I was always saving cash for my plan of attack," White said. "It's one of those things where you have to have the light bulb go off to feel like you can make a commitment and take that type of financial risk."

The light bulb in this case was to marry Groupon type offers with the buy local ethic so prevalent in Vermont.

"When I had the idea it was something I could get my life behind," White said. "All right, this is going to take several years before I see payback, but I believe in the concept, I have experience and it sounds like a fun opportunity. You put your chips in and you don't look back."

The experience White had was to work for Groupon in 2010 for about a year, introducing the company's concept to merchants in Ohio, where Groupon was expanding.

"It was an amazing experience," White said. "We were scaling up really fast, with 50 to 100 hires a week, to give you an idea. The company was several hundred when I started. Today, four years later, there are 12,000 global employees there. They went public after 12 months."

Dan White, shown here in the Localvore Today office in Burlington, worked at Chicago-based Groupon before launching his own version of a deals site in Vermont.

The Burlington connection

White grew up in Evanston, Ill., and moved back there for a while to sell cars and reconnect with his network of friends and advisers before taking the job at Groupon. His connection to Vermont grew out of his experience in Boulder, where he moved after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 2008.

White went to Boulder to work for an eco-friendly building supply and home goods store, which sold everything from compostable utensils to insulation made from recycled blue jeans.

In Boulder, White moved into a house with four roommates, all of whom had grown up in Burlington. Regaled with tales of the Boulder of the East, White knew where he wanted to go once he had his big idea.

"I thought, 'Wow, Vermont is a perfect place to start a buy-local version of Groupon and put a social mission behind it,'" White said. "Then there was the fact that Groupon wasn't here. I signed a non-compete with them and held up to that because they weren't and still aren't running a market here."

White moved to Burlington in August 2011, confident that he would stay.

Dan White speaks about Localvore Today at InnoVaTe 2014, a conference this week at the University of Vermont Davis Center.

"I had a group of friends that grew up here and are passionate about the local business community," he said. "I knew I'd have a nice social life and people to network with."

An indication of just how well things have worked out for White was his inclusion on Tuesday on a panel at InnoVaTe 2014, the second annual economic development summit at the Davis Center, sponsored by Green Mountain Power and the University of Vermont, among others. The panel was called "Start-up Success Stories."

White declined to share the annual revenue of his fledgling company, but did say it is on track to grow by 100 percent, year over year, from 2013 to 2014. With his new venture capital, White is planning his next big move: a second branch of Localvore in Portland, Me. The company is also planning to launch a mobile app that White expects will make the entire Localvore experience more convenient for his customers, and for merchants.

White is optimistic about both new developments. He points out that Chittenden County has a population of about 200,000 people, while Greater Portland is more than twice as large in terms of consumer dollars, with about 500,000 people.

"Honestly we're a great investment," White said. "You can put your money in Wall Street or you can put your money on Lake Street."

Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DanDambrosioVT.