51–60 of 69 posts
Co-founder here: We are an active team at Startup Weekend Columbia. We pitch tomorrow afternoon here's more about our company: http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.
Interesting branding, good domain, strong message. Unfortunately, I can't say I like the product at all ;) Google will let you port your landline (indirectly) to Google voice, and forward all you calls for free. Alternatively, I could port my landline to a second line on my Cell plan, and get a dumb-phone, for the same $10/month I'd pay you. I like the basic message, and the domain, and that you're trying to brand as…
To those of you saying "But Google Voice does this!", realize that most people outside of HN/the tech community don't know this.
Almost every single person I know uses GV. My 81 year old grandfather uses it.
-I wouldn't worry about the GV question, but I would worry about understanding your target audience. If I were you I'd call up @mikeknoop's parents and show them the site to get feedback, since those are the kind of ppl who will use it. Ask them if any of their friends would use this too and talk to them.
-$10/month sounds like a lot and I wonder where you came up with it. I'd guess something closer to $20/year, but again, ask ppl who would want to use this.
-related to that, I don't understand what "$10 / month for the first 100 minutes, then $0.08 / minute after that" means. Are you gonna charge people by minute they talk for forwarding their calls? I wouldn't do that. If you want this to seem like a no-brainer, don't make people try to figure out how much they'll end up paying you. Just stick a nice pricetag on it and be done.
-your page has too many bullets, in too many fonts, colors and sizes. This is a really straightforward idea so make it simple for people - explain it in 3 lines at most, make them big, consistent and clear, and leave out the powerpoint bulletpoints.
$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?
$10 a month just to forward calls from an old number? Why would I not just port that number to Google Voice, then forward my GV calls to my cell phone, all for a grand total of FREE?
We think there's value in creating a simpler, more focused user experience than Google Voice. I hope that focus comes across in the branding we've developed so far. As others have commented, porting your number to Google Voice and setting up forwarding can be a daunting process; we're trying hard to design a system that insulates customers from that sort of complexity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You would do just that. I doubt, however, this website is targeted at the Hacker News crowd. If my inlaws wanted to get rid of their landline and get individual cell phones and needed their old number to transfer out, they wouldn't port their number to Google Voice and then forward from Google Voice to their cell phone. I'm also not sure if paying $10 / month is attractive to consumers, but that's just speculation!
You're exactly right, we think the target market is older and less comfortable with technology than the Hacker News crowd. The most common reaction we get when we pitch the service to someone is "I wouldn't need that, but it could be great for my parents/grandparents/inlaws/etc". Ideas about how to best appeal and market to this demographic are welcome.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost every single person I know uses GV. My 81 year old grandfather uses it.
You keep reposting the same comment. GV has roughly 1% penetration, thus your circle friends/family is statistically highly unusual. Given the technology profile of your friends and family you should not trust your instincts for estimating market demand.
Landlines have long been killed. Unless you didn't notice, Magic Jack killed 'em. It is much cheaper and it just works. You have to be really crazy to be paying $48 for the landlines.
I'd set them up with voip to save money, but I have tried voip setups, and even with qos I haven't been impressed with the audio quality when other people are on the internet.