Another missed package… And in it’s place just a sad little note telling me I need to report to the “nearest” post office to retrieve the package during their business hours.
Then I can happily carry my package home on the bus. What a fun way to spend an hour or two of my day! I miss Amazon.com so much.
Today I’m proud to re-kick off the Phonein blog with a tale about how we got started, and what we’re trying to improve in the world.
To cut to the chase, you can join our community, get updates about our smart apartment intercom, and be the first to know about our Kickstarter by signing up here fire.phonein.io
It was about a year ago that I moved from San Francisco to Budapest to get a new lease on life. Budapest is an amazing city and I encourage everyone to come visit and experience all it has to offer. A beautiful river running through the incredible urban scenery, fancy and hipster bohemian neighborhoods, incredible Turkish-style bath houses, great coffee shops and cafes nestled in hundred year-old east-meets-west buildings.
In fact I decided to make a building like that my new home, which is where I ran into some friction. The old building entry system was almost as old as the building, and there are no plans for an upgrade.
The Problem
The more I thought about it, the list of problems that needed solving grew.
- Amazon deliveries, all kinds of deliveries, when I’m not home.
- Friends are coming over for a birthday party and I don’t want to keep getting up to answer the intercom phone.
- Cleaners or other services are coming over and I’m not home.
- Airbnb hosts are remotely managing their flat.
- Businesses want to host clients and even manage their employee access.
I researched the idea and found a great community of hackers who had been solving this problem for their one-off case. There needed to be a solution that would work for all of us.
The Plan
I took the idea to a startup weekend in Budapest, hosted by Mosaik Coworking and organized by Tech Stars Startup Weekend. We learned a lot, got great feedback, won the competition and the real work began.
We’re aiming to be the only stand-alone, universal, smart intercom on the market!
We’re going to solve all the problems listed above and more, with a beautiful product that has an obsessive focus on customer experience and solves these electronic access problems with software.
Please join our community to hear about updates with our product, and to know when our Kickstarter goes live (just a few months away!). https://fire.phonein.io/
Jesse Eisenberg
Founder