I'm sitting in a coffee shop early on Thanksgiving morning in the small university town of Chico, Ca. In an hour I'll rejoin 45+ members of my extended family in a 4 bedroom house for our annual gathering of the clan for fun and food. It's always a fun couple of days that makes the 12 hour drive totally worth it. We basically camp in and around this home for three days while we move through the traditions we have developed over the last 25 years. We all came in last night for a dinner of soup and great wines each chose to share. Today is our version of a family football game that has nearly every year resulted in an injury worthy of a hospital visit or at least attention from one of the nurses in the family. Then on to the feast of roast beast. Later tonight we'll do a Christmas gift exchange that gets crazy. Tomorrow we'll spend half the day playing on a paint ball course that is a blast! Literally. Then we'll see one of the new movies that came out for the holiday season. In between the traditional events life happens. The conversations, the catching up, the older mentoring the younger about life and the drama that inevitably appears at some point between family members.
This tradition runs deep in the culture of our family. I wouldn't miss it for the world. My family wouldn't let me if I wanted to. Why? It's fun but deeper than that it's a way we keep the family together. Yeah, we meet together at other times during the year for weddings and funerals but this particular gathering is different. It's a celebration based on thankfulness. It's a celebration of life. We're celebrating the birth of 3 kids this year, 2 weddings and remembering the life of Grandma Sutliff. Families are living things in themselves. A community that grows and cares for itself but is not without its drama and weird characters. I'm thankful for each of them and for being part of this family.
So there you have it. A look into my life today.
My thoughts are turning to SimpleSignal and the community of the 23 odd characters we've collected over the past few years :) I'm thankful for every one of you. Like my family we've added some new members and lost a couple this year. But we survived. As a matter of fact we thrived! Okay, I admit It's been a tough year but we've won some awards, made huge strides in our technology , survived a near meltdown, worked through our drama and personal issues and come through the year as a stronger team. We are more valuable to our customers and our shareholders. We've been tested by fire and found the gold. For that I am profoundly thankful.
In some sense we've become a family at SimpleSignal. Thanks for choosing to be part of it. Monday we'll come back together and finish the year with our best December ever. We have deals waiting to be provisioned, new features like call swap, video and faxing ready to sell, great opportunities in the pipeline and a team that is ready to launch aggressively into 2009. For that I am unbelievably thankful. I am thankful for your supportive spouses and family members that have allowed you to risk being part of a start-up. Most of all I am thankful to God for His faithful provision and protection. It's been a journey of faith for me and each of you have been a blessing.
Have a fun day with your friends and family.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
SimpleSignal's opportunity in the downturn
Along with the economy, the traditional Telco service provider is in a market transition. SimpleSignal is a company that was built to navigate through the turbulence of economic contraction. This downturn is our opportunity to increase market share.
Traditional phone companies have been delivering their "voice as a service" for more than 100 years. This model, however, is changing. As mainstream business adopts VoIP this revenue stream will disappear. It's been disappearing since the advent of VoIP in 1997.
Over the last ten years hundreds of independent VoIP service providers have sprung up and begun to take customers away from traditional Telco providers. The problem is that they are non-differentiated from the giants like Verizon and Quest. These upstarts all promised to bring something disruptive to telco but as its played out many of them are just trying to emulate telco...only cheaper. Since their services look basically the same and because they are non-differentiated their value proposition is limited to bringing service to the consumer cheaper. This is a rough game to play. How much cheaper can you be and still be profitable?
Delivering cheaper voice is not and has never been SimpleSignal's sole purpose. Our vision is to seize the opportunity to change traditional voice services forever. We're doing that by building a company that delivers and distributes voice not just as a service but as an application with limitless potential.
