Adrian Garcia, CEO, Fyncom (KarmaCall)
“You are a commodity. People and businesses want to talk with you. And if they’re a spam call, why shouldn’t they pay you for it? “ FynCom CEO Adrian Garcia, Ph.D. told the 4thEst8. “KarmaCall is our free Android app that blocks spammers and robo calls from your phone. But if they have KarmaCall too, and put up a micro-payment of Nano (cryptocurrency) to get through to you – your phone will ring.”
There are a lot of spam blocking apps, but that tiny bit of cryptocurrency makes all the difference here.
“If you hang up within 25 seconds that Nano goes to your digital wallet” effectively compensating you for your time, Garcia said. Of course, FynCom takes a small cut – about 30 percent – for brokering the deal.
Counting Garcia, the company has two full time employees, both in California (but working from home) and the whole venture has been funded out of the founders savings and credit cards – but the algorithm they’re using is patented and KarmaCall is already on 22,000 phones in Brasil.
“The average Brazilian gets 50 spam calls a month, about half-again more than here in the U.S., and there are no competing phone blockers dominating that market like in India,” Garcia told 1 Million Cups, St. Louis, on Wednesday morning. Why did he come to 1MC, St. Louis (virtually, of course)? “I’ll get in front of anyone to talk about KarmaCall – and someone in St. Louis contacted me. After an hour, I had to cut away, but the people there are awesome.”
