New Rates

We have recently reviewed all our rates. In summary, our rates are on average lower. In some country experiencing political, economical or environmental problems like Libya, USA and Japan, rates have increased. In countries where there is more competition or that are experiencing long time stability, rates have decreased like South Korea and most countries in Europe.

Rates are like the stock market, they reflect the overall health of a country. The lower the rates the more likely the country is healthy. And when rates go down or up, it indicates whether the country is improving or not.

Tribair's point of presence...

Cloud computing is everywhere. Nowadays, I can't open a newspaper without reading the same article again and again about what cloud computing really means and its benefits.

But cloud computing isn't new, it was already there 20 years ago when we were then talking about client-server architecture.

This been said, cloud computing is adding some (interesting) fuzziness in the equation: you don't really know where the "server" is.

The "server" can be a small virtualized slice of a server somewhere in Malaysia, or a cluster of 1,000 machines in Palo Alto, or a cluster of machines distributed in many different locations.

You can see Tribair as a cloud. Do you know where we are? Let me tell you a little bit about our "PoPs".

A PoP is a Point of Presence, where we have VoIP servers. The closer the PoP is to you, the better chance we have to avoid internet hazards (packet loss, latency, jitter…) between you and us, and better the call quality will be.

Now, you got me, we don't just have one dusty server sitting under my desk to run the Tribair service.

We don't have the resources (yet) to have a PoP at every corner… so we had to make choices.

It may be true with Web hosting, but with VoIP, not all "PoPs" are equal. 

The INTER-NET is indeed a very complex INTERconnection of NETworks, and everywhere you have a net, you have "hot spots" we call HUBs.

Hubs like in the airline industry (another inter-net) where, for instance, Atlanta is a HUB for Delta.

Delta's presence in Atlanta is oversized for Delta's local customer based but Atlanta is as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination.

When you know where are the Internet Transfer Points, the Internet Hubs, aka Internet Exchange Points, you'll have a pretty good idea where our servers are. The closer we are to a Hub, the closer we are to you!

Free Calls Update

As a startup, we are experimenting different approaches. It's normal to try several scenarios and keep what works best. Our Free Calls app worked extremely well. Users would start the app, listen to an add as they dial their phone number, then listen to an interactive ad trying to sell them something before the phone call gets placed. And finally, the user gets connected for up to 5 minutes for free talking. The app worked great, had lots of users from the start.

The only problem is that we got screwed by VoodooVox, our ad agency. They were promising revenue that just wasn't there. We were loosing lots of money and had to cancel the app. It's really too bad as it was a really good and useful app that had tremendous potential. We were only starting but climbing the App Store rankings very fast.

We will try to find other sources of revenue for the app and relaunch it.

Break Even

As a startup, it's very difficult to get funded. But it is also only the start of the adventure. Getting funded doesn't mean less work and more security, on the contrary. It means you need to answer to investors, you need to maximize their investment. It's also the start of constant differences between the investors and the company. The problem is that both don't have the same goal to start with. Even if the goal is clearly stated in the business plan, it isn't viewed the same way by both parties.

An investor will invest in multiple companies. It knows they won't all make it, but the ones that do will payoff lots more than what they loose with the others. So an investor must push to get the maximum amount of value for the companies that do make it. They are willing to take lots of risks to make it. They don't really care about short term profitability, they want maximum traction, maximum brand name, maximum marketing, maximum burn. They have plans to invest more money in companies that have success to maximize their investment.

But as an entrepreneur, the goal is not the same. If you are part of the companies that fail, you also fail. It's going to be hard to convince another investor to invest in your company. You don't have multiple tries like the investors. You are not willing to risk as much as the investor, your priority is not maximizing burn but making the company profitable by making the right decisions at the right time. Patience is a virtue, but investors unfortunately have little of. A startup is a lot of hard and lightning fast work while holding back investors from spending all the marketing budget in the first month of launch. By becoming profitable, the company doesn't depend on raising another round and convincing new investors and old ones that the company will be a big success. The biggest advantage of becoming profitable is that the company decides when and if it needs another round and at what cost. It doesn't become a question of survival.

At Tribair, we have become profitable within a year of raising our first round, it was our goal from the start and it was shared with our investors. We have even surpassed our previsions which must be very rare in the startup world, and we get along with our investors just fine thank you.

418 Android devices, and counting

Our users are calling with Tribair on over 400 devices. New devices keep popping up almost every day. We have spent tremendous efforts in trying to keep up and test all these devices. Our app has recently been improving on all aspects. Downloads, calls, ratings, payments and retention are all increasing. The hard work is finally paying. The most important metric, user satisfaction, is increasing.

