Using Phonevite to Blast Voicemail

(Post: English)
"Just after his daughter, Nova, was born in June, Dinesh Singh couldn't wait to tell upwards of 40 friends. But e-mail felt too impersonal, texting too clunky, and making that many calls personally too time-consuming."

So Singh used Phonevite to record a message about his new daughter and send it to phone numbers he had entered on Phonevite's Web site.

John Nahm, 34, the company's co-founder, points out that the service isn't limited to birth announcements - it works just as well for last-minute barbecue rain cancellations or practice reminders from Little League coaches.

Nahm and Kalvin Kim, 35, both technology startup veterans, launched their San Jose business in mid-2007 with $15,000 of the pair's savings.

Although revenue is just $4,000 a month, they secured $600,000 in seed funding last January.

In July the company premiered Phonevite To Go, which enables users to input everything over a phone.

Nahm's driving mission? "To make this service dumb simple, for the average Joe."

Source: BusinessWeek
Photo: Phonevite

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Automated Phone Calls for Bill Collectors

(Post: English)
"Vontoo started out as a voice-messaging tool, blasting targeted lists of people with prerecorded pitches from the likes of Greg Oden, the No. 1 pick in the National Basketball Assn.'s 2007 draft, who "called" Portland Trailblazer season ticket holders to re-up for another year."

But as times have grown tougher, the 25-employee company has morphed into a service for bill collectors.

Dustin Sapp, 30, and Robert Compton, 52, co-founders of Indianapolis-based Vontoo, had already launched and sold a successful business - NoInk, a digital information service for the medical-device industry - before they began their new company in 2005 with $1.5 million from angel investors.

Prices range from $15 for 100 message minutes to $1,000 for 10,000 message minutes.

Lately, the founders have discovered their automated phone calls are an effective collection tool.

More than a third of Vontoo's clients today use it to get customers to pay past-due bills, and Sapp expects the share to grow. (Celebrity voices aren't used for these calls; companies typically record a company exec or someone in customer service.)

Since turning to Vontoo, one client has cut its own collection staff by more than 50% while realizing a 60% jump in collections.

Source: BusinessWeek

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