Listen to this articlePrimo Connect is designed to be the only communications app you need, helping you to call anyone whether it be another Primo user, a landline or a mobile. Primo bridges the gap between data and phones, and in doing so they aim to change the way the world communicates. Below is our interview with Sarah Neill, from Primo Connect:
Q: What is the experience that the leadership team is bringing to Primo Connect?
A: David Glickman and Chris Furlong, co-founders of Primo, have been business partners for the last 9 years – working together to help the world communicate more easily. Their first business together was IndiaLD (which is still running) – a virtual calling card service for the Non Resident Indian (NRI) community in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. Then, four years ago, they partnered with T-Mobile to put these calling card rates on to a SIM card, by launching Ultra Mobile, a US national wireless service that offers customers free calling around the world as part of the plan – in 2015 Ultra Mobile was ranked #1 on the Inc.500’s list of fastest growing private companies.
Recommended: Movidiam – Helps Brands And Filmmakers To Connect And Create Incredible Films
Primo, which has been incubated by Ultra Mobile, is an exciting evolution of both these businesses, allowing Chris and David to offer free international calling to more people around the world, in a much more scalable way.
Q: How does Primo differ from competitive apps like WhatsApp or Viber?
A: Primo’s roots are in telecommunications, so unlike other apps that focus on Peer-to-Peer, Primo’s focus is connecting all the world’s phones (all 7 billion of them) with the 3 billion people connected to the internet. Anyone with a phone can call a Primo customer (who receive a free US phone number), and any Primo customer can call any phone (mobile or landline). Primo gives users a number of free minutes each month that they can call phones (Primo to Primo calls are always free).
Recommended: BlaBlaConnect – Communication Redefined!
Q: How do you see Primo and other communications apps like it changing the face of how the world communicates?
A: International communication has become much more accessible, however it’s still not simple – unless it’s expensive. People use different methods to call different people. We wanted to bring it back to basics, and make it simple again.
Q: How does Primo Connect plan to make money?
A: Primo users receive minutes each month to call over half the world free, they can purchase credit to call the rest of the world, or when these free minutes have been exhausted. We expect that 5% of our users will spend on average $5 a month on calling credit.
Q: How has the adoption of the app been? Where do you see the user base might be in 6 months?
A: We launched the app to public Beta in January, so we could watch the behavior of users, and work out the kinks. We did not put any money behind promoting the app, as we didn’t want to focus on growth until we knew the app was ready. But we didn’t anticipate how viral Primo would be. Our base was doubling week on week to a point that our platform couldn’t handle the volume. So we took the apps down, and focused on platform stability, and prepared ourselves to scale. Now that is sorted, we’re back to working through the kinks before we do our official launch. Suffice to say, we’ve been really pleased by the adoption so far. We’ve just hit half a million downloads – over 500,000 in total.
Recommended: New App Props – Connect With Anyone, Instantly In Just One Tap!
Q: Why Equity Crowdfunding ?
A: We’ve always wanted to be innovative in our space, and we’ve also always worked to give our customers access to things they haven’t had before. We love the idea that equity crowdfunding is a democratization of private equity, and that our customers who have always been our biggest advocates can now also be our investors.
Q: What new features are planned for Primo in the near future?
A: We’ve got a big road map including group voice, group video and group chat, and we’re also developing a Primo web client so customers can use Primo from their desktop.
Activate Social Media:
