Interview with Konstantin Guericke, CEO, Jaxtr

What is Jaxtr all about?

Our mission at Jaxtr is to enable new conversations by letting people link their phones to the web.

So the value you bring in is the integration of PSTN and web. What happens when people start to bypass PSTN more and more using broadband? You would then have to re-invent your business dramatically.

That scenario is way off. The cell phone companies are not going to go out of business anytime soon. But as the voice communication moves to IP more and more we will terminate sessions on IP device. That does not matter much to us. It is in fact cheaper for us.

But when most voice communication is IP to IP, it is likely to be Skypes and Gtalks and MSN Messengers of the world that would be on the minds of consumers. It will be difficult situation to compete in.

Not necessarily. Jaxtr offers a unified way of communications whether it is SMS or voicemail or real-time voice. Consumers prefer having one consistent communications identity.

Is that one consistent identity going to be the mirror number that you offer whereby users are able to keep their numbers private?

The consistent identity is the Jaxtr link. Numbers that get generated depend on the device you are calling from. So it is not the number that stays consistent. It is the Jaxtr link that stays the same. A mirror number is not so flexible when you are travelling. A link is much more flexible.
There have been startups like Jangl that have used mirror numbers in various different contexts. You seem to be using the concept for mainly the traditional voice communication.

Our users are definitely using our service in different contexts such as dating and professional purposes on LinkedIn. There is a lot of activity on Café Jaxtr, our social networking application.

LinkedIn only recently announced a developer program. Have you developed something on their platform?

The nice thing about Jaxtr link is that you can put it up on any page. You don’t need a fancy application. We have developed an app on Facebook. LinkedIn platform is not ready yet for Jaxtr type applications. But again, the link does suffice for a while. That is all you need to communicate through our system.

You co-founded LinkedIn. What kind of voice mashups do you envisage being developed over LinkedIn?

There will be things like conferencing etc. One thing I noticed at LinkedIn was that the phone is much more powerful than the textual communication. You will see recruiters on LinkedIn trying their level best to engage prospects on phone. A phone call is always a better tool to close a business transaction than messaging. A lot of business then moves face-to-face. So I think one aspect that social networks are not able to offer adequately is the phone application.

Any plans to explore ad supported telephony?

Not for now. Our business model certainly does not rely on it. There is some advertising on Café Jaxtr. There is also some SMS advertising. But I am not so sure about voice ads.

So in terms of your revenue sources and monetization of your application, the main source I guess is termination and some callback options to users. Right?

Yes. Advertising is also important to the business. We will be offering some premium services.

That sounds like a tough business to be in. PSTN termination has been a difficult business even for people like Skype. Will that revenue stream suffice?

Termination is one of the revenue streams. Skype is doing half a billion in revenues after four years in business. That can’t be bad. If you have to pay to acquire customers, that makes things a bit difficult. In our case our customers are doing the marketing. And that improves our margins.

Have you explored licensing your platform to other service providers?

No. Ours is strictly a direct-to-consumer offering.

You must be also paying to procure the phone numbers (mirror numbers). What happens to numbers that remain un-used?

Our phone numbers are tied to the caller id. We re-use the phone numbers. It is not as if we give you a phone number which we do not give to others. We can give the same phone number to thousands of other people.

So how does that work? If I am in India, you give me an Indian number for my UK contact. Right?

We look at your caller ID and route the call accordingly. We can give the same Indian phone number to another user in India for his contact and link it to his relative in the US and route it that way. So it is caller ID based. We have our own switch and direct interconnection relationships with different providers. That gives you some flexibility.

Any open source platforms you are using for your switch?

Yes, we use Asterisk and OpenSER.

What are your plans integrating Jaxtr with the existing phone books? It would certainly be useful having a regular UK phone number and a Jaxtr number for that contact under just one entry on my phone book.

Jaxtr members consistently tell us that in addition to price, the feature they like most is that they can add jaxtr numbers to contact list on their phone. You don’t have to dial PIN numbers, etc. Since jaxtr numbers are direct-dial numbers, it’s as convenient to call someone abroad as calling a friend down the street.