Hello there Sumo-lings! 👋

This is Aleksandar, founder of TextLink, a tool helping a dozen of businesses in cutting their SMS costs 10-50 times. Setup is really simple, it generally takes less than 10 minutes of following the tutorial, and you just need a spare android phone with an active billing plan (SIM that can send SMS to your desired destination). After the setup, you gain access to our range of useful tools:

💬 Our SMS Chat app is the easiest one, because it looks exactly like your phone's SMS app, but in the browser, and with a bit simpler contact management. One account can have multiple team members (e.g. trucking dispatchers), each with its own set of starred contacts, for better organization.

🛠️ If you need to automatize message sending, or do some custom workflow for your in-house software, our API is what you are looking for. You can use it to send messages, and you can use our webhooks to listen for sent and received messages.

📢 Also, if you want to set up an SMS marketing campaign, or notify your customers or employees all at once, our no-code bulk SMS tool may come in handy. It is straightforward, you can easily manage groups, and even import contacts from a CSV file.

What's so special about TextLink?

The feedback we hear most often from our clients is how everything is perfectly and easily connected, and that integration goes really smoothly. This is because of our experience with our prior SMS API product. We have talked with customers, and learned what is it that is actually needed, and built TextLink tailored to them.

When was your company founded & where is it located?

Our company was founded in London, 2023.

What are past projects, failures, or successes you’ve had in your career?

We have, and still are, working on a few projects besides TextLink. Before TextLink, we had a simple SMS API, TextFlow. However, we had problems with users sending malicious content, and our messages getting reported, so we filtered the messages so that only the OTP codes could be sent (because we provide the messages, and can't risk spam or fraudulent messages). We had a small feature on TextFlow allowing users to just send SMS from their phones, and it was not as well documented as it is now, it was like a small version of TextLink. Then, we got an idea, what if we make a marketplace where people could sell SMS sent through their phone, and, while sounding fantastic, it was far from it in practice. The main issue we had was was the marketplace paradox - we needed the sellers in order to get buyers, and buyers in order to get sellers. Over time, we had a few comments of TextFlow features around the features that it is lacking, and how our pricing plans are confusing. That's when we got the idea to split cloud SMS and own SMS between TextFlow and TextLink, and that is how we got the TextLink that is now.

What is your team size?

3

Are you funded or bootstrapped?

Bootstrapped, indefinite runway

What 3rd party tools is your product critically dependent on?

Our DigitalOcean droplets (migrating to AWS soon), and Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging to deliver notifications. We've had one failed message (in millions) due to the FCM server problems.

Where is your customer data stored?

London, UK

What is your current monthly recurring revenue (MRR)?

Around 2600$

How many customers do you have today?

Around 40 paying users

What’s the origin of the idea for your product?

We got tired of services like Twilio restricting us and overcharging for messages. So you're good too now :)

What problem is your product solving and how?

We are saving our customers up to thousands of dollars per month, a money that they would have spent on third party giving them their SMS infrastructure, for plug and play setup convenience, compared to our 10 minute setup (assuming you have set up the carrier billing plan e.g. SIM card).

Besides that, we offer a great and easy integration, saving your developer team from fussing over the trivial things.

What’s the #1 thing you’re looking to gain from the AppSumo campaign?

We would like to expand our customer base, and receive additional feedback, that would help us expand even further.

What are your plans with the customers, cash, and learnings from the AppSumo campaign?

Learn, ship and iterate

Any details to clarify about the deal?

You need an android phone with a SIM card that can send messages to your desired destination. You also pay the carrier SMS fees, so we recommend that you get a plan with unlimited messages for fixed price.