SMS Startups

KIT is a virtual marketing assistant SaaS platform that helps e-commerce business owners automate their marketing through SMS-based commands. Founded by Michael Perry in October 2013, KIT pivoted from a web application to an SMS-first product in January 2015 after discovering that small business owners were unwilling to spend time on marketing tasks themselves. As of January 2016, KIT has 2,000 paying customers generating $30k MRR with a $19 average revenue per user and a sustainable $21 customer acquisition cost primarily through Facebook ads.

Pressbox was a dry cleaning service founded by Vijen Patel in 2013 that disrupted the industry not through technology but through ruthless unit economics: laundry lockers in high-rises eliminated rent and labor costs, enabling a memorable $1.99-per-shirt price point. By breaking even in 6 weeks and maintaining a 98% retention rate, Pressbox scaled to hundreds of locations before being acquired by Procter & Gaml, becoming Tide Cleaners with ~1,200 locations.