Start A Conversation

The Human IVR

2011-01-31T09:32:00.000-05:00

While there is some good in making machines more like humans, why do we try to make humans more like machines?

I was at the post office recently to mail a package. When I reached the counter the clerk started to rattle through a list of options, with prices, most of which were not relevant to me. We've all experienced this from a machine, as in a list of menu options or a phone system IVR (interactive voice response) that must be listened to before you can actually go do the thing you already know you want to do. But since I was dealing with a human, and not a machine, I tried to skip ahead and go right to what I wanted.

But I couldn't. The post office, or maybe just this branch, or this one clerk, couldn't do that. She had to read all my options to me. Even more frustrating, when I explained that I knew exactly how I wanted to mail the package, she told me that since I had interrupted her she now had to start all over.

This was a process gone wrong. The creation of a machine-like human. She eventually got my conformation through exasperation and I waited through (and ignored) the whole list a second time. Then I heard a total price which was much higher than I expected. I dared to repeat what the way I wanted to mail the package and found that by ignoring the list and not declining an option for insurance I had accepted it.

She repriced it. Gave me a receipt. Told me to have a nice day.

And I left (slightly depressed) wondering how this was possible.

You'd think that the post office, of all places, has no where to go but up in their efficiency. You'd think that the post office would want to improve customer service as much as the next organization. You'd think that the post office would take heart from its history, back when it really was an amazing institution -- I mean, it wasn't that long ago when delivering packages accurately and in a timely fashion to addresses hundreds or thousands of miles away was truly magic.

But instead I was told to have a nice day.

Don't put your people in a position where they have to be machine-like humans. Where you do use processes, give them processes with escape hatches so they can bring the benefits of being human to their work.

Guest Post: Why you should talk to strangers

2010-12-17T16:32:00.000-05:00

(This post was written by Sandeep Sankarankutty)

Ever since we were young, we were told never talk to strangers. As children, this makes sense, it's for your safety. But as adults why do we still follow this practice? It seems as if there is a lingering fear carried on from childhood, if you talk to a stranger something bad will happen.

We are social beings, so it only makes sense that we are hardwired to form a social network. If you think about it, successful people don't reach the top by sitting in a room by themselves. They are passionate and will talk to anyone who is willing to listen. Social networks are key to success and expanding your network increases your chances.

In the world of startups the word serendipity is used quite often. I believe serendipity occurs when one steps out of their comfort zone and begins to learn from experience, meet people, share your thoughts, share what you have learned.

Here's a tool to let you take that first step to conquering your fears of talking to people. Check out Chatfe

Chatfe lets you have anonymous meaningful conversations, via phone, based on your topic of interest. It is certainly a great tool to help you get over your conversational nervousness.

Chatfe was also recently mentioned in the New York Times.

-- Thanks, Sandeep!

What startups and subway musicians can learn from each other

2010-12-14T16:11:00.000-05:00

How do you serve your audience and how do they repay you?

I was thinking about this yesterday while watching a mariachi band move between subway cars. As a musician myself I've always thought that musicians who play in subway cars should play more than one local stop before moving on, for style if nothing else. Otherwise, people treat them like the 30-second online music teasers and avoid paying royalties to the artists. Is there an economic reason to move on so quickly? Do you actually lose money if you play longer in the same car? Is it mostly a numbers game, with giving more correlated to the number people who hear you than it is to the quality of the music? Or do they only know one song?

But no matter how it works best, I figure that maybe the guy with the hat always wants to be moving. He sees each new car as a new group of people to sell to. If he only collects a few coins, he can always look to the next car and no one can blame him for lack of effort.

Most startups have to experiment for a while with business models and even the design behind their payment scenarios. That's what the musicians remind me.
As an example, here are four types of subway musicians and their approaches to earning money in the subway. The first two examples are real and the last two are opportunities. These could just as easily be applied to startups.

- Saxophonist comes into a subway car and intentionally plays badly, saying he will stop when people pay him (this happened in the late 80s). He both solves and creates the audience's pain point (great startup phrase). I think he does ok.
- Mariachi trios that change cars at every stop and play for about 30 seconds before moving to the next car. The only pain point they solve is helping people get rid of spare change in their pockets. Then they have to divide their earnings by three.
- An Opportunity: Performances that last for several subway stops and engage the riders. They don't solve pain points, but they could gain more revenue by simply appealing to the riders' value received. And it will at least be more fun for everyone involved.
- Another Opportunity: Musician plays on the subway for a year or so, makes some cash, but then sells the stories...

