These guys are based out of Perth, Australia and offer some pretty compelling prices, especially the email they sent them morning where their monthly pricing went down to $9 a month (instead of $50).
They use ruby on rails, and offer a JSON API.bEE
For those who don't know, Perth is the most remote city in the world (according to Bill Bryson), and has a population shy of 2 million mostly in a sprawl that hugs the coast.
I spent over a month there and a couple of weeks exploring the area around Margaret River, lovely place... but reading this, what strikes me is how hard it must be to find support, raise money, and build a startup with reach in a city of such remoteness and with only a limited pool of angels and tech resource to call upon.
So... knowing the city and WA as briefly as I do, I think this startup would probably have a good story behind it about the adverse environment (for startups) in which they emerged and what it took to get to where they are, and where they're going from here.
Perth is wealthy, but is the money mostly poured back into mining related ventures?
Largely due to mining, Australia's average wage is around $70k but our median wage is around $45k. Pretty crazy.
It's a similar atmosphere to Texas oil culture (I hear, anyway). Lots of secessionists saying Western Australia is keeping the country afloat. This is somewhat true (but not entirely), and they tend to forget 20 years ago WA was a shitheap with nothing going for it.
We are remote yes, but we have so many events going on here that it makes up for it.
They have support from the banks and also the Australian Government so would love to hear how that all went, if/when I meet them I'll ask them to blog about it then post on HN.
And being originally from Perth it is fantastic to see it show that it is so much more than just a FIFO mining town.
It looks like they have a great team and in my limited experience their customer service is really good. Hopefully some of them chime in here though their director seems a little HN shy from one of his latest tweets.
There's a story to tell! Building something like this in Perth is hard, but that's part of what makes it such an opportunity.
We're by no means the only tech startup here too - given the population and isolation, Perth is well represented in Australian startup crowd.
So I take this opportunity to ask someone, sensibly: Is there a thriving tech scene in Perth? Software businesses, catering to a local market, that sort of thing? Like most major cities, there is probably an 'IT sector', consisting of hardware and systems support companies, probably -and of course the Uni's of WA are all very well connected in the F/OSS/Academic systems software departments. But, whats the local software economy like? Much custom, Business to business, software?
I imagine that with the Perth Mint and the Mining banks involved in all this, its going to be a solid way to do business in that part of the world, as well as Internationally. I'm, anyhow, off to get my family to set up their Pin Payments accounts asap .. :)
There is quite a lot of businesses who want customised web solutions (not just in mining, but would account for a large portion), so as a result there are quite a few web companies here in Perth who do anything from small business websites all the way up to customised systems. The industry does go quiet sometimes, however it's usually pretty busy especially as more people over east bring business over to Perth thanks to the thriving web market here :).
[1] - port80.asn.au
Do you do credit card only? What about recurring charges?
In addition to the tyranny of distance, what's working against startups here is the high cost of living.