Why is it important to deliver voice as an app? Voice has a better value proposition as a feature rather than a stand alone service. That statement is disruptive. Delivering voice as an app or as a feature embedded in a software program changes the game for telco service providers. We've been talking about creating these mash ups for a couple of years now but no one has been able to successfully build a working business around it...yet. So, we continue to slog it out trying to win market share by adding value to SMB's by being cheaper and more feature rich than traditional telco. Yet the concept of selling voice as an app has captured the thinking of visionary telcos. Most notably British Telecom when they purchased Ribbit for a stunning $105 million earlier this year. Why did they do that? Primarily because they realize that soon it's not going to be about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) as much as it is EoIP (Everything over Internet Protocol). The world is changing the way we receive video, voice and data. It's not going to be a world where voice stands alone as a service or you subscribe to one network and not the other. All these services are being delivered over the net...everything is now converged to the net. This convergence changes the way people live, work, play and learn. What many people don't realize is that we are not connected to one proprietary network (ie. AT&T). We can actually seamlessly roll from one network to another. For example, now through a new feature we have called "call swap" a business can begin a call on their Cell carriers network and seemlessly move that call to the SimpleSignal Wi-Fi network where they can access the internet. The advent of the app store at Apple has unlocked some amazing technology that will change the way we live. It already has. You want further evidence?
•Today a new google app will launch in the iphone app store that let's us launch Google searches by voice command
•Loopt let's me know where my kids and friends are by mapping them on google earth in real time. This is the ultimate in "Presence"
•Facebook and other social networking sites allow us to stay connected with friends and family in real time.
•Improvements in video conferencing keeps me in personal touch without having to travel. Now the image is so clear you can interpret body language and even eye movement as if the person were sitting across the desk.
•We now have the option to connect to our video, voice or data wirelessly or wired.
•We want the option to work from anywhere. Some are still saying "oh that's terrible. Now I'm always available to my work." I'm of the opinion that "anywhere connectivity" is convenient. It affords freedom. We just have to learn new ways to manage it.
•When I buy the ticket for a sporting event online I'm asked to give up information about what team I want to win, my favorite players and what snack I want when I'm there so the stadium knows what to stock up on. They know what the consumer needs are so they can generate more revenue.
We live in an "intelligent, network centric" world. New business opportunities exist because the net knows us.
Ten years ago VoIP was thought to be a "disruptive" technology that would change telco. Disruption is what happens to an industry when somebody introduces a game changing innovation. Voip has the opportunity to "disrupt" but has largely missed the opportunity it has to "innovate".
In 2009 SimpleSignal will differentiate itself as an innovator by delivering voice as an app, as a feature not just a service, to business. We will concentrate on selling suites of business services and not just voice alone. An example of this is our SimplyMobile product. This is where we took Microsoft's Office Suite and "mashed in" our voice services to create an easy to use, hosted, no maintenance, feature rich service for one price per user. We are actively working with web and software developers to tie other apps together to create killer offerings that will create "mash ups" that will create interesting and easy to use voice enabled software for small business.
Our understanding and competency of this opportunity is perfectly timed. The giants of software are just now considering how they might include voice as a differentiating feature in their product. Salesforce.com, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all delivering their services as "hosted". What each of them need is a voice. This year we "mashed in with Microsoft and Salesforce and won recognition and awards for it. In 2009 we can add revenue and scale by offering the world our feature rich voice services in collaboration with the software giants by using our voice as a feature in their software.
We are already executing our 2009 strategy. Since October we have made significant inroads with the Microsoft and Salesforce.com companies and their user communities. Our traction grows and our customer user base gets bigger each month. In January we will be cooperating with Google to "mash in" our voice and feature set with Google docs.
Traditional phone companies have been delivering their "voice as a service" for more than 100 years. This model, however, is changing. As mainstream business adopts VoIP this revenue stream will disappear. It's been disappearing since the advent of VoIP in 1997.
Over the last ten years hundreds of independent VoIP service providers have sprung up and begun to take customers away from traditional Telco providers. The problem is that they are non-differentiated from the giants like Verizon and Quest. These upstarts all promised to bring something disruptive to telco but as its played out many of them are just trying to emulate telco...only cheaper. Since their services look basically the same and because they are non-differentiated their value proposition is limited to bringing service to the consumer cheaper. This is a rough game to play. How much cheaper can you be and still be profitable?
Delivering cheaper voice is not and has never been SimpleSignal's sole purpose. Our vision is to seize the opportunity to change traditional voice services forever. We're doing that by building a company that delivers and distributes voice not just as a service but as an application with limitless potential.
