Former YipTel Co-Owners Launch New Business Text Messaging Provider

The former co-owners of YipTel have launched a new company that offers business text messaging.

Jeff Beck and Erik Drumm bought Pidj.co, which offers a text marketing/customer experience platform through the channel. On Thursday, they launched the company and its platform.

Pidj.co’s solution is available to authorized indirect sales partners through relationships with national master agents. It also offers a white-label program for telecom providers, MSPs or other partners that want to offer turnkey, branded solutions to their customers.

Beck serves as president and Drumm is CEO. They own multiple companies and owned YipTel, which sold to Broadvoice in 2018.

While at YipTel, the executives added business texting technology from startup Pidj into their lineup. And they quickly saw the business potential for the new service. Two years later, they decided to buy in as majority owners. Pidj founders Brandon Elwood and Jared Davis remain co-owners, and oversee business development and technology, respectively.

Business Texting Taking Off

Pidj.co’s Erik Drumm

“We launched Pidj.co to help businesses engage their customers in a more meaningful and convenient way,” Drumm said. “We had been watching the business texting space for the past year. So when the prospect of joining the ownership group at Pidj presented itself, we quickly seized on the opportunity. We’ve spent the past several months reworking operational processes, developing new branding and implementing feature enhancements to better serve our customers and partners.”

Business text messaging continues to see consistent growth as it becomes more widely adopted, he said. It’s how businesses can communicate more effectively and personally with their customers.

“Statistics show that texting is the most universally consumed medium of communication,” Drumm said. “Nine in 10 people say that texting is the No. 1 thing they use their phone for today. Pidj.co offers businesses the ability to use texting in several aspects of their operation — promotion, scheduling, notification and customer service, to name a few. This past year also has seen businesses flocking to digital marketing and service delivery to continue to serve their clients during lockdown. Texting is an ideal way to engage in a zero-touch relationship.”

Partner Opportunity

Pidj.co is a standalone texting platform, Beck said. It gives channel partners the opportunity to add another revenue stream from current customers. They can also acquire new business by providing another piece in their tech stacks.

Pidj.co’s Jeff Beck

“Partners can text-enable a customer’s primary business number without end-user disruption, allowing them to start texting in as little as 30 minutes,” he said. “That’s great news for companies that are embracing agility and a digital-first approach to marketing and service delivery.”

Pidj.co has had several requests for a partner program, Beck said. As a result, the company anticipates strong reception in the channel now that its partner program is officially launched.

“We built our product entirely from customer requirements and feedback,” Beck said. “That’s the driving force for product development, allowing us to create features that are relevant and provide strong benefits to customers. One example is our unique contact center functionality. The way we queue messages, the ability to transfer chats, and our dashboards and reporting were developed for a customer that requested the ability to use text messaging in their contact center. It’s definitely a differentiator for Pidj.co.”

Beck and Drumm anticipate 200% year-over-year revenue growth.

“Customers may compare us to ZipWhip, TextUs or EZTexting,” Drumm said. “However, Pidj.co’s solution has several advantages, such as live text routing to contact center reps for real-time text conversations. Uniquely, we also offer unlimited contacts, messages and keywords. We’re also one of the few channel-minded business texting platforms in the space.”