Thursday was a great day!  Shooting a video Demo and interview with the Bing team at Microsoft as well as using our own service to order lunch, we are now a real startup.  Can you feel it?  It’s all starting to happen…

First, we were surprised recently to be picked by the Bing team at Microsoft to shoot a video of our basic pitch, product, and some tips to other startups around the country.  It was really fun, and most definitely an educational experience for me as the CEO of Order SM.  They said I did great, but I believe I can do better.   I said to the others I felt 80% comfortable… there is just something uneasy about sitting in front of a camera and trying to remember the profound things you wanted to say.  What ends up coming out is usually less than profound, but in any case should make some sense.

Things like this are a great help in gaining initial buzz and attention in the web startup space, and we intend to use this momentum to attain other unique opportunities like this.   The video will be out in a about a month, so be looking for it!

Second, as Brent and I were driving from Seattle to Bellevue we placed an order with our first test customer, SkyUltra Lounge, using Order SM.

”This is my test run, I’ll have the pulled pork sandwich”

And wouldn’t you know it, a few minutes later my phone goes “buzz”, and a new message awaits from SkyUltra Lounge.

[Side note: Actually, the girl on shift at SkyUltra had never used the interface, and did’t know what to do.  Yet, she was able to intuit the communications aspect right off the bat, which proved someone who had never set eyes on our system was able to use it correctly.  This is a really good sign we have designed a great UX in that department.]

She sent back a message saying she didn’t know what/how to accept the order so we instructed her to go to “menu and add the pulled pork sandwich”.

Few minutes later, “buzz”. I received the “Your order has been accepted, to save time go here to pay” message.

Yes!

The striking thing about Order SM is how real it feels, just like you are texting a friend.  This is going to be our strongest value to mobile users; People have been trained for years on using text messages to communicate with their friends, now we are just folding that over to your other community interactions and ushering in a new era of activity in local commerce.  And realizing our society now wants to just send a text message rather than actually talking to someone (see the graph we put together through some basic research), we have a strong sense Order SM is onto something BIG.  Notice how fast SMS texting has grown in the last 5 years!  Yes, it’s a very good place to be as business.

I went on the pay through the mobile payment process to complete my order as we approached the restaurant.  All in all, a decent execution from Order SM tech standpoint.  There are some loose wires that need to be connected (payment alignment with the merchant, lessons on they take an order from Order SM and plug it into the POS) but I would say Brent and I were struck at how Order SM really does what we promise.

I used my own communications system to text my order to a restaurant and then a few minutes later arrive to pick it up.

”It’s alive!”