This Virterpreneur profile comes to us from Alan Fitzpatrick, co-founder and CEO of Vonei LLC
Forming an Internet Services Firm
In 2008 Phil Weller and I decided to form a new services company focused on communications over the Internet. Each of us has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and data networking industries, and this was the first start-up venture for both of us. We self-funded Vonei LLC so minimizing cost was a big driver in setting up the business. Another key driver was Phil being located in New Jersey, me in North Carolina, a third person in New Hampshire, and a fourth person in North Carolina. Given our geographic spread there was no need to acquire physical office space.
In our years in the telecom and data business we saw the trend to virtual companies and business communications over the Internet. Employees are scattered in many locations throughout the world, many work from home, and Internet applications are the link between them. Video, whether live or recorded, is being used at an increasing pace. We believe the time is right for businesses to transition to face-to-face video communication, from anywhere, anytime. Not only did we see this as the trend in the marketplace, but it was also the model for building our business.
Each of us works out of our homes. We use laptops with webcams, high speed Internet connections, and cell phones that all of us had prior to starting the business. What we needed was data center space for the servers upon which we offered services, a business environment for occasional meetings with clients, a mailing address that signified a professional firm, phones that would be answered professionally, and access to copy machines, faxes, and secretarial services when we needed them.
Our office space solution was a virtual office used for the mailing address, receptionist service, and prestigious office and conference room space available when we need to meet clients in person. This was a low cost means of having access to professional space without spending money on permanent space, up-fitting, and furniture. The executive office suite provided a local phone number which they answer as “Vonei” Monday through Friday, and forward calls to each of our cell phones. We also choose a toll free number from Kall8, where we can change call routing right over the web. We use the toll free number for the virtual call center function we put in place for support and sales questions.
For company email, shared schedules, shared documents, and task lists we chose open source Zimbra. Since we already had servers in our data center for our service offerings this was an easy load to an administration server in our collocation facility. To manage customers we chose an open source CRM system called vTiger and loaded it on our administration server. For accounting we use the online version of Quickbooks. All of us at Vonei can access these systems securely over the Internet from wherever we are.
We like the value proposition that web solutions provide, including being location independent, scalable, and affordable for a small and growing company. They provide us the quality image of a global company, while being very cost effective. Without the use of virtual platforms we would not be able to succeed as a small, geographically diverse start-up company.
Vonei’s first product, Vonei Meeting, is a web based, multiple party video conferencing and collaboration service in virtual “rooms”. It allows multiple people to see and talk with each other live, share documents, share screens, and chat, all from their computer on a broadband Internet connection. Our company is a good example of the clients we want to attract. Vonei has team members across multiple states and we rarely meet in person. As the saying goes, we eat our own dog food. We hold video staff meetings, conduct video interviews of job candidates, call on prospects, and communicate with our sales agents all using our own service. Best of all we can travel for pleasure, and as long as we have our laptops and cell phones we can operate pretty much anywhere.
Vonei is currently hard at work developing additional products. A common trait is making them available as a software-as-a-service where they can be accessed over the Internet. Not only do we operate as a virtual company, but we intend to offer services that cater to other virtual companies.
By eliminating the high cost of physical infrastructure, and the trappings of permanent office space, we’ve found that a business can operate with a professional image with low overhead cost. In many ways it is good that we were self funded instead of having Angel or VC money out of the gate. This placed increased emphasis on effective, but low cost means of operating that deliver the best value for the dollar.