Why is it important to deliver voice as an app? Voice has a better value proposition as a feature rather than a stand alone service. That statement is disruptive. Delivering voice as an app or as a feature embedded in a software program changes the game for telco service providers. We've been talking about creating these mash ups for a couple of years now but no one has been able to successfully build a working business around it...yet. So, we continue to slog it out trying to win market share by adding value to SMB's by being cheaper and more feature rich than traditional telco. Yet the concept of selling voice as an app has captured the thinking of visionary telcos. Most notably British Telecom when they purchased Ribbit for a stunning $105 million earlier this year. Why did they do that? Primarily because they realize that soon it's not going to be about VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) as much as it is EoIP (Everything over Internet Protocol). The world is changing the way we receive video, voice and data. It's not going to be a world where voice stands alone as a service or you subscribe to one network and not the other. All these services are being delivered over the net...everything is now converged to the net. This convergence changes the way people live, work, play and learn. What many people don't realize is that we are not connected to one proprietary network (ie. AT&T). We can actually seamlessly roll from one network to another. For example, now through a new feature we have called "call swap" a business can begin a call on their Cell carriers network and seemlessly move that call to the SimpleSignal Wi-Fi network where they can access the internet. The advent of the app store at Apple has unlocked some amazing technology that will change the way we live. It already has. You want further evidence?
•Today a new google app will launch in the iphone app store that let's us launch Google searches by voice command
•Loopt let's me know where my kids and friends are by mapping them on google earth in real time. This is the ultimate in "Presence"
•Facebook and other social networking sites allow us to stay connected with friends and family in real time.
•Improvements in video conferencing keeps me in personal touch without having to travel. Now the image is so clear you can interpret body language and even eye movement as if the person were sitting across the desk.
•We now have the option to connect to our video, voice or data wirelessly or wired.
•We want the option to work from anywhere. Some are still saying "oh that's terrible. Now I'm always available to my work." I'm of the opinion that "anywhere connectivity" is convenient. It affords freedom. We just have to learn new ways to manage it.
•When I buy the ticket for a sporting event online I'm asked to give up information about what team I want to win, my favorite players and what snack I want when I'm there so the stadium knows what to stock up on. They know what the consumer needs are so they can generate more revenue.
We live in an "intelligent, network centric" world. New business opportunities exist because the net knows us.
Ten years ago VoIP was thought to be a "disruptive" technology that would change telco. Disruption is what happens to an industry when somebody introduces a game changing innovation. Voip has the opportunity to "disrupt" but has largely missed the opportunity it has to "innovate".
In 2009 SimpleSignal will differentiate itself as an innovator by delivering voice as an app, as a feature not just a service, to business. We will concentrate on selling suites of business services and not just voice alone. An example of this is our SimplyMobile product. This is where we took Microsoft's Office Suite and "mashed in" our voice services to create an easy to use, hosted, no maintenance, feature rich service for one price per user. We are actively working with web and software developers to tie other apps together to create killer offerings that will create "mash ups" that will create interesting and easy to use voice enabled software for small business.
Our understanding and competency of this opportunity is perfectly timed. The giants of software are just now considering how they might include voice as a differentiating feature in their product. Salesforce.com, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all delivering their services as "hosted". What each of them need is a voice. This year we "mashed in with Microsoft and Salesforce and won recognition and awards for it. In 2009 we can add revenue and scale by offering the world our feature rich voice services in collaboration with the software giants by using our voice as a feature in their software.
We are already executing our 2009 strategy. Since October we have made significant inroads with the Microsoft and Salesforce.com companies and their user communities. Our traction grows and our customer user base gets bigger each month. In January we will be cooperating with Google to "mash in" our voice and feature set with Google docs.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
What I'm told makes a great CEO blog.
Seth Godin, a master marketer, gives the following advice to CEO's that want to start blogging.
"Here's the problem. Blogs work when they are based on:
Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness and
Controversy
(maybe Utility if you want six).
Does this sound like a CEO to you?"
Great points Seth. As I think about why I should blog and what I want to accomplish with this form of communication I will attempt to include at least 4 out of 5 of these points before I press the publish post button.
OK then, I'll save the fluff for the annual report.
"Here's the problem. Blogs work when they are based on:
Candor
Urgency
Timeliness
Pithiness and
Controversy
(maybe Utility if you want six).
Does this sound like a CEO to you?"
Great points Seth. As I think about why I should blog and what I want to accomplish with this form of communication I will attempt to include at least 4 out of 5 of these points before I press the publish post button.