The problem is we cannot buy all possible phones and test all of them. There are just too many, and the app must work on new phones as soon as they come out, even before we can test. We were fortunate enough to be one of the first Android developers. Google gave us a Nexus One phone, as they did to a few developers, to speed up the development of apps. We also bought the most popular models and a few tablets. Our most popular model is the Galaxy by Samsung.

For the other models, we rely heavily on the Android simulator. We simulate different screen sizes, features and versions. Android hardware developers can do anything they want, there are no restrictions. The key to developing good Android apps is to never assume anything. Always check if the phone has a feature before using it, otherwise it will crash. For example, does the phone have WiFi, 3G, speaker phone, Google maps installed, etc.

Android is clearly taking over the smart phone market. They have so many different alternatives and propositions for the users as opposed to iPhone who has only 3. The key for us is to always keep updated and to reach as many users as possible to offer our solution. We are now very confident with our Android app, marketing can now accelerate knowing that people we reach will be happy with our new Tribair Android app.

New Languages

Our latest version includes 4 new languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Korean and Thai.

Middle East has just passed North America for total number of users. By adding Arabic and Hebrew, the difference should increase even more.

We have also added servers to better support Middle East and Asia. Our coverage is getting better and better, sound delay is being reduced with each new server added to our network. In most cases, the delay should now be almost the same as if the call was placed using a landline.

Dirty Cheap or Dirty Dirty?

Some calling cards are really doing some magic with your minutes.

They know how to make them disappear in no time.

Let's see their magic tricks and bring this shady side to light.

According to users, the calling cards don't deliver what they promise.

Their tool to under-deliver? fees.

Connection Fee: Charged when call begins. I've recently seen a card offering the US at 0.1 ¢/min with a 99 ¢ fineprint connection fee and with a limited talk time of 20 minutes… do the math!

Maintenance Fee: Can be charged at the end of a call, or every week, or every month. Just a way to make sure you card expires in no time.

Communication Fee: A charge when the call is over.

Disconnection Fee: Yet another penalty for ending your call.

Long-Talking Fee: A fee for talking for more than 20 minutes.

Toll-free Access Fee: A fee for accessing their TFN to use the service.

On the top of that, some calling cars have an outrageous rounding policy, sometimes 3-5 minute.

Even the largest player in the business, with total sales last year of $2.2 billion is playing a nasty packman game with your minutes. On their $3 Crazy card, they charge a connection fee at the end of the call for every five minutes of use. The card also lists a 25% service fee. The card issuer says the fees are fair since a customer can avoid them by using all of a card's minutes for one conversation.

This is just sad when you know that customers are mostly poor immigrants, older people, and other low-income consumers.

Free Calls

Tribair has just released another app on iPhone called: Free Calls. Users can call to over 75 destinations for free. A few ads are first played to the user before his call is connected for up to 5 minutes.

Users have made more than 1000 free calls on the first day of the app's release. The app is slowly climbing up the App Store rankings as more and more users download ad use it.

Download Free Calls from Tribair on your iPhone and make free calls to destinations like:

Argentina,

Belgium,

Canada,

Chile,

China,

Denmark,

France,

Germany,

Hungary,

India,

Japan,

Mexico city,

Norway,

Portugal,

Singapore,

Turkey,

UK,

USA

International Platform

In order to improve its call quality, Tribair has invested heavily in its telecommunication infrastructure. It now has servers on all continents except Oceania, but servers in Australia and New Zealand will be installed and taking calls shortly. In order to benefit from the new infrastructure, users must upgrade to the latest version (1.2.6 on iPhone, 1.70 on Android). The delay experience by users has been significantly reduced, users will now benefit from the same call quality everywhere in the world.

Furthermore, Tribair has changed it's speech compression algorithm. Calls are now using less bandwidth with smaller packets which are less likely to be lost in the cloud. In heavily used public WiFis, calls have a better chance to be high quality.

Tribair will continue to monitor the quality of each call by measuring delays and packet loss. Measures are taken every week to make sure the quality follows its user growth.

Call Quality

I remember a friend calling me on VoIP around 15 years ago. The quality was awful, he had to call at least 5 times to get 1 minute of conversation through. 5 years ago, call quality had improved, 8 out of 10 calls were not bad. In the last few years, VoIP call quality has continued to improve to the point where there is almost no difference between quality in VoIP and landlines. I would go even further as to say that the quality of VoIP has surpassed mobile.

But what makes a good call?

Delay

The delay is the time it takes for the person you called to hear you. Usually, the farther the person is, the longer it takes to hear you. Most people on a call have a very bad perception of the delay. Between 0 and 300 milli seconds (0.3 seconds), people will say there is no delay. Between 300 and 450, people will say there is a noticeable delay, but it is not a problem, and estimate the delay at around half a second second. Between 500 and 750, they will say it is at least 1 second, and people start to be annoyed by the delay and can barely use it. Over 750, they will say there is a 2 second delay and the call is not a good experience. Both are constantly interrupting each other, it's hard to get a good flow in the conversation. Delays in VoIP calls can be measured and improved.

