Ever wish you had a temporary local phone number - one that you could use on Kijiji or a dating site and then dispose of? Sandy Walsh has the technology to make it happen.
Walsh is the founder of SafeCell.ca, a new startup based in Halifax, N.S. that can issue people temporary local phone numbers for smart phones, older cell phones ... even landlines.
“When you are dealing with the public, voice is still the preferred method of communication, but you have to sacrifice privacy,” said Walsh in an interview. "No one wants to get hounded by an annoying salesperson or receive phone calls long after a popular item has been sold."
Walsh will demo the product at DemoCamp Halifax on Sunday, but let me tell you a bit about it. Upon registering with SafeCell.ca, via the website or a text message, users receive a temporary number they can share. The first three minutes are free then they are charged on a per-minute basis for using the number, with payments made via Paypal. The phone number can be generally managed via the website, which is accessible by all phones and tablets. Additional numbers can be created on the fly quickly for whatever situation you find yourself in.
Walsh is the owner of Dark Secret Software Inc. and does custom software development including the popular cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service software OpenStack for hosting company RackSpace.
He plans to roll the product out in the coming months firstly in Nova Scotia, where he can closely monitor local marketing efforts. He hopes to then expand regionally and nationally.
Walsh has, so far, been financing the project on his own. He would like to raise some funding so that he could hire a marketing exec.