OK then, I'll save the fluff for the annual report.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
A useful, interesting, outrageous, and remarkable phone?
Some people have been asking me how "in these difficult times are
businesses still buying new phone systems?" My answer is simple, they shouldn't.
A phone system is the life blood of any business. The traditional PBX
works fine and is nearly 100% reliable. So why would a business spend
money to fix something that is not broken? Why take a risk on new
technology when it's risky enough just to stay in business?
Yes, SimpleSignal sells phones. But not the phones you may be used to
using. Our phones are as disruptive as a leaf blower in a feather
factory. Before we sell a phone we look at the enterprise and ask
"what points of pain can we resolve and what innovative features can
we apply to create a communications solution?" If we can't deliver
dramatic leaps in productivity and profitability and save a business
money then maybe they shouldn't change. That may sound like marketing
dribble but our customers tell us that we create a product and a
service so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that we can
call it a "solution" not a "phone". We take a boring thing like
telephones and develop a strategy that revolutionizes their business
processes. I don't believe I'm over stating it when I say that what
we've done for the SMB (small-medium business) is remarkable. It's
worth talking about. Allow me to briefly list some of the advantages
that hosted IP communications give the small business that previously
were only afforded to the largest businesses.
*"My other phone is a datacenter".
All of the technology that it takes to run our communication solution
resides in a secure data center rather than a box that sits in a
closet in your office. With "hosted" communications there is nothing
to steal, maintain, upgrade or pay somebody to service. I love to tell
people, "there are armed guards protecting our "phone box"...how about
yours?"
*Cloud based communications makes a communications change more
affordable and achievable.
Moving to the cloud changes the DNA of a business into a web-enabled
business and increases the velocity of that business. The risks of
going hosted are small compared to the gains of efficiency and
profitability. Once a business has tasted the cloud experience it is
unlikely to go back.
*Cost shift from cap ex to op ex equals lower upfront costs and lower
cost going forward.
Who needs all that equipment in a closet in your office? You pay only
for what you need and consume. Upfront capital outlay is minimal.
Cloud based services are cheaper and better than owning your own
equipment. It avoids the risks, costs and implementation time that can
keep a business agile. Consider this.
$0 for infrastructure
$0 for cost of adoption
1 network with infinite capacity and scalability.
*Create solutions without boundaries.
One thing our customers appreciate is elasticity. That means they can
scale quickly and affordably. They can buy only what they need when
they need it.
* Businesses are buying cloud based software services.
Software is moving off the desktop and servers in the office and into
the cloud. The giants like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are telling
the world that the future is in the cloud. Now a business can use
Amazon's S3 data storage, Google's google docs, and Microsoft's
exchange and access them from the cloud. That's where SimpleSignal
lives too. That's why we can so easily integrate directly into these
apps. For example, our integration allows a user to mouse over a
number in the app and click to call. The phone one their desk or their
cell begins to ring and when that call is answered the call is
connected. Magic!
Since I started with a question let me end with a question. Even
though it costs less at first to pay for a monthly service in the
cloud will it cost more in the long run?
Maybe over many years, but it's easy to overlook the real cost of
maintaining, upgrading and replacing an old telephone system or
"shrink wrap" software. Another added benefit is the ever expanding
feature set and ease of scaling. The ROI questions rapidly fall away
once a business starts using the service, gains confidence in using
the features and the benefits become apparent. Microsoft reports that
businesses that use hosted exchange rarely change. Their retention
rate is 94%. Our experience with our hosted IP-PBX customers is even
higher.
businesses still buying new phone systems?" My answer is simple, they shouldn't.
A phone system is the life blood of any business. The traditional PBX
works fine and is nearly 100% reliable. So why would a business spend
money to fix something that is not broken? Why take a risk on new
technology when it's risky enough just to stay in business?
Yes, SimpleSignal sells phones. But not the phones you may be used to
using. Our phones are as disruptive as a leaf blower in a feather
factory. Before we sell a phone we look at the enterprise and ask
"what points of pain can we resolve and what innovative features can
we apply to create a communications solution?" If we can't deliver
dramatic leaps in productivity and profitability and save a business
money then maybe they shouldn't change. That may sound like marketing
dribble but our customers tell us that we create a product and a
service so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that we can
call it a "solution" not a "phone". We take a boring thing like
telephones and develop a strategy that revolutionizes their business
processes. I don't believe I'm over stating it when I say that what
we've done for the SMB (small-medium business) is remarkable. It's
worth talking about. Allow me to briefly list some of the advantages
that hosted IP communications give the small business that previously
were only afforded to the largest businesses.