Volume

We asked users to rate 50 different call recordings. The most important factor determining their rating was volume. They rated low volume calls low and loud calls higher. That's the main reason we introduced our own volume adjustment recently.

Sound quality

We took the same calls and adjusted their volume to the same level and asked users to rate them again. Now the rating really focused on the quality of the sound. It's strange in this day and age, where TV has gone from HD to 3D that phone calls are just not following the pace. Mobile phone calls are just awful quality. Compression rates are brutal, having a high impact on the quality. Add a few packet loss and calls are sometimes barely audible. Dropped calls are common. People are used to it and don't complain enough. The technology is there to have high quality calls, but the carriers are too busy making profits to change their technology. Eventually, it will change. The change will probably come from VoIP where there is less technological constraints.

VoIP

VoIP calls also have their problems. The most important factor is the internet connection. The phone must have a good Internet connection. Using WiFi, the phone must be near the WiFi antenna and the Internet must not be congested to get quality calls. If the Internet is congested, there will be packet loss (sound glitches) or even worse, no sound at all. On 3G, the same problem can occur, often when the app is used in heavily crowded areas.

At Tribair, we work on all aspects of sound quality. Every phone call is measured. We constantly find our weaknesses and improve them. Since we launched, call quality has improved and will continue to improve drastically over the next few months. Stay posted for more info.

New Languages

We have just released version 1.2.5 including 5 new languages: Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian. The response has been almost immediate. We have observed 5 to 10 times more downloads in those countries. The effort will pay for itself within a month.

The experience has been so good that we will release 5 more languages next month. In a similar effort to become a higher quality international solution, we are adding more servers across the world. Having more servers reduces the call latency or the time it takes before you hear what somebody is saying. If that time is too big, then it's hard to know when somebody has finished talking and it becomes difficult to negotiate who has talking priority.

With 14 languages and servers covering all continents, we are quietly becoming an international carrier with nothing to envy to the big telcos. On the other hand, they can only watch us grow and wonder how we can manage to provide calls so much cheaper than them.

New web site

You may have noticed we changed our new home page. Our new web site comes with a few changes in our strategy.

We have added a big promotion. You can now get 20% to 33% more credits when you buy on your phone by entering the promo code: WEBPRO

We have removed the revenue sharing with users. They could earn up to 20% if enough users called using their WiFi. It was difficult, almost no users were getting up to 20%. So we decided to give them the money upfront with our promo. The main reason of the change was to concentrate on our main message: free calls and messages between users, 45% cheaper than Skype calls and over 250 000 free WiFi hotspots across the world. The revenue share with users was just a small feature and adding too much noise to our overall offer, media sometimes focused on this feature alone.

Finally, for communities (calling cards, social networks, free WiFi chains, etc.), we are offering a white label solution of our app. We will build an app with your colors and logos for free and share revenue. We have launched a few partners already and more are to come shortly.

Since these changes took place, we have received only positive feedback from everyone because everyone wins.

David vs Goliath

How can you sell 45% cheaper than Skype?
Why doesn't Skype just lower their rates?

I get those two questions all the time. Everyone is surprised to learn how low our rates are.

Both questions are related. I started using Skype in 2005. Their rates have not decreased since. Even worse, they added a connection fee in 2007. Skype is not a startup anymore. They have become a giant. They are bigger than all the other VoIP companies combined. They got big because they were competing with the giant telcos with very low rates. But now, in the VoIP world, they have become the giant. Their snowball got too big, it just stopped.

Skype's goal is now to go for an IPO. They won't lower their rates because they cannot afford to. A company that goes for an IPO needs to show steady increases in revenue. They cannot suddenly cut their revenue by 50% to have a successful IPO. Since the people making the decisions are the ones that want to make the big bucks, they will never even consider lowering their rates unless they can prove it will attract more users to compensate. Skype won't lower their rates for exactly the same reasons the big telcos aren't lowering theirs. It's because they are making more money by keeping their rates high even if they do loose a few users.

Tribair represents the next generation in VoIP companies. It's actually the start of a new generation of companies in all sectors of the economy. In the old days, companies were getting bigger and bigger because it was cheaper to do the work in house than to outsource it. Companies like GM became as big and diverse as small countries, offering all kinds of services and producing all kinds of goods having nothing to do with their core business. Big companies are now turning around, as soon as they can outsource something for less money, they do. Companies are now shrinking. Some companies like Coca-Cola don't even produce and bottle their own product, it's all outsourced. They only have marketing left. Where will it stop?

