Kye Husbands, co-founder and Chief Information Officer of innovative cellphone service broker
mycellmyterms.com, says that the business started with the simple idea that "it was critical for Canadian customers to have a voice in an industry where they'd been passive for two decades." The mobile industry in Canada was dominated by three players, he notes, and customers here paid 50% more than those in the United States.
The idea he and his partners came up with for a service that would let customers design their own plan to be shopped among competing providers became a reality after a successful pitch on the CBC venture capital reality show
The Dragon's Den. And since then, there's been nothing but growth. "We expected it would be popular, but we didn't realize how much demand there would be up front," Husbands says. "It put a lot of pressure on us early."
Since the October 2009 launch, the company has grown from four to six staff, Husbands says, and in response to market demand, launched a specific
small and medium-sized business service on April 30. That business service has, according to the company's metric, "saved customers $1.9 million" as of the beginning of July.
Husbands says the target is for the business division to create $20 million in customer savings by the end of the year. Husbands says he expects to hire two additional staff in September.
Also upcoming in the fall, he says, is an affiliate program that will offer "fairly generous commissions" to registered affiliated referring customers to the site, perhaps launching by mid-September.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Kye Husbands, Chief Information Officer, mycellmyterms.com
Got an Innovation & Job News tip? Email [email protected].