Mika Tuupola

Fortumo has good change to be next Estonian success. It does not provide anything new. Instead it provides something old but in brilliant package.

Fortumo is web application for easily creating SMS services. It is built with Ruby on Rails.

Easy way

For technically challenged Fortumo provides three ready made applications. Simplest one replies back with predefined text. Slightly more advanced version forwards sent message to email address of your choice. Third one is JavaScript shoutbox widget which you can embed to any webpage. Shouts in this case are sent with text message.

I consider myself a coder

For people who can code they Premium SMS-connectivity. This means Fortumo will act as SMS gateway. Incoming messages are passed to your server over HTTP. Nothing new here. In old times there was Kannel. Later FlyerOne released Tambur. The real meat of Fortumo comes from the fact they offer connectivity with all operators in several countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). It would be real pain in the behind to negotiate these deals by yourself.

But you said success?

Yes I said success. Mobi has been developing mobile services for a while. They already have knowledge and software for distributing text messages. SMS games are not so huge as they were in late 90’s. Now they hit the long tail of niche markets. Enable everyone to create an SMS service for their football team or knitting club.

Lets say people create 10.000 services. Even if each service generates only average 10 text messages per week (hey I said niche) it still totals 100.000 messages per week. Each message gives Fortumo small share of revenue. In the end its a win-win. Fortumo gets income. Everyone else is given possibility to start their mobile business (and get income if it becomes popular).

Whats wrong then?

I really hope they would get rid of the stock photography in the website :) Other than that, Fortumo is brilliant!