Embracing the future

We speak to Jajah CEO Trevor Healy and Telefónica’s Tracy Isacke about the story behind the acquisition and some ambitious plans for the future.

When Telefónica acquired communications innovation company Jajah earlier this year it turned more than a few heads in the industry.

The company, which provides innovative Voice over IP (VoIP) services to customers in 222 countries worldwide, could be seen as a threat rather than a potential partner.

“The decision to open talks with Jajah was all about embracing the future,” explains Tracy Isacke, who was involved in the deal.

“Initially there was a lot of fear and anxiety, because Jajah had the potential to be seen as the devil as much as an angel for us.”

Tracy, who will be moving to California as Telefónica’s interface with Jajah, adds: “Jajah are involved in areas we want to develop and will enable us to accelerate the process of bringing products to market.

“They will generate a lot of passion and enthusiasm and are a perfect fit with the O2 brand.”

news O2 spoke to Jajah CEO Trevor Healy to get his take on the deal.

What’s the background to Jajah?

Jajah was established in 2005 in Vienna, Austria. We provide a host of VoIP services to customers around the globe, enabling people to, among other things, make calls, send texts and contribute to social networking sites without being tied to their PCs.

What is the Jajah philosophy?

Our initial philosophy was to make VoIP as easy to use as a search engine. We felt it was silly that people needed to be tethered to their PC just to be able to make a phone call and we wanted to solve that problem, so they are able to make VoIP calls over their landline or mobile.

How has the company grown?

The initial growth has been phenomenal. In the first year our revenue increased by 200 per cent above expectation and it was up 300 per cent the following year. We currently provide a service in 10 languages to customers in 222 countries worldwide.

Where are you based and what’s the size of the team?

We are based in California and Israel (Israel because of the wonderful depth of engineering talent available) and have a team of 100 people.

In terms of the senior team, it is very unusual because it includes people from every part of the globe – Ireland, Belgium, Israel and the US. We’ve known each other for the past 15 years and bring a diverse range of expertise and experience to the table.

How did the Telefónica deal come about?

It originated with Telefónica’s new business development team in the UK, who had identified voice, and particularly VoIP, as an area that was ripe for further innovation. They contacted us and the deal grew from there.

What does Jajah bring to Telefónica?

We offer huge enthusiasm and boundless innovation and have been responsible for a number of internet firsts already.

Prior to Jajah, we made a number of breakthroughs in e-commerce, where we enabled the first online transaction with Netscape.

In telecommunications, we paved the way for online pre-pay replenishment and, at PayPal, we helped invent a whole new online currency. So we’ve consistently broken new ground.

Long term, I think Telefónica will also benefit from our entrepreneurial spirit.

What’s the secret to successful innovation?

For us it has been focusing on minimising failures rather than putting our efforts into ensuring every idea we have is successful.

I guess you could say we use a machine gun approach rather than trying to be snipers.

Innovation is not an exact science. If you put 10 people in a room, showed them a number of new ideas and asked them to say which ones would take off they’d probably all get the answer wrong.

Just look at Facebook. Many people predicted it would be a passing fad, but it's now the number-one site online.

What does Telefónica bring to you?

Telefónica offers a breadth of management skills and maturity, plus much more capital and access to a huge, worldwide customer base.

It means we can start developing our products with an audience of 280 million customers in mind, not just 10 million.

As technologists, we are always looking for the next opportunity to change the world and help make it a better place. Being part of such a global group gives us a rare opportunity to really put our mark on the industry.

Telefónica is unique in that it is one of only a few truly global operators.

That’s a good fit with Jajah because we’ve been global from day one – we have never had what you could call a ‘home’ market.

What are your first impressions?

I’ve been pleasantly surprised, especially with the quality of the people.

You have a lot of ability, but also a willingness to change and a hunger to keep winning.

The good thing is that you appreciate success can be achieved in a fun, fair way that embraces people.

What are your initial priorities?

We aim to launch five new products this year, so we’re trying to go from 0-60 in a matter of seconds.

Among them, we’ll be launching an international calling plan in the UK that allows people to make cheap international calls to friends and family on their mobiles.

We’ll be doing something similar in Germany where customers dial a short-code to get preferential international rates.

And we plan to launch an innovative home voice product that enables customers to use GSM in the home rather than a landline.

We’re also looking at a couple of new Twitter and Facebook-based products and are working on something new with Microsoft.

How will the products be marketed in Europe?

The Jajah brand carries a lot of weight in Silicon Valley, so we’ll be keeping that for any partnerships and for our customer base outside Europe, but new product launches in Europe will all be O2.

Is picking the right partnerships becoming increasingly important?

Definitely. Companies that hide in closed eco-systems simply won’t survive.

But you have to pick your companions very carefully and write off young companies at your peril.

What challenges lie ahead?

We need to ensure that we don’t just provide connections, but instead offer a level of intelligence in those connections.

Just look at the internet – it’s not the companies that provide the connections that have flourished, it is the search engines and the social networking sites.

We don’t aim to be one of them, but to be successful we have to ensure that we are enabling the likes of Google and Amazon to evolve and achieve their goals.

What’s your own background?

I was born and raised in Cork, Ireland, studied at Limerick University and moved to the US in the early 1990s.

Any family?

Married to Marie with two young children, Jay and Lily.

What do you do to unwind?

I play golf and other sports, cook and collect wine.

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