Tribair can offer rates 45% cheaper than Skype because it's smaller and because it takes a much smaller investment to launch an international telco in 2010 than it did a decade earlier. Goods are going to continue to get cheaper, because the Internet makes it cheaper to produce, market and distribute. The new generation of companies can quickly take advantage of the Internet to undersell big companies and quickly gain significant market share. There will be more and more small and aggressive companies, the future will look a lot more diversified.

Tribair sponsors Longueuil's soccer team in international tournament

An international soccer tournament is held every year in Spain: the Mediterranean International Cup. Teams from all over the world compete, among others: Manchester United (UK), FC Barcelona (Spain), Korean YFA, Ajax Amsterdam (NL), KACM Marrakech (Morocco), FCBescola (Hong Kong), Liverpool FC (UK), FC Bayern Munich (Germany), Talentos Franco Rizzi (Venezuela) and our own Soccer Longueuil. Needless to say, we weren't the favourites.

The teams were divided into 7 pools containing 4 teams. Each team plays against the other 3. The best two of every pool move on as does the best 3 place finisher. Longueuil drew a very tough pool with Ajax (last year's winner) and Alboraya UD (last year's bronze). Longueuil was clearly there for the experience. They lost the first match 3-0 against Alboraya. A good match for Longueuil as they were able to attack quite a few times and weren't totally out of their league. The next match was against Ajax. They certainly got a good experience out of that match. They even scored a goal. At the half, it was only 2-1 for Ajax. Ajax finally won 4-1. Just scoring a goal was certainly a victory for our team.

Finally, they were up against a local team. They quickly took a 3-0 lead and never looked back. Longueuil's coach pushed them to the limit and the goals kept coming. By the time it was all over, they had won 9-0! Who would believe a team from Canada could completely dominate a team from Spain. So Longueuil was not that unlucky in their draw after all. By getting to play against one weaker team, they scored enough goals to make it as the best third place finisher and move on to the next round. Making it to the next round was clearly unexpected and also very rewarding as they played nothing less than FC Barcelona. Clearly, FC Barcelona had the better team and again Longueuil lost only 3-0. At that age, the average of goals scored per game is around 6. So 3-0 is very honourable. Playing against the best teams in the world is an experience that will not only make the team so much better but also remain in their memories for a life time.

In the final of the tournament, Madrid beat Barcelona 2-0 in a classic matchup.

Congratulations to the whole team!

Eric

Snow Ball Effect

As a small company, our marketing budget is limited. We cannot compete with the big telcos and we can't come even close to Skype. We need to rely on our faithful users, on word of mouth and on a few lucky breaks. We got a few breaks when our competition crashed for a day or two. Every time there is a crash, our downloads go up significantly. Users are quick to find another solution when something goes wrong.

On the other hand, we need to make sure our own solution works perfectly. Our users are using Tribair on over 100 different types of Android phones. There is no way we can buy and test them all, but we are testing on the most popular ones. Even if Android should be standard, it isn't. As an example, we had major problems with the Galaxy from Samsung because it was bypassing Android to handle sound. Every time a user has a bad experience, he's not telling his friends about us. The snow ball doesn't get bigger. Even worse, he might make a bad review and the snow ball might actually get smaller.

On iPhone, we have finally fixed the echo problem. It will work on all iPhone and iPod 4, iPads and on iPhone 3 with iOS 4 or more. Even if it's simpler to test on iPhone, there are still a lot of different variations as they release new updates of their iOS frequently. As users are experiencing better and better calls, we can see their numbers getting bigger and bigger. But as soon as we make a bad release, their numbers drop instantaneously and it takes a very long time to get back up. A snowball is very hard to get rolling and very easy to break.

Are you ready to pay for something that is free?

"Of course not!" I hear.

Now remember the last time you lost your credit card under the passenger seat of you car and had to call your bank with your cellphone.

Remember the last time you called your airline to reschedule a return flight.

Remember the last time you reserved a taxi.

Everytime you call a toll-free number from your cell - and you and I know that those calls can be pretty long - you use your precious and costly airtime minutes. Fair?

This is why, we came up with a new convenience app: "Free Airlines Caller", that let you make those long calls over your WiFi, free of any charges, including airtime.

