Cerdafied...startups, people & the variety Hour

The luck of the Irish

I am 25% Irish, so I'm only 25% lucky.

Pat Phelan is 100% Irish, so... The man from Cork has his company Cubic Telecom on rails. Getting funded is a great and mandatory inflection in starting a company. My bets are on him to make lots of things happen for lots of people, everywhere. Congrats Pat.

Technorati Tags: telecoms, pat phelan

Jaxtr Raises VC: More money into VoIP

Lately I’ve been fielding a lot of calls with respect to venture capital and M&A in the new voice space, and, in true Silicon Valley style, news was afoot: Jaxtr just closed around $10MM in new venture money. Apparently, August Capital led the round, along with Mayfield who funded them initially. I hear they got a nice upround, which is good for them and the marketplace. I blogged Jaxtr here and here. They're one of the many companies playing in the free/cheap long distance VoIP game.

The model goes like this...build a simple web app that enables free VoIP, launch it in 200 countries, and watch it grow. So long as it's free, it will grow (and, unfortunately, cost you). Then you look at your analytics and you realize that most of your business comes out of geographies that don't hold value, because customers there are loyal only to your offer of “free” or “cheap” – when something cheaper comes along, those customers are gone. Your best bet is that someone buys you out at just the right time...

Jaxtr is no different, other than they provision phone calls out of hyperlinks and widgets. (A novel idea actually.) They have always pitched their "viral growth" model to the industry, however I've always contended that when your leading value proposition is free long distance, that you will grow either way (viral or not). Is their primary competitor Jajah viral too?

I get a lot of press and venture folks asking me what Jangl is vs. Jaxtr. If I wasn't living and breathing it, I might be confused too. Similar names, similar messaging, but very dissimilar companies. Here's a quick tutorial:

Jaxtr = cheap long distance with widgets and links, focused on direct to consumer service, no revenue today, planned revenues based on talking minutes and SMS ads. The focus is international markets, with big usage in India, China, and Sri Lanka (the CEO himself said about 75% of their users are in these areas). They have coverage in 200 countries.

Jangl = bridges your phone to your online life, focused on giving phone users privacy and control with the people they meet online, revenues today via licensing and subscriptions with social networking and dating sites today, additional planned revenues in transactions and media/advertising. The focus is on consumers with online profiles, direct to consumer and via partnership. Jangl is already embedded in more than 20 million profiles. Biggest in the U.S., UK, Canada, China, and France. We have coverage in 32 countries.

In a sense, TechCrunch’s headline about Jaxtr says it all. In our view, the real utility of voice comes from connecting people across a wide array of social networks and social media and building a platform on which people can put talking and texting capability directly into their profiles -- and then bring that to their phone. To build this, you need to work directly with social networks and deliver customized services that are contextually-relevant for each of them.

In short, you need to go where the people already are, and give them wholly new ways to connect. That’s what we’re doing. It’s a far cry from cheap long distance. . .but then again, with our differences now clearly on the table, maybe people won’t get these two J’s confused anymore.

Technorati Tags: VCs, voice 2.0, voip, jaxtr, jangl

Dog Days of Summer

I'm in LA right now, just doing what I do. After some meetings today, I managed to long board some 2 footers at Hermosa Beach, just left of the pier on 13th St. This is what the right side looked like when I got done.

I took a stroll up to 22nd St, which is the part of Hermosa Beach I used to frequent as a kid. For some reason I always feel a connection here. I was telling my mother this, and she reminded me that when she went into labor with me back when, she was here. Coincidence?

It does feel like Summer's almost over though. It's funny, that same feeling you had as a kid about Summer winding down, it keeps going as an adult. I forgot all about that dog day of Summer blues, as I got into a cool new TV show called the Killing Point. It's worth checking out. I'm watching the 3rd episode on iTunes right now.