As always, there's an exception to this and time and place comes into it. The most I ever saw a subway musician make in 1 stop was in 2004 right before the election. A guy came on, played some guitar and ended up doing a spoken rant against President Bush. It looked like he collected around $20 in dollar bills that were thrust at him like he was a political stripper.

Dear Paul Graham, This is From My 2nd Daily Hike

2010-12-06T15:45:00.000-05:00

To get to my office, I have a round trip two-hour commute on the NYC subway each day (come see me on the F train). That means I'm free from the net during that time. It's like taking a hike in the connection wilderness. And I love it.
Could one of New York City's advantages be the un-networked subway? Those regular gaps when we have freedom from emails, status updates, the little unimportant interruptions that dot our days. But that's going to end when the subway gets WiFi.
Isn't there a safety advantage to wiring the subway? OK, sure. But I don't think any advantage like that is even close to the cost of doing it, both in economic and social terms. Soon enough there will be tweets on how bad the car smells and where the HPOA are (I swear I didn't know that term before I saw this.

Will subway service improve as a result? The MTA has what is best described as an "attitude problem" when it comes to making improvements. Passengers with communication technology have an opportunity to help improve the subway, or at least join chats and give feedback while riding. Some of these activities could pressure the MTA to make improvements, though probably more so subway lines that have more than average numbers of smartphone users. And if people sit in cafes all day for free WiFi, what will they do in subway cars?

Until then, I usually read on the subway. I read books made of paper, ink and glue. I've been known to write there as well. On paper with a pen. Those are both activities I don't do much anymore above ground. But for clarity, a subway ride can be worth a day of connectivity.

[About the title, there's a reference there to this Paul Graham essay:
The Acceleration of Addictiveness.

Scamming the Scammers, or Creative Problem Solving

2010-12-01T16:56:00.000-05:00

When an education customer asked us for a solution to voice connect schools in the US with schools abroad where there was poor infrastructure we knew we had to test quality. The international schools included those in Kosovo, Qatar and Nigeria so we set out to make some test calls via our system using different international wholesale telecom providers. The problem was, we didn't know anyone in Nigeria to do a test with and we needed the test done the same day. I tried calling Nigerian hotel phone numbers to test voice quality before I realized the program would be run on cell phones and remembered that the country's mobile network was of much better quality than the old fixed line phone network. How could I find a Nigerian cell phone number to call... right now?

To the spam folder!

A search on "234," which is Nigeria's country code, produced scammer emails talking about financial offers I couldn't refuse. For the modest price of $20K, I could get a $1M return, or something like that. So I made the first call -- good quality. After unsuccessfully negotiating down the $20K, I then asked if I could call back to let me check a secondary wholesale telecom provider. That call was good too. I called a second scammer as well, also with acceptable voice quality. I didn't get anywhere in negotiations there either, but I had shown that we had access to good quality voice in Nigeria.

There's usually a creative solution when you're in a bind. Being in a startup makes you find it.

And later, when our customer decided to remove Nigeria from their school list it didn't bother me at all.

Cargo Cult Marketing

2010-11-16T20:20:00.000-05:00

In a speech at CalTech, Richard Feynman (Nobel Laureate in Physics and all-round wildman) talked about "Cargo Cult Science." He was comparing pseudo-science in some industries to "cargo cults" that emerged in the South Pacific after WWII where isolated islanders would reenact the motions of flight controllers, hoping that would get cargo-laden planes to land again.

As the islanders found out, a reenactment isn't the same thing as having a real understanding of the technology required to get the planes to land, plus of course, having the need to mobilize large numbers of people and equipment in the Pacific Theater.

That takes us to cargo cult marketing, or the reenactment of what activities seem to have worked for other companies, without regard for the current situation and business realities. So, in the 1990s many companies thought they could be Amazon by building a website and selling their products online. Today, companies think they just need to focus on design to be like Apple.

It goes deeper. Wish I could give an easy answer, but there isn't one. Knowing what worked for other companies isn't enough; you also need to understand the specifics of your own time and situation. You can learn what's going on by talking to a lot of people in and outside your industry as well as customers. And like Feyman said, don't be afraid of going in a different direction if that's what the world seems to be telling you.

Selling Shovels in the New (Startup) Gold Rush

2010-10-18T20:05:00.000-04:00

Back during the 1849 California Gold Rush, few prospectors struck it rich. Most of the people who made money back then were those who "sold shovels" or provided other services to the same miners who traveled far to live hard lives panning for gold.
Is it any different today?
In the Gold Rush that is the startup scene, I've met two classes of shovel sellers over the months I've worked on Chatfe.

