Date: December 12, 2017
Modified November 14, 2023
Written by: Erik Jansen
Reading time: +/- 2 minutes
In late 2016, we introduced Jerry Everett on our website. With his telecom service Sojourner Assay, he forwards text messages automatically. This is especially useful for people who have multiple phones from multiple countries. In this edition of Start-ups & Downs, Jerry talks about how his business is doing.
About 80% of his time is spent by Jerry testing his ideas. Are they viable, is there a market for them, how do you market them? To these he formulates answers. The other 20% of his time is spent getting to know his target groups better, following recent developments and sparring with fellowbusiness owners.
One of the biggest barriers Jerry faces while rolling out his service in the EU is language: "I expected the EU to be a bit more homogeneous in terms of target audience, but it's not. Every country wants to be addressed in its own language. That's why I created different language versions of the SMS forwarding service. That way everyone is helped directly in their own language. I have also hired a Dutch administrative assistant who helps our customers and me with the language here. In the future, I want to add more multilingual people to the team."
The paid SMS forwarding service Jerry launched through 2ndnumber.co.uk initially seemed to be a great success. But then it turned out that customers usually didn't stay customers for more than a few weeks: "The current service is not scalable to more than a million euro turnover per year. There is probably something more in it, but as part of a larger whole. That's a wise lesson: I had to learn that I have yet to learn. Even though I've had companies before, here I'm starting from scratch again. Therefore, I have to test every idea in practice to be sure whether it works or not. I also took a full month of courses on Lean and Agile working. With that, I am starting over."
Jerry regularly knocks on Poelmann van den Broek's door, for example when he wants to have a contract reviewed. Furthermore, our law firm still serves as a sounding board for the challenges Jerry encounters: "One of the partners at your firm has two cell phones and I'm going to interview him to find out why he has them and how my service can help him."
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