Sms go wit clickatel from South Africa. Easy setup & API's with prices starting at 6c/message.
-----Original Message----- From: Geoff McQueen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 18 October 2008 11:27 AM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Launching is all good, but once you've done that, how do you get customers? Also, if you're going to count on SMS, you've got a couple of choices: AU Based: Redcoal is one I've used before. APIs as well as simple sending. Able to modify the "from" of an SMS message too to match the client's business. I've heard good things about 5th Finger too. International: a decent amount cheaper. Issues are deliverability onto AU networks. I've had a tip that South Africa is a good spot to look - they have 1st world mobile infrastructure, but their currency is something like 1/7th of ours on a purchasing-power-parity basis. Since *most* 1st world tecos have adopted the highway robbery price of 20c/message in local currency terms, going to somewhere with a weak exchange rate but good international linkages could be cost effective. If you decide to go international, grab your mates, write down which carrier they're with, and also whether they've ported their number from another carrier. Try and get yourself as a complete a test set as you can: Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, 3, and then look at people who've ported between. Then test your preferred gateway's ability to deliver a message to each handset. Also test normal messages that come from a gateway number, as well as messages that come from a specific word/phrase (and which can't be replied to). Only consider those who actually work across all these perms and combs if you want to offer a paid SMS service that needs to actually deliver. Geoff -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bart Jellema Sent: Saturday, 18 October 2008 12:12 AM To: Silicon Beach Australia Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Launching is all good, but once you've done that, how do you get customers? Hi Chris, - Do some Press Releases - Find parterships that make sense and are beneficial for both you and the partner - Come out and go to lots of events... the advice you'll receive will be invaluable - Give your site the Web 2.0 makeover - it needs a bit more of a professional look. See http://www.goodbarry.com/ for a good example. - Get some customers, one at a time, by recruiting them personally from people you know or people they know... - SEO - you might want to outsource this. For outsourcing, check out odesk.com - Write some articles - submit to article directories etc - Submit to directories - Start a blog and write about the issues you're solving. - Affiliate program? - You might want to consider to give away the first 100 accounts. That way you get some valuable early feedback. Good luck! Bart On Oct 17, 4:22 pm, chris hulbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thanks for all the tips guys, i'll have a think about them all and > figure out which ones are possible given my situation. I especially > like the idea of siding with potential customers, offering > customisation for free, is the idea there that you would hope that > they would become an advocate of the system to their friends who would > become the first paying customers? > > On Oct 17, 11:44 am, "Michael Harries" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > I like the idea of finding partners/allies in your target market - this will > > also drive you to adjust the product to address any real world customer > > issues you may have missed. > > > Once this is in place, I suggest drawing from Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the > > Chasm, etc). In particular, is there a relatively small subset of your > > target market with very strong needs and where where you could plausibly get > > great coverage? Hit that one group hard - lots of person to person contact > > if necessary - so that you can gain market validation, etc, etc before > > moving more broadly. > > > Michel --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Silicon Beach Australia" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
