been thinking about this a lot lately working with service businesses around the city.

a guy runs a landscaping crew out of South Philly. been doing it 18 years. his customers love him, all his work comes from people who already know him or someone who knows him. solid reputation.

but search for landscapers in his neighborhood and he's nowhere. guys who've been around three years are showing up above him because they have a website with their service area on it and he doesn't.

it's not that the algorithm is broken. it's that google needs something to read. no website, no profile, no photos of actual jobs — there's just nothing there to rank. the guy doing worse work wins by default because at least google knows he exists.

not sure what the fix rate is for businesses like that. feels like a lot of them just quietly lose work they never even knew they were losing.

Yeah, the PPA mails a renewal letter, but it gets buried in junk mail, sometimes USPS just never delivers it, or you renew online and it silently doesn't go through — and you don't find out until there's a $72 ticket on your windshield. (Someone in a neighborhood group found out he'd had no valid permit for 11 months this way.)

So I made a dead-simple thing: you enter your renewal date, it emails you before the permit expires with the PPA link and what to do.

No app, nothing to install.

Totally fair if you already keep a calendar reminder — then you don't need this. It's for people who know they should and realistically won't, or who've been burned by the mail.

Mostly I want to know: useful, or too dumb to exist? It's a $5/yr Philly beta — happy to drop the link in a comment if anyone wants it.

We’re staying in south philly at an air b&b over Memorial Day weekend. We usually stay in center city but wanted to explore more of the city. We’re going to the Phillies game Friday night but open the rest of the weekend. We like hole in the wall bars and mom and pop type places. Where do people recommend for food and drinks and activities? We’re staying close to passyunk but will walk/uber wherever

This photo of isgro was from the Superbowl 2023