BUZ was started in the middle of 2005 when Eric Sirkin and I hooked up through mutual acquaintance and serial entrepreneur, Siva Kumar. Eric had for some time been working on the idea that voicemail could be effectively used for asynchronous messaging and could significantly be enhanced with a visual interface on your phone. Together we fleshed out his ideas and went to seek venture funding for what was essentially a visual voicemail product. Yup, in 2005. Maybe we were just to early or perhaps visual voicemail is never meant to be a stand-alone product. Regardless, venture funding was not to be found for a product that required users to switch voicemail systems and had such a high dependency on the whims of the mobile carriers.
Back at the drawing board, we tried to focus in on some of the best attributes of our grand vision. At the same time, Eric also came across an interesting concept - his teen daughter, Daniella, had created a voicemail greeting by holding her cell phone up to her stereo speaker to record some music. Great idea, terrible results. The problem is partly that microphones on cell phones are designed to capture your voice, and recording music is not in their repertoire. The other issue is that getting the volume levels right, especially if you’re recording a voice greeting as well, is a tricky and time-consuming proposition.
We subsequently found that many people across the US are also trying to put music in their voicemail. In fact, if you’ve been around the block a few times, you might remember the days when you tried to record music onto your home answering machine. Same idea, same terrible results.
And so with a clear problem to solve in mind, the BUZ you see today was born. We received seed funding from Opus Capital (a fine venture firm if you’re in the market for money by the way) in May 2006 and have been working flat out to launch our first consumer service, GETaBUZ, this week. At www.getabuz.com you can choose a piece of music, record your voice either on your desktop, or if you don’t have a microphone, over the phone, and mix your voice and music together to create a BUZ. We then deposit your BUZ directly in your voicemail for you, replacing the boring old greeting (or unintelligible music) you had there before. The whole process only takes a few minutes so please try it out. Its also free.
On GETaBUZ you can also send a BUZ you have created to someone else. Instead of (or in addition to) a regular greeting card or an email electronic greeting, you can now send someone an audio greeting card, with music and your voice recording, via voicemail. The process for creating an audio greeting card is the same as described above, except this time you specify the cell number of the person you want to send it to and voila, it shows up in their voicemail without the phone ringing. It’s a fun and novel way to reach out to your Valentine or send a birthday greeting (especially if you’re like me, and you’re rushing at the last minute to buy a card at the store).
As with any company getting off the ground, there are always challenges and obstacles to overcome. We know though that every time someone listens to or receives a BUZ, a smile crosses their face. And that makes it all worthwhile.
Music in your voicemail. Great idea, now with great results.
