About CitySquares
We're Connecting People to Local Businesses
We are most certainly, first and foremost, and undoubtedly about local businesses and local communities. We're about your neighborhood, and where you get your hair cut, meet your friends for coffee, have a meal and a drink, where you vote and send your mail. We're working to connect you to your local businesses.
Our philosophy is that you enhance local neighborhoods and communities by strengthening the locally owned businesses. Local businesses are what make our neighborhoods unique.
Local businesses are being challenged every day, all across the country. The challenges are great, and they're not getting any easier. CitySquares.com gives those businesses a voice through an online presence that they can afford.
A Brief History
Back in the 1990's there were only a couple of "Local Search" websites, and they didn't stick around long. As the Internet matured a bit over the next few years, as people started coming online and adopting faster connections, people began using the Internet to find information about goods and services in their locality - like their neighborhood, city, town, and county. During these years one of CitySquares' founders, Ben Saren, found himself frustrated by the lack of online information about the businesses in his neighborhood, Davis Square in Somerville, MA. Over the span of a few years his frustrations grew and grew until one day he decided to take it upon himself to fix the problem. That day, in August of 2005, Ben told his wife about his idea. She loved it and supported him. That was all he needed to start thinking up names and they quickly discovered the domain name "citysquares.com" was available for purchase. After buying the domain name Ben called his good buddy and business associate Bob Leland and after a brainstorming session he decided he was in for the long run. A few days later, CitySquares Online, Inc. was born. It wasn't long after that, that they asked their families if they'd support them on their endeavor, and they too said yes. Well, long story short, after only a few weeks they launched the first version of Citysquares.com in October of 2005 for only seven neighborhoods in Cambridge and Somerville. They tried many different ideas over the course of the next several months. Then, while working on growing the business and continuing to prove the basic concepts, they caught the attention of a local group of angel investors called eCoast Angel Network and they decided to invest in the company.
Today
So now, CitySquares has an office in the South End of Boston, at TechSpace, over dozen employees, over 1.5 million businesses listed on the site, over a million visitors per month, hundreds of customers, and a real mission to accomplish. The CitySquares.com website is ranked in the top 2000 websites in the nation, according to Quantcast.
These days the company is busy building the new and improved Citysquares.com - which is where you are now. Bob and his team are building new features, and Ben and his team are busy getting the message out there, selling products, building relationships, and assembling plans for the company's expansion!
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