PeerFX on Techvibes

Sharing the good news with the tech community, our good friend Rob Lewis has blogged about the launch of the PeerFX service on Techvibes here: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/peerfx-launches-peer-to-peer-online-forex-service

We're glad that so far people have both good and bad things to say about the site. If it were all good things we would be scared since we are looking to our users and supporters to provider us with straight between the eyes feedback. One thing that we've heard tons about is the green on white - we've tried improving that on the first version of the launch with better spaced menus and bolded font.

We're currently working on version 2.0 of the service and hope to roll out the new revisions in the next month. Thank you again for your support!

First Press Release - April 14, 2009

Sent out earlier today through CNW. Here it is.

PeerFX Making Waves in the Investment Community

Vancouver, BC, April 14, 2009 - If you ever watched the CBC television program Dragon’s Den the name PeerFX will sounds familiar to you! Since declining the Dragons’ offer, the company has been bootstrapped and is now seeking investment capital. This past February, PeerFX, the online peer-to-peer currency exchange service, held a well received investor forum by local and international investors. Now focussed on business development efforts, PeerFX continues to peak investor interest with each new milestone and is looking to close its first financing round by the third quarter of 2009.

On April 6th 2009, PeerFX launched its peer-to-peer foreign exchange service with an aim to cut through the clutter promising simplicity and better rates. It has already attracted initial customer sign ups plus a waiting list of over 250 people. The Big Deal? PeerFX customers can now exchange Canadian and US dollars at the “interbank or median”, a rate typically accessible by large financial institutions. What does this mean for small businesses and individuals? They can now save up to 80% on their currency exchange transaction fees.

The PeerFX opportunity is still open to investors interested in the growing foreign exchange industry. Potential investors and media are encouraged to contact PeerFX for more information. To view a short video of the investor forum visit the “News & Resources” section of www.peerfx.com.

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For further information please contact:

Julien Phipps
Director of Marketing and Business Development
PeerFX – Changing Exchanging
(E) julien.phipps@peerfx.com

Tech Hire!

Looking for GREAT tech person right now.

Someone that loves business AND developing the software to enable the business to function.

We did post this position a couple months back but didn't receive as big of a response as now. Seems like more people are "available" right now and are looking for a long-term stable job (at least for the next 1-2 years?)

I think at that time we didn't rush to hire a full-time tech person because I didn't want to settle for the best of the worse. Some people that we did like wasn't available at the time so timing also matters.

We have received quite a few responses within the first 2-3 days of the posting on T-Net and Techvibes and hopefully we'll fill the position by the end of this month and cut back our reliance on contractors - building our own systems, we do want someone who follows the growth and development of the system through its various versions...so they know what we have tried in the past, or how it was programmed in the past, to know what to avoid and what to continue building in the next versions.

I was just reading my advisor's article in the employment paper and realized that it's better to leave a position empty than to fill it in a hurry - it costs a lot (if not money, then time) to train a new hire and to build a working relationship, etc. It seems like other companies are also being very careful with their hiring process as well - taking longer than usual to screen candidates and also to make the hiring decision.

In my opinion, I just don't want to waste the new hire's time if I know that they're not the "best" fit for the company.

Don't let the economy shrink your marketing budget

We were at the Massive Tech Show earlier today and it seems like the number of exhibitors this year has decreased by quite a bit.

Weird that with tough economic times it's always the PR and marketing budget that gets slashed first - shouldn't you be strengthening your sales and trying to cut operational costs?

The one thing you can't afford to cut when business slows is the marketing budget. Think about this: when everyone else cuts back on their marketing (hopefully your competitors) and YOU increase or maintain your marketing budget (of course through the most effective channels...) who do you think will gain from this?

Answer: YOU?

That's what I thought.

What you should actually be doing is managing your operational costs - can rent be cheaper? Can you outsource to lower the costs of maintaining full-time staff? Can your cost of delivering services/products to your customers be decreased?

These are just a couple examples, but you're bound to answer YES to one of the above questions. If you answer NO to all of the above then that means you're not trying very hard to save more for your business.

That's what I try to do for PeerFX - search for ways to increase the top line while decreasing the cost to serve end-users. Where there's a will there's a way - so get creative!