Technorati Tags: hermosa beach, the killing point

Geeks can party too

There are a lot of us comms geeks having one big party right now. No, it's not because Skype went down, it's because there are just so damn many of us. Many of us have roots in software, systems, networking, etc. I know, I'm one of them. The newest to the comm geek party guest list:

1. You got Zingdom, which appears to be a restart of Convoq, a company that started back in 2002. Good for them, that their investors hung in there. One of the founders is Chris Herot, a guy I've run into at every conference from Guidewire Group to ETEL to TED. Convoq did "SaaS integrated online meeting and live chat systems for sales, marketing, training, service and support departments". Zingdom is also a b2b play, focused on social networks, dating sites and e-commerce sites. I see these guys as being part User Plane and part Jangl (as it pertains to Jangl's b2b stuff that is). When deployed into a site environment, Zingdom allows users to chat or talk by phone, just by interacting with a Zingme button. It appears as though rather than provisioning a phone number to call, it connects the users. (I'm not sure about this, but that's my guess by looking at the site). If that's the case, this limits the ability to contact someone, to ONLY when you're on the hosted site. If that's the case, my sense is that it will hamper usage. If there's one thing I know, it's that people like to make phone calls from their phones. Being the deal guy at Jangl, I also have a sense for what these guys are up against, as far as installing into social networks, personals and e-commerce. Good luck, gentlemen. Chris - I'll see you at the next conference.

and

2. You got Ribbit, which appears to be Skype on a flash player, is the former management team from softswitch company Syndeo. I met their CEO years back when I was first fund raising at Ooma (another new player at the comm geek party). I had gone into Redpoint, and since they were in Syndeo, they asked Ted Griggs to have a look at us for diligence. He was a good guy, and a serial entrepreneur, so I expect good things here. I didn't follow what happened to Syndeo, but since much of their team is at Ribbit, I'd guess it's no longer around. Speaking of their team, I got a kick out of how 'big company' the team sounded for a startup. They have 5 VPs, a GM and a CEO. They have a developer program opening up for web app folks who want call functionality. Ought to be interesting.

Technorati Tags: ribbit, Jangl, zingdom, user plane, skype

Techcrunch VoIP Startups

Nick at Techcrunch posted a blog about VoIP tonight. He posted about 3 ways startups are providing VoIP. His three categories were:

1. I'm cheap and I have a computer
2. I like wi-fi and saving money
3. I have a social life wi-fi can't contain

He cites Skype as the only profitable player, and that none of the others are making money.

Sounds to me like all of the above are about saving me pennies.

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Here are some more nuanced categories, that have nothing to do with saving pennies:

4. I date online and like to talk to my prospects, without revealing my phone number.
5. I am an active social networking person, and have a phone number for all of my "friends".
6. I buy and sell a lot of stuff online, and I like to turn off my phone relationship once the item is sold.

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I think the art of providing VoIP, has to do with not making the customer have to understand VoIP or change their behavior. My argument is that it's only then, that it can penetrate the masses.

P.S. I believe there's another penny saver making money (although I'm not sure it's positive cash flow on average), and that's Jajah.

P.P.S. Oh, and I hear this company called Jangl is also making money, and could you imagine...they aren't even in the penny saver herd. (ok, ok, I'll take my biased ass and go to bed now).

Technorati Tags: VoIP, Jangl, startups, jajah

Diggnation does Jangl

If you don't watch Diggnation, you should. It's a great show. It's pretty funny too. The most recent episode included an invitation to call the Diggnation guys thru Jangl, on diggnationfans@gmail.com.

Technorati Tags: diggnation, Jangl

"You broke my heart Fredo"

As I was red eyed from a long week tonight, I took a break and flipped thru the TV channels. I tuned into NBA Hardwood Classics, featuring the Rockets v. Knicks from 1994. This was the year my daughter was born (turned 13 yesterday), the year I graduated from college, the year I hung up my KFC uniform forever, the year I hung up my hard hat from Mobil Oil forever, the year my band declined a record deal, the year I cut my hair, the year I began interviewing for a real job, and the year I was shitting bricks wondering how the hell I was going to deal with life. As I watched a skinnier Robert Hory taking it to the hole, Akeem doing the fade away jump shots, Derek Harper running point, it took me right back to this place. It was bizarre, in a personal therapy sort of way.