Some Good or Unavoidable Shovels
- Pay for office space, naturally. If you have an office.
- Pay for incorporating, when you do it. Unavoidable regulation but pretty cheap.
- Pay someone outside your startup to produce something not worth doing in-house. For example, to outsource a logo or UI design. Depending on what you're doing, going rate anywhere from $100s to many $1000s. Just have to make sure that results are on target.
- Pay for off-the-shelf commodity operations, such as mailing list management systems.

Bad or Completely Avoidable Shovels - Here are a few of the more interesting bad ones I've encountered
- Pay to get followers on Twitter. The concept is you can instantly get thousands of followers if you pay for them. Not sure how it works. But late last year when I saw a new startup suddenly have 10,000 followers I wondered how that happened. They still have 10,000 today. And no one ever @ messages them. I don't get the point. This was what I like to call a "Bonfire sale of the vanity metrics."
- Pay for @ messages. Somebody tried to sell me access to people with large numbers of Twitter followers who I guess then tweet out their support. I guess that's what it was supposed to be. Never looked into it. Going rate was $5,000 for 10 power tweeters. The world would be better off if you gave that money to charity.
- Pay for introductions. The concept was they would introduce me to people for money. I asked if they really meant a commission in the event of a sale, but they weren't even interested in that; they just wanted to monetize their address book. I thought this was so weird that I actually cold-called and set up meetings myself. So I channeled that one into something positive for me.
- Pay for money. I've never gone out to raise money but I've had people request to raise money for me for a fee. When I politely tell them that I'm not fundraising it breaks their hearts.
- Pay for informal advice. Seems to be used mostly by those whose experience is exclusively from the '90s bubble. Funny thing is, I usually have to fend off advice-givers. This is obviously not the same as having a true advisor or board member who receives equity.
- Pay to pitch. Going rates I've heard seem to be between $150 - $500. I just think that's wrong, like asking a band to pay to play.
- Pay to present. Slight twist on the above. I was invited to pitch (which I don't really do) at a conference (for free) but then told there was a fee to present. I'll spare you the theater of the absurd conversation that followed. Again, that's just wrong. Hey, come one, I hope to be paid to speak publicly, not the other way around (the best I've done recently is be compensated for a plane ticket when I spoke at an event earlier this year, so there).

The whole experience has been fascinating to me. Hats off to you sellers of shovels. And to those of you looking for gold, keep your heads down.

Always Choose C?

2010-09-23T17:33:00.000-04:00

I used to email Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, about my first job, my own PHB and other cartoonish goings on. Scott, if you're reading this, I didn't stop writing because I forgot; it's just that I eventually got a job that didn't remind me of Dilbert.

But I'm still always reminded of something Scott Adams wrote in The Dilbert Principle. Here's the quote:

If you could connect your computer to a vast network of information, how would you use this service?

A. Gather valuable scientific information.

B. Improve my education.

C. Demonstrate my complete lack of personality by spending countless hours typing inane and often obscene sentence fragments that can be viewed by people just like me in “real time”.

Always choose C was the rule I remember when we took multiple choice tests. Yes, while we have the best intentions to choose A and B, damn it, C is just... it's just so easy.

Why does C win? And what if we really want to give A and B a fighting chance? A big part of it is what Marshall McLuhan said. Yes, the medium you choose influences how you communicate and how you think, whether pen and paper, phone, keyboard and screen, email, twitter, or chatroulette. Good book on all this is The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr. And this is all related to what we're working on at Chatfe.

Startups and Meeting People

2010-09-07T16:50:00.000-04:00

With the Startup - Rockband comparison nicely described, here's a reason that gets too little notice in benefits of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is an excuse to talk to someone. I remember hearing Jeff Pulver remark that much social networking activity comes from loneliness. While entrepreneurship is not at all the same as social networking, one of the great things about it is the ability to meet new people and form a team. Or at least exchange ideas.

Now, this alone isn't enough of a reason to start a company, but it is overlooked. As I look back over this year, a lot of the people I know now I hadn't met before embarking on Chatfe -- and I never would have met them had I stayed in a corporate role. When I have time I'll write about some of them here.