Try it out: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.tribair.freeairlinescaller&feature=search_result

Airlines enrolled:
Aer Lingus, Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air Canada, Air China, Air France, Air Jamaica, Air Mauritius, Air Pacific, Air Tahiti Nui, AirTran, Alitalia, All Nippon Airways, American Airlines, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Avianca, Bangkok Airways, China Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Condor, Continental Airlines, Copa Airlines, Czech Airlines, EVA Airways, Finnair, Frontier Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia Airlines, Icelandair, Japan Airlines, JetBlue, Kuwait Airways, Lufthansa, Philippine Airlines, Qantas Airways, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Southwest Airlines, Spanair, Spirit Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, Swiss International Airline, TAM Brazilian Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, Virgin Atlantic

New Languages

As our app gets used all over the world, we get several requests to support more languages. Being from Canada with a multi-cultural history, it is obvious to support as many languages as possible. By an incredible amount of circumstances, we had a 1960 world map at our office with all the languages spoken. Looking at the number of smartphones and our number of users in every country, we have decide to add as soon as possible the following languages: Italian, German, Russian, Japanese, Deutsch and Arabic.

Having myself lived in Tunisia for a year, I feel I also needed to do something for all my friends back there. The problem with Arabic is that it is read right to left. Some interfaces will have to be re-designed, but we have so many users in Arabic countries that we have to support them with an app in their own language. Finally, in some countries, Tribair calls go through where Skype are blocked. So lets help everyone communicate.

Launch History

I often get questions about my picture on our web site. I was told a few times that the hippie look is out. The picture has nothing to do with marketing or trying to find a look. I really don't care about my look. In fact, I would rather not have any pictures on our site. But that picture comes with a story. It comes from the great Canadian playoff hockey tradition. The playoffs in hockey last around 2 months. The players have the tradition and mostly the superstition of not shaving their beard otherwise it will bring bad luck. There has been some numerous famous beards in the history of hockey. You can look at the top 5 here:

http://theshowsports.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-5-nhl-playoff-beards-of-last-10.html

But my favourite is:

Lanny McDonald winning the Stanley Cup!

At Tribair, we decided to go into playoff mode. Until we launched, everyone got up at 5 in the morning and worked as much as family could support without breaking apart. We couldn't shave or miss a morning until we launched. Needless to say, new features weren't even proposed. The picture was taken right after we had launched. It's a mix of tired and satisfied.

If you want to launch a product quickly, go into playoff mode. It works.

Eric

Tribair's Latest App for iPhone, Android and Blackberry Declares War on VoIP Call Restrictions

Tribair declares freedom of speech for all countries. With freedom of speech must also come the right to make free and inexpensive phone calls around the world. Tribair launched a new self-adaptive technology allowing everybody to make VoIP calls, even in countries where VoIP is blocked by carriers or governments.

Tribair has declared war on all countries preventing users from making VoIP phone calls. The government or any monopole can no longer control the telecom industry of a country. In an unprecedented move, Tribair's newest release contains new technology helping users make free and inexpensive phone calls through the Internet. The technology adapts to changes in the Internet to find a safe way out of any country. Tribair is committed to continue to evolve its technology to ensure world wide service. Tribair is the #1 productivity app in several countries and continues to grow everywhere. Furthermore, Tribair rates are very low at 45% cheaper than Skype and works in countries where Skype is blocked.

"We strongly believe in freedom of speech. With freedom of speech must also come the freedom to make free and inexpensive phone calls around the world. Freedom of speech is the first step towards freedom for the people. More specifically, we are trying to solve the problem for users who are blocked from making legal phone calls by telcos or Internet service providers. These problems occur more than people think all over the world, in countries like Brazil, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Korea to name only a few", Eric Reiher, CEO Tribair.

Tribair offers free VoIP calls between users, as well as free text, voice, photo and video messages. Calls are placed using any WiFi network or on a 3G data or better network. In case a user doesn't own a WiFi or is traveling, maps are available with over 250 000 free WiFi hotspots around the world.

Eat ONLY your dog food

Everyone involved in a startup uses their app as much as they can. In our case, we decided to push it one step further. Our app is mostly useful for long distance calling. I have an iPhone and I pay a carrier to make phone calls. I didn't totally cancel my carrier, I needed it for my data plan and to receive calls. But anywhere I am, when I need to make a phone call, I use Tribair, local call or not. If there isn't a WiFi near by, I just call using my data plan. The experience has been very useful. The ultimate goal in eating your dog food is to improve your app. In my case, I was mostly interested in improving call quality. Over time, we were able to cut the delay between callers and actually improve the quality of the sound. We did a lot of quality testing and surveys. I shamelessly called Canadian embassies across the world to collect recordings with different settings and play them back to people so they could rate the calls. We found out that their rating was directly proportional to the volume of the call. The louder the call, the higher the rating. In the newest version 1.2.1, calls are louder and users can increase the volume directly in the app, during a call. Nowadays, most of the time the person called doesn't even know that I'm using a VoIP service, and I don't tell them. It's becoming normal to have high quality calls.

Using it all the time also came with a few nasty surprises. When I'm near a subway station at peak hours, using my data plan is not a good idea. The network gets congested and the sound sucks big time. But other than that, it has worked perfectly. Even in crowded coffee shops, WiFi has never been a problem.

