Shai Burger is the co-founder of a company called Fonolo. Canadian Company. Company basically does all the press one, press two, your call is important to us stuff and rings you when there is somebody on the other end. They present you with a visual map of the phone tree, you pick what/where/english/etc, and the computer does the rest and get you right to em.
In 2007, I said, naah, not for me but kept in touch with Shai because he is a very smart person. Time Magazine thinks I was wrong as they picked Fonolo as one of the best/top sites for 2009.
I love being wrong in cases like this. Happily wrong because a very smart and persistent entrepreneur is getting the recognition, growth (and revenue) they have worked so hard for.
Congrats, Shai, well done, you told me so!
I'd say there's a pretty big difference between investing in a company where you hope to earn a financial return and picking a cute web site.
Posted by: PB | August 27, 2009 at 00:33
Fonolo is really cool, and getting covered in Time is really really cool, but it doesn't make you wrong.
Posted by: Jevon M | August 27, 2009 at 04:57
I think Fonolo is a great timesaver for consumers and a boon for call-center operators. Congrats to Shai and Jason, both of whom are very smart guys. This will be their second success.
Posted by: Donald E. Foss | August 27, 2009 at 07:33
Good company? Perhaps.
A good service for business? Not so sure -- taking the personal touch out of a business, regardless of its recognition in a national mag -- is dangerous. No other way around it.
When people call a number, they're not calling to have a computerized voice tell them what to do. They're calling to talk to somebody. If you're not immediately delivering on that CTA catalyst, you're in trouble.
Posted by: Ryan Barton | August 27, 2009 at 08:28
Ryan: Agree 100%. The goal of Fonolo is to connect the caller to the right agent with the least frustration for the caller and the least cost for the company. The dialpad on your phone was never intended to be a navigation or data-entry device. It got shoe-horned into that role and now we're locked in to a system that doesn't make use of the more intelligent terminals people are typically using - i.e. a smartphone or a browser. If we could all start from scratch, we'd come up with a much better system, but that's not going to happen because of the huge momentum behind traditional IVR and the need for backwards compatibility. So Fonolo bridges the gap by turning any existing IVR system into a gateway that can power smarter interfaces on the web or mobile device.
Rick: Thanks for the kind words. BTW, my last name is "Berger", with an "e". :-)
Posted by: Shai Berger | August 27, 2009 at 10:00