Financial Models, Clams and Four Years without Pulpo Gallego

2010-07-13T03:27:00.000-04:00

Fortune-telling Pulpo Paul did what few (if any) others did, eight 100% accurate World Cup predictions, which if we simply assume that the octopus chose at random, leads to an expected 1/256 chance of getting them all correct.

I'm glad Pulpo Paul made it straight through with perfect accuracy, and not just because of Spain's win. I'm glad because if he made a mistake, everyone would've said "hey, it's just an octopus, what did you expect?" And there would've been commentary from Nassim Nicholas Taleb on fund manager accuracy, the file drawer problem and comparisons to financial modeling. And all justified. That's what made Pulpo Paul's picks so great. He (and his owner) put it all on the line in each game. No excuses. No complex models. Just pick a clam out of a box with a flag on it.

The other thing about the choices were the audience knew their accuracy just a day or two afterward. No waiting for months or years as in the case of business modeling.

And hey, sometimes that's the way it is with decisions startups make, too. Sometimes why something worked or didn't work might as well be explained as a clam in a box. It doesn't mean you don't act; it doesn't mean you don't try to get an edge or learn. But sometimes it just happens. Being lucky is ok with me. And to remind myself, no pulpo gallego until the 2014 World Cup.

But some advice to Pulpo Paul's owner: Never let him predict anything ever again. Not even a coin toss.

Louise Bourgeois's Last Salon

2010-05-31T18:52:00.000-04:00

Louise Bourgeois passed away today. If you don't know about her, you can read up here.

But there's one personal reason why I remember her.

For decades, she ran a weekly salon out of her home in Chelsea. As long as you had something to show, you could call ahead, make an appointment, and be welcomed in around 3pm on Sunday for a very civilized, yet active, and sometimes critical salon.

I'll spare you a description of the work I brought and what we said. But the important thing was, here were people from all different places and interests, coming together to discuss their work. And you had to discuss. You couldn't just sit back sipping cognac and eating chocolates from the table. You had to be an active participant.

This was almost two years ago. Last year, one of the other attending artists told me that we were at the last salon ever held.

Nice to know you, Louise. Your and your salon influenced the way I communicate.

8,397 unread emails in my inbox

2010-05-28T15:48:00.000-04:00

If you read mailing lists, message boards, or anything online that involves many people commenting and reading each others comments, you might know Godwin's Law.

I propose a new law, specifically for email lists. As the number of emails in one thread grows, the probability of someone requesting that others should not fill up the commenter's mailbox approaches one.

I have 8,397 unread emails in my inbox -- and I don't lose any sleep over that. I know which ones I have to read (the few) and which ones I don't have to read (the rest). Or, sometimes, a glance at the subject is enough, just as I've gotten used to glancing at or ignoring most of the ads I see when I walk down the street. Email is one of the least intrusive methods of contact, which also means that if you don't agree and want to use your email address for only high-priority communications, then just don't subscribe to mailing lists rather than go and complain about them.

This rant stems from a thread I just read (but did not participate in) which included multiple appeals to not use the mailing list. The best comment coming from someone complaining that since he was out of the country and roaming on his iPhone, reading the thread cost him hundreds of dollars.

The internet is like a country of diverse immigrants which by where there is a evolving cultural understanding of what's right or wrong. But it's always interesting.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep

2010-05-23T06:08:00.000-04:00

At an early age of 23 I declared myself done with all-nighters. Let me explain. I never pulled all-nighters in college but at age 22 I ended up in a high-pressure job that required them about five times a month. Economically, it made sense for me since I was getting paid overtime and the all-nighters more than paid my rent. But in terms of health, not so much.

I declared myself done with all-nighters not because I don't like staying up all night, but because they are often marks of poor planning and fire drills. Plus, no one performs at their best at 5am. However, there are exceptions. I stayed up all night to see the sunrise on New Year's 2000. I stayed up all night trying to get another lift when a group I hitchhiked with suffered a broken down van in the dessert. And now, I'm staying up all night with the team at TechCrunch Disrupt. It's 3am. And it's fun. What was I thinking at age 23?

Fantastic Data

2010-05-18T15:51:00.000-04:00

I was fortunate enough to hear a presentation of data on hashtags and trending topics at the 140 Meetup yesterday. (Not so long ago that sentence would have made no sense.) But anyway, Liz Pullen @nwjerseyliz, a sociologist, presented data of three months of top ten trending topics on Twitter. Trending topics are updated every five minutes to reflect real-time popularity, so she had thousands of data points.

