A software and technology company in Kalamazoo recently introduced its latest product, an app designed to bring in sales through e-mail marketing for people who don’t want their list on the cloud.
Carter Lab has been in business since 2003 and its latest application follows the principles the company set in the beginning -- to tackle some of the most critical problems in the industry.
"We wanted to fix their problems once and for all and work our way out of a job," says Curtis Gray.
In short, they wanted to be heroes. Gray says it might sound corny, but as they distilled their thoughts on what the company should be, they decided they wanted to "save the day" and that has been the company’s mission ever since.
From the beginning, Carter Lab found itself growing quickly. Its Oyster, an all-digital video-based training system, was a hit. Proprietary streaming technology developed by the company allowed it to record, play and synchronize several camera angles at once. "The app was web-based, which blew everyone away," Gray says.
The company targeted medical schools, psychological counseling, and emergency disaster preparedness training areas. Systems were installed at Oakland University, University of Michigan Medical School, and KCMS, Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies and Michigan State’s Disaster Preparation program in Kalamazoo.
But as is often the fate of small, rapidly growing companies, as demand grew how to grow the company financially became an issue. Ultimately, the decision was made to sell Oyster. The four original partners went their separate ways and Gray became a consultant.
"When I went into the consulting business I didn’t have any customers -- zero. And no prospects either. I started from scratch, by looking for someone to serve," he says. He focused on manufacturers who needed automation, visiting them to learn their needs.
His consulting paid the bills till the economic collapse. As customers began canceling in droves, Gray scrambled to find a new source of income.
During the consulting days he had developed a system for gathering business. It involved building a detailed customer list that he kept updated--manually. Being a programmer, he decided to build a custom lightweight contact management app to keep track of everyone. A friend and Gray then partnered up to design a sales management and tracking app that would help track sales by keeping score of sales activities.
"The design got to be so big that we broke it up into pieces," Gray says. The first piece is
10centmail.
He says companies like Constant Contact and MailChimp provide a valuable service that is sold on a subscription basis. Their prices are based on the number of contacts stored in their cloud, where, as Gray points out, you have no direct control of your company's data.
10CentMail is an app that is purchased once and then put on your server or hosting account. It gives you the power and function of a subscription services as an app that you control and "that helps you manage your customer lists privately away from giant silos beckoning to hackers," he says.
The app offers a way to manage customer lists, send custom designed e-mail to your customers and build sales.
There are no monthly fees, instead the price is 10 cents per 1,000. "Hence the name, 10CentMail," Gray says.
Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Curtis Gray, Carver Lab
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