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Help Save 373K

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Background:

373K is a next-generation telecommunications services provider (carrier) that provides services to other service providers and other carriers, as a “carrier’s carrier”.  The company was founded in Georgia in April of 2015, and during the first six months we worked to build our platform to make telecommunications inexpensive, to always offer its customers a reliable blend of traditional voice, and next-generation video services across its global platform (http://goo.gl/hBLzGu ) at rates below its competition to support Over-The-Top applications, services, application developers, startups, and established service providers alike.

Our Values:

Since its inception, 373K has operated under the mandate to be a good and honest company.  In February, the Georgia Senate passed a controversial bill HB757 which was to enable “Religious Freedom” for businesses and religious organizations. These “freedoms” were a need caused by to the Supreme Court’s ruling on same sex marriage, and these “freedoms” were to essentially legalized hate.  These “freedoms” could also be applied against previously divorced individuals, interracial couples, interfaith couples and any other “unholy union.”  373K’s staff is made up of many of these “unholy unions.”

The founder of 373K, Kelvin Williams, with the support of the rest of the 373K staff and management considered this bill to be discrimination and the company spoke out loudly, and vowed to leave the state (https://goo.gl/23XkOO).  We couldn’t in good conscious support a state via corporate income taxes that would allow such legislation and inequality.  So 373K moved to Delaware.

The Disaster:

While our stance and subsequent move wasn’t immediately felt, we started to notice that our access to credit lines weren’t as plentiful anymore and some previously available credit evaporated without warning.  We continued on, as credit wasn’t necessary.

In April of 2016, a year after opening, we had one of our best months.  Millions of calls, millions of minutes, and smiles all around--we finally made it!  In May, those smiles vanished, upon receiving invoices from our settlement partners and interconnected operating companies.  Our costs for April exceeded our revenues for April by over $70,000.  While we are still investigating the huge difference, we’ve invested in additional database resources, had several code reviews and tests to prevent it from happening again, and are currently reconstructing an entire month’s worth of data to find where the error or fraud happened.

Our company has never been driven by big profits, we believe in making enough money to provide a high quality reliable service, to pay our staff, and often, give to charitable organizations.  So a $70,000 billing discrepancy put us into a dire situation.

With non-existent credit lines, we turned to our bank for a credit line and, as of this writing, we’re still waiting for a response.  We turned to alternate channels (which we can only describe as legal loan sharks) and where we have received loan offers the terms were extremely dangerous.  We also turned to our Friends & Family and raised some money, but not nearly enough to put a dent in the shortfall in revenues.

The imminent downfall:

One month out of a rather successful year has ruined the company.  We’ve received notice that one of our largest settlement partners wants payment of $30k within five days or they will disconnect our interconnection.  This will undoubtedly be a death knell to 373K as this interconnection carries some of our most important traffic.

Our plans of a public offering under Regulation A are now on hold, our expansions are all on hold, and we’re literally in the fight of our life to stay operating.  And because of this, we’re turning to the general public and sharing our internal crisis with the world.

Rewards / How can we repay our funders?  

For our funders we’re going to open of our platform.  If you can envision a voice, video or messaging product, you can use our code to make it happen, at rates that are at least half or more of the existing offerings -- which are not as open.

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Donations 

  • Sam Mcbreairty
    • $20 
    • 8 yrs
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Organizer

Kelvin Williams
Organizer
Sandy Springs, GA

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