Featured Startup Pitch: Lithuanian startup BatCrab wants to make mobile devices around the world into full-feature business phone systems

ELEVATOR PITCH

BatCrab turns any cell phone into a fully-featured business phone system in 60 countries, allowing SMBs to manage their calls better and sound professional.

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

BatCrab is a tool to turn any cell phone into a fully-featured business phone system. As there are a lot of small- and mid-sized businesses that manage customers’ calls using their cell phones, we created a tool that brings customer support by phone to the professional level. BatCrab enables such features as customized voice greetings to sound professional just like big business, different call forwarding and handling options so our users will never miss an important call or lead, voicemail/fax to email and many more. What puts us ahead of any competition is that our customers get all call statistics from different angles. They can easy analyze their traffic, identify peak times, know most popular numbers and other important information.

All call statistics are available real-time for business owners to feel a pulse of their business and customers. By checking most popular numbers they can check where most of their customers are located, when more people should answer the calls, etc.

We not only bring businesses closer to their customers by providing them with local numbers, but they also can call worldwide using BatCrab infrastructure.

FOUNDERS’ STORY

Our founding team consists of two members—Gediminas Jocys and me, both with strong telecommunications backgrounds.  We met each other while working in one of the leading IP-based telecommunications companies and became good friends since then. We share a strong passion for startups and entrepreneurship.

We discovered that a lot of small- and mid-sized companies struggle with customer support by phone because cell phones are just not designed for that. It took a few weeks to analyze the market and make a decision to start BatCrab. With the vision to become the global leader of business phone systems providers, in 2012 we started product development. It may sound banal, but we quit our full-time jobs a few months later to start the company.

BatCrab screenshot1

MARKETING/PROMOTION STRATEGY

We have a very tight budget for marketing, therefore all our marketing bucks are spent with care. We employ social media, online advertisements, and local media/events, just to name a few.

On the other hand, we try to acquire new customers by simply providing the best customer experience to our current users, and in return we get the best possible marketing—word-of-mouth. Moreover, we have provided local startups with free accounts to try out our services. It works just great. We get the feedback from users and they get a chance to benefit from a business-class phone system with such features as international business contact numbers. It makes us a kind of socially responsible company. It’s great to be one!

BatCrab screenshot2

MARKET OPPORTUNITY

As we see it, the market for our product is huge. Small- and mid-sized enterprises generate from 35 percent-to-50 percent or more of GDP in different countries, and the numbers are growing. This means there are more-and-more potential customers for our product. Also, the world is getting smaller every day, deleting borders between countries. BatCrab helps business to become international by adding London, New York or Hong Kong contact numbers. On the other hand, BatCrab adds great functionality to cell phones so local businesses could sound like big business. We are glad that more-and-more people start their own ventures and we are ready to help them grow.

Of course, it is a competitive market, but we believe that there are plenty of opportunities for  unique and business orientated tools. Another good thing is that huge telecoms are focused on the high end of the market. We see that their solutions are simply not  suitable for SMEs’ needs.

HOW WE’RE DIFFERENT FROM THE COMPETITION

BatCrab users can easily reach their customers in 60 countries by simply adding a local contact number in any country they want. What’s best, BatCrab clients can answer their business calls anywhere in the world. Furthermore, since BatCrab works with standard phone lines, it allows our customers to avoid all those quality issues that may arrive when using VoIP lines along with bad Internet connectivity.

BUSINESS MODEL

Our business model is based on a monthly subscription, and there are various pricing options available to suit everyone’s needs. Pricing plans depend on a country and start from as little as $9/month.

CURRENT NEEDS  

We believe that people at the company are the biggest asset, therefore we are always looking for enthusiastic and results-orientated people to join the team. Also, in order to expand our business operations in 60 countries and use the potential of our product fully, we are looking to raise capital.

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