Eric

Professional Bloggers

Bloggers can play a major role in a startup's success. Famous bloggers can destroy or make a startup famous with just a few posts. Their blogs are a good source of information to major mainstream publications. A blog can inspire a national newspaper article and can be the start of widespread adoption of a new technology. Sales can skyrocket instanteneously.

But Bloggers need to make a living. Most of the famous bloggers blog full time, and earn their living by charging for their services. Everyone needs to make a living but I have a big problem with impartiality. When I buy a newspaper, the journalist is paid by the paper, not by any advertising company directly. If he needs to write a bad article about a company, he can. There are exceptions, a newspaper owned by a big company will never write a bad article about another sector of the same company. People can read between the lines. But bloggers, everything they write might be influenced by who is paying them. There is no way to know if they were paid or not to write the article.

As a startup, we have contacted several bloggers. Some have ignored us completely like GigaOm. But some have taken the time to write about us, for free! One of them is Andy Abramson, a very respected and popular blogger.

http://andyabramson.blogs.com/

And I must admit, we paid a few bucks (we have a very small budget) to have our app reviewed by a two popular web sites. One of these sites:

http://www.theiphoneappreview.com

But unlike others, they includes the following disclaimer:

A small expedite fee was paid by the developer to speed up the publication of this review.

When Submitting an app for review on the iPhone app review, they are very clear. They will decide on your rating, the only thing you can do is ask them not to publish if your rating is bad.

I think all bloggers should have the same ethics as them. Every blog should specify if they were paid to write it or not. I'm not saying paying is wrong and I'm convinced some bloggers are impartial, but readers should be informed when an article was paid for so they can judge by themselves.

Eric

Startup: the dreamers and the schemers

Remember me? I made a post on this blog a couple weeks ago caricaturing myself as the despicable metrics guy at Tribair.

My World is made of numbers, trends, progression bars, red/yellow/green indicators…

I've also been studying Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) for quite a bit now and often try to understand what my
associates's World is made of.

When I do this exercise, their World seems so different from mine that I'm scared. Should I?

No, definitely not!
We are a low fat startup team. I share my DNA with my fellow peers, a startup culture, and a goal. Sharing more would simply be too dangerous to me.
We don't have the same domain expertise, the same management style, the same age, the same stress factors…

But, what is the perfect startup team made of? all startup blogs have an answer, here is mine: it's made of only one person: Steve Jobs.
NLP again, can we modelize Jobs's brain and reproduce his thinking process? What an exciting project…

• Jobs is human, he sees (human) problems and knows how to humanly fix them with technologies
• Jobs knows how to drive, how to drive a project, how to drive a team
• Jobs understands how to reach, talk to and sell to the people whose problems are being solved

Very few people have all three skills, and even if they come close, they are rarely in perfect balance.

I am not Steve Jobs, and chances are you are not either. Is Tribair collectively a Steve Jobs? are you?

Let me rephrase, I'm not a Steve Jobs yet. Yes, it also takes a lot of ego to succeed :)

#1 app in Kuwait

Everyday, we get a report by Apple showing our total number of downloads and the number of downloads for our top 10 countries. I noticed that Kuwait was really picking up a lot of momentum lately so I googled Tribair Kuwait. I found this amazing site, it lists all our rankings in every country:

http://www.appannie.com/tribair-free-phone-calls/ranking/

No wonder we are popular in Kuwait, we reached the #1 rank in the productivity apps category. We are also #3 overall for all free apps in all categories.

Thanks to everyone in Kuwait

Amazing video showing Android Epidemic

Same time one year ago, we were all getting prepared for the big hit: we were all watching anxiously the videos showing H1N1 spreading.

This year, it's another WorldWide phenomena we can watch, more peacefully: Android World Domination.

Google has produced an amazing video showing the build-up of global Android's phone activations since it was first introduced (2008), up to last month.

See for yourself the Android phenomenon.

Our android distribution

One of the big challenge in mobile development is to support the multiple versions of OS available on the market. The google Android OS is a good example for that. Actually, there are five major OS and the 3.0 won't make it easier.

For us, an important data to know is the distribution of our customer over the Android network in order to support the right versions. By looking at this graph from Wikipedia showing the distribution of the mobile accessing the Google Market between January 19 and February 2 and comparing it with our distribution, we notice it was almost exactly the same. In fact, we realized if we could support 1.5 and 1.6 OS, we would obtain the same result.

So our development team has started working on a new version that will allow that. With a lot more options (volume, better sound quality).

R&D blues

When a company is started from scratch, there is a long period where all activities are focused around product definition and R&D. It's a period of doubt, like organizing a big party and wondering if people will show up. On the good side, there is no user complaints and support. As the product starts to take life, beta testers are sought. We were very fortunate to find a travelling tester. A friend was leaving Montreal, traveling all the was down the Americas to the most southern part of Argentina, by motorcycle. He left in August 2010 and just got there a few weeks ago.

