Ep 1: Sewers, SMS & Saas

Welcome to the first episode of saaslife.fm, a podcast hosted by Sam Schrup and Chris McAleenan. They go back to basics by talking about who they are, who should listen, and why. Spoiler Alert: You might learn something and have fun at the same time!

saaslife.fm is a forum for Sam and Chris to discuss the current state of their businesses and bounce ideas off each other. They are in two completely different industries but help each other and listeners solve the same problems.

Sam is the founder of TextRetailer, a text-based shopping platform that allows merchants to send text messages (SMS) featuring a product that customers can buy. Prior to TextRetailer, Sam started Textiful, where companies capture emails through text messages to automatically populate email lists at live events.

Chris is working on PipeTech Project, a SaaS product designed for municipalities and contractors to inspect underground assets and manage data from such inspections. Once data is gathered, it is put in the PipeTech Project to make meaningful decisions and allocate resources to prevent catastrophic problems.

Highlights from this Episode:

• TextRetailer: No apps or shopping cart required. Purchase is 100% within SMS.
• Rules and Risks: Challenge of working with phone carriers and industry changes.
• Textiful: Collect information from audiences at live events using text messages.
• Sam’s Approach: Start with idea, build something small, take what works, and build something else.
• Measurements: eCommerce and text messaging increases conversion rates.
• PipeTech Project: Assets owned are anything from a park bench to a traffic light.
• Robotic Cameras: Pipeline inspections, perform maintenance, and fix problems.
• Chris’s Product: Collect aggregate inspection data, put it in PipeTech Project, make decisions, and take action (rehabilitate, repair, and allocate resources).
• Software Needs: Boring industries have cool and fun technical problems to solve.

Links and Resources:

saaslife.fm

Sam Schrup on Twitter

Chris McAleenan on Twitter

TextRetailer

Textiful

PipeTech Project

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Intro music by Monkey Warhol licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).