Happy Birthday to Esendex
Adam and me back in 2003 ready to conquer the world
On Sunday, Esendex was 10 years old – based on the incorporation details of the original business.
Like many cash-strapped companies the early years were particularly tight and there’re many stories from those first years that will be held back for our 10th birthday party in June – plus some that will not even be mentioned then!
Esendex has covered a lot of miles since its beginnings as a few mobiles ziplocked to a PC in Adam’s attic. Our initial job involved sending out the results of a triathlon by SMS (something that’s now become a standard thanks to our bright idea) but other initial work included an “order your bagel by SMS” – it hasn’t caught on!
During the initial year there were a few months when we didn’t raise a single invoice. We now have more than 11,000 customers globally, and employ 45 people with offices in the UK, Australia, Spain and the US and we have direct connections to mobile networks worldwide. Plus we are still working with many of our first customers
We’ve seen a comparable rate of change in the SMS market. When we first started the major objection raised was that “SMS was surely just for kids”. But now SMS is probably the most widely used global communication channel. And whilst the crazy-frog probably didn’t do much for the entire industry, today SMS for business has come of age: recent research by Jupiter reveals that A2P (Application to Person) SMS revenues of $70.1 billion will exceed peer to peer traffic by the year 2016.
Esendex hasn’t been in a stronger position: profitable operations in 5 countries, traction in the US having only launched last year and a range of new projects. It’s hard to predict how we’ll look on our 21st birthday but if we change only half as much as we have over the last decade, exciting times are ahead.