He wrote about is adventure in one of the most amazing blog I have read.
http://raymondchausse.blogspot.com
Lots of nice pictures also.

When he started, there were plenty of available free WiFi in the US and Mexico. But we didn't have that many WiFi hotspots available more to the south. We were wondering how much he could really use it. But as he approached South America, our database was getting bigger and bigger and we knew he could at least use it in all the major cities. In fact, it exceeded our expectations. He was able to use our app almost every day.

Thanks to all our early adopters for coming to the party, it's really just getting started.

Top 10 Telecom carriers in the World

I'm often considered as a KPI freak, someone who wants to measure everything...
When operating IT (and telecom. in particular), nothing, to me, is more true than the old management adage that says "you can't manage what you don't measure". On which I would add a "You cannot change what you do not acknowledge" (c) Dr Phil I guess and "What gets measured gets done" (c) myself.
This afternoon, I was wondering what could make me stop this continuous measuring madness.
I put together this document showing the top 10 Telecom carriers in the World and told my friends and colleagues that until Tribair makes it #1 on the list, they will have to get over it ;)

Day and night life of an entrepreneur at CES Las Vegas

The biggest takeaway from the first day was customer target. We could see exactly where people are from by looking at their badge.
Most people from the US didn't stop. Most americans have a mobile phone with local calls rates across the US. They don't need cheap rates and savings on roaming since everything in the US is local to them.
We attracted much more people from everywhere else. At the end of the first day, we had our pitch in our 4 supported languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, with a slightly different pitch for the americans: "Free phone calls, no roaming when traveling". Just saying the pitch in the language of the passer by really increased our hit rate.
We also found 3 potential partners the first day. At the end of the first day, we were exhausted but it was worth it. We felt our product was an easy sell, we were eager to find our ROI.
Day one of the CES was also our "official" launch, with an official press release and as much blogging as possible. It's hard to tell exactly what helped the most, but it worked. We had 5 times more downloads the next day.

The next day, we tried something different. We had our lab coat and stetoscope on. Looking like doctors trying to cure phone bills. The idea was good but it backfired. The problem was that we were getting over crowded by old folks. I have nothing against older people, it just that it was taking too much time to explain that there were no pills inside, that it was a smartphone solution and also to answer all their questions. We were missing too many other, probably more better potential customers. So off came the lab coat.

The following days were busy but uneventful, with slightly less people on Saturday and Sunday. Overall, it was a great show for us with many possible partnerships. Downloads per day have not only sustained but increased since. It's nice to see the "hockey curve" not only in a business plan but actually happening.

Las Vegas is amazing. It's big. Taxi drivers couldn't believe how many people were in this year for the CES. I heard several estimates saying over 150K. I tried to estimate the size of the big hotels, some looked like they had over 5,000 rooms. That's the size of a small village. The amount of food, laundry, water and the operation needed to run these hotels must be incredible. The number of big hotels, the shows, everything is big.

One of the things that impressed me the most was the food. Americans have really come a long way from the fried club sandwich I once saw. If you go t Vegas, try the buffet at Paris hotel. It's good french food at a very good price. And if you go to a show, I highly recommend Zumanity at the New-York. By far the best Cirque du Soleil show out there. Be there half an hour before actual show time, you won't regret it. Even more important, don't be late unless you want to end up on the stage.

A new icon

In our mobile application industry, a very important aspect of building a solid marketing message is having an icon that helps convey the meaning and purpose of the app.

We realized we could do better, and hopefully we came up with an idea that helps seeing visually what our app is about.

The startup lemonade stand

We left for Vegas one day in advance. The plan was to get to our booth, install it and be ready for the following day. Unfortunately, our flight got mixed up and we reached Vegas at 7 PM. For those who know me, no, I didn't get lost during the flight. For the last time, I never get lost, I just don't always take the shortest path to get somewhere. Anyway, there was no problem, setting up our booth should was a 5 minutes thing thanks to velcro and a turn key booth we had ordered. Did you know that velcro was invented in 1941?

Next morning, we show up at our both at 8 AM. The show opens officially at 10 AM. Surprise, no booth!

Nothing, not even a carpet!

