Boston, MA. — February 26, 2010 — SocialGrow Inc., a Microsoft BizSpark program member, today announced that it has launched the alpha release of its patents-pending SocialGrow Application at http://socialgrow.com. The SocialGrow Application automates the search and connection processes across multiple professional and personal social networks. The SocialGrow Application also helps social networks around the world to accelerate their membership growth. At launch, the SocialGrow Application is compatible with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace, with additional global and regional social networks being added throughout the month of March.



“By automating the process of inviting people to join users’ social networks, SocialGrow makes it easier to connect with people you don’t know and faster to connect with people you do,” said Marsh Sutherland, President of SocialGrow. “Facebook and LinkedIn users know the larger their relevant networks, the more people their professional and personal messages will reach.”



“SocialGrow simply allows Rec.fm to grow our customer base faster,” said John Appler, President of social recommendations website and 2010 SXSW Web Awards Finalist Rec.fm (http://rec.fm/video). “By quickly expanding the number of users creating and using our ‘high fidelity’ product recommendations, SocialGrow has also accelerated our revenue growth. We are very fortunate to be their first business customer.”



SocialGrow was recently named Microsoft BizSpark’s most promising “Start-Up of the Day”, and selected by MassHighTech (The Journal of New England Technology) as one of their “Five Start-Ups To Watch.” Additionally, SocialGrow’s Chief Marketing Officer Ken Herron was named one of the “Top 5 Chief Marketing Officers on Twitter” by Systemic Marketing for his use of Twitter on @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).



Twitter-Friendly Quotes



Microsoft BizSpark @SocialGrow today announced the launch of the Alpha release of its software application at http://socialgrow.com.



“We make it easier to connect w/people you don’t know & faster to connect w/people you do” – @SocialGrow President @marshsutherland.



“@SocialGrow allows @recfm to grow our customer base faster” – @SocialGrow business customer and @recfm President @johnappler.



About SocialGrow



SocialGrow Inc. is a global social networking software, consulting, and professional services company. SocialGrow’s flagship software application helps individuals, small businesses, corporate enterprises, government agencies, academic organizations, and non-profit associations around the world to more quickly and easily grow their social networks. SocialGrow was founded in July 2009 by Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury. SocialGrow’s mission is to help people realize the value of social networks. For more information, please visit the SocialGrow website at: http://socialgrow.com, and follow SocialGrow on Twitter at @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).

Los Angeles, CA. — November 17, 2009 — SocialGrow, a Microsoft BizSpark program member, today announced that it has opened registration for alpha users to test its first release of the SocialGrow Web and Mobile Phone Software Application. Developed on Windows Azure, SocialGrow’s Web and Mobile Phone Software Application will enable users to search for and connect with people online, both professionally and personally. Participants will be limited to the first 500 users who register on the SocialGrow website at: http://socialgrow.com.



“By leveraging Windows Azure and exciting new features in Windows 7 through the Microsoft BizSpark program, Social Grow was able to develop an application that automates the process of inviting people to join users’ online social networks,” said Marsh Sutherland, President of SocialGrow. “This makes it faster and easier for users to grow their connections across profile-based social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, and for users running Windows 7, sending an invitation to connect can be as quick and easy as highlighting the person’s e-mail address and right-clicking.”



“Windows Azure allows SocialGrow to be flexible and rapidly scale as it starts to build its customer base,” said Prashant Ketkar, senior director of product marketing for Windows Azure at Microsoft Corp. “Combined with reduced upfront hardware costs, Windows Azure lets SocialGrow developers focus their time on building innovative solutions instead of managing the underlying hardware infrastructure provisioning and scaling.”



SocialGrow was recently named the Microsoft BizSpark most promising “Start-Up of the Day”, and selected by MassHighTech (The Journal of New England Technology) as one of their “Five Start-Ups You Should Follow”. Additionally, SocialGrow’s Chief Marketing Officer Ken Herron was named one of the “Top 10 Chief Marketing Officers in North America” by Systemic Marketing for SocialGrow’s use of Twitter on @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).

We, SocialGrow’s three co-founders, wanted to share with you our perspectives on an exciting and productive week.



Ken’s take (Ken is SocialGrow’s CMO):


“As a new company, you of course want as many potential users of your product to know about, and get excited about it. From the marketing perspective, participating was a great way for us to share with people who use online social networks that our new software automating the process of adding new connections to their networks is under development. Our participation allowed us to tap into the exciting new features of Windows 7, while reminding people who use Macs, Linux, and older versions of Windows that SocialGrow will work for them, too, just as it will on their iPhones, BlackBerries, Android phones, and other mobile phones which can access the internet. In short, our participation in Incubation Week was not only a great opportunity for our company to make our new product even better by leveraging Windows 7’s key features, but an opportunity to further share our story with people who otherwise might not have heard about us.”



Charbel’s take (Charbel is SocialGrow’s CTO):


“The Windows 7 development training at Microsoft was an incredible learning experience. We spent time on Windows 7’s key features, including: federated search, jump lists, accelerators, multi-touch support, and taskbar management as well as developing with SilverLight. SocialGrow users running WIndows 7 will be able to send an invitation to connect with someone simply by highlighting their e-mail address. Having the opportunity to work side-by-side with the very same software architects and developers who support Microsoft’s biggest enterprise customers enabled us to achieve unthinkable results in just a few days’ (and nights’!) time.”



Marsh’s take (Marsh is SocialGrow’s President):


“My expectation going into Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows 7 was that we would have a few hours on the first day with a Microsoft advisor to help us architect the SocialGrow software to take advantage of Windows 7’s new features, who would then check in on our progress over the remainder of the week. I had no idea that our “advisor” would be one of Microsoft’s premier enterprise software architects, Rich Crane. Not only did Rich code our product alongside Charbel until one in the morning two nights in a row, but he also brought in two additional Microsoft software architects to do the same! Add in the Proteans offshore development team who coded around the clock, and it was an amazing team effort. I want to thank Rich and the MTC’s incredibly generous architects, developers, staff, and of course Microsoft itself for giving SocialGrow such an incredible jump start with our application development effort. And yes, my inner geek loved Silverlight’s cool-front end, just wait till you see it!”



Sign up now to receive SocialGrow’s blog updates via RSS and to follow SocialGrow on Twitter. Follow our story as we develop and roll out the first release of SocialGrow’s web and mobile phone software application to help you grow your professional and personal connections — faster and easier — on your online social networks.

Azure will also have the ability to increase, on demand, the processing power during peak times. This will enable the SocialGrow web and mobile phone software application to be fast, *really* fast, no matter how many members are online.



Finally, Azure will offer us the ability to dynamically increase the storage space we need to scale the application to accommodate new users.



Microsoft’s Windows Azure platform will enable us to deliver a reliable, fast, and scalable application that SocialGrow’s members around the world can depend on to grow their online social networks.



- Charbel (CTO)

Boston’s Largest Network of Technology Investors, named after the city’s historic public meeting grounds, CommonAngels is a group of 75 leading private investors and several dozen limited partners in two co-investment funds. They have rich expertise in over 58 specific sectors and finance the region’s most innovative high-tech ventures with a focus on capital efficiency: Series A rounds of $500K-$5M with total capital less than $20M.



- Marsh (President)