*"My other phone is a datacenter".
All of the technology that it takes to run our communication solution
resides in a secure data center rather than a box that sits in a
closet in your office. With "hosted" communications there is nothing
to steal, maintain, upgrade or pay somebody to service. I love to tell
people, "there are armed guards protecting our "phone box"...how about
yours?"
*Cloud based communications makes a communications change more
affordable and achievable.
Moving to the cloud changes the DNA of a business into a web-enabled
business and increases the velocity of that business. The risks of
going hosted are small compared to the gains of efficiency and
profitability. Once a business has tasted the cloud experience it is
unlikely to go back.
*Cost shift from cap ex to op ex equals lower upfront costs and lower
cost going forward.
Who needs all that equipment in a closet in your office? You pay only
for what you need and consume. Upfront capital outlay is minimal.
Cloud based services are cheaper and better than owning your own
equipment. It avoids the risks, costs and implementation time that can
keep a business agile. Consider this.
$0 for infrastructure
$0 for cost of adoption
1 network with infinite capacity and scalability.
*Create solutions without boundaries.
One thing our customers appreciate is elasticity. That means they can
scale quickly and affordably. They can buy only what they need when
they need it.
* Businesses are buying cloud based software services.
Software is moving off the desktop and servers in the office and into
the cloud. The giants like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are telling
the world that the future is in the cloud. Now a business can use
Amazon's S3 data storage, Google's google docs, and Microsoft's
exchange and access them from the cloud. That's where SimpleSignal
lives too. That's why we can so easily integrate directly into these
apps. For example, our integration allows a user to mouse over a
number in the app and click to call. The phone one their desk or their
cell begins to ring and when that call is answered the call is
connected. Magic!
Since I started with a question let me end with a question. Even
though it costs less at first to pay for a monthly service in the
cloud will it cost more in the long run?
Maybe over many years, but it's easy to overlook the real cost of
maintaining, upgrading and replacing an old telephone system or
"shrink wrap" software. Another added benefit is the ever expanding
feature set and ease of scaling. The ROI questions rapidly fall away
once a business starts using the service, gains confidence in using
the features and the benefits become apparent. Microsoft reports that
businesses that use hosted exchange rarely change. Their retention
rate is 94%. Our experience with our hosted IP-PBX customers is even
higher.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Dreamforce!
I spent most of the week at Dreamforce, the Salesforce.com user show where we exhibited SimpleSignal's cloud based, unified business communication solutions to more than 9000 attendees. As people walked by our booth they were greeted with our napkin sketch we had printed on actual napkins. The photo above is what it looked like.
Briefly we explained that in spite of the cool features that are available in a hosted IP PBX solution it wasn't enough. True unified communications would need to incorporate the users cell phone and software. For instance, using a feature called "call swap" we can allow a user to initiate a call on their cell on the way to work. When they get close to their desk they can without interruption move the call from the cell to their desk phone. Conversely, if they are stuck on a call and have to go they just press *11 on their desk phone. This transfers the call to their cell and they are off and running without interrupting their call by having to say something like "hold on I have to transfer the call to my cell". The transfer is so smooth the other party would never notice. You can watch how this works by viewing our youtube video.
search "simplesignal" (one word).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVh5hhRcrvw
The other cool thing we showed on our napkin sketch was how we build our voice service directly into the app's. Salesforce.com is a great example. If you adopt the salesforce mantra of "if it's not in salesforce it doesn't exist" you are spending a good deal of your day working out of the application. We provide the user with the ability to click on the contact and automatically call out to the contact without dialing the phone. If a contact calls inbound, a screen pop of the contact's information appears while they pick up the call. Our voice integration into the app and the way we include the cell phone is revolutionary. Now their cell phones and the app's they work out of all day actually work together to create a unified communications solution. Behold, a new day dawns!
I was pleased to see the reaction of the 300+ people we had actual conversations with about the difference we could make in their work day. Our sales staff will be busy in the coming days with the follow on conversations. It's exciting to be involved with a breakthrough technology like unified communications.
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