No panic, not yet. We are not exactly on the shortest path, but we can still adjust. We reach the CES booth and ask what's going on. No problem, we were transferred to a bigger booth nearby. CES is huge, nearby meant crossing the equivalent of a big shopping mall. We reach our new booth 10 minutes later. Big problem. Not only is our new booth not a booth, it's a meeting room, but it's also taken! So we walk back to the CES booth and try to keep our calm. After a few phone calls they decide to give us our old booth. We remind them that our space is still empty, where's the booth? Top priority they said, our booth will be ready as soon as possible. We reach our empty booth at around 9. At 9:30, news we got was that the CES president is aware of the problem, we have top priority, but still no booth. Quarter to 10, we set up a black jacket on a large suitcase with a pyramid of giveaway boxes on top. It look like we had a lemonade stand.

The show opens its doors and we were there acting like nothing was wrong. So many people are attending the show, it is unbelievable. Most are walking by fast, no time even for a fast 3 bullets. We are with a simple "free phone calls" to slow them down and then with the other bullets. We quickly get a lot of attention and traffic.

Around lunch time, a team is assembling our booth nearby. Once ready, they stop the traffic and slid it quickly. Five minutes later, our posters are up and we are ready to go. Amazingly, having no booth at all didn't have that much an impact. Lemonade stand was working just fine, the lesson learned is not to invest too much in the booth, more on the props you hand out. Our mobile pain reliever boxes were really attracting attention.

Fasten your seatbelt!

A former Mobivox associate used to say: "to pitch a message, you need 3 bullets. Not two, not four, exactly 3. If you have only two, it will appear as not enough. If you have more than 3, people will forget". We believed so strongly in the concept that our web site was designed with 3 main themes: free phone calls, cheap phone calls and WiFi hotspots. We could of have built our booth with these 3 themes but we have decided to take a slightly different and less boring avenue to try to stand out from all the booths. Our's was designed with 3 panels: Mobile Blues, Mobile Cure and Mobile Antidote. And, you guessed it, inside each panel, we had 3 bullets.

The concept was to handle out fake pill boxes with "Tribair - Mobile bill pain killer - Extra Strength" to as many attendees as we could. We dressed up as doctors to get noticed even more.

Once our plan on paper was finished, we actually had to have everything printed in time for the conference. We finally got all the stuff the day before leaving. We had no idea how much space and weight would take the 4,000 boxes filled with fake and humorous instructions. Finally, it all fitted exactly in 4 large suit cases at the exact weight limit. Everything worked out almost perfectly, we just had to pay a few extra $ for our own luggage.

On we were to Vegas…

CES, preparation

November 2010, Tribair had just been launched its flagship product. It was a successful lift and take off. Wouldn't we have looked really stupid if nobody had downloaded the app? Of course, all our friends did but they didn't really had a choice. The Tribair app quickly picked up steam and spread to the entire world.

Like many startups, we don't have a big marketing budget. Every dollar must count. We did a few press releases that were successful but we wanted more impact. We never considered seriously buying Google adwords. We had done several experiments with past companies. For some, where a user generates lots of revenue, investing in key words works. In our case, each user generates little revenue. Therefore we need to get our marketing dollars to generate many users, not just one at a time. The ROI (return on investment) is just not there for us. For Tribair, we can measure the ROI quite precisely. For the press release, we measured an immediate increase in new users per day and number of payments per day.

Right after launch, a few TV techno shows called. But we quickly learned that we had to pay a fortune to be aired. The ROI might of been there, but we didn't want to risk all our marketing budget at once. So we looked at another alternative: conferences. There are several conferences in the telecom industry. Which one should we go? Again, ROI provided the answer. What we wanted from a conference was our dollars back, big time. The best way for Tribair to get its investment back is to find big partners such as calling cards, restaurant chains offering a free WiFi, travel web sites, large web communities, etc. Acquiring only one white label solution for a big partner would largely pay for the conference costs.

The second goal of the conference was to build Tribair brand name. The better known it becomes, the more chances we have of finding partners and the more users we get for our own application. After looking at several possible conferences, CES 2011 clearly stood out. Most conferences were just too consanguineous for us. Too many companies in the same space fighting for a very limited amount of cheese. CES was 10 times bigger than anything else, was very diversified and an excellent venue for us to meet all kinds of people and companies and to get known. The only problem was that it was only 5 weeks away, including Christmas holidays. We asked for a booth and were extremely lucky to run into a cancellation, only a few booths away from Skype. So we jumped on it. Of course, we realized we had no physical booth, no marketing material, nothing ready for the conference.

To be continued...

What you said...

We have recently attended a Usability Fix event organized and hosted by Bolidea in Montréal, QC, where different features of our product has been tested.


These are the key lessons we learned:

• there is still room for improvement in our registration process 
• the upper left icon to change the country code is not understood as such by everybody
• some clarification / help is needed to make free calls
• when typing a password, it should not show in clear
• our payment process appears too long and not convenient (especially on a phone)
• most users would like a Paypal option to facilitate transactions

We're now back to the bench!

Many thanks to Alexandra, Sarah, Heri and other testers for your valuable inputs.