Show HN: Kill The Landline
killthelandline.com
killthelandline.com
I think the biggest aspect of this is the "redirect to two numbers" - my parents would love that, since they would both be able to get the messages.
How does it handle voicemail, though? It can't send the voicemails to both phones, presumedly.
And btw, I'm surprised by the negativity in the comments here. This is a product targeting a segment of consumers who are not as technologically adept and probably feel "trapped" with their landline - an instant out as convenient and cheap as this is much more attractive than porting their landline number to a new mobile line or trying to figure out how to get a landline to Google Voice, which is a complicated and costly process (going by http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/google-voice-a-step-by-...)
I would immediately recommend a service like this.
I can't imagine trying to explain Google Voice to my parents.
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 a "mission", but I think the underlying product is flawed.
Google Voice FAQ- http://support.google.com/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...
Correct.
However you can (I did) do this:
1) Move the landline to your cell phone provider (assumes you have a family plan, if you don't convert to one for the time necessary to do the other steps).
2) Once the number is at the cell phone provider you can transfer it to google voice (and get rid of the family plan if you didn't have one). Took a few weeks.
3) You can buy an http://obihai.com/ device if you want to be able to hook up a traditional POTS phone to get the calls. Or you can just make and receive calls at the google voice website.
Note: I did this with the cell phone provider being AT&T. I would assume it will work with other cell providers but it does with AT&T.
You're wrong. Walk into any wireless carrier store, grab the cheapest pre-paid phone, transfer your landline # to the prepaid phone. Log on to Google Voice and now transfer your mobile number.
I did this for my parents who were still using Vonage. Works flawlessly.
The price might be a little high for what it's doing, but if the idea is to eventually phase out your landline number, this could be a good way of doing it.
Almost every one of my non-tech friends uses it as well.
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!
Now: To pull this off you need to make it super simple and intuitive. I want to come to your site with inviting colors, a clean layout, and a very clear call to action and easy signup. This should be so easy and inviting that I will want to do it again after I'm done. This is where good design comes into play. If you make it hard, the copy hard to understand, a pricing plan that is confusing and not straightforward, then it will scare people off. Your biggest chance of success is a UI that is so easy to use it's mindless and "just works."
Your pricing is too high for people who know what they're doing and probably too low for people who don't and really want it, so it's probably OK.
-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.
My grandmother did the exact same thing, again without issue.
I am thinking that the market for people doing this is finite and limited, but there is likely money to be made on making a clean experience (versus Google Voice) serving the ever dwindling population of people who actually have land lines.
Are these still the case? i don't know but i keep my landline active. It's insurance I guess.
http://blog.killthelandline.com/post/32529411766/about-us
We are using Tropo with Heroku for the MVP.
More seriously, I'm familiar with the Tropo API and know that no matter what direction this product goes, Tropo is a capable platform to build it on.
http://plivo.com/pricing/ (Disclaimer: I was in the same YC batch as Plivo. I do really like the service compared to Twilio or Tropo.)
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.