Then I began reflecting on the past 13 years, doing a slide show in my head, about my career, flashing past the various lessons learned, many the hard way. And then I took another fine sip of my Isosceles and thought I'd blog about Fredo.

You all know him. He broke his brother Michael Corleone's heart by betraying him. If you've never seen the Godfather Part II, you might not know who I'm talking about. Just think, Judas from biblical times.

Fredo does manifest himself in the workplace, quite often. Fredo tries to advance himself at the expense of someone that trusts him. Fredo often rationalizes his actions, by telling himself he's doing the right thing for bigger reasons than himself. Maybe his rationale is that it's best for the company or the department. Fredo is that guy that pee's in your pool.

So how do you deal with Fredo? What do you do when your trust is violated?

The very common thing people do is get mad, call bullshit on Fredo, and take him out. That approach is certainly satisfying, at least temporarily. But it's not always the right answer. Once you know Fredo is Fredo, you can play another hand. You can use this channel to wind Fredo up like a toy, knowing full well what he's going to do with the information you provide. So long you keep your cool, this is a channel you can manipulate for quite some time if need be. Is this healthy? Not exactly. But it's survival. It's a passive way to deal with the uglies that will be there no matter what.

Unless you fire a bullet and leave Fredo in Lake Tahoe, where is the justice you ask?

It's poetic justice; arguably the best kind. This is what 13 years of navigating can do for you...

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The game is just ending. The Rockets win. The following year they won again. I happened to be in Houston that 2nd winning night, at my first job out of school. I was in sales, so it was Bill Branski and I in a hotel bar on the south loop. Ah, time flies when you're having fun.

Technorati Tags: fredo, isosceles, startups

online dating expert rants, my perspectives

I was reading Dave Evan's (online dating expert) rant about open dating profiles/mobile dating/facebook.

1) Dave wants to be able to link his blog to his match profile. To those that aren't aware, dating sites don't give you the same ability to link out as do social networking sites. Obviously dating sites that have subscription relationships with their customers, like to keep all interaction within their site. It's their way of continually being the intermediary in the relationship, and thus providing value and ongoing utility. I agree they probably should be more flexible, although dating sites tend to serve a demographic (generally speaking) that may not necessarily need this functionality. If someone is hip to this kind of functionality, then they're dating on MySpace anyway.

2) Dave hints to Match that they should tighten up their web service rather than mess around with mobile initiatives. The cool thing about the mobile stuff they're doing is that it mirrors their web db. Before, as recent press pointed out, Match.com and Match Mobile were on different dbs. Just getting to this point is a big deal, and will open the door for more cross functionality. I for one, am rooting for their mobile initiative. How many other online dating sites will you find on a carrier deck?

3) From Dave's post: "People do use anonymous calling, or so Match and Jangl want you to know. I can’t talk about the numbers, but what I do know is that adoption rates take a long time. Dating isn’t Facebook and the mainstream online daters are not the Tech Crunch 50k."

Online dating sites and facebook are two different worlds and the users of these have different mindsets, although people in the younger demo certainly date on fb. Online dating sites are more explicit about searching for mr goodbar, whereas fb is about your friends. You'd be surprised how many people in online dating sites want to talk by phone.

And Dave is right, mainstream online daters are not the Tech Crunch 50K. That's all the reason why the solution for private calling which is mapped to online dating sites, needs to be very straight forward, and baked into the flow of the site. We wouldn't expect online daters to be posting widgets and links into their profiles, which kind of goes back to #1.

I also noticed Said from World Singles follows Daves blog. (Yo Said let's talk about #3).

Technorati Tags: online dating post, dave evans, world singles

another star

I'm stoked. We just hired a pimp. His name is Chris Breshears. He's like a rock star of a digital marketing guy. This is he.

Technorati Tags: chris rockwell, chris breshears

Don't eat and drive?

So I'm driving home from playing a gig the other night at Tenuta Winery, and I'm in some traffic. I look to my left and there's this guy driving with his light on and eating an In-n-Out burger. I guess when the drive thru person asks "Will you be eating this in your car?", that kind of tells people it's ok to go ahead and have that burger and fries while driving.

Technorati Tags: tenuta winery, in-n-out, el desayuno