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Skype - Software for business people in startups

Unless you’re living under a rock, you know Skype. Skype lets you call other people free using your computer. Im going to show you some ways to use Skype in your startup to maximize your effectiveness.

Get Skype-in

What is it: Skype-in is an add-on that gives you a land-line number
Cost: $60 / year per number

Don’t want to do everything on your cell phone? You can give people your New York office number when you’re sitting in London. Skype-in makes it easy to get a number virtually anywhere in the world . I lived without a cell phone for about two months. During this time, I gave everyone my Skype-in number. Now, I primarily forward this number to my cell phone. No reprinting business cards. You can give prospective customers the illusion of stability, for a mere $60 per year.

Record your calls

Negotiating a business deal? Dealing with customer service reps? Record those calls. Call Recorder allows you to hit record on those important conversations. You can even send the audio to Chillibreeze or a similar service to transcribe it. Audio converted to text makes really easy to find what someone promised / said six months ago.

Skype-out

The big problem skype hasnt figured out is caller id. A lot of people complain that my caller id shows up as 123456789 or 100000000. If you’re using skype, skype out will save you money. Call quality is good, and it is pretty cheap.

Other devices

For the older entrepreneur, check out Phillips VOIP841, a skype phone that requires no computer. Just plug it in to your broadband connection and it works. My parents have one and love it.

As for headsets, on the mac, I’ve previously reviewed Sennheiser’s PC150 headset. I love sennheiser for audio quality and would highly recommend them to anyone serious about skype.

For other software for business people in startups, check out my article on CSS Edit

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