Some notable finds include: brands account for less than 1% of the top topics, celebrities are one of the top categories, and hashtags have higher significance than words or phrases without the hash. #NowPlaying is the single most popular one.
It's not often when you get actual data like this. Check her out:

Info on Liz Pullen:
· Web spiral-scratch.blogspot.com
· Bio Sociologist, Ethnographer & What the Trend Twitter Trend Analyst (whatthetrend.com)

On a lighter note...

2010-05-14T15:25:00.000-04:00

...who's going to happy hour?
West 3rd Common
1 West 3rd Street, NY, NY
http://www.west3rdcommon.com/

Camera Culture

2010-05-14T15:24:00.001-04:00

A few years back I heard an expert in analytics explain why automating the search for terrorists via looking at tons of data by scanning emails, video or other electronic means just doesn't work that well. Even at an incredibly high rate of accuracy, the number of false positives mean that investigators spend inordinate amounts of time looking into bad leads. And then even if you can get true accuracy, can you respond in time? Or, is it better to rely on people? Following the (thankfully failed) bomb attempt in Times Square and the talk of plastering video cameras all over the city, can we just take a step back first? The best example of what happens when video cameras cover every inch of a city comes from London, where there's apparently been no impact on crime. Cameras wouldn't have prevented the van from being parked in Times Square; it was an observant street vendor who spotted it. This is one area that a kneejerk reaction to adding technology will not work. Besides, I just don't need anyone looking over my shoulder when I walk home from the office. And neither do you.

The Tallest Audience In The Business

2010-05-10T14:24:00.000-04:00

The first thing I noticed at a-ha's farewell concert in NYC on Saturday was that they have the tallest audience I've ever seen. Must be the prevalence of Nordic fans (a-ha is from Norway).

But the other thing I noticed is that like many other bands who peak early in their careers, a-ha is remembered for their earlier work, especially their song "Take On Me" (and the video).

This sometimes happens to performers who last for decades, from The Police to Meatloaf (yes, that's right).

Isn't it exhausting to play the same songs again and again? Or to know that because you hit the market perfectly 25 years ago, people want to hear those tunes and are less interested in what you're doing today? If I get the guitar riff to "Manhattan Skyline" stuck in my head for two days, what must it be like to have it stuck in your head for 20 years?

Then again, performers who do peak early can live comfortably off of royalties from their work. Norman Greenbaum, the writer of "Spirit in the Sky", which he wrote in 1969, makes an ok living just off of royalties on that one song, which seems to show up in several movies per year.

Seems like the best situation is to have a few hits which pay the bills with passive income and then keep innovating. Whether or not you take the audience with you you're having fun.

Is it cooler to be a guy or a girl?

2010-03-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

Some people have questioned why we don't let them choose the gender of their conversation partner. For now, here's some data that explains why. When we were initially considering this, the quickest way for us to test what happens when you introduce gender into conversation choice was to set up two Skype profiles: one male, one female. We then watched what happened while these profiles were in SkypeMe mode. Here's the basics: in 24 hours, the Male profile got 2 contacts from others (1 was spam). And in 24 hours, the Female Skype profile got 84 contacts from others, including 33 voice calls, and 15 immediate text requests for cybersex. I could go on, but that sums up why introducing gender into a non-dating medium has to be done carefully.

What we have found so far is that when we put the emphasis on "what you want to talk about" instead of gender, it frames the situation differently and people tend to have better talks. Also, it reminds us that in normal life, we usually can easily have talks with people of either gender, so why should it be different when you're discussing topics like "what should I do with my life?" or "your biggest secret" or "my philosophy"?

Looking forward to your thoughts. Keep on talkin'.

Note: I first presented (a fuller set of) this data at the February Dorkbot meeting in NYC and Hsing Wei also wrote about it here.

Tell 'em that it's human nature

2010-03-04T14:15:00.000-05:00

Why did we do it this way? Why did we take a different approach from other services, showing no user profiles, pictures or other personal identifiers? While the site looks fun (if we do say so ourselves) it is kind of a reaction against the data overload common today. We did it this way because it's our belief that this results in better voice conversations. You see, voice has always been tricky online. Sure, there are plenty of voice services out there, from your cellphone to Skype. But few people actually use these services in ways other than calling their close friends or international contacts where cost pushes them online. Here on Chatfe we're switching things up, making users start with the topic they want to discuss and then matching them with someone else who they cannot choose, but who shares the same interest.

We hope you'll like talking to your stranger. Ask questions, answer questions, debate, argue, laugh. Like a pleasant wrong number.

Chatfe Wins at BizSpark!

2010-02-02T14:25:00.001-05:00

We're ecstatic that Chatfe won the Best Business Viability award at Microsoft's BizSpark competition on Friday. We were happy to be a part of such a great event. Congratulations to the other winners and thanks to the organizers for all your work and to the panel for the great questions. Pictured (from left to right): Paul Orlando, David Rose (NY Angels), Edward Chin, Steven Wang.

Here are a couple of links to check out Chatfe and the other winners:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sanjayjain/archive/2010/02/02/azure-bizspark-camp-new-york-and-the-winners-are.aspx

Unintended Conversational Consequences of NYC's Cigarette Tax

2010-01-25T14:49:00.000-05:00

Though I don't smoke, I spend enough time looking and listening to notice that when NYC put out a big tax on cigarettes, the city extinguished a conversational spark.

It used to be that the smokers' question: "bum a smoke?" would lead to a talk -- as well as a cigarette. And I'm sure I've heard that phrase used purely as an excuse to talk to someone else. Ever since a pack of Marlboroughs went up to about $7 in NYC, people have taken a transactional approach. With fifty cents in hand, hard-core nicotine addicts try to buy a cigarette from smokers.

Those former talks are now lost, since the buyer/seller are now just part of a transaction. So, their lungs may be cleaner, but they've lost a connection to random strangers that used to exist. We hope that Chatfe makes up for that loss. [Note: I first wrote about this years ago, but thought it was worth reposting here. Chatfe is an antidote to this behavior.]

Babelfish Blues

2010-01-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Douglas Adams tells us about the Babelfish, a small fish you put in your ear, which lives on sound waves and excretes brain waves, neatly translating any language (if you don't mind a fish in your ear). I can't describe how much I wanted a Babelfish while I was growing up. But, as it turned out, I had to content myself with the study of Spanish and Chinese.

But really, I was wrong. A Babelfish is only part of the solution to communicating with different people (or aliens). Today, I'd rather be able to converse eloquently and with meaning in one or two languages, rather than understand every language. There should be a counterpart to the Babelfish -- some kind of barnacle -- that attaches itself to a tooth and then makes what you say intriguing yet comforting to anyone you speak to. Until we discover it or a new author invents it, I'll have to content myself with talking the best I can. You can practice on Chatfe. Send us a message to join the private beta.

Sharing our experience

2010-01-20T12:06:00.001-05:00

We delivered a presentation and had a great discussion at NYTFA last night. We had an active discussion, talking about the qualities of an entrepreneur, how startups today are different from those in the past, and gave examples from our own experience building and operating Chatfe. When you think about and work with these questions like we have, the examples are personal.

Entrepreneurial thinking can come from anywhere. I talked about Laura Gilbert, an artist friend who exemplifies entrepreneurial thinking to me. She came out with a Zero Dollar bill print during the 2008 financial crisis, which was a great blend of creativity, market timing and execution.

To show how startups have changed since the dotcom and telecom bubble I introduced elements of Lean Startup methodology, by talking about my experience at cocktail parties over the years. Of course, we gave shout-outs to Eric Ries and Steve Blank, who have both influenced us a lot. And then we went on to share some examples of the way we built and operate Chatfe structured around keeping costs low and learning continually from customers. Even in our private beta phase there's a ton of learning.

Thanks again to NYTFA for a great meeting and for the active discussion.

Welcome to Chatfe!

2010-01-07T12:49:00.000-05:00

We hope everyone is having fun on Chatfe. We're a new type of social networking that lets you have safe, anonymous phone conversations on topics that interest you. Check out our About pages to learn more about Chatfe. Feel free to sign up and we'll send you a shout out when we're open to the public.

When you sign up, you might be surprised that we ask you to call in with your phone, but Chatfe is very safe. We won't call you or send you text messages when you're not using Chatfe, and we won't share your phone number with anyone. When you connect with others through Chatfe, both parties will receive a phone call from our company showing only our caller ID, not your phone number. The other person will never get your name, email address, phone number, or any other type of information unless you decide to share it with him/her. We'll take care of your privacy while you have fun and interesting conversations.

We would love to hear your suggestions, comments, and reactions to Chatfe. If you have a new idea you would like to share with us, click the feedback button on the left.

If you would like a sneak preview at how Chatfe works, you can join us for our next test. We're having a beta test tonight at 9PM and we hope you will be there! If you can't make it to this one, sign up any way and we'll send you an invite to the next test.