Three senior telecoms experts, including former BBC marketing manager and TalkTalk head of brand Jenna Banks, have joined forces to launch, SecondSim, a mobile network designed around the needs of freelancers, sole traders and SMEs.
Created to “tilt the daily balance of life back in their favour,” SecondSim is just that, an eSIM service that runs as a second phone line to help businesses separate their personal number from their work line.
SecondSim co-founder Banks, who was most recently marketing director for Slice Mobile, said: “When we were developing this brand, we spoke to tradespeople, freelancers and small business owners. Every day they’re having to make difficult choices about how and when they shut off in the evenings and at weekends. Often their personal number is their business number, plastered across websites and social channels which can result in people calling at any time of the day or night.
“SecondSim has been designed to solve that problem, giving people a cheap and easy way to add a business line which does all the usual stuff such as making and receiving calls and What’sApp Business, without the need for an extra phone and in a way which creates professional and healthy separation.”
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Banks, Stephen Monaghan and Rob Brock originally met at Slice Mobile where they’d been drafted in to launch the new network. Monaghan brings decades of technical expertise having previously worked across big corporates like BT, Rob Brock is a product development expert having previously worked on brands like Moonpig and Lastminute.com and Banks complements the tech and product team with experience bringing brands to market from her time at the BBC and Talk Talk.
As well as targeting owner-operators, SecondSim aims to help the SME world too, a place where individual handsets and lines quickly become big overheads for businesses with multiple employees who need to be contactable on the go. It’s estimated that in the UK between 10-15 million people currently have two mobile phones. Costly, clunky and with an environmental impact, it’s an unnecessary pocket weight which SecondSim can quickly solve.
Co-founder Monaghan said: “Adding new devices for new starters can quickly become costly for businesses, these devices come with other HR and environmental headaches too. Our research suggests employees hate having to carry two phones too, but they like being able to switch off the work number when they’re not contactable. With SecondSim, they can still do this, but without having to carry around the ‘work brick.’”
The team behind the brand have big plans – SecondSim runs on a customer experience platform which has been created by the founders under the parent company of Jolli Group. The Jolli platform creates fully branded mobile network experiences for any brand, club, personality or organisation with an engaged community.
SecondSim operates across carrier Vodafone via connectivity partner eSIMgo and has already signed up over 1,500 businesses across the UK.
Third co-founder Brock said: “SecondSim is the first product we’re bringing to market using our Jolliplus platform. It has been designed to be incredibly intuitive for people to install and use, providing them with seamless integration, outstanding coverage from our partner eSIMgo and all the basics you need to run a business.”
