Things have really started to come together with the startup and, late last Monday, Butterfinger launched a new service - free international calling! The whole process was pretty exciting, and I was anxiously holding my breath when we tried to make that first call using the new dialer interface and calling algorithms. The first few numbers we tried were busy (we actually ended up using numbers for the American consulate in other countries - mostly because we figured they would probably be english recordings), but after about 5 attempts, we were connected to China! Now we can offer free international calling to most numbers in 29 countries.

Since the international launch, we have doubled the number of registered users and number of calls made per day, which is great in terms of scaling because it is really important not to get too big, too fast. We are hoping to keep up this positive user trend by increasing the number of users and calls every week twofold. Right now the calls are limited to 15 minutes, but we are hoping to make some adjustments with call duration once we compile more user statistics and start to offer different tiers of service. There are still a bunch of features that need to be added to the site, which need to be worked through, in addition to completing an application to compete in a pitch contest sponsored by the Connect program for 20,000 dollars in prize money.

September 29th, 2007 | Startup Sacrifices, The Startup