OpenCNAM - How and Why We Built a Caller ID Name API

This is a rather long talk (~40 minutes) which covers my full tech startup experiences while building OpenCNAM.

I talk about finding the idea, what the problem is, how OpenCNAM solves the problem, how we built the solution using Python and cloud services, and how we got customers and handled marketing.

Transcript

1. OpenCNAM How and why we built a Caller ID Name API.
2. Chief Hacker @ Telephony Research @rdegges http://rdegges.com Randall Degges
3. Telephony Research
4. What is CNAM?
5. This is CNAM +1 (818) 217-9229 DEGGES,RANDALL
6. What's wrong with CNAM?
7. CNAM Sucks!
8. BIG COMPANIES OLD STANDARDS COSTLY COMPLEX SMALL COMMUNITY
9. AT&T VERIZON
10. Big Companies Monopolize the infrastructure.
11. Big Companies Don't innovate!
12. Old Standards Been around since early 1900.
13. Old Standards CNAM is a 15 character ASCII string.
15. Old Standards CASE INSENSITIVE!
16. Old Standards Different in every country!
17. Old Standards Not available in US mobile networks.
18. Costly Telco negotiations cost $xxx,xxx.
19. Costly Special hardware and software.
20. Costly Users pay around 1 cent per query.
21. Small Community
22. Complex
23. A person calls you.
24. Your carrier looks at the local switch for CNAM.
25. Not found? Look at the next switch.
26. Repeat.
27. Still not found? Query the provider.
28. What Doesn't Suck?
29. Hacks for mobile. Data quality issues. Bad user experience.
30. "So, why not get more hackers involved in the telephony industry?"
31. You kidding me, bro?
32. "Why is this so hard?"
33. "It's just a string!" - Every programmer, ever.
34. What's the solution?
36. What is OpenCNAM? A REST API for hackers that want Caller ID data without the bullshit.
37. "We should make a simple Caller ID API service." "Alright, let's do this."
38. How OpenCNAM Works
39. $ curl https://api.opencnam.com/v2/phone/+16502530000 GOOGLE INC
40. $ curl -H "Accept: application/json" https://api.opencnam. com/v2/phone/+16502530000 { "updated": "2012-12-05T19:58:13.770770", "name": "GOOGLE INC", "created": "2012-10-12T06:53:05.194858", "price": 0, "uri": "/v2/phone/%2B16502530000", "number": "+16502530000" }
41. CNAM Should be Simple
42. ... And Open ... • Free cached CNAM dips (60 per hour). • No account necessary.
43. ... And Cheap ... $.004 per query!
44. ... And Cheap ... That's 300% cheaper than real life.
45. (funny story)
46. How does OpenCNAM work?
47. How OpenCNAM Really Works
48. • Flask • Amazon DynamoDB • Heroku • Amazon Web Services • SSL • Service Oriented Architecture • PostgreSQL
50. We <3 Flask Simple.
51. We <3 Flask Lightweight.
52. We <3 Flask Great libraries.
54. We <3 DynamoDB Simple JSON data store.
55. We <3 DynamoDB Hosted by Amazon.
56. We <3 DynamoDB Fast. Really fast.
57. We <3 DynamoDB Like 1ms fast.
58. We <3 DynamoDB 2500% faster than PostgreSQL.
59. We <3 DynamoDB Cheap.
60. We <3 DynamoDB Reliable (data replicated).
61. We <3 DynamoDB SSD storage.
62. "DynamoDB is so fast, you don't need memcache."
63. CNAM Lookup (free)
65. We <3 Heroku Built on top of AWS.
66. We <3 Heroku Simple.
67. We <3 Heroku Reliable. 99.99%
68. We <3 Heroku Easy to scale.
69. We <3 Heroku Lots of addons.
71. We <3 PostgreSQL • heroku addons:add heroku-postgresql • --fork • --follow
72. The Heroku Hacker's Guide
73. SSL ... EVERYWHERE!
74. How do you architect your code?
75. We <3 SOA
76. SOA Rocks Simple code base.
77. SOA Rocks Clear purpose.
78. SOA Rocks Well defined APIs.
79. SOA Rocks Independent scaling.
80. SOA Rocks Isolated failure.
81. What libraries do you use?
82. dynamodb-mapper
83. dynamodb-mapper Queries
84. flask-login
85. flask-login Loader
86. flask-login Decorator
87. How do you do billing?
88. "This is fucking awesome." - Me Stripe
89. Bitpay "It's like Stripe, for bitcoin." "It's also ugly as hell." - Me
90. What about marketing?
91. Marketing
92. YOU DON'T NEED MARKETERS
93. You need to talk to people!
95. Google your industry. Find your customers. Put contact names, company URLs, and emails into a Google doc. Email 3 customers per day, asking for feedback. Listen to feedback.
96. What are you doing to fix this shit?
97. "The Future"
98. xCNAM { "number": "+18182179229", "cnam": "DEGGES,RANDALL", "xcnam": "Randall C. Degges II", ... }
99. CNAM Storage
100. Thank You
101. Give it a Go
102. Don't